Реймонд Маршалл - Lady — Here’s Your Wreath

‘Yeah, you didn’t come in at all... like you said. Listen, brother, I was mighty glad that Katz got his, otherwise he’d have pinned Blondie’s killin’ on you. I was scared sick that he’d bring it up right away, but maybe his own troubles tied up his memory.’

I stood, holding the ’phone, going a little cold. I’d forgotten that. Katz could have got me in a jam. I was glad he was dead, I never did have any use for that guy.

‘Okay, Mo,’ I said, ‘I’m goin’ back to bed. Listen, I’ve got Mardi, and we’re keeping under cover for a bit. I’ll watch the newspapers; when the trial’s over, we’ll come back. I ain’t riskin’ that baby gettin’ drawn into it.’

‘You keep out of it,’ Ackie agreed. ‘Give her my love, an’ you look after her, you tramp — she’s a grand girl.’

‘You’re tellin’ me,’ I said. ‘’Bye, pal, an’ watch yourself,’ and I hung up.

I ran upstairs and into the bedroom. Mardi was sitting up in bed, waiting for me. I could see something was wrong by the tense expression in her eyes. I didn’t say anything about it, but began to get undressed.

‘I’ve had a talk with Ackie,’ I said, pulling off my shirt. ‘He’s crazy with excitement. The whole thing’s blown up an’ Spencer’s in jail. Everyone’s in jail, an’ you an’ I don’t have to worry any more.’

She said, ‘Is Lee Curtis in jail?’

I stopped, holding my trousers in one hand, and stared at her. ‘Lee Curtis? Why worry about him? Ackie said they were all in jail.’

‘But did he say Lee Curtis was in jail?’ Her voice was almost hard.

I came over and sat on the bed. ‘What makes you ask about him... more than the others?’

She looked at me in an odd way, and shook her head. ‘I just wanted to know.’

There was something behind this, but I didn’t want to press it. ‘He didn’t mention Curtis, but he’s being taken care of, all right.’

‘Oh,’ she said in a flat voice, and looked at her finger-nails carefully. I sat on the bed, in my B.V.D.’s. I was beginning to feel like hell, but I couldn’t get to sleep until I got this straightened.

‘Tell me, baby,’ I said gently.

She looked up at me, and her eyes were big and wild. ‘Nick, do you love me?’ she said. ‘Do you really love me? Not just for yesterday and today, but for tomorrow and all the tomorrows?’

I put my hand over hers. ‘You’re everythin’ to me, Mardi,’ I said, and meant it.

She said, ‘Will you do something big for me? Something that’ll mean you love me?’

I nodded. ‘Sure, what is it?’

‘I want you and me to go away. Never come back to this State. To go south a long way, and start all over again — will you do that?’

‘You mean never come back?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘But, Mardi, we’ve gotta live. My connections are here. I’ve lived here so long. I’m known here. I’ll keep away with you until the trial is over, but if I’ve to earn enough dough it’s here that I can earn it.’

She shook her head. ‘Money doesn’t matter. I have all we want.’ She pulled a long envelope out of the bedclothes and put it into my hand. ‘Look, it’s for you.’

I opened the envelope blankly and shook out a bundle of bearer bonds. There were twenty thousand dollars. I pushed the bonds away from me and sat a little stunned, looking at her.

‘They’re mine,’ she said fiercely. ‘They’re for you and me — with that, surely we can go away and you can start again.’

I said, ‘But, Mardi, that’s a lot of money for a girl to have. How did you get it?’

She said, ‘At the Mackenzie Fabrics. I saved and I heard tips. Spencer invested for me—’

‘I see.’

She began to cry. ‘Say you’ll take the money and come away with me, Nick — please...’

I rolled into bed beside her, shoving the envelope under her pillow. ‘Suppose we leave it until tomorrow? We’ll be able to think clearly tomorrow,’ I said.

I felt her stiffen. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it must be now. I couldn’t sleep. I must know. It’s so important to me.’

‘Why is it, Mardi? Why should you want to hide yourself away?’

‘Nick, you’ll lose me if you go back,’ she said, suddenly sobbing violently. ‘I can’t tell you why, but I feel that is what will happen. You must say now.’

And because nothing really mattered to me except her happiness, and because I knew she loved me as much as I loved her, I gave her the promise.

She said, ‘You really mean that?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘We’ll take the car on and we’ll go to the coast. We’ll get us a small house somewhere near the sea with a garden and we’ll be just you an’ I.’

‘And you’ll be happy?’

‘Sure, I’ll be happy. I’ll find something to do.’ Lying there in the dark, I suddenly felt fine about the idea. We’d got money, we were going to the sun, and we had each other.

We got a place a few miles out from Santa Monica. It was small, but it was cute — the kind of place movie-stars week-end in. As soon as we saw it, we fell for it. The garden ran down to the sea, and if you wanted a bathe you just opened a gate in the wall and stepped on to the hot yellow sands. The sea was right ahead.

The house had two bedrooms and large sitting-room leading out to a piazza that encircled the whole building. The garden was big enough to screen the house from the road. The rent was high, but we didn’t think twice about it — we took it.

Maybe I should have felt a heel taking all that money from Mardi, but I didn’t. If the money had been mine, I should have wanted Mardi to share it with me. Well, the money was hers, and I wasn’t going to spoil things by refusing to share with her.

We had a grand time fixing that house up. It took us a week to get straight, and we did all the work ourselves, even to fixing the carpets. When we got through, we were tickled to death with it.

Getting Mardi to the sea was a good thing. In a week or so it began to make a big difference to her. She lost the drawn, tense look that had begun to worry me, and she tanned mighty quick in the sunshine and sea air. She was happy and so was I. I reckon I never felt happier.

We got up every morning and had a bathe in the sea. It was grand swimming in that deep blue water, with no one to watch us — just the two of us, in the rolling swell of the sea. Mardi wore a white swim-suit that made her figure look better than it was, and that’s saying something. She never bothered about wearing a cap, and we played around with each other without a care in the world.

Mardi said to me, a couple of weeks after we had settled down, ‘Nick, you must start working.’ I’d just come out of the sea, and was lying down on the sand, too lazy to dry myself, and letting the hot sunshine do it for me.

‘That’s okay with me,’ I said. ‘I’ll look around and see what I can find.’

Mardi knelt over me, her knees and thighs buried in the soft sand and her hands crossed in her lap.

‘Nick,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you write a book?’

I blinked up at her. ‘Write a book?’ I said. ‘Why, hell — I couldn’t write a book.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve never tried,’ she said, which was true. ‘Look how some novels sell. Why don’t you try, and see what happens?’

‘Yeah, but look how some flop. I guess novel-writing ain’t so hot.’

She said, ‘Why don’t you write a novel about a newspaper man? Don’t you think you could do that?’

There was an idea there. I sat up and thought about it. Ackie had enough background to fill three books, and I had had a few experiences. Mardi could see that I was looking at the idea favourably, and she began to get excited. ‘Oh, Nick, wouldn’t it be fun if you could. You wouldn’t have to leave me then, would you? I could get your meals and sit around darning your socks, and you could be working—’