When Catherine finally left Helen"s, it was evening, time for dinner, but she was not hungry. She wanted to walk. She needed to move. It was early September, so night closed down faster on the city, and the subtle fading of the sky, the luminous streaks of color as the sun sank low, were blocked and blurred here by all the skysc.r.a.pers. Already there was the false daylight from storefronts, marquees, and headlights. It was neither dark nor day. People rushed instead of strolling, even though the air was mild.
Catherine was remembering her conversation with Ned.
"Perhaps you"ll come to the States someday and visit the American Everly," Catherine had said to him as they lay together, naked in each other"s arms.
"Perhaps. Probably not."
"Why not?"
"We don"t have money for traveling. Everly looks grand, but only because the four of us slave for it and put all our money into it."
"Do you resent that?"
"No. Not at all. On the contrary, I"m rather proud to be part of such a place, such a family. I"m the man of the house, you know. Everyone relies on me. It"s up to me to take care of my sisters and my mother, and this house."
"That doesn"t make you feel trapped?"
"Trapped? Oh, you Americans! Always ready to move. No. I feel that I"m exactly where I belong, and lucky to be here."
"What will happen when you fall in love?"
"Well, I"ll have to fall in love with a woman who"s willing to live here and get along with the rest of the family, won"t I?"
"What if you fall in love with someone who doesn"t want to live here?"
Ned had shrugged. "I won"t."
For Ned, Catherine thought, it was all so clear. Family first. And he would be able to pull it off, she thought. Ned would be able to break off with a woman he loved if she wouldn"t move to Everly, or not get involved with such a woman in the first place. Look at what Kit had done, breaking off with her in order to marry the woman his family had chosen.
It would be nice, Catherine thought as she strode down Park Avenue, the hard pavement hitting against her feet like a hammer pounding sense into her body, if she had an older brother. An older, protective brother, like Ned, who would take care of her. But she was the oldest in her family, and though she didn"t even want to be part of that d.a.m.ned family, she didn"t know how to escape. She could turn her back on her parents, but not on her brother, and especially not on Ann.
Catherine had always known her life would not be normal or easy. Her life hadn"t come to her in a gentle unfolding of years, like the gradually opening petals of a rose. Her life came at her in waves. So much had happened this summer-meeting Kit and falling in love with him. Going to Everly. Sleeping with Ned. And now discovering that her family was on the edge of financial ruin.
For years the waves of life had just rolled in easily, then all at once they"d arisen, pounding down on her with a great and unfair blow. She had to fight against them, stand up to them, or surrender and be swept away.
Well, she would fight. She would always choose to fight.
The next morning Catherine spent a few minutes showing Mrs. V the pictures she"d taken of Everly"s gardens. Then she went to look for Piet; she found him in the bas.e.m.e.nt, unpacking a s.h.i.+pment of containers. It was cool down there, dim and cluttered. Scrolled wrought-iron pedestal stands lay on their sides among chicken wire and discarded boxes. Sweat from the summer humidity beaded and dripped from the overhead exposed pipes. The air smelled sour. An appropriate place, Catherine thought, for this particular conversation.
Piet was bent over a cardboard box with his switchblade in his hand.
"Piet. Could we talk for a moment?"
"Sure." Piet stood up, hitching up his jeans, which had slipped down his narrow hips.
Catherine moved closer to him, wanting him, and only him, to hear. She could feel the warmth of his body.
"There"s something I"d like to discuss with you," she said. "But before I tell you what, I"d like you to promise that you won"t tell anyone else. What I"m going to say has to be a secret, whether you agree to it or not."
"Such mystery." Piet smiled, but his black tulip eyes remained impenetrable.
"Will you promise?"
"I promise."
His solemnity was intense, and wasn"t that what she wanted? Catherine s.h.i.+vered as she looked at Piet, as if she were the hunted with the hunter closing in. His black eyes, his leaf-dense skin, his smell of musky sweat, flowers, and some spice she couldn"t quite place, all seemed to wrap around her like the cloak of a vampire or an angel. This was not a man ever to take lightly.
"It"s about making some money. Quite a lot of money. Piet, it"s illegal, it"s immoral, but it"s foolproof. My friend and I have it all planned out, but I need your help. For which, of course, you"d be paid." Her voice was quiet and blunt.
"Catherine." Piet grinned. "You surprise me."
His grin broke the spell. She moved away from him, toward the soapstone sinks. "To be honest, I surprise myself." Suddenly she felt ill-at-ease. "Look. I can"t talk about the details here, when the Vandervelds could interrupt us at any moment. Can you meet me at the bar on the corner after work? If you"re interested, that is."
"Oh, I"m interested."
The bar was crowded at six o"clock; Catherine was glad, because the laughter and chatter of the patrons made her certain no one could overhear them.
"What I want you to do is this," Catherine said, and explained her plan. He would get one-third of the money.
Piet smiled slowly as she spoke. And then he said yes. It didn"t surprise her. What did surprise her was that he asked so few questions. For instance, "Why would a nice girl like you get herself involved in blackmail?"
The next day after work, she took a bus down to Forty-seventh Street. At a cutrate shop on Forty-seventh and Sixth, she spent some of her savings on a small black Leica 35-millimeter camera, which, the salesman promised her, had the softest shutter in the business, and several rolls of 400 speed film. She took a bus back uptown and hurried to Vanderveld Flowers. It was after seven now, and the older Vandervelds had gone home. The shop was dark. She went to the back door off the alley, where Piet was waiting. Once inside, she gave him the loaded camera.
"Good luck," she said.
"See you tomorrow," he replied. They left the shop together but parted at the cross street.
All Catherine could do now was wait. She sat in Leslie"s apartment, a plate of fruit and cheese in front of her, a gla.s.s of wine in her hand. She drank the wine, and then another gla.s.s, but she was too nervous to eat. Helen had promised to call when it was over. Until then all Catherine could do was to imagine what was happening now, at Helen"s place.
When he left Catherine, Piet would have headed to Helen"s apartment, and Helen would have hidden him inside her bedroom closet. She had showed Catherine how easy it would be for someone to hide there; the closet was stuffed with filmy evening gowns, and the sliding doors were louvered.
Helen was planning to wear a flamboyant red-and-black negligee with see-through net and lots of makeup. Puritanical old P. J. Willington"s cold blood always got hot with "Malaguena" and "Bolero" playing on the stereo. And the music would mask any sounds the camera shutter made. Fortunately P. J. liked the lights on, the better to see Helen.
Helen told Catherine that P. J. always arrived between nine and ten. At nine-thirty Catherine let herself imagine the next step. The old man would enter. He would drink some whiskey. Helen would put on music, then lead P. J. into the bedroom as she had so many times before. And all the while, Piet would be hidden away taking pictures that would cost Willington a fortune.
Helen had promised to call Catherine when it was all over. By ten-thirty the phone still hadn"t rung. By eleven Catherine picked up the receiver to be sure the phone wasn"t broken. When, at eleven-thirty, it rang, Catherine almost screamed.
"Hi, honey," Helen said. "It"s all over. It went off perfectly."
Catherine began to shake. She couldn"t speak.
"Your friend said he"ll give you the camera tomorrow, and you"ll take care of the rest. I"m going to start packing. The day you call him, I"m leaving this place. How long do you think it will take to get the photos developed?"
"Oh, just a few days," she said, hoping it was true. "I"ll call you as soon as I"ve got them."
After that, oddly enough, she didn"t worry. She went through her routines at work with impeccable, robotlike efficiency. At night she walked the streets of the Lower East Side, looking for the sleaziest photography store she could find. But even here the smirks and knowing eyes of the men seemed to penetrate the layers of anonymity the city afforded, until finally, on her day off, she went down to Chinatown. There, in a tiny shop that advertised pa.s.sport photos done quickly, she had her precious film developed. The pa.s.sive Chinese clerk took her film. A few hours later he handed back the roll of negatives and a manila envelope with ten glossy black-and-white eight-by-tens. Catherine couldn"t wait. She opened the envelope and looked at the top photograph. It was perfect. She realized she was smiling.
"That"s my husband," she said. "I want a divorce. He"s been-with another woman."
"Twenty dollar, please," the Chinese man said, his face expressionless.
That evening Catherine phoned Helen Norton. "I"ve got the pictures. I"m doing it next week on my day off. You"d better get ready to leave."
One of the useful bits of information Helen had given Catherine was that P. J. Willington liked to have lunch every day at "21," to which P. J. had never taken Helen, no matter how much she pleaded with him. He knew too many people there, he said.
On Wednesday, her day off, Catherine hung around 21 West Fifty-second until she saw the old man enter. She waited, then she knocked on the door and handed the doorman a manila envelope addressed to Mr. Willington. She asked the man to see that it was hand-delivered and pressed a five-dollar bill into his hand.
She walked over to Saks and found a bank of phone booths on the first floor. She took a deep breath, then phoned "21" and asked for Mr. Willington. When he answered, she could tell he was downstairs in the club bar. She"d gone there often with her father.
"I want one hundred thousand dollars in cash. In return, I will give you the rest of the photographs and all the negatives," she said.
The old man was silent. She imagined him in the dark bar, surrounded by silver-haired men in expensive three-piece suits, all hefting their Scotches, their expensive gold cuff links flas.h.i.+ng. She prayed he wouldn"t have a heart attack.
"All right," he said.
Catherine was surprised. She had expected some resistance, but what, after all, could he do, caught in a place where he couldn"t argue without others hearing?
"There"s a "Back to School" sale at Macy"s this Sat.u.r.day morning. Be on the first floor next to the elevators at ten-thirty. Have a Macy"s shopping bag with one hundred thousand dollars in cash in it in your hand. Someone will approach you. She"ll say enough to let you know it"s the right person, give you a Macy"s shopping bag, and take yours. Then it will all be over."
"All right," P. J. Willington said.
Catherine was shocked. All right? That was all he had to say?
Then she realized how tightly she had trapped him, there at his favorite club, seated no doubt between friends, whose wives were friends of his wife. He was an old man who cared about his reputation. The pictures were clear and d.a.m.ning. To him a hundred thousand dollars was nothing. Certainly not worth risking the public tar and feathering that exposure would bring.
"Macy"s. First floor. Ten-thirty," Catherine said, and hung up the phone.
Thursday and Friday pa.s.sed quickly. Everyone was moving more briskly now that summer was gone and the rhythm of the New York autumn took over.
Sat.u.r.day morning Catherine phoned the Vandervelds. She told them she had a bad headache but would take some aspirin, sleep some more, and try to come to work that afternoon. Then she collected the items she had bought at Woolworth"s and at various Salvation Army shops, stuffed them into a carpetbag, and took the bus to Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street. By nine in the morning the sidewalk was filled with women shoving and pus.h.i.+ng and clamoring to get through the doors to the sale. Catherine joined the throng.
Once inside, she went to the ladies" room on the sixth floor and entered a stall. When she came out she had on a gray crimped wig, a shapeless black felt hat, a s.h.i.+ny black dress with a cheap brooch at the neck, and the thick-lensed dark sungla.s.ses of a blind person. Her legs were wrapped in flesh-colored support bandages. On her feet were scuffed black orthopedic shoes. She carried the carpetbag and a stout cane in one hand. In the other she carried a Macy"s shopping bag full of photographs and negatives, neatly organized in manila envelopes.
Standing before the mirror, she reapplied her lipstick. Before she left the apartment, she had heavily applied cheap beige Pan-Cake makeup. As she dusted her face with old-ladyish beige powder, the powder sifted into the cracked makeup quite nicely. Her skin looked almost wrinkled. She went over and over her lips with the "Persian Melon" lipstick until she had achieved a shakily outlined mouth much larger than her own.
She shuffled out the door toward the elevators. She still had time to kill. She went down to the first floor and stood peering into the cases of gloves and lace handkerchiefs. She had practiced hunching forward and shuffling; she was doing a great job of being a little old lady. It was surprising how ruthless and rude all the other women were, shoving past her and not even bothering to say "Excuse me."
When the large clock high above the perfume counter announced that it was ten-thirty, she shuffled toward the elevators.
She could barely believe her eyes.
There he was, P. J. Willington himself, with a Macy"s bag in one hand. He was wearing a biscuit-colored summer suit that made him look more slender and firm than he was. Pretending to inspect some silk scarves, she watched to see if he was making eye contact with anyone. But he only stood, erect as a soldier, looking impatient, jaw held high.
Catherine shuffled up to him slowly. Other women were gathering to wait for the elevator, which was making a slow descent from the eighth floor.
The elevator arrow indicated that it was on the second floor.
Catherine b.u.mbled over to P. J. Willington. In a quavery voice she said, "What you want is in here, sir. Give me your bag."
She held out her Macy"s bag. She felt his eyes studying her, taking in every detail. It had been a few years since he"d seen her at Kathryn"s Christmas party; would he connect the young girl she"d been then with the old woman standing before him? Or would he recognize her as the girl who had waited on him often at the flower shop? He"d never paid any attention to her then, but still she kept her head bent and tried not to meet his eyes.
The elevator had stopped on the first floor now, disgorging its load of babbling females, while more anxious women shoved toward the open doors.
"How do I know-" P. J. Willington began, but Catherine cut him off.
"Give it to me!" she hissed, honestly angry. If she didn"t get on the elevator now, her escape would be cut off.
P. J. Willington blinked, flinched, but held out his bag. Catherine s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him. At the same time she thrust her bag into his hand so quickly that they almost dropped it in the exchange. As she shuffled to the elevator, she peered into the bag. Whatever was in there was wrapped in white paper. She would have to trust him. She had kept some other pictures anyway, just in case he tried to cheat her. He would probably a.s.sume that only a man would think to protect himself that way.
The elevator doors clacked toward each other, almost stranding her there with P. J. Willington. Desperate, Catherine stuck her rubber-tipped cane between them. The elevator operator looked at her, sighed, and slid open the doors. All the other women pressed against each other just enough to allow Catherine to squeeze in.
The last sight she had of P. J. Willington was of his silver head as he bent over to inspect the contents of his shopping bag.
Now that she was ascending to the safety of the sixth floor, she could feel her heart racketing away in her chest so rapidly that she was surprised it didn"t shake the elevator. Greedily she squeezed the shopping bag. It certainly felt bulky. What if the old fox had cut up newspapers and filled an envelope with them, or put in Monopoly money? She coughed and struggled to breathe. She couldn"t afford to faint.
The elevator stopped at each floor. Women pushed on and off, elbowing past Catherine. Finally she was at the sixth floor. She shuffled as fast as she could into the ladies" room and down the long row of stalls until she found an empty one.
She locked the door and collapsed onto a toilet, dropping the cane and her carpetbag to the floor. Inside her s.h.i.+ny dress, she was totally soaked with sweat. Even her hands were slippery.
She pawed through the Macy"s shopping bag and ripped open the white envelope inside. She blinked. Her head felt as if it were exploding with blossoms of white fire. Her entire body went tingly and light. Inside the Macy"s bag was a thick pack of one-thousand-dollar bills. She started to count them, but her hands were sweating and shaking so hard, she couldn"t separate the bills from each other.
She felt wrenchingly nauseated. At the same time, the white stars of fire were turning black and spinning toward her. She had never fainted before, but she knew she was going to faint now. Clutching her envelope against her chest, she leaned forward and put her head between her knees. She tried to take deep breaths. She forced herself to concentrate on the ordinary sounds outside her stall: toilets flus.h.i.+ng, water running, the roller towel flub-dubbing, women chattering in their New York accents.
She opened her eyes. She looked at the porcelain base of the toilet bowl between her legs. It seemed as white and spotless as an angel"s soul.
She lifted her head. She was slightly dizzy, but no more stars appeared. She stood up. She bent and took her alligator purse out of the carpetbag. She put the envelope of money inside. She took off the felt hat, the gray wig, the s.h.i.+ny black dress, the support bandages, the orthopedic shoes. Underneath the dress she was wearing a loose cotton dress. She took high heels from the carpetbag and stuffed the old-lady costume into it, along with the Macy"s shopping bag. Grabbing up fists of toilet paper, she wiped at the lipstick, rouge, powder, and Pan-Cake makeup until her face burned. She dropped the paper in the john and flushed it.
She picked up the carpetbag in one hand and her purse in the other. The only problem was the cane. She leaned it at the back of the stall, between the toilet and the wall. She opened the stall door.
The room was full of women. Head high, she pushed past them to a sink. She scrubbed at her face. She looked in the mirror. Her hair, which had been flattened by the wig, was already rising and curling, expanding in the humidity. She took a green headband from her purse and put it on, holding her hair away from her face. She put on her gold sh.e.l.l earrings. If anyone looked closely, they might see traces of makeup around her hairline, but other than that her face was clean and tanned.
In the outer lounge, she sat down and toyed with her lipstick and compact for a while. Her hands had finally stopped shaking. When she stood up to leave, she left the carpetbag sitting next to the chair. She strode from the room, shoulders back, head high.
She took the elevator to the first floor. Women were still beavering away, pawing through the scarves and handbags. There were few men in sight. As she walked out of the door onto Eighth Avenue, with her alligator purse full of thousand-dollar bills, she didn"t see P. J. Willington or anyone who resembled him.
From Port Authority she took a bus to Newark and met Helen Norton in the bus station waiting room. They walked out together to the old blue Ford Helen had borrowed from a friend and sat in the parking lot, with the windows rolled down because of the heat, counting the bills. There were one hundred of them. Helen took one-third of the money, and Catherine took the rest to divide between herself and Piet.