The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

by Ariel Lawhon

Crater tipped his hat to Klein. “Probably won’t see you until session starts. Headed back to Maine first thing in the morning.”

  “And tonight?” He spoke to Crater but looked at Ritzi.

  “We’re off to see Dancing Partner.”

  “Again? It wasn’t that great the first time.”

  “That was Atlantic City. Thought I’d see if they worked out the kinks for the Broadway run. Besides, it wasn’t that bad.”

  Depends on who you ask, Ritzi thought.

  Crater stepped into the street to hail a passing cab. The whistle was shrill, and heads turned up and down the block.

  Klein pulled Ritzi in for a hug as Crater’s back was turned. “Why don’t you come over to my place when Joe’s done with you?” He ran a finger down her spine, and slipped it inside her open-backed dress, seeking territory farther down.

  “You’re not my type.”

  “Word on the street is that you have a price tag, not a type.”

  She stepped away, repulsed. “Apparently, you spend too much time on the street.”

  “With the right connections, you could lead on Broadway. A girl like you is too pretty to stay in the chorus line.” Klein shifted away as Crater came back to fetch Ritzi. “Keep that in mind.”

  HEAT still radiated from the pavement in waves, even though the sun had set almost two hours earlier. The temperature neared one hundred degrees that day, and with nary a breeze, fire hydrants were loosed, turning streets into shower baths. Fountains were commandeered citywide as adults and children alike rolled up their pants and splashed with mass indignity.

  “To the Belasco Theater,” Crater told the cabdriver. He slid into the backseat next to Ritzi, their thighs touching.

  The cab eased away from the curb and melted into traffic, keeping in the right lane. Several minutes later, it rolled to a stop in front of the Belasco. A black Cadillac pulled up beside them and emptied its passengers onto the sidewalk. Ritzi watched the pale disks of two straw Panama hats disappear into the theater. People rushed by on the sidewalk, all of them dressed for a night on the town.

  “Wait here,” Crater told her.

  Ritzi watched him jog up to the ticket booth. He leaned in, exchanged a few words with the teller, and took an envelope. Crater glanced back at Ritzi and frowned. Then he searched his wallet, slid a bill across the counter, and waited. Light from the marquee across the street bounced off the ticket window, reflecting STRIKE UP THE BAND backward. Somewhere behind the glass the teller must have refused Joe’s offer, because he took the money and stuffed it back in his wallet. Crater returned to the cab.

  “What was that about?”

  “I only had one ticket at will-call.” He lifted the envelope. “But they’re sold out and I couldn’t get another. Bribery aside.”

  “You could stay. I’m tired. I can take the cab home.”

  “No.” Crater tapped the ticket against his bandaged hand, then reached over the seat. “Change of plans, cabbie. Take us to Coney Island.”

  “Why don’t we go back to your place? Get some sleep?”

  “Not after what happened Monday.” Crater shook his head. “We don’t sleep at my place again.”

  The air inside the cab was warm and still, and Ritzi mumbled her displeasure at the change of plans. As they swung into traffic, a car behind them washed the cab in its headlights, and Ritzi squinted at the glare that bounced back from the rearview mirror. Her eyelids resisted efforts to open again. She was asleep before they reached Brooklyn.

  She woke to the smells of salt air and fried food. They parked near the Boardwalk, in front of Nathan’s Famous. She stretched and yawned as Crater helped her from the cab. Her sleep-addled brain skipped from one sound to another while he paid the fare.

  “A nickel, a nickel, half a dime! Come get your frankfurters—red hot, red hot!” The vendor stood on the Boardwalk outside Nathan’s, wearing a grease-stained apron and waving a hot dog in the air.

  “Shoot the chutes for a dime!”

  “Boiled peanuts. Get ’em while they’re hot!”

  The calls bounced and tumbled around her. She blinked into the chaos. Though it was ten o’clock, the party at Coney Island showed no signs of slowing down. Crater took her elbow and escorted her along the Boardwalk. Luna Park loomed before them, flashing lights and spinning wheels, a cacophony. Behind the gates rose the Cyclone. The roller coaster chinked and rattled up the wooden frame, and they stood, eyes locked on the cars as they hovered in a moment of suspended gravity. Then they thundered down at a stomach-lurching angle to the delighted shrieks of their passengers. Ritzi could feel the rumble in her feet.

  A barker, somewhere deep in the park, shouted into a microphone, “Never take your wife on the roller coaster. It’s every man for himself!”

  Ritzi lifted the hem of her dress and looked at her three-inch heels. Surely he didn’t expect her to ride the roller coaster dressed like this?

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Crater whispered, pulling her close. “We’re over there.” He pointed to a hotel, right across the street from Luna Park. Five stories tall, it reflected the garish lights of the amusement park in its many windows. She was too tired to read the name. He took her hand and wove through traffic on Surf Avenue. As they neared the hotel, she felt exposed and vulnerable, as though standing beneath a spotlight. You could end this right here. But she had long since passed the point of no return. Sally Lou Ritz let Crater lead her toward the revolving glass door.

  The lobby was empty, and she stood off to the side as he secured a room. They crossed the tile floor and slid inside the elevator. His lips were on her neck before the doors were closed. She shut her eyes, willed herself to relax. To respond.

  Several long seconds later, the doors opened to reveal the burgundy-carpeted fifth-floor hallway. Their room was at the end, facing the Boardwalk. He took the key from his pocket and slid it into the lock.

  Six windows spread across the wall in front of them, looking down at the spinning display of Luna Park. He pushed back the curtains, and lights from the Ferris wheel danced red, blue, and green on the ceiling. The rumble of the roller coaster vibrated the walls. Ritzi stood next to the window, fingertips resting against the glass. She could feel Crater’s breath on her neck.

  For once she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to walk into this hotel as his wife instead of his mistress. But the thought tumbled down as soon as she’d constructed it. The truth was, she didn’t even want to be here as the other woman, much less the only woman. She didn’t want to be here at all.

  Crater touched the base of her neck with one finger, tugging at a curl, and then ran it down her spine, to the deepest plunge of her dress. She fought the shiver that swept over her skin.

  The question popped out before it had fully registered in her mind, and she would have taken it back had it not hung in the air between them. “Do you love her?”

  His finger drifted to a stop. “Who?”

  Ritzi struggled to collect the words, to say them aloud. “Your wife.”

  A long silence, and then, “What’s it matter to you?” The tip of that one finger rested at the base of her spine, like a red-hot poker.

  Crater never discussed Stella except in passing and never in a personal way. As though she were a notch, an accomplishment. An irritant.

  She took a deep breath and spun to face him. His eyes were pinched. “I’d like to think that you love her.” She shrugged. I’d like to think that you’re sorry about this.

  Crater looked out the window behind her. “She’s a good wife.”

  Ritzi could hear the edge in his voice. She reached up and loosened his tie. Her voice was a hum, deep and sultry. “Does she know?”

  He lifted his bandaged hand. Turned it as though waving in a parade. A what-the-hell-do-you-think motion.

  A perverse sort of pride erupted inside Ritzi. Good for her. She kissed the tips of his fingers to hide the smile that threatened to spread across her face.

  “I’m going b
ack to Maine first thing in the morning,” Crater said, tugging at the straps of her dress. It dropped to the floor in a puddle of inky satin. “I don’t want to talk about my wife.”

  RITZI lay on her side, the sheet bunched beneath her chin. Crater was sprawled next to her, the rise and fall of his breath rhythmic. One arm thrown over his head and the other resting against the soft skin of her back. He twitched in his sleep, limbs responding to some dream. Just like a dog. Ritzi lay there until she was certain he’d dipped into heavy slumber. Then she slid away from his reach and out of bed. She gathered her things and tiptoed into the bathroom. She stood, garter and hose dangling from her fingers, and willed herself not to be sick.

  God, I hate that man.

  Time to leave. She did not want to be there when he woke up. Ritzi pulled on her lingerie and slipped the dress over her head. She reached for her shoes but startled when someone banged on the hotel room door. A heavy fist pounded, one, two, three times. She sucked in a sharp breath and listened.

  Another knock. Louder. More insistent.

  She instinctively flipped off the bathroom light and tugged the door shut with a soft click.

  Somewhere on the Boardwalk below, a big band trumpeted show tunes. She could feel the music vibrate through the floor and into her bare feet.

  Her mama always said that God gave women a way to know when something wasn’t right. A sense. An intuition. It rushed in on her then, a whoosh right up the spine. She spun around the small bathroom looking for a place to hide. There was no linen closet, only a cast-iron tub, a toilet, and a small cabinet beneath the sink, hardly large enough for a child, much less a buxom woman on the edge of panic.

  Out in the bedroom, Crater mumbled something in response to the knocking, but he didn’t get up. He was too far beneath the weight of sleep. Ritzi stuffed her purse and shoes into the cabinet even as she heard a shudder followed by splintering wood.

  Someone kicked the door open. Crater, now awake, was groggy. “What? What is it?” She imagined him blinking into the darkness of their room, eyes slowly focusing on the silhouette in the doorway.

  Ritzi ran a hand along the base of the cabinet and felt nothing but toilet tissue. Whatever sense of foolishness might have caused her to hesitate, to reconsider, was abandoned when she heard the scuffle on the other side of the door. The thud of fists on flesh and the low groan that followed. Then an order: “Close the door.” More voices. And footsteps inside the room.

  Sally Lou Ritz dropped to the floor and maneuvered into the cabinet, tucking the hem of her dress around her ankles. She had to press her chin against her collarbone and pull her knees into her stomach. She wriggled and squirmed, drawing all her limbs into the cabinet, praying that she couldn’t be heard outside the bathroom.

  On the other side of the door, Crater let out a bovine grunt. “Son of a—”

  “Court’s in session, Judge. My court.” The voice was low, controlled. “And you don’t speak unless called upon.”

  The sound of Crater being dragged out of bed.

  “Get him up.” Had she been able to pull herself smaller and smaller until she was a mite of dust, Ritzi would have at the sound of that voice. “And find the girl he came in with.”

  “Nothing on the balcony, boss.”

  “Check the bathroom.”

  The door banged open and Ritzi froze. The light popped on, an L-shaped wedge of yellow light appeared around the cabinet door, and there, at the bottom, a small corner of her dress peeked out. The trash can toppled over, followed by silence until she heard the rustle of a belt and the whiz of a zipper. She had plenty of time to anticipate the worst before hearing a splash in the toilet. He approached the cabinet with a heavy tread. One ear was pressed against the pipes beneath the sink, and she heard the rush of water as he washed his hands. He stood at the sink for a long time and Ritzi could clearly see the brown leather shoes in the crack of the door.

  “She ain’t in here.”

  Crater groaned out in the bedroom.

  “What’d you do with the girl?” the intruder asked.

  Crater’s voice was thick, confused, as though stuffed with cotton. He spit something onto the floor. “She was here.”

  A pause. “Well, she ain’t here now. Did she go home?”

  “I don’t know where she went.”

  Stuffed in that cabinet like a coat in winter storage, Ritzi’s muscles began to cramp. Her feet, bent at irregular angles, tingled as her circulation slowed.

  “Wrap him up.”

  The sound of the bed being stripped, peppered with Crater’s pleas. “Don’t. This isn’t necessary.”

  The beating began in earnest then, and Ritzi trembled inside the cabinet unable to block out the sickening screams of Joseph Crater. He thrashed and howled like the tourists on the Cyclone outside. After several minutes, he begged, “Please, whatever you want, I can make it happen.” A short gasp, and then, “You know I can. I’ve pulled strings before. Settled that last mess.”

  “Seems you been causing trouble for my friends, Joe. And they don’t appreciate that. Then they come asking me questions, which I don’t appreciate. Don’t like it when Samuel Seabury starts sniffing around. Way I see it, you’re the common denominator.”

  “We can sort it out.” Crater’s composure was gone, and Ritzi heard the terror in his voice.

  “That deal we made with Martin Healy was supposed to be taken care of clean and quiet. But now”—the slap of a newspaper across Crater’s face—“it’s front-page news. How the hell did George Hall sniff out that story?”

  “I don’t know shit about that. Nothing.”

  “You’re taking a ride with us, Joe.”

  “No—”

  “Clean the place up, boys. No one needs to know we were here.”

  Chapter Four

  BELGRADE LAKES, MAINE, THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 1930

  THURSDAY dawned dark and angry, and Stella woke to the lash of tree branches against the metal roof. A summer storm had blown in during the night. It was a sudden, full sort of wakefulness that dragged her from sleep, and she sat up, grasping at the edges of a dream she couldn’t quite remember. After a moment, she slipped from bed and padded down the stairs in her bare feet to rummage in the kitchen for a tin of coffee. She stood at the window, arms crossed, watching gray water slap across the pier. The lake looked furious. As the smell of coffee started to warm the air, she heard a knock at the kitchen door. Fred Kahler, crouched on the stoop, soaked to the skin. Hands cupped to his face, he peered in the window.

  Stella wore nothing but a cotton nightgown frayed thin from use.

  They realized this at the same time. Fred was about to leave when she held up one finger. Wait, she mouthed, and ran back up the stairs, face crimson.

  Her dressing gown hung on the bathroom door, and though she wouldn’t normally wear it in front of a man other than her husband, Stella didn’t have time to get dressed. On her way out of the room, she grabbed a towel and slipped on a pair of socks.

  Fred stared at his feet when she opened the door. “I’m so sorry. I—”

  “Come in.”

  He ducked inside, streams of water running from him in at least four different places, and offered her a grateful smile. Stella handed him the towel, and he wrung himself out while standing on it.

  “Coffee?”

  The puddle by his feet crept toward the potted fern. Fred stared at the trail of water. She could tell he was about to politely refuse. And suddenly the kitchen felt dark and lonely, so she said, “Just drop your jacket on the floor. It’s only water.” Stella picked two cups from the cabinet and poured him some coffee.

  Fred scooted across the floor with the towel beneath his feet, trying not to make a bigger mess. It was considerate. And funny. She laughed. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Black.” He took a gulp of the hot liquid and sank into a chair with a sigh. He stared at her sock-clad toes.

  “Cold feet,” she said.

  Her feet were fine, act
ually. She’d thrown them on because there was, by and large, nothing sexy about socks. And juvenile as it may be, Stella felt the need to counteract the sight he’d glimpsed through the window. She searched the icebox for milk and the cupboard for sugar. After Fred drove Joe to the train station on Monday, Joe had told him to stay behind. Fred had spent most of the week in his apartment behind the garage or tinkering with the car. The consequences of the situation were awkward, however. It had been years since Stella had been alone with another man.

  She stared at the coffee grains floating at the top of her cup. “Do you think he took the night train?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He didn’t tell you what time he’d come back?” She looked over the rim of her cup at Fred.

  “No.”

  “Did he say anything,” Stella balled her fist and pointed to it for emphasis—“you know, about what happened?”

  He inspected the bottom of his cup. “I like you far too much to repeat what he said, ma’am.”

  Stella nodded and rubbed her eyes. They sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking coffee and watching the downpour. When the minutes stretched long and Fred had drained his cup, he looked at the clock over the stove.

  “The next train will be pulling up any minute,” he said. “I’d better get going. Just in case.”

  “Probably best.” Stella forced a smile. “We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting.”

  Fred set his cap on his head and tapped the brim as he walked out the door. “Back in a few.”

  Stella finished off the pot of coffee but didn’t make another. Joe wouldn’t be on that train. Not today or tomorrow—or the next day, for that matter. She was certain of it. This was her punishment for what she’d done.

  RITZI stood in William Klein’s office like a beggar. The Schubert Association had not officially opened for business, but Ritzi implored the doorman to let her in. As usual, William Klein was in the office early, and he’d been only too pleased to see her. Until she made her request. There was no hiding the desperate note in her voice. “Do we have an agreement?”