“OK, but I want him caught!”
“Sit down, let me think.”
So we sat on the sofa, he holding on to my hand while he tried to figure out what he was going to do. Pretty soon he said, “I have to call your mother.”
“Why do you?”
“To head her off from going away. And to try and get Wilmer in — put the bite on him if I can. He’s a big shot, Mandy, and that’s what this needs, first of all.”
“Where is Mother? Where are they?”
“At his home, I would assume.”
“You mean where the distillery is?”
“That’s right. Rocky Ridge, in Frederick County.”
He told a little more about what had happened that morning: Mother’s call to Mr. Wilmer, after she talked to me, and her letting him have it straight: put up or shut up, now that I was out of the way. So he put up, quick. But, as Steve went on to say, “He must have been caught by surprise, with stuff hanging fire up there, so he’d have to go back for a while, at least for one night it would seem, before taking off tomorrow for the Riviera, like she said they were going to do in that call she put in from Dover. To me, I mean. She called to say it was done, that they were married, so good-bye, good luck, and God bless.”
“Then, they must be up there.”
So he sat down by the phone in the hall, got the number from information, and called. Then: “Sal?” But even from where I sat I could hear how furious she was from the way she yelped. I couldn’t hear what was said but the sound of her voice came through, and it was just like glass — glass screeching on glass. He let her run down, then said, “Yes, Sal, I know what night it is, but you don’t, I’m sorry to say. At least not the other half of the night, which is what I’m calling about. To you it’s your wedding night. To me it’s the night Mandy came home, and that means you’re not going away tomorrow. You’re not going anywhere, Sal. She’s in terrible trouble, and you have to stand by. Do you hear me? You have to — until it’s cleared up, if it’s ever cleared up.” All that got was more screaming, but he cut her off quick. He asked, “Is Mr. Wilmer there? Will you let me speak to him?”
Then: “Mr. Wilmer?”
Things quieted down then, as two guys talked to each other, deciding what should be done. Turned out Mr. Wilmer knew about the holdup from reading the Baltimore Sun instead of the Washington papers, and took an even more serious view of it than Steve did, if that was possible. Finally Steve wound up, “OK, then, Mr. Wilmer, I’ll hold everything till you get here. I’m sorry, I hated to call, this night of nights, but I had to. I didn’t have any choice. Because, frankly, I’m not sure I could swing it myself, what has to be done about Mandy. And you being in with all kinds of big wheels, especially lawyers. OK, I’ll knock it off till you get here... Yes, she’s here.”
I took the phone then, calling him “Mr. Wilmer,” and he was awful nice. He said, “Mandy, I’m your new father.”
“Steve is my father now.”
“OK, then, I’m your mother’s new husband.”
“Then, pleased to meet you.”
“Mandy, all I want to say is, you have a friend.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wilmer.”
“But who is this ‘Mr. Wilmer’?”
“I try to show respect.”
“Your mother wants to talk to you.”
So then Mother came on, and I don’t put in what she said, as this is no time to repeat it. I mean she was bitter, bawling me out for cutting her out of her trip to Europe, “which I’ve looked forward to all my life and now have to give up.” But as Steve said, when at last she hung up, “That’s your mother all over. All she thinks about, all she ever thought about, is having a good time. Where’s the Riviera? This place she was going to?”
“Somewhere in France, I think.”
“Swinger’s heaven, wherever it is.”
When we were back on the sofa in the living room, Steve said they’d be down in the morning, as soon as they could make it. He said, “The main thing is Mr. Wilmer has a lawyer, a big wheel in Baltimore, who doesn’t take this kind of case as a general rule but when he does is the best in the business.”
I said, “But what’s all the excitement about? If I turn Rick in, which I’m certainly going to do, I get munity, don’t I?”
“Immunity.”
“Immunity, then.”
“You do if you do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s no certainty to it. That’s what scared him so. Mr. Wilmer, I mean. In Baltimore, on account of that guard being dead and the papers blasting off that something has to be done, he’s not sure about anything — whether immunity will be granted or clemency consented to or any of the things that in some other case, with no death being involved, might be possible.”
“Don’t they want their money back?”
“That’s our big chance.”
So then it was time to go to bed, and I wasn’t at all sure how Steve was going to act, our first night alone in the house. I went to my room, undressed, brushed my teeth, did my hair, put my pajamas on, and went to bed. I had my own bathroom, so that much presented no problem. But then, when my light was turned out, here came the tap on my door. I thought to myself, “This is it. Now I’ll find out where I’m at.” I tried to tell myself I wasn’t going to mind, that there had to be a first time and it might as well be with Steve. Just the same, I felt pretty sick as I called, “Come in.”
He came.
He bent over and kissed me on the forehead. Then he whispered, “Good night, little Mandy.”
“Good night, Steve.”
“You see, I keep my promises.”
“For that I thank you, Steve.”
He sat on the bed and went on, “Mandy, there’s something I want to explain... why I paddy-whacked you.”
“Steve, you beat me up.”
“OK, call it that.”
“I call it what it was.”
“It was not for the reason you said, the one that you screamed at me more than once while I held you across my knee. To feel your bottom, you said. It wasn’t that at all. It was because I thought you were stepping out with that bunch Amy Schultz runs around with, and it almost set me crazy. Mandy, I couldn’t take it. Talking with her, after you left, trying to get on your trail, your mother found out that you weren’t... for that, and this other thing that you told me, that nothing went on on this trip between you and that boy you ran off with. I can stand all the rest and not mind. I can even glory in you, the nerve that you showed that day to hold steady there at the wheel of the car they put you to drive and get out of there with the money and the boy. Mandy, you couldn’t do wrong for me. It’s what I’ve been wanting to say.”
He got up then and kissed me once more on the forehead, but I pulled him to me, held him close, and kissed him on the mouth. I said, “Steve, now I know you’re my father. I love you.”
“Little Mandy, good night.”
Then he tiptoed to the door, and as he went out we waved to each other and laughed.
12
We were both up early, and I put on the blue dress, the one I’d left home in, and combed out my hair, and put a blue ribbon around it. Soon as I’d made us some breakfast we began straightening up to kind of get things in order. Then I put on an apron to go out front and sweep off, as we had two cedar trees and that time of year they shed, so brown fuzz was all over the place, ’specially the walk. So then Mrs. Minot was there, the woman who lived next door. She wanted to know where I’d been, and I said, “Oh, I come and go. First I’m here, and then I’m not here.” Then she asked where Mother was, and I said she’d be here directly. She said, “She left yesterday with a man, in a car, and three bags that he carried out. Has she gone away again?” So, of course, what she really meant was, not only about Mother but about me, had I spent the night alone in the house with Steve? I looked at her straight and asked, “Mrs. Minot, do you know what curiosity did to the cat?” And when she didn’t answer I said, “It killed her, that’s what. And I really and truly hope it does not do the same to you.” So on that there was nothing much she could do but go in her house again, which she did.