by Ed Lacy
He was a plump, hard-faced, elderly man with little pale blue veins showing in his thick nose. His face a sickly yellow contrast to his blue silk robe, he looked the picture of the morning-after. He thanked me for the cigars, talked about the weather. I didn't know what Kimball had told him, but I seemed to amuse him, as though I was his favorite jester. That made me sore but I told him the story as calmly as I could.
He sat—sunk deep in his big chair—staring at the wall, half-asleep. When I finished he belched a bit, patted his potbelly, asked, “What you want with a babe already knocked up?”'
“You a lawyer or an advice-to-the-lovelorn columnist?”
He stared straight into my eyes for a moment, then sighed. “Okay, that's your red wagon. I hereby give you my best considered legal advice: kid, they got you by the short hairs.”
“He can really take the baby, have her deported? Why, that's... that's unbelievable!”
“Fellow, don't you read the papers, don't you know what's going on? In the old days a lawyer would take any case that came along, and in a way that's how justice should work. Now, well I'd just be wasting my time defending your... girl. In my youth I used to think I'd be a Clarence Darrow... but that's a long time ago.
“About our case?”
He shook his head. “No lawyer would take it to court, haven't a chance in hell of winning.”
“But why? She hasn't done anything criminal?”
“Fellow, she's a non-citizen, that means they can deport her like this...” He was about to snap his thick fingers, but he belched again, added, ”... quick as that. She's 100 per cent right, nail her for morals, and for being here illegally. Why, fellow, they get big shots for that, so figure out what chance your girl would have! Be a joke to even take her case to court.”
“Don't be a comedian. What should we do?”
“Have the...” He belched again. “Damn stinking booze, always gives me lousy gas. Have the abortion. Always have kids with her later.”
“She won't do that. Could she get the divorce now, battle over the baby afterwards?”
“No. Wanting the kid, he'd make the baby one of the conditions of the divorce. Might have her deported on the q.t. anyway. My advice is to forget it.”
“I didn't come here for that kind of advice, or...”
“Aw, stop flying off the handle, I had a rough night. Look, forget about a divorce, or marriage. Understand you live out in the country? Fine, take the gal back to the sticks with you as your new blushing bride.-When the kid comes, simply put your name down as poppa.”
“But, would that be legal?”
He laughed, showing a lot of rotten teeth. “What means legal? Fellow, laws are made to break. If there weren't any murderers, we wouldn't have capital punishment on the books. What's a marriage license? Nothing but an unused piece of paper—99 per cent of the time. Get what I'm driving at?”
“No.”
“Hell, return to your place in the country, with this girl, say you were just married. Who's going to doubt you, who's going to care? Her husband will never find you, if you're careful. You just met her, she lives in New Jersey, before that she lived in Canada—you probably haven't any friends in common. Play it careful and it will work out fine. And when the kid is born, she'll have a birth certificate and all the other papers, all saying you're the father. Might run into trouble years from now, if you should die and there was a battle over a will... but that can be arranged too. From now on you two are man and wife, and who knows different?”
“You.”
He pointed a fat finger at my clothes. “Fellow, you haven't enough dough to arouse my curiosity. I don't even remember your name.” He stood up. “Another thing, remember what I said about the law—remember too, at times, I'm proud that I am an attorney, respect myself—at times —so I wouldn't stoop to blackmail—not petty stuff, anyway.”
“Sorry. I didn't mean to...”
We shook hands and he said, “Speaking of blackmail, I'll deny I ever told you this. I'm giving you practical advice, fellow, not legal advice. One more thing, if you go through with this—remember to always play it safe, don't talk to anyone about it.”
“Thanks.”
When I explained it to Elma, it sounded foolproof. She said, “But if at any time Mac catches up with us, he can still take the baby?”
“How will he ever find us? He never heard of me, neither have any of your friends. From now on you disappear and become Mrs. Elma Jameson of Sandyhook, L.I. If he should locate us, it will be years from now, maybe times will have changed. Besides, what else can we do?”
“It does seem a little... sneaky... but as you say, what else can we do? I'll have to be careful to keep out of Newark, away from people I know.”
“And never get in touch with Mac.”
“Lord, that's the very last thing I ever want to do.”
I pulled her off the bed, kissed her softly on her full lips. “Darling, I hereby pronounce you Mrs. Marshal Jameson. And some day we'll really make it legal. This will work out, I know it.”
“Marsh, we love each other, that makes it as sincere and honest as any other marriage ceremony,” she said, kissing me fiercely.
By way of a honeymoon, we took in a movie and had a big dinner, and a cab ride through the park. We both slept soundly and in the morning I said we ought to get going out to Sandyhook. Elma said, “I have a few things in my room in New Jersey that...”
“Hell with your old clothes. Let's make a clean break.”
“There are a lot of records I've collected, some good old numbers. What harm is there in my packing them, shipping them out to Long Island? Besides, I have to have some clothes when I get there—look suspicious.”
“All right, but let's get on with it. Spoil everything if your ex-hubby sees me with you.”
“He doesn't even know where I'm rooming. And you can wait outside, or wait here in the hotel.”
We took a bus to New Jersey. She lived in a run-down private house. I took a walk while Elma packed. She called a moving company and they came over with barrels and she carefully packed all her records. The company said it might take about two weeks—have to wait till they get a full load going out to L.I.
I'd called Alice Alvins, told her to arrange about renting me a house, that I was married to an old girl friend of mine, and yes, I knew it was sudden and all that. Alice has one of these silly minds for detail and she said, “You mean, you've made your application for a license. Now you'll have to wait three days.”
“That's what I mean, Alice. See you in a few days. But I'm wiring two months' rent, to take care of a lease on the house.”
“My, this girl got money, too?”
“Sure, what the hell you think I'm marrying her for?” I said, and hung up.
We had to spend another three days in the city to make it look good, and we saw the shows and had a wonderful time. But being in the city with Elma made us both a little nervous—never knew when she'd run into somebody who was a friend of Mac's.
Elma liked Sandyhook, even though we arrived there in a lousy snowstorm. The house was a four-room bungalow with a cellar, oil heat. We were very busy the first week. I went over to Len's garage, near Smithtown and bought a second-hand Chevy for three hundred bucks. Len had a rep as an honest mechanic, and he said the car was a buy. Then the three of us—Alice loved shopping—drove all over Long Island buying up old furniture. All told, we spent some $800, but the house really looked comfortable, and if the car looked like a heap, the motor was first class.
There was a glass-enclosed back porch I used as a studio, and I started working as soon as possible, moved all my junk out of my shack—including an old tombstone I had swiped from the cemetery in an attempt to work in marble —and of course soon found out it was too much for me.
The Alvins liked Elma and when I casually mentioned she was pregnant—I thought it best to get that over with— they took it without too much surprise. Elma visited the local doc and of course it was soon
all part of the village gossip. But we were safe. I was an “artist”—therefore anything I did was bound to be “crazy.”
We saw Tony and Alice every day and Elma turned out to be a capable cook and housewife. Her records came and we spent long, happy evenings listening to them. Jazz meant a lot to her—Elma knew every member of each band by heart and she'd say, “This is one of Artie Shaw's best, made before he became famous and had to turn commercial....” Or, “In this Billie Holiday, catch Frankie Newton's trumpet behind her....” The Alvins came to our house as often as we went to theirs and I felt completely at ease.
I was busy studying some American sculptors, Cecil Howard, Paul Manship, the Frasers, and Donald de Lue. I liked de Lue's Omaha Beach Memorial, but thought he idealized the face of the soldier a bit, and did a rough copy of it in clay, making the face bitter, and frightened—the way the guys who hit Omaha Beach on D-Day probably felt. The statue came off well and gave me a lot of confidence, and Elma thought I was a second Jo Davidson.
And every minute I spent with Elma, the more I was in love with her. Everything we did turned out right. We laughed at the same jokes: she loved to walk along the beach, her hair blowing out of her parka, and when I showed her how to surf cast and she landed a few king fish, she was as happy as a kid. Even the little things she did pleased me —the fact that she wore low-heeled shoes and didn't distort her long slim legs—the way she'd wake me in the middle of the night, ask, “Marsh, are you sleeping?”
“Not now.”
“Look, there's a full moon out. Let's drive along the beach... watch the moonlight on the waves. Want to?”
“Honey, fix a thermos of hot coffee and we'll get going.”
Or, on a cold morning, she'd pull the covers around us like a tent and we'd fool around like children, daring the other to get out and brave the cold, start the heat.—And when we had the kitchen good and warm we'd have breakfast to the music of Chick Webb or Lunceford or Father Hines. We both loved to eat and Elma was blooming, starting to swell with child.
Her swollen body, the heavy breasts, seemed so beautiful to me, I asked her to pose, and she was delighted. With the kitchen warm as bed, and a stack of records on her phonograph, Elma would pose for hours—resting every fifteen minutes. I made a great many sketches of her—standing, on her back, on her side, of her bosom, of her big belly.
A statue of a pregnant woman isn't a new idea, but for the first time I felt very sure of myself. I decided to do a two-foot figure of Elma standing very straight and proud. I had a rough done and it was hard work for her, and once when she was resting in an old rocker we had, she fell asleep... and then I knew I had it Sleeping in the chair, Elma was the picture of ease and I sketched her from all angles on paper, started working in clay.
I was able to catch the warmth and personality of her face, the soft lines of her body, and when I finished it, Elma was delighted and of course it had to be titled: RELAXED.
I was proud as the devil of it and took it to New York to see if it could be baked and colored. Sid was amazed and immediately took it to a friend of his who had a gallery on 55th Street. I couldn't have it baked—I was not only using the wrong clay for terra-cotta work, but I also had a lead pipe armature in the clay, which would crack the statue with heat. But we arranged to have a bronze made—meaning a wax and plaster mold would be made, the wax melting and running out as the hot metal was poured in.
The gallery owner was to act as my agent and I left the statue with a studio that specialized in bronze work. I rushed back to Sandyhook and started working on a head of Elma. She was getting so big now, it was tiring for her to pose. Within a month RELAXED was cast and finished and on exhibition. Elma and I drove in to see it, take pictures. The dealer had it in the window and it attracted a great deal of attention. Even Kimball heard about it, sent me a note, care of the dealer, telling me it was a professional job and asking how married life was.
The gallery owner managed to get a picture of my work in one of the Sunday papers. I had a moment of despair at the thought that Mac might see it and trace Elma—for I had certainly captured her face, every line and plane. But I kept telling myself there was little chance of his reading the art pages of the paper.
The gallery man was enthusiastic about the possibility of a sale, and said he was going to enter the statue in several contests. He wanted to see more of my work, and all I could show him was the piece with the two dogs mounting each other, which he admired but didn't think it would be to my “advantage to show that now. Later, we can make it a collector's item.”
March was a damp and windy month and the doctor advised Elma to rest a lot. He was afraid she might get a cold. Otherwise she was coming along fine, and should have her baby some time in May. That would be fine too, because it would be before the summer crowd came down and Sandyhook got hectic.
Our money was holding out nicely. Actually, once we bought the car and furniture, there wasn't much to spend money on in Sandyhook, and we figured I wouldn't have to think about a job till September, and then, as Elma said jokingly, “We'll go to New York, win another $2,400 on a quiz show and return to the country singing 'God Bless America!'”
But as it turned out we were only living in a fool's paradise.
I was in the post office one morning, mailing a letter to my agent and one to Sid, when the postmaster-storekeeper asked, “Say, Mr. Jameson, your wife's name is Elma, isn't it?”
“Yeah.”
“Been holding a letter here for a couple of days for a Mrs. Elma Morse. About to send it back—unknown— when I thought of your wife, what with Elma being such an odd name. That her?”
I had to think fast. Mac, that nosy bastard had seen my statue after all! If the letter was returned, Mac might come down here. The best thing was to take it. I said, “Thanks. Yeah, that... eh... was her maiden name. Don't know where they got the Mrs. from.”
“My wife said I should wait and ask you. Beats me, how women are always right—some of the time.”
The return address was her husband's. Once outside the store, I opened the letter. The sonofabitch had traced her through the damn moving company, those two barrels of her records. He wanted to know if she was still pregnant and, if so, if she still was going to have the kid. He said he'd give her a week to answer him before taking up the matter with his mother and her lawyers.
I walked along the beach, trying to figure what to do. She could write that she had a miscarriage, but he probably wouldn't be content with that, would snoop about.
I wasn't going to tell her, but we only had a few days left in the week he gave her to answer. Elma saw I was upset and finally I showed her the letter that night and she fainted. I got the doc over and he gave her something to make her sleep, told me, “Seems to have suffered a shock of some kind. Your wife looks and is strong and healthy, but with a first baby a woman.... She'll have to take it easy. I want her to remain in bed for the next week, have absolute rest.”
I tried my best, we didn't even talk about it too much, but Elma would lie there and cry all day, and even though Alice came over and acted as a nurse, Elma got worse: her face almost looked like a death mask. The doctor gave me seven pills, said, “Give Mrs. Jameson one of these any time she gets excited, but no more than one a day. Your wife seems terribly upset about something. Having a family quarrel?”
“No.”
“She's a mighty sick girl. Frankly, if she doesn't get better, I may have to take the baby... and I'm not sure she'll survive that.”
“She... might die?”
“There's a chance. I don't want to frighten you, but I do want you to know the gravity of the situation, the importance of keeping her calm. Hysteria can be as deadly as a poison—in her condition. Whatever is exciting her has to stop.”
When he was gone I sat in my studio, staring at the head of Elma I was working on. The problem was clear in my mind.... I was in danger of losing Elma. Even if she didn't die, if the bastard took her kid, had her deported, where would I
be? Staring at the clay face, that seemed to be nearly alive with her warmth, everything seemed so damn unfair. All we asked was to be left alone, a chance at happiness, and this miserable sonofabitch insisted on killing her—us.
I went in the bedroom. Alice was sitting beside Elma's sleeping figure, working on her book, writing on long yellow notepaper. She said, “What's wrong, Marsh? Why up to now Elma has been as healthy as a baby food ad, then all of a sudden—a nose dive. Anything wrong?”
“No.”
“Makes me afraid to hope for a kid. You hear about women getting these mental quirks during pregnancy. Like tipping a balance, one day very healthy, the next day...”
“Things will work out,” I said. “Be back soon.”
I went to the store in the village. I didn't want to use our phone in case he traced the call—although he knew where Elma was. I got the Newark operator, asked for the number of the shop. A man's voice answered and I asked, “Mr. Maxwell Morse?”