“Whatever happened in that hospital, it wasn’t official. I never signed nothing. Either they put me down as unfit to sign, or they said I died giving birth, or they put fake names on the papers. My baby don’t exist no more. What I think—Lou just sold her to some rich couple who couldn’t have kids. I think that’s what the Mexican girl was trying to tell me.”
She threw back the last of her drink. “Whatever happened, it was a lie and I don’t know how to untangle it. It was almost twenty years ago. She could be anywhere. I can’t go through every family in New York looking for her.
“You know what? Maybe it’s for the best anyway. Look at me. What do I have to give a kid?”
She shook her head.
“So . . . what now? Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because Lou didn’t just take my kid away. He took the choice away too. I think we could have been okay, me and my baby, but he decided that wasn’t up to me.”
Her face was wet and he heard the anger rising in her voice.
“I know what you think of me. What men like you think of me. I’m a drunk. I’m a whore.”
She raised a finger, jabbed him in the chest.
“But you don’t judge me, mister. I don’t need no more judgment on me. You’re a reporter? You write my story. You write what I told you. People need to know. They need to know about that man. What he’s capable of.”
She turned away and waved at Sam to pour another drink. Pete couldn’t think of a single thing to say that seemed adequate, so he put her thirty on the scarred and sticky table, and then put down another ten. He walked away, her face and her tears scored into his memory, thinking about what Lou had done to her.
And then he thought of Ruth. She’d been a waitress when she’d met Lou. Just like Bette.
Pete thought about the bars he’d drunk in himself. About the women who’d waited on him, and the men who watched them.
The after-work crowd always peaked around seven p.m. A man like Lou Gallagher, a man with deals to do and money to make, wouldn’t notice a woman like Ruth Malone in the hot press of bodies. His eyes would skim over her, he’d dismiss her as just another waitress. He’d shout his order over the throb of voices and she’d nod and write it on her pad and he wouldn’t even notice her walk away.
But when the crowd had thinned a little, he might notice her then. He might let his eyes rest on her a moment: on the tits in the no-longer-crisp white blouse, on the ass in the tight black skirt, on the muscular legs and the cheap heels. Then he’d move on, looking for someone who could buy him a drink instead of serving him one.
By nine, when the bar was quiet and he’d had more than enough for a weeknight, he might come back to her. Let his eyes linger on her red-gold hair, the way she laughed and moved, the husky way she spoke.
He might tip her more than he normally would. Smile at her. Offer to buy her a drink that he knew she wasn’t allowed to accept.
And by ten-thirty, the room a blur of color and light, he’d be sliding her number into his wallet. Slowly, letting her see the wad of notes in there. He’d get up to leave and he’d take her hand in his. Let her see the signet ring on his little finger, raise her hand to his mouth and kiss it. Gently. Letting her know he’d like to be kissing her somewhere else. He’d treat her like a lady, like she was something special.
Bye, baby. I’ll call you.
He’d wink at her; he’d walk away knowing she was watching.
A man like that, a man like Gallagher, knew that guys like him were Ruth’s only hope of getting out.
Some nights Ruth would sit with Frank and drink until she couldn’t feel anymore: four fingers of bourbon to every one of his bottles of Bud. The voice of Johnny Carson or Ed Sullivan boomed over laughter and applause, the picture on the screen blurred into a haze of red and green, and she sank down into the couch and let the mess of color rub at her eyes. When she woke, hours later, tears drying on her cheeks and her throat sore, he was sometimes still snoring beside her. Despite herself, she was oddly touched, as though this was loyalty. She lay back again, let her eyes rest on his heavy familiar face, leaned into his warm familiar smell and found something like comfort.
Other nights she couldn’t stand it and had to leave the apartment after dinner, had to get out. She pretended she was just going to buy cigarettes, knowing that she wouldn’t come back for hours. Frank just nodded to her over his glass and turned back to the TV. He didn’t worry that she was going to meet other men, not these days. She’d let him back in: he thought she was his now.
Sometimes she noticed the cops following her as she left; other nights she didn’t bother to look and pretended she was alone, just as she tried to pretend it was all happening to someone else: the endless questions, the probing and pushing, the same questions again and again until she thought she would go mad. The sly hints and insinuations and her constant fear that this would be the day they would come out with it and accuse her of killing her kids.