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With the illumination, his legs dropped, one and two, to the tile. He splashed more water on his eyes and returned to the head of the table, saying he’d been a bit ill but please continue with dessert. Berenice wore a curious expression, and he reassured her with a smile, his shaky hand dropping his linen napkin to the floor.
When he reached under the table, he noted Miss Betty Slick’s hand groping that young federal agent right between his legs as if she were kneading bread. Charlie righted himself in his large chair, and added some sugar to his coffee, slowly stirring. “Well now, son. Tell us, how did you come into the employ of Mr. Hoover?”
THEY WERE FINE, FAT, ROSY-CHEEKED PEOPLE FILLED WITH pep and life. The wife was the kind of woman who kept the Lane Bryant catalog by her freshly scrubbed toilet, checking out the latest fashions for portly women, while her old man read Abercrombie & Fitch over a morning bowl of Shredded Wheat, fancying himself the outdoors type, priding himself on crapping regular. They lived in a contented newish bungalow, not far off the streetcar line in Cleveland Heights. And the old man, Mr. K. R. Quigley, probably gave Mrs. Quigley and their precocious-if not a
“I have to say I was a bit surprised to see you two, again,” Mr. Quigley said. “I figured that custom sixteen-cylinder job would last you some time.”
Mrs. R. G. Sha
But, my God, what was Mrs. Sha
“May I get you more coconut cake?” Mrs. Quigley asked. “The secret really is Baker’s. The triple-sealed package keeps it tender and nut sweet. Not to mention sanitary.”
“I am quite all right.” Kathryn dabbed the corners of her mouth. “A bit rich for me.”
“But I followed the recipe,” she said. “I’m so very sorry.”
“It was quite tasty,” Kathryn said. “Quite sweet. But a woman must watch her figure.”
The couples sat in a family room with a large window facing a perfect lawn shadowed in maple and elm. The radio had warmed up and broadcast the national news out of New York, and although Kathryn wasn’t paying much mind she heard damn well nothing of Charlie Urschel. Apparently there was some trouble with those banana eaters down in Cuba, and they’d gone and overthrown their dictator or some type of mess. There were more NRA parades and Blue Eagle mumbo jumbo, news from the World’s Fair, where the station would be live tomorrow, broadcasting Buddy Barnes, from the Pabst Blue Ribbon Casino.
“Was the engine too much, Mr. Sha
“Call me Boss,” George said, getting all corny and full of himself. He wore a new navy suit and new oxblood shoes, a new pair of rimless glasses fashioned in an octagonal shape. He’d been told they’d give the angles of his face a new dimension. “No. It wasn’t the engine. The little wife here just had her heart set on that sweet little number when she saw it in McCall’s.”
“Redbook,” Kathryn said, giving the old stink eye to Mrs. Quigley’s fat ass, waddling under the apron’s bow, as she picked up their plates and headed into her kitchen domain.
“Redbook,” George said, working on his third piece of coconut cake, a cigarette burning on the edge of the plate. “When she saw that little coupe, she said, ‘Hot damn. Now, that’s a peach.’ ”
“Didn’t expect you to pay the entire balance in cash,” Mr. Quigley said. “I don’t think I ever had that happen.”
“If George doesn’t drop his pin money somewhere, he’ll burn a hole in his pants,” Kathryn said, crossing her legs and taking up a smoke, finding great delight when fat little Mrs. Quigley rushed back into the room to flick open a lighter. Must’ve been some commission.
“ ‘ Pin money’?” she asked.
“Of course,” Kathryn said. “The other night I sent ole Boss out with eighteen hundred dollars, and the little man here lost the whole thing. Isn’t that right?”
George shrugged and pulled out a money clip bulging with cash. “You two ever seen a thousand-dollar bill?”
Mrs. Quigley’s eyes went askew and then refocused on Kathryn’s face, to see if the couple was pulling her leg. She opened her mouth, but before she uttered a word in skipped the little daughter, stopping the conversation cold, the precocious little moron who had already regaled them with five songs at di
“Well, well, well,” Mrs. Quigley said, “Janey wanted to say good night and show you her certificate. Did I tell you she has won an art contest for Rinso soap? She is so very talented. Her little cartoon will be in a national magazine this fall. Can you believe it? It’s called It’s Wonderful! and features the most delightful little story about a woman who just can’t get her laundry to smell or look right. You know, Mrs. Sha
“I don’t scrub nothing,” Kathryn said, blowing smoke from the corner of her red mouth. “I got a nigger woman who does all that.”
Little Janey, with her pi
“Where are the two of you headed next?” Mr. Quigley asked.
George looked to Kathryn and winked. “Chicago.”
“The Fair?”
“Figured we got to go,” George said. “Everybody in the whole gosh-dang world will be there.”
“We were there last month,” Mrs. Quigley said, all-knowing and smug. “I felt as if I’d entered another country, different worlds, all in Chicago. They even have an exhibit from Sinclair Oil with dinosaurs that look as real as you and me. They eat and putter about, make noises that scared little Janey a bit. She thought they were real beasts.”
“Ain’t that quick, huh?” Kathryn asked.
“Excuse me?”
“The kid. A little slow on the uptake.”
“We must be gettin’ along,” George said, hand on Kathryn’s back, Kathryn gri
“If you change your mind on that coupe,” Mr. Quigley said with a wink, “you let me know. Number’s on the card.”
“I think that little baby out there is just the ticket,” George said. “I think we’re go