“About eight. Is that okay?”
“I’ll be there,” Sally says.
She sleeps late on Saturday morning. It’s almost ten o’clock before she rises and pads naked to the window to peer out. Everything is swaddled in pearly fog, and Sally can’t even see the garage. The house is silent, and the stillness is everywhere: no traffic noises, no bird calls, no distant thrum of airliners. She feels isolated, wrapped in cotton batting, and yearns for a shout or a whistle.
She pulls on jeans and a T-shirt and goes downstairs barefoot to the kitchen. She has a glass of V-8, an English muffin with orange marmalade, a cup of black coffee. She may be awake, but her brain isn’t; she’s moving senseless through a muffled world, unable to concentrate; the fog is in her.
She picks up the
“Zombie,” she says aloud.
It angers her, this dazed feeling of being out of control, and it frightens her. She goes back upstairs to her bedroom and takes a shower as cold as she can endure. She stands under the water for almost twenty minutes, letting the needle spray bounce off her skull, face, shoulders, back, breasts, stomach, thatch, thighs-and start all her corpuscles dancing.
Gradually consciousness returns, confidence is reborn, resolve swells. She dresses again, goes down to the den, sits at her desk. She pulls a pen and scratch pad close and starts doodling, making scribbles: arrows, flowerpots, a radiant sun, stick figures running. She ponders what to do, how to do it, when.
Timothy Cone offered one option: go to the cops and spill the beans. That way she’d be able to hang on to Steiner Waste Control. Maybe she could get her mother and brother out of the city to reduce the danger to them. She has a queasy faith in her ability to protect herself.
A second option is to play along with Mario Corsini, put out for that devil until she can figure a way to fix his wagon for good. She actually considers letting that slob have his way, but then realizes it’s impossible; the first time he tried, she’d vomit all over him; she knows it.
What it comes down to is that both options represent surrender, and that she cannot tolerate. She considers herself capable of coping with a raw, turbulent world. It’s a matter of pride. If she gives up now, then her life is make-believe, and she is pretending to be someone she is not.
What would her father have done? Jake would never run to the cops for help; she is certain of that. Nor would he sacrifice his personal dignity to Mario Corsini or anyone like him. Making payoffs to the mob was distasteful to Jake, but just another business expense. If they had demanded something more, something that would diminish Jake as a mensch, Sally knows what her father’s reaction would have been: He would have died fighting.
It’s an ego thing, Sally decides, and there’s no use denying it. She has bragged (to herself) that she is a woman with the brains and will to succeed in the violent, dog-eat-dog world of savage, scrambling men. If she is defeated now, her self-esteem shattered, she doesn’t want to imagine what her future will be like. No future. None at all.
She draws the number 1 on her pad and strikes it out. Sketches the number 2 and crosses that out also. Then makes a big 3, and stares at it. A third option that did not suddenly occur to her, but has been growing in her mind like some kind of malignant tumor ever since she learned that her Big Chance was down the drain.
Option 3 is scary, no doubt about it, and she wonders if she has the balls for it. She thinks she might be able to bring it off, but the risks are horrendous. Failure would mean the loss of the business and, possibly, the loss of Sally Steiner.
It’s a gamble, the biggest gamble she’s ever made in her life. But she underlines the number 3 on her scratch pad with heavy strokes, and decides to go for broke. Jake would approve; she’s certain of that. She starts plotting the details.
Later that day she calls Eddie. Paul Ramsey isn’t there, but her brother assures her that Paul unloaded all the stocks and asked the broker to send him a check.
“Good enough,” Sally says. “And you haven’t had any unexpected visitors-like a guy from the SEC?”
“No one’s showed up,” Eddie says. “What’s going on, Sal?”
“Nothing to worry about. When’s your show at the gallery?”
“In about a month. Cocktail party at the opening. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll even tell everyone I posed for your masterpiece. Eddie …”
“Yeah, Sal?”
“I love you, baby.”
He laughs. “What brought that on?”
“I just want to make sure you know.”
“I know,” her brother says, his voice soft. “And I love you, dear, and want the best for you.”
She hangs up before she starts bawling. She goes upstairs to her mother’s bedroom where Becky and Martha are playing backgammon, with the housekeeper shaking the dice cup for both of them. Sally sits with them awhile, watching the game and making them laugh with her ribald comments.
Martha goes downstairs to start dinner, and Sally pulls up a hassock alongside her mother’s wheelchair.
“I won’t be home for dinner, ma,” she says. “I’m driving into the city. I got a date.”
“A date?” Becky says, then smiles happily. “That’s wonderful! But listen, you deserve, you work so hard. A nice boy?”
“Very nice. And very, very handsome.” Then, knowing what her mother’s reaction will be: “A regular John Garfield.”
“Mazeltov!” Becky cries, and adds dreamily, “John Garfield. How I loved that man. So tell me, how did you meet?”
“Through business.”
“He’s got money?”
“Plenty.”
“And what’s his name?”
“Anthony. He’s Italian.”
“That’s all right, too,” her mother says. “I know some very nice Italian people. So where are you going?”
“To an Italian restaurant,” Sally says, laughing. “Where else?”
“You’ll be home early?”
“I don’t think so. But I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”
“He lives in the city?”
“Yeah, ma.”
“So you’ll be driving home alone?”
Sally nods.
“Be careful. Drive with your windows up and the doors locked. You promise?”
“I promise.”
Sally rises, then bends over her mother, embraces her, kisses her velvety cheeks. “I love you, ma.”
Tears come to Becky’s eyes. “I love you, too. I am so lucky, having a daughter like you. Every day I thank God.”
“Yeah,” Sally says huskily, “we’re both lucky. Eat all your dinner and have a nice evening.”
“You, too,” her mother cries gaily. “Enjoy! Enjoy!”
Sally goes to her bedroom to get ready. Another shower, warm this time, with scented soap. She decides to wear her high-necked black sheath, figuring all the floozies Anthony Ricci has been dating probably dress like tarts with their tits spilling out. So she wears her conservative black with a pearl choker. And, examining herself in a full- length mirror, wonders sourly if she looks like the older wealthy woman that Ricci seeks.
It’s a long drive into the city and down to Mulberry Street. But the trip goes swiftly as she runs scenarios through her mind, trying to decide the best way to spin this simpleton. It’s been a long time since she’s come on to a guy, and she hopes it’s like riding a bicycle: You never forget how.
She gets down to Little Italy in plenty of time, but has to cruise around for a while, looking for a parking space. She finally finds an empty slot two blocks away. She slips the loaded pistol into her purse, locks the car, and walks back to Brolio’s. It looks like a scuzzy joint to her, but you never know.
