A passer-by laughed. “What the hell’s going on in this town.”
A second passer-by remarked. “It’s anything goes these days.”
Sam looked over Suzy’s shoulders at two men on the sidewalk. Their harsh voices were the voice of the Saturday night city. He patted Suzy’s hair. She wasn’t wearing a hat and he wondered what had happened to her hat. He felt her body close to his own, he heard her sobbing and he wondered where her hat was. He touched her ear. He touched the skin of her neck. His finger tips felt cold metal and he traced the shapes of safety pins. Slowly, he realized her dress had been torn and that she had used the safety pins to keep her dress together. “Baby, baby,” he said, stricken. The pins seemed to open up, to needle into his heart. The pins were all the days she had been missing.
“Sam,” she cried.
He circled his arm around her waist. His face whitened at the joy of being with her, of hearing her voice. His feet seemed to lift off the sidewalks and he was mounting out of the days without her, up up up up into the joy of having her back again. He wanted to cry, to laugh, to shout. He was gasping as if he had really flown up from the streets of the city, up out of the basements into a clear pure innocent sky. He felt winged, on a thunderbolt, a comet, a plane. Below, below, seen and not seen was the city below, the night-birds and newspaper peddlers on the streets, the cabs circling around in the gutter, their headlights peering momentarily into the sleeping plate glass windows. She, too, was unseen by him in the sense of objective seeing. Was she tall or short? Slim or plump? Pretty or not pretty? Red of hair or black of hair? He knew her again as the shape of all his love, his girl. And he saw her, clear and pure and innocent as the emotions agitating him.
They walked by the row of hansoms, horses, coachmen at Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. They looked like any other pair of late-hour lovers. They sat down on a bench in front of a low stone wall; behind the wall Central Park was a blackness of tree and shrub. He folded both his arms around her. “I’ll never let you go,” he whispered. They sat that way a long time. At first, she hardly moved, her face buried in his chest. She was like a frightened child fled into the body of its mother, into the cave of mother. Then, he felt her hands stroke his cheeks. He felt her hands in his hair. He heard her short rapid breathing deepen into waves of air. “Suzy,” he said to her, “Baby, Suzy, darling.”
“Sam — ” Her voice broke.
“Don’t tell me now, honey, if — ”
“So glad, Sam — ”
He thought of the pins and bit on his lips. He kissed her as gently as he had spoken and peered through the shadow into her face, into the wide cheekboned face and he was overwhelmed by a hundred thoughts of her. She was with him on the bench. She was with him. It was real. She was with him. The way she walked, the way she laughed, the way she joked — she was with him.
“Sam — ”
“Yes?”
“Talk — to me — ”
“Hello,” he said numbly. He thought: She’s here with me; she’s alive; if she’d been killed … He lifted her fingers to his lips. He kissed her fingers in turn. He kissed her thumb, her forefinger, her middle finger, her ring finger. He kissed her end finger twice as if he needed the reality of arithmetic, the one, two, three, four, five of the count to convince himself that she was here with him on this bench. He was blinking incessantly and the dark even line of Fifth Avenue swayed in front of him. His hand glided to her shoulder, to the pins. He sank his face into the curve of her neck and shoulder. “How do you feel, Suzy?” He felt her tremble at his question. “I’m a damn fool. Don’t you worry, Suzy. You’re back. That’s the main thing! You’re back. I love you. Always. Don’t worry, Suzy, you hear?”
“I hear,” she said dutifully like a little child.
“That’s fine. Fine.” The tone of her voice frightened him. This wasn’t his Suzy. This was another Suzy, the Suzy of the pins. He looked at her. Yes, she had come back to him but it was as if he were seeing her with hair turned white.
“Sam.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Sam, it — ”
“Don’t talk if — ”
“How’s ma?”
“Fine. She was swell. I saw her — ”
“Did you?”
“The same night. I slept over. I didn’t want to leave her alone — ”
She sobbed.
“Suzy, your mother was fine. Next day I drove her out to Queens, to your cousin.” As he spoke, the thread of time was already stitching him back into what had happened and his voice steadied and he became surer of himself; time hadn’t cut her loose from him and from what they had known and felt together; they were together, this minute.
“Sam — ”
“Don’t tell me now. I’ve got you back. That’s all that counts.” He kissed her passionately and then shocked as if afraid his embrace had broken her in two, he unlocked his arms.
“I was in a bag all the way in!”
“A bag? Not now — ”
“It was so dark, Sam.” She was shaking in his arms as if she had the chills. He thought: God, what can I say.
He said, “It’ll upset you too much. Wait until you’re stronger.”
“Have you been all right?”
“Forget about me.”
“Poor Sam, you must’ve gone crazy. And ma — ”
“No!” he said and his lips were hard. “I hated them too much to go crazy.”
“Poor Sam.”
“Poor nothing. Oh, Suzy, I was broken up. I didn’t even want to see your mother. I couldn’t bear the idea. My nerves were all gone, I guess. Johnny made me.”
“How’s Johnny?”
He laughed a tearing laugh. “Wajek.”
“What did you say?”
“Wajek. He wanted your description. I gave it to him. You’re beautiful. Beautiful! I’ll phone him. Wajek, she’s beautiful.”
“They just drove me in, Sam.”
“Who did?”
“I was in that bag all the way. On the floor.”
“Where’d they drive you from?”
“I don’t know?”
“Did you call the police?”
“No. Only you. I wanted to take a cab but I was afraid.”
“Suzy, this is enough. No more.”
“I’m afraid of cars. Isn’t that silly, Sam?”
“We better let the police know.”
“Not yet. I just want to stay here.”
“I’ll take you out to your mother.”
“All right. Sam — ”
“Yes, darling.”
“We’ll have to think it out.”
“That can wait.”
“No, no. Sam, I didn’t have a nickel. Your ring’s worth a dime.”
“Go slow, I’m dumb tonight.”
“Your ring — ”
“What about my ring?”
She held up her hand. “See? It’s gone. Ten cents. I needed a nickel to phone you. I bought the pins with the other nickel.”
“From who?”
“The cashier in the cafeteria. He’s got your ring.”
“You mean you hocked it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a corker. A cop would’ve helped you out.”
“Only cop I want’s — ” And she laughed faintly.
“Sleep. You need sleep.”
“Not yet.”
“We can’t stay here all night.”
“I must tell you, Sam. When they took me out of the bag all I was thinking of was my dress was above my knees. I was so scared I jumped to my feet right away — ”
“When was this?”
“When they drove me out there.”
“There?”
“Where I was until tonight. They carried me up a flight of stairs into a room. They took the blindfold from my eyes and I almost went crazy — ”
“How about some coffee?”
“I thought I was blind. I began to cry: ‘I can’t see. What’ve you done to me.’ I t
hought they’d blinded me. It was stupid, wasn’t it? Then the Negro said: ‘You’re in a dark room.’ He said to behave myself and he’d bring me some food. I tried to run away. I couldn’t see where I was but neither could he. He was shouting I was trying to run out. I groped along the wall and he caught me and pushed me back into the room. He locked the door. Tonight, tonight — Sam, it was worse tonight!” She gasped. “But I must — ”
“You don’t. You don’t.”
“I didn’t sleep that first night.”
“Did you eat?”
“They brought me stuff to eat. I sat on the floor — ”
“I know,” he said. He was thinking that she better get it out of her system.
“Morning always came. I could tell. Lines of light’d show in two places in the wall. They were the windows. The lines of light were the windows.”
“Boarded up?”
“The light came through the boards. I took the food to the windows. They must have driven me over Queensboro Bridge.”
“Why do you say that?”
“In that house, I could smell the sea. I’d think of the sea and the summers my folks went out to the sea on Long Island. Dad was still alive. We went three or four summers.”
His arm was around her shoulders. His jaws were joined together like two pieces of metal. “You could’ve been near the sea somewhere else — ”
“It was Long Island.”
“How can you be sure? Because we’re near the Bridge?”
“The milk containers.”
“What about them?”
“They brought me milk in containers. Time was so long, Sam. I’d read the print over and over.”
“On the containers?”
“Yes. They came from Amityville. Poor Sam — ”
“Poor Sam nothing.”
“Wasn’t I stupid going off with that man?”
“No.”
“He came and I went. Like a movie — ”
“You’re back — ”
“I didn’t know what I was up against, Sam. The bag was awful. It was like going into a coffin and knowing you’d never come out of it. Like being buried alive.” Her hands clutched at his coat lapels. “Don’t leave me, Sam.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“The blindfold made it worse. I kept thinking that even if I freed my hands and pulled the things off my eyes it’d still be black. I still wouldn’t be able to see. It was like a double blackness.”
“They tied your hands?”
She began to cry. He patted her shoulders, glad she was crying. A drunken couple passed by, a young girl in a fluffy dress, and a soldier. The girl giggled at the soldier. “Ain’t love grand? You gonna make me weep some day, you jerk?” At last Suzy stopped crying. In a small voice she asked him for a handkerchief. He wiped her eyes and remembered the night with Johnny after he had gone to the Harlem Y.M.C.A., remembered Johnny’s handkerchief in the Harlem drugstore. “What’s been happening?” she asked.
“Let’s beat it.”
“Sam, will you stop treating me like an invalid, you lug.”
“Damn you!” he shouted happily. “I love you. Call me lug again. Call me lug all your life.” And he watched her smile and he kissed the smile from off her lips.
“Sam, we have to put on our thinking caps as my ma would say.”
“Tomorrow, Suzy. It’s tomorrow now. Please, get some sleep.”
“Sam, if I heard that man now I’d know his voice.” She stroked his hand. “I’ll never forget his voice. They chloroformed me, Sam. The man said Johnny was at his home so we went up to some apartment. I went through the door and somebody jumped on me. I came to and I thought I was dead or dreaming. You see, I was in the bag. I heard a motor so I knew I wasn’t dead. I wanted to call for help. But the gag was in my mouth — ”
“Suzy,” he cried. “You poor kid. Maybe I ought to hear it all? The papers have been full of your — The tension’s worse than when I shot Randolph. Worse. I’m going to ask you questions. I have to.” And the girl in his arms changed into another witness to be interrogated; she had taken her place after Marian Burrow, after the detectives on some witness stand. “You said you wouldn’t forget the Negro’s voice who came to Clair’s. Why?”
“He was in the car.”
“Going out to Long Island?”
“Yes. He was sitting near me.”
“Did you drive for long?”
“I don’t know. We were riding and riding and then the car stopped and I felt them carry me out of the car into some place. The light was dim in those cracks, Sam. The light only got through at certain times. I couldn’t see to read the milk containers at first. But trying to read, gave me something to do.”
He stroked the hollows under her eyes. “Amityville milk,” he said. “It’s probably distributed for miles around. But it’s something to go on. Suzy, were they all Negroes?”
“I only heard the one, Sam.”
“The Negro who came to Clair’s office?”
“Yes. He always seemed to be outside my door.”
“Did you hear or see anyone else?”
“Nobody until tonight. Tonight — They tried to — ”
“Let’s go back to that first guy. Outside your door?”
“He sat there on a chair. I could hear his chair scrape. My eyes, my ears — ” She laughed hysterically. “Talk of mice.”
“Did you talk with him?”
“Sometimes.”
“About what?”
“I’d always ask why they’d kidnapped me? But he wouldn’t answer. Except to say, shut up. But towards the fourth or fifth day — What’s today, Sam?”
“Saturday night. Sunday morning rather.”
“Anyway, later on I must have gotten under his skin for he got mad. He said I was a white, a spy, a police spy and that I’d get my medicine. I said I wasn’t a spy and that I believed in the Negro people. He only laughed.”
“And that’s the only voice you heard?”
“Until tonight.”
He held her close to him. “Let’s get out of here.” He felt her stiffening in his arms and then she seemed to be softening all over.
“They tried to — They wanted to attack me tonight — ”
He ground his teeth together.
“Sam, this is — This is what happened — A car came. A new car. It didn’t sound like the car there. That night he didn’t bring me supper — ”
“Who? That Negro?”
“Yes. Then they were coming up the stairs and somebody was yelling to me — Something about coming here, about me coming here. He said — He said, ‘White girl’ to me. It was so dark I couldn’t see — ”
“No light,” he mumbled, speaking only to delay what she was saying to him.
“No light, Sam. I couldn’t stand it. I knew they were going to attack me. I just knew it. I hollered for him to get out. I lost my nerve, Sam. I lost my nerve. I was afraid they’d attack me and put me in the bag. In the bag. I ran towards the door. Sam, I used to dream sometimes that some day the door’d be open and I’d sneak out and they’d be sleeping and I’d escape —
It’s over, now, Sam, isn’t it?”
“Over,” he said.
“I ran into another Negro in the door, Sam. I was crazy, Sam. The Negro in the room dragged me back again and I was crazy. I bit him. I wanted to kill him. He hit me. He kept on hitting me in the stomach. I was crazy, Sam.”
He groaned, unable to restrain himself.
“He hurt me, Sam, but I was so crazy he couldn’t hurt me. It was like being in the bag again. That’s how the craziness was. In a great big bag and I was in the bag with something dirty. Sam, Sam, did you ever want to kill yourself?” She pressed closer to him. “I wasn’t so afraid suddenly, Sam. I knew I could do something. Kill myself — And I began to holler I’d kill myself. To want to kill yourself … Never to see you or ma — ”
“I’d like to kill somebody.”
“But it was true, Sam?”
“I don’t understand what happened now, Sam. I was too wild, I guess. But I heard the Negro in the door shouting and then I was alone. I was alone and I was awful tired. I couldn’t stand on my feet. I sat down on the floor. Then I heard them coming back. I didn’t even try to get up but when they came for me I fought them again. They tied me up, they gagged me. They put me into the bag. That’s all, Sam. I didn’t care any more if I died. I wanted to die. And the car drove and drove and I wanted to die. Then, the car stopped and they pushed me out into a street. They untied my hands and took the gag out. And they were gone. It wasn’t real, was it? No, they’re not real,” she said, her voice stronger. “They’re nightmares. They’ll go, Sam. They’ll go.”
He fingered the safety pins. “They’re real enough.”
“Did I run! I was afraid they’d come after me. I went into the cafeteria and asked him for some pins. He looked at me. You should’ve seen that look. I must have seemed like a tramp, I guess. Dress torn, everything. He said they didn’t sell pins in a cafeteria. I didn’t have a single penny. I took your ring off and said I needed a few nickels to call you up. Would he hold the ring as security.” She laughed. “So he found pins and charged me five cents and he gave me one more nickel. Oh, Sam, ten cents for your nice ring.”
“I’m taking you some place to eat,” he said.
“I’m so tired. I want to sleep. If I sleep a little, I’ll be able to think.”
“We could go to your house.”
“All right.”
“But your mother’s not there. I’ve got the keys though, but you won’t see your mother then.”
“I’m thirsty, Sam.”
They stood up and he slid his arm around her waist.
“Sam,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“Know where I’d like to go?”
“Where?”
“To the brightest place. The place with the most lights. Bright — ”
“Grant’s Bar on Times Square,” he smiled.
“Oh, bright, Sam. Bright. The Automat.”
The great white tiled Automat on Broadway was like a vast empty aquarium when they got there; the hour was very late and there were only a few people scattered about like the last fish of the night. Sam handed a bill to the nickel changer and picked up the piles of nickels tossed into the marble grooves. He smiled at Suzy in the electric light. The safety pins held up her torn dress at both shoulders. Her face was thinner than he had ever seen it, her cheekbones bonier, her cheeks sunken. Her neck was girlishly thin and he thought that her hands had shrunken and become smaller. Abruptly, he turned away from her. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll bring you some milk.” He marched to the lettered mottoes: COFFEE • MILK • TEA. He fetched a glass, put it under the milk spigot, dropped in a nickel. He felt a poke in the small of his back, twisted around.
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