"What?" Frank reached over and took his girlfriend's hand. "Tell me."
"I'd go home," Melanie said, "and act as though the whole thing never happened, if you're worried about your wife I mean. If I were you, I suppose I would be too."
"Come here," Frank said, reaching for her. "Lie down with me, Mel."
Mel. She hated to be called Mel. But she curled up next to him, putting her hand on his chest and giving him some breast against his bare skin. Very softly she said, "I've been so worried about you, Frank. I just want it to be over." Her hand moved down from his chest, down over the mound of his stomach. After a moment she heard him suck in his breath and let it out slowly. "Do you like that?" Still softly. "All I want to do is make you happy, Frank."
He murmured something about how they would be together for a long long time.
Ordell said, "That's the Florentine, huh? What else you got? ... Hey, where you going? He lay back on the pillows against the headboard and had to wait for her to go to the bathroom. When she came out he said, "You sure a fine big girl."
"Thank you," Melanie said. She stood looking at him, hands on her hips, thoughtful. "We've got a minor problem. Well, actually we've got some good news and some sorta not so good news."
"Yeah, I had a feeling you had some kind of news," Ordell said. He put his hands behind his head, waiting there at ease for her to tell him.
Melanie walked over to her shirt and cut-off jeans lying on the imitation-Swedish hotel chair. "He's leaving tomorrow, going home." She stepped into the cut-offs, pulled them tight over her can, wiggling her hips, and zipped up. She said, "Ouch," and made a face. "I'm always catching my pubes."
Ordell was patient, with a mild expression in the flat light of the room. "Is that the not so good news?"
"It's not bad really, is it?" Melanie said. "His story is, he has to see his wife now, make an appearance, and get back to his business." She stood facing Ordell in pants but no top. "And, he wants me to come to Detroit. Which is fine, right? I'll be able to stick fairly close to him and report in. But it does fuck up getting anything settled right away. I mean while we're here."
"Wants you to go with him," Ordell said, "to his home?"
"No, I'm not actually going with him, on the same flight or anything. He just wants me to come to Detroit for a few days. Probably stay in a motel."
"Be around, hold his hand."
"That's what it sounds like. See, he stares at the wall a lot. I'm telling him things, stroking him, trying to brainwash him around a little, and it's like trying to give him ideas with an eye-dropper."
"You going to Detroit," Ordell said, "was that your idea or his?"
"Well, I didn't come right out and suggest it. I reminded him sorta I'm the only one around he has if he wants to talk about it; the sympathetic listener. See, we don't want him to get away completely. But here's the good news. You ready?"
"I can't wait," Ordell said.
"Okay, I think what's in his head, because of the guilt trip and what's happened and everything, he wants to go back to his wife and call off the divorce."
"He say that?"
"Not in so many words. What I'm getting at, if he wants her back then he obviously doesn't want her dead. Right?"
"That's the good news," Ordell said.
"Yeah." Melanie seemed disappointed or surprised, a little pouty. "Well, the bad isn't that bad and the good isn't exactly sensational. But what it does, it gets things back to normal. I mean the money's still there, but the panic's over. Now you'll have time to set it up and do it right."
Ordell waited. He watched her put on her shirt without unbuttoning it, slipping it over her head, and the smile for him as her face appeared. The big girl was a show.
Tying the shirttails in front, she said, "You're a hunk, Ordell, but from what I've seen you're a piss-poor extortionist, if you don't mind my saying. Think about it. You've got hubby back home with little Mickey. So what do you do? You start over. And this time maybe I can help you."
"If hubby's back home with little Mickey," Or-dell said, "where's little Melanie?"
"Little Melanie's around," Melanie said. "He's still got the hots, but he's also got the guilts, and that's not something we can rush. I was thinking I might even go home for awhile and see my folks, since it's been, God, almost two years."
"Take our time," Ordell said, "and have you on the inside so to speak. Help us set the man up, huh?"
Melanie nodded. "After he gets past his worries, quits looking over his shoulder. All that money'll still be sitting there. So what's the rush?"
"You giving me the rush," Ordell said, "but it's a kick, you know it? Seeing a mind working above those big tits."
"Scout's honor," Melanie said. "If there's something that bothers you, hey, then let's discuss it."
"Bothers me you staying in a motel up there all by yourself. We got to do something about that," Ordell said. He gave her a nice smile. "I'll tell you something. You're a fine big girl, Mel'nie, but if you didn't have a pussy there'd be a bounty on you."
Chapter 21
MICKEY STAYED IN THE HOUSE all day Friday. She wasn't ready to go out, so told herself there was a lot to do. Dust. Do the kitchen floor. Rub out the stains on the oriental in the bedroom, though they were barely noticeable. The closet--she looked in, stooped to pick up the suits on the floor, abruptly changed her mind and closed the splintered door with the hole in it. It was Frank's closet, let him take care of it. If he ever decided to come home. There was no word from him all day Friday and she made her mind up she would not call him again.
She thought about lawyers. The only ones she knew belonged to the club and were friends of both of them and played golf with Frank. That probably didn't matter, but if she had to she'd get a name out of the Yellow Pages. What she wanted wouldn't require high-priced legal assistance or a formidable name. She thought. Though at this point she didn't know the least thing about getting a divorce. She had not yet said the word aloud and just barely heard it in her mind.
She wasn't sure if she should tell Bo first. Or file and let Frank tell him, the dad. Or both tell him. She pictured Bo sitting in the den listening to them and finally saying, "Yeah, okay. Well, listen, I gotta go."
She didn't tell her mother the plan. When she called during the morning she listened to her mother: Bo was having a wonderful time but didn't say much about the tennis camp. He didn't say much about anything, did he? Getting him to talk, you had to drag it out of him. He'd come home, eat dinner and go out again to meet some of his friends, all nice polite boys. Her dad had just left to take the Cadillac in to have the oil changed and the tires rotated; it was too bad Mickey hadn't called a little sooner. Her mother didn't ask her how she was or what she'd been doing all week, though she told Mickey she hadn't gotten a letter from her in quite awhile.
It was strange, listening to her mother and seeing Louis and Richard Edgar Monk in her mind and not saying, "You should've seen Richard, mom, Richard in his sagging Jockey shorts before I kicked him in the balls. Tell dad when he gets back from watching grease jobs I got drunk and stoned with an ex-convict who's been to Huntsville and Southern Ohio something or other." Knowing all that and not saying anything about it. And her mother, half-listening, thinking about something else or not accepting what she was hearing would say--What would she say?
Saturday morning she went to the A&P and thought about going to the club. But at eleven she was in back lying in the sun in her bathing suit, the patio door open so she could hear the phone. It didn't ring. The sun felt good at first. She wanted to fall asleep in it and wake up in shade. But then it was too hot in the closeness of the backyard. There was no air stirring. A wasp was attracted to her and she kept swiping at it with the Saturday Review, missing. Frank used Forbes and killed them instantly.