Free William F. Buckley Jr. by Brothers No More Page B

the Negresco Hotel next door to the casino. Transatlantic telephone calls were something of an operation, so he stopped at the hotel switchboard, slipped five hundred francs into the hands of the operator, kissed her on the forehead and said, “
S’il vous plaît, chère madame, aidez-moi, c’est horriblement
”—he threw up his hands and closed his eyes in feigned agony—“
important Je vais à mon chambre, trois cent vingt-deux. Voilà le numéro.
” He gave her the slip of paper with his mother’s number, took the elevator, opened the door to his room, flung off his coat and sat down by the phone waiting for it to ring. His eyes wandered over the morning’s paper, without focus. A few minutes later the phone rang. She was on the line.
    “Hello, Mom!”
    “Danny, how are you, dear?”
    “Well, I could not be better. We were runners-up at Copenhagen, got a silver cup. Saw two operas at Milan, including one with that really hot soprano, Licia Albanese.”
    “Which operas were they?”
    “Ah. They were—
Traviata
and
Aïda.
”
    “I hope you did not vamp the soprano.”
    “Oh, Mother, come on. She must be”—what age would Rachel O’Hara think it right that her son should think remote?—“fifty.”
    He could hear her laugh. Rachel enjoyed her son’s verbal raffishness. “I don’t suppose you heard
him?
”
    “Franki?”
    “Who do you think?”
    “No. I did ask, but apparently he is in Australia. Do they sing in the nude on Australian beaches, Mom?”
    That was dumb of him.
Granted, it made him sound normal.That was good, in one way—he didn’t want her to know how panicked he really was. But then she probably did not like being reminded of Franki nude on her beach, doing something she once accepted as romantic.
    “You have a lewd memory. Danny dear, why are you calling me? Are you broke?” Rachel could get right to the point.
    “Well as a matter of fact, Mom, I wonder if you could lend me a few bucks?”
    “Like how many bucks?”
    “Five hundred?”
    “Five hundred dollars! Danny! Danny? Have you been gambling?”
    “Well, as a matter of fact, yes, just tonight, and you know, it sometimes happens, when everything goes wrong? A little like”—this too was risky, but maybe he could fasten her mind on how proud she had been of her little boy’s resourcefulness—“like the weather on that awful sail to Nantucket.…”
    “Danny.” The way she said it, it sounded horribly decisive. It was.
    “Don’t … try … to … get … my … sympathy. I told you a year ago you were not to gamble. Now
you
find a way to get yourself out of the mess you’re in. I have to go out now. Good night, darling.”
    His mother hung up the telephone.
    He looked in his address book and got out the home telephone number of Bill Fenniman in Hartford, rushed down to the operator and pleaded with her to pry through one more call.
    Fenniman was on the line. Danny asked could he borrow five hundred dollars from his allowance?
    “Danny, you know I am strictly forbidden by the trust to make any advances to you.”
    “Well, Bill, could I
borrow
five hundred dollars from the trust?”
    “The indenture doesn’t permit borrowing against the capital.”
    Danny’s temper was frayed. “Listen, Bill, what the fuck do you expect me to do? I can’t get out of Nice without three hundredand fifty dollars. The casino has my note and my passport. Can’t you figure
something
out?”
    Fenniman reminded Danny that it was after hours. He would need to wait until the following morning, call one of the trustees, maybe talk to the general manager. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll wire you by noon. But don’t bank on it.”
    “Noon your time means one whole day away, my time.”
    Bill Fenniman told him that’s how it was, wished him good luck, and said good night.
    Danny had less than fifty dollars left, seventeen thousand francs. The roulette table was less crowded, he placed ten thousand francs on the black,