William Kennedy - Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes

At 6:40 Roy was on the corner alone, two policemen in a patrol car idling across the street. Quinn and Matt had gone to another polling place, and Gloria had left to drive Claudia to vote. She told Roy she’d be back. At 6:50 Tremont came out and told Roy a man had identified himself as Mortimer Monroe to the woman registering Democratic voters.

“He ain’t Morty Monroe,” Tremont said. “He’s white and Morty’s black. Not only that, Morty was shot in a card game. Morty’s dead.”

Roy went in and confronted the voter and Malloy.

“We’re challenging this man’s identification,” Roy said.

“On what authority?” Malloy asked.

“The attorney general, I’m a poll watcher. You know it. I showed you my credentials.”

“I never saw ’em,” Malloy said.

“Yes you did.”

Roy took his credentials out of his pocket and flashed them at Malloy, then moved toward the white Morty Monroe who was backing toward the door without having voted.

“Wait a minute, Morty,” Roy said. “You got a driver’s license?”

“You ain’t Morty,” Tremont told the man. “Morty’s dead.”

A uniformed policeman came in and he and Malloy converged on Roy, who countered with an elbow that put Malloy on his back atop the voting ledger in which Morty had almost registered from the grave.

One month later Roy was a public example of swift electoral justice in Albany: fourteen months for disorderly conduct and third degree assault. He served three months and, when his conviction was thrown out for insufficient evidence, Baron Roland welcomed him back to Holy Cross as a civil rights hero and put him to work with the Community Action group Better Streets. He shared a desk with Gloria.

After the election Alex found Gloria an apartment in an upscale Pine Hills housing development, in the same building where his seventy-three-year-old mother, Veronica Fitzgibbon, lived with an on-call chauffeur and a live-in maid. Alex visited Veronica almost daily, a dutiful son; and so any proximity to Gloria was unremarkable. He luxuriated in the frequency of love with Gloria. My gorgeous virgin, he would whisper.

“Don’t say that,” she said one day. “I was a virgin too long.”

“All your life you were a virgin waiting for me.”

“Somebody will catch us.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you being my mother’s neighbor. And it’s perfectly normal for your godfather to visit you.”

“What if they catch my godfather in my bed?” she said, thinking of Alex catching Roy in her bed, where he had been only twice, but twice is dangerous. The first was the afternoon she drove home to change for a fund-raising dinner at Holy Cross. Roy was with her, and leaving him in the car would have been rude, even racist. She should have dropped him someplace and come home alone, but there he was, so she said, “Come in.”

Whenever they were alone in the office Roy would touch her arm, or rub the ends of her long blond hair between finger and thumb, or run a fingernail lightly up her spine through her white cotton shirt, always backing off with a smile and an upraised hand, testing the wind, which proved to be fair. Now, as they went into Gloria’s apartment he ran a finger up her back. She turned to face him and found him unbelievably attractive. And there was the bed.

“I worry about your wife,” she said to Alex. “Doesn’t what we do affect her, even if she doesn’t know?”

“Don’t ever talk about my wife,” he said.

So she did not. But through the society pages she tracked her — Marnie Herzog Fitzgibbon, ash blonde from Boston whose grandfather had made a fortune in coal, who had gone to Smith, no nuns in her life, owned and rode show horses, golfed at Schuyler Meadows Country Club, handicap 15, raised funds for children of an African famine, and traveled often, unlike her husband who was moored to City Hall. Gloria clipped photos of Marnie in her lush gowns at balls, galas, and the famed parties she gave at Tivoli, the Fitzgibbon family estate. In early May Marnie came to visit Veronica and glimpsed Alex going into a first-floor apartment. She found that the apartment was rented to Gloria Osborne, about whom Alex sometimes spoke; something about Cuba. Marnie hired a private detective who discovered Alex’s repetitive, hour-or-more-long visits to Gloria. Also, when Alex took a week off to go trout fishing in Maine with his army buddies, the detective noted a visit to Gloria by a black man who arrived by taxi at mid-evening and stayed till dawn.

Gloria was naked in her shower when the doorbell rang. Roy, without calling? No. Alex? Never at this hour; he likes the afternoon, and afterward a whiskey before he goes back to City Hall. She called out, Just a minute, stepped out of the tub and wrapped herself in her terrycloth robe. Rubbing her hair with a small towel she opened the door to the face from the newspapers, Marnie Herzog Fitzgibbon, always three names.

“I’m the wife of your godfather,” she said. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” and Marnie entered the living room, bouncing slightly on her toes, feisty, her half-smile as aggressive as Mother Superior. Gloria followed, tension in her chest. MHF looked younger than forty-eight, tenaciously Junior League in a simple off-white summer dress, bodice stylish over those tiny breasts, but the short skirt doesn’t cover her knees and they’re not quality. Her hair was freshly coiffed — for this visit? — those waves much too tight, scold your hairdresser. MHF raised her hand toward the bedroom door, which was ajar.

“That’s the cozy corner, is it? I really don’t want to see it.” She touched the arm of the sofa. “I’ll bet anything you do it here too. It’s where he first did it in college.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Gloria said.

“Of course not. You are cute. So young, and a lovely figure.”

Gloria pulled her robe tight, accenting her formidable breasts. “This conversation is over,” she said.

“What a perfect thing to say. Lovely poise. I see what attracted him. I could give you the days and times he arrived and left, I could give you photos and tapes of your talks. I didn’t listen very long, but you do seem well educated for a little convent cunt.”

“I won’t listen to this tripe. Get out of my apartment.” Gloria, amazed with herself, opened the apartment door and raised her voice: “Out.”

“No, no,” Marnie said softly, and she did not move. “You’re the one who’s out. Didn’t you ever anticipate this? Probably not, innocent little puss.”

Vindictive bitch. Would she cut me? Hire somebody to do it? Disfigure. If Alex knew about this he’d have called. Gloria closed the door.

“Did you think you could just carry on and on without consequence?” Marnie said. “You’re finished at Holy Cross. The board of directors does not abide sluts. Was it those sweet little nuns who taught you how to succeed as a slut? You are quite achieved. I never did it with a Negro. I suppose I should have. Is your Negro larger than Alex? Alex would hate that. Oh, and he’s finished at Holy Cross, too, your Negro. No sluts, no pimps.”

Gloria screamed. Did anybody hear?

“Very strong voice,” Marnie said. “Are you in pain? I hope so.”

“Getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetouuuuuuut!” And she screamed again.

“Excellent,” Marnie said. “I suppose it is time. Be smart. Take that sexy little ass of yours back to Cuba where it came from.”