“Well? So they got killed. Served them right.”
“Yeah, that’s easy to say.”
“Would you like to be alone? Kind of rest a while?”
“Mandy! It’s what I wanted to ask!”
“OK. I’ll go down and have some lunch.”
“...Can I have a drink sent up?”
“Well, of course. But don’t get slopped up, Rick. I don’t like guys when they’re slopped. They... just don’t appeal to me.”
“I never take but one. But, Mandy, I need it.”
“Then have it! Of course!”
So I went down, feeling suddenly hungry, as it was going on one and I’d had nothing to eat since the bun in the Holiday Inn. I headed for the coffee shop, which was out of this world, a beautiful place with pretty girls in pink uniforms, and had a tongue sandwich with pickles and olives, buttermilk, which I love, and, of course, apple pie a la mode. It was wonderful; the pie was so thick, and the apples kind of scrunchy, from being not quite cooked, so they were tart and tasty. So while I was eating I saw a boy come into the lobby, dump papers down by the newsstand, and go out. When I got there, the man was cutting the rope and I bought one, then bought another for Rick. Then I went back to the table and started to read. So there I was, holding the key and the check in my bag (the new handbag that I’d bought) to the $120,000 suitcase, the amount the story said had been taken in the holdup. I own up it made me feel funny, not as funny as Rick, maybe, but pretty nervous just the same, as I read all the details, which had according-tos, it-is-allegeds, and stuff like that mixed in, but corresponding in all that mattered to what Rick had said in the car. And it turned out that Bud was right in suspicioning Pal’s count of the bunch at the telephone booth — that the right number was nine instead of eight. Because the guard needed a shave, expecting to have it at lunch, but the manager made him take it at once. So that explained quite a lot, but I kept on feeling funny. Then, however, I didn’t feel funny at all but turned on in a way I’d never been in my life. And why I was turned on was the girl, the one who had handled the money, had made a positive idemnification of “the boy who held the basket,” from mug shots the police showed her, as Vito Rossi, “one of the mob.” It turned out that this was a famous four, known as the Caskets from the number of funerals they’d caused and from the name of the head bandit, Matt Caskey. His picture was there, the one who had called himself Pal, and Bud’s picture was there, over the name Howie Hyde. But two other pictures were there: the Rossi brothers, Vito and Vanny, and, sure enough, one of them did favor Rick, though if you ask me, all boys with long hair look alike. Anyway, it meant that no one had any idea, any idea at all, that Rick and I were in it, or even that a girl was driving the car, because that’s what it said in there, that the police “conjectured” that Vanny was driving the getaway car as usual, though no one had actually seen him.
That’s what turned me on.
I thought, “We’ve got away with it clean!”
I thought, “You can have that mink coat; it’s yours, it’s yours! All you need do is go buy it!”
So I did.
I threw both papers away, passed through the lobby, went outside, and had the doorman whistle me up a cab. I’d given him a buck when we came and gave him fifty cents now, and when I got in I asked for department stores. The driver said, “There’s a whole flock of them, Miss, at Howard and Lexington streets,” and he mentioned Hutzler’s, Stewart’s, and Hochschild Kohn, though like with the hotels I’m always mixing them up, at lease the Baltimore ones, so I will not say which one it was he set me down in front of. Whichever it was, I went in and asked for the fur coat department, and, lo and behold, they were having a sale on coats, marked down fifteen percent from what they had been in winter, and I didn’t mind at all. So for the next hour I lived. I had them show me coats and coats and coats, beautiful ones in all kinds of different colors, like Scotch Mist and Pastel Beige, but I didn’t take anything fancy. I like the natural mink, and I finally took a fingertip thing, a beautiful full brown, with wide sleeves and a collar to wear two ways, up around my neck or flat out on my shoulders. So it was $1,600 and I paid with twenties, breaking the tapes on two packs of bills. I said, “I’m spending my wedding present.” The woman stared and said, “Well, what’s your name, please? So I can have the monogram put in beside the label, in the inside pocket.” I said, “Never mind the monogram, please. I’m in a bit of a hurry and don’t want to wait while it’s done.” I didn’t give my name and got out of there pretty quick. However, nobody stopped me or tried to follow me that I could see.
The store had a doorman too, and I gave him fifty cents to get me another cab and told the driver the address on Lombard Street, which I didn’t have to look up, as after last night I’d never forget it. But then, riding along, it all looked strangely familiar, and it turned out, when I asked the driver, that I’d been there that very morning, as Lombard Street runs into Frederick Road. It all seemed very queer, but when we got to the block the house was in, I had him stop and wait on the corner so he couldn’t hear what was going to be said. I walked to the house in the coat, thanking God the day wasn’t hot or I’d have looked like a kook. It was just a Baltimore house, two-story, of brick, with green shutters and white marble steps, and I went up and rang the bell. A child opened the door, a little boy. I said, “Mr. Vernick, please.”
“...My father’s eating his lunch.”
“Please tell him it’s important.”
Then a woman was there, in housedress and gingham apron. She asked, “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I want to see Mr. Vernick.”
“I asked who you are.”
“OK, but who are you?”
“I’m Mrs. Vernick. Once more, who are you?”
Her voice had an ugly sound all of a sudden, and maybe mine did too as I told her, “I’m Miss Vernick — his daughter, Mandy.”
“He doesn’t have any daughter.”
“Oh yes he has. I’m her.”
There may have been more, I’m not sure. But in the middle of it, here a guy came in his shirt-sleeves, a youngish guy in his thirties, with long nose and eyes set close together. He put his arms around the woman, kissed her, then stepped in front of her and the child, though they both stuck around to hear. He asked, “Yes, Miss? What can I do for you?”
“You’re Edward Vernick?”
“That’s right. Who are you?”
“I’m your daughter, Mandy. I talked to you last night, and you said some things I have to go further with. Like insinuating I would ask you for money.”
“I don’t have any daughter.”
“Don’t you think my mother knows?”
“Who is your mother, please?”
“Sally Vernick, your former wife.”
“...It’s true, Sally Vernick was my wife, or at least we were married for quite a few years, though we actually lived together five days. But, Mandy, you’re not my child, as I can pretty well prove.”
“Pretty well? What does that mean?”
“Means until now, I don’t have actual proof.”
I piled into him for that, though liking it less and less, as it was beginning to bug me bad that I didn’t like this guy or want him for a father. So I said stuff, pretty mean, finally asking, “And what does that mean, ‘until now’?”
“Means that now at last, when I see what you look like, Mandy, there’s no resemblance at all to me or my kith or my kin.” That’s what he said, “kith or kin.” He went on: “If I ever had any doubt of the trick your mother played me in naming me as your father, I don’t have anymore. You’re not my child, Mandy, so let’s get it over with, what you came about. You said something about money. Is that what this is, a touch?”