Ed Gorman: Ticket to Ride

The record-burning she had alluded to was the brainstorm of Reverend H. Dobson Cartwright, DD, which allegedly stood for Doctor of Divinity. Kenny called him Reverend Cartwright, DDT. That was more appropriate. Cartwright had a radio show and a flock and was given to publicity stunts that embarrassed everybody but true believers. Tomorrow his flock would be burning the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and many others.

Knowing I was being dismissed, I stood up and took my last shot, “Gee, you mean you’re not taking in your Lawrence Welk records?”

“Good-bye, McCain.”

“Jerry Vale?”

“I said good-bye.”

“Kate Smith?”

She’d never given me the finger before. She looked sort of cute doing it.

Molly Weaver was leaning against my red Ford Ragtop when I reached the parking lot behind the county courthouse. In her yellow shirtdress and tortoiseshell glasses, she gave the impression of remaining crisp on this sultry day. But the small face was anything but crisp. Dark circles under the eyes and way too much makeup. I’d never seen her like this before.

“I suppose you’re mad at me.”

“Hell, no, Molly. Not after I thought about it.” I pulled my keys from my pocket and walked around to the driver’s side. She followed me. “We were just friends. You didn’t owe me anything.”

“Well, I think we were a little more than friends, McCain. We slept together.” Her words were apparently heard by an elderly couple emerging from a tugboat-sized Chrysler. Their heads whipped around as if Jesus had called them.

“Talk a little lower,” I whispered.

“Well, it’s true, we did sleep together.” A much quieter Molly now.

I took her arm. “Look, Molly. You’d been dumped and I’d been dumped. We used each other to get through the worst of it. It was kind of like taking medicine. But we both knew that as soon as we found people we really wanted to go after, it’d be over between us. You found Doran.”

That was when she broke down and fell into my arms, sobbing. “He didn’t kill anybody, McCain! He really didn’t!”

The elderly couple had just about made it to the courthouse, but Molly’s cries stopped them. They turned around and stood there watching us. This was a lot better than daytime TV any day.

I got the door opened and guided her into the seat. I pushed her over to the passenger side, then got in myself. I punched open the glove compartment and took out a small box of Kleenex, which I placed on her lap. She was at the eye-dabbing and nose-blowing stage, the eruption being over.

“Cliffie thinks he killed Lou Bennett.”

“Cliffie’s a moron.”

“Yes, but he’s the chief of police.”

“Does he have any evidence?”

“Somebody saw him in front of Bennett’s place about three o’clock this morning.”

Because Molly’s natural inclination was to look on the bleak side of things-Jean-Paul Sartre was a game-show host compared to her-I’d assumed that Cliffie had made his usual mistake of grabbing at the obvious. But a witness seeing Doran there was serious.

“I love him, McCain. I love him.” She started crying again. I waggled the Kleenex box under her chin. She plucked one like a dandelion and put it to her jaunty little nose. But praise the Lord, it was a false start. The tears didn’t get out of the gate. She just snuffled some and then went on talking. “I want to marry him. He’s the man I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

It would have been downright mean to point out that she was only twenty-two.

“Well, he needs a good lawyer, and with his money he won’t have any trouble getting one, Molly.”

I waved to a few courthouse employees as they passed by. One of the males gave me a smile and then the high sign. Yes, that’s right. I was going to hump Molly right here in the parking lot. She faced the wall. She hadn’t seen him.

Now she angled in her seat and said, “Do you have a cigarette?”

“Sure.”

I lighted two and gave her one.

“I wish you smoked filters. I always get tobacco in my teeth from these.”

“I’m sorry. From now on it’s filters for me. Filters, filters, filters.” Usually she would have smiled. Not this time.

“I have to tell you something.”

“You can’t be pregnant. Last night was your first time with him.”

No smile this time, either.

“You know how he said he knows Joan Baez and Norman Mailer and he went to Yale?”

“Uh-huh.”

“He made it up.”

“Aw, shit.” I didn’t say that to her; I said it to myself. Of course he made it all up. All the theatricality, all the name-dropping, all the James Dean rebel stuff. He made it up. Of course. And I hadn’t figured it out. Molly had had to tell me.

“He got real drunk last night and told me everything.”

“Was this before or after you slept with him?”

“How do you know I slept with him?”

“Please.”

“After I slept with him, I guess.”

“Figures.”

“But now I love him more than ever.”

“Of course you do.”

“He’s had to pretend to be someone else for so many years. I feel so sorry for him.”

“Me, too. I’ll probably have to start using those Kleenex myself.”

“Now you’re being mean. He may have made things up, but he’s brilliant and he’s sweet and he really is against the war.”

There was nothing I could say. There were women who’d loved Rasputin. There were women who’d loved Hitler. There were even women who loved Dick Nixon, Judge Esme Anne Whitney being one of them.

“He needs a lawyer. And don’t say no, McCain. You’d be letting down the cause.”

“What cause?”

“The anti-war cause. It’s like Harrison said, we’re all soldiers in the anti-war cause.”

I sank back in my seat. Soldiers in the anti-war cause. That sounded like something good old Doran would say. “There are plenty of other lawyers in this town.”

“He doesn’t have any money, and the other lawyers won’t help him because they don’t want to be associated with our cause.”

“Gee, couldn’t he just call Joan Baez or Norman Mailer to help him out?”

“That isn’t very funny. His whole life is at stake here.” Then: “Will you at least talk to him? Please, McCain? Please?”

She was right about the other lawyers in town. Nobody’d go near Mr. Wonderful. And not just because of their reputations. This was a conservative town. They really believed that people like Doran were subversives. And they threw me in for good measure.

“Please,” Molly said. And for the first time, she smiled. “You know you’re going to say yes eventually, so why don’t you just get it over with?”

I looked at her and shook my head. “But I’m not going to start smoking filters.”

“That’s fine.”

“And I’m not going to pretend that he’s anything but a bullshit artist.”

“That’s fine too.”

“And I’m going to send him a bill even if I only talk to him for ten minutes.”

“Just say it, will you, McCain, for God’s sake?”

“Shit,” I said. “Yeah, I’ll see the bastard.”

“I knew you would.” She opened her door. “Now I need to get back to work. Oh, here. I almost took this with me.”

And with that she handed me the much-depleted Kleenex box. At least she’d stuffed the dirty ones in her purse.

She got about five feet from my ragtop and I said, “Hey, can you give him an alibi for last night? If you were with him all night, then the eyewitness was wrong.”

“Oh, God, I wish I could, but I had to go home because I knew my period would be starting.”

Of course her period was starting. It fit right in with everything else.