But I cut in on her and asked, “Speaking of him, why would he say what he did? That I wasn’t his child at all?”
“To save himself money is why! He owes me nine thousand six hundred and fifty dollars of the fifty-a-month I was given that the court awarded me for your support, of which he’s never paid me one cent! That’s why he pretends you’re not his. But you are, just the same. And a chip off the old block, I would say. My, how your character resembles his!”
So, of course, that made me feel fine, but she went right on, feeling sorry for herself, “And here now at last, when I thought I might have some peace, a change, a chance to relax, perhaps enjoy myself a little, you have to do this to me!”
But on that Steve got in it. He said, “Sal, maybe to you it’s just an interrupted good time, but to her, to Mandy, it could mean going to prison, years out of her life, and perhaps even worse. So knock it off about your trip. We got real things to worry about.”
“My, my, my! Listen at him!”
She went over and popped a kiss on his cheek, which for some reason ’furiated me. I said, “Whatever the truth about me, between you and this awful rat Vernick, this much seems to be clear, which nobody can deny: last night, Mrs. Wilmer, was the first night in your life that you had the connubial bliss while united in holy wedlock. So I can well understand that you hated to be interrupted by such a crumb as me. Is that what you call it, connubial? Like in nubial? Which means hot in the pants but light in the head?”
That settled her hash but good. She gave a yelp, staggered to the sofa, stretched herself out, and bawled. But even during that all I could really think of wasn’t how I had clobbered her but how pretty she was. She was still a month less than thirty and just about my size, medium verging on small. Her face was good-looking all right, but slightly beat-up, so it seemed. I don’t mean from somebody banging it, but from banging on the inside, like she didn’t sleep good at night. Her eyes, like I said, were hazel, with a friendly, flirty expression, ’specially for men when she looked at them, but at the same time had kind of a hunted expression, like she wasn’t quite sure of the look she’d get in return. Her hair was something to see, dark glossy red, and she combed it out on her shoulders in big, thick curls. But the main thing about her, what you couldn’t take your eyes off of, was her figure. It was slim and soft and willowy, about my size. And did she know how to dress it! Today she had on a bottle-green linen suit to go with her hair in contrast, the skirt short as the law allowed to show off her beautiful legs. She was something to see all right, doing her stagger, but not any stumpy stagger like she was going to fall. It was a slow, sad, and slinky stagger, kind of sexy if you know what I mean, much like her regular walk, except not with the bottom twitch. When she finally got to the sofa, she didn’t flop down kerbam. She kind of melted down till she was all stretched out, one toe touching the floor in a graceful way, the back of her skirt hiked up to show her good-looking bottom. Then, one sob at a time, she commenced doing her stuff, till she was bawling good, with Steve still there saying nothing, and me hollering at her, saying over again what I had said, till he cut me off with a wave of one hand.
That’s when the bell rang and Steve let in Mr. Wilmer, who had been gassing the Caddy up. He waved at me from the hall, and I have to say I was impressed. He’s a blond guy, not much older than Mother, though two or three years I would say, with light curly hair and a nice clean, well-scrubbed look. He’s big and had on a gray summer suit, but with a collar that hugged his neck and a cut like in the ads. He stood there and smiled when I waved back at him. But then came a whoop from Mother, and he stepped into the room and saw her. Real quick he went over and knelt, taking her in his arms and whispering stuff to her. Then she really hooked it up, “Ben, I can’t help it, I have to! It’s not it, it’s her, that dreadful little viper!”
“That what?”
“Viper!” I screamed. “It means rattlesnake...and shows what she thinks of me, exactly what she thinks!”
“Oh! I thought she said diaper.”
“I had to shut her up,” I said.
But at that, he came over to me, put his hand on my head, and asked, “Don’t you know how to shut someone up? The quickest, surest way?” He waited and then went on, “You go over and give them a kiss. You cover their mouth with your mouth, and then they can’t say anything. It shuts them up complete!”
“You think I would? With her?”
“I don’t think. I know.”
His voice was like ice, and Steve said, “You heard him, Mandy. Get going.”
“I’ll think about it.”
But a big hand grabbed my wrist and yanked it, and then there I was beside Mother, my face being pushed against hers. So then I could taste her tears. So then I wanted to kiss her and did. And then, lo and behold, she kissed back, real hard, the first time in her life, in my life that she had. Then we were holding on to each other, crying and kissing and happy.
Pretty soon Mr. Wilmer lifted me up and led to a chair, where he pulled me down in his lap. Then he said, “OK, begin, Mandy. I have to know what happened.” So I told it once more, like to Steve the night before, but maybe quicker this time, so it took no more than two minutes, call it five. When I finished, his face was screwed up like something was hurting him, and to make him feel better I said, “But no one suspicions us. No one has any idea. How could they? No one knows we were there!” But when I tried to go on, he laid his hand on my mouth and asked, “Can I borrow the phone?” And Steve took him to Mother’s extension upstairs. He was back in a couple of minutes, saying, “I just talked to Jim Clawson, my lawyer, and it took a little persuading but he’s agreed to take charge of the case. He may want a trial lawyer later, but as of now he’s it. He wants us over there, at his office in Baltimore, at two o’clock, and as it’s nearly eleven now, and we’ll have to get some lunch, I’d say it’s time we got started.”
He said we could all go in his car, but Steve wanted me with him “so we each have our own transportation.” I would have liked a ride in the Caddy but went with Steve as he said. But before Mr. Wilmer came down, and while we were waiting for him, Mother beckoned me over, made a place for me on the sofa, then pulled me down beside her and went back to kissing me. She said, “You’re such a sweet, pretty thing, Mandy. I’d die before letting them harm you. You’re my own, my wonderful child. Now I feel it at last. Thanks to that wonderful man, my husband.”
“And me,” said Steve.
“And you!”
She got up and went over and kissed him.
13
MR. CLAWSON WAS A guy around forty, in a blazer and gray slacks, tall and slim, but with square shoulders that looked pretty strong. He was the middle one of a firm, Digges, Clawson, and Llowndes, though I didn’t meet the others, and he had offices in the Fidelity Building, which is big but pretty old, right in the center of town on Charles Street. It was only a couple of blocks from Marconi’s, a nice place where we all four had lunch. And then we walked to the Fidelity Building, leaving the cars on the parking lot on West Saratoga Street, which was where the restaurant was. Mr. Clawson’s office was one of a suite, with a reception room in front and a girl at a switchboard desk. The ceiling was high, with a mahogany desk, broadloom rug, leather chairs, and bookshelves to the ceiling lined with law books all in maroon. He sat us down very friendly, and after a few minutes’ chat, with expressions of real surprise at the news of the wedding bells, he got down to brass tacks, and once more I had to tell it. But this time it took a lot longer because he kept questioning me about why Rick and I got in it. He kept talking about “coercion” and taking me over and over it, the effect it had on us, when Pal—or Matt Caskey, actually—kept tapping his gun. Then I saw he was heading me off from blaming the coat for it all, as I had when telling Steve and, of course, Mr. Wilmer too.
I owned up I was scared of the guns but insisted I wanted the coat to go and show my father; and that was the reason I had for telling those two guys yes. He seemed annoyed and stu
died me hard. Then pretty soon he said, “Mandy, the way you tell it, do you know who’ll get immunity?”
“Me, I hope.”
“Nobody. Do you know who, when the case comes to trial, is going to get acquitted? The way you tell it, I mean?”
“...I hadn’t thought.”
“Rick.”
“Did you say Rick?”
“Yes. He was forced, at gunpoint, to help out.” He let that soak in and went on, “Do you know who’s going to be convicted and sent to prison?”
“Well, I’m the only one left!”
“That’s right, you.”
It wasn’t so much what he said as the hard, cold way he said it, and spite of all I started to cry. Mother came with a Kleenex and wiped my eyes. When she stepped aside he went on, “As you tell it, you went in of your own free will to get yourself a mink coat to flaunt in front of your father. Rick went in from having to, from being forced at gunpoint after doing his best to back out. That adds up to coercion.”
“He stole the money, though!”
“He used it, as you tell it, as a shield from the bank guard’s shots, after having once dropped it and started out to the car.”
“I mean he stole it off me!”
“Mandy, quit being silly!”
That was Steve, cutting in to remind me we’d been over all that, when I started yelping at supper the money was half mine. He snapped, “How could he steal it off you when it wasn’t even yours?” I guess I saw the point, but it still seemed to me that if no one knew we were in it, then it was ours, like finders-keepers. Mr. Clawson waited, then went on, “I’ve said, I’ve repeated, Mandy, as you tell it. So if you want Rick to go free while you spend ten years in prison, you keep on telling it that way. But if you want immunity, if on thinking it over you prefer it to serving time...”
“I don’t think you like me very much.”
“I like you fine. You’re very easy to like, very pretty, very attractive. But I shouldn’t deceive you just to get one of your smiles. That might be pleasant for me, but for you, in the Maryland Penitentiary, it might not be pleasant at all.”
“It’s not a question of liking.”
Steve snapped it so sour that Mother had to make with the Kleenex again. Mr. Wilmer came over, touched my cheek, and whispered, “You’re not doing very good.”
“I know I’m not. I’m sorry.”
But him being there made me feel better. He asked, “Why don’t you listen just once? ’Stead of giving an imitation of a bullheaded calf?”
“OK.”
Mr. Clawson laughed, so his face lit up real nice, and that helped. I said, “I tell it like it was.”
“You mean you’ve been telling the truth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The whole truth might be more than you’ve told so far. As you tell it, and as I hear it, I can’t believe that that gun had no effect. I have to believe it did, and that the coat notwithstanding, it was the main thing driving you into this crime. Still the gun I’m talking about. That’s what I believe, after hearing you tell it. What about you, Mandy?”
“Well, of course I was scared of the gun, but...”
“Never mind the but for the moment. You were scared of the gun, first, last...”
“And during.”
“That’s it, now we’re coming!”
“I’d have been paralyzed!”
That was Mother, turning her eyes on him so he responded with a smile, which no man ever denied her. He said, “So! We’re getting somewhere at last, with no violation, not the slightest, of the truth. Next, of course, is the coat. Where is it, by the way?”
“I left it home.”
Which I had, as the day was warm and a light jacket, which I had in my lap, was all that I’d brought with me. He said, “Fine, but before we go into it, what’s to be told about it, there’s one angle of this case that overshadows everything, and we have to go into it before we talk about coat, father, or anything else. I’m referring to Rick, of course.”
“Oh, him!”
“You must join your case to his, do all in your power to help him.”
“That yellow-bellied rat? Who ran out on me that way? Who played me that rotten trick?”
“It’s precisely his yellow belly that’s the key to the whole thing, the one chance you have to get off. Because in spite of the luck you both played in, in spite of your pad as it’s called, this very nice room you were able to share, he was so scared he couldn’t, and you didn’t want him to. This couldn’t have been invented; it’s proof of the truth of your whole story any jury would have to believe: that both of you went along, took part in this dreadful crime from pure terror. And on top of that was Rick’s perception of something you didn’t see, his catching a sign that was passed that meant you both would be killed. All this, if you join your case with Rick’s, can get you off. It can get you immunity, can extricate you from this mess. Once that approach is made, other things, like the coat, the reception you got from your father, your reasons for leaving home, pale into insignificance. You were a couple of panicky kids who did something you shouldn’t have, but now, when at last you’ve thought it over, you’re stringing with law and order, helping us recover the money, helping us find Rick, helping us show him that he must get with it too!”
“Mandy, I think that’s it.”
So said Mr. Wilmer.
“Of course it is.”
So said Steve.
“But I hate him!”
So said I.
“Have you ever seen a prison?”
So said Mr. Clawson, and I started to cry again. But he was the one that time who took the Kleenex from Mother and wiped my tears with it. He went on, “I have, Mandy. I’ve had to go there once or twice in connection with legal matters. There’s no such hell beyond the grave. There couldn’t be, as no decent God would ever create what men have brought forth on this earth. It stinks. It hasn’t one ounce of compassion from end to end, from top to bottom. No mouthful of decent food is ever served in it, no love is felt, no jokes are cracked, no hope ever shines in. And they keep you there years and years, so long it makes no sense, but you stay there just the same. Are you sure you hate that boy this much? That you’d go to prison to wreak revenge on him?”
“OK, I’ll do what I can.”
“You have to do better than that!”
“I’ll fight for him, then.”
“That’s better.”
“But I won’t want to.”
“Mandy, will you wake up?”
“Mr. Clawson, I’ll really hit it a lick.”
“That’s what I want to hear. Kiss me.”
I kissed him, and Mother started to cry. I started to cry. Mother gave him the Kleenex, but he wiped his own face off. Then we were laughing and pressing each other’s hand.
Turned out, though, that beating some sense into my head was just the beginning of it. “Now,” he went on, “we take up the next thing: who makes the pitch?”
“Break it down,” said Mr. Wilmer, “so we know what you’re talking about.”
“Who faces the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, or the assistant in charge of this case, the bank, and the police and pins them down to a deal—immunity for Mandy in return for what she knows, the help she’ll be able to give in the recovery of the money.”
“I thought that was your job, Jim.”
“It would be my job, except that in this case it can’t be. Because when I declare myself as her counsel, I have to surrender her or be charged with harboring a fugitive from justice. I can surrender her, that’s true, clam her up under the Fifth Amendment, and to that extent freeze the game—stand pat and leave the next move up to them. The trouble is they will move, and so fast it’ll take your breath. The second they know who she is, they’ll get the rest one, two, three, like that—Rick’s identity, his whereabouts quite possibly, and anything else they need to get the money back and bring these kids to trial. Ethics bind me hand and foot. I can’t make thi
s pitch in the way it has to be made if we’re to get anywhere, if we’re to get a deal.”
“Go on, Jim. What’s the rest?”
“Someone must go to them, through me, of course, with news of a friend of his, sex as yet undisclosed; who helped out on that crime; who knows the police are off on a wrong scent trying to find the Rossi brothers; who is willing to help, with information that may be of value, in recovering that money; but who won’t talk, won’t say one word, one word of any kind, unless granted immunity.”
“Meaning me?”
“Ben, meaning you as I would assume, but you’re not involved in this crime, you can’t take the Fifth Amendment, and as a material witness you can be made to talk.”
“Yeah? How?”
“You can be jailed until you do.”
“Now I have it.”
He studied Mr. Clawson, trying to make up his mind whether to put his head on the block. He swears now he would have, and I believe him, but it didn’t get that far. Suddenly Steve spoke up, “How about me, Mr. Clawson?”
“You? Mr. Baker, is that your name?”
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