go. The mystery was why she had gone “uptown” when other choices were possible. However, Gina owed her no explanations. And Clara hoped that she would not feel that she had to turn away from her forever or decide that she, Clara, was an enemy. Anything but a hostile judge, Clara respected her sense of honor.
Asked for a reference on her unlisted mental line, Clara, when reached, would have said about Gina: soft face, soft bust, brown bourgeois-maiden gaze, but firm at decision time. Absolutely ten on a scale often.
But in the note she sent to Gina she went on, ladylike, matronly and fair-minded, to wish her well, and concluded, “You should have had some notice, and I believe it only fair that the month should have been rounded out, so since I am not absolutely certain of the correct address, I will leave an envelope with Marta Elvia. Two hundred dollars in cash.”
Frederic Vigneron would send her for the money, if he got wind of it.
Gottschalk, the private eye, did his job responsibly; that was about the best that could be said of him. Perhaps half an eye. And not much more ear. Still, he did obtain the facts she asked for. He said of the building in East Harlem, “Of course the city can’t run around and condemn every joint it should, or there’d be lots more street people sleeping in the West Side Terminal. But I wouldn’t want any nieces of mine living there.”
Having done what you could, you went ahead with your life: showered and powdered with talcum in the morning, put on underthings and stockings, chose a skirt and blouse for the day, made up your face for the office, took in the paper, and, if Wilder was sleeping in (he did often), ground your coffee and as the water dripped turned the pages of the
Nobody called for the money envelope. Marta Elvia’s instructions were to give it to Gina only. After a period of keen interest, Clara stopped asking about it. Gottschalk, doing little, sent an occasional memo: “Status quo unchanged.” To go with his Latin, Clara figured that Gina had found a modus vivendi with her young Haitian. The weeks, week after week, subdued Clara. You can say that you’re waiting only if there is something definite to wait for. During this time it often seemed there wasn’t anything. And, “I never feel so bad as when the life I lead stops being characteristic—when it could be anybody else’s life,” she told Laura Wong.
But coming home one afternoon after a session with Dr. Gladstone (things were so bad that she was seeing him regularly again), she entered her bedroom for an hour’s rest before the kids returned from ballet class. She had dropped her shoes and was crawling toward the pillows, her mouth open in the blindness of fatigue, surrendering to the worst of feelings, when she saw that her ring had been placed on the night table. It had been set on a handkerchief, a new object from a good shop. She slipped on her ring and lunged for the phone across the bed, rapidly punching out Marta Elvia’s number.
“Marta Elvia,” she said, “has anybody been here today? Did anybody come to leave an article for me?” Fifteen years in the U. S. and the woman still spoke incomplete English. “Listen,” said Clara. “Did Gina come here today? Did you or anybody let Gina into the apartment?… No? Somebody did come in, and Gina gave up her house keys when she left…. Sure she could have made a duplicate—she or her boyfriend…. Of course I should have changed the lock…. No, nothing was taken. On the contrary, the person gave back something. I’m glad I didn’t change the lock.”
Now Marta Elvia was upset that an outside somebody had got in. Security in this building was one hundred percent. She was sending her husband up to make sure the door hadn’t been jimmied open.
“No, no!” said Clara. “There hasn’t been illegal entry. What a wild idea!”
Her own ideas at this moment were not less wild. She rang Gina’s number in East Harlem. What she got was an answering machine, from which came Frederic’s voice, whose Frenchy slickness was offensive. (Clara disliked those telephone devices anyway, and her prejudice extended to the sound of the signal—in this instance a pig squeal.) “This is Mrs. Wilder Velde calling Miss Wegman.” Inasmuch as Gina might have prevailed by reasonable means over him, Clara was ready to revise her opinion of Frederic too. (On her scale often, she could upgrade him from less than zero to one.)
Next Clara phoned Gottschalk and entered on his tape her request that he call back. She then tried Laura Wong, and finally Wilder in New Hampshire. It was primary time up there; his candidate lagged far behind the field, and you couldn’t expect Wilder to be in his hotel room. Ithiel was in Central America. There was no one to share the recovery of the ring with. The strongest lights in the house were in the bathroom, and she turned them on, pressing against the sink to examine the stone and the setting, making sure that the small diamonds were all there. Since Mrs. Peralta had been in that day, she tried her number—she had a crying need to talk with somebody—and this time actually succeeded. “Did anybody come into the house today?”
“Only deliveries, by the service elevator.”
During this unsatisfactory conversation Clara had a view of herself in the hall mirror—a bony woman, not young, blond but not fair, gaunt, a long face, a hollow cheek, not rejoicing, and pressing the ringed hand under the arm that held the phone. The big eyes ached, and looked it. Feeling so high, why did she appear so low? But did she think that recovering the ring would make her young?
What she believed—and it was more than a belief; there was triumph in it—was that Gina Wegman had come into the bedroom and placed the ring on the nightstand.
And how had Gina obtained the ring, what had she had to promise, or sacrifice, or pay? Maybe her parents had wired money from Vienna. Suppose that her only purpose during four months had been nothing but restitution, and that the girl had done her time in East Harlem for no other reason? It struck Clara that if Gina had stolen the emerald back from Frederic and run away, then leaving a message on his machine had been a bad mistake. He might put it all together and come after Gina with a gun. There was even a private eye in this quickly fermenting plot. Except that Gottschalk was no Philip Marlowe in a Raymond Chandler story. Nevertheless he was a detective of some kind. He must be licensed to carry a gun. And everybody’s mind ran in these psychopathic-melodrama channels streaming with blood, or children’s fingerpaints, or blood that naяve people took for fingerpaint. The fancy (or hope) that Gottschalk would kill Frederic in a shoot-out was so preposterous that it helped Clara to calm herself.
When she received Gottschalk in her office next day, she was wearing the ring and showed it to him. He said, “That’s a high-value object. I hope you don’t take public transportation to work.” She looked disdainful. There was a livery service. He didn’t seem to realize how high her executive bracket was. But he said, “There are people in top positions who insist on using the subway. I could name you a Wall Street woman who goes to work disguised as a bag lady so it isn’t worthwhile to hassle her.”
“I believe Gina Wegman entered my apartment yesterday and left the emerald by my bed.”
“Must’ve been her.”
Gottschalk’s personal observation was that Mrs. Velde hadn’t slept last night.
“It couldn’t have been the
“Casual criminal. Not enough muscle for street crime.”
“She didn’t marry him, did she?”
“I could run a check on that. My guess is no.”
“What you can find out for me is whether she’s still on One hundred twenty-eighth Street. If she grabbed the ring and brought it back, he may do her some harm.”
“Well, ma’am, he’s been in the slammer a few times for petty stuff. He wouldn’t do anything major.” Frederic had been one of those boat people lucky enough to reach Florida a few years back. So much Clara knew.
“After stealing your ring, he didn’t even know how to fence it.”
Clara said, “I have to find out where she’s living. I have to see the girl. Get hold of her. I’ll pay a bonus— within reason.”
“Send her to your house?”
“That might embarrass her—the girls, Mrs. Peralta, my husband. Say I want to have lunch with her. Ask her whether she received my note.”
“Let me look into it.”
“Quickly. I don’t want this dragging on.”
“Top priority,” said Gottschalk.
She counted on the suite of offices to impress him, and she was glad now that she had paid his bills
