“Yes, I heard about that, too. My mother wrote me about it. That was when they changed his name from Blacky to the Mayor, wasn’t it?”
Ah, yes, the Mayor remembered, consoled. And not a bad monicker Blacky had been. Dash, it’d had. A touch of the old mischief. Of course, merit warranted dignity. And one never could go back …
“Goot-bye! Goot-bye! Und not to forget dat handsome young fellow. Imagine vat it vould feel in da arms mit a nice little redheaded baby to hold!” She continued to wave as they made their way across the puddled street.
Claire rushed inside. Zinnie was off the porch by now and the house was dark. A nice little redheaded baby, eh? Claire snorted to herself. She hadn’t been red for the last twenty years. But bless her for remembering. The old fox. She looked at the Mayor. “Listen to me. We’re not even on speaking terms and this is the second time tonight I’m imagining having his baby. I must be off my trolley.”
He yawned at her feebly and they went right up to bed.
Across the street old Iris mopped the table with one edge of her kimono. She dusted her way lovingly around the figurines and ruby glass. She stopped when she noticed the cards. Claire had handled them thoroughly, then put them down absentmindedly into three piles. Iris raised her chin in wise disinterest, then turned around abruptly and snatched up the first. It was the moon. Ah, the mistress of the night. Underlying fears wriggling to the surface of a still pool in the body of a crayfish. A wolf and a dog barking. The home of the dead. Illusion. Iris shivered. She raised the second pile. The hanged man. The unconscious again. A sacrifice to be made. Some fearful journey through the underworld of Hades. Iris sat down carefully. She raised the third and last small pile. The wheel of fortune. So. The old order changeth.
Claire was just drifting off when the light went on.
“Sst! You asleep?”
“What?”
“You up?”
“Mmm. Turn that light out.”
Carmela put it out and turned another, less offensive, light on. She sat down on the edge of the bed, right at home, and unscrewed her earrings. Claire felt herself stiffen with exhausted rebellion but smiled encouragingly just the same. There was something prepossessing about Carmela, and impressively desperate. You might be riddled by her disturbance but you were also privileged. A realization, Claire supposed, that had something to do with the fact that Carmela was the assured, if batty, first born. She dragged herself up onto one elbow. Whatever it was that Carmela wanted, it would take her a while to get to it. She’d take you for a stroll along her own peculiar brand of garden path and then come out with it as she was just about to leave, an afterthought.
“I’ve wrecked my car,” she announced.
Claire’s eyes went round.
“I did. It’s all smashed up. On that big curve on Park Lane South.”
“Are you all right?!”
“I’m fine. Freddy went through the windshield.”
“Oh my God.”
“I mean, he’s okay. He’s got a big cut on his ear. Like it practically came off.” She raised her eyes to heaven. “But they sewed it back on.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah.”
“What hospital?”
“He’s out. They let him out. They sewed him up and we left. He just dropped me off in a cab.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Me? It was so strange. It all happened so fast. The car went clunk and I thought … I remember thinking it wasn’t too bad, and then there was this terrible sound of shattering glass, and I looked over and there was Freddy heaped up on the dashboard with his neck all funny and I thought … I was sure he was dead. He was so still. And then he put his head up and looked at me and he’s dripping blood … spurting blood, and all I could think was it’s a good thing it’s on the other side because I didn’t want the blood on me. What a thought! I mean what a way to think!”
“So then? What happened then?”
“I backed up the car, we were on Tracey’s lawn, right through the sticker bushes—thank God I didn’t hit the house—and the car still went, sort of, and we limped up to Saint John’s to the emergency room and they took care of him. They were great. Freddy was great. He told them he went through his apartment window.”
“But where’s your car?”
“Well, then I started to drive us home, but then the thing that was sticking out under the car was dragging like crazy so I figured I’d better park it while I had the chance, and we walked down to the Roy Rogers and caught a cab. Aren’t you going to ask me what I was doing with Freddy?”
Claire’s head was spinning. She hadn’t been able to get Freddy alone to confront him and had then concluded that it was none of her business anyway. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear it now. “All right,” she sighed, “what were you doing with him?”
Carmela twisted her ring. She had a two carat diamond from Arnold that she refused to take off. “I’m seeing him.”
Claire fumbled on the nightstand for a cigarette.
“You don’t seem very surprised.”