“What’s wrong, Sam?”
“I’m not sure. The maid sounded as if there was some kind of trouble there. I think somebody was telling her what to say.”
“Linda’s probably hysterical with David in jail. She can be hell on wheels when she’s upset.”
“I like that,” Jamie said, “hell on wheels.”
“By the way, Sam, hell on wheels reminds me. Tomorrow night Cartwright is going to try again. He couldn’t get all those Beatles records burned, so now he’s going to stand on that little bluff out at the lake and throw them into the river.”
I wished I had time to enjoy the image of Cartwright firing the Satan-spawned records into the dark waters, but that would have to wait. The Pepsi and the air conditioning had helped revive me, but not enough for the trip I needed to make now.
“I need to go down the hall.” Jamie knew what I meant. She always said “little girls’ room,” so I decided to euphemize my own duties.
Wendy looked confused.
“He means the little boys’ room,” Jamie said.
“Thank you, Jamie.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. C.”
Wendy found this amusing. She looked even better when she was laughing.
In the john, I took off my shirt and proceeded to the tiny sink. I ran cold water, grabbed three paper towels, and started washing my upper body. Then I stuck my head under the faucet and began scooping cold water on my head. Two doors down, I could get a cup of atomic coffee. It didn’t taste very good, but one cup could keep you awake for as long as a month.
I combed my hair, leaving it wet. I reached across to the peg where I kept an extra shirt. This was a short-sleeved blue JCPenney button-down.
When I walked back into my office, Jamie was on the phone. It was a Turk call. She had that look. There was a Turk call expression for happy and a Turk call expression for sad and a Turk call expression for mad. This one was sad. “I told you, Turk. I still love you, but I just can’t give you any more money. You need to get a job. And I shouldn’t be wasting Mr. C’s time by talking about this at the office. Now I need to go.”
After she hung up, she breathed deeply, made fists of her small hands, and said, “Was that all right, Mrs. Bennett?”
“Perfect. And will you please call me Wendy? You’re driving me nuts with that ‘Mrs. Bennett’ business. I feel old enough already.”
“Well, you’re not that old. I’ll bet you’re not even forty yet.”
Now it was my turn to be amused. Wendy was six months younger than I was, which meant she was twenty-eight. Jamie had no concept of peoples’ ages. She once guessed my age and put it at forty-six.
“I’m actually forty-three, Jamie.”
“You are? Well, you’ve held up very well. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. C?”
“Remarkably well.”
Then I needed to fortify myself. I have a drawer gun and a glove compartment gun. I decided on the Smith amp; Wesson. 38 I keep in the office. I can hide it better in my clothes. “Now I have to leave.”
“Am I supposed to pretend I didn’t see you shove a gun in your back pocket?” Wendy did not sound happy.
“You did. And it’s nothing to worry about. Just a precaution.”
“Don’t worry,” Jamie said. “He takes guns out a lot of the time. He knows what he’s doing.”
Wendy’s mouth was tight, her gaze disapproving. “I’m not much for guns, Sam.”
“You know what?” Now I sounded a bit irritated myself. “Neither am I. Now c’mon, I’ll walk out with you.”
Before leaving, Wendy walked over to Jamie and took one of her hands and said, “I gave you my phone number. You call me whenever you want to talk. This won’t be easy for you, Jamie. But you’ve got to do it.”
“I know you’re right-Wendy. It’s just so hard when I think about all the fun we’ve-” She was starting to cry.
Wendy kissed her on the cheek. “You’re a lot stronger than you think you are, Jamie. And remember to call me when you need some moral support.”
Tears gleaming in her eyes, Jamie nodded, then turned away from us so she could cry in private.
Outside, as we walked to our respective cars, Wendy said, “She’s so pretty and so sweet.”
“Even though she thinks you’re forty?”
“I didn’t say she was brilliant. But I like her. She’s kind of downhome folks.”
“Thanks for helping her. I’ve been trying for years to get her to stand up for herself-you managed to do it the first time out.”
“He was just taking such advantage of her.”
We were at her shiny black Chevrolet Impala. She poked me in the stomach. “I take it you’re going out to Lou’s place.”
“Uh-huh. Something’s wrong.”
“Marilyn’s almost always very pleasant. They had to go through a number of maids before they found her.”
“You’re making my point. She didn’t sound pleasant at all. She sounded scared.”
“I wonder if William’s there. He wouldn’t let anything happen.”
“The maid said he was, but I don’t know if that’s the truth.”
She touched my arm. “I hate to say this, but why not call Cliffie and let him take care of it?”
I kissed her gently on the mouth. “I don’t blame you for hating to say that. I’d be ashamed to say it.”
Another poke in the stomach. “My he-man. And not a brain in his head.”
She slid her arm around me, two sweaty, lonely, even desperate people. When I was with her, I felt good, safe in some way. She told me she felt the same way. We both agreed this didn’t mean we’d be going out all the time. But then we both agreed that it didn’t not mean we’d be going out all the time, either. I guess if you wait long enough, those cheerleaders come through for you after all. Last night we’d gone all the way to third base; and lying there afterward, sharing a cigarette, I realized how much I just plain liked her. The pain of her divorce and loneliness had changed her. She was no longer the belle of the ball, because the ball had ended; the fiddlers had fled.
She walked me over to my car and saw me safely seated. “You think you’ll ever give this convertible up?”
“Please. Not ‘convertible.’ Ragtop.”
“Oh, I see, just like in all those Henry Gregor Felsen novels my brother used to read. My brother always wanted to have my father drive him to Des Moines to meet him.” Felsen wrote teen novels for boys. Most of them involved cool cars. They were among the most popular books in American libraries.
I started the car. “I wanted to do the same thing. Maybe I still will someday.”
I backed out, beeped the horn when I’d gotten the car turned around.
She waved good-bye and damn, that felt good. I gave her a little Lone Ranger wave of my own and sped off.
25
Dark clouds had started moving in from the west. Though the day was dying, the heat had not relented. Lawns without sprinklers looked naked. Hoses were still the preferred choice of fun for giggling kids. Women wore straw hats with brims as wide as an eagle’s wingspread. Old couples sat on old porches, intimate in their silence.
Traffic was slow because factories and businesses and shops had just closed. When I got on the secondary road leading to the Bennett place, I added twenty miles an hour to the speed limit.
When I was near the estate, I pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine. I wanted to find out if something was wrong in the house. Announcing myself was not the way to do it.
Adjacent to the estate was a forest of pine and oak. The estate had no fence around it. It would be possible to work my way parallel to the back of the house through the trees and then run for the house without being seen. Possible, but no guarantees.
The trail I found was so narrow that I had to fight low-hanging branches all the way. Any good the sponge bath had done me was quickly lost. I streamed with sweat, both from walking and swatting at any number of flying things that seemed to find me tasty. I tripped once over an extended tree root and was dropped to my knees. Amazing that you can feel humiliated even when you’re alone. I was really pissed at that tree.