Mary And The Giant

Over in the corner Sid Hethel sat gasping, his face mottled and dark. He hardly glanced up as Schilling and Mary Anne appeared in front of him.

"Thanks," Schilling said to the man.

"Why?" Hethel wheezed. But he seemed to understand. "Well, at least I interfered with the future of binaural sound."

"It was worth coming," Mary Anne said to him quickly. "I never heard anybody play like that."

"What sort of store is this?" Hethel demanded, coughing into his handkerchief. "You used to be in publishing, Josh; you were with Schirmer."

"I left them a long time ago," Schilling said. "For a while I was in wholesale records. I prefer this ... in my own store I can talk to people as much as I want."

"Yes, you always loved to waste time. I suppose you still have your damn record collection ... all those Deutsche Grammophons and Polydors. And that girl we liked to listen to back in the old days. What was her name?"

"Elisabeth Schumann," Schilling said, remembering.

"Yes, the one who sang like a child. I never forgot her."

"I wish," Schilling said, "I could get you down to see my place."

"A store? We've got stores up here."

"I've been trying to stir some sort of interest in music down there. Every Sunday I have open house-records and coffee."

"You desire me to die?" Hethel demanded. "I'd travel down there and expire. You remember what happened that time in Washington when I fell getting off the train. You remember how long I was laid up."

"I've got a car; I'll drive you both ways. You can sleep the whole trip."

Hethel reflected. "You'll hit bumps," he decided. "You'll pick out bumps and run over them; I know you."

"On my word of honor."

"Really? Let's have that good old Boy Scout oath. In these times of shifting moral values there's got to be something stable we can count on." Hethel's eyes gleamed with nostalgia. "Remember the time you and I got lost in that Chinese whorehouse on Grant Avenue? And you got drunk and tried to-"

"Seriously," Schilling said, not wishing such topics discussed before Mary Anne.

"Seriously, I'll have to mull it over. I want to get out of the Bay Area; this parochial climate is murder. I could come and dazzle people. Maybe between us we could lick the sound boys." He patted Schilling on the arm. "I'll call you, Josh. It depends on how I feel."

"Good-bye," Mary Anne said as she and Schilling started away.

Hethel opened his tired eyes. "Good-bye, little Miss Elf. Josh Schilling's elusive elf ... I remember you."

The party was breaking up. A few scattered people were gathered around Partridge's hi-fi, examining the Diotronic Binaural Sound System, but the majority had drifted off.

"You want to go?" Schilling said to the girl.

"Maybe so."

"You feel better, don't you?"

"Yes," she said, and shivered.

"Cold?"

"Just tired. Maybe you could get me my purse ... I think she put it in the bedroom."

He went to get her purse and his own overcoat. In a moment they had said good evening to the Partridges and were starting down the front steps onto the sidewalk.

"Brrrr," Mary Anne said, jumping into the car. "I'm freezing."

He started the motor and clicked on the heater. "You want to go back? Tomorrow's Sunday; you don't have to get up early."

Restlessly, Mary Anne said: "I don't want to go back. Maybe we could go somewhere." But she looked tired and drawn; a scrawny, almost gaunt quality had' crept up into the hollows of her face.

"I'll take you home," Schilling decided. "It's time you were in bed."

Without protest, she sank down against the seat, brought up her knees, and pressed her chin into the fabric. Arms folded, she stared at the steering column.

Once, as they drove along the peninsula highway between towns, Mary Anne lifted her head and murmured: "If he does come down, Paul could hear him."

"Absolutely," he agreed.

"Did he write some of the music Paul listened to in the booth that day?"

"I gave Paul one of Hethel's pieces, yes. A sonata for small chamber orchestra. His 'Rustic' Sonata."

"You told me sonatas were for piano."

"Most of them ... but not with Sid Hethel."

"Jesus," Mary Anne sighed. "It's so darn confusing ... I'll never get it."

"Don't worry about it."

The girl lapsed into silence.

"Still cold?" he asked presently.

"No, but I should have worn a coat. Only I wanted you to see my outfit. Do you like it?"

"It's fine," he said, as he had said before. "It's just right." She became despondent again. "Wednesday is the inquest, or whatever they call it."

"What inquest?"

"For Danny Coombs. I have to go down and explain what happened, so they'll know if they want to arrest anybody."

"Will they want to?"

"No, because it was an accident. Coombs ran out and fell. There was a laundry delivery man who saw him. It seems so remote ... but it was only a couple of weeks ago. Now it sounds like something I made up. Except that if we don't say the right thing, Tweany will go to the flea-bee." Her voice trailed off.

"You don't want him to be tried."