I walked down and put the call through from our cottage.
“Darling McGee person!” she said, breathy and husky. “God, I feel so overall delicious! I’m humming and tingling and I hardly touch the floor when I walk. I ache for you so terribly I feel hollow. Hurry, hurry, hurry! Please!”
“Becky I’m afraid there has to be a change of plans.”
“You monster! I can’t endure it!”
“A chance has come up to move ahead a little, to get some more questions asked and answered. And I realize it was unfair of me to try to get you to tell me things told you in confidence by a friend. That was the wrong way to go about it. I won’t pester you that way any more.”
After a pause she said, “You are precisely what I need, you know. The young, young men would come to me at a dead run. Maybe that’s what cloys. Having such total control over them. One gets so accustomed to getting exactly what one wants, right on schedule. Darling, I bow to your sense of responsibilьy. I shall wait here very, very patiently, if I must. And when you are finished with your chores, come to me no matter what hour it is.”
“If its possible at all.”
“What are you trying to do to me? Could it be that! was just a bit too mischievous last night? Darling, you were a challenge, you know. What is that silly thing they shout when great trees fall? Timber! Then they stand aside, smiling. Suppose I make a solemn vow not to be aggressive, and even teach you some special ways to absolutely destroy me? Fair is fair. Now will you promise to come here?”
“If I knew exactly what was going to happen, I’d promise. But I don’t know how long it will take me to do the things I have to do.”
“Could another woman be involved in all this work, dear?”
“It might turn out that way.”
“If it does, kindly do not bother to come here. Is that quite clear?”
“From the tone of voice, Becky, abundantly.”
“You’re trying to spoil things. I’m not accustomed to that.”
“All change is beneficial, honey. Take care.”
I heard her start to say something as I hung up; I felt slightly weak in the knee. Say you are driving through on a green light and out of the corner of your eye you see a crazy running the red, about to hit you broadside. So you step on it hard and your car jumps ahead far enough so there is just a little click as he ticks the rear bumper on his way past. So you drive three blocks and park carefully and get out. And the knees feel strange.
So we drove down into the center of the city. The military band was playing marches on the ornate stand in the center of the plaza, and people were walking slowly around and around the perimeter walkways. The traffic sounds, roar of conversations on the veranda, motor scooters, and vendors hawking everything salable overpowered the band, reducing it to an occasional cymbal-clash, an oompah now and then.
It was so crowded we had to take a table at the far end, near the jewelry-store corner. By the time we’d put a drink order in, and I was about to bounce my Bundy-plan off Meyer’s more temperate outlook, the Backspin redhead came out of nowhere and plumped down at Meyer’s left and glowered across the square table at me.
“You put on a great rap, you sneaky bastard!”
“Well, now! All fresh and clean and pretty as a picture. See, Meyer? Her eyes focus and her neck is clean. Carrying a little too much weight, but trim her down and she could cut it at anybody’s convention.”
“Mark was making a joke. That’s all. I want to tell you I didn’t appreciate the floor show you put on.”
I smiled at her. “What were we supposed to do, honey? Sit there and let three heads think that the laughing was a great put-on? Should I have plucked that scarecrow stud out of the chair and booted his scrawny tail out into the traffic? Should we have ignored you and spoiled your fun? Should we have gotten up and walked away? Name it.”
“We had some Mardil caps with a Coke was all.”
“All for Jeanie?”
“That’s something else again.”
“Yes indeed. She is long gone. It looks like barbs to me. What’s she using to come back? Speed? Is she popping it or eating it?”
“She is not long gone. She’ll be okay.”
“Get her when she’s leveled off, kid, halfway between, give her a little kiss, and say good-by.”
“You know so damned much, don’t you?”
“I tried to sweat the whole thing out once upon a time with a very dandy little girl named Mary Catherine. She went onto reds and blues. Tuinal. They used to hate to see her coming, because the ward nurses hate the barbiturate addicts worse than the drunks or the ones on horse. Took her up to North Carolina to a cabin to get her once and for all clean. I’d go in for groceries and come back and find her gone away on some kind of high. Sneaked back and watched through a window. Draining gas out of the lantern, heating it and sniffing it. Lovely sweet faraway smile. Busted in. Tears, promises. Never again. Then she took off. Couldn’t find her. Pretended to look. Pretended I had the broken heart. But you know, Red, that look on her face had killed it. I was the most relieved lover in contemporary history. I have no idea what Jeanie is to you.”
“My best friend. My roommate at school.”
“Take my word. She’ll never make it back. Not from where she is.”
“So what if she, doesn’t? It’s her life, isn’t it?”
“If you want to call it living.”
“Hah! That big act of yours, mister. It so happens I found out you’re nothing but some kind of rotten private fuzz, both of you. Private pigs for the establishment, down here to make trouble for people. That’s some kind of living, isn’t it?”
Meyer hitched around and leaned toward her. “Listen to me, my dear. And believe me. We came here as an act of friendship to find out how a lovely girl died. Just that. Nothing more. It seems like such a waste. Your friend Jeanie seems like a tragic waste to me. And to you too, I think. You are being very defensive and impertinent because you are very troubled. I think more has happened than you can handle. If I can help you, privately, personally, no strings attached, if I can help you in any way, just tell me what you need.”
She shook her head. “Oh, for chrissake. You kill me. Honest to God, me need help from you!” And she began to laugh. Very merry. Very young and jolly. Ha ha ho. Meyer sat looking at her. Very patient. No change in the concerned, benign expression. And the laughter took on a thinner edge, a shrillness that suddenly broke into a sob. She slumped, face in her hands, crying quietly. I opened my mouth to speak. Meyer gave me a warning look, a quick lift of the hand. She was straining for control, trying to smother the crying, trying not to be conspicuous.
“What do you need?” he asked.
She reached blindly, head bowed, chin against her chest. She grasped his bulky forearm with both hands. “Can you… can you get us out of here? Jeanie and me. Please… Tickets. I can… pay you back.”
“Where to, dear?”
“Oklahoma City.”
“Where are your people?”
“In Europe with my youngest brother, traveling.”
“How soon do you want to get out of here?”
“Now! Tomorrowl”
He burrowed a blank sheet from my pocket note book, and put it and his pen in front of her. “Write your names and addresses.”
She hunched over the paper, snuffling. She gave it to Meyer. He said he’d be back in a few minutes. She wiped her eyes with a paper napkin and sat up and sighed deeply and made a wry mouth. “He isn’t kidding?” she asked in a small voice.
“No. Not Meyer.”
“I have run into so many lousy rotten people.”
“Who briefed you on me?”
“Oh, there was a man around like an hour ago, maybe even two hours. Sort of handsome and elegant and faggotty. He was speaking real good Mexican to one of the waiters and he came over to the table with the waiter and the waiter pointed me out. So he asked me to come back to his table for a minute. So what the hell, why not?”