“Dead.”
“He died in the influenza epidemic twenty-five years ago. Let go of my wrist, okay? I gotta leave.”
“Find him,” she said.
I was very young now, but I was strong and pulled out of her grip, ran from the room and the house. By the time I got to the street Pop was on the porch and coming down the steps.
“Faye. Faye, please don’t go this way.”
“I gotta,” I said, dashing to the other side of the car to get in.
He tried to open the passenger door but it was locked. I started the car.
“Faye, please.”
I looked at him and he had tears in his eyes. But I hadda keep going. I hadda leave to save myself. I shifted, worked both pedals, and moved away slowly so I wouldn’t hurt him. When he stepped back, I floored the damn thing.
I drove down Clinton Avenue. I wasn’t going to let this kayo me. I’d always known Ma wished I’d died instead of Jimmy. She went around the house moaning that she wished she’d died instead of her son. But that was a lie. I was the one she’d trade for him. She never said so, but I knew. I pushed it to the back of my mind and homed in on where I was going and who I was gonna see.
I passed the Roosevelt movie theater. I wished I was going there instead of seeing Lucille Turner. The theater was showing Shadow of a Doubt and King of the Cowboys, a Roy Rogers movie. I liked Roy better than Gene, but I liked Trigger better than either of em.
The traffic wasn’t bad so I got to Market and Broad pretty quickly. I found a parking spot on Edison. Still shaken by the dustup with my mother, I lit up in the car. I knew I couldn’t get out and walk while I was smoking cause Aunt Dolly told me nice girls didn’t do that.
Thank God for Aunt Dolly and Uncle Dan. They’d raised me from the time Jimmy died until I was about four. Then everyone thought my mother was okay and I moved back home. But she was a stranger to me. And she wasn’t okay. My pop wasn’t home much, so I spent a lot of time alone with books.
On weekends I stayed with my aunt and uncle and they took me to the movies, gave me books, and, when I was about twelve, started taking me into New York City to see plays. My first show was The Shannons of Broadway and from then, right up until I left Newark, we went every other Saturday. My Uncle Dan also taught me to play chess.
I didn’t let most people know I played or how good I was. Chess wasn’t a girls’ game and though I mostly didn’t give a rat’s behind about stuff like that, I figured I’d leave that one out. No guy would play with me anyway. I watched the big-shot roosters play in Washington Square Park and knew I coulda beaten a few of them.
I stubbed out my cig in the chrome ashtray and got out of the car. Mostel’s Bookstore was on Market, which wasn’t far. I hoped Lucille would have lunch with me.
The store had two show windows on either side of the door, and when I opened it a little bell chimed. The place was stuffed with both old and new books. There was a U-shaped counter in front, but no one was behind it. A couple of customers browsed the shelves.
A tall girl, her dark hair cut short, came outta the back. I knew right away this was Lucille. She wasn’t as beautiful as Claire but still a knockout.
She wore a knee-length, peach-colored dress belted at the waist. It had large lapels and was puffy at the shoulders. The sleeves were short. She smiled as she came up to me.
“May I help you?”
I had to ask to be sure. “Are you Lucille Turner?”
She looked frightened, like a startled cat. “Is something wrong? Who are you?”
I showed her my license.
“What do you want with me?”
“Have ya read in the papers about the missin soldier?”
She nodded.
“Yer sister’s boyfriend. I believe ya met him once.”
“I don’t know anything about his disappearance.”
“I’m not sayin ya do. But I’d like to ask ya some questions all the same.”
She looked over her shoulder toward the back of the shop. “Not here. I don’t want Mr. Mostel to know.”
“Okay. Will ya meet me for lunch?”
She mulled it over. “All right. Do you know where Child’s is?”
I did.
Lucille checked her watch. “About twenty minutes.”
“Ya sure you’ll show?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Mind if I . . .”
“Miss Turner?” A man’s voice came from behind us.
“I’m with a customer, Mr. Mostel.”
“When you finish, come back here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not a please,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Or thank you.”
We smiled at each other.
“I was gonna ask if ya minded if I looked around.”
More mulling. “I guess that’s fine. But I don’t want to leave together.”
“You think I look like a PI? Why couldn’t I be a friend?”
“You could, but it makes me nervous. Please meet me at Child’s, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll give the browsing a pass.”
“Thanks.” She scurried off to the back.
I left and made my way to the restaurant.
Aunt Dolly used to take me to Child’s for lunch on Saturdays when we didn’t go see a show. I always had the buckwheat cakes with sausages and a Chero-Cola root beer. Every time she’d ask me if I wanted to try something else, but I never did.
I was smoking a cigarette and drinking an RC when Lucille came in. She found me right away and took the seat across from me. I couldn’t get a booth.
“Thanks for comin, Miss Turner.”
“Sure. Call me Lucille.”
We agreed to use first names. I let her look at the menu before the smiling waitress came over, dressed in a white starched uniform with a little white cap.
“What can I get you ladies?”
At last, a nice waitress. I ordered my buckwheat cakes and Lucille asked for tuna salad on white and a Coke.
She lit her cigarette with a Zippo and blew out a long stream of smoke. “Fire away,” she said.
“I’ve been hired to find Private Ladd.”
“By Claire?”
“I can’t tell ya that.”
“Well, who else would it be? It doesn’t matter, anyway. Did she tell you to come talk to me?”
“Lucille, like ya said, it doesn’t matter. I wanted to meet ya.”
“Howdayado,” she said, and gave a big throaty laugh. “So we’ve met. What’s next?”
“I have a few questions.”
“About Charlie?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what you think I can tell you.” She turned her lighter around and around in her hand.
“Maybe nothin. But maybe somethin you don’t know is important.”
“Like what?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Did ya like Private Ladd?”
“I liked him fine.”
“And ya met him how many times?”
“Only once.”
She answered very quickly, as if she wanted me to be sure how little she knew him.
“And where was that?”
The waitress brought Lucille her Coke and left.
“I had dinner once with Claire and Charlie. She’d broken off with another guy and Charlie was the new one.”
“Van Widmark.”
She looked at me suspiciously. “Claire told you about Van?”
I didn’t answer.
“She tell you what happened to him?”
“He told me ya used to visit him.”
“You’ve met Van?” This seemed to upset her.
“Wanna tell me why ya visited him and then suddenly stopped?”
“It wasn’t sudden. And what does Van have to do with anything? With Charlie?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“So why’d ya visit Van?”
“I felt sorry for
him.”
“If ya felt sorry for him, why’d ya stop droppin by?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“Was it because you were pregnant?”
She glared at me and pressed her lips together so tightly they disappeared.
I waited.
“I think I should leave.” She put out her cig.
I reached across the table and put my hand gently but firmly on her wrist. “Please don’t do that. I’m not yer enemy.”
“How do you know about the baby?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I suppose you can’t tell me that, either?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I know it wasn’t Van because he’d never tell anyone.”
“Who was the father?”
“None of your beeswax, Miss Quick.”
“Did the father know you were pregnant?”
Ever so slightly, she shook her head.
“But your parents knew and cut you off, didn’t they?”
She nodded and her eyes teared up.
“Why didn’t ya tell the father?”
“I don’t see what this has to do with Charlie missing.”
She was right. “I’m sorry.”
Our lunch came. My buckwheats looked the same as when I was a kid. I couldn’t wait to dig in.
Lucille stared at her sandwich as though it might bite her.
“Did ya ever meet a soldier named David Cooper?” If she’d read the morning paper, she’d know his name from that source and say so.
“Sounds familiar.”
“Where’d ya hear it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Try to think where ya heard it, Lucille.”
“Oh, yes. I remember. From Charlie.”
“Was that at the dinner with Claire?”
“Yes.”
“Not when ya met Charlie alone?”
“How do you know about that?”
Good guess, Quick.
THIRTEEN
Why don’tcha tell me about that meetin with Charlie, Lucille.”
“It was nothing.”
“Some reason you were seein your sister’s boyfriend alone?”
She stalled, lighting up again. I knew she was trying to think of a story that’d throw me a curve.
“Charlie wanted to give Claire a surprise birthday party.”
“When did ya say this was?”
“I didn’t. But it was for her twenty-first and that was a little over a year ago.”
“You and Claire were friends then?”
“Yes.”
“When’s Claire’s birthday?”
“June first.”
“So when were you and Charlie makin these plans?”
“He was home on leave in April. He knew he wouldn’t be able to do much about a party, except pay for it, and he asked me to do the planning.”
I’d ripped through my lunch, but Lucille hadn’t touched her sandwich.
“Ya haven’t eaten anything,” I said.
“I’m not hungry.”
I wondered what that was like. Lotsa these dames claimed they were never hungry. I didn’t know much about that. Practically nothing.
“Charlie was sure he was gonna be home for her birthday?”
“He must’ve been.”
“Lucille, soldiers fightin a war got no idea when their next leave is gonna be. There was no way he could count on bein anywhere, much less home for Claire’s birthday.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Yes.”
She looked like I’d slapped her and then she began to cry. I waited.
“This is so awful,” she said.
I was beginning to think it might be. “What ya tell me is confidential. And it’s probably not as bad as ya think.”
“Oh, but it is.”
“Let’s start with how you and Charlie happened to get together alone.”
“He called me. He said he had a friend he’d like me to meet.”
“David Cooper?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“Well, I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time so I agreed to meet David. I thought it was going to be a double date with Charlie and Claire.”
“But it wasn’t?”
She shook her head and her eyes started filling again. “He asked me not to tell Claire about it, cause she might not like him fixing me up.”
“Did that seem right or odd to you?”
“Claire has funny ideas about things. It was a little strange but I knew she didn’t approve of blind dates.”
“Why not?”
“I think she had a bad experience once.”
“But this would be a blind date that her boyfriend arranged.”
She shrugged.
“Okay. Go on.”
“When I got to Charlie’s room—he was staying at the Commodore then, too—there was no Private Cooper. At first I didn’t think anything of it. He could’ve been late.”
“But he wasn’t. He never showed up, right?”
“Right. Charlie said David would be there any minute and fixed us both a drink.”
“What’d ya talk about?”
“Claire mostly. He indicated that she was frigid. It made me very uncomfortable to hear him talking that way.”
“Did ya tell him that?”
She nodded. “But he kept on going. He said she wouldn’t even French-kiss and he couldn’t get to first base with her. I tried changing the subject but he’d always come back to Claire and how she wouldn’t give him what any soldier, who might be going off to be killed, needed. Deserved, he said.”
I felt sorry for Lucille cause I thought I knew what was coming. “Go on,” I said.
“We’d finished our drinks and I asked about Private Cooper. Charlie laughed and came over to me, pulled me out of my chair, and dragged me to the bed.” She began to cry again.
“Did he rape ya, Lucille?” I asked.
She nodded.
“What a louse Charlie is. A real skunk. I’m so sorry,” I said. “What happened afterward?”
“He threatened me. Said if I told Claire he’d say I tried to seduce him but failed and now I was trying to get revenge. Then he called me a whore and told me to get out. I did. I wanted to get away from him as fast as I could.”
“And ya never told Claire?”
“I dropped a few hints to go slow with this guy, but she was already sold on Charlie and anything I said put her back up all the more.”
“Was the baby Charlie’s?”
“Yes.”
“Did ya ever tell him about it?”
“No. I thought about having an abortion but I was too afraid. I’d heard so many awful stories. And some part of me didn’t think it was right. But I didn’t want a baby, and certainly not his. So that’s why I gave him up.”
“Ya didn’t tell Claire or yer parents who the father was?”
“I couldn’t.”
“You’ve been keepin this story to yerself all this time?”
“No. Van knew about the rape. He was furious. And even more furious that he was unable to do anything about it.”
“And he knew about the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know that Charlie was the father?”
“He figured it out. He wanted me to tell Claire, but I just couldn’t.”
“It was his idea for ya to stop visitin him, right?”
“Yes. When I started to show. That was when I moved here from New York and it wasn’t so convenient to stop by Van’s. He thought it was too much for me. We talked on the telephone.”
“What’d ya do for money?”
“My grandfather, on my mother’s side, left both Claire and me a bit of cash. We’re not swanky people or anything, but he made money in scrap metal. He would’ve made more with the war, but he died a few years ago.”
“Why are ya workin in the bookstore?”
“I w
asn’t left that much money. And I want to work. What am I going to do all day, stay in my apartment and stare at the walls?”
“Couldn’t ya have told yer parents and Claire that ya were raped by someone else?”
She gave me a smirk. “You know better than that. I couldn’t say it was Charlie, but no matter who I named I’d still be blamed.”
It was true. That was how people looked at girls who were raped. They always said she was asking for it. I’d never bought that.
“Yer right. But why didn’t ya go back to New York after ya gave birth?”
“I don’t know. My parents wouldn’t speak to me and neither would Claire.”
“You didn’t have friends there?”
“Oh, sure. Maybe I didn’t want to be in the town where it happened. I’ll go back someday. Working in the bookstore isn’t my destiny.”
“You’re different from Claire. For one thing ya speak different. Why’s that?”
“My grandfather sent me to college in Colorado. I wanted to go but Claire didn’t. I guess my accent got mixed up with a western one.”
I switched gears. “Did ya know that David Cooper was the person found dead in Charlie’s room?”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“They identified him yesterday.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yer not alone. And now we know Charlie’s been kidnapped.”
“What?”
“Claire got a ransom call. Charlie’s father is at the ready to pay when they call back.”
“Poor Claire. Don’t kidnappers usually kill their victims?”
“Often.” I wondered if she wished somebody would kill Charlie Ladd. Couldn’t blame her.
“So what’s everybody doing? Waiting?”
“That’s about it.”
“Who knows about the kidnapping?”
“Only the people who need to know. I’d appreciate it if ya kept this info to yerself.”
“Of course.”
“I should call Claire right now and see if she’s heard anything more. Excuse me, okay?”
“Sure.”
The restaurant phone booth was occupied by a very large woman squeezed inside. She couldn’t quite close the door, so I could hear her part of the conversation. Any other time I wouldna been able to keep myself from listening, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Lucille had told me.
My picture of Private Charlie Ladd had changed once again. First I’d thought he was a murderer or murdered himself; then a victim of kidnappers, which he was. Now a rapist.
Too Darn Hot Page 11