“Georgie!”
“It happens all the time. I mean, you know girls yourself, don’t you?”
“I know of somebody,” she admitted.
“It’s just to see what happens, Rosie, to see what he says.”
“What if he calls my mother?”
“I guarantee you on my word of honor he won’t. I’ll bet he asks you if you told her, and when you say no, that’s what I want to find out—what he says then. You got to tell him you’ve got some money …”
“I don’t, Georgie.”
“You don’t have a baby, either, do you, stupid? I got money, Rosie. At least I got some coming to me soon. I’ll have enough money we could get married on, Rosie, if we wanted to.”
“Gee,” she said, tempted. “I got to think about it, Georgie. I mean about what you want me to do.”
“No. When you think you get mixed up. It’s tonight or we’re quits with each other. I got things to do, Rosie, important things, and if I’m going to have a partner, it’s got to be now.”
The girl agreed reluctantly. Georgie thought that if she acted as scared in Tag’s office as she did of going in at all, it would go over fine with him. And what he didn’t tell Rosie, building her up about how good-looking she was, one all-around look at Rosie and it wasn’t going to be hard to believe that maybe she was in trouble.
Georgie watched two women come from the doctor’s office, waiting in the shadows, and fed his fantasy on what Der Tag had done and said to them. Georgie moved cautiously to the window of the waiting room. Empty. Rosie would be in with him now. What if she broke down and told him? Tag had a way of getting around women, making them confide in him. They’d tell him what they wouldn’t tell their own husbands. He’d heard the guys say that at the station, too. But suppose Rosie did tell him it was all put up? She wouldn’t do that. She’d be almost as scared of doing that. It wasn’t nice of him even to have thought about it. If you couldn’t trust your girl, who could you trust?
Rosie came out of the inside office, Dr. Tag following her. He even had his big hammy hand on her shoulder. Rosie was dabbing at her eyes as if she was crying. Maybe she was. She could cry a bucketful at some corny movie. Georgie retreated down the walk and waited behind the trunk of the dead elm tree. Rosie came out of the office and behind her, Dr. Tag turned off the lights. The better to watch, Georgie thought, keeping himself well concealed. Rosie bumped her way down the steps, looking now one way, then another. Man, did she look guilty!
“Keep on walking,” Georgie said when she passed the tree. “I’ll catch up with you by the playground.” He waited until he saw the lights go on in Tagliaferro’s living room.
Rosie was still sniveling when he joined her. The tears were for real. Then she really let go. Somebody listening could’ve heard her wailing for two blocks. “Oh, Georgie, I’m so scared.”
“What’s to be scared of? Wasn’t I right out there watching all the time?”
“He wants me to go to New York, to a hospital there for tests.”
“Man! Did he say anything about an operation?”
Rosie sobbed and shook her head. “He said … he said something about being able to make arrangements.”
“Man!” Georgie said again. “Did he ask you about money?”
“I said you could get some.”
“Me!”
“I didn’t say you by name, I said, ‘The boy said he could get some money.’”
“Rosie, you’re cool, real cool.” It was Georgie’s highest praise and he kissed her salty cheek by way of proving it. “When does he want you to go to New York?”
“Georgie, I don’t have to go, do I?”
“Sure you have to go. We’re partners, ain’t we?”
“But I don’t want to take any tests—like that. I’m scared, Georgie. No! You can’t ask me to, you can’t make me … Please, Georgie.” She gave a great hiccough. She was going to get hysterical on him if he didn’t do something.
“What are you scared of—if you ain’t pregnant?”
“I’m not,” Rosie cried. “Georgie!”
“How do I know if you don’t prove it to me? I’m not the only guy in Hillside … feeling that way about you.” He made himself say the words.
“But I love you, Georgie,” Rosie wailed.
“Okay, okay. Me too—I mean you, I love you, but …”
“Do you, Georgie?” She forced him into a clinch right there and then, and right under a street light.
Georgie did what he felt he had to do. She was sticky with tears and something sweet, the damn lipstick again. He must’ve eaten a ton of it. But it calmed her down one way. Man, it wouldn’t take much to get her pregnant for a fact. He broke away from her finally and wiped his mouth on the inside of his sleeve. “When’d he say he wanted to see you?”
“Tomorrow afternoon or Thursday,” Rosie said. “Tuesdays and Thursdays he’s there.”
“Where?”
“That hospital … in New York.”
“We’ll skip our last two classes,” Georgie said, “just disappear—like we’d eloped.” That last, he thought, was real inspiration. “I tell you what, we’ll take the noon bus, and I’ll buy you lunch in a New York restaurant.”
“Gee,” Rosie said, and tried to put her arms around him again.
Georgie managed to hook his arm behind her back and get her started walking up the hill.
Rosie said, “The last time I was in New York was when the whole class went by bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s the cutest restaurant there, Georgie, with little stone cherubs sprinkling water, you know?”
“It sounds dirty,” Georgie said.
“I don’t mean that way. It’s like they were spitting.”
“Where you’re eating lunch?” Georgie said incredulously.
Rosie sighed. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s real pretty.”
“Man!”
Georgie decided he didn’t want to have to talk to Rosie’s mother just now. She’d be asking all kinds of questions about his mother, and the insurance. He had the feeling she was always adding up things for Rosie’s future. And the old man hadn’t much use for Georgie. That was all right with Georgie, a man who could spend his life making over dead people’s suits to fit live people! Besides, he had to raise ten bucks before tomorrow noon. He wondered if Pekarik would lend him the car. He ought to. After all, Georgie had pitched him the winning touchdown in Saturday’s game. The damn fool had almost run the wrong way with it. But ten bucks. Then he remembered: he’d tell Jo he needed it to buy new books. His had been lost in the fire. He didn’t have to tell her he’d been given a permanent library loan of most of them for the rest of the semester. He walked Rosie to her back gate.
She hung onto his hand. “I love you, Georgie.”
“Me, too,” he said, and got away.
Georgie got a bad shock, walking into the living room. He had heard Martin’s voice and remembered Mrs. T. saying that he was coming. But what he hadn’t expected was to find the county detective sitting there like a friend of the family.
“Excuse me,” Georgie said and tried to back out of the room.
“It’s all right, young man. I’ve been waiting for you,” Bassett said, getting up and coming at Georgie like he was going to walk right through him. “Your sister says we can go up to your room and talk without disturbing anyone.”
“I got to do my homework,” Georgie said. “I mean, I’ll be glad to talk to you, but I ain’t got much time.”
“I understand.”
Georgie clumped up the stairs. The light was already on in his room. It looked like somebody’d been there, maybe looking for something. What? He didn’t have anything, not even any spare clothes. “Man,” he said, “can your kid play football! I mean!”
“You play a pretty rugged game yourself,” Bassett said mildly.
“He didn’t get hurt or anything?” Georgie tried to sound concerned.
“Not beyond mending. Sit down,
Georgie.” The detective gave him no choice but the chair under the lamp, and the bastard then tilted the lampshade so the light would shine in Georgie’s eyes.
“I don’t know what I can tell you that I ain’t already told you, Mr. Bassett,” Georgie said, wanting to get the first word in, but immediately unsure that it was a good idea. “Course, I don’t even know what you want to know.”
The detective straddled a straight chair, sitting where he could look directly into the boy’s face. “If I told you what I wanted to know, would you tell me?”
“If I could, sure.”
“Who killed James MacAndrews?”
Georgie could feel his mouth twitch as he tried to smile. “If I’d knew that, I’d’ve told you.”
The detective nodded. “I’d hoped you would.” He took a nylon stocking from his pocket, stretched it and let it spring together. “Your sister tells me she’s lost two of these lately.”
Georgie felt his mouth going dry. He wasn’t sure he could say anything if he wanted to. He shrugged.
“It seems to have become the fashion in Hillside to wear them on heads instead of legs. Or did you know that?”
Again Georgie shrugged. He wasn’t going to say yes or no; a lot of guys wore stockings the night of the raid, and they were sworn not to say anything, no matter who asked the questions. Just thinking about that, Georgie regained a little confidence. But Jo blabbing that. He didn’t even know she’d missed them. She couldn’t very well not miss the last one though, buying only one pair Saturday morning. He’d tried to get her to buy two pairs as long as he had the money.
Bassett balled the hose and tossed it to the boy. “Smell that.”
Georgie sniffed. He couldn’t smell anything, but he knew now what the detective was after. He kept his eyes tight in front of him, but his mind was on the new bottle of hair dressing he’d left in his top drawer. “Smells like perfume,” Georgie said.
“Does a little, doesn’t it?” the cop said. He went to the dresser drawer and got Georgie’s bottle of hair dressing, uncorked it and held it under the boy’s nose. “There’s a strong resemblance, wouldn’t you say?”
“No, sir. I ain’t got that good a smeller.” It was now or never for Georgie. He knew Bassett had been up to his room in his absence. “You got a search warrant, Mr. Bassett?”
“No, something better—permission.” He put the bottle back.
“Lots of guys wear that stuff. I recommended it myself.”
“To whom?”
“Lots of guys. I don’t remember.”
“It would be very helpful to me if you could give me their names.”
“I can’t do that. We got a pact, sir.”
“Not to tell the name of your hair dressing?” Bassett said, smiling.
Brother, he could sneak through on you like his skinny-assed kid between guard and tackle. “Something like that,” Georgie muttered.
“The secret order of the Mafia,” Bassett said.
Somebody had squealed, Georgie thought. Maybe not. He had an idea everything Bassett said he was putting out like a feeler. “That’s what they say about us dagos all the time,” Georgie said. And man, he’d caught him between the eyes with that one. He could tell by just looking at him, he was as soft as his kid! A cop!
Bassett got astride the chair again. “Now, Rocco, I want you to tell me what you were doing on Friday night, where, whom you were with, and how you traveled—from eight o’clock on.”
“I don’t know if I can tell you all the whoms,” Georgie said. “There were a lot of kids in the Crazy Cat.”
“Try,” Bassett said, and took out a notebook and pencil.
Georgie gave him the names of the kids who usually hung out at Pete’s. Maybe he was adding a few. Hell, the more the better. He wasn’t even sure Bassett was writing their names, scratching some kind of shorthand. “Who’d I say there?” Georgie tried him once.
Bassett repeated the name.
“Yeah,” Georgie said, “I think he was there. Then, maybe nine-thirty, quarter to ten, I remembered I was going to call the hospital about my mother.”
“Were you in the habit of doing that?”
“I guess I must’ve done it three or four times while she was in the hospital. I mean, I don’t know if you could call that a habit.”
“From a public phone?”
“Yes, sir. You see, I was worried about her. I don’t exactly trust Dr. Tagliaferro. I mean, he’s all right for some things. And I didn’t want to scare Jo—my sister, that is, calling from home all the time.”
“I see. Then at a quarter to ten you called the hospital?”
“Yes, sir. And that’s when I looked up and saw Martin. He was in his room, all right. I’d swear to that.”
“Wouldn’t you swear to the other things you’ve told me?”
“Sure. I mean, I wouldn’t swear to all those names I gave you. I don’t have a photographic memory or anything like that.”
“After the telephone call,” Bassett prompted.
“I went home. I’d told Jo I’d be home about ten. She’s a worrier, like I told you before.”
“Did you see anyone on the way home?”
Georgie thought carefully about this one. Did he dare mention Daley? He thought not. If Daley was being asked these questions he might say Georgie and him left the Crazy Cat at the same time, then he’d say he went on home with Pekarik to play gin. He tried to remember the main street of Hillside that night. He hadn’t actually seen old Martin. Then he remembered something: “Yeah, I remember Big Molly coming out for Billy Skillet. He’s the guy without any legs, you know?”
“Was there anyone else around there? Any men?”
“I don’t remember seeing anybody else in particular. But generally there is, a lot of guys … around Molly’s.” He hoped Bassett would ask him to explain that. Bassett said, “Get on with your journey home.”
“I took the short cut up through the high school grounds, and nobody’s ever around them at night.”
“How long do you estimate it took you to get home?”
“Couldn’t’ve been more than ten minutes. Then I seen Jo and Father Walsh sitting in the living room, and I figured maybe it was something I’d done they were talking about, so I wasn’t going to walk in on that, no sir. I went down to the basement and got banging things round down there so they’d know I was home.”
“Why did you want them to know you were home?”
“Jo always accuses me of listening at the ventilator. I guess maybe sometimes I used to. I mean, it’s natural, a kid of my age, and her entertaining her boy friend. Martin, I mean!” What a slip that almost was! Georgie moistened his lips. “After a while I got bored down there. I figured they must be talking about her and Martin getting married or something like that. I mean, it was pretty conceited of me, thinking they were talking about me.” All the time, the detective was just looking at him, kind of a faraway look on his face like he was damned bored, too. “So, after a while I just went round and in the house. I said, ‘Good evening, Father,’ and went up to my room.”
“In other words,” the detective said, “no one actually saw you arrive home at ten o’clock.”
“But they’d’ve known. Jo knew I was downstairs. That’s what we had a fight about afterwards,” he improvised, feeling he had said something wrong, but not sure what it was. “I mean, the eavesdropping and spying and things like that. Jo likes things private, you know?”
“Are you always that careful about being home before ten o’clock?”
Georgie knew then what was wrong: he’d been making the ten o’clock pitch too hard. He’d been advertising his alibi. “No, sir,” he said earnestly, “I’m not usually. Only since ma was in the hospital, I’ve been trying to be more careful.”
The detective drew a line beneath his notes and said, so abruptly that he took Georgie completely off balance, “Thank you very much, Rocco. That’s all.” He got up and put the chair back against the wall, straightened the
lamp shade.
“That’s all right,” Georgie said. “I’ll fix them. I wish I could’ve been some help to you, Mr. Bassett.”
“What makes you think you weren’t?” Bassett said, but did not wait for an answer.
20
WHEN DETECTIVE BASSETT AND Georgie went upstairs, Johanna and Martin were left alone for the first time since the night of the fire, and utterly miserable in each other’s company. Too much of evil foreboding hung between them for words to bridge. Johanna had expected Martin to come alone to see her; instead, he had brought the detective. Both of them felt the presence of the old lady although when Martin had visited her bedside she had made a deliberate point of saying to close her door tightly. Martin knew of old that her taking to her bed portended a crisis to which she had contributed. Johanna sat listening to the echo of Georgie’s heavy footfalls long after the sound of them had faded. Her eyes and Martin’s met, but still they could not speak, not to reprove, to commiserate, nor to encourage, though the impulse for all pressed agonizingly in on each of them.
Finally Martin thrust himself up from the chair and cried out, “It’s like a roomful of spiderwebs, Jo!”
“Yes!”
He held out his hand to her and said one word: “Come.”
Johanna leaped up and took his hand, allowing him to lead her out of the room. At the hall door she paused, looking up the stairs.
“Georgie can take care of himself,” Martin said. “He knows how. By Christ, he knows how.” He took his grandmother’s black shawl from the hook by the door and flung it around Johanna’s shoulders.
The night was sharply cold, the damp smell of the river mixing with the acid dankness of burnt leaves and wood and an occasional waft of scorched mattress. Whenever the wind came from the east Johanna was reminded of Friday’s holocaust. She tried now not to look at the ruin as they passed it. “Where are we going, Martin?”
“To my place where we can have some privacy, and be-damned to what people say.” He was unaware of the contradiction in his words.
“It doesn’t matter any more,” she agreed. “There are more important things.”
Black Sheep, White Lamb Page 17