I sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair; she stirred, smiling. Gradually she opened her eyes, just partway, but you could still get lost in ’em.
“What — what time is it?” she asked.
The office was dark but for the pulse of orange neon.
“A little after eight,” I said.
“Where have you been?”
“That’s not important.”
“What is?”
“Supper.”
That got a big smile out of her, a farm-girl smile those beestung lips seemed incapable of, only there she was doing it.
She sat up, wide awake. “I don’t have any clothes — just what I’ve had on all day. And slept in.”
“We’ll get you some things tomorrow. Smooth your dress out and bring your appetite.”
“Well,” she said, and shrugged, and smiled, “okay.”
She freshened up in my bathroom (the last girl in there was Polly Hamilton), and we walked downstairs, out into a cool summer night, the heat wave finally a memory, strolling hand in hand and around the corner to Binyon’s, where I bought her a T-bone steak with all the trimmings, which she gobbled down greedily. She hadn’t eaten in eight hours.
Nor had I, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. I ordered coffee and ate a roll or two, to keep my stomach at bay. We didn’t talk much at dinner; she was busy eating, and I was busy wondering what the hell to do about her.
Actually, I’d already done something about her, and that’s what was nagging me.
After I gave him a statement at the division field office, Cowley had let me use the phone. I’d reversed the charges to call Joshua Petersen in De Kalb, at the number he’d provided. To tell him I had found his daughter.
He’d shown no surprise, or joy; just relief, as he said, “That’s good news, Mr. Heller.”
“She isn’t with Candy Walker anymore. He’s dead.”
“Good,” he said.
His voice had a flat, dry sound, like his soul needed rain.
I said, “I’ve got her away from the ‘bad crowd’ she was running with, and she’s ready to make a new start. I just can’t guarantee you she’s going to be willing to do it your way.”
Silence.
“Mr. Petersen, I’m saying I’ll bring your daughter to you — I think she’ll be willing to meet with you at least. But whether she’ll come home to stay or not is going to be up to her.”
More silence; I waited, making him fill it.
Finally he did, stoically: “I understand.”
“She’s a big girl now, Mr. Petersen. She has a right to make her own way in the world. She needs to learn how, but that’s another story. Anyway, I’m going to be right there with her, and I don’t want you badgering her. I won’t abide any show of force on your part. If you can mend fences with her, fine. But if she doesn’t want to stay with you, she doesn’t stay. It’s that simple.”
“All right.”
“Okay. I just wanted that understood.”
“It’s understood.”
“And that bonus you promised me, I expect it whether she stays with you, or not.”
“The thousand dollars is yours, Mr. Heller.”
“I earned that money, Mr. Petersen. Like you said, I had to go among the wolves.”
“The money’s yours, no argument. I’m grateful to you.”
“Well, okay then,” I said. “Where shall we meet?”
And we’d agreed on a time and place, the next afternoon; but this was tonight, and the girl across from me eating Mr. Binyon’s cheesecake was still calling me Jim.
Somehow I just couldn’t seem to level with her. Somehow I couldn’t make myself risk seeing disappointment, perhaps even loathing, in those wide-set big brown eyes.
So by nine we were in my Murphy bed, just cuddling in the dark; I had pulled the shades so even the neon couldn’t get in.
That way I wouldn’t have to see her eyes when I told her.
“Sugar, remember when I told you I thought you ought to go home, and see your daddy?”
“Yes. Aren’t we going tomorrow?”
“I have to tell you something first. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about what was best for you, when I said that.”
“Who were you thinking of?”
“Me.”
I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t.
So I went on. “There’s no easy way to tell you this. I’m not Jimmy Lawrence.”
She still didn’t say anything; but she didn’t pull away from me, either. Stayed cuddled right up next to me. Her breathing easy, calm, regular.
I said, “I’m the guy whose name is on the door. I’m Nathan Heller.”
“I know,” she said.
“You know?”
“I may be from the farm, Jim. Sorry — Nathan? But I wasn’t born in a barn.”
“How...?”
“When you were gone, I looked through the drawers in your desk and your file. I found snapshots of you and a pretty girl at the fair. And some clippings about a trial with your picture and your name under it.”
“Hell. Why aren’t you mad?”
“I am mad.” She said this like, pass the salt.
“You don’t sound mad...”
“I forgive you, Jim. Nathan.”
“Nate, actually, but—”
“I asked you before... Nate. I’ll ask you again. I’m with you, now — aren’t I?”
“You’re with me. I’m right beside you, all the way.”
“Then what does it matter what your name is, or why you came looking for me?”
“You — you know I came looking for you? How did you figure that out?”
“You had my picture in your desk. Did my husband hire you to find me?”
“No, your father.”
“Daddy gave you that picture?”
“That’s right.”
“He really wants to see me again?”
“He does. He says his health is bad...”
“He’s a lunger. Since the war.”
“That’s what he told me. He says he’s got enough of a pension to get by on. He sold his farm, has a house in De Kalb — where you can stay if you want.”
“My father sold his farm? I thought he’d never do that.”
“Louise, he’s coming to the end of his road. He says all he wants in life at this stage is to have a second chance with you. Make it up to you, for how rough he treated you, growing up.”
“He used to beat me with a belt.”
“I know. And if you don’t want to go see him, you don’t have to.”
“I don’t think I want to live with him. No matter what.”
“You don’t have to. It’s like I told you before — we’ll get you set up in the city, here.”
“As your secretary?”
“If we can’t find you something better, why not? It wouldn’t pay much, but I hear the boss is a soft touch.”
She snuggled to me. “I love the boss.”
We made love.
And the next afternoon I was back on the road in the Auburn, gratefully free of Burma Shave signs and hymns and the threat of hillbilly music. This time the female next to me was perky and fresh and young and not wearing a floral tent: first thing this morning I’d taken her to Marshall Field’s, and bought her a yellow-and-white frock with lace trim on the short sleeves and a little white collar. She’d have a whole new wardrobe tomorrow, after I got that grand from her old man.
That was the only thing I’d kept from her: that I’d be getting a bonus today for delivering her. It probably wouldn’t have mattered to her, but who could tell? She wasn’t from Chicago.
We took Highway 30 west for about an hour and then a sign said,
WELCOME TO DE KALB — BARBED WIRE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. Every place is the capital of something, I suppose. We drove through the quiet little town, a brick oasis in the desert of corn we’d been driving through, and on the northern edge, there it was: Hopkins Park, lushly wooded, rolling. Saturday afternoon, and crowded: picnic benches packed with families chowing down, like Ma Barker and the boys, some having to settle for their picnic basket on a checkered cloth on the ground, ants and all; a swimming pool with a diving board and bathhouse brimming with people, particularly kids, darting about in their bright-colored bathing trunks, making up one big erratically waving flag of summer. This was August, after all, school looming up head. Desperate days. Time running out.