Ed McBain - Another Part of the City

“Mommy’s getting to be a pain in the ass,” Elizabeth said.

She ordered spare ribs, egg rolls, and wonton soup. She told him that Mommy had made her promise she would eat vegetables, and she asked him to promise that he wouldn’t tell her she was eating all this good stuff instead. Benny Wong came over to the table while they were breaking open their fortune cookies.

“Got anything for me?” Reardon asked.

“Like I told you,” Wong said, “it wasn’t a Chinese thing. This your daughter?”

“Yeah,” Reardon said.

“What’s your name, honey?” Wong asked.

“Liz. What’s yours?”

Wong laughed. “Come by the counter before you leave,” he said, “I’ll give you a box of lichee nuts. You like lichee nuts?”

“I don’t know what that is,” Elizabeth said.

“That’s delicious is what it is,” Wong said. “Lichee nuts. Stop by the counter, you hear?”

As soon as he left the table, she handed Reardon the slip of paper that had been inside her fortune cookie.

“What does it say, Dad?” she asked.

“It says... you will have good news.”

“Good,” she said. “Maybe you’ll come see me for Christmas.”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Do you think so?”

“Well... I... honey. I... I really don’t think so. I think Mommy plans to spend Christmas in New Jersey. With Grandma and Grandpa.”

“So why don’t you come there, too?”

“Well, I don’t think Mommy would want me to, Liz.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“I want to, darling. With all my heart.”

“I think this is dumb,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes,” he said, “it’s dumb.”

The Six O’Clock News was on television when Reardon got to Stuyvesant Town. He had quit work at four, had called the apartment on the off chance that Kathy was home from Jersey by then, had gotten no answer, and had gone to a bar on Canal Street to have a few drinks and to chat up the barmaid, a girl with an enormous bosom and a very wide mouth. Hoffman had told Pope Mazzi the Third that the girl — whose name was Jeanine — gave blowjobs in the men’s room. Told Mazzi that was why she had such a big mouth. With such thick lips. Mazzi said it was because the girl was an octoroon, which he said was pan nigger. He couldn’t remember how many pans. Jeanine had red hair and sort of greenish eyes — hazel, Reardon guessed you would call them — and she didn’t look like any black girl Reardon knew, but maybe Mazzi was right. Or maybe Hoffman was right, maybe you could get a big mouth with thick lips from giving blowjobs in the men’s room. He was tempted to ask her if she gave blowjobs in the men’s room. He was tempted to ask her if she was a macaroon, like Mazzi said she was. He called the apartment again at five-thirty, and when Kathy answered, he hung up. Didn’t want to ask if he could come over, risk refusal, just wanted to pop in on her.

She opened the door after he’d rung the bell twice.

She was wearing a blue robe. Barefoot. Hair pulled back in a pony tail. She stood in the doorframe, blocking it. He could see the television set going in the living room. The Six O’Clock News.

“What is it?” she said.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“I had a drink,” he said.

“You smell like a brewery.”

“Two drinks, okay?” he said. “Did you take Liz back to Jersey?”

“I took her back.”

“Do you think that’s smart, shuttling her back and forth like...?”

“I’m working tonight. Damn it, Bry, I don’t have to give you a detailed report on what I do with my own daughter.”

“May I come in, please?” he said.

“Why?”

“I’d like to come in, please.”

“Have you ever had the feeling...”

“Kathy...”

“... that you’re on a merry-go-round that just won’t stop?”

“I want to talk about Elizabeth.”

“Bry...”

“Please,” he said.

“All right,” she said, sighing. “Come in. For a minute.”

In the living room, the television newscaster was saying, “... new negotiations now under way. This would mean an increase in grain export to the Soviet Union, provided the terms of the nuclear reduction agreement are implemented as outlined.”

“Did she say anything to you this afternoon?” Reardon asked.

“She said a lot of things.”

“In Phoenix, Arizona,” the newscaster said, “the billionaire financier, Andrew Kidd, died this morning after suffering a massive stroke yesterday. He is survived by three children. Olivia Kidd — seen here at Puerto Vallarta last winter...”

Reardon glanced at the screen. A tall blonde woman wearing a bikini was standing on a balcony overlooking what he supposed was the Pacific Ocean.

“She’s six years old,” Kathy said.

“Robert Sargent Kidd, who is in New York this week...”

“She doesn’t understand...”

“Can you please turn that off?” Reardon said.

Kathy snapped off the television set. There was a long silence.

“Look,” Reardon said, “forget about me, okay? Forget how I feel about this...”

“I wish you’d let me,” Kathy said.

“Just think of her. okay? Just think of what this’s doing to her. ”

“She’ll get over it. This isn’t the first time in history...”

“It’s the first time it’s happened to her, Kath. She loves us both. We’re asking her to...”

“Nobody’s asking her to stop loving us.” She went to the television set again, and dug into the handbag resting on top of it. “She’s not getting the divorce, we are,” she said, and pulled out a package of cigarettes.

“I thought you quit smoking,” he said.

“I thought so, too,” she said, lighting a cigarette, and then dropped her lighter back into the bag. She blew out a stream of smoke. “Bry,” she said, “let’s be sensible, okay? I know why you’re here, I know what you’re going to ask. For the hundredth time. But can’t you understand? It’d be worse for Liz if we stayed together. Don’t you realize that?”

“We could make it work.” he said.

“Not after what happened,” she said softly.

“That was two years ago.”

“It was yesterday!” she said sharply.

“Kathy...”

“You’re not the one who still has nightmares about it!” she said. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it, it’s bad enough I have to live with it.”

“But you don’t have to live...”

“No? How do I scrub off the filth, Bry?”

“Look, you’re right, let’s not...”

“How do I get the stink out of my nostrils? How do I forget the humiliation and the...?”

“Kathy, let’s not talk about it, okay? You know how you gel when...”

“Your friends the cops!” she said angrily, and stubbed out the cigarette. “Oh, gee. Mrs. Reardon, we’re so sorry about what happened. But did you do anything to provoke it? Were you walking in a suggestive manner, did you swing your hips, did you shake your...?”

“Kathy, honey, please, there’s no sense...”

“No sense at all, right! He runs off with a few scratches on his face — did you resist him. Mrs. Reardon, did you try to prevent what was happening — and I’m left with his fucking baby inside me!”

Silence.

Boom.

The boom of silence.

The same words again. His baby inside me. And the silence following the words.

She reached into her handbag again. She pulled out the package of cigarettes again.

“So what does a nice Irish-Catholic girl do?” she said. “Strict upbringing, bless me. Father, for I have sinned, what does she do? She has an abortion, Bry, and then she spends the rest of her life living in terror.”