“Mrs. Loftus. Can you hear me?”
She stirred a little, and spoke a name without opening her eyes. “Victor?”
“I’m taking you home, Mrs. Loftus.”
She didn’t answer.
“Maybe if I opened the window,” Charley said, “she’d snap out of it sooner.”
“Good idea.”
Charley went over and pushed up the window over the washbasin. Fresh snow from the sill sifted into the room like a flight of furry white-winged insects coming to rest. “I never figured she was drunk, see. She’s been in a couple of times today and I thought first she was waiting for someone and didn’t know what bus to meet. Then, about an hour ago, she comes in the third time, buys a ticket for Arbana and sits down to wait. I kept an eye on her because she looked sick and she acted sick; kept coming in here to the rest room and coming out again. I never for a minute figured she was getting herself hootched.”
Meecham picked up the paper bag from the floor and looked inside. It contained a half-empty fifth of cheap rum. He twisted the bag shut again and dropped it into the metal trash container.
“I don’t want to hurry you, mister,” Charley said. “Nothing like that. Only if she’s the mother of a friend of yours like you said, maybe you ought to phone your friend.”
“He’s out of town. I’ll take her home myself.”
“I don’t want to hurry you, I know you’re in a spot. Only there’s a little kid out there with her father. You know kids, they’re always running to the can. Suppose she comes in here and sees the old lady, it might scare her.”
Meecham recalled the gruesome cover of the comic book the little girl had been reading, but he said agreeably, “Yes, it might. I’ll do my best.”
He looked down again at Mrs. Loftus, helpless in her coma of rum and ruin. He wondered if this was how Virginia was on the night Margolis was killed, and if Loftus, watching her, had unconsciously identified her with his mother, had attacked Margolis as the father-rival-invader. It seemed to Meecham that this idea made the murder of Margolis more plausible, that it synthesized the rather vague and philosophical motives Loftus had given into something stronger and closer to the heart. Loftus was a passive man, a man of ideas. For him to become the aggressor, to commit so positive and final an act as murder, must have required a positive motive: not money, as Cordwink believed, and not the childishly rationalized notion of ridding the world of a nuisance; but hate, the obverse of fear, and rage, the obverse of impotence.
“Victor?” Mrs. Loftus said again. She had opened her eyes and was staring up at the ceiling, at one particular spot, as if she realized that she was in a strange place and was afraid to look around and find out where.
“Victor isn’t here,” Meecham said. “He’s waiting for you at home. I’ll take you there.”
“I’m in the hospital?”
“No, in the bus depot.”
“Bus? Bus.” She struggled to get up, lost her balance and sat down heavily on the couch again. “My bus ticket. Where’s my bus ticket? Got to see Earl. Got to see my boy.”
Meecham put his hand on her arm to steady her; it felt as fleshless as a broom handle. “The bus has gone, Mrs. Loftus. Besides, you’re not well enough to go on a trip by yourself.”
“I’m not well.” Her pale round eyes took on a crafty expression. “I’m ill, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I had a fainting spell. I remember now. I felt quite faint, so I just lay down and had a little rest until the feeling passed. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“You be sure and tell Victor that. Victor’s beginning to get some very odd ideas.” She picked up her purse from the floor, hanging on to Meecham’s coat sleeve to balance herself when she leaned over. “Where is my luggage?”
“I haven’t seen it,” Meecham said. “Perhaps you checked...”
“I had my luggage with me. In a paper bag. I couldn’t find my suitcase so I packed a few little things in a paper bag.” She had begun to tremble violently, all over her body. Her knees shook, and her mouth and hands and shoulders, and her head kept moving back and forth as if her neck was too feeble to hold it up and it was just balancing there precariously like a ball on the nose of a seal. “It wasn’t much, my toothbrush and towel and a few little things like that. But it’s a matter of principle. I want my luggage. I want my luggage.” She looked up at Charley. “You. Are you the attendant?”
“Me?” Charley said. “Oh, sure.”
“Please go and tell the manager I’d like a few words with him.”
“He’s not in.”
“Then I’ll wait. I don’t like to be insistent but I can’t let a thing like this pass. I want my luggage. It’s a matter of principle. I want...”
“Oh, for crying in the sink,” Charley said, “give her the bottle.”
There was an instant of dead silence. Then Mrs. Loftus sat down again, covering her eyes with her trembling hands. “Please. I want my luggage.”
“I’ll take a look around and see if I can find it,” Meecham said. He pretended to look under the couch and on top of the towel rack. Then he reached into the trash bin and pulled out the paper bag. “Is this it, Mrs. Loftus?”
She raised her head and stared at the bag with excitement and loathing. “Yes. Yes, that’s it. Give it to me.”
But she didn’t wait for him to give it to her. She rose and staggered toward him, her arms outstretched. She took the bag in her hands, and felt its contours with anxiety and then relief, like a mother feeling the bones of a child who had fallen and might have been injured.
“Yes, this is it. Everything’s here — toothbrush, towel — thank you, sir.” Her violent shaking had stopped. The very sight of the bottle had steadied her: the sight of land to the seasick sailor. “Thank you very much.”
“Don’t mention it,” Meecham said.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll freshen up a bit. After all, this is the ladies’ room, you know. I don’t understand how you two got in here in the first place. The management must be very lax.”
The two men went out into the waiting room, Charley to the lunch counter, and Meecham to one of the hard wooden benches. He sat down and lit a cigarette and kept his eye on the door marked Ladies.
Five minutes later Mrs. Loftus emerged. She’d put on her hat and gloves and rouged her cheeks. Whatever she had drunk from the bottle during the five minutes had worked its dark magic. She seemed quite confident and poised, and when she approached Meecham her step had a spring to it, like a young girl’s. It looked grotesque, that semblance of youth in a starved and wasted body.
“There you are, young man.” She spoke slowly, letting out each consonant with great care like a fisherman letting out a taut line foot by foot, not sure what is on the other end. “I’m quite ready now, if you are.”
“My car’s across the street.”
“Isn’t that nice. Then we won’t have to pay taxi fare. Whenever I have one of my little spells Victor calls for me and we take a taxi home. I don’t care for taxis. The drivers can be extremely discourteous.”
They went out together. When they crossed the street she hung on to Meecham’s arm. She was light as a bird but he felt that he was dragging a stone that had been dragged for a long time by many people, had become larger and heavier as it collected debris, until now it weighed a ton.
14
Garino was waiting at the front door of the apartment house. All the lights were turned on, in the lobby, and on the porch, and the walk had been shoveled and sprinkled with cinders. As soon as he saw the car stop he came down the steps and opened the door for Mrs. Loftus.