The Company She Keeps

by Georgia Durante

  Let me handle this, the voice inside of me said with steely calm.

  “I’m happy, Joe. Why can’t you just let me go?”

  “The last words out of your mouth were ‘I love you,’ and then you disappeared. You’re not going to get away with that, Georgia!”

  “I won’t stay! I’ll leave the first chance I get,” I said boldly.

  “Okay,” he said, as he made a radical U-turn and headed toward an uninhabited desert road.

  “Where are you going?” I screamed.

  “You’ve made up your mind. You’re not coming back, so I’m going to do something to you I’ll probably end up doing time for. You’re not going to get away with it this time, Georgia.”

  “Joe, please—”

  “I’ll be a motherfucker! You no-good . . . You’re not gonna make a fool out of me! You love me? You’re a fucking liar. You’re no good. Who is it, Georgia? Who have you been seeing—and don’t lie to me!”

  “There isn’t anyone else, Joe. I just wanted to be happy.”

  He took hold of my face with his hand and squeezed it with damaging force. “Who is it, I said!” He pushed my face into the glass again. This time I did cry.

  “Why do you always think there has to be someone else? Can’t you understand the real reason is because of what you’re doing right now?”

  “I’ve been following you. You better be honest.”

  “If you’ve been following me, then you know I’m not lying.”

  Don’t panic now. I’ll get you out of this. But just don’t panic! In the meantime, tell him what he wants to hear.

  He slowed for a light. I thought about jumping, but he read my mind again. He grabbed my leg and applied pressure.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  The light changed to green and he sped up. I’d lost the opportunity to jump and prayed I’d get another, but the road was becoming more desolate.

  “Joe, I do love you, but I just can’t live like this anymore.”

  “You won’t have to, honey, ’cause you’re going to die—and so is the motherfucker you’ve been seeing!”

  A traffic light glared in the distance. Please be red when we get there. It was, and luckily there was another car stopped there. Joe slowed to about twenty miles per hour. My last chance.

  The door swung open and I jumped out. I landed on my shoulder and rolled on the pavement. The car started coming at me in reverse. He missed me by inches. I ran to the car still parked at the light, tore open the door, and jumped in. The driver was a woman.

  “Please, take me where there are people!” I pleaded.

  “Does he have a gun?” she asked, her eyes as big as saucers.

  “No,” I answered, looking back to see how close he was.

  She made a U-turn and sped down the deserted street, back toward the Strip. Joe caught up to us and tried to force us off the road. This gal had guts. No time for conversation, but I sensed that she had known this kind of terror in her own life. Why else would anyone take a chance and get involved? Thank God she was the one sitting behind the wheel at that light, or who knows what the outcome would’ve been. On the Strip, four police cars were sitting in front of the Stardust Hotel.

  “There’s some cops—do you want me to pull in here?”

  Then I knew for sure. Any ordinary woman would naturally seek the help of the police if she were in trouble. The fact that she asked indicated that she knew “the rules.”

  “Yes! Pull in, pull in!”

  She dropped me off and took off in a flash. I never even got her name. Joe pulled in, too. He got out of the car and I ran to the cop, trying to regain my composure so I could speak.

  That was a close one, but you’re safe now.

  Taking deep, steady breaths, I said, “Officer, that car over there belongs to me. I just want my car and I want to go home.”

  I was a mess. My clothes were torn, my legs and arms were all scraped, and my lip was bleeding. Joe walked toward us, calm, cool, and confident. He had the walk of someone used to being obeyed. He darted a look at me, a warning. He was dressed tastefully in a dark, pin-striped suit, just enough gold not to be gaudy. Not a hair out of place. He looked as if he had just stepped off the cover of GQ magazine. He stood across from me, controlling my words with his eyes.

  “What’s the problem here, lady?” the cop asked.

  I looked at Joe. His face gave the answer; it was all I needed. “I don’t want to press charges; I just want my car and I want to leave.”

  “Officer, this is my wife,” Joe said smoothly. “We came here from New York because her psychiatrist thought a change might be good for her, but obviously this isn’t working either.”

  What? Dear God! Did this cop actually believe him?

  “What are you talking about? I don’t have a psychiatrist!” I began to get hysterical again. He put a hand on the cop’s shoulder and led him aside, saying something I couldn’t hear.

  The cop turned back to me impatiently and said, “Lady, take your problems and go home.”

  No! This cop wanted me to get back in that car like an obedient wife and just go home? Except home wasn’t the direction we were going. No way was I getting back in that car with Joe, especially now, since I had violated “the rules.”

  Sorry to do this to you, White, but there’s no other way. . . .

  “What kind of a cop are you anyway?” I screamed as I ripped his name tag off his shirt. “Your job is to protect the public, not send them to the desert to be killed!” I shouted. I spit in his face, then kicked him like a wild woman.

  Four cops were on me in two seconds flat. They threw me against the police car and handcuffed me. The cop I kicked was beyond rage. To satisfy his own anger, he handcuffed Joe as well, though he had no legal reason to do it. Joe glared at me, but kept his mouth shut. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Georgia Black had accomplished what she had set out to do. He couldn’t hurt me—at least, not that night.

  They shoved us roughly into one of the police cars, Joe in the front seat and me in the back. They slammed the door, then proceeded to tear my car apart. Joe turned around to look at me. The flashing red light splashed eerily across his face. His hypnotic stare made me feel as though I were confronting the soul of the devil himself.

  “That wasn’t a good move. What if I’d had a gun on me?”

  “Then I guess I’d already be dead, and there wouldn’t be any need to be having this conversation, would there?”

  “Drop the attitude, Georgia! You haven’t had too much experience dealing with these pricks, but you’re about to see it firsthand. Just keep your mouth shut. I’ll get us out of this.”

  “I don’t want to get out of this,” I shot back, feeling brave. This was actually the first time I could say anything to him without him cutting my words short with his attacking hands.

  The battered cop opened the door and got in.

  “Officer,” Joe said, “I’d like to know exactly what I’m being arrested for.”

  “Vagrancy, public intoxication, and possession of a dangerous weapon,” he answered sarcastically.

  “What dangerous weapon? Whatta you talking about?” Joe cocked his head toward me with disgust. “Here it comes,” he said in a low voice.

  The cop produced a billy club from underneath the seat of my car. Joe had put it there a year earlier so I’d have some protection. I’d forgotten it was even there.

  “That’s not mine,” Joe said. “That’s not even my car!”

  The cop twisted the billy club to expose the name that was freshly printed in black marker. The aroma of new ink assaulted my nostrils.

  “J. Lamendola. That sounds like your name to me,” the cop said with a smile, but his eyes had no connection with his lips.

  Joe’s face was a study in controlled rage. His teeth began to grind back and forth inside his tight jaw, a look that would paralyze me under any other circumstance, but he understood all too well the consequences of releasing his ange
r.

  “I’ve got over three thousand dollars in my pocket. You can hardly call that vagrancy,” Joe hissed. “And I haven’t had a drink all night. I want a sobriety test!” he demanded.

  Without a word, the cop smiled cockily and got out of the car. Joe never got that test. He couldn’t prove that he hadn’t been drinking, but then again, they couldn’t prove that he had.

  “Do you see what I mean? They’re a bunch of pricks!”

  I did see what he meant. I couldn’t believe they would go as far as forging his name on that billy club. They had no legal grounds to arrest him in the first place! I was the one who kicked the cop. The jerk should have helped me. Joe always told me never to trust a cop. Now I believed him. They were all bad guys in disguise.

  The cop returned a few minutes later. As we pulled out of the parking lot, he called the dispatcher and gave our location and our destination: Clark County Jail. We drove in silence. I sat in the middle of the backseat. The handcuffs were tighter than necessary, but I wasn’t going to complain. Somehow I knew it wouldn’t matter. The cop glanced in his rearview mirror and our eyes locked. He looked to be a little calmer now.

  “Officer?” I said in the softest, sweetest voice I could conjure.

  “Yeah?” he said with a lighter tone.

  “Did I tell you that you’re an asshole!” I screamed.

  Joe snapped his head around and glared at me in steely silence. If looks could kill, I’d surely be dead. Thank God he was handcuffed and there was a cage between us. The cop slammed on the brakes and got back on the radio.

  “Send a paddy wagon down to Sahara and Maryland Parkway or these clowns aren’t going to make it.” He got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and began to pace.

  “You’ve really done it now, Georgia. You never listen to me! They’re gonna throw the book at us. What the hell made you say that?”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “You couldn’t help it? Don’t you think I’d like nothing better than to blow the motherfucker’s brains out? Christ! Shut up!”

  “I think you’re forgetting something here, Joe. We wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you.”

  The paddy wagon arrived and the cop took great pleasure in removing me from his vehicle. He took my arm and jerked me out of the seat.

  “Hey!” Joe yelled. “Be careful how you handle her!”

  “I don’t need any lessons from you on how to handle a woman, mister, especially one like this!”

  The paddy wagon carved its way through the Strip. Apparently we had to make a stop before arriving at the station. Whatever had given me the idea this would be a nonstop trip? It turned out to be an interesting journey.

  Our destination: Caesar’s Palace, where we had the pleasure of meeting some high-society folks—Vegas style. A hooker, dressed in a very low-cut top, made the first entrance. With her hands cuffed behind her back, her large breasts were accentuated. Joe couldn’t take his eyes off them. He saw me watching him and looked away. The hooker sat behind me. Then a guy who seemed to be suffering from malnutrition got in. He sat next to me.

  On the drive to the county jail, I learned that Mr. Bones had stolen $50,000 off the baccarat table and tried to make a run for it. He even had chains hidden in the bushes outside to hold the door while he got a head start. Unfortunately, the dealer he had chosen to hit was a high school track star.

  When we reached our final destination, the door slid open and I followed the others out, but not before I quietly slid my oversize purse under the seat with my foot. That was back in the days when I used to smoke pot. I had an ounce of it in my purse—a felony back then. If they found it, I could always say the purse was not in my possession at all times, and anyone could’ve put it in there. I wouldn’t put it past these cops to plant evidence anyway. In any event, the fact that others had access to my purse would create reasonable doubt.

  They led the men down one hall and the women down another. As we headed in separate directions, Joe looked back and said, “Don’t call anyone; I’ll get us out of here. We’ll be out in a few hours.”

  The hooker was first in line to be booked. They took her purse, emptied it on the counter, and proceeded to mark down its contents. Thank God I had made the right move. They put the articles in a plastic bag and shoved it under the counter.

  “Name?” said the female cop behind the counter. She gave her name.

  “Address?” She gave her address.

  “Occupation?”

  “I’m a model,” was her answer.

  Great! Now what am I going to say?

  Fine mess I got you into this time, White. Sorry . . .

  I didn’t want to embarrass Mickey by saying I worked at the Sahara in case it made the papers. Not wanting to tarnish my name either, I gave them Joe’s last name. I never took his name when we got married. What a stir that had caused. No one did that back then. Women had just begun burning their bras about that time, but we all still had a long way to go.

  When my turn came, I gave them all the information and explained I had lost my purse. They led me to a room to be fingerprinted and have a mug shot taken. The man placed a number around my neck and went behind the camera. As he readied to squeeze the shutter, I smiled.

  “No, no, no, you don’t smile for this type of picture,” he said. “One more time now.” He squeezed the shutter again, and again I smiled. “Look, sweetheart, you can’t smile.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “You don’t know me well enough to call me sweetheart! And for your information, mister, people pay a lot of money for this smile. I refuse to look like a criminal.”

  “You are a criminal, honey, or you wouldn’t be here. Lose the smile.”

  He took another picture, and he got another smile.

  “You’d better accept it. You’re not getting it any other way. You’ve got three of them now. I’ll autograph one for you if you’d like. It may be worth something someday.”

  “Smart-ass,” he muttered as the matron led me away.

  I don’t know where they took the hooker with the big boobs, but I never saw her again. At six o’clock in the morning I finally settled into my temporary home with two very nice roommates. One was a lady of the night, and the other was a young girl who was picked up for hitchhiking—she said. She was allowed one phone call and made the mistake of calling her boyfriend, who was the reason she was getting out of town in the first place. Still upset that she’d left him, he’d never made the call to her father to bail her out. Going on her third week, she was exchanging favors with the matron for use of the phone. The lady of the night told some wild stories, giving me an unsolicited education.

  How did I get here?

  I couldn’t imagine spending more than a day in that hole. The room was about a ten-by-ten cell with four bunk beds. The toilet was in between the beds in the middle of the room—out in the open!

  There’s no way I’m using that thing. I can wait. I’ll be out of here in a few hours—at least, I think I will.

  After listening to the young girl’s story, I began to wonder.

  What if Joe decides to teach me a lesson? I should’ve called Mickey. Why didn’t I call when I had the chance?

  I banged on the bars in an effort to get the matron’s attention. She finally sauntered down the hall.

  “I’d like to make a phone call, please.”

  She laughed. “Where do you think you are, honey, in a hotel?”

  “I’m supposed to get one phone call. I have a little girl at home, and no one knows where I am. I have a right to make a call!”

  She smirked at me. “I have to clear it first. Right now it’s time for breakfast.”

  She unlocked the cell door, and we walked single file down the hall to the cafeteria. Some women wore blue dresses and others didn’t. The girls slopping the powdered eggs on the plates were all wearing blue dresses. I was curious.

  “Are you girls prisoners or employees?” I asked innocently.

  �
��Hey!” shouted the one I had questioned. The room fell silent. “Did you hear this broad? She wants to know if we’re prisoners or employees!”

  The entire cafeteria exploded with laughter, which took several minutes to subside. Even Old Sourpuss cracked a smile. I took my powdered eggs and sheepishly followed my new roommates to a table. I was unfamiliar with the rules of the house, and I wasn’t anxious to learn them.

  “You’d better hope you get bailed outta here soon,” said the lady of the night. “They’re never gonna let you live that down.”

  “I think I’ll be out of here in a few hours, but I have to make a phone call to be sure.”

  “Good luck,” said the young girl, blankly staring down at her gourmet eggs.

  I put the fork to my mouth, raising my eyes to sneak a quick look around the room. I was curious to see if the focus was still on me. To my relief, they had all gone back to their own private worlds.

  “Oh, my God! How can you guys eat this shit?” I exclaimed after tasting the eggs.

  “You get used to it,” said the lady of the night.

  “How long have you been here, anyway?” I asked, thinking it must take years to acquire such a taste.

  “Two weeks—this time. I called my pimp, but he didn’t know about the trick that got me in here. Figured I was pulling a scam on him. He’ll get me out when he thinks I learned my lesson.”

  Breakfast was over and we were led back to the cell. Three more hours had gone by and I still hadn’t gotten my phone call. I didn’t know how much longer I could go without using the bathroom.

  “Georgia Lamendola?”

  The matron was standing on the other side of the bars with that wicked smile on her face. “They found your purse,” she said.

  I froze. That was all? “They found your purse?” Did they find what was in it?

  She gave no other information, but that face indicated she knew more. Withholding was a game she liked to play. She turned and walked away.

  “Hey, wait a minute! What about my phone call?”

  “Haven’t gotten clearance yet. . . .”

  Two more hours passed. I was convinced I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. They must have found the grass. A short time later Old Sourpuss showed up again.