She followed, sidling into the noisy room. The clatter of games disoriented her. Children shot pop guns at clowns, threw beanbags at frogs, rolled bowling balls at pins. Old men took turns with boys at a pornographic kinetoscope. She noticed a narrow L-shaped hallway, lightless and cool. She slipped behind the Skee-Ball lanes into the dark.
The hallway was eerily quiet. She inched back, feeling the roughness of the wood through her slippers. Two closed doors stood at the end of the passage. A toilet flushed and the left door opened. A small weasel of a man shuffled past her buttoning up his pants.
Beneath the other door shined an inch of light. A brass plate mounted halfway up read Manager.
Doris slipped into the bathroom and shut the door. The moist air stank of human excrement. She let her eyes adjust to the darkness, listening: ocean waves crashing against the timber piles beneath her; bells and slamming balls from the arcade; and, in the next room, tense angry voices. She concentrated hard, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then three thumps and a man’s grunt. She looked up.
Several feet above, a streak of light the size of a quarter shone through a knothole in the plank. Her stomach quivered with excitement and dread. She stood on the toilet seat and peeked next-door.
The bull was kicking a man who knelt like a dog. The man’s elbow gave way and he collapsed to the floor. Snake Eyes sat in a captain’s chair, his face in dark shadow. He spoke quietly. Slowly he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. The oil-skin lamp on the desk illuminated his face: It was heart-shaped, framed by a widow’s peak, with heavy brows over small, close-set eyes. His thin lips barely moved when he spoke. He said something to the bull, who picked up the crumpled man and slammed him down in a chair in the corner. Snake Eyes stood, put on his hat, and walked toward the door.
As the gang boss reached for the doorknob, the bull pulled out a gun and shot the man in the chair. A second shot blew off the top of his head. They turned and left. As simply as if they had said goodbye.
Doris felt the man’s guts smack against the wall. She clasped her hand over her mouth, corking a scream. The men entered the hallway and closed the door to the manager’s office. Their shoes paused outside the bathroom.
She dropped her bag of peanuts, which scattered across the floor. Horrified, she pressed her back against the wall, holding her breath, expecting any moment for the bathroom door to slam open, for them to gun her down. Blood throbbed in her temples: Could they hear it? She prayed not to faint, but felt her legs becoming numb, her head inflating and floating away.
Then, two sets of footsteps walked rapidly out of the arcade.
Doris gulped for air. A sharp pain shot down her legs, her thighs trembled. She slid down the wall and sat on the toilet, gunshots still ringing in her ears. As she clung to a two-by-four stud, she brushed her hand across her cheeks, astonished at her cold tears. What a damn fool she was, she chided. Slowly her terror gave way to shame and disappointment.
She needed a drink badly. She needed people, happy, glamorous people. A place to erase this memory and plenty of others. The night wasn’t over yet.
She stood, opened the door, and stumbled into the dank night.
The following afternoon, Dazey called his wife from his office across from Santa Monica Hospital. Still no answer. She’d been asleep when he stopped by at lunchtime. Now it was 3:15 P.M. If she had gone out or was napping, Betty Rose should have picked up the phone. Maybe they had gone out to do some shopping together.
He tried not to be alarmed. Perhaps she was still asleep and hadn’t heard the phone. But normally Doris was up by this time of day.
Dazey knew not to panic with someone as unpredictable as Doris. Just the same, he felt strangely uneasy. He figured that he could make it home and back in fifteen minutes. If she fussed about being checked on, spied on, as she called it, he would invite her to dinner at one of her favorite clubs.
He slipped on his coat and grabbed his hat. He’d leave from his office door that led to the hall — wouldn’t even tell the receptionist he was gone. He placed his hand on the doorknob.
“Dr. Dazey, they’re ready for you in surgery.”
He spun around, embarrassed as if caught sneaking into a matinee without paying. His nurse, hands on her barrel-sized hips, filled the doorway. “We aren’t scheduled until three forty-five,” he said plaintively.
“Dr. Grodin canceled, so they moved everyone up.”
“When did you find out about this?” he demanded.
“Just now, sir. They’re waiting for you.”
Fuming, he tossed his coat and hat on his desk chair. He left his office, descended the stairs, and crossed the street to the hospital.
Even before she opened her eyelids, she felt the cool afternoon mist seeping in through the bedroom windows.
Silence hovered in the house. What had awakened her? The phone? Down the street, children laughed, a dog barked, a car started. The muted sun released the scent of gardenias into the damp air. She stretched her legs, enjoying the feel of the cool sheets. She felt deliciously alone.
She heard a thunk downstairs. Or was it outside? Was Wally throwing toys? Couldn’t be — the baby was still at her parents’. “Betty?” she called, then remembered that, in a fit of pique, she had dismissed the maid. Probably it was the postman. She closed her eyes and sank back into her pillow, grateful for her solitude.
Her mind floated over the images from the night before; the memory seemed remote. Was it possible it hadn’t happened? Where had she gone after the pier? She couldn’t remember — some after-hours joint. She couldn’t recall how she got home.
She opened her eyes and turned to the clock: It was 3:20. She wondered if George had come home for lunch. She seemed to remember sounds from the kitchen, maybe a figure in her bedroom. Had she been sick? She couldn’t remember.
She heard knocking on the front door. Loud steady taps. She waited: Maybe they would go away. Three more taps. She swung her legs out of the bed, pulled on her turquoise pongee robe, and tied the sash tight around her waist. She looked for her slippers. They weren’t under the bed; they weren’t in the closet. Tap, tap, tap. Fiddlesticks. She ran her fingers through her hair, then left the bedroom.
As she descended the stairs, she saw the back of a gentleman through the glass panels in the front door. He had broad shoulders and wore a fedora. Had something happened to George? Suddenly worried, she opened the front door quickly, without hesitation.
Her first thought was that the mist was as heavy as a fine rain, and she worried for the man’s cashmere coat, which was obviously expensive.
The man turned and moved toward her in an unhurried but forceful way, like the incoming tide, with comforting inevitability, extending his leather glove, pushing her gently into the house. She thought how handsome he looked, the brim of his hat pulled over his forehead, how handsome his collar, turned up under his square chin, how handsome his steady eyes that bore into her soul. What has taken you so long?
As she surrendered to his strong grip and his glove over her mouth, she was surprised at the soothing masculine strength of his damp woolly embrace.
Dazey returned home at around seven. He turned off the ignition, then the headlights. His hands fell into his lap, his body wearily sinking into the leather seat.
How much more could he take? he wondered. He was trained to be dispassionate, to be strong enough to witness pain and suffering. But he couldn’t — not with Doris. He loved her so much, but he felt exhausted and spent. He guiltily admitted that sometimes he wished he could come home to an empty house.