Regiment of Women (34 page)

Cornell asked: “Where do you live?”

“The Zoo.”

“That's that new section of the Central Park Towers, isn't it? It looks pretty posh, from the outside anyway.”

“It's expensive, if that's what you mean. But half the time we don't have hot water, and the day I moved in, I opened a window and it fell down to the street—the whole sash.”

“That's the kind of thing I thought happened only in men's apartment buildings.”

“It's not only men who have troubles,” she said. “You really ought to try to understand that, Georgie, and not be just another male injustice-collector. Most men will refuse to accept responsibility when it's offered, and then they whine about the dirty deals they get.”

“I
never did. I might have been miserable, but I never blamed it on women. At least not until I got arrested. And you must admit that
was
a dirty deal.”

“Know what you should have done? Kicked the shit out of the cop who tried to arrest you. She would never have reported it.”

“There were two of them!” Cornell wailed. “And they carry guns, don't they?”

“I bet they didn't pull them on you.”

Cornell sulked. “You're really being unfair. I'm not a born lawbreaker. I was paralyzed with fright when they showed their badges. For that matter, I was also shaking with fear back there at the gas station. If I had known the attendant had a pistol, I would have fainted.”

“You'll have to get over that sort of weakness,” said she. “From now on, we can only survive as outlaws, you and I.”

Cornell deliberated for a while. At last he said: “Listen, you can square yourself with the FBI by bringing me in. You ought to do that. You've got a fine profession and you shouldn't throw it away. It was my fault you were humiliated and demoted in the first place, and I'd like to make it up to you. What happens to me doesn't matter. I might be happier as a eunuch after all.” He forced a smile. “At least then I can't be milked!”

“You'd do that for me?”

“Who said it's for you?” He turned his head. “It's pure and simple selfishness. The first time in my life I've had real power—the power to decide something on my own that will seriously affect both my own existence and someone else's. Now that I think about it, that's even worth dying for.”

“How about making a decision worth living for?” she asked angrily. “Can you get that through your stupid male head?”

It was a funny question. Two funny questions in fact.

He said mockingly: “At least I see I won't have to endure your maudlin gratitude.”

She shouted: “Know why I came to camp after you? Revenge! What do you think of that?”

“Come on, let's go to the FBI office.”

She spoke into her lap. “When I found you, I didn't want to hurt you.”

“That's nice,” Cornell said lamely.

“I really did crack up, and turned myself in to the nut ward.”

Cornell sympathetically patted her thigh.

“Stop that!” she screamed. Then, paradoxically, she said: “I want you to stay with me.”

“Then don't be so nasty!” He drew back against his door.

“I don't like being touched.”

“I was just trying to be nice.”

Her face was distorted. “I know.”

“I didn't mean to take liberties,” said he. “I really have a high opinion of you. But you're not easy to figure out.” He paused. “I'd like to stay with you too, but I don't want to quarrel.”

“Are you just saying that?”

“No,” Cornell said, “I'm quite serious. I don't want to be bossed around any more.”

“I mean, that you want to be with me?”

“Oh, sure. But I can't stand constant friction. Constructive criticism is O.K.”

She developed a smug expression, turned, and drove away from the curb. Cornell had the definite feeling that she might not keep the bargain. The funny thing was that nevertheless he seemed to have the edge on her: it was
she
who had asked
him
to stay.

T
HE
B
IBLE
, I Timothy 2:12

T
HE
K
ORAN
, Chap. 4

C
ONFUCIUS

A
S THEY
DROVE
ON
, the suburbs became more gracious, the lawns larger, the houses more prosperous, and the “mattresses,” when seen, younger, and no longer on the sidewalks but lounging in bikinis alongside private swimming pools. Also there was some traffic here, as there had not been in the more modest areas. Many of these boys had their own cars, usually of the sports type, gifts of their doting “sugar-mommas.” Old Eloise Huff lived in a similar community, up in Westchester. Years before she had kept Stanley in this luxury; then, when he aged, she had made him office janitor. Now he led a male-lib movement which the FBI could not take seriously.

A gorgeous redhead shot by them in a pea-green open Jaguar, roared up a long driveway, and skidded to a stop before a colonial doorway. He flounced out and entered the house. He could not have been more than eighteen. His off-white ensemble was stunning.

A silver-gray Rolls Royce, of the kind Cornell's analyst owned and parked in the continuous line of luxury cars outside the building she shared with other doctors, turned into the street and drove ahead of them.

Cornell stared. He thought he recognized the back-of-head, as well.

“Hey. I think that's my shrink up there: Dr. Prine.” The silver car made a left turn, and he saw a profile that convinced him. “Sure, that's her! She must live over here now. Follow that car.”

The girl frowned, but she performed as asked, entering the nicest street yet: it even had trees along its curbs and enormous green lawns under revolving sprinklers.

“This is what my money went for,” Cornell said, gesturing with his thumb. “That mean old quack.” He clapped his hands. “There's our chancel Her briefcase is always stuffed with the cash she doesn't declare on her income tax. Force her to the curb!”

The girl gave him a quick look of astonishment, but then she gunned the ambulance into the left lane and drew abreast of the Rolls. Cornell looked out his window, preparing to signal Prine to pull over. A middle-aged woman was at the wheel of the luxury car, but when she turned her head, he saw it was not Dr. Prine.

“Damn,” he said. “It's not her. Keep going.”

“The hell I will. It's a good idea.” She began to close the gap between the cars. When the other woman saw the brutal olive-drab fender nearing the impeccable gloss of hers, she slowed abruptly.

The girl parked the ambulance at an angle, just beyond the hood of the Rolls. Cornell was unhappy again, but he did not wait to get pushed into the street.

He leaped out, dashed to the car, and spoke harshly at the driver's closed window.

“This is a holdup.”

She had Prine's iron-gray hair, but her nose was bulbous and webbed with broken veins.

He tried the door. It was locked. He rapped on the window; the woman gave him an indignant stare.

“All right!” He turned and shouted at the girl: “Pull back and ram her.”

The woman opened the door. “What do you want of me?” She was frightened now, and that pleased Cornell. He leered at her.

“Get out, and don't try anything if you don't want to get hurt.”

She swung her polished oxfords to the street. She was heavy-set and tall for a woman. Her voice quavering slightly, she said: “I don't carry very much money.”

Cornell's hand was extended and twitching. “Let's count it.”

She brought a lizardskin wallet from the inner breast pocket of her suit. He snatched it. It was stuffed with bills of large denomination, and in another compartment were a half-dozen credit cards.

“Get back in.”

She had begun to do so when Cornell touched her shoulder. “Get out.”

Her mouth was out of order. “I thought you wouldn't hurt me.

“That's right,” said Cornell. “We're just taking the car.” He gestured to the girl.

“We're taking this Rolls,” he told her when she reached them.

She smiled in admiration. “When you get going, you really get going.”

The woman took courage to say: “You won't get away with this. Do you know who I am? Senator Maybelle Heppletree. The FBI will track you down like the animals you are. I'm a United States senator.”

The girl made a horselaugh. She told Cornell to get back of the wheel. “With this car, all you have to do is steer.”

The senator said: “You must be crazy, both of you.”

“What about her clothes?” Cornell asked. Thrilled and frightened by the girl's suggestion that he drive, he was postponing the moment. The senator wore a summer-weight suit in banker's gray with a lighter gray pinstripe, white shirt, and blue polka-dotted tie. She was as stout as Lieutenant Aster and significantly taller.

“They'd be a better fit than what you're wearing,” said the girl.

He opened the rear door and pointed within. “Get in, Senator, and slip out of your clothes.”

She began to bluster. Cornell said: “Unless you want me to bust your false teeth.” He did not of course mean that. She was in her late fifties and a dignified public figure. He had some vague memory of seeing her on TV as he had dialed past the news shows, or passing her picture in the paper while en route to the dress ads.

The threat was effective. She put a trembling hand to her mouth, spat her teeth into it, and climbed meekly into the back of the Rolls.

Cornell realized he was pulling off another caper without even pretending to be armed. Neither the gas-station attendant nor the senator had made any resistance whatever.

He asked the girl: “Are you serious about me driving?”

“Oh, you must.” She put her fingers on the back of his hand. He liked that gesture, but then resented it in view of her aversion to
his
touch. However, it was stupid to keep score as to who got away with what. No doubt there were peculiarities of his that she had had to put up with already, with more to come.

He looked into the car and saw Senator Heppletree in a one-piece suit of that summer underwear called BVD's. She was still holding her teeth, and the lower part of her face looked like an empty Gladstone bag. He suddenly understood it was not right to humiliate her further. She had after all been elected to the Senate by a plurality of her fellow women.

“Please put those back in,” he said. “And give me the clothes. It's nothing personal.”

Carrying her suit, he went to the ambulance, in the rear of which he made still another change of attire. The new outfit was a better fit than the uniform had been. The waistband of the trousers could be closed; and if the legs were still short, the senator's high-rise socks of dark lisle concealed his shins. The shoes, though, were hopelessly small, and he retained his penny loafers. He carried the tie in his hand.

He returned to the Rolls with the chino pants and shirt and gave them to the senator, advising her to put them on. She needed no urging. She definitely was thicker than the young lieutenant had been, and could not get the fly zipper past the midpoint of her belly. But she was covered.

“Now,” he said, “if you can drive an ambulance, that one's yours.”

She climbed out. “You're mad dogs,” she said, her fat chin quivering in rage, rather than fear, now that she realized he would not hurt her. “I'll have you tracked to the ends of the earth if necessary.”

The girl had got into the front seat of the car. Now she slid across and pushed a manila envelope out the door. “Look what I found in the glove compartment.”

Cornell opened it and came upon several Polaroid snapshots of a young man in black underwear and knee-high red boots belaboring the senator's naked behind with a whip.

Cornell blushed furiously.

The girl said: “She's being blackmailed. A routine case.”

He couldn't bear to look at the senator for a while. When he did, he saw her running heavily towards the ambulance.

“What luck,” said the girl as he got in behind the wheel. She took the envelope from him.

“Throw those filthy things away,” he said. “Now let me see if I remember anything about driving.”

“I'm keeping them. She won't cause trouble for us now. It would mean the end of her career if these pictures got out.”

Cornell snatched the envelope and opened the door, but it was too late. The senator had got the ambulance going and was already speeding around the corner.

“I was going to give them back,” he told the girl. “I feel rotten about taking that kind of advantage. I'll steal money, clothes, and car, but that is really rotten.”

“Why?” Her face was ingenuous. “That dirty old perv.”

Cornell moistened his lips. “You might say the same thing about us.”

“Us?” she asked. “What's wrong with us?”

“We're
perfectly
normal.” But the irony was lost on her. “Would you mind?” he asked, and gave her the polka-dot tie. She flipped it around her neck, made a knot, slipped it over her head, and returned it to Cornell, who put it on. He had been treating the thick wallet as though it were a clutch-purse. The girl picked it up and handed it to him. “Put this in the inside breast pocket of your jacket.”