L.A. 46, page 12
“Could be. Anyway, when Mr. Morton came home and found out what was going on, he brushed Paul’s objections aside and called the leftenant in charge of the local bobby station and described Eva and asked for assistance in finding her.”
“With no luck?”
“None at all.”
“Who is he calling now?”
“Some bigwig he knows in whatever corresponds to our Yard. He’s asking that an ABP, whatever that is, be put out on her.”
“APB,” Eden corrected his wife. “All points bulletin. That’s to alert all the radio cars. A bit of a mess, what?”
“Sticky. After all Eva’s been through. And she’s such a nice person.”
“Right.”
Eden’s wife was concerned for him. “But you should be sleeping, Barry. You have to be up so early. Don’t you think you’d better pop up and cork off?”
“I think I may. But you stay in case there’s anything you can do. And if there’s anything I can handle, do take the lift and knock me up.”
“Right.” Dulcy touched her husband’s face with the tips of her fingers. “Barry—?”
“Yes?”
“If I were to go away some afternoon and not come back, would you be concerned about me?”
“Indubitably.”
“Why so?”
“That’s simple. I’m rather fond of you.”
“You’re sweet.” Dulcy stood on her tiptoes and kissed her husband and Eden was mildly embarrassed.
“Please, Dulcy,” he protested. “Not in public.”
Dulcy returned to die Katz apartment. Eden started for the stairs, then rejoined the group in the lanai for a few minutes.
“Not a ruddy thing,” he reported in answer to Mr. Melkha’s unspoken question. “At least nothing new. The local bobbies have no report on her. But they’ve Mr. Morton on the job now. And, as I understand it, he used to be a rather prominent local attorney.”
Mr. Sudderman nodded. “One of the best.”
“The very best,” Mrs. Sudderman confirmed his opinion.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Wylie said, archly. “There are lots of good lawyers. In fact my little sister is attending a party at the home of a very prominent one tonight.” When no one commented, she added, “The father of one of her classmates.”
Another awkward silence followed. Mrs. Wylie wanted so to be accepted, she tried so hard to convince everyone she was a lady and of the importance of her connections, Eden always felt sorry and a little embarrassed for her. He made conversation. “Oh, I say. How nice.”
“You said it,” Mr. Wylie said.
13
The motel was huge and expensive looking, on the ocean side of the highway. She could hear the slap of the surf on the sand. A faint breeze off the water was riffling the fronds of the palm trees in the landscaped court, but now that they had stopped, instead of being cooler as she had expected it would be, it was as hot here on the beach as it had been in town.
“You’re sure now, honey?” Wally asked.
“Yes.”
“We can still go to that fool party.”
“No.”
“You love me this much?”
“Yes.”
“Well, here we go.”
When he had gone, a trifle breathless, the palms of her hands perspiring, but managing a casual air in case the manager of the motel might look out the window of his office, Ruby pretended an intense interest she didn’t feel first in the neon lighted VACANCY sign, then in the headlights of the cars streaming by on Alternate 101. She hoped she knew what she was doing. If the motel man tried to embarrass them, if he said she and Wally were too young, or wanted to see their marriage license, she’d die. She’d get right out of Wally’s car and lie right down and die. It was bad enough for her to have agreed to go to a motel with Wally without some dumb motel manager making a big deal of it.
Vera would snatch her baldheaded if she could see her. Still, after all of the money he’d spent, and nice as Wally had been to her, it was the least she could do for him.
Ruby resisted a vague impulse to cry. Now it was actually here, it didn’t seem possible this was the last night of his leave, that after he’d taken her home and they had kissed good-bye, Wally had to drive on down to Dago in time to stand reveille, and sometime during the following week board a transport for transfer to the First Marine Brigade at Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii.
Kaneohe Bay. Hawaii. Just thinking of such faraway places and knowing she might never see him again made her feel warm and willing all over.
No matter what happened tonight, the five days she’d had with Wally would always be the five most beautiful days in her life, even if she’d had to skip school to have them.
And the first day had been best of all. While she waited for Wally to return, Ruby folded her hands primly in her lap and closed her eyes and relived it.
Vera and Tom meant well. But outside of asking how she was getting along at school and leaving money on the table for her, she seldom saw either of them, at least spent any time with them. Both of them worked such long hours they were usually gone when she got up in the morning and when they came home nights they were too tired to do anything but sleep, except when Vera insisted on sitting down in the lanai and trying to impress the other tenants.
All she’d had to do to meet Wally was ask if she could ride out to the amusement pier at Pacific Ocean Park, and Tom had said, “Sure. Of course,” and he’d given her ten dollars to spend.
She would always love Tom for that. There were times when Vera made her feel beholden. But Tom never had, not once. More, Tom didn’t give a good goddamn if they were Crackers and the only reason he worked so hard was to give Vera the things she wanted.
“Thank you,” she’d thanked Tom. Then she’d ridden a bus to Santa Monica and another bus down the coast to P.O.P. And there Wally had been, all beautiful six feet of him, with his cap cocked on the side of his head and wearing a Marine uniform so sharp he could have shaved with the creases in his trousers.
Ruby smiled at the memory. “Hi, beautiful,” were the very first words he’d said to her. “Don’t I know you?”
At first she’d thought he was just another good-looking Serviceman being fresh. But then he’d added, “From Hollywood High,” and named a number of kids both of them knew and told her he’d graduated in June and because he was only seventeen his father, Wallace K. Faber III, the real estate man, you saw his name on signs and on buildings all over Los Angeles, had given him permission to join the Corps and get his military service out of the way before going on to college. And after they’d talked for a few minutes, sure enough they had known each other, at least had seen each other in the halls and on the sidewalks.
It had been like that with them right from the start. He’d liked her and he’d said so and they’d had a wonderful afternoon and evening.
They’d ridden every ride on the pier and played every game and seen every show. Then, after they’d exhausted the pier, they’d gone for a long ride in his car and had had dinner in an expensive restaurant in Malibu. And Wally hadn’t had to pretend he was a gentleman. He was. The headwaiter had called him Mr. Faber and said he was glad to see him.
Ruby glanced furtively at the motel office, then closed her eyes again. All the time she’d been so afraid she might use the wrong fork or knife, or do something to embarrass Wally, she hadn’t been able to enjoy her meal.
But if she’d made any mistakes, Wally hadn’t corrected her. He’d been too much of a gentleman. Besides, he’d been too busy telling her how pretty she was and he wished he’d met her at school but how, until he had joined the Marines, he’d always been too shy to have much to do with girls.
Then, after they’d wet their fingers in little silver bowls and wiped them on napkins, they walked on the beach in the moonlight until they were tired, then sat on the sand, she sitting on his blouse, and talked some more.
She’d told him about Chickasha and how when her mother had died Vera and Tom had asked her to live with them and how well both of them were doing and he’d listened just as if it had mattered to him. Then he told her about his mother and his father and how his father had been in real estate for years and how, after he’d served his hitch and went to college, his father wanted him to come into the real estate and construction and development business with him, but he thought he might study law instead.
Then when he’d finally driven her home, he’d wanted to come up and meet Tom and Vera but, not knowing what condition the apartment might be in, and not wanting to be embarrassed, she’d put the kibosh on that and had kissed him good night in his car.
And it had been like that all week. The very next day they’d gone to Disney Land and the day after that to Knott’s Berry Farm and Ghost Town and the day after that they’d driven up to Big Bear to see, even if it was unseasonably hot in town, whether there was any snow or skiing in the mountains.
Wally must have spent a hundred dollars on her.
Ruby put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. He wasn’t at all like any of the other boys she’d met. Most of the boys at school thought they were hell. They took you to a free party at somebody’s house where everyone told dirty jokes or looked at dirty pictures, then suggested going swimming in the pool in your birthday suit. Either that or they took you to some Twist Club where they rubbed themselves up against you, then after they’d gotten you half drunk on cheap gin, they headed straight for the hills and parked and got sore and abused you if you wouldn’t put out.
She mimicked their voices as she waited for Wally.
“Come on, baby . . . What are you saving it for? . . . It doesn’t draw any interest. . . Don’t be a dumb little Oakie all your life . . . All the other girls do. . . Here. Feel that . . . Did you ever feel one like that before?”
Meanwhile fumbling at your breasts and trying to put their hands on you and begging you to put your hand on them. With you trying to block sneak runs around your left and right end and keeping a wary guard out for power plays through center.
Yay, team.
Ruby rearranged her chiffon scarf around her shoulders. No, thank you. The two experiences she’d had with that sort of thing in Chickasha had been enough for her. Both incidents still embarrassed her whenever she thought of them. The first had been on a cold winter night with a boy who lived on a ranch.
Because she hadn’t had anything else to do, because all her life she’d never seemed to have anything to do or anyone to talk to, she’d let him drive her to Fort Sill to see a new Gloria Ames picture she particularly wanted to see. At first they’d had a very nice time. He’d treated her to candy and popcorn during the show and a jumbo hamburger and a chocolate milk when it was over. And all the way back to Chickasha they’d talked about what a good picture it had been and how beautiful Miss Ames was and how wonderful it must be to be as popular as she was and have as much money as she had and live in Rome and Paris and Los Angeles. Then when they’d gotten back to her house she’d seen Mr. Cronkite’s car in front and because she hadn’t wanted the boy to know about him, she had suggested they park and talk some more. And that had been fine with him.
At the time, even now, she wasn’t quite certain how it happened. One minute they’d been talking and listening to the music on the radio in his car. Then the next thing she’d known they’d been kissing. Not nice kissing, but with him putting his tongue in her mouth and her letting him do things to her she’d never let any boy do until he’d gotten her so excited that when he asked her to get into the back seat with him, she had. She hadn’t been able to wait. She’d even helped him pull up her skirt and her sweater and unbutton and adjust the long heavy woolen underwear her mother insisted she wear. Then, suddenly, at the last minute, just before it was too late, it had all seemed so cheap and shoddy she hadn’t been able to go through with it.
With someone she loved, on the terrace of a penthouse, or in a villa on the French Riviera, with her wearing a filmy negligee like Miss Ames always wore in her bedroom scenes, yes. But not with a boy she hardly knew in the back seat of an eight-year-old Ford, with a hillbilly band singing on the radio, and her scrunched down on the seat in a pair of bunched-up mail order long Johns.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t, I just can’t,” she’d told him as she pushed him away and sat up and tried to make herself decent.
But instead of even trying to understand, the boy had been furious with her. He’d cursed her and punched her in the face and kept right on trying to take her. And when she still wouldn’t let him, he’d opened the door of the car and pushed her out and she’d had to walk home, crying, buttoning her underwear over her breasts and her private parts, and so ashamed of herself she wished she was dead.
Ruby snuffed her cigarette in the tray on the dashboard as the door of the office opened and Wally came out and walked around the convertible to the side on which she was sitting. In the light from the VACANCY sign she could see his face was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration.
“Did you have any trouble?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Then what took you so long?”
Wally laid one of his hands on the hand she’d rested on the door of the car. “I couldn’t get away from the manager.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a former gyrene. He was with the First in Korea. You know, one of the boys who fought their way back from the Yalu. And as soon as he saw my uniform, nothing was too good for us. But he talked and talked and talked, and I couldn’t get him to give me our key.” Ruby asked, almost fiercely, “But you did get a room?”
“No.” Wally grinned. “A suite. Sitting room, bedroom, and bath.”
Ruby felt her lips draw away from her teeth as Wally opened the door and helped her out. “That should be big enough. But what about your car?”
“He’ll have one of his boys park it.”
Ruby glanced at the shiny new luggage in the back of the convertible. If one of the bags they’d just bought in the store in Santa Monica should open accidentally and the telephone books with which they were weighted fall out, she’d die. She’d lie right down on the pavement and die.
“How about our luggage?”
Wally was patient with her. “The same boy will bring them to the unit.”
Ruby allowed Wally to lead her around the front of the car to the walk. “And the manager wasn’t suspicious? You know. Because we’re both so young.”
“No. At least I don’t think so,” Wally said. “I told him we lived in Dago and were on a short trip up the coast before I had to report for duty.” He gripped her elbow more firmly. “Please stop worrying, honey. You’re trembling.”
Ruby fought a return feeling of breathlessness. “I know I am. But I can’t help it. How far do we have to walk?”
Wally glanced at the key in his free hand. “Through the court and around to the other side. It’s a ground floor suite overlooking the ocean.”
As they passed the office Ruby looked up and saw the man to whom Wally had been talking, an older man, at least twenty-eight or twenty-nine, watching them through the window. He might have fooled Wally that he wasn’t suspicious, but he wasn’t fooling her. He was trying to be friendly but his faintly amused expression said as plainly as words:
“Well, what do you know? There goes a pretty little broad on her way to be screwed for the first time.”
She started to get angry, and didn’t.
Well?
Now she’d gone this far, she wanted it to happen. She liked the firm feel of the fingers gripping her elbow. She liked the way he smiled down at her. When he did she could feel her groins grow heavy and she felt all fluttery inside. Even if she never saw Wally again, she would have at least one beautiful thing to remember.
She had that much coming after her experience with Mr. Cronkite. She tried not to think of it and, perversely, as she walked beside Wally, her knees giving under her slightly from time to time, the pound of the surf on the sand growing louder momentarily, she couldn’t think of anything else. The scene was as vivid as on the day it happened.
She’d never quite understood where Mr. Cronkite fit into the picture. There were times when it seemed to her that she had a dim childhood memory of him, a memory of something mildly unpleasant that had taken place on the farm where she and her mother and Vera had lived before her father, whom she couldn’t remember at all, had died.
All she’d ever known for certain was that a few months after Vera had married Tom and moved to California, she and her mother met Mr. Cronkite on the street one afternoon and while she hadn’t liked him from the start he’d been very pleasant to them and had come to the house the same night and had been a fairly frequent visitor for the next few years, although her mother had asked her never to mention him when she wrote Vera.
As far as she was concerned, he was just a man who came to see her mother until one hot summer Sunday afternoon. Her mother had gone uptown to a movie. She’d stayed home to listen to some records. Not expecting company and because it was so hot, she’d been sitting on her bed wearing nothing but an old thin cotton wrapper and a pair of high heeled shoes, giving herself a manicure as she listened to the records, when a car drove up in front of the house. Curious, she’d gone to see who it was and found Mr. Cronkite, drunk as an Osage and carrying a big, ice cold watermelon, already inside the house, standing in the middle of the parlor.
“Hi.” He’d breathed whiskey at her.
“Hi,” she’d said, shortly.
Then, embarrassed by the way he was looking at her, she’d told him her mother wasn’t home and she’d gone back to her bedroom and tried to close the door and couldn’t because, still carrying the heavy melon in both arms, Mr. Cronkite was right behind her, breathing dirty propositions down the back of her neck.
Saliva drooling from the corners of his mouth, he promised her, “Five dollars. Ten. I might even go as high as twenty if you let me kiss you all over.”
“You get out of here, you dirty old man,” she told him.
But instead of leaving he pushed the melon at her and while she stood like a fool holding it, he tore off her wrapper and exposed himself and the next thing she knew she was naked and flat on her back on her bed, with nothing between her and Mr. Cronkite but the melon.
