The Enchanted Isle

4

In the morning he was still sleeping when I got up, and I expected to do a sneak, leaving a note for him while I went out and had breakfast and took the bus for the job I’d picked out. It said “Waitresses Wanted,” in a place called Gardenville, which I looked up on the Yellow Pages map and found out was on Bel Air Road, the other side of town. It meant a ride to the bus terminal, to start a new trip from there, and as “Apply Before 10 A.M.” was what it said in the ad, I had to start pretty early if I was to get there in time. So by 6:30 I was up. I took his things from the bathroom, where they were hanging over the tub, spread them out on the chair, then went in and bathed and put on my clothes, the same ones as the day before. But when I came out he was standing in front of the bureau, all dressed, combing his hair, and smelling of my cologne. “What you doing, Mandy? Taking a powder on me?”

“Thought I’d let you sleep is all.”

“What is this job you’re going for?”

I told him. “And where does the mink coat come in? You think you can buy one of them with the tips a waitress gets?”

“I told you, one thing could lead to another. I could meet someone as a waitress who’d be willing to buy me one.”

“If he was able, you mean. I never heard of a waitress meeting someone who bought her a mink coat. There’s only one thing about waitresses: they all got sore feet.”

“But not sore behinds from sitting on them.”

“Is that a crack?”

“Take it any way you like.”

By then I was packed, and I suppose he was, with his razor, comb, and toothbrush in his pocket where he carried them. So I led the way downstairs, carrying my bag and coat. I was about to pay for my call, the one I’d made from the room, but he pulled me back and whispered, “You want to get me checked out? So long as that call’s outstanding, we’re in until six o’clock and I still have a place to come.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get all the fine points.”

But like before, he entertained me at breakfast by crabbing, and it was a different counterman, but he threw me a wink too. And on top of the crabbing, he got off these words of wisdom: “Mandy, it makes no sense, none of it does. Come on back to the motel so we can talk things over.”

“I’m sorry, it makes sense to me. If it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I mean to get me a mink coat.”

“I wouldn’t mind buying you one.”

That was a guy at one of the tables, a big, thick-chested guy, sitting with three other guys, all from Colypte it seemed, and having breakfast here at the coffee pot after a night on the graveyard shift as they called it from time to time. I said, “Keep on talking, Big Boy. I mean to have me one, and any reasonable offer will get a receptive hearing. Do you have the price of one?”

“How about a package deal?” one of the other guys asked. “Suppose we all chipped in and kind of took turns on you, like in a secretary pool?”

“Or in a hippie commune?”

“Yeah, but we’d all take a bath.”

“Keep talking, you interest me. Like I said, I’m out for a mink coat and will do what it takes to get one. But the first thing it takes is cash, and that I’ll have to see before we sign any papers.”

“Baby, do we go for you!”

And more of the same, all sociable, all with laughing mixed in. If I meant it I can’t really say, though I must say I sounded quite wild. However, that was as far as it got, and I paid for the bacon and eggs, Rick’s as well as mine, left a dollar tip, picked up my bag, and started down to the bus stop, buttoning my coat as I went. So, of course, here came Rick. I walked to the bench and sat down, and lo and behold, so did he. I asked, “You taking the bus too?”

“Well, OK, if you want me.”

“It’s not a question of wanting. It just wouldn’t help, that’s all, you sitting around while I ask for that job.”

“Then you don’t want me?”

“I can’t have you, Rick.”

“You coming back here?”

“Well, this job is on the other side of town, and I would think a nearer place would be indicated. An apartment, like you said.”

“Then, it’s good-bye?”

“Not necessarily. I can write you where I am.”

“Write me? What address you going to use?”

“Why, ‘Care General Delivery, Baltimore, Maryland.’”

“Are you being funny or what?”

“Then, OK, Rick, you say what address.”

“How do I know where I’m going to be?”

“Well, you don’t have to start acting snotty.” What he was really leading to, as I knew, was to hit me for more money, and I wanted to give him some, maybe another five, maybe even a ten. But I was afraid if I took my billfold out, he’d grab it off me and run, and what I would do then I didn’t really know. What I could do, I mean. Because supposing I called a cop and he said the money was his, how could I prove it wasn’t? He’d said stuff like that before, from those stories he’d told me at dinner. And supposing the cop believed me instead of him, what would he do then? Hold me and call Mother? Or maybe Mr. Vernick, as his name was in the phone book? That would be nice, wouldn’t it? So I kept my handbag under my arm, the arm away from him, meaning to scream and bite if he wrestled me for it. So things were getting rugged, when all of a sudden two guys were there, both in jackets and slacks, and both with a strange look. I mean, ’stead of shirts in wash colors that most men wear, their shirts were dark blue or maybe black, with light ties, kind of sporty. One was kind of good-looking, around twenty-five, medium size, but nicely set up. The other, perhaps a year or two older, had a long lantern jaw, kind of blue, but fresh-shaved. It was the good-looking guy who spoke: “Hiya, Beautiful.”

“...Well... Hiya.”

“So you want a mink coat, is that it?”

“Who wants to know?”

Rick snarled it, though who gave him the right I don’t know, as I didn’t ask him to. And he jumped up, all ready to make himself objectionable. But the guy did not get upset. He said, “I do. I’m kind of curious about her. And you don’t mind, do you?” So with that he opened his coat, and out from under his arm was peeping the butt of a gun.

“...No, I don’t mind. OK.”

“OK, what?”

“OK, sir.”

“I thought that’s what you meant. Sit down.”

Rick sat down again, and I told him, “These gentlemen want something, Rick, that has something to do with my coat, and I’ll thank you to cool it now and let them say what’s on their mind.”

“OK, Mandy.”

“We’re not using names today.”

That was still the good-looking guy, who seemed to do most of the talking. He went on, “Call me Pal. My friend here, my sidekick, call him Bud. The young lady already has answered to Beautiful, and you can be Chuck. Are we all straightened out on that?”

Rick and I both said we were, and he pumped at me some more. “OK, Beautiful, you haven’t answered me what I asked. You want a mink coat, is that it?”

“You seem to know. How?”

“It’s what you said, there in the beanery.”

“Oh, you were in there too?”

“In the booth, having breakfast, yeah.”

“Well, who doesn’t want a mink coat?”

“And you’d do what it takes to get it?”

“I’d like to hear more before answering that.”

Because it came to me, if I had to sleep with him, or perhaps with the both of them, I wasn’t so sure anymore that I’d do what it took, irregardless of what it was. But then he really surprised me. What I said was “What would it take to get it? What are you getting at?”

“Like robbing a bank, Beautiful.”

“...Are you being funny?”

“Is that funny to you?”

“Well, I guess not. Not really.”

“It’s not funny to me either. OK, ’stead of all that beating and batting and banging around the bush, putting you in a pool, or whatever their idea was back in the greasy spoon, I got a proposition for you that’ll get you a mink coat today, a coat you can wear tonight, swing if that’s what you like in some club. And pretty as you are, you’ll be something to see. So what do you say? Will you do what it takes or not?”

“I say maybe, but I have to know more about it.”

“That answer pleases me.”

He turned to his friend, Bud, who nodded and said, “We don’t want no silly Jane that’ll jump off the roof if you tell her to. If she wants to hear more, it proves she’s got some sense.”

“Beautiful, what do you want to know?”

“In the first place, on something like this it takes people who know what they’re doing, so why would you want me, who knows nothing about it at all? Or do you want both of us? Or what?”

“...You done?”

“Well, that’s what I want to know first.”

“OK, we did have a mob, exactly the right-size mob, because the way we work it takes four. We don’t go in, shove a note under the window, and take what the girl hands out. We clean the joint out, and to do it that way takes four: one outside at the wheel of the getaway car; and three in the bank, two of us holding guns, the other holding the basket while the girl throws money in it. But the mob we did have we don’t have, not anymore we don’t. Because two boys who’ve been helping us out, two brothers who know their stuff, when we went to wake them this morning, one was stoned on horse, and the other wouldn’t leave him. So that puts us in the hole. But the job, if it’s going to be done, has to be pulled today. Today’s when the money is there, the extra payroll cash, and we dare not put it off, as maybe the word gets around, maybe the air smells funny, maybe something tells the cashier and he plays his hunch. From being in the hole we’d be in the soup, which we don’t really enjoy. Make a long story short, if today is the day, we need someone, and you fell into our lap — on account of you wanting that mink coat. Now, does that clear it up for you?”

“Well... yeah. I guess so. A little.”

“Chuck?”

“...There’s just one thing: so she wants a mink coat and that’s why you picked us out. But why would you trust us on something like this? How do you know I won’t call the cops? Phone from the motel and tell them there’s a couple of guys outside fixing to rob a bank.”

“OK, go ahead and call.”

“...You mean now?”

“Sure. By the way, what you going to tell them?”

“Like I said, that you’re fixing to rob a bank.”

“Which bank?”

“Well, I don’t know, you haven’t said.”

“If you don’t know which bank, you’ve got nothing to tell. It’s not against the law, fixing to rob a bank, if you don’t know which bank it is, so they can set up their stakeout. They can’t take me in for fixing. But they can take you in, and will.”

“...Take me in? For what?”

“Protective custody it’s called.”

“Protective? From what?”

“From having happen to you what generally happens to guys who rat.”

“Now I’ve got it. OK... sir.”

“I’m glad you have. Do you drive?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Beautiful?”

“I do, of course. But there’s something I have to do — go to the motel and pay for my call.” I explained about it and said, “I want to wind it up, so it’s not on their books and not on their mind. It’s a little thing, but I don’t want it to dangle.”

He stood staring at me, and I knew what was in his mind: that I wouldn’t have to phone the cops, just tell the woman to do it, and then come back real quick with a grin on my face and stall till the squad car came. At last he said, “OK, I’ll go with you.”

“No!”

That was Bud, coming to life like he was hit with a whip and proving at last that he was more than a stooge. He lit into Pal but rough: “You want to throw it away, the one edge they give us, spite of their both being punks? That nobody’s seen them with us, to idemnify? You go in with her, every goddam jerk in the motel can crucify you in court. It makes sense, what she says. I say let her go.”

“OK, Beautiful. Go.”

So I walked up to the motel, went in, and paid. When I came back, Bud said, “Let me look at you, kid.”

“Right in the eye, Mr. Bud. You see something shifty?”

“OK.”

“I want that coat.”

“I said OK.”

Bud asked, “Are we set?”

“There’s just one thing, sir.”

That was Rick. Pal said, “OK, Chuck, what is it?”

“This money, this dough we’re supposed to get, how’s it going to be split, Mr. Pal?”

“...Why, four ways, of course.”

“And when?”

“Soon as we switch cars. On a thing like this we use two to throw off whatever’s on our tail. Once in the second car, we can stop and make the split — put Beautiful’s share, and yours, in your bag, our share in our bag, which we have in the first car. Then we set you two down, you flag a cab and go with Beautiful, help her pick out the coat. You still don’t know us, who we are, to tell any tales, and likewise we don’t know you. Fair enough?”

“I guess so. OK, sir.”

“Beautiful?”

“I already said. I’m in.”

“Let’s go.”