The Enchanted Isle

16

So the next three hours were nice. I’ll say they were, the kind of a nightmare you dream about all the rest of your life. After talking it over with me, holding my hand and telling me not to be scared, regardless of what Rick had said, Steve decided to call the Baltimore cops, not the Prince George’s County cops or the Town of Hyattsville cops, though, of course, they were just down the street. So he did, first getting the number from information. He had to argue about it, first with one guy, then with another, till he finally got one who was actually in charge of the case. He was told to hold everything, to “keep the girl there in the house,” and an officer would be over. Sure enough, the officer came, after a couple of hours, and heard us both tell our tale. But Steve’s, it turned out, was just as important as mine. Because he was the one who heard it, what the girl had said, what the operator told Rick, before the connection was made: “Deposit a dollar and a half, please.” That told it, not much but a little, where the call had come from — at lease in a general way, Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona, or New Mexico. It wasn’t much, but as the officer said, more than nothing. The main thing was Rick couldn’t get there that night.

But that was just the beginning. Next off, the officer had to call Baltimore, “the Chief,” as he called him, for orders on what to do next. So the Chief said take me in, to jail seemed to be the idea, “protective custody” so I wouldn’t get shot. That’s when Steve hit the roof, refusing to let me go for the reason I already was in custody, custody of my mother, and he was acting for her. Then he called Mr. Clawson, whose number he already had, and had him talk to the officer. The officer said orders were orders but that he would wait while Mr. Clawson called the Chief and the Chief called him back. So then we sat around and Steve put out some beer, when the officer kind of relaxed and wasn’t so bullheaded to us. Then the Chief called and they talked, first the officer and then Steve. And Steve said, “Chief, who am I to tell you your business and how to run it? Just the same, it makes no sense, taking this girl in. In the first place it’s wrong, and in the second place it’s dumb. Because, look, suppose he calls again? Suppose he’s stolen a car and is on his way to her? Or suppose he’s traveling by bus? Or plane? Or however he’s fixing to get here? And he puts in another call? Tonight? Tomorrow? Or tomorrow night? If she’s here she can string it out, hold him on the line while the call is traced, which takes a few minutes, remember. If she’s not here that does it, and nothing more can be done. If she is here we got a chance. And so far as him killing her goes, it won’t happen, that I promise you. I have a gun, right here in this house, in the downstairs table drawer. I keep it under a permit. Have to; I drive a truck. So no one’s going to shoot her.”

The officer was leaning close, out there in the hall, to hear what was being said, and I could tell by how he was acting that Steve had put it across. It was a half hour before he left, as calls had to be made, to the Baltimore cops, the Hyattsville cops, and the Baltimore cops again, to set the stakeout up so we could catch Rick if he called, or at lease find out where he was. But at last he did leave, and then we could go to bed. So once more I wanted Steve there to tell me good night, and once more he came. He knelt by the bed, and I kissed him and at last told him about the island. He said, “But Mandy, you want an island, we’ll have one, lessen they cost more than I think. Next month my rig will be paid for, and the house already is. We’ll have money to buy one. And even now we can have clams. There’s a place in Washington sells them, Little Necks, on the half shell!”

“Steve, now you’re the goof.”

“OK, but I love you.”

“And thanks for tonight. What you did, I mean, saving me from going to jail.”

“That was an idea, wasn’t it?”

Next day was Sunday, and the papers didn’t have it, but Steve said they’re printed early and don’t have the late stuff until Monday. Around ten Mother called, scared to death that I was in jail, and it turned out Mr. Clawson had called her the night before, but she wasn’t in the hotel and got in too late to give him the callback he asked for. Of course, count on Mother: Saturday night, town-painting on Saturday night as long as the red held out was what she loved most of all. So when she was calmed down, I made breakfast for Steve and me, eating it in my kimono, which I shouldn’t have done, as he could see plenty and once I caught him peeping. Then I dressed and the razzmatazz started — the same old thing, with people coming and Steve running them out, and the obscene bunch on the phone. So we started to go out for lunch, but a cop in a car stopped us and said we must stay in “to take any calls,” as he put it, meaning calls from Rick. So we did, and some canned shrimp were there, which I fixed on toast, with some vegetable soup to start and ice cream to wind up, as Mother had always had some for me. For dinner I put out steaks to thaw and cooked them in the broiler, with a baked potato apiece, peas and onion, ice cream again for dessert, and salad to start. Steve was awful nice, paying me compliments on how good I cooked. At eight Rick called again, and Steve ducked out the front door to yell at the cop in his car that he should start the tracer going, calling in on his radio phone, so the phone company would get busy on it, as they had said they would. So I commenced doing my stuff, bawling and carrying on so Rick would enjoy himself, the scare he was giving me, and hang on to hear some more. And he did, for quite some time, but then all of a sudden hung up, before the tracer was run out all the way. But they did take it as far as St. Louis, which proved he was somewhere out West, as I had thought all along. Because it didn’t look like, in Savannah, he would keep on with the trip that he and I had started. That more or less left the West. And this time Steve heard the girl say, “Deposit one dollar, please,” which seemed to mean he was closer, in El Paso or Denver or Omaha.

So we went to bed again, and I was happy and felt safe with Steve. Monday the papers had it, Rick saying he meant to kill me, but not a big story at all, or pictures or anything. Which seemed funny, but that’s how it was. Then something had to be done to get some food in the house, as we were running low. So when Mrs. Minot came again to put her nose in it once more, right after Steve rang his replacement to take the truck to New York for still another trip, Steve got her into the act to go out and buy us some stuff. I made out a list for her and Steve gave her twenty dollars, so at last she said she would and went off in her car. Pretty soon she was back, with a shopping bag full of stuff and $6.42 in change, which Steve told her to keep “to help pay for your gas.” So that relieved on the famine and also relieved on her. Because once she’d taken his money, she more or less had to shut up, the stuff she was talking around, as people had called in to tell me. It was kind of a gain all around.

That night the bell rang again, for the 1001st time, and when Steve opened the door it was Mother. “Seems so strange,” she said, “to be ringing the bell of this house, instead of coming right in with my key.”

So, of course, we said she could have and was more than welcome, but she said, “It’s not my home anymore. I guess that’s why I rang. My home, my new home, my real home, means so much to me, I can’t let myself have two, even from force of habit.”

She was dressed very quiet, for her, in a dark gray dress, with a black crepe coat that she carried. And parked out front was the Caddy. But when I asked where Mr. Wilmer was, she said, “Paris. He flew over this morning on that business he had, which would have been waiting for him on our wedding trip. He sells liquor there, you know.”

“But why didn’t you go?” I asked. “I’d have been all right here in the house with Steve.”

“Couldn’t. Can’t leave the country, you know.”

“You mean on account of me?”

“The judge ruled it out.”

“Then, Mr. Clawson called about it?”

“The answer was I had to stay here.”

“Then I really loused you, Mother. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

We all went in and sat down, and she did not throw it up to me, how the mess I’d got myself in was cutting her out of the trip. So then the bell rang again, and who was there was a girl, in jeans and T-shirt and loafers, a little bit older than I was, who waved at me from the hall and said, “Hello, Mandy. I’m Esther Childs,” acting as though she knew me. I didn’t place her at all but tried to act friendly with her, as I did with all the rest, and asked her into the living room, introducing her to Mother and Steve. We all sat down and she commenced talking along. She asked how I’d been. I said fine, and I asked how she’d been. She said fine. She said, “It’s been a long time since Northwestern High.”

“Well, not over a week.”

“I graduated year before last.”

“Yeah, I thought you looked older.”

There may have been more, I don’t know, but if it wasn’t making much sense, I didn’t pay too much attention, as none of it did — the stuff that people got off after they got in the house. But all of a sudden Mother leaned toward her and said, like to warn her, “Watch it, Esther, please!” and pointed off to one side. When the girl’s head snapped around, Mother grabbed her handbag. The girl started to scream, but Mother stepped out in the hall. When the girl followed, Steve grabbed her. Then Mother opened the bag and took out a gun, a shiny, snub-nosed thing with bullets showing. Said Mother, “Now, young lady, who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Give me that gun! Give me...”

“Come on, say something!”

With that, Mother pointed the gun right at her and the girl started to scream, “No! No! No! Please!”

“Did you hear me?”

“Mrs. Wilmer, I’m Esther Davis.”

“Davis? That’s Rick’s name.”

“Yes, Ma’am. He’s my brother.”

I remembered then, Rick had mentioned a sister as the only one in his family who ever treated him decent. Mother went on, “He put you up to this?”

“Yes, Ma’am. He called.”

“He sent you to kill Mandy?”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Wilmer. I couldn’t have. He told me to get her bag, her handbag, to see if she still had the keys to the suitcase they bought in Baltimore to carry the money in.”

“My God, Mandy! Have you?”

That was Steve and I couldn’t answer, as it was the first I’d thought of the keys since we locked the money up in the suitcase that we bought in the Mondawmin Center in Baltimore. My bag was there on the table, and at once I opened it up and dumped it in my chair so what was in it shook out — all kinds of different things, like a coin purse and Kleenex and ballpoint and lipstick and perfume. And, sure enough, here came the keys, two of them, flat ones, but little. Mother told Steve to take them, saying, “I think we must call Mr. Clawson, and, frankly, I don’t know what to do next — with her, I mean.”

“I know we have to call him.”

So they did and, of course, spent a wonderful evening. Mother held Esther at gunpoint while the cops rang in and told us to wait, they’d be over. We did and they came after perhaps an hour, but when they got there they figured the gun was a local offense, a job for the Prince George’s police. By that time Esther was begging to call her parents, so they let her and they came, the first I met Mr. Davis or Mrs. Davis, either one. Mother let them in, and they no sooner laid eyes on Esther than they commenced bawling her out. I said, “If you’d been nicer to Rick, ’stead of bawling him out all the time, same as you’re bawling her out, it all might have turned out different. Junior Jezebel talking, if you don’t like it, who cares if you do or not?”

“Jezebel, cool it! Father talking!”

That was Steve, and everyone laughed, even Esther.

Next off, Steve, Mother, and I were down in the county police station, at the building they have in Hyattsville, to sign on for the charge against Esther. By that time the papers had it, and the reporters were there with photographers, and Steve gave out for them. They took Mother’s picture, and the cops let her hold the gun, which she did, looking like one of those gunmen’s molls in a movie. Then we all went to the Cucaracha, a place in Cottage City where there was kind of a show with jokes, but they only had one joke, which was the girl scratching herself, like bit by the cucaracha. Then Mother kicked in, to her and her dancing partner, and they did the hat dance for her. So she was living once more, laughing and having fun. When she drove us home in the Caddy, she was weeping as we got out, Steve and I. She said, “I hate to go. I wish I could spend the night.”

“Well, what’s stopping you?” asked Steve.

“I can’t. I have to get back to the hotel.”

“You’re still there?”

“Yes, will be till Ben gets back.”

Then at last, Steve asked what I wanted to ask, but for some reason hadn’t, “How did you know she had that gun?”

“The funny way she was acting, the goofy way she talked. What was she doing there? What did she want? It seemed to me she was hugging the bag too close, so I decided to have me a look.”

“I’ll say you did.”

“Mother, I never once thought of it.”

“You love someone, you think.”

She kissed me and kissed Steve, and then he and I got out. She drove off, looking beautiful as she waved to us.