Vanish in an Instant (13 page)

“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.

“Why, there you are, Victor,” she said, as if she'd been looking for him all over town.

“Here I am,” Garino said, a little grimly. “Have you eaten? It's nine o'clock.”

“Nine already? Dear me. Where do the days go, I won­der. They simply . . .”

“Have you eaten?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“I'll bring you up something.”

“I
said
I'm not hungry, Victor.”

“All right. Come on, we'll go inside.”

Meecham followed them into the lobby with the pack­age of letters under his arm.

“This very kind gentleman drove me home. A perfect stranger to me, too. But then I sometimes think strangers are often nicer than other people.”

“Where were you?”

“My dear Victor, where would I be? I was in the bus depot, of course. When one is going to take a bus one goes to the bus depot.”

“What bus?”

“To Arbana, to see Earl. I had this odd letter from him this morning and I decided that Earl needs me. A son needs his mother in time of trouble.”

“What trouble?”

“He didn't say anything definite but I can read between the lines. It was as plain as day. Earl needs me, I said to my­self, I can't fail my son, I must go and help him. But then . . .” Her voice faltered, and her face wrinkled up in bewilderment and surprise. “But then I didn't go. I didn't
go
, did I?”

“That's a good thing. You're better to stay right here.”

“But my son . . .”

“Earl's a good boy. He'll never get into trouble.”

Garino unlocked the door of her apartment, pushed it open with his right elbow and clicked on the wall switch with his left hand, all in one easy practiced motion as if he had done the same thing a hundred times. “Please come in, Mr. Meecham.”

Meecham went in but he didn't close the door after him. The smell in the small living room was unbearable. It was obvious that someone—probably Garino himself—had tried to straighten the place up in a hurry and hadn't had time to clean out the fireplace. It was a litter of rubbish; cigarette butts, newspapers, apple cores, a whole moldy orange, a shriveled head of lettuce, an empty bottle of ketchup blackened by fire, and a wedge of cheese beaded with oil. Every piece of furniture in the room bore the scars of Mrs. Loftus' daily battles with herself: burns and stains, dents and holes and broken springs.

“Dear me,” said the old lady. “It's nice to be home. I think I'll go and make some coffee.”

She started for the kitchen, holding the paper bag against her chest with both arms as if she was dancing with it.

Garino intercepted her at the door. “I'll make the coffee. You sit down.”

“I'll make it myself. I'm quite . . .”

“Give me the bottle,” Garino said.

“What bottle?”

“Give it to me.”

“If you're referring to this cough medicine I purchased this afternoon . . . I've had this cough. I'm not well, Victor, you know that. I'm not well. I had a bad spell in the bus depot. Ask the young man. He'll verify it.”

Garino looked questioningly over the old lady's head at Meecham. Meecham shrugged and turned away.

“Yes,” Garino said. “Yes. I guess you had a bad spell.”

“I certainly
did
, Victor. I felt it coming on at noon. I started to cough. You know that nasty cough I have and how you're always telling me to buy some medicine for it?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

“Well, I finally did. There, you see? I took your advice. I'm improving, aren't I?”

“Yes, of course.”

There was a sound from the hall. Meecham looked up and saw Mrs. Garino standing in the doorway, with an old woolen sweater flung over her shoulders. She didn't speak, or give any indication that she was there. She just stood watching her husband and Mrs. Loftus, her eyes flat and hard and metallic like coins.

“But the medicine didn't agree with me in some way. I began to feel faint. And then I
did
faint, Victor.”

“You faint a lot,” Mrs. Garino said quietly.

Mrs. Loftus whirled around with a cry of surprise. “Why,
there
you are, Ella. I was just telling Victor that . . .”

“I heard you.”

“You must meet this nice young man, Ella. I don't know your name, young man, but I'd like you to meet one of my dearest friends.”

Mrs. Garino didn't look at Meecham. She started across the room, holding the old sweater close across her breasts. “So you fainted again.”

“Why, yes. Yes, I did, Ella. I swear to you I . . .”

“Mama,” Garino said. “Please go home.” “Not yet.”

“Please, you mustn't . . .”

“I mustn't
what?
”

“It's better not to say anything.”

“That's been your system all along. It's sure worked out swell, hasn't it?”

Garino looked down at the floor, in silence.

“When's it all going to stop, Victor? All this pretending, this silly stupid game we've been playing. Do you think it's doing
her
any good? Take a look at this rotten mess of a room. Smell it.”

“Be quiet, I beg of you,” Garino said. “You'll only hate yourself afterwards, you'll . . .”

“Who are we all kidding anyway? Headaches, coughs, neuritis, fainting spells, anything. Anything but the truth. It can't go on forever like this. Somebody's got to tell the truth sometime.”

“Perhaps the truth can wait for tonight,” Meecham said.

“It's been waiting for years,” Mrs. Garino said, still ad­dressing her husband. “Go on, tell her, Victor.”

“No! No, be quiet!”

“Tell her she's a drunk. Tell her you know it and I know it, we've known it for years and so has everybody else in town.”

The steam radiator began to clank, like cymbals herald­ing the truth.

“Ask her a few things, too. Ask her why Earl left, why Birdie left, why everyone's left except us. You blamed Birdie for fighting with her, didn't you, just like you're blaming me now. Well, there's only one thing to blame. This.” She reached out and grabbed the paper bag from Mrs. Loftus' hands. “
This
.”

“No, no.” Mrs. Loftus was swaying back and forth like a tower of toy blocks about to fall. “Give it to me. My medi­cine.”

“Medicine. Who do you think you're fooling except yourself? Sometimes I think I could stand anything except this pretending all the time. Can't you admit anything, just once, one word of truth? What's in here? Gin? Whisky? Rubbing alcohol?”

The old lady moved slowly sideways toward a chair and held onto the back of it with both hands, clung to it like an ageing ballerina to the bar, for reassurance and new strength.

“You're not behaving like a lady, Ella,” she said in a whisper. “You're making defamatory remarks.”

Mrs. Garino threw back her head and began to laugh; her whole body vibrated with harsh tinny laughter. Garino didn't say anything. He went over to her, took the paper bag out of her hand and placed it on the table. Then he put his arms around her waist and the two of them walked out into the hall together, Garino matching his step to hers.

The instant the door closed Mrs. Loftus took the bottle out of the paper bag, uncorked it and put it to her lips, very daintily, a fine lady sipping fine tea from the best of china. An immediate change came over her, the same change Meecham had observed in the bus depot: a revi­talizing, a flow of color to her skin, as if the stuff she drank was blood and went directly into her veins.

She put the bottle down and looked across the room at Meecham, her eyes narrowed to slits in an attempt to fo­cus accurately.

“Are you still here?”

“Yes.”

“Want a drink?”

“Not now, thanks.”

“It's rum,” she said. “Ella was wrong. I don't fool myself, and I don't mind admitting to the right people that I take the odd nip now and then, if there's a chill in the air.”

Or if it's hot, Meecham added silently, or dry or windy; in a spring rain or on a sunny afternoon, a smoky morning in fall, Indian summer or Easter moon. All weather had a chill to it, every day was winter.

Meecham went over and sat down in the old cherrywood rocker opposite Mrs. Loftus. “I know it's late, but I wanted to talk to you. Earl asked me to.”

“Earl?” She put a hand to her throat as if the name had jabbed her there like a needle. “My bus. I missed my bus. I must . . .”

“There are other buses,” Meecham said. There could be a thousand buses but she'd never be on any of them. He realized now how hopeless his mission was: he couldn't persuade her to leave town as Loftus wanted her to do, and he couldn't give her the money because she was obvi­ously unfit to handle it.

“Yes, of course there are other buses, aren't there? I'll go tomorrow, early in the morning. But first I must tidy things up a bit. I will not have anyone like Ella casting as­persions on my home. Did you hear what she said?”

“Yes.”

“She lied about Birdie leaving, too. Birdie didn't leave, I kicked her out. You're not good enough for my son Earl, I told her. Pack your bags and start moving, we don't need your help to get along, I said.”

“What kind of help?”

“Money. Earl was temporarily unemployed—the firm he was working for went out of business—and Birdie took a job as a waitress. That's when they came to live with me. Birdie managed all the money, wouldn't let me do any of the shopping, treated me like a child. She even gave me an allowance. Yes, and you want to know how much? A dollar. A dollar a week. Every Saturday she'd give it to me and say, very sarcastic, don't spend it all in one place. A
dollar
. What can you buy with that?”

Two bottles of dago red, Meecham thought.

“And then she started to accuse me of pilfering, taking money from her purse. She told Earl and Earl came to me, and I said, Earl, I'm only your mother but I have some rights, and what am I going to do when the poor paper boy comes for his money and I don't have a cent? It isn't fair to ask that poor paper boy to come back again and again when Birdie's purse is lying there right out in the open, I said. Earl understood perfectly. You know what happened?” She let out a crow of laughter. “They raised my allowance to five dollars. I beat Birdie at her own game, didn't I?”

“I guess you did,” Meecham said.

The little story, with its interlocking links of deceit and truth, humor and sordidness, was oppressive. The old lady had spoken with such a complete sense of right and justifi­cation. Petty theft?—never. Saving the poor paper boy a second trip?—of course. Meecham felt a flash of sympathy for the vanished Birdie.

Mrs. Loftus uncorked the bottle again. This time she didn't sip quite so daintily, and her reaction wasn't so im­mediate and distinct. It came gradually, into her speech and mannerisms—an occasional slurring of s's and omis­sion of final consonants, grand but vague gestures, and a constant widening and narrowing of her eyes in an attempt to blink away a film that wasn't there. Meecham wanted to take the bottle from her and hide it some place, at least temporarily, so that she wouldn't get too drunk to talk. He had a curious and irrational desire to hear more about Loftus and Birdie, as if Loftus' relationship with his wife and mother might explain more about the murder of Mar­golis. Yet he was sure that there was no link except the psy­chological one—the effect of A and B on C had determined C's conduct toward D.

“You bet I beat her at her own game. Yes, sir,” the old lady
went on. “Birdie never fooled me. First time I saw her I had her spotted. She wasn't any twenty-eight, as she told Earl, and she wasn't any innocent virgin. Any woman could have sheen srough her but not Earl. Earl was always a pure boy, a good boy, took after my side of the family. Never smoked or drank like other boys, or went out carousing to parties. He stayed home nights and read, or we played carj together. It was a good innocent life he led until the day he met Birdie. Didden tell me he met her, didden say a word about her till the day he brought her home and said, this is my wife. Like that. This is my wife. And there she stood, with that hennaed hair and that hard look, forty if she was a day, forty, and him just a boy.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it was a meaningless gesture. The tears that had been wept had long since dried and formed a crust of salt over an emotion long since dead.