side of the room, and the moment Tom saw either Mr. Lacey or the girl, he’d get up, walk past, and close the magazine as he went by. If Lacey was with the woman it would all be very simple. If not, it might get complicated. I, meanwhile, would be in the back of the room watching from a distance, dark glasses having been deemed sufficient cover for me, as first of all they are less unusual on women indoors than men and second of all, as Tom put it, “he only saw you once, for half an hour, at midnight in a bar after being let out of jail, and he spent most of the time looking at the gap in your blouse anyway, not your face.” And the girl, of course, had never seen me at all.
With this all set, Tom and I started to go, but Mr. Schwartz reminded me I’d better call Marlboro and let Deputy Harrison know how things stood, so he could come to the Airport Police office at once when he arrived, and not search the waiting room with his men and possibly get spotted by “the quarry,” as they termed Lacey.
18
We got home a bit after four, and took stock of what we should do. Tom sat by the window again, and pretty soon began to talk: “First thing, Joan, at least as I see it, is that we get where the action is-to a motel somewhere near National Airport, so we’re not fighting traffic tomorrow morning and maybe we arrive too late. So-hold everything.” He got the Yellow Pages, looked, and found a big motel that might not want to be named, on account of what happened next day, so I don’t say which motel it was. He went on: “O.K., we go there- but not together. We go in separate cars, arriving at different times. I take a single with bath. You take a suite.”
“… Suite?” I asked. “Why?”
“So we can see each other without being seen. Suppose Jim’s staying there too? If he sees us in the lobby or some other public area like that-?”
“But why a suite? What does that have to do with it?”
“In a suite, you can have anyone up that you choose, male, female or neuter. They assume that with a sitting room it wouldn’t occur to you to do things you might be tempted to do, if all you had was a bedroom.”
“Are you sure that’s the rule?”
“Well? Call them, why don’t you? And ask.”
“… That’s O.K. I trust your superior knowledge of motels.”
*
He went in his car to pack his things, and after I threw a bag together, I drove on down to the motel, a big one in three sections. At the registration desk I asked the price of a suite, “bedroom, living room, and bath.” The clerk didn’t seem at all surprised by a woman registering alone, and said: “We have them from thirty-seven fifty up.”
“Is thirty-seven fifty outside?”
“All our suites are outside. The thirty-seven fifty tier looks out on the airport. For forty-five seventy-five, you can look out on the river.”
“Airport’s fine.”
He gave me a key and told me how to go. I took my bag to the elevator, went up, followed his directions down a hall, unlocked a door, and suddenly was in my suite, feeling guilty and excited and a little dry in the throat. I went through the rooms-they were done in pale green, with darker green furniture to blend, and everything so recently cleaned you could smell it. I tried not to look at the beds, of which there were two, “though of course,” the clerk had explained, “for two persons the charge is forty-two fifty.”
After I put my things in the bureau drawer, such few things as I had, I went back to the sitting room. Out the window, I could see planes landing and taking off, but they were far enough away that I couldn’t hear them. On one table was a telephone, and I used it to dial the Garden.
“Bianca please, Sue. Thank you.” When Bianca picked up, I said: “I’m going to be out again tonight-and maybe tomorrow, I don’t know.”
There was silence on the line.
“I can’t help it, Bianca. It’s something personal and important.”
“You sick in bed? On death’s door?”
”…No. Not like that.”
“Then you’re not leaving me short-handed two nights in a row, never mind three. You get down here right now, Joan.”
“I can’t.”
After some more silence: “You want to explain to me why I shouldn’t fire you this time? Tom’s not around to talk me out of it again.”
“No he’s not,” I said. “He’s here with me.”
“… Oh!”
“He and I have something that can’t wait. One way or another, it’ll be done tomorrow, and then I’ll be in again like always. But tonight-”
“I heard you, you can’t. I hope you know what you’re doing, Joan.”
“This time, I do.”
Still sounding upset: “… I’ll go tell Liz.”
As soon as I put down the receiver, the phone was ringing, and then Tom’s voice was in my ear: “Just checked in. Feel like going over it again, maybe?”
“No maybe about it.”
“On my way up.”
Once he arrived, I called Room Service and had them read me the dinner menu, repeating each item to him. Maybe because of the day we had ahead of us, we were both hungry-we took salad with French dressing, chicken fricassee, baked potato, peas, ice cream, and coffee. Presently, a man rolled our order in on a metal table, served us and left, telling us: “When you’re done, put the table out in the hall-I’ll come for it later.” When we finished the meal I poured the coffee, taking mine black, while Tom took two lumps and cream. “This feels awfully domestic,” he said. “Like playing man and wife.” He was right, it did-friendly, warm and comfortable. But his putting it that way suddenly got me nervous.
“… Let’s get on to tomorrow,” I told him.
We went through it all one more time. I’d help him put on his face in the morning, and the wig, then we’d drive to the airport separately. We discussed where he’d sit and where I would, what he’d do if he saw them together and what he’d do if he saw one of them alone. We ran through it all twice.
“What if the Airport Police ask you what you’re doing there?” he asked.
“Why would they?”
“If they do.”
“I’m waiting for a friend who’s bringing our tickets.”
“O.K. Fine.”
“And what if they ask you?”
“Same, I guess. Or maybe I can whisper to them I’m there to help grab a rat who jumped his bail.”
“Maybe-but don’t.”
“No.”
“… Tom? You realize, don’t you, that this will be the end of any chance you might have with Lacey for that help you wanted, with his cousin. All that work you put into him, getting close to him, doing errands for him-like covering for his son that day.”
“Well, I’m glad I did that one, for other reasons entirely.”
We both smiled. But I said, “I’m serious.”
“Yes I do realize it.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Yes I mind. But he can’t get away with what he’s trying here. If my house hadn’t been in hock to a bank, it would be me he was doing this to, and I’d be on the street. The only reason it’s you is because you know me and wanted to do me a kindness. So-if I lose him, I lose him. There are always other ways to a goal, and I’ll find
