Women Crime Writers

by Sarah Weinman

  He heard the bedsprings creak, some sort of muffled drunken jabber from his father, his mother saying, “Go back to sleep. I’ll see to it.” The door opened and there she stood, dimly visible in the vast white cotton gown. “Eddie?”

  “Come out and close the door.”

  She obeyed. She came into the room, shut the door without rattling the catch, then went to a table and switched on a lamp there. She looked over the lamp at Eddie, and he saw the worry, the anxious dread in her eyes. “Something’s happened?” she whispered.

  “I have to go away tonight. Right away.”

  She pulled the edge of the gown up over the lump at the base of her throat. She stood by the lamp for another moment, then sat down slowly. Her face crumpled; she hid it in her hands. She was crying.

  “Don’t worry about me,” Eddie said. “All I need is a few dollars. You do have something hidden away, don’t you, Mama?”

  She nodded without lifting her head from her hands. The enormous goiter bulged from between her wrists like the head of a baby under the skin there, a baby which had worked its way up there trying to be born. She trembled, her flesh quivered, but the big lump under her skin was firm and quiet as though it were not a part of her. “Can you tell me?” she whispered.

  “I’d better not. Then you won’t know; they can’t threaten you.”

  “I wouldn’t tell anyone anything,” she said through her shaking hands.

  “No, Mama.”

  “Is it . . . really bad?”

  “Yes, it’s bad. It’s as bad as it can get.”

  She lifted her eyes, her mouth still covered, perhaps to conceal its trembling. Her eyes were already reddening. “Somebody killed?”

  Eddie looked away, not answering. His mother picked up the sleeve of the gown between her fingers and rubbed her eyes on the cotton. “I had a feeling. A long time I’ve had a feeling. I kept saying to myself, No, it’s just the class Eddie’s interested in. He’s going to get a job, make honest money. All those troubles are behind him, the bad company he kept and all that talk about how to live easy without working.”

  Eddie walked around the room a little. He knew his mother had the right to say what she was saying. She had stood by him in every scrape he’d been in, from the earliest time when he’d still been in grammar school and had been caught stealing money from the teacher’s purse. He and Skip. He hadn’t told anyone that Skip had been in it with him. He’d kept his mouth shut; the principal had whipped him with a wooden paddle, had warned his mother that a second offense would mean the juvenile court. And she had taken the principal’s harsh words with dignity, with composure, and, going home, she had stopped on a street corner and shyly, softly, she had asked Eddie if he would like a chocolate soda at the drugstore fountain. Eddie couldn’t remember a time when this Mexican mother of his had not had love and patience and gentleness in her, and so now he listened to her grieving and kept his mouth shut and waited.

  “I will say a prayer first, and then I will get you the money,” she said. “Kneel down, my son.”

  He knelt down, feeling a little awkward, and she began saying the Our Father in Spanish. After that she prayed to the Blessed Virgin, asking the help of the Mother of Christ for her son, asking that this most pure and merciful Mother who had known terror and despair in her time on earth should now listen to the anguish of another for her child.

  When the prayer was finished she rose, crossing herself, and went into the kitchen. She brought a broken-backed chair from beside the door and placed it in front of a cupboard. She said to Eddie, “On the top shelf. The red can, the tomatoes. Take what is in there.”

  Eddie got the can down, opened it.

  “There is fifty-six dollars,” his mother told him. “Not much. It will take you a little way. Write to me when you get where you are going. Not here, send it to Mrs. Valdez. She’ll give it to me at church.”

  Eddie stuffed the money into his pants pocket. They exchanged a last embrace. His mother’s body was big and flabby inside the gown; her hair smelled of oil; she had a faint odor of wine, too, from being around his father, from being shut up in the bedclothes with a stinking drunk.

  “I’ll write to Mrs. Valdez,” Eddie promised.

  “Go with God,” said his mother in farewell.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THEY DROVE up the coast. The night had turned chill and patches of fog swept in from the sea, obscuring the highway. Eddie began to yawn, to have difficulty keeping his eyes open. Above Santa Monica they came to an oceanside park and campground. It was full of trailers and tents, but Eddie pulled in anyway, crowding the jalopy in among some squatty evergreens. Karen got out. She was shivering. She had no wrap of any sort. Eddie stripped the blanket off the seat, the old Army blanket Skip had used to cover the holes in the original upholstery. He spread it on the needles, leaves, and trash under the trees and then he and Karen lay down and rolled themselves up in it. Down here next to the earth, sheltered from the seawind, they were fairly warm. During the night Eddie was awakened by Karen’s crying. When he touched her hair softly it was damp with tears.

  At about eight o’clock the clatter of the other campers awakened them. Eddie unwrapped himself from the blanket, helped Karen to her feet. Karen staggered, gained her balance, looked around. It was a dark, overcast morning, quite foggy and cold. She rubbed her bare arms with her hands, licked her lips. There was a grainy exhaustion and heat behind her eyes. Her mouth tasted sour and soiled. She thought suddenly of the big Havermann house, its quiet and its security, clean hot water and towels, food waiting to be cooked, and a sense of loss and desolation shook her. For the first time she seemed to see, in a material way, what Mrs. Havermann had given her.

  She walked over to the car, not wanting Eddie to see her tears, and waited while he replaced the blanket on the torn upholstery. She noticed that Eddie had an air of confidence, of knowing what he was about, even of meeting a challenge, and this comforted her a little.

  They kept headed north. When they got close to Oxnard Eddie said, “We’ve got to eat. We need every dime we’ve got with us, though. I’m going to try something.”

  I need a comb and a towel, Karen said to herself. I never knew you could feel so dirty, just sleeping out one night by the roadside. I feel as if I could soak for a week. She closed her eyes; the thought of food didn’t interest her.

  Eddie passed up several rather nice-looking cafés after studying them briefly. Finally he swung in beside a somewhat shabbier café, small, sitting by itself a little distance from the highway. There was a graveled lot growing up with weeds. The signs all needed repainting. On the roof of the café a metal vent had fallen over and lay at the rim of the rain gutter. Eddie cut the motor, set the brake, got out of the car. “Wait here,” he said. He bunched his jacket over his chest against the chill air, went to the door of the café and entered.

  The only person inside was a woman of about sixty. She wore a clean cotton housedress and a blue calico apron, a blue cap over her thin gray hair. She had coffee going in an old-fashioned pot, grease on a griddle, bowls set out with little boxes of cereal in them. Eddie spraddled a stool. “Cup of coffee,” he said.

  She looked out the window at the car, then back at Eddie. “Cold this morning, ain’t it?”

  “It sure is.”

  “Along the coast here, some days you’d never know what time of year it is. Just always foggy and cloudy and cold. Yessir.” She poured coffee into a thick mug and put it down for Eddie.

  Eddie said, “I’d like breakfast, a real breakfast, but I’m too broke to buy it.”

  “Well, that’s too bad.” Her tone didn’t betray any interest or sympathy. She started to turn away, then looked back. “Who’s that out in the car?”

  “My wife,” Eddie said.

  “If she’s cold and wants a cup of coffee, I’ll give her one,” the old lady said. “Free.”

  “Well . . . I do appreciate it.” Eddie stood up. “What we need is pancakes and bacon and
eggs. I sure wouldn’t mind working for it if you’d let me. I could do dishes.”

  “Dishes are done,” she snapped back. Then, as if relenting a little, “Say, you are kind of husky. How are you with a pick and shovel?”

  Inwardly Eddie instantly shied off; he hadn’t had any intention of involving himself in anything more laborious than an hour or so of pearl diving. But under the old lady’s alert, somewhat cynical glance he found himself saying, “Well, maybe I’m no expert, but I’m willing.”

  She put both knuckly hands on the counter. “I’ll tell you what happened. My husband—he and I run this place—he’s been digging a ditch for the new septic tank out back. County said we had to have one, gave us sixty days to do it. Well, he’s been digging every day for a week and yesterday he ain’t feeling so good and today he can’t hardly move a muscle. He’s almost seventy. Shouldn’t a done it at all, of course.”

  She was watching Eddie closely. Her mouth was pursed up now, her expression one of penny-pinching miserliness. “If you’re hungry, you and your wife—well, there’s a job for you.”

  Eddie put a dime on the counter and shook his head. “That would be a kind of big job in trade for a meal. Thanks anyway.”

  “Now, wait a minute.” She swallowed a couple of times as if the next words were coming hard. “I ain’t said just trade for a meal. We need the ditch dug. We got to get it dug, somehow. Them damned plumbers want four dollars a hour.” By an instantly regretful expression, Eddie knew she wished she hadn’t parted with this bit of information. She stumbled around then and finally said, “How’s this—I’ll pay a dollar an hour. Two days if it takes that long.”

  Eddie reached for the cup, downed the last of the coffee. “I’m sorry. It’s not enough.”

  “Meals throwed in. You and your wife.”

  They stared at each other measuringly. She was the kind of little old woman, Eddie thought, that if she’d been left on a farm all her life wouldn’t have known the time of day, but being exposed to the sharpers and chiselers among the touring public, was as sharp as a pin. “A dollar and a half an hour, I might think it over.”

  She came back instantly, “Dollar’n’ a quarter. That’s my top limit.”

  “Meals too? All we want?”

  She peered out the window, probably trying to size up the girl in the car, wondering how much she’d eat. Eddie was big and, exposed to the labor of ditch-digging, could be expected to be ravenous. The little old lady gulped down some thrifty objections, nodded her head, and said, “It’s a bargain.”

  Eddie hurried back to the car, opened the door on Karen’s side. “I’ve made a deal. We eat here. Order whatever you want.”

  She brushed back her hair and looked at him in a dazed, indifferent manner. Eddie, knowing how she must feel, urged her out of the car. “You’ll feel a lot better when you eat. You’ll be surprised at what some hot coffee will do.”

  A lot of anxiety went out of the old lady’s expression when she saw how small and slender Karen was. She drew a cup of coffee quickly, put it on the counter, took Eddie’s cup and refilled it. “Now,” she said, “Ham and? Toast?”

  “Pancakes,” Eddie said. “Plenty of butter and syrup.” He took off the jacket and laid it on a stool and saw the little old lady sizing up his muscular arms. He thought, We need a name. He remembered the name of a classmate in metal class, Arnold Dykes. He said, “I’m Arnold Dykes and this is my wife Kay.” Kay for Karen. Karen glanced at him as if she hadn’t quite caught what he had said.

  The little old lady shifted the pancake turner to her left hand, offered her right to the girl. “I’m Mrs. Mosby. You can call me Ellie if you’ve a mind. Kay’s a pretty name. You’re a right pretty girl, too.”

  She seemed taken by Karen. Perhaps something in the girl’s hunted, exhausted look touched her. When the food was put before her, Karen ate it indifferently, almost mechanically; but Eddie noted that her color was better almost at once, that some of the dazed look went out of her eyes.

  They were finishing a third cup of coffee when a couple of trucks pulled in next to the place and four truck drivers entered. They were big men, hungry as horses; Mrs. Mosby scurried around, chattering with them, and Eddie saw they were regulars, the kind she depended on to keep the café in business. He was surprised, then, when Karen got up and took all their dishes out to the kitchen, found a rag behind the counter, wiped up.

  He caught her wrist across the counter. “Hey,” he said in a low tone, “you don’t have to do that.”

  “I’d rather, than just sit.” She went back to the kitchen and came back with a blue apron tied around her middle. The truckers were showing signs of interest, and Mrs. Mosby was openly pleased.

  “It wasn’t in the deal,” Eddie said stubbornly, standing up from the stool. Karen looked at him tiredly.

  “I’ll make my own deal, then.” Suddenly tears stood in her eyes; her expression seemed weak and sick. “Oh, Eddie, let’s don’t quarrel. Things are too bad to add that along with the other. Let’s just be friendly.”

  He shrugged. Mrs. Mosby was pleased, and Karen perhaps would have something to take her mind off their predicament. When Mrs. Mosby had served the truckers she led Eddie out behind the café. The restrooms were here at the back, and the sewer lines from them and from the kitchen drains lay exposed in the hard brown earth. She indicated where Eddie was to dig, and how deep.

  “Over there.” She was pointing now to a small house, half hidden in a clump of young pepper trees. “That’s our place. My husband’s in there now, him and his lame back. He’ll be watching you, but don’t let it bother you. He won’t get out to try to run things.” By a certain vindictive tone in her words Eddie judged that she was somewhat put out with her ailing husband.

  The morning passed slowly. Eddie took a coffee break about eleven. In the café a couple of Japanese truckers, their load of lettuce outside, were finishing coffee and doughnuts. Karen was washing up in the kitchen. Old Mrs. Mosby was as chipper and cheerful as a sparrow.

  Why not? Eddie thought uncomfortably. Hell, the two of us working—she’s got us over a barrel. Or thinks she has. A sudden strong dislike for the old lady came over him.

  Close to noon, she took off across lots for the house in the pepper trees, and as soon as she was out of sight Eddie put down the shovel and went into the café. Karen was alone there, polishing the griddle. Eddie went to the cash register, pushed the no-sale button, and inspected the amount of money in the till. About ten dollars, he thought, mostly in quarters, half dollars, and dimes. He slammed the drawer.

  “Now, what did you do that for?” Karen demanded, staring at him.

  “For nothing.”

  “She’s a nice old lady,” Karen said.

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t.”

  “You don’t like it because I’m helping her, do you?”

  “I don’t care.” Eddie was conscious mainly of boredom. The job in the back yard meant nothing to him. He stared out of the window at Skip’s jalopp, the shabby little car, and wished he’d never stopped. At the same time he knew that what he was doing now his mother would call honest work, and she would never understand his dissatisfaction and lack of interest. In order to have understood her son his mother would have had to follow him through his whole life, first as a half-Mexican in a mixed school, belonging to neither faction, and then as a friend of Skip and being molded by Skip’s opinions and desires.

  Skip got off the bus in Reno, checked his suitcases in the station, and went out at once to look the town over. He had never been in Reno, though he knew it was different in some ways from Las Vegas. There was no Strip, for one thing, no long arm of luxury hotels and casinos stretching toward sucker-land in California. Reno lay close to the High Sierras, the Donner Pass country, and it seemed at once more of a frontier town and at the same time more compact and sophisticated, like a city. Once inside the gambling clubs, however, the resemblance to Las Vegas was startling. Here were the same vast ranks of slots, the
identical green tables, craps, roulette, twenty-one, the same clang of coins and, for Skip, even the same faces, the expressionless know-nothing masks of players and club employees alike.

  Skip turned in one of the hundred-dollar bills at the cashier’s cage, getting tens in exchange. He went to a crap table, watched the action for a couple of minutes, then tossed three of the tens across to the dealer, who stacked thirty silver dollars in front of him. Skip put five dollars on the line. There were about a dozen men at the table. The shooter was an old fellow with the withered, weather-worn look of a desert rat. On his first shot he threw a seven and Skip’s money was increased by five. Skip let it ride, added ten. Again the old fellow threw a five and a two. Skip withdrew his winnings on some psychic impulse, fortunately, for the old fellow crapped out on his next throw.

  Skip went to the next table. When he finished there he was more than five hundred dollars to the good. Feeling hungry and thirsty, he headed for the café at the rear of the club.

  In the cashier’s cage the assistant manager was counting and examining the money taken in and took a second and longer look at Skip’s hundred-dollar bill. He nodded to the girl cashier. “Wait a minute. Something I want to check.” He took the bill with him, went to a door set flush on the wall, touched a button, and waited. In a moment he was admitted to an inner office, a steel-lined room built like a vault.

  He took an FBI flyer from a desk drawer and began to study numerals on it and compare them with the numbers on the bill.

  In the café Skip had just been served a New York-cut steak, Caesar salad, whipped Idaho potatoes, fresh green peas, and coffee royal. He ate dreamily, looking at the Gold Rush murals painted around the walls.

  Eddie said, “Look, it’s nearly five. I’m going to knock off.”