The Ledger

by Dorothy Uhnak

  “How’s the hand, Sam?”

  Farrell considered his bandaged hand. “Not so bad, now, Mr. Reardon. The doctor gave me some new medicine. It don’t throb now, only if I forget and use it or something.”

  “Good. How’s our girl been?” He jerked his thumb toward the inner room.

  “She’s been real nice and quiet. She got a whole stack of magazines sent up. We got a young policewoman in there. Margie Gibson. You know her, Christie?”

  “No.”

  Christie took her coat off and tossed it over a chair. She waited for Reardon, but he offered nothing. She felt both a sense of relief and a sense of desertion when he spoke to Farrell.

  “Send the policewoman out for a coffee break. Opara is going to talk to Elena for a while. You can reach me at the office or they’ll know where I am if anything comes up.”

  “Right, Mr. Reardon.” Farrell tapped on the open door and went into the other room.

  Casey Reardon stood, his hands deep inside the pockets of his coat. He watched her attempts at control, the few deep breaths, the quick wetting of her lips. She moved her chin up slightly and he admired the certain edge in her voice.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Reardon.”

  Casey Reardon smiled tightly. “I never do.”

  Christie exchanged greetings with the policewoman and told her to take her time. Her eyes went directly to Elena Vargas, who was stretched full length on the beige couch. Her bright red jersey blouse and slacks vividly outlined her body. There were copies of magazines on the floor beside her and her face was hidden by the latest copy of Vogue. She let the magazine fall across her chest and brought her head up. Her eyes went dark and alert.

  No personal feelings; strictly professional. Christie forced her voice, controlled the situation. This time, she had to set the tone. “Hello, Elena. How have you been?”

  “Why are you here?”

  Christie placed the suitcase on the cocktail table in front of the couch. “I brought you some clothes. Not everything on the list. Some of the things I couldn’t find.”

  “You were at my apartment?”

  “That’s right.”

  Elena pulled herself into a sitting position. “Why you?”

  Christie shrugged easily. “Why not me? It’s my job.”

  “Where’s Reardon? I want to see him.”

  Christie reached for a magazine, let the pages fall at random. “Mr. Reardon took off for parts unknown. He doesn’t check in with me.”

  “I have nothing to say to you. I overestimated Reardon’s intelligence. Does he really think I’d talk to you, after ...”

  Christie tossed the magazine onto the table. She felt stronger than she had anticipated. “Let’s cut the nonsense, Elena, all right? I’m just doing my job. You’re my assignment. There’s no rule that says we have to like each other. But it would be a good idea if we were civil to each other, all right? I mean, actually, neither of us has a choice.”

  Elena regarded her curiously; she felt cautious and wary. “I am generally civil to people. Just leave me alone. I don’t want to be bothered. What did you bring?” She leaned forward and opened the suitcase. “Ah, the blue jumpsuit. It’s real silk.” She tossed the garment to Christie. “Do you know genuine silk when you see it?”

  “It’s very pretty.”

  “Pretty?” Elena stood up, retrieved the jumpsuit from Christie and held it against her body. “ ‘Pretty’ is hardly the word. Look in those magazines, Detective Opara. You’ll find words like exotic, sensuous, mysterious, elegant. Not ‘pretty.’ ” She pulled out some pink garments. “My lounging pajamas. Pucci. What do you lounge in, Detective Opara?”

  Christie’s eyes rested on the clear colors and unique designs. “Well, usually in dungarees and a turtleneck sweater. Definitely not in Pucci pajamas.”

  “Did you ever try on clothes like these? No, no I think not. You wouldn’t go into Bergdorf’s or Saks, not into the boutiques on Madison or Fifth. But wouldn’t you like to?” She held up a clear, vivid blue dress. “This would look good on you. The color, anyway. It would not fit you the way it fits me. It was made to my measurements.”

  Christie sat on a chair and ignored Elena. She began slowly, quietly. “Kelly sends regards.”

  Elena frowned. “Kelly? Kelly who? I don’t know any Kelly.”

  Christie leaned back and studied her fingernails. “She’s about seventeen years old now. I guess she was about eight or nine when you knew her. Kelly ... no, her last name wouldn’t be Fenley, would it? That’s her mother’s married name.” She looked up at Elena. “Actually, I don’t know her last name. What is it?”

  Elena sank slowly to the couch, the blue dress clutched against her red outfit. “Kelly Endright. You saw Kelly? But she is a child.”

  “No. She’s not a child anymore. She’s very grown up. And she sends regards. Apparently she liked you very much.”

  Elena’s eyes were wide and unblinking; her body was rigid and her mouth opened slightly as the fact penetrated. Christie Opara had dug into her past: had asked about her, spoken about her, had found out things about her. She realized suddenly that she was holding the dress against herself, almost as though trying to hide behind it. She tossed it to the suitcase and folded her arms and smiled. “And is Mrs. Fenley as lovely as ever?”

  “She’s an A-number-one bitch.”

  The answer surprised Elena; more than that, it alerted her. She could afford no alliance of any kind with this detective. “I learned from Mrs. Fenley,” she said. “Many things. Including the appreciation of beautiful things.”

  Christie carefully pulled at the corner of a broken fingernail. One after the other, she sorted bits and pieces of information. Silence hung between them but it was her silence now, completely hers to control. It was, at one and the same time, a good feeling and an ugly feeling. She dropped the shred of fingernail onto the cocktail table and, without looking up, she asked, “How many children does your sister have, six, seven?”

  Elena leaned her head against the back of the couch and whispered in Spanish. Some of the words Christie had heard before, others she seemed to know instinctively.

  “They are beautiful children, Elena.”

  The response was bitter and tore at the sincerity with which Christie had spoken. “Yes, beautiful children. And they live in a beautiful world, eh? And they will live beautiful lives, eh? Here in this beautiful city. Look, you don’t want to talk to me about my sister and her children. They are nothing to me and less than nothing to you. I think you are just showing off a little bit, Detective Opara.” Elena’s voice settled down; she moved her hands in small, controlled gestures. “So, you’ve done your job and now you say to yourself: now I know Elena Vargas. Now I can question her and get what I want from her.” She moved her head to one side and smiled. “So, what do you think you know?”

  The question was thrown out too casually; Christie sensed an underlying tension in Elena’s effort to discount whatever Christie had learned. She timed the interval before responding. She could not engage in banter. Not this time. She had to frame her questions precisely while at the same time she had to keep her voice completely neutral.

  “When you worked at Quiet Haven you became involved with a man. A boy, probably. You became pregnant. He refused to marry you and didn’t want you to have his child. Am I right so far?”

  Elena was prepared; she shrugged. “But that is an old, old story. Of course, for me, at that time, it was unbelievable. I was a very little girl. So, you found out at what point I grew up. So what?”

  “So what became of the child?” Christie threw the question out almost before it had formed in her brain. It was one of those instinctive questions, unanticipated and unplanned.

  “Oh, you have just got to be kidding. All that hard work, looking into Elena’s life, and you ask me that? It isn’t possible that you didn’t find out about Quiet Haven: abortion heaven for wayward rich girls. How far did you think I had to go? On-the-job-fringe-
benefit, baby, free of charge.”

  The hardness was more than surface hardness. It was totally a part of Elena, revealed in her voice, in the set of her mouth, in the studied ease with which she moved her body about the couch. But Christie thought of the other Elena: young, inexperienced, frightened, hurt, humiliated.

  “No,” Christie said, believing the words as she spoke them. “No, I don’t think so. You were fresh out of the Protectorate. You had spoken of taking vows. I don’t think you could have had an abortion. Not at that point, Elena.”

  “Oh, are we talking about ‘morality’ now?” Elena’s voice was bitter. “Are we talking about ‘Catholic morality’?”

  “It’s the morality in which you were raised.”

  “Well, let’s talk about a purer morality, Detective Opara. A more realistic morality. I had an abortion at Quiet Haven and it was an act of morality purer than anything I had ever learned at the feet of Mother Superior Catherine Therese.”

  Elena revealed a passion she had not shown before. Christie had touched something raw and painful and she sensed it had to be pursued. “You’ll have to explain that to me,” she said quietly. “I find it difficult to equate an abortion with an act of morality.”

  Elena’s eyes gleamed with an angry light. She licked her lips, slowed herself down and regarded Christie thoughtfully. “How old was your son when your husband was killed?”

  The question was totally unexpected, caught Christie by surprise, but she found a quietness within herself and answered slowly. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until almost two months after my husband’s death.”

  “You mean ... you knew your child would have no father?”

  “Yes. I knew that right from the beginning.”

  “And can you truly say you wanted to have that child, that you never regretted carrying him?”

  The balance between them shifted; each girl was aware of it. Elena now had touched on something Christie still found incredibly painful: some long-forgotten torment, one brief, blind, agonizing half-admitted resentment of the living body within her. But that had been a part of her grief and not a separate entity. She decided to be completely honest. “No woman wants to bear a fatherless child, regardless of the circumstances. My pregnancy was not the way I wanted it. Yes. I resented it at first; I felt trapped and betrayed at first. But at no time, never, did I even vaguely consider abortion. You see,” she added softly, carefully, “I loved my child’s father.”

  “And I thought I loved the father of the child I was carrying. But I was unwilling to bring into this world a fatherless child. My abortion was an act of morality for that child. Of course, we cannot be equated, you and I. It is a different world for your son than it would have been for mine. You saw my sister’s children. There are nine of them. Yes, they are beautiful, now. But, one by one, they will go out and they will become what other people will make of them: just some more little spics.” Elena clenched her hands tightly in her lap. “Not my child. My act of morality, my act of protection, was for the child.”

  Christie absorbed all the words, let them fill her brain. She reached into her pocketbook, dug out a cigarette, lit it. Slowly, she moved her head from side to side. “No. I don’t believe you, Elena. You are not who you were seven or eight years ago.”

  “I am who I have always been. If you think not, it is your concern, not mine.”

  Elena snatched a magazine from the table. She turned back a page, scanned it quickly, then held it up to Christie. “Did you ever feel sable like that, Detective Opara?” Not looking at the ad, she recited the copy, “Why not the finest? When you are someone special, let the world know.”

  “Well, the world will just have to figure out some other way of knowing how ‘special’ I am. I’ll see you again, Elena.”

  “There would be no point to it.”

  Christie stood up, pulled her shoulder bag into place. “Ya never know.” It was an unconscious imitation of Casey Reardon. Elena caught the inflection. She stretched her small, softly curved body against the cushions of the sofa and raised her hands over her head.

  “Oh, by the way, Detective Opara. There is one thing I wanted to tell you.”

  “Really? What’s that?”

  Elena propped her head up on one hand and smiled. “That Casey Reardon. He is very, very good in bed.”

  Christie stood absolutely still for about five seconds, then she returned Elena’s smile. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  11

  THE BRILLIANT SUNSHINE on the poster sparkled on unbelievably blue and green expanses of water.

  Christie concentrated on the pale-beige sand, willed herself to become the warm, tanned, languidly self-indulgent girl in the bikini.

  “I’m sorry this is taking so long, Detective Opara, but as you can see, I’m running a madhouse here. My partner’s been sick for a week, two of the girls are out: one quit and one eloped. Just my luck, everything at the same time.”

  Mr. Fernaldi’s tan had an oddly flat quality which seemed unrelated to fresh air and sunshine. At his desk, surrounded by glaring travel advertisements, he had a look of ill health: the look of a man badly in need of a vacation.

  “Take your time, Mr. Fernaldi. I’m traveling all around the world.” Christie glanced to her left and was confronted by hot, dry, pale Spain and frantically colorful Mexico-in-Fiesta. Fernaldi looked up from his small steel box of index cards.

  “You got a vacation coming up? Look, by next month, I could fix you up with something in the islands.” His hand, held at eye level, waggled back and forth. “You know, we could arrange something.”

  “Not until next summer. I wouldn’t mind having some of that Caribbean sun right now. I think I’d even settle for some New York sun at this point.”

  “Don’t say that,” Fernaldi told her. “The sun comes out in New York in the middle of February, we lose the last of our holdouts. I’m glad, really glad, that the crummy snow is still falling. Excuse me.” He reached for the telephone, answered several questions, jotted down notes.

  In the twenty-five minutes she had spent at the World-Over Travel Agency, Fernaldi had spent approximately five minutes in conversation with her. He hopped from desk to desk, dug in drawers, dialed and spoke quickly to several people (“confirmations,” he had told Christie). Though she was tired after a long day, Christie didn’t really mind sitting in the comfortable, contoured plastic chair, surrounded by proof that the world was out there, waiting for her. If she could stare at the blue sky of the Bahamas long enough, Elena Vargas would become totally meaningless.

  But, of course, Elena Vargas was not totally meaningless. Christie fingered the small battered leather notebook and scanned what little information she had copied during nearly seven hours of intensive research. She wondered if Casey Reardon had ever sat hunched over musty records, inhaling ages-old dust, index finger sliding down and down, over line after line of information, page following page. The estimated date of Elena’s child—assuming of course that she had had a child—was extremely tentative. From literally thousands of pages of vital statistical data, Christie had come up with two possibles-but-highly-unlikelys. Both infants had been born to women named Vargas; both women had left the name of the father off the birth certificate. One woman, first name of Luisa, listed two previous births; one woman, first name of Emily, fisted her age as thirty-four and no previous births.

  Christie turned a few pages, then checked her watch against the note in her book: Mother Superior Catherine Therese would call her sometime after 7:00 P.M. That particular telephone conversation, earlier in the day, might have saved all the hours at the Department of Health. But the Reverend Mother, Christie had been informed, was not at the Protectorate and, as a matter of fact, was in New York City attending a conference on child health care. Yes, a soft voice informed her at the New York number, the Reverend Mother was on the premises but attending meetings. Then, a message was taken, delivered and a reply relayed. The Reverend Mother will call you at your home a
fter 7:00 P.M.., thank you.

  On her last ring to the Squad office, Christie had been instructed by Stoner Martin to stop at the travel agency and get a rundown on Elena’s visits to Puerto Rico. It had been determined, through an informant, that this particular agency handled all of Elena’s travel arrangements.

  Through an informant. Christie knew that one of the most valuable sources of information for any detective was a collection of reliable informants. Everyone in the Squad had an informant of one kind or another, whose services were offered for one reason or another. From time to time, cryptic little telephone voices had whispered in her ear, asked for Tom Dell or Stoner Martin or Pat O’Hanlon or Marty or even for Reardon himself. If the man was present, the ensuing conversation would invariably be conducted with a hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the phone or a shoulder turned protectively away. There would be a series of abrupt “yeses” or “no’s” or “uh-uhs, uh-huhs,” and Christie would know that an informant had just reported in. She was probably the only member of the Squad who didn’t have one single informant. She wondered what mysterious half-existent person had told Stoney that of all the hundreds of travel agencies in New York City, this one particular agency handled the travels of Elena Vargas.

  As Mr. Fernaldi returned to his desk with a large folder, the informant suddenly became less than mysterious. In fact, his identity became so obvious that Christie could probably have claimed him herself, sooner or later. The doorman at Elena’s apartment building. Doormen were notorious gossips and they always seemed to know everything.

  “Here, I finally found Miss Vargas’s folder. It had been misfiled. Probably by the girl who eloped. That kid was so confused for so many months, I only hope she took off with the right guy.” He opened the folder on the desk and turned it toward Christie. “Now, like I said, we generally keep folders on our clients who travel as frequently as Miss Vargas. To make sure that the level of accommodations is satisfactory, you know, travel, hotel accommodations, the whole schmear. Be my guest, you have any questions, just yell.”