Richard: I'll get him--
Ordelclass="underline" No! Richard, wait! ... Richard? Listen, I'll tell you and you can tell him. It's all set, man. It's done. You gonna be able to go to California, Richard.
Richard: Boy, that's good to hear. It's all set, huh? Ordelclass="underline" Yeah, taken care of. Home free, man. Richard: Somebody called twice, and hung up.
We don't know who it was.
Ordelclass="underline" Don't worry about it, it's cool, Richard. Listen now what I want to tell you. Listen very carefully, Richard. It's the most important thing has to be done.
Richard: Just a minute, I'll be right back-- Ordelclass="underline" RICHARD!
Richard: I got to turn the fire down under the cabbage.
(Ordell waited in the phone booth in the lobby of the King's Inn, ten dollars worth of quarters stacked on the metal shelf.
(The way Ordell saw it, Louis would be against the idea. In fact, Louis would kick and scream if he even knew about it. So why cut him in? Louis was a nice person, but it was a different whole new deal now. He had to tell Richard something to tell Louis. Then he had to get Richard to do the job and not fuck it up. All this over the phone in the hot phone booth. It wasn't going to be easy. But whoever said picking up a hundred and fifty grand was? That going to Paris, France, sounded pretty good, you know it? Send Louis a postcard ... )
Richard: Hello?
Ordelclass="underline" Your cabbage all right?
Richard: It was boiling over, but I got it.
Ordelclass="underline" Louis upstairs, Richard?
Richard: He's always upstairs. I think he's screwing her, but when I go up there they aren't doing it.
Ordelclass="underline" Richard, tonight ... I want you to take the lady home.
Richard: I think he screws her real fast and doesn't take his pants off or anything.
Ordelclass="underline" Richard! (pause) You have to listen to me, man, very very carefully. You listening? Richard: Yeah, I'm listening.
Ordelclass="underline" Since we all through, I want you and Louis to take the lady home tonight.
Richard: Tonight take her?
Ordelclass="underline" Tonight when it's dark. Tell Louis to get a car like he did and put her in the trunk. You follow in your car, Richard, case he has a flat tire or something. You understand? See, my van's at the airport, Richard. But you don't want to use it anyway. Always, Louis say, steal a car. It's a rule.
Richard: He gets a car and I follow him in my Hornet.
Ordelclass="underline" In the black Hornet. Tell Louis, take her in the house, lock her in a closet and cut the phone wires so he'll have time to get way away from there--you understand?--and she can't call anybody. But then, Richard?
Richard: What?
Ordelclass="underline" This next part you got to do without Louis knowing about it. You got to when he's gone, Louis's gone, you go back to her house ... go in ... find out where he put her so you don't have to look all over for her, you understand?
Richard: Yeah, find out where he put her. Ordelclass="underline" Then, Richard ... you have to kill her. Richard: (pause) I do?
Ordelclass="underline" You have to, Richard, on account of she knows who you are. She told me. She said she recognize your voice and saw your pants. She know you the one came to her house. That's what the Jew lady told me, Richard. She said you ain't getting away with this, cause I know who that fat son of a bitch rent-a-cop is and I'm gonna see him put in jail.
Richard: You know I wondered about that. There was something she said--
Ordelclass="underline" We don't have no choice, Richard. I don't want to see you, any of us go to jail. Man, it'll kill you, worse than kill you in there with all those perverts, man, taking all kinds of trips on you. Richard ... you got to kill the Jew lady. There ain't no other way.
Richard: Well--(long pause) What should I use?
Ordelclass="underline" You the expert, Richard. (pause) But, Richard, listen to me. Don't ... tell ... Louis. He'll chicken on you, Richard, and mess you up.
Richard: I think the Python, the mag. It's my favorite. (pause) You know something?
Ordelclass="underline" What, man?
Richard: I knew she was a Jew. I could tell.
Chapter 17
NEATNESS COUNTS. Of all the rules of magazine contests Mickey had entered when she was young, that was the one she remembered. She had taken it upon herself to be neat and clean long before she learned about virgins and holy purity from the I. H. M. Sisters. When she was a little girl, her mother had told her, she used to change clothes three and four times a day. She would come downstairs wearing a good dress to go out to play and her mother would march her back up to her room.
The blue shirt and white slacks didn't look that bad, for four days. She was pretty sure she didn't smell. They had let her take a shower yesterday and the day before. But there was no deodorant in the bathroom, obviously. The fat policeman didn't seem to know what it was. He hadn't forgotten to bring it, this was his house--he had said it to the nice one outside the bathroom door, arguing, "It's my house, ain't it?"--though she couldn't associate the fat policeman with this room. It was more like her grandmother's. And then her mother was mixed up in her mind with the fat policeman.
What would her mother think if she knew? Her father--she had never realized it before--her father looked like a TV dad in his cardigan sweater with the full sleeves, his pipe, his gray hair--thin but still wavy--his comfortable manner. Her dad would look at the fat policeman and say, "Hi, chief, how are you?" She would say, "Dad, he kidnapped me." And her mother would say, "Oh, now, you're imagining things. You can see he's a policeman." And her father would wait on the sidelines with his pipe while she and her mother discussed it. Both her mother and dad would accept the policeman, and his authority, at face value. She could not imagine them questioning anything--other than the Democratic Party and trade unions--or discussing or arguing with each other about anything ... important.
What was important?
To get some clean clothes, go home, look at the house ... call to see how Bo was-- She stopped and thought: You're as bad as they are. Stay in your own little world--
She thought, If you get out of this, what will you do? What will you say to Frank?
Come on, you walk in the house and he's standing there. What will you say? ... Hi? She heard a pretend little-Mickey voice say, "Oh, hi ... No, I'm fine. How're you?" And never discuss it beyond that point ever again. Hide at the club and get back into the routine. "No, I haven't been away really. I was--" Where?
There were two quick raps on the door, the sound of the key in the lock. Mickey turned off the bed lamp and sat down in the rocker. The nice one came in from the hallway light with the dinner tray. She had heard the fat policeman this morning, but not the other one, the black one, since the day before yesterday.
"What time is it?"
"About one," Louis said. He placed the tray on the bed.
"I don't think I can eat any more noodles." "Ham and cabbage today," Louis said.
"I'm not hungry."
"And cream-style corn."
"Oh, that's different," Mickey said, "cream-style corn. Do you people read? I'd love something to read."
"You're going home," Louis said.
Mickey sat up, her hands on the chair arms. "When?"
"Later on."
"He paid you?"
"We're gonna drop you off after awhile." Mickey sat back in the chair again, slowly. "I don't believe you."
"So, don't," Louis said. He turned to go out. "Wait--Did my husband really pay you?" "Yeah, it's done."
"All you asked for?"
"I guess he must've."
"But you're not sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure." He motioned to the tray. "Eat your dinner."
"What're you going to do to me? Will you tell me?"
"I already did. You're going home."
"I won't tell anybody," Mickey said. "I promise I won't go to the police."
"Well, it wouldn't help your husband any," Louis said. "I 'magine you'll have a few things to say to him but I'd keep in mind he's paid a lot of money for you."