James Cain - The Cocktail Waitress

So he went, and for a time, things were very humdrum, we could even say a bit flat. I missed him coming to the bar each night; at least I missed his nineteen-dollar tips. Things went on I suppose for two or three weeks, into the early fall. It was the tail end of September by then, and I’d switched back from my summer hot pants to the velveteen trunks and pantyhose, which I’d just gotten on one afternoon when the bell rang, and when I opened the door it was Tom. I hadn’t seen him since that night, and no doubt acted cool. “… Oh?” I said. “Tom? What can I do for you?”

“Joan,” he half stammered, “I have to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“I think you know, and I won’t enjoy it, I promise you. Just the same, I won’t talk on your doorstep.”

“Then-come in, please.”

I brought him into the living room, and asked him: “How would I know what you’ve come about?”

“You haven’t seen this?”

I noticed for the first time he had a paper under his arm, which he unrolled and waved around. “I don’t take the afternoon paper,” I told him. “What’s in it to concern me? What is this anyway?”

He handed it over, and on page one, not the main story but big enough to make it onto the front page, was one about Mr. Lacey, the man whose bail bond I’d signed. It said:

LACEY CASE CALLED:

NO LACEY

— or something like that. The story simply said that when the case of James Lacey, indicted municipal engineer, was called for trial that morning, “Mr. Lacey didn’t make the required appearance.” It then went on to say that “Melvin T. Lackman, Mr. Lacey’s attorney, told the court Mr. Lacey hadn’t arrived at his office as scheduled to accompany him to the trial, and that he had no information on where Mr. Lacey was. The court, in the person of Judge T. D. Enos, ordered a bench warrant issued for Mr. Lacey’s arrest.” That was all, except for a picture of Mr. Lacey, looking as I remembered him, only younger and not so fat. My stomach began telling me this was bad news, but I still wasn’t quite caught up. I asked: “Well? Where do I come in?”

“Joan, you signed his bail bond, that’s where.”

“You mean, I lose my house? It gets taken and sold to pay the bond?”

“On that, I don’t know yet-I’m as caught by surprise as you are, and know as little about it. Where I do know what I mean, is to stand by you one hundred percent-you did this thing for me, and I’m not letting you take the fall for it alone.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment, Tom, but I don’t see what you can do, unless some of those projects of yours have ripened and you now have not one but twelve thousand dollars to spare.”

“I think I don’t need it, and neither do you. If we can find that son of a bitch and bring him back for trial, we can let a court take it from there. But that’s what I think, and what I know is nothing. As of now, the first thing is to get a lawyer.”

“… I don’t know any lawyer.”

“So happens, I do.”

He mentioned one I’d heard of, at the time of my real estate deal, with offices over in Marlboro, Dwight Eckert was his name, and Tom offered to drive me to see him. I thought to put in a call first, to find out if he’d be in, and it turned out he would be, after four o’clock. It was then going on for three, which just gave me time to change from my waitress clothes, and put on a suit I’d bought, which would do nicely, as the air by now had a nip in it. I excused myself, went back to the bedroom and started to change, when there he was, in the door. I asked: “Who invited you back here?”

He leaned against the doorpost and crossed his arms. “Figured we could continue talking. Not like it’s the first time I’ve seen you undressed, brief though the last time was.”

I was wearing no more than I’d been the last time, just my panties. I turned to him and held out my hand, palm up. “That’ll be twenty-five dollars, please.”

“… What did you say?”

“I said, pay. From being taken to visit a whorehouse, I learned some tricks of the trade. Now, you want to watch me undress, you pay to watch me undress. Twenty-five dollars, I said-payable now.”

He stood there, stared, and then took out his wallet. He counted out two tens and a five, and tossed them on the bed. I snatched them up and threw them at him. “Tom,” I said, in a way that really meant business, “you get out. You get the hell out, do you hear?” He picked up the money, took out his wallet once more, and put it back in. At the bedroom door he turned back.

“I don’t understand you. Starting with the night at the Wigwam. If you’d pushed me away as soon as we walked through the door, all right. But you didn’t. You can’t tell me you didn’t want me. Or you can tell me, but I know better-you were hot wet, and let me tell you, a wet-”

“Tom!”

“All right, let’s say a woman’s body, then-a woman’s body doesn’t lie.”

“At that moment, Tom, I wanted you with every fiber of my being. So much so that I didn’t even mind you taking me to that rotten place so long as it made possible what we both wanted. But Tom, there’s something I wanted more, and I can’t have both.”

“And that’s what?”

“Another man, one who will marry me-”

“Who said I wouldn’t marry you?”

“-and provide for me, and what’s more important, for my son, in a way you never could. I’m sorry, Tom, but it’s so. You never could, not if all your projects succeeded, every one of them.”

He nodded, said no more, and walked out the bedroom door, shutting it quietly behind him. I finished changing my clothes, then went back to the living room. He was sitting there waiting, and got up, very formal, when he saw me. I said: “Are we ready?” Then I remembered and called Bianca, to tell her I wouldn’t be in. I could have just come late, the meeting with the lawyer wouldn’t run more than an hour I was sure, but with what I had on my mind, an evening of serving drinks was more than I could face. She was upset, but had to say O.K.

Not much was said on the drive over to Marlboro, except for his answers to some of my questions as to who Mr. Eckert was and what I needed to ask him-all I could think of was, would I lose my house, but Tom reminded me that other things had to be asked, like how much time did we have, and actually what would be done, on a “play-by-play basis,” as he put it. “I would think the sheriff figures in it,” he told me, in a hesitant, guarded way, “and we ought to find out first how he goes about it, whatever it is that he does. Could be we have to cooperate-or something.”

I had a sudden vision of walking into a police station and finding Private Church there, suspicious as always and ready to jump on me at the least little sign of anything askew. I took some comfort from the distance between Hyattsville and Marlboro, but not as much as I would have if there had been a county line separating them. I almost said we should turn around and I’d take my chances, losing the house if need be, but by the time I’d reached that point we’d arrived.

Mr. Eckert turned out to be a youngish guy in lounge coat and gray slack pants, who shook hands, looked at me quite sharp, and came around the desk to seat me in a chair beside him. When he’d motioned Tom to a chair facing him, he sat down, and read what it said in the paper, which Tom still had in his hand. “Yes,” he told us, nodding. “I heard about it and heard about the young girl who had no more sense than to go Jim Lacey’s bail-which nobody else would do, considering the guy he was. Jim’s wild, that’s all that can be said- and the kindest thing, I guess, is to leave it at that and get on. Now hold everything while I check on how things stand.”