The Cocktail Waitress (17 page)

Then I looked over toward the gate. There were several women standing there, but one in particular caught my eye. She was holding a big dispatch case by her side and wearing dark glasses like mine. Neither of these facts was a guarantee of anything, of course. But as I watched, Lacey glanced at her and I saw her chin dip minutely in a nod.

Or had I imagined it? Had she been nodding at someone else? But no: he was heading straight for her, and though I couldn’t see her eyes behind the shadowed lenses, she was facing him directly, her lips were drawn tight, and looking down I saw the toe of one of her feet tap impatiently.

I glanced over at Tom. Behind his raised magazine he was staring toward the entrance, the wrong direction entirely. And Mr. Christopher and Mr. Schwartz were looking at each other—I saw one glance at his wristwatch and shrug.

There was no time any longer for subtlety. In a minute he’d be at the gate and it would be too late. I got up and crossed quickly, my heels clattering loudly against the tile floor. I watched Lacey’s back in front of me and prayed he wouldn’t turn around at the sound.

He didn’t. He just kept going, aimed like an arrow at the gate and the plane beyond, and the freedom they both represented.

A dozen hurried steps brought me to Mr. Schwartz’s side and I bent to whisper in his ear: “That’s him, the old man with the cane, the one who just went by. He did himself up like Tom did!”

He looked, and got up. Across the way, Mr. Christopher stood as
well, seemingly casual—but not really so casual if you noticed how quickly he moved. They exchanged a glance, and I saw his eyes shoot along Lacey’s path to his destination. And now at last Tom looked over too, following what was going on from where he sat.

Mr. Schwartz was at Lacey’s side in an instant, one hand sliding in to grip his upper arm. Mr. Christopher, meanwhile, shot past, to the gate, and clamped his hand over the woman’s on the handle of the dispatch case. I couldn’t hear what she said, but saw a look of alarm on her face, and an attempt to pull away from him, until he flashed a badge that he held in his hand. At that point her shoulders fell.

They walked back past me toward a door marked
PRIVATE—NO ADMITTANCE
, all four of them, first Mr. Schwartz leading Lacey, who was no longer stooping or using the cane, and then Mr. Christopher leading the woman. I wondered what spectators might be thinking about the arthritic old man’s miraculous recovery. “Come with us,” Mr. Christopher said as he passed, and only after a moment did I realize he was addressing me. I shot a glance back toward where Tom sat, some distance off, and he hadn’t budged; perhaps grateful that things had come to a head without his having to show his face at all. I was nearer in any event, and time was at a premium.

“Ma’am, please,” said Mr. Christopher. I followed quickly in his wake.

He and the woman went through the door, then down a steep set of stairs, to a room marked
AIRPORT OFFICE
. Inside were some uniformed officers to whom Mr. Schwartz was showing his badge, and of course Lacey, looking frightened and combative. Mr. Christopher showed his badge as well, and then Mr. Schwartz got down to brass tacks: “We don’t want any trouble, cause you to miss your plane or anything like that—but we hear you’re carrying a large amount of money out of the country.”

“Who said that? They’re lying—”

Mr. Schwartz turned to me. “Is this the man?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Who are you?” Lacey said, still not recognizing me. “What is this?”

“We’re not the police,” Mr. Schwartz said. “We’re Internal Revenue. We don’t care where the money came from or what you did to get it. We just care that Uncle Sam gets his fair share.”

Mr. Christopher, meanwhile, had wrestled the case out of the woman’s hand and as we watched he unpacked a top layer of clothes and toiletries and then turned the case over to dump packs of money out. I could see they were held by paper tapes with printing on them—apparently the denominations of the bills, and how many. I saw some fifties, some hundreds, and one stack of twenties.

The woman suddenly sat down heavily in a chair. I confess I felt sorry for her.

Mr. Schwartz leafed through one pack of bills and Mr. Christopher leafed through another. They didn’t take off the tapes, but did each take out a card and write down an amount on it after checking a pack and putting it to one side. “O.K.,” said Mr. Schwartz when they’d finished and compared cards. “We make it fifty-five thousand even, and the tax on that is twenty—which we’ll impound, as taxes paid on account, giving you a receipt, and noting it’s subject to repayment, in part or in whole, if, as, and when warranted by your timely filed federal income tax return.”

Mr. Schwartz got a book out of his briefcase, a thing that looked like a checkbook, and wrote. It must have taken him just a few minutes to fill out the receipt, but it felt like ages as we all stood there in silence, glaring at one another. Then Mr. Schwartz tore out what he’d written, checked the carbons, of which there were two, and handed the original to Mr. Christopher. Mr. Christopher looked it over, handed it to Lacey, then put several packs of money into his briefcase, first letting Schwartz count each. I suddenly felt horror-stricken—they were almost done and still I didn’t have Lacey. He was right there in front of me, but his plane would leave in ten minutes
and there was no way I could stop him from taking it. “Are we done?” he asked Mr. Schwartz, suddenly.

“All done.”

“Then, Flo—?”

But Flo didn’t get up from the chair she’d dropped into. “Ah, for Christ’s sake, Jim,” she growled. “Wake up, this is it, you’ve had it.”

“What’s the matter, you scared?”

“I guess so, call it that.”

“Well I’m not. I’m going.”

He grabbed the dispatch case up and jammed the remaining money and the clothes back in any which way. He didn’t even bother buckling it closed before heading for the door.

I wanted to scream from disappointment. “You’re going to let him go?” I demanded.

“He’s fully paid up now, Mrs. Medford,” Mr. Christopher said. “We have no way to hold him.”

At the mention of my name, I saw Lacey’s face blanch. He bolted the rest of the way to the door and clutched at the knob. I leapt after him, but he got it open before I could lay a hand on him. I saw my last chance escaping.

Then he stopped dead, and so did I, my heart hammering.

“Hello,” said Tom, blocking the way. He was still in his full regalia, but not for long. With one hand he took off the glasses and with the other he whipped off the wig. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Get out of my way!”

“Try and make me, Jim.”

Lacey tried to push past him. But Tom pushed back, and it was no contest, Tom’s strength against Lacey’s, the younger man against the older. And then, then at last, came a flash of blue, as the Maryland officers appeared behind Tom in the doorway. “I’ll take that,” said Deputy Harrison, making a grab for the dispatch case and getting it. “You’ll get it back, of course, any of it that’s legal, but as of now we
have to impound it. You’re under arrest, Jim, for skipping bail. I’m sorry.”

Lacey put his hands up. “O.K.,” he answered. “O.K.”

“That all you got to say?” This from the woman, Flo, still seated where she’d landed earlier.

“What else is there to say?”

“If this is the Mrs. Medford you told me about, the one who stood your bail, you could at least speak to her, and say how sorry you are.”

Then Lacey faced me, quite solemnly. “Mrs. Medford,” he began, “I assure you, I give you my word, I’d have seen to it that you wouldn’t forfeit the bail you pledged for me. All I wanted was time to prepare my case, and once it was ready I’d have been back, long before you’d have been required to—”

“Jim, you’re a goddam liar,” Tom told him, coldly furious.

Deputy Harrison cut in: “You’ll get your chance to settle it in court. Come on—let’s go.”

He jerked his head at two of his men, and they hustled Lacey out.

“What about me?” Flo asked.

“There a warrant out for your arrest?” Deputy Harrison asked.

“Not on your life.”

“… You owe any income taxes?” Mr. Christopher said.

“I’d have to have income first.”

“Well, then, you’re free to go,” Deputy Harrison said. “Might want to think over your choice in men next time, but that’s free advice and worth as much as you paid for it.”

She stood up, half nodded to me in a sort of sisterly solidarity, then walked out the door. I thought of my promise to Mrs. Lacey, to keep her out of the story, but figured I could trust Flo’s sense of selfpreservation to steer her away from any newspapermen with cameras that might have gotten tipped and be waiting upstairs.

“Thanks so much,” I told the two IRS men, who returned their thanks. Then I let Tom take my arm and lead me out. I suddenly felt
weak, and frightened of the stairs. He let me lean against the wall and then in a minute put his arm around me to help me. We took it six stairs at a time, with a little rest in between. Then we were up, walking out in the parking lot, and at last reached my car. “I’m O.K. now,” I said, though my heart was still racing. “I think.”

“O.K.’s not the word for what you are. You’re a goddam wonder.”

I looked in his eyes. “Give me a five-minute start, and then when you get to the motel, come on up to my room, without ringing or anything. That is, if you
want
to come up—?”

“What do you think?”

My head was clear enough driving back, and when I parked and went up to the suite, I knew what I meant to do. I slipped into the bedroom and took off every last stitch. Then I pulled down the corners on one of the beds and folded them over to leave most of the undersheet clear. Then I went into the sitting room, sat down, and looked out. When the buzzer sounded I opened the peephole, and when I made sure it was Tom, opened. “So
pretty
out there,” I said, waving at the windows with their view of the airport. “Or—would you rather we went in here?”

I led the way to the bedroom, lay down on the bed, and pulled the covers over me, but only to the waist. He stood looking down at me and I closed my eyes. When I opened them his clothes were on the chair. Then he was slipping in beside me and taking me in his arms.

When it was over I felt as though drugged, and lay limp, letting him hold me close. Then my head cleared a little, and I realized it wasn’t only the sense of relief, that I wouldn’t lose the house after finally getting it out from under its mortgage, or my feeling of gratitude to Tom, or, leave us face it, the ordinary pleasure of good, honest love, but also the months and months of deprivation. So it wasn’t too terribly long before my mouth found his once more, and we had what he called a “retake,” whispering as though it was a naughty word. It was almost the only talking we did. Then I lay close again, he whispered the word again, and found my mouth with his mouth. It went on all afternoon, till at last we had to get up and eat. For that we had to dress. Then we put the table out in the hall and went to bed again. But this time, whether from stomachs full of food, or plain, utter exhaustion, we were barely able to finish. When I opened my eyes a clock was striking three.

I could feel him warm beside me, but his breathing told me he was asleep, as I had been. I lay there, clear-headed for the first time since I left the airport. Then thoughts began to come, and the first one of all was: I wanted this man as I’d never wanted anything in my life but my little boy—wanted to lie beside him forever. But the next thought that came to me was of the grass in front of that mansion, so soft, so green, so smooth, and how my little darling would look, rolling and romping in it, and crowing from sheer joy. I lay there a long time, while the clock struck the half hour, and then struck four o’clock. Suddenly, not knowing I was going to, I slipped out of bed and began
pawing around in the dark. I found the clothes I had taken off, put them on and eased open the bureau drawers. I found the nightie I’d worn the night before, my toilet set, and spare underwear. I took my coat from the closet and took everything to the sitting room. There, with motel pen and on motel stationery, I wrote Tom a note, saying “Love, thanks, and goodbye.” It seemed a little flat, but at least was what I had to say. I slipped out and the clerk looked up in surprise, from the book he was reading, but checked me out: seventy-five dollars for the suite, twenty-two dollars for food, forty cents for some phone call I couldn’t remember making.

I picked up my suitcase, put on my coat, walked out to the car, and drove off into the dawn—of another life.

That night, I was back in the Garden of Roses, and five minutes after I got there, it was as though I’d never been away. Bianca at first acted insulted, but when I mentioned “money, Bianca—too much to lose just by turning my back,” she eased off ever so little, and then life went on as before. Liz said: “Baby, have I missed you—but never mind that. The main thing is, you’re back. And how’s our Tom …?”

“He’s fine,” I told her, betraying not a hint of emotion. “He helped me quite well in a matter we were both concerned in.”

“An overnight matter, as I understand it—some three nights running. I knew the boy had it in him! Now, spill, Joan, and don’t leave anything out.”

It was hard, as I would have loved to tell it all, but I answered, “Nothing to spill, I’m afraid, Liz. It was a legal matter, and it’s done.”

“A legal matter?”

“… And it’s done.”

An hour later, after business had got started, she was beside me saying sidelong: “Couple of big shots, Joan, here in the corner booth —they want to know if I have a pal, and would we like to see them later, after we close for the night. They already have rooms in a motel, and what they’re flashing at me is hundred-dollar bills. So if it’s true that you and Tom aren’t an item…” I told her, “Another time, Liz—tonight I have to catch up on my sleep.”

“O.K.,” she said, “I’ll take care of them both, I guess—it’s what legs are for, one of the things anyhow.”

“The main thing, maybe.”

“We could even say that, yes.” But then she blew out her lips and said, “Not an item …!”