“So, you’re some sort of – I don’t know – super woman? Like in that comic Georgie reads?”
“No, I don’t think –”
But George wouldn’t let her finish. He started pacing, then threw his hands in the air. “Just – well, just a minute now! I mean the mind-reading business was odd enough, but all this is just –” he looked at his wife as if she had just grown an extra head. “Are you a Martian?” he croaked, throwing a glance over his shoulder, as if someone might hear. “That business in Grover’s Hill a few years back, on the radio, and then everyone rushing around with towels on their heads – we thought it was all a ruse, a spectacle for the radio, but maybe that was all just a cover up –” He seemed frantic now. “Jeepers Creepers, Betty! Please tell me you’re not an extra-terrestrial!”
“Don’t be silly, George!”
“Well, well – that’s just – it’s not normal –” he stopped, seemingly now lost for words.
It was Betty’s turn for red cheeks. “I know it’s not normal, but I am just a regular woman, your wife, the same as I always was. I just have a few little differences that I’ve learned to take advantage of.”
“Take advantage?” George raised his voice, then dropped it again, looking around as if expecting a neighbor to pop their head through the front door, even though it was now past midnight. “Is that what you call it?” he hissed.
“We all have skills, George. We make the best of them. Look at you, you’ve won the Life Insurance Salesman of the Year Award for three years running now, they even gave you that lovely clock for the mantlepiece. Not everyone can do that.”
A nasty bark escaped him. “Ha! I hardly think it’s comparable. I can’t kill a man with a term endowment no matter how much I beat him over the head with it.”
“It’s no less impressive,” Betty said, trying desperately to steer the conversation back to civility.
“Speaking of beating people over the head –”
“George!”
“Well, I need to know. All of those men, Betty. How did you do it? By being faster and stronger than them? I’m sorry, but even that doesn’t feel like it’s enough. I mean, you’d just run away, wouldn’t you? That’s what a lady would do! What sort of woman fights bare-fisted with men?”
“Any woman who needs to defend herself, thank you very much.” Now he was getting on her nerves.
“Well, not just fights – but kills!? I saw the state of that basement. It was utter carnage! Are these memories I have – real?” George asked, his voice cracking. “The – killing? Did you kill them all, Betty?”
Betty lifted her chin. “Yes, I did. To save your life. And I’d do it again if I had to.”
That seemed to shut him up for a minute. George began his pacing again, pausing every few moments to stop and look at her, before his slippers continued back and forth. His shoulders dropped a little and slowly but surely, the indignation left his face. A few long minutes passed before he spoke again.
“How did you know how to fight like that?” he asked.
“I learned as a child.”
“A child? What kind of girl learns how to kill a grown man?”
“The kind that needs to protect herself, George.” Betty softened her voice, knowing how hard her next words would be for him to hear. “Jacob taught me. As a child, he was given opportunities to learn things that I wasn’t. Because he was a boy, and because his parents had money. He had lessons in boxing, martial arts, gymnastics, that kind of thing. Some of them he didn’t particularly like at the time, but he kept learning for me. So that he could teach me. In secret, of course.”
At this, George’s face turned scarlet. “Why?”
“Because I was surrounded by violent men. Jacob was trying to protect me. I wanted to learn how to protect myself, and as the years went by, well, I suppose I learned a little too well. Once I was Nancy’s age, and my strength and speed kicked in, I pushed myself even harder. We practiced for hours together. For years. Until I was nearly sixteen – and then I fell pregnant and it was too dangerous for him, and for the baby, for me to stay. I had to run away.”
“Secret lessons in street fighting? A young girl alone for hours on end, wrestling with an older boy and then –” He turned, his back suddenly stiff and his fists clenched. “And then with you getting – and him – and he took advantage of you, I’d say!”
“No, George, Jake would never –”
“He got you into trouble and left you with the baby –” George trailed off, looking around him wildly, as if trying to catch angry words that kept whipping past just out of reach.
“That’s not true. I told you, Jacob never knew about the baby –”
But George was pacing again, not listening.
“I mean, I knew there’d been something between you, since you admitted he was Nancy’s real father, I’m no fool – but so many years together? So many secrets between you?”
“He was just a child himself, George. You can’t blame him for wanting to protect me.”
“But I’m meant to protect you!” George shouted.
“But you didn’t even know me then –”
“And I’m not entirely sure I know you now!”
Betty recoiled. His cold words hit her like a blizzard.
“You don’t mean that.”
George stopped still. His mouth was set. His jaw clenched.
“Well, how can I compete with that, Betty? He knows things about you that I never could. He knew your real name, for goodness sake.”
“I didn’t think you’d remember –”
“I remember everything! I keep trying to forget.”
“I don’t understand, George. You seem more upset about my past with Jacob than knowing who I really am!” Betty said, now pacing the room in turn. “I could pick you up and throw you across the room. I could fling that cheese knife into your heart at one hundred paces! I could steal your most private thoughts and lay you bare in humiliation of them!” Betty paused her pacing, incredulous. “George, I could bring this house down around your head and all you care about is the time I spent with Jacob?”
George brought his hands to his face and turned his back on her.
“Because,” he said, roughly, “You wouldn’t do any of those things to me! I know you well enough for that. And that’s not the part of this that hurts.”
“But I’ve killed men, George!” Betty cried. “I’ve lied to you about it.” Now, she was almost hysterical. “I’m a terrible wife!”
“Well, I,” George seemed to be struggling for words, “I’m a terrible husband! Because I could never protect you the way he did, or the way you’ve learned to protect yourself. A year ago, our lives were just swell. But now I’m heading off to war and you’re fighting in the streets at night and everything is wrong-way-up!” George turned around. His eyes were dark and lost. The room ached.
“I think – I think I need some air.” With a huff, George strode from the room. Betty heard him take his overcoat from the hat stand. The front door opened. Then shut.
She collapsed onto the couch. Betty sniffed. She wiped her eyes and lifted her chin.
George knows the truth now. I’ve laid myself bare. And risked everything for it.
Betty got up, walked into the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea. She smoothed her hair in the reflection of the window, then stared out at the dark driveway. George was nowhere to be seen. She could have thrown her mind out and searched for him. She could have read his thoughts to seek the fate of her marriage. But no. She had promised herself never to read George’s mind. It was the only dignity she could offer him to repay her years of lies.
It started to rain, lightly at first, then heavier. The view from the kitchen windowpane was a haze. Rain and tears blurred her vision. After a few minutes, Betty returned to the living room with her tea. She sat down and wiped her eyes again. Her fingers nervously found the smooth, oval locket around her neck.
> And she waited.
It was nearly dawn when George came home. Bedraggled, sniffing from the cold, just as he had been the first time she’d ever met him at the drug store, sneezing and blown through the door with a flurry of snow.
As the door opened, so did Betty’s eyes. She looked up, from her place on the couch.
“Well?” she said quietly. “Am I to be burned at the stake? Sent to an asylum? Drawn and quartered? Divorced?” It was the last one that gave Betty a shiver.
“I considered the first few options,” George said, with sad and tired eyes. “But I think it would be a great injustice to deny the world your pickled cucumbers. And as for the last option, well, honestly Betty, I’m not sure I could live in a world where you weren’t my wife.”
“Oh, George!” Betty leapt off the couch and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“I’d like to understand you better,” he said. “Why you ended up doing – well, what you did. I may not be too street-savvy, but I’m no blue-nose either. If there’s more that I should know about, I’ll do my best not to judge.”
“I’ll put the kettle on, dear.”
Over a cup of tea at the kitchen table, Betty did her best to fill him in on the childhood she’d hidden from him for so many years.
“I suppose I should be thanking Jacob,” George sighed, after she’d finished her story. “For helping you when no one else did.”
“He’d tell you I did it all myself, you know.”
“Mmm.” George looked thoughtfully at his second coffee. “So it was Pinzolo you needed to run away from?” At least this part of it, George was familiar with.
“That’s right. Donny and his men, including my own father.”
“You never mention your father.”
“He’s not worth mentioning, George. He was an enforcer for Donny. A murderer.”
“A murderer,” he repeated. The look pained him. He took a biscuit.
“And there are others?”
“Murderers? Oh, certainly. Far too many in my opinion.”
“And when you go out at night, you, visit them, do you?”
Betty looked embarrassed. “If I feel they could use my services,” she said delicately. “So they don’t cause any more trouble, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do.” George thought for a moment. “And what, may I ask, are you, called exactly?”
“Oh, um –” Betty hesitated.
“You mean my… after-hours activities?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not really sure to be honest.” What was she? “It doesn’t come with a job description, so I’ve never really thought about it. I’m a wife. And a mother. And an Avon Lady.” George raised an eyebrow. “Alright,” she conceded. “And when the need arises, I suppose I also consider myself a – mmm, a person-who-rights-wrongs.” Betty studied her immaculate fingernails. “A lady vigilante, I suppose, if I must put a name on it.”
“A lady vigilante,” George repeated, nodding slowly. “And how many –?”
Betty’s cheeks flushed.
“That’s not a ladylike thing to admit, dear.”
“There must have been others before the orphanage. Please, Betty, how many men have you, I mean to say, well, you know –”
“Honestly, George! They were all bad!”
“But I’m your husband. I really feel like I should know –”
“I’d rather not say, darling.” She wasn’t just pink now, but a blazing shade of red.
“Jitterbug…”
A beat.
Betty sighed. It was the Jitterbug, that did it. She took a deep breath.
“One hundred and thirty-three.” Betty looked away, staring at the oven door to avoid her husband’s eyes. “Now, I know what you must think of me, George. Going out at night on my own. Finding men in the seediest corners of the city. Cutting their throats or beating them senseless or whatever else I have to do. It’s entirely unladylike, I’ll admit it.” Betty jumped to her feet and held on to the kitchen sink. Outside, the dawn sun was splitting over the rooftop next door. She turned back and began to pace the length of the bench. “But they had blood on their hands, every one of them! These were bad people, George. They needed to be punished.” Betty smoothed her hands down her nightdress reflexively and straightened her shoulders. “Murderers, all of them. Not a shred of remorse in their veins! Enforcers, drug traffickers, violent criminals who didn’t care who got hurt as they went about their nasty business. Now, if I thought for a moment that any one of them regretted what they’d done and sought to make amends, I would have reconsidered killing them.” She was twisting an apron in her hands now as she paced back and forth in front of the kitchen window. “But I could read their minds as easily as you read the Times over breakfast, dear. Their path was set. I simply stopped them from ever being able to cause more heartache. Or inflict more grief on innocent people. I may have murdered one hundred and thirty-three men, darling, but it’s not the number that matters – it’s whether they deserved it. And oh boy, did they get what they deserved! Any good woman would have done it. And for what it’s worth, I always looked respectable doing it! Well, almost always.” Betty turned back to her husband, eyes blazing. She had worked herself into a state. But to her surprise, George’s lips were pursed, as if trying not to laugh. He had finally reclaimed that easy humor the night’s earlier conversation had cost.
“There’s no need to get your nylons in a knot, Jitterbug,” George grinned, getting to his feet as well. “If they were anything like that lot at the orphanage, they deserved everything you gave them. And if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that my wife is always respectable.”
“Thank you,” Betty sniffed.
“The thing is,” George sat back down at the table. “Where does all this leave me? I mean, I’m meant to be your protector, not the other way around. I know that it’s 1943, and you gals are all modern and independent now – some even keep working after they marry! – but, well, looking after you is all I’ve got, Betty. That’s my job. At least, I thought it was. Now I feel like a fool. Compared to what you can do, I’m just some useless blivet, aren’t I?”
“Blivet? Oh, George, darling, no!” Betty reached down and grabbed his hand from the table. “I need you far more than you could possibly understand. You keep me sane! You make me normal. It might not sound like much of a thing, but it’s all I ever wanted. If I never killed another man, I’d be perfectly happy with you.”
He shook his head, amused.
“You sure know how to make a man feel swell about himself.”
“You saved me, George. Your love keeps me safe. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“And the lady vigilante business?”
“Well, I suppose it’s more of a hobby these days. Doing my civic duty. Something to keep me busy while you’re away. You know how I like to keep busy, darling.”
“I certainly do,” he said, chagrined. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The Avon appointments, the Marigolds church social committee, all those charity fundraisers, the Victory garden, the school volunteers, the –”
“Yes, yes, I quite get the point –”
George sighed. “This is different though. A lady vigilante that can pick up a couch and kill a man at a hundred paces with a cheese knife. That’s one thing most husbands don’t come home to.” He sat for a moment, pondering, then seemed to rally himself. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to come to terms with the fact, that out on the street, my wife wears the pants.”
“But at home, darling,” Betty said, earnestly, “the pants are all yours.”
“Are they really?”
Betty held out her other hand. George took it. “Would you like to find out?” She let him pull her to her feet. Sunlight was now streaming through the lace curtains of the kitchen.
“What do you have in mind?” George asked, suspiciously.
“I pushed t
he beds together earlier this evening,” Betty winked. “Lucky tie?”
“Good gravy!” George grinned. His eyes twinkled. “You know, Jitterbug, it seems you carry the burden of the world in those little arms of yours. Perhaps it’s time someone carried you instead?”
“There’s only one man who’s allowed to carry me, Mr. Jones.”
George swept his arm under her knees, the other behind her back. He lifted Betty off the ground, and up into his arms, like a bridegroom carrying his beloved over the threshold.
“I’m so lucky it’s me.”
Sergeant Jacob Lawrence took a step forward and placed both hands on the podium that had been set up outside the New York City Police Headquarters on Centre Street. The impressive building stretched along the city block, a monumental consolidation of the five boroughs working together under Roosevelt’s Commission, established nearly half a century prior. Grandly decorated granite columns flanked him on the steps of the portico, beneath baroque-styled arches and stone lions, making Jacob feel small and somehow tethered to the podium like a performing monkey. It didn’t help matters that the newly elected Mayor, Guilio Armond was standing behind Jacob near the open doors, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Police Commissioner, Bertrand Hendry. They were watching over the press statement with a critical eye, all official solemnity for the flashing cameras in the face of this latest string of bad news.
Far above Jacob, the enormous domed clocktower watched the city with four eyes, each ticking a metronome that Jacob felt pounding in his head. He was running out of time.
Despite his best efforts, he and Betty still had no solid leads on where to find the elusive Tin Man. Tilly had not remembered anything more since they had rescued her from Altan Karga, the runaway, now-dead, Turkish mobster. Jacob had kept Tilly out of his police report, and Karga’s death had been reported as self-defense at Jacob’s own hand, after the Turk’s attack on the fisherman and his wife. Tilly was safe, for now, at Kitty’s Kat House under the watchful eye of Madam Trixie. The real Boudoir Butcher was still at large.
Lady Vigilante (Episodes 16 – 18) (Lady Vigilante Crime Compilations) Page 2
