Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [143]
“We’re in this phone booth,” Sally giggled, her voice suddenly loud, intimate, her mouth pressed up against the instrument. “We’re sort of, well, fucking in here.”
Jack hung up the telephone very quietly. He thought about the man with Sally, who probably did not care whether Sally was “using” him or not as long as he got what he wanted. Try as he might, Jack could not hate or even dislike the man. But when Sally showed up several hours later, alone, he was waiting for her. He had most of her clothes packed into her set of matched luggage.
“You’re leaving,” he said. “You’re not staying here any more. I’ll take care of Billy. You get out. Get a divorce. Stay away. I don’t want to see you.”
She looked at him strangely. She seemed all right, just a little tipsy. “What’s the matter?” she asked in a husky voice.
“You called me, remember?”
She looked puzzled. “I called you?”
“Yes. Now, here’s your stuff. All packed. I’ll call a cab for you. Here’s some money. I got paid today.”
“Yes, well, but—” she began, but he cut her off.
“So get out of here. You can’t have your furniture until I get some. Go on, get out.”
That was the end of the marriage. Even as he threw her out he knew that she had been going through things probably worse than anything he had faced, but he could not let that stop him. Billy could have died while she was going through it; he could have begun to feel the emptiness Jack remembered so well, and Jack would not have that. He felt pity for Sally, but pity was not enough.
Jack arranged for a young girl to take care of Billy days, and he took care of him nights. He did not go out at all for several months. He knew what he was doing was not the best thing for Billy, but he could think of no alternatives. When the divorce, from Reno, came through, he did not contest it, and there was no question of alimony or mention of the child. He didn’t learn about that part of it until the very end, when they came to get Billy. It was very simple, Sally explained to him coldly, dressed in an expensive suit Jack could never have afforded to buy; all she would have to do was go to court and they would award her the child. She was going to marry again, and her new husband would be—of all people—Myron Bronson. Bronson stood slightly back of Sally, not speaking, while she explained everything to Jack. Bronson had gotten his divorce at the same time she had gotten hers. The courts, faced with deciding between an ex-convict without a wife making only a few dollars a week, and the wife of a millionaire, well, you can see who would get the child. So why not, coldly, just hand him over.
Jack was stupefied. “But I want him,” he said to her.
Her expression did not change. “So do we.”
And that was that. Except for Myron Bronson’s visit. By this time, because he was alone, Jack had moved into the Swiss Hotel on Broadway and was back working nights a block away. They met in the bar downstairs from the hotel. Bronson looked the same: gray hair, gray mustache, beautiful tasteful clothes, gentle eyes. He tried to explain to Jack.
“I didn’t want to do this. Really. She came to me when you...threw her out. I’ve been in love with her for years. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
Jack tried to muster up some hatred for Bronson, but he could not. “Look,” he said. “Is Billy okay?”
Bronson smiled softly. “Yes, he’s fine. I love him, too. I always have. I want you to come and see him. But when she’s not there, please.”
“I will,” Jack said. “I’ll come soon. I want to see him.”
“You have to understand,” Bronson said, “she’s not really to blame. She couldn’t live like that. It’s not your fault, either. You two just shouldn’t have ever known each other.” There was a glass of whisky in front of him, but he left it untouched. “You know, now that she can do anything she wants, and the baby will be cared for, she stays home. With the pressure gone, it’s all different.”
“Nobody’s fault again,” Jack said. “Nobody’s ever at fault. Not the way you see things.”
“No,” Bronson said, a little surprised. “I suppose not.