“You heard about the money?”
“Oh my, and was that a relief. Because to get immunity for you, he had to pledge to make good the whole shortage, the heist as everyone calls it. And, Darling, he’s very well off, but a hundred and twenty thousand would have been a terrible blow, even to him. But five thousand isn’t so bad.”
“Have you told him?”
“Oh, yes, I called him at once.”
She asked where she could reach me, and I said, “You can’t. I’ll be moving around with the officer. I’m in a theater now, calling from the lobby, and where we go next I don’t know. But I’ll keep in touch. I’ll be calling you.”
“OK, but not before nine. I’d say around ten would be better. Steve has asked me to dinner, and he’s been so nice in this thing, to you and Ben and me, that I want to act friendly to him. And besides, by ten it could all be over. The police think Rick will wait until dark and then make his move against you, or try to.”
“OK. Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”
“What did you say, Mandy?”
“The surprise — can’t you give me a hint?”
“Oh, Darling, don’t spoil it for Ben. It means so much to him. I promise you it’ll be big, and I think you’re going to like it.”
“Then, OK.”
“At ten? You’ll call?”
“Yes, Mother. I love you.”
And those were the last words I said to her, God rest her pretty, sweet soul.
It said in the afternoon papers that Esther was out on $1,000 bail, and I called her, after looking the Davises up, fortunately remembering their name, John P., from the piece that came out in the paper. I wanted to tell her I had no hard feelings, that I understood she’d been put, made to do what she did by Rick. But once again I was calling one person and another came on the line. It was a boy’s voice kind of muffled, the way people speak when they don’t want to say who they are. But all of a sudden I knew who it was. I said, “Rick, what are you doing there?”
Then he commenced cussing me out, saying awful things to me, so filthy and mean and obscene I can’t write them down. I couldn’t make myself. I said, “Rick, you stop talking like that! Stop saying such things to me.”
“Listen, bitch, saying’s just the beginning. The rest of it’s what I do! I’m going to get you if it’s the last thing I do on this earth! Do you hear me? Are you listening?”
“Rick, you listen to me! You give yourself up, do you hear? Or someone’s going to get you in a way you don’t expect!”
Those were the last words I said to him, and I hope he remembered them when he died that night on our lawn.
He hung up on me, and, of course, I told Mr. O’Brien. He went into action fast, calling the Hyattsville police, not waiting to go out to the car and use his radio phone but doing it right there in the theater, to tip them that Rick was home. So they closed in in a couple of minutes, but Rick gave them the slip. And how he gave them the slip, it turned out later, was to put his mother’s dress on, run a ribbon through his hair, and walk out of the house, right in front of their eyes. He was wearing shorts, and with the dress down to his knees they didn’t show at all. So with that long hair of his and the sissy walk that he had, no one suspicioned him. That sissy walk, if you ask me, was part of the trouble with him. And all that took plenty of time, what with Mr. O’Brien standing by, there in the theater lobby, after giving the number in of the pay station there for the callback he asked them for. It was going on eight when he finally got word that they didn’t have Rick, so at last we could go to the car and think about dinner. So I suggested the Bladensburg place and we went there, and I found out about an officer, that he doesn’t stint himself when it’s at somebody else’s expense. He had shrimp salad to start, then steak, baked potato, salad, and pie a la mode to wind up. So I had the same, and the check was $15.75. I left a $4.25 tip, and we went out and got in the car.
We crossed the bridge and drove past the house. At the corner a flashlight came on and waved, and Mr. O’Brien stopped. An officer, one in uniform, stepped to the window and whispered a while. Then Mr. O’Brien drove on, first taking a right to turn the corner. “I’m circling the block,” he said. “They want me to park out front, so if we’re needed we’ll be on call.”
“If I’m needed, you mean?”
“Something like that, I would say.”
“Why don’t you rig up a bullhorn? Set it up so I can talk into it? If Rick’s here he’ll know where I am, that he hasn’t a chance to get me and will perhaps listen to me.
“It’s an idea, at that. I’ll call it in.”
He took three more rights, then pulled in to the curb a few steps down from the house. It was dark, with the front light not yet on, as, of course, it had been broad daylight when Mother and Steve went out. He commenced talking into his radio phone, unhooking the receiver from the dashboard and pressing buttons and stuff. Then he hung his receiver up, or mike, or whatever it’s called, and said, “They’re sending the bullhorn over, be here in a couple of minutes. Now, what are you going to say?”
“Well, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought.”
“I want to hear it.”
“You mean now?”
“That’s it.”
“Can’t I just start to talk and act natural?”
“And louse it? No.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Pretend I’m him. Talk to me.”
So I commenced with the pretending, getting off stuff like, “Rick, this is Mandy. Rick, are you there, do you hear me? Rick, they have the money, they found the car, and there’s no use you holding out. Rick, they’re going to get you, so why not give yourself up now?” Stuff like that, but then Mr. O’Brien cut in, “What are you scared of? What’s bugging you?”
“Who says I’m scared of anything?”
“Well, your mouth’s trembling.”
“My mouth always trembles when I have to say something by heart. And who says I should learn it by heart? Listen, Mr. O’Brien, suppose you attend to the copping, while I do the talking my own self, and in my own way; you don’t mind? I’ll make it plain, don’t worry.”
“Then, OK.”
There may have been more, I don’t know. We jawed at each other quite some little time. But during while it went on, a car passed up the street, stopped up near the corner, and backed into the curb. Then it pulled ahead, and backed up again, to park. As the lights went out, a man and a woman got out and started walking toward us. They had come some little ways before I realized they were Mother and Steve. They started toward the house but then stopped and turned back, as though hearing somebody speak. Steve stepped to the curb, where a car was parked, and I heard him say, “OK.” Then the two of them started back, to the car, not to the house. She took Steve’s arm real friendly, and it crossed my mind how pretty she looked from behind, just walking along. It crossed my mind to wonder if I was as pretty as that, as she sometimes said I was. Then I was screaming all of a sudden, without even knowing why. And then I did know why — it was to warn her, but I was too late. A shadow had moved out from the cedar tree, the one on the left-hand side of the walk. Then it moved fast, as though to cut her off. Then it darted, and I heard Rick speak my name. By that time she had stopped, and Steve had stepped in between. Then fire cut the night, from the shadow, and Steve went down. Then fire cut the night again, and Mother went down. Then fire cut the night from all sides, and Rick went down.
Then I was running up the sidewalk, not knowing how I got there, or how I’d got out of the car. Hands reached out to grab me, but I shook loose and went running on. Then, by the flashlights the police were holding, there was my darling mother, dead. And there was Steve, his drawn gun still in his hand. And there was Rick, still in his mother’s dress, the red ribbon still in his hair.