Magnolia City (14 page)

Yes, she was seeing it all now: Sex wasn’t just petting with all your clothes off. There was more to it than that. She had to tell Wini. Here you were dealing with lock and key finality, with realms of authority and jurisdiction—ownership even. She was getting her most secret wish right then and there: to be ravished, really and truly ravished, not just toyed with. But in order for this to happen, she had to become submissive, completely and totally submissive. The bed rocked like the waves out in the ocean. She heard them break on the beach down below.
Obey,
they thundered.

From then on, it was an open course through the rest of their honeymooning week in the Queen City of the South. They slept in every morning, dubbing their room the MacBridal Suite. There was a host of cinemas to see: Garbo in
The Divine Woman; Ladies of the Mob,
starring Clara Bow; the spectacular melodrama
Noah’s Ark,
with Ronald Colman. There were a dozen places for dancing: You could go slumming at the Tokio, downtown to the speakeasy Roseland, or back to the beach for balls at the Crystal Palace on the sands. Garret took her shopping, drove her along Post Office Street to see the brothels, then for a freshwater swim at the Crystal Palace. Balconies surrounded the pool on all sides leading up to the roof, filled with spectators admiring the girls below in their newly daring one-piece bathing costumes.

Garret swung on the rings in his black tank top, then did something that surprised her. He climbed the ladder to the high dive and stood there dripping wet in front of the fully dressed spectators. He did a push-off so high Hetty thought the board was going to crack, then sprang way up into the air where, to her surprise, he floated for a few breathless moments in the most beautiful swan dive she’d ever seen. It was elegant, weightless, Olympic. People pointed. He sliced into the water without a ripple, then bobbed up gasping right in front of her.

“Where did you learn to dive like that?” she asked him after the applause died down.

“In Missoula. At the university. My folks sent me.”

She gaped at him as if he were a stranger. “Your folks . . . ?”

He wiped water off his face. “Arleen. And Termite.”

“Termite? That’s kind of an unusual name for a senator, isn’t it?”

“That was his nickname.” Mac rolled into the swaying water.

“And your mother? Arleen?”

After a few moments, he floated in front of Hetty, blowing water out of his mouth. “Talk to me, Mac!”

“She still lives in Butte,” he sputtered.

“So were you on the diving team?”

“For a year.”

“Why did you quit? You could have gone to the Olympics!”

“That’s not a story for our honeymoon,” he said, and sank beneath the water.

Hetty simmered with unsatisfied lust. For two days, Garret had been daring her to swim to the sandbar beyond the other bathers. He promised her a wild time out there in the Gulf, but she was afraid of sharks and the purple Portuguese men-of-war she’d seen washed up on the beach like deflated balloons. He kept reassuring her with his confident laughter, arousing her with lotions and massage. As the shadows grew, so did the itch in her loins. She decided it was now or never.

“I’m ready,” she announced. Garret leaped out of his beach chair and drew her toward the water. As they passed the lifeguard stand, he pointed up to the sky and shouted back at them, “The seagulls are circling. Bad weather’s coming.” She could hardly hear his voice in the whiffle of the wind.

“Com’on,” Garret urged, pulling her in deeper. She caught her breath and plunged into a breaking wave.

The sandbar was not as far out as she’d feared. It was shallow enough for Garret to stand with his shoulders out of the water and lift her up onto his thighs. She hoped the lifeguard could still make out their tiny heads bobbing in the distance.

They were out beyond the point where the waves crest and break; here there was just the gentle roll of the water, rocking them softly in its shifting back and forth—an incessant, almost erotic roll and return all around them. She clung to him there, her body rocking against his flesh, riding him astride, frantic with desire as he slipped her bathing suit up and off and started exploring her labia with his fingers.

She looked beyond him to the beach and to the spires of the Galvez Hotel and to the sky beyond, where blue rain clouds gathered as the hot haze of the day rose higher and higher to focus the light through a prism of pastels. As Hetty watched, a radiant pink spanned out from the setting sun to spangle the clouds and the enormous wingspans of laughing gulls that wheeled in a giant spiral above them.
Finally!
she exalted.
My life is like a Fauve painting.

Amid the revel of their caws, Hetty heard her own voice rising again with those uncontrollable sounds seeking release, the release she’d longed for all week. She looked at Garret for some sign, some direction. He knew exactly what to do. He touched her in all the right places, over and over, faster and faster until he brought her peaking with his fingers alone. Her hips moved of their own accord, unleashing the wild beast inside. Like a wave that begins unnoticed out at sea and rushes toward the land, rolling forward and building up its speed until it comes with a sudden sliding thrust sideways, she felt herself break for the first time in her life with orgasm.

She clung to him out of breath, all her doubts dissolving, bound to her man by a silver cord of pleasure and gratitude.

Even after the sun set that night, it was too hot to be indoors, so Garret pulled off Stewart Road and headed for a brightly lit billboard that read:
Greyhound Races at Texas’s Only Turf
. He nosed the speedster slowly through the crowd gathering around the grandstand, Hetty sitting up on the back of the seat like a celebrity, hoping to cool off in the salty Gulf breeze. She noticed the headlights of a black car following them. They parked where they weren’t supposed to, found a spot at the rail, placed reckless bets, and cheered as the sleek animals flashed by. In the lulls, music floated down on the sultry evening air from a dance floor atop the grandstand, where a band called the Merrymakers never missed a beat.

They emerged an hour later, poorer and drunker, to find two black cars stacked as bookends to the Auburn. They were parked so close Garret couldn’t budge an inch. He lit a Camel, cursed, and blasted the horn several times. One by one, almost unseen, men begin slipping into the cars without saying anything until they could make out several dark heads huddled in the seats. Only one of them looked their way. Hetty recognized the razor chin and cagey eyes of the fellow who’d embarrassed her the first night at the Balinese Room. He seemed to be their leader; at least he’d taken the wheel of the front car and was the one who’d led them in that rude chant the other night.
“Mac, Mac, Mac,”
they’d jeered over and over, making her blush all the more. The lights of the two black cars came on, and they edged out. The rear car hugged Garret’s bumper, while the front one blocked his every move to try and pass or turn off Steward Road. He was grimly silent.

Hetty felt panic swoop through her like bats in the humid night. “Weren’t these the fellows at the Balinese Room? Who are they?”

“Rose’s Night Riders.”

“Rose?”

“Poppa Rose. Rosario Maceo. He and his brother, Sam, own the Balinese Room. Don’t worry—he’s a friend of mine.”

“You’re friends with the Maceos?” She’d heard the name before, of course. The closest thing Texas had to a Mafia was the Maceo family, Sicilians who ran the rackets that made Galveston such a romantic destination. “Are we in trouble here, honey?”

“I don’t think so. Just stay calm.” He tried to reassure her, but fear quivered in his voice and leaped into Hetty’s mind like a grass fire jumping a ravine.
A little too much chaos, thank you!
The numbers on the street signs began to climb way past the area she was familiar with, the convoy passing 49th Street, 53rd, 57th, until there were no more street signs and they were outside the city limits, plunging down a dark empty road.

Then—tall, abrupt—stucco posts loomed out of a lush garden. Cars passed through massive wrought iron gates and pulled up under the portico of a graceful white Spanish villa. Hetty blinked two or three times to clear her vision. There were acres of oleanders and, in the moment before the car lights flicked off, bananas hanging low under broad green leaves.

Everyone got out, the men from the other two cars swarming around them silently, efficiently. Garret held her arm as they were ushered inside and the man with the eyes she didn’t like introduced himself to her: “My name’s Silvio. Rose sent me. You’re his guests.” Arches led in all directions, and the other men melted into them like vapors.

When Hetty realized they weren’t going to be hurt, she relaxed a little and let Garret lead her on a tour conducted by Silvio—amazed by what she saw. Her fear melted into awe. She thought they had discovered all the best spots in Galveston, but Garret hadn’t told her about this one, and it was by far the best. There were people everywhere, and a classy crowd, too, which surprised her considering the desolate location. When they came to the threshold of the dining room, Hetty knew she’d had way too much to drink.

“Dining and dancing for five hundred,” Silvio said. “
The
five hundred.”

They stood for a moment while Hetty gaped. The hall seemed endless. Multitudes of well-heeled diners feasted at tables circling an immense polished dance floor, lit by the soft glow of crystal chandeliers with tiny multicolored lights. She could hear a band somewhere and watched, wide-eyed, as waiters passed them hoisting trays of cocktails and flutes bubbling and dripping with champagne.

“But . . . where do all these people come from?”

Silvio exchanged smiles with Garret. “Nothing like this in Kansas, honey. You notice it’s air cooled.” He unfolded a hand with a flourish, and Hetty realized for the first time that she was no longer sweating. The air all around them felt like it was being fanned out of an icebox. She shot him a puzzled glance. He just laughed. “Welcome to the Free State of Galveston.”

They came up to a table near the stage that must have had a dozen chairs upholstered in bold zebra stripes. They were occupied by four or five immaculately dressed men, each of whom had a Mediterranean beauty at his arm, women with clear olive skins and the kind of tangled, dark manes of luxuriant hair Hetty hadn’t seen on women since she was a child. No one acknowledged them until Silvio bent down and mumbled something into the ear of the swarthy man at the head of the table. He rose to greet them, suntanned, smiling, everything tailored to a T except for the nostrils that swelled out of proportion to everything else.

“Hey, Mac, Mac!” he beamed. “I’m glad Silvio found you. So this is the new bride.”

“Honey, meet Sam Maceo.”

Hetty took his proffered hand and smiled, not knowing what to say. The usual “Nice to meet you” would have felt naive in this setting, so instead she asked, “And which one’s Poppa Rose?”

Silvio raised his voice. “Rosario, say hello.” And a man down the table with the same bulbous nose but more gray in his hair waved at her. The women didn’t look up.

Sam Maceo draped an arm around her shoulders as if they were old friends. The snout was right in her face, and he was chuckling. His skin looked very greasy. “I’ll bet you like roulette wheels, don’t you, hon?”

She tried to lean her head away from him a little. “Did my husband tell you that? I’m annoyed with him for not bringing me here sooner.”

“Mac’s been a very bad boy,” he muttered and pulled her a little closer. “But Uncle Sam’s going to make it up to you, sweetheart. I’m going to let Silvio take you into the back room and set you up at the wheel as my personal guest. On the house. What do you say?”

“Oh boy.” She laughed, turning her face from him. “But isn’t Mac coming, too?”

He patted her on the back as he pulled his hand away. “Mac’s going to stay here with me, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

Hetty looked at her husband, who just shrugged and said, “You know me. I like craps.”

Then a scrawny man was escorted to the table and introduced to her as Prairie Dog. He kept glancing around the room through greasy horn-rim glasses and had to be asked twice to sit down in one of the chairs. Garret seemed to know him. Hetty wanted to take his glasses off and clean them.

The back room was a lot quieter, with gamers intent on their bets. Silvio found Hetty a spot with a stool and an ashtray at one corner of the double-ended table. He got the croupier to issue her a rack crammed with yellow chips and brought her the first of many glasses of the best champagne she’d ever tasted. Then he left her to amuse herself for an hour or more at the game she found so entrancing, hypnotized by the
clickety-clack
of the little white ball spinning round and round the whirl of black and red.

Later, Hetty hunted through the whole club for Garret. She found him outside the front entrance, pacing around the car smoking.

“Ready?” he said curtly.

Coming out of the air-cooled club, the warm air made her reel. She could hear the ocean churning out there in the darkness. She hugged her husband around the waist. “Oh, honey,” she said dreamily, “don’t you want to dance with your little wife?”

“Let’s just get out of here.”

She hiccupped. “Can we come back here, honey? Pleeeease!”

“We’re not members” was his only answer.

Mid-morning, Hetty woke to the sound of drops pelting against the windows. Thin sticks of lightning ripped open the belly of the clouds and a piñata of rain poured down. She could smell the sweetness of ozone in the air. She groped for Garret, but he wasn’t beside her. She glanced around the room. He was standing at the windows, smoking and not noticing that the windowsills were getting wet. She pulled on a robe and went over to close the windows, glancing up at his face. He looked tired. She couldn’t face the discussion she knew they were going to have until she’d fortified herself with some caffeine. She ordered breakfast from room service and got dressed. When the trolley came rolling in, she tipped the bellboy and went straight for the coffee, pouring a cup for both her and Garret.