Donald Westlake - Smoke

"Of course he did," Peg said, looking at a different corner of the room. "I told you he would. And I got an idea."

"What kind of an idea?"

"A way, maybe, maybe a way we can go out and have dinner somewhere."

"Peg?" Hope and skepticism battled in his voice. "Are you serious?"

"I think we could try it."

"Try what, Peg?"

"Makeup," she said.

"What?" Now disappointment and scorn battled there in that voice. "Come on, Peg."

This time she looked directly toward where she thought he probably stood. "Women wear makeup all the time," she explained.

"Not all over their face," Freddie objected.

"That's what you know. There are women you see on the street, in stores, you aren't seeing one speck of their actual facial skin, not their real face, not even a teeny little bit. Maybe some of the forehead, but that's it."

"Are you putting me on, Peg?"

"We are talking about women," Peg went on, "who wake up in the morning all wrinkled, and when they leave the house there's no wrinkles on their faces at all. That's the kind of makeup I mean."

"And you could do my whole face?"

"Sure. And your neck, and your ears. That's not normally done, but I don't see why not. And we'll buy you a wig."

"What about my hands? Can I eat with makeup all over my hands?"

"Oh," Peg said, and suddenly crashed. "No, you can't." She hadn't thought about his goddam hands. A great weight that had just begun to lift from her shoulders now dropped down on her again, heavier than ever. "Forget it," she said. Slumped in seated position on the bed, she sighed and said, "Nobody's gonna think those Playtex gloves are real hands, not up close in a restaurant."

There was a little silence, in which she gazed at nothing at all, and then he said, "Burns."

She frowned in his general direction. "What?"

"What I'll do," he said, "I'll explain to the waiter, whoever, when I go in. I got burned, I got scalded or something, I got ointment on, I gotta wear these gloves."

The smile that spread across Peg's features was like day-break. "Could you do that, Freddie? Say that?"

"Why not? Could you do the thing with the makeup?"

"Why not?" she said, and bounded out of bed with fresh enthusiasm and hope.

Makeup was easy. In a drugstore — not in Dudley — while Freddie waited in the van, Peg went through the displays of Cover Girl and Max Factor. Freddie would have to wear sunglasses in the restaurant, of course — another result of that horrible accident that so messed up his hands — but the eyebrows would show (or not show), so she bought black and brown eyebrow pencils, on the assumption that if she painted his invisible eyebrows, the color would show on top of the invisible hairs, and look realistic enough for a dim-lit restaurant after dark.

Let's see, what else? Skin-tone lipstick. Blush. But not too much stuff; she wasn't up for a night on the town with Bozo the Clown. So she paid for her purchases — they were paying for everything these days, they were gonna need some more cash soon — and went back out to the van. It was parked under a tree down the block, windows open, Freddie invisible in back. "Now the wig," she said, sliding behind the wheel, as though that would be just as easy.

No. Men's wigs were not easy. They were expensive, and there weren't very many places that sold them, and they had to be fitted. That last was the killer.

They were driving around, Freddie consulting various telephone Yellow Pages in the back of the van, and it wasn't looking good. "There are places," he said, "they say here for chemotherapy patients and like that, but they all say "fitting.'"

"Women's wigs are easier, I guess," Peg said, driving aimlessly around Columbia County, "because they've got more hair and they can do different styles and things."

"I dunno, Peg," Freddie said. He was sounding gloomy again. "I don't think I can go as Kojak," he said, "with makeup all over my whole head."

"I don't think so, either," she agreed, and thought a while as she drove, and then she said, "I think I got an idea. Another idea. Can you find a shopping mall in those Yellow Pages?"

"What's the idea?"

"I'll tell you later," she said, because she was afraid he'd say no if he knew what it was.

He said, "You're afraid I'll say no."

"No, come on, Freddie, it's just to be a surprise, that's all. Find me a mall."

From where they were at that moment, the nearest mall was over in Massachusetts, in the Berkshires, miles and miles away. They went there, and of course there were no trees or shade of any kind in the parking lot, baking in the July sun, so Peg said, "I'll be as quick as I can," and left both windows open, so he wouldn't roast in there.

She was as quick as she could be, and came back with a purchase in a plain brown paper bag. When she got into the van Freddie said, "Some guy tried to steal the radio."

"Freddie! He did?" The radio, she saw, was still there. "What'd you do?"

"I guess he figured," Freddie said, "the windows being open, might as well. So he got in, and he lay down on the seat there, facedown, so he could reach under the dash."

She had the windows rolled up now, and the engines and air-conditioning on, but she didn't drive yet. "Yeah?"

"So first I picked his pocket," Freddie said, "and then I pulled his hair."

She giggled. "You did? What'd he do?"

"He jumped, and hit his head on the steering wheel, and sat up, and looked all around, and then he decided it wasn't anything and he was gonna go back to the radio again, so I tapped him on the shoulder and when he looked back I poked him in the eye."

"Ooh," she said. "That wasn't nice."

"He's boosting our radio, Peg."

"Well, then what?"

"He still didn't get out of the van," Freddie said. "He had one hand up over his eye, like he's reading the eye-chart, and he's lookin around and lookin around with the other eye, and I figured, time to make this guy get out of here, so I slapped him on both ears at the same time. The palms, you know, whack against both ears. You know what that's like?"

"I'm not sure I want to know."

"It's like a firecracker went off in the middle of your head," Freddie told her. He didn't sound at all penitent. "So then he got out of the van."

"I bet he did."

"And took off running. I bet he's halfway to New Jersey by now. What's in the bag, Peg?"

"I'll show you when we get home," she said, and shifted into "drive," and steered out of the parking lot.

"Pretty crummy wallet that guy had," Freddie commented from the back, once they were on the road. There came the sound of money rustling, and then, his voice disgusted, Freddie said, "Twenty-seven dollars."

"I was just thinking," Peg said, as she watched the road, "we'll need more money soon."

"Off of radio-stealing guys at the mall is not where we'll get it," Freddie commented. "We'll make another trip to the city. Open your window a little, will you?"

She opened her window a little, and a pretty crummy wallet sailed past her ear and out onto the roadway. She shut the window, and they drove on.

He did not want to wear the wig, just as she'd expected. "It looks like a horse's tail," he said. "And the horse's tail goes on top of the horse's ass, and that ain't me."

"It isn't that bad, Freddie," she insisted, even though his description was more or less accurate.

The thing is, for women, but not for men, there are inexpensive wigs for sale in low-cost department stores, many of them with a famous person's name attached, like Zsa Zsa Gabor. Most of these wigs are short and curly, like the Zsa Zsa Gabor, but a few are long and straight, like the Cher. The one Peg had chosen was long and straight, shoe-polish black, thick coarse fake hair coming down from a narrow almost invisible part in the middle. If you were to cut it a little shorter, and wear it with armor, you could look like a roadshow Prince Valiant.