Chapter 17
NEATNESS COUNTS. Of all the rules of magazine contests Mickey had entered when she was young, that was the one she remembered. She had taken it upon herself to be neat and clean long before she learned about virgins and holy purity from the I. H. M. Sisters. When she was a little girl, her mother had told her, she used to change clothes three and four times a day. She would come downstairs wearing a good dress to go out to play and her mother would march her back up to her room.
The blue shirt and white slacks didn't look that bad, for four days. She was pretty sure she didn't smell. They had let her take a shower yesterday and the day before. But there was no deodorant in the bathroom, obviously. The fat policeman didn't seem to know what it was. He hadn't forgotten to bring it, this was his house--he had said it to the nice one outside the bathroom door, arguing, 'It's my house, ain't it?'--though she couldn't associate the fat policeman with this room. It was more like her grandmother's. And then her mother was mixed up in her mind with the fat policeman.
What would her mother think if she knew? Her father--she had never realized it before--her father looked like a TV dad in his cardigan sweater with the full sleeves, his pipe, his gray hair--thin but still wavy--his comfortable manner. Her dad would look at the fat policeman and say, 'Hi, chief, how are you?' She would say, 'Dad, he kidnapped me.' And her mother would say, 'Oh, now, you're imagining things. You can see he's a policeman.' And her father would wait on the sidelines with his pipe while she and her mother discussed it. Both her mother and dad would accept the policeman, and his authority, at face value. She could not imagine them questioning anything-- other than the Democratic Party and trade unions--or discussing or arguing with each other about anything ... important.
What was important?
To get some clean clothes, go home, look at the house ... call to see how Bo was-- She stopped and thought: You're as bad as they are. Stay in your own little world--
She thought, If you get out of this, what will you do? What will you say to Frank?
Come on, you walk in the house and he's standing there. What will you say? ... Hi? She heard a pretend little-Mickey voice say, 'Oh, hi ... No, I'm fine. How're you?' And never discuss it beyond that point ever again. Hide at the club and get back into the routine. 'No, I haven't been away really. I was--' Where?
There were two quick raps on the door, the sound of the key in the lock. Mickey turned off the bed lamp and sat down in the rocker. The nice one came in from the hallway light with the dinner tray. She had heard the fat policeman this morning, but not the other one, the black one, since the day before yesterday.
'What time is it?'
'About one,' Louis said. He placed the tray on the bed.
'I don't think I can eat any more noodles.' 'Ham and cabbage today,' Louis said.
'I'm not hungry.'
'And cream-style corn.'
'Oh, that's different,' Mickey said, 'cream-style corn. Do you people read? I'd love something to read.'
'You're going home,' Louis said.
Mickey sat up, her hands on the chair arms. 'When?'
'Later on.'
'He paid you?'
'We're gonna drop you off after awhile.' Mickey sat back in the chair again, slowly. 'I don't believe you.'
'So, don't,' Louis said. He turned to go out. 'Wait--Did my husband really pay you?' 'Yeah, it's done.'
'All you asked for?'
'I guess he must've.'
'But you're not sure?'
'Yeah, I'm sure.' He motioned to the tray. 'Eat your dinner.'
'What're you going to do to me? Will you tell me?'
'I already did. You're going home.'
'I won't tell anybody,' Mickey said. 'I promise I won't go to the police.'
'Well, it wouldn't help your husband any,' Louis said. 'I 'magine you'll have a few things to say to him but I'd keep in mind he's paid a lot of money for you.'
'Did you talk to him?'
'Not personally, but it's all done. I 'magine you'll have a few things to say to your friend, too. I'd like to hear what he's telling people, how he got the cut in his head.'
She was thinking, Could it actually be happening this way? Go home, pick up where she left off. It was what she had been thinking about just before. Walking in the house and seeing Frank, saying, Hi-I'm-fine-how're-you--?
She said again, 'I don't believe you. It doesn't happen like this.'
'What doesn't?'
'It doesn't happen as if it never happened, for God sake. You can't kidnap somebody and take a million dollars and that's the end of it.'
'It is if it works,' Louis said.
'Do you have the money?'
Louis hesitated. 'I told you, yes.'
'You've seen it?'
'Look, take my word. You're going home.'
Her voice rose. 'No!' Then was quiet again, though with an edge to it. 'Something's going on. It doesn't happen this way. And you don't know any more than I do. The other one went to Freeport, didn't he?'
'I got to go downstairs,' Louis said.
'He called you and said my husband gave him the money? It was that simple?'
'I'll be back for you,' Louis said.
'To kill me?'
He stopped, his hand on the door. 'Take it easy, okay? I say you're going home, you're going home.'
In the kitchen Louis said, 'The one thing I don't understand, why he didn't ask to talk to me.'
'He was in a phone booth,' Richard said.
Louis waited, but that was all the explanation he was going to get. 'What did he say exactly?'
'I told you.'
'I mean his exact words. Like if you were writing a police report.'
'He said, it's all set.'
'All set, uh?' What did 'all set' mean. It could mean anything. 'You should've called me to the phone.'
Richard tightened up. 'He said I could tell you it was all set and take the woman home, and then about getting a car and putting her in the trunk, that part, that was all he said. He didn't say anything else, goddarn- it!'
'What're you getting mad about?'
'I ain't mad,' Richard said. 'I say something, it's the truth.' With his face red, his mouth a tight line, looking as though he was going to punch somebody out.
Big dumb fuckhead Nazi gunfighter to handle, to keep calm, keep him busy making his fucking noodles. Louis said, trying to sound like Ordell, 'Hey, it's cool, Richard. Nothing to be upset about, man. I believe you. I just want to make sure I understand it. You know what I mean?'
'He said it was all set, he had the money.'
'Ah,' Louis said. 'I must've missed that part. He did get the money. Good. See, I was wondering about that.' You dumb fuckhead. 'So, what I want to do now, I want to use your car for a little while. Line up some transportation for tonight.'
'How long you want to use it?'
'Half hour maybe. That okay?'
