The Cocktail Waitress

29

He began with the death certificate, then interrupted to call the police, “so there can’t be any question,” and then turned to me and said: “He probably didn’t mention it, but I tried to tell him that marriage could well be fatal. I was upset when I saw the news in the paper, that he had wed-”

But I cut in to say: “He told me everything, especially what you said, and we got married anyhow. He knew the risk, I begged him to remember it, but he wanted a normal life.”

Dr. Cord looked me over then, in a way that was all too familiar to me-Sergeant Young had done it, and the lawyer, Eckert; Tom had done it, and Lacey, and Luke Goss, and plenty of other customers at the bar; all sorts of men had, hundreds probably, since I turned twelve and first began developing a woman’s figure. At the job I’d invited it, I suppose, what with my uniform putting my legs and my bust on display, but there was nothing inviting it here, in my husband’s bedroom, with his body not ten feet away, and my body in nothing revealing or alluring at all. But Dr. Cord, perhaps used to dead bodies in his line of work and so not deterred by Earl’s, looked me over all the same. I felt tears come then, if only tears of rage, of frustration.

“Earl was certainly entitled to a normal life,” Dr. Cord said, “but I’m not so certain that’s what he had.” He gestured in the direction of the intravenous chelation equipment, still standing by the armchair in the corner, hypodermics for the vitamin injections lined up on the shelf behind. Then he bent and picked up the brassiere between the tips of his second and third fingers, like something unclean. “This is a lovely piece of lingerie, Mrs. White, but unless I’m mistaken, at least two sizes too small for you to be its owner.” I snatched it from him and jammed it in the pocket of my jacket.

He went on: “The police will be here momentarily, but it needn’t be anything but a routine matter for them. I’ll let them know of Earl’s medical history, his prior attacks. They won’t even perform an autopsy if I do that. They won’t see any reason to. Assuming…”

“Assuming?”

“Assuming I don’t tell them about the article of clothing in your pocket.” He walked over to the chair and lifted the empty bottle from its hook. “About medical treatments I didn’t sanction. They might do an autopsy then. I really don’t think I need to tell them, though. As a favor to Earl, rest his soul. He deserves better than to have his good name tarnished by a scandal in the papers. There isn’t a man, alive or dead, who can’t use a favor now and again.”

I knew then what he thought me, what he thought I’d been to Earl — something like what Bella had been, only better paid.

“You go ahead and tell them,” I snapped. “Tell them anything you want, everything you want. I have nothing to cover up. Nothing.”

“Mrs. White-”

“I don’t want any favors. I don’t offer them, either, not the sort you mean. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself asking …?”

I heard footsteps in the hallway then, and the sound of the door opening behind me. Looking over my shoulder Dr. Cord stood up straighter, which told me it was the police. I didn’t know how much of what we’d been saying they might have heard, but I at least hadn’t been quiet. I only prayed that when I turned I’d see faces I’d never seen before.

Like so many of my prayers before it, this one went unanswered.

“If you could step aside, doctor, and put that bottle down,” said Private Church, “we’d appreciate it.”

*

They were neither of them in uniform, Church or Young, both looking as though they’d been rung up in the middle of an evening at home and had rushed over when they heard my name. It made me anxious-while once again I’d done nothing to answer for, it looked bad that here I was with a second dead husband on my hands.

Dr. Cord gave them the full report he’d threatened and I found myself having to explain the brassiere in my pocket, and the chelation, and pretty soon the whole story had come out. Only I didn’t tell them that it had been my idea for Earl to call Bella, since after all he’d said he’d had the same idea himself, hadn’t he? Nor did I know Bella’s name, or the Kitty-Cat’s, I was sorry to say. I’d simply received the call at the Garden and come running, much as they had, to find the room as they saw it and my husband on the verge of dying. It was the truth, with only a small lie attached, and not one of any consequence, merely one that spared me a measure of embarrassment.

“Why did you pick up the other woman’s clothing?” asked Private Church, his voice neutral as ever, but his meaning much less so.

“The doctor picked it up, not me. He handed it to me. Said he wouldn’t want Earl to suffer from a scandal.”

The doctor had gone home by them, leaving behind the completed death certificate and a general air of having washed his hands of us all-Earl, me, the police, everyone. His patient was dead. His job was done.

“And who was she?”

I shrugged. “I gather there are women around this town, as around any, that will take money for intimate acts. Men know where to find them, somehow.”

Sergeant Young was looking at me with grave sympathy in his eyes, or so I thought. It was Church, however, junior partner or not, that was leading the grilling, and I saw that his zeal for pinning something on me had not ended with the exhumation of Ron’s body, but had merely gone into hibernation, or what they call remission if you have had cancer. The danger never wholly goes away, it merely sleeps for a time.

“We’re going to have to take some of these things back with us, have our laboratory men inspect them. And we will do an autopsy.”

“… Do what you must.”

“You could save us some time if you’d tell us now of anything we’re going to find when we do.”

“You’d have to talk to Dr. Jameson about that-he’s the one set all this up, the treatment Earl was on, the chemicals.”

“Then why did you call Dr. Cord when your husband needed help? Rather than Dr. Jameson?”

I waved a hand at the equipment. “Because I didn’t trust it, any of this. I told Earl I didn’t. Dr. Cord was the one warned him of the risk, the one who told him he might die of it. So he’s the one I called.” Private Church nodded, as if he thought that very reasonable, and I breathed a little easier. He extended a hand and ushered me toward the door.

But before I stepped out, he spoke again: “I know I don’t have to say this, but let me say it anyway. Don’t leave Hyattsville, Mrs. White. O.K.?”

“Where would I go?” I said.

“Anywhere. But don’t.”

“Can you tell me what the reason is?”

“We might need you here, for the inquiry.” That was all he said, but I could see in his eyes there was more he wasn’t saying.

I went downstairs while Young and Church remained with the body. Araminta came in to the drawing room and I asked her to keep me company. Then Myra was there, and Leora, and we all four just sat there, not speaking. I started to talk, telling them I hadn’t made any plans, so I couldn’t speak of the future, but assured them that “whatever seems indicated,” I would deal decently by them, and help them find other work. They were quite sweet and understanding. Then the bell rang, and Church came down to let them in. Two men were there with a stretcher. They asked for the death certificate, and Church handed it over to them. Then Earl was going out, of the house, of this world, of my life.

This time it was I, not Ethel, who was calling the undertaker, or funeral director, as they now seem to be known. I called the same one, and a girl was on night duty. She said she’d contact the police the next afternoon to inquire about releasing the body. She thought it would take that long for the autopsy to be completed.

It was, as I’ve said, Friday night, and no funerals are held Saturday or Sunday, so the service would have to wait until Monday. Plenty went on over the weekend, however. Both newspapers called on Saturday morning, the Post and the Star, on the basis of the death certificate, which it seems they get automatically. They asked me about the circumstances of the death, but they didn’t seem to have heard too much yet, since they accepted my simplest answers and didn’t press for more. They also asked about Earl’s business, the one started by his grandfather and continued by his father-who would carry on now, they wanted to know. I hadn’t the faintest idea, but realized, with butterflies in my stomach, that I might have to make the decision.

By the time the afternoon editions came out with the story in them, the lawyer had come, Bill Dennison, flying down from New York with the will, the one Earl had drawn just a short time before, which left everything to me, except for some small bequests to the household staff and some to the people in Earl’s office-$2,500 to his secretary, and $1,000 each to the others, about a dozen in all. By the time I’d read all this and had some parts explained to me by Bill, I was getting dizzy. But more people kept coming, most of them strangers to me, but some of them friends, like Jake, Bianca, and at last Liz, who I craved to see most of all-not counting Tom, who did not show. I begged Liz to stay, to spend the night, to see me through what was getting to be an ordeal, but she couldn’t, having to work. While she was there Mr. Garrick rang the bell. He was the undertaker, and of course had to go over such things as the casket, the number of limousines, and the time of the funeral. He seemed to know about the White funeral plot. So, I chose a mahogany casket, the urn, after cremation, to be placed inside it, and on his suggestion, set twelve noon on Monday as the time of the funeral. He suggested his chapel for the services, and the Rev. Archibald Fisher as the minister. “He was Mr. White’s rector, and I think would be indicated.” I accepted all his suggestions, ordered four limousines, “just in case,” and then accepted his suggestion that he send one more car, just for me. “One of my men, of course, will take you over-and be at your disposal in case something comes up.”

“It’s on the air,” said Araminta, coming in right after he left. “Mr. Wilcox, he act like it was his brother.”

“You mean, the radio?”

“Yes’m.”

As Ethel kept hers on all the time I knew she must have it by now- the death, I mean. I wondered what I would say when she called. I found it was one thing I did not have to worry about. She didn’t call.

By nightfall Saturday I’d had it, and thought I would go insane if I didn’t get some peace. Suddenly I told Araminta I was going out, not to bother with dinner for me. I picked up a coat, went out, got in the car and drove to the Garden. I got there before the dinner rush started, so I could grab my regular table, and Liz was terribly sweet. She kept company, standing near whenever she could, meaning whenever she had a minute. She wouldn’t hear of my going out in the kitchen, but brought me my dinner right there, with knife, fork, spoon, and napkin. I had steak, and was surprised to find out I was hungry. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

Next day was Sunday, and when I answered the bell three people were there, a man and two women. I instinctively knew who they were, and as a matter of fact had been expecting them as soon as the story of Earl’s death had made the papers. I asked them in, offered them tea, which they didn’t take, and water, which the two women did. Then the man said: “Mrs. White, my name is Olson, and these ladies are my sisters, Mrs. Hines and Mrs. Wilson. Our mother was the first Mrs. Earl K. White, and we’ve come to find out if he did what he said he would do, make provision for us in his will, so we come into our proper inheritance, the money our mother left us, which he got from her by a trick, then told us he didn’t mean to help during his lifetime, ‘you’ll have to wait till I die.’ So, we had to wait. And what we’ve come to find out, Mrs. White, is whether he made provision for us, in his will. Have you seen it, Mrs. White?”

“Yes, so happens, I have.”

“What does it say about us?”

“Nothing. It leaves everything to me.”

He got up and took his hat. “O.K., Mrs. White,” he told me, “you’ve been very pleasant to us, and perhaps don’t know the details of how Mr. White cheated us. We do, however. We’ve been getting the proof together, so you can expect a lawsuit, to be filed against you tomorrow. That will is going to be contested.”

“That I seriously doubt.”

“It will be. That’s a promise.”

“Want to bet?”

“You being funny or what?”

I opened my bag which was on the sofa, took out a one dollar bill, pitched it down on the cocktail table, and said: “There’s a buck that says no suit is going to be filed.”

“This isn’t a joking matter.”

“Who’s joking?”

Reaching into his pocket, he put a dollar beside my dollar.

“O.K.,” I asked him, “how much did my husband owe you?”

“… Well that I couldn’t say precisely without figuring up.”

“Then figure.”

“It would take me some little time.”

“We have all day.”

“Hey, wait a minute-”

“For heaven’s sake, Vincent, she’s asked you how much-so, figure!”

That was Mrs. Hines-so loud Araminta popped in, asking: “You need me, Miss Joan?”

“No, Araminta. Thanks just the same.”

She left, and when I turned back to my visitors they were huddled around the table, using it as a desk to write on a half-sheet of paper Mr. Olson had fished out of his pocket, taking down information from several documents he’d laid out in a neat row. At last he turned to me, saying: “By the bank statements she left, she turned over cash to him, our mother I’m talking about, four different amounts, one of fifty-two thousand dollars, one of thirty, one of seventy-five, and one of one hundred ninety-seven-three hundred and fifty-four in all, that she meant to leave her children, to be divided equally between us.”

“And when was this?”

“Our mother died six years ago.”

“May I have the paper please?”

I took the paper, turned it over, borrowed the ballpoint, and wrote $354,000. Then I multiplied by.06, and got $21,240. I did that five more times after adding $21,240 to $354,000, so I was figuring compound interest. After six years, it came to $502,155.77 and I asked them to check my arithmetic. Then I got my checkbook, for the joint account Earl had arranged with me, and wrote three checks for $167,385.26 each. It was almost all the money in the main account, and I could understand why Earl hadn’t done it sooner-the account probably hadn’t had enough in it until he’d sold that new partnership interest in his company, and afterwards he’d wanted to hold onto the money to cover the expense of raising Tad. Well, I would still have that expense, and others besides-but paying the amounts these three were owed was the right thing to do. They had been on my mind since the day Earl first told me about them, and I wanted to square things up.

“You’ll just need to sign this to make it all legal,” I said, handing them, along with the three checks, a sheet of paper I’d asked Bill Dennison to prepare the day before. “I accept the amount presented herewith in settlement of all claims, past, current or future, against Joan White, the estate of Earl K. White, or any other,” it began, and went on in similar vein for the rest of the page. At the bottom were three lines for their signatures. One by one, they bent over the table and signed.

On his way out, Mr. Olson all but kissed me, and both his sisters did. “Mrs. White,” he said, “you’re so decent, I don’t know what to say.” He turned back at the door. “You win your buck, of course.”

“I said I wasn’t joking,” and smiled at him, the first honest smile I’d had since Earl’s death-and the last I’d have for some time.