The Rag, The Wire And The Big Store

by Duane Lindsay

  Part Two is the next afternoon. The bridge game is of course cancelled and Heidi is nowhere to be seen but Hardwicke is back in the exercise room working up a sweat. Kate scopes him as she wanders by, gives the high sign to Leroy when he gets up to shower and he takes a position in a shady nook three levels down from funnel two with a portly guy he’s paid.

  The guy’s overdressed in the new mod fashion from Carnaby street in London; frilly collar and cuffs, pink paisley shirt and tight pants. He’s stroking Leroy’s arm as Hardwicke storms by, pointedly ignoring them. He takes a seat at a table a long way and orders coffee, chain smokes and reads the paper as if he’s mad at it.

  Leroy and his new friend saunter down the promenade hand in hand, pause at the railing to watch the gulls and the roiling white wake six stories down. “No way I’ll jump off this ship,” Leroy announces.” If the boat goes down I’ll just wait until this deck reaches the water, then just step off.” His friend giggles and Hardwicke rattles the newspaper in annoyance.

  He’s looking anywhere else when he hears the friend say, “But I want it, Charles!”

  “I know that, Francis. Don’t you think I know that? It’s just that she won’t sell it. Sentimental value, she says. You understand sentimental, don’t you Francis?”

  “But it’s so beautiful, Charles. I haven’t seen a Van Topen necklace as good as that in all my years apprising. Our shop simply has to have it!”

  “Francis! Keep your voice down. “He glances around, Hardwicke looks away. Leroy takes the guys arm and they move down the railing. Hardwicke, straining, hears, “Sure, but if she won’t sell, what am I supposed to do?”

  Offer her twenty thousand,” says Francis as Hardwicke’s ears spin like radar dishes.

  “Are you kidding? It’s worth five times that.”

  “But Charles,” says Francis. “She doesn’t know that.”

  Two things hit Hardwicke at once, reeling him like the wheels on a Vegas slot machine. First, the guy he was fighting yesterday wasn’t after Heidi’s hide at all. The guy’s a faggot. He sees him running his hand up and down the other man’s arm like a lover and shudders, appalled. Not at the idea of homosexuality, he’s too worldly for that, or at the public display. Hardwicke’s view is anything goes as long as it doesn’t scare the horses.

  No, the real issue—the first real issue—is that he owes Heidi a major apology. They’ve only been married for a year and the novelty of her hasn’t worn off yet and he knows this isn’t going to blow over quickly. He yelled at her in public. In front of her idols, George and Gracie. Over a damn faggot.

  And he’d hit her pretty hard last night, let’s not forget that; screaming at her about being a whore, flirting with other men.

  Christ on a crutch, when she finds out.

  But the other thing…the necklace. He pictures it on Dilly’s chest, sparkling in the sun. Yesterday it was merely a pretty bauble, today it’s a Van Topen worth a hundred thousand. Pounds or dollars, the exchange rate is pretty even right now.

  He gets the idea then. Buy the necklace, give it to Heidi for a while, until her heat cools, then sell the thing for a huge profit. He can even buy it from Dilly after the ship reaches port and she carries it ashore. That way he won’t have to declare it.

  He’s forgotten all about the gay men as he sips and smokes and watches his bank balance rise. He thought is so enticing that he’s rising with it.

  But where’s Dilly?

  The damn boat docks at Southampton in three damn hours and Hardwicke hasn’t seen the damn redhead anywhere. He’s made his peace with Heidi by promising her the necklace so all’s well in the stateroom, but it won’t be for long if he can’t find the damn redhead before the damned boat docks. And what if she’s already sold it?

  Damn!

  They’re passing the White Cliffs of Dover, not a hundred miles from port when he sees her, leaning on the rail watching them go by. She’s wearing a tight black skirt and flat shoes skirt and white blouse, looking like one of the girls in his office, with a jaunty blue scarf flapping in the breeze around her red hair. He sidles up, wondering what his pitch is going to be.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” he says formally, tipping his hat as she looks over. He sees her reaction and immediately begins to apologize. “I want to tell you how sorry I am for my behavior the other evening,” he lies. “I’d have done so earlier but I haven’t seen you since…then.”

  “Well, Mr.…?”

  “Hardwicke, ma’am. Larson Hardwicke.” He takes her hand gently, no trace of the bully anywhere.

  “Mr. Hardwicke,” says Kate. There’s a frost in her voice. “That was quite a scene you caused. I must say I am not inclined to accept your apology.”

  “I assure you, I am sincere,” Hardwicke lies. Damn woman; what is her problem?

  She tells him and his heart sinks. “The gentleman you so savagely attacked has been discussing things with me. I find him a most convivial fellow. Unlike you, sir.”

  He can’t help himself. “Discussing …things?”

  “Of a commercial nature. Not that it’s any of your business.” She turns away and Hardwicke takes her arm to stop her. Angrily she spins back and slaps him.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to touch you. It’s just that…it’s just that…” He’s got nothing, no words, no lies, no…wait. “It’s just that Heidi; you recall Heidi, my wife?”

  “The young woman you treated so poorly? I can hardly forget.”

  “Well, Heidi, she saw your necklace and I, I promised her…she thought it was so beautiful that I…”

  “You want to give her my necklace so she’ll forgive you? That’s marvelous! Mr. Hardwicke, I’d laugh in your face if I wasn’t a lady. I already sold the necklace.”

  There’s that heart sinking thing again. “To who?” he asks, knowing to who.

  “Again, none of your business.”

  “It’s the fag, isn’t it? You sold it to the fag.” Larson Hardwicke has trouble sometimes with his words, saying them before engaging his brain. His father tells him that, often, in conversations usually starting, “Larson, you are one dumb jackass.”

  “To a gentleman,” Kate says. The chill tone has become glacial now.

  Desperate as she again starts to leave Hardwicke says, “I’ll pay more!”

  Kate turns back.

  “Forty-Three-seven,” says Kate. Their room at the Great Fosters Hotel in Surrey, England is probably the poshest place they’ve ever been. Four poster bed, fifty acre grounds, great food, more history than any American can begin to understand.

  “Forty,” says Leroy, besotted with her as she poses near the fireplace in the green sheathe dress he bought her in London.

  “Three-seven,” she says. “Dollars. American.” She stretches like a cat, her arms high and nowhere near the towering ceiling and he imagines endless bowls of cream, whole fields of yellow canaries, people who always pet and never step on tails.

  She’s purring as she comes to the huge bed, slowly lowering the zipper on the dress.

  “We have things to discuss, Logan.”

  “We do,” he agrees solemnly. He’d probably agree to anything at this moment. This is fairytale stuff here.

  “Serious things, Logan.”

  “Uh-huh. Serious.”

  The dress slides off her shoulders.

  “But not just yet.”

  End of Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  THE NUT COMES OFF THE HEAD OF THE JOINT