“How awful,” Alex said.
“Yeah. Well, it gets worse. I said, ‘Did that son-of-a-bitch do this to you?’ She said yes, and then she handed me this gun—a Smith and Wesson snubnose, I think it was. I said, ‘You want me to kill him for you?’ She was crying so hard it was hard to tell what she was saying, but then I heard her say, ‘No, I’ve already done that.’ Then she took me into the bedroom, and there he was. She’d shot him right in the back of his head while he lay there drunk. I’ve never seen such a godawful sight, and I dropped the gun on the floor. I said, ‘You better call the police, Willa.’ She said she was going to, but would I stay there with her till they came? I said, ‘Hell, no—this is your problem, Willa. Just tell them you shot him in self-defense. One look at you, and they won’t have any trouble believing you. I’m getting outta here.’ And I did. I got outta that crazy house.
“Well, the next day I was in my car, drivin’ to my next gig, which was in Waco, and I hear on the radio about this guy that’s been murdered in Brownsville. But what I’m hearin’ is that his wife is saying that I did it—that I did it when he tried to stop me from beatin’ up on her. Her sister is sayin’ that she saw me do it, and the neighbors, who heard the shots, are sayin’ they saw my yellow ‘Vette parked in her driveway. And there’s my fingerprints all over the murder weapon!
“When I heard that, I panicked. I figured I had to get out of Texas. I thought of Mexico, but was scared I’d get stopped at the border. So I headed north—up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin. I got new plates for the car, and got it registered in a different name. You may have noticed—”
“I remember it well,” she said. “William J. Cassidy, three fourteen Elm Street, Lafayette, Indiana. I wrote to that person.”
He grinned sheepishly, and took another swallow of his drink. “No such person—probably even no such address. I made it up. When I went back on the rodeo circuit—’course I never made it to the gig in Waco—I used a lot of different names. Hell, a lot of guys who ride the circuit do that, keep using different names. Most of ’em are runnin’ away from somethin’, hidin’ from somethin’. Something …”
“Was that a made-up name you were using when you met me?”
“Hell, no. James Robert Purdy is the name I was born with. I figured a seventeen-year-old girl out hitchhiking on the interstate wouldn’t be working for the cops. Anyway, that was how I became what they call a fugitive from justice. I know I was a damn fool. I shouldn’t have panicked. I should have gone straight to the police that morning and told them the truth about what happened. But by the time they caught up with me, I was a fugitive from justice, and nobody believed me. If I wasn’t guilty, why was I running away all the time? Why was I using all these different names?”
“That night in Wichita, they kept calling you Johnson.”
He nodded. “Yeah. One of the names I used. Willie Johnson.”
“There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t the police ever contact me? After all, we’d been married—”
“I didn’t want to get you involved with my problems, Alex. I didn’t tell them anything about you. I told them you were just a girl I’d picked up in a bar that night. I told them I didn’t even know your name.”
“And the yellow Corvette? They never tried to—”
He looked at his fingernails again, and grinned. “Now that’s a part I’m a little ashamed of,” he said. “That night, when they took me out of the motel, they said, ‘Okay, which is your car?’ I pointed to a green Chevvy in the parking lot, and said, ‘That one.’ Next thing you know, they had that green Chevvy hitched up to a police wrecker, and hauled it away. I always felt kind of bad about that. Poor guy who owned that car, waking up in the morning, finding his car gone, reporting to the police that it was stolen, and finding out it was stolen by the police!” He chuckled softly. “In a way it’s kind of funny,” he said. “But still I keep thinking, maybe that guy had an important appointment the next morning. Or maybe it was a whole family, with kids, heading off on a vacation. Anyway, it was a long time ago, and it’s all over now. And by the time the cops found out they had the wrong car, the ’Vette had vanished—vanished in Paradise, I guess, parked by a house with a zoysia lawn.”
“Yes. And here you are,” she said.
“And do you know something? I’m not bitter about anything that happened. I’m not even bitter about old Willa setting me up for a murder charge. My friends say I should be bitter about what Willa did, but I’m not. She probably panicked, too. She and Loretta probably had the whole scheme worked out before I got there. That’s why she handed me the gun. Why would she want to face a murder rap? Well, I did, even though I didn’t murder anybody. But I’m not bitter, because everything that happened was my own damn fault. It was my own damn fault to get involved with a married woman to begin with. So I paid the consequences. And, like I say, I have a whole new life now. Maybe I learned something from the whole experience.”
“Something about the duplicity of women,” she said.
“Something about the duplicity of one woman. Not the woman I married.” He rose and sat beside her on the sofa.
“No, no,” she said. “I have another husband now.”
“But you’re my wife,” he said. “I even have the marriage license to prove it.”
“I don’t think that piece of paper would hold much water now. I was underage. I lied—”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re still the woman I married. In prison, I used my time well. I read, I studied. I took correspondence courses. I even earned a college equivalency degree. I’m a different man now, Alex.”
“And I’m a different woman.”
“Not to me. After I got out, I tried to find you. I went back to Paradise, but your family had moved away, and no one knew where. Even the zoysia lawn was gone. There were ads I’d seen in the Kansas City papers—ads using a model that looked like you. I even traced the model to a modeling agent named Lucille Withers. She was real snippy. Wouldn’t tell me your name, or anything. All she said was, ‘I don’t run a dating service, mister.’”
Alex smiled. “Dear old Lulu,” she said. “That sounds like her.”
“I never gave up. I kept on looking for you. Then, just the other day, I saw your picture in the Daily News. Alexandra Rothman, and the president of France was kissing your hand.”
“Yes,” she said. “But we can’t turn back the clock, Skipper.” The words sounded trite and foolish.
“I’ll try, if you’ll try. Let’s try.”
“No, no,” she said again.
“What matters most is that of all the women I’ve ever loved—and there’ve been a few—no one ever made me feel the way you did, Alex. No one, before or since.”
She started to move away from him, but he reached out and seized her hand. “Do you remember the idea I had for the little bar? You were going to help me decorate it.”
“Oh, yes. It was going to have a piano player—a fat man in a derby hat and red suspenders … or was that just my imagination? There were going to be stained-glass windows. You were going to call it El Corral.”
“And do you know something? I got as far as buying the stained-glass windows. Oh, Alex, I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. Do you remember that first afternoon at the Dairy Queen?”
“Oh, yes,” she said with a sudden shudder. “Look. I really don’t want to cry. I’m not going to let you make me cry.”
“I don’t want to make you cry. I love you. Do you remember I said I wanted to fox you up?”
“Yes …”
“And I could have foxed you up that first day, couldn’t I? I could tell it. I could feel it in the air. I could even smell it—that’s how bad I knew you wanted me. But I didn’t do it then, did I? I wanted to marry you first. That’s how special you were to me. That’s how much respect I had for you.” He spread the fingers of her hand. “I wanted you to wear my wedding ring first. I ga
ve you a ring. I see you have a new ring now. Do you still have my ring?”
She nodded mutely.
He studied the back of her hand. “But that was the day I put my brand on you,” he said. Slowly, lazily, he drew the letter S on the back of her hand with his fingertip. “Look. It’s still there.” And suddenly she saw the scarlet welt fly up—S, for Skipper. “And then I licked it with my tongue, to make it heal real fast.” He lifted her hand to his mouth, and licked the back of her hand.
“Skipper—it never healed!”
“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you, Alex. No one’s ever made me happier. I love you, Alex. I need you, Alex.” And suddenly he was covering her mouth with urgent kisses, and unbuttoning her pink Brooks Brothers shirt, and it was happening to her all over again. “Take off his ring first,” he commanded, and she twisted the sapphire from her finger and dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a soft plop on the rug, and then it was the way it happened that first night in the motel room in Wichita, with that noisy feeling of a tempest building inside her, with the dizzying sound of wind pounding in her ears, and a bright crimson light behind her eyes, and she was powerless again, and found herself returning his fierce, drinking, thirsty kisses, and heard herself cry out, “Oh, Skipper, why did you have to leave me? Oh, Skipper, love me … oh!… yes, do that … and that … oh, fuck me … fuck me …”
When it was over, and they lay together breathlessly on the sofa in the boathouse, he said, “I’ve never made love to a woman wearing nothing but three strands of pearls. That’s another first.” He touched the pearls. “Beautiful,” he said.
She laughed softly. “I guess I was in too much of a hurry to take them off.”
“You’re so lovely,” he said. “Are you happy, Alex?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you love him, Alex?”
“Yes.”
“In the same way?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Good,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
“But—”
“But what?”
“But this is what I want to keep. What I have now.”
“Because he’s rich?”
“Perhaps that’s part of it. There are other reasons, too.”
He drew his fingertips across her lips. “You say you’re happy, but there are little sad-lines around your mouth.”
She laughed. “Just wrinkles,” she said.
“And around your eyes—little sad-lines that weren’t there before.”
“More wrinkles.”
“May I come back again?”
She raised herself on one elbow. “Please don’t,” she said. “If you really love me, please don’t. Please don’t complicate my life any more than it is already. If you really love me, promise me that. Please. It’s important, Skipper.”
“All right. I promise. But just tell me again that it’s not the same for you with him—the same as it is with me.”
“That’s true. It’s not,” she said.
“And tell me that you’ve never loved anyone else the way you’ve loved me.”
“It’s true,” she whispered. “And I’ll never forget this afternoon, my darling …”
“I think you wanted this afternoon as much as I did.”
“It’s true,” she said again.
“Perhaps he can give you pearls, but I can give you something better than that, can’t I?”
“Yes,” she said, and then they were making love again.
The boathouse was solidly constructed and reasonably soundproof, but now the building trembled. It was the 4:43 commuter express rattling its way out of Grand Central Station on its way to Harmon. That was another thing Aunt Lily Rothman disliked about the boathouse, the vibration from the trains that rumbled by night and day.
That fall and winter of 1971–72 had been one of their best times with Adam. For one thing, he seemed to have come into some money—just how, Lenny felt it unwise to ask. Adam bought himself a snappy green Mercedes 380-SL sports convertible, and he often drove Lenny and Charlie out for weekend junkets in Connecticut and Long Island. He bought himself a number of good-looking sport jackets and slacks and suits, and a drawerful of Turnbull & Asser shirts, and coordinated ties. He was becoming something of a fashion plate. He often took the boys out to dinner at expensive restaurants, and talked of taking them all on a spring cruise to Bermuda. Though he still liked his liquor, he now paid for his own cases of vodka, and had graduated from Popov to Smirnoff Blue Label. All in all, during this period, he was good fun to be with.
He was still not working, and where these funds were coming from was something of a mystery. Perhaps, Lenny decided, Adam had found himself a new patron, which was all right with Lenny, since Adam’s new affluence eased the financial strain on the Liebling-Boxer household considerably. Whenever Lenny attempted to find out where the money was coming from, Adam merely shrugged and said, “Friend paid me some money he owed me.”
But as the year 1972 drew to a close, the situation began to deteriorate again. The charges for Adam’s vodka began appearing on Lenny’s liquor store bills once more and, as had happened before, both Lenny and Charlie began to notice cash missing from their billfolds. On Christmas Eve that year, Adam was arrested for drunken driving, spent the night in jail, and had his driver’s license suspended. After that, either Lenny or Charlie had to drive his Mercedes wherever they went.
By March of 1973, Lenny and Charlie had decided that it was time to have a heart-to-heart with Adam, and they had decided to emphasize the financial aspect of their relationship with the young man. They had decided not to say they were losing patience with him, which was beginning to be the case. And they had decided not to lecture him about his drinking, which only made him worse.
“Honestly, Adam, you have simply got to do something to find work,” Lenny said to him. “If you’re going to continue to live with us, you’ve got to contribute to our household expenses.”
“What about all the dinners I took you out to?” he said.
“Those were fine, but that was nearly a year ago. Your situation seems to have changed. It’s a matter of money, Adam. You know we love you, Adam, but Charlie and I simply can’t afford to go on keeping you like this. Charlie has almost run through his inheritance from dear Aunt Jane, and I, of course, have only my salary. Last month, your liquor bills alone—”
“What about my liquor bills?”
“I hadn’t meant to get into that, but last month the liquor bill alone came close to four hundred dollars. You’ve simply got to start contributing to this little ménage of ours.”
“Broadway season’s almost over. There won’t be any casting until after Labor Day.” His speech was a little slurred, and Lenny suspected that he was already a little drunk.
“What about summer stock? Have you thought about that? Actors are reading for summer stock all over town right now. I know the money’s not much, and of course we’d miss you this summer. But summer stock gives you room and board, and a chance to be seen. The scouts from all the major studios tour the summer circuit, and—who knows? A job with summer stock could lead to something much, much bigger. An actor has to be seen, Adam—he has to be seen and heard performing. If you don’t get seen, you might as well not exist as a performer. And you’ve never looked better, Adam,” Lenny said, though he lied a little here. Adam was becoming a bit jowly, and had noticed this himself in the mirror, and had already suggested that the boys might be willing to spring for a face-lift for him. “You’ve simply got to do something, Adam,” Lenny said. “It’s a matter of money, pure and simple.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Adam said. “Don’t worry about me, good buddy.”
“I don’t think you think I’m serious,” Lenny said sharply. “I am quite serious. If nothing else, you can get a job waiting on tables at the Stage Delicatessen—the way other out-of-work actors do.”
“I ain’t waiting on no tables!”
“I see
,” Lenny said icily, “that you can take the street hustler out of the street, but you can’t take the street out of the hustler. May I remind you of what you were before I picked you up? You were a twenty-dollar trick, working the gay bars. But I thought you had a certain look, a charisma, a presence that only needed a little polish. For four years now, Charlie and I have tried to apply that polish. We have paid to have your nose fixed, your chin fixed, your teeth fixed. We have paid the hairstylists, we have bought you clothes, we have paid for acting lessons, singing lessons, dancing lessons, fencing lessons, elocution lessons, and karate lessons. We have also fed and housed you in our home. And what have we got in return for this investment? A man with a four-hundred-dollar-a-month drinking habit. The gravy train is over, dearie.”
“You wouldn’t dare throw me out!”
The Rothman Scandal Page 53