The Waiting Room (13 page)

He pointed his cane at the Malibu. "If you park it there, young man, it will be vandalized. Are you new here, to New York?" He had a deep and resonant voice that dripped with authority and demanded respect, which I was in no mood to give. I growled at him, "What in the hell are you? My keeper? Take a hike."

He chuckled shortly, deep in his chest. "No. I'm not your keeper. I'm no one's keeper. Forgive me." And he turned to his left and was gone.

Torches, I thought. Gasoline.

I got back in the Malibu, put my head on the upper edge of the steering wheel and I wept.

I parked the car in a parking garage near Fourth Avenue and 3rd Street, found a phone booth, and called Leslie's number.

Her father answered. I sighed. If there was anyone I didn't want to have to deal with then, it was Frank Wirth. I wasn't even 100 percent sure that I wanted to talk to Leslie, or at least that I
should
talk to her, because I was almost certain that an argument would start—that's the way things had been tending lately, ever since my ill-conceived remark that her father should be "where he can be taken better care of." But she was, after all, the person I loved most in this world; she was my reality, and I needed her.

"Hello, Mr. Wirth," I said. "Could I speak with Leslie, please."

"Who's this?"

"It's Sam Feary, Mr. Wirth. Is Leslie there?"

"I don't know no one named Sam Fury."

"Feary, Sam
Feary
, Mr. Wirth. I'm Leslie's… fiancé." It was half true. I'd asked; she hadn't given me an answer.

Silence.

"Mr. Wirth? Are you there?"

"You the one she's been seein'?"

"Yes, sir. Could I speak with her, please?"

"You the one ain't been around for a week?"

"Yes, sir. It's a private matter, sir. Could I please speak with her?"

"No," he said flatly.

"Why?" I asked.

"'Cuz she ain't here."

"Could I ask where she is?"

"Sure you could. Go ahead and ask." I heard a grim little chuckle.

I sighed. "Okay, Mr. Wirth, I'm asking. Where is she?"

He answered, "She's somewheres else," and laughed. "She's somewheres else, Sam Fury." Another laugh.

"Mr. Wirth, please—" I stopped, waited for his laughter to subside. "Mr. Wirth, if you could please just tell me where she is."

"I'll give you a clue," he said.

"A clue?"

I sighed yet again; talking with Frank Wirth had always been an unpredictable experience. "Okay, Mr. Wirth," I said, "what's the clue?"

He chuckled. "The clue is, Sam Fury—what do people call women who got habits?"

I shook my head. "I give up, Mr. Wirth. Why don't you tell me."

He hung up.

I called back immediately. He answered, "Sam's Bait Shop, head worm speaking," cackled, and hung up.

I dialed a third time, listened to the phone ring once, and again, then I hung up.
Sisters,
I thought.
Women with habits are called sisters.
Leslie was at her sister's house. I smiled. "Gotcha, Frank Wirth!" I whispered. I stopped smiling. I'd been to her sis-ter's house only once, when Leslie and I had met each other in the cab going to Queens. "Dammit!" I whispered, stepped back into the phone booth, looked up the name "Wirth" in the phone book, and found only "Wirth, Orlando A., D.D.S." I didn't know much about Leslie's sister, but I knew that she wasn't a D.D.S. and that her name wasn't Orlando.

I went back to the parking garage, got the Malibu, drove to the Jackson Heights section of Queens. And cruised around, lost, for two hours.

At last, I pulled up to a curb and called to a thin middle-aged woman walking her cat on a leash, "I'm lost. Could you help me?"

She came over to the car, looked through the passenger window, first at me, then cautiously into the back seat as if someone might be hiding there, then looked back at me. "So what are you looking for, then?" she asked. She turned her head quickly: "Don't do that, Britches"—I couldn't see what Britches was doing—then looked at me again. "Not too much damage there," she said. "What'd you say you were looking for?"

I answered, "I don't know. A street. Something like this one." The street I was on was quiet and tree-lined, with neat two-story houses nestled close together. "But there's a church on one end. Maybe it's a synagogue."

"Russian Orthodox," she cut in.

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so—"

"Yes, it is. Russian Orthodox. Bolosco Street." She nodded to her right. "Three blocks up, two blocks over." She turned to Britches. "Stop that now," she said, and I said, smiling cordially, "What's he doing?"

"Spraying," she said, and added, "Three blocks up and two blocks over. That's where Bolosco Street is."

"Over where?"

She waved her hand in the air. "Over there, of course. You can't miss it." And, tugging the reluctant Britches along, she made her way slowly, one painful step at a time, back to the sidewalk.

I leaned over in the seat. "I mean . . . Ma'am? Ma'am?" I called.

She looked back at me. "Yes?"

"I mean, right or left? Three blocks up and two blocks right, or two blocks left?"

"Right. Two blocks right." She seemed agitated. "What'd you think I meant?"

"I wasn't sure. Thanks," I said, and pulled away from the curb.

~ * ~

Bolosco Street looked as if it could very well be the street that the cabbie had taken Leslie to several months earlier. The houses were all neatly maintained two-story houses in various shades of brown, green, and beige, each with a narrow driveway and a well-manicured hedge or two. And there was indeed a Russian Orthodox church at one end.

I pulled over at the center of the block, craned my head around to look behind me, then turned back. There were a few people on the sidewalks. At what I guessed was its north end, and coming my way, a young woman was carrying a bag of groceries in each arm and having a hard time of it; near me, an older man and woman were walking close together, so their arms touched. Every now and then the man stopped walking and pointed skyward—at a bird, I supposed—and the woman with him looked where he pointed and smiled a pleasant, grateful smile. They passed me as I sat in the Malibu and I heard the old man say, "There, Emma, didn't I tell you?" And Emma said, "Yes, Robert.
You
were right. Of course you were right. I'm very happy."

Four or five houses ahead, a woman who, I told myself, could easily be Leslie was standing on a porch as if waiting for someone. I pulled the car up, stopped in front of the house, glanced at the woman, saw that it indeed was Leslie, and called, "Hi. Remember me?"

"Sam?" she called. "What are you doing here?"

She was dressed in a dark unbuttoned knee-length coat; beneath it, she wore a snug-fitting purple dress.

I shrugged. "I got lost, I guess. I was taking this car back to the guy I borrowed it from—" I stopped, shook my head. "No, that's not true."

"Of course it isn't."

"I was looking for you."

"Were you? Why?"

"To talk."

"About what?" She paused only a second, not long enough to give me a chance to answer her question. "Who told you I was here? My father?"

"Kind of," I answered. I got out of the car and started up the walk to the house.

"I wish you hadn't come here, Sam," she said as I approached. "I'm still pretty upset with you."

I was halfway up the walk. I stopped, shook my head. "I can't imagine why, Leslie. That's the truth. So I said something you disagreed with. I take it back, okay?"

"No, it's not okay, Sam. I'm sorry. I can forgive you for saying it, but not for the . . . the mind-set that made you say it. You're like a million other people who want to shuffle their parents off to some dreary
home
as soon as trouble starts—"

"Wait a minute," I cut in. "Do you want to know how I found out where you were?"

"You said my father told you."

"Well, yes, he did. But not in so many words, Leslie; he made a
game
out of it—"

"Okay, okay, so he made a game out of it?! So what? He's playful. That's what I love about him; that's what I've
always
loved about him—he thinks like a kid. That's wonderful! More people should be that way. But you . . .
you
see it as senility or something."

I took a deep breath, went to the bottom of the porch steps, and looked pleadingly up at her. "Listen," I said, "I've had a pretty rough couple of days and I came here because I want to be with you, because I want us to be together. Can't we just let this thing about your father . . . lie fallow for a while?"

"Lie fallow? What are you talking about?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, Leslie. I'm tired, and I'm confused, and I
need
you, honey—"

"Don't call me honey. I'm sorry, Sam, but I have a date."

My mouth fell open. "You have a what?"

"A date," she repeated. She paused, looked sheepishly at me. "Well, actually," she added, "it's with my brother—"

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"It's the same old story, then, isn't it, Sam? There are
lots
of things you don't know about me."

I nodded. "Sure there are, Leslie, but—" I stopped. Something was fluttering heavily in the air above the house. I glanced up. I saw what I supposed at first was a gull hovering close to the roof edge, so most of its body was hidden. I looked back at Leslie. "As I was saying, Leslie—"

"No, Sam," she cut in. "I don't want to talk anymore just now I'm sorry, but as I told you, I'm still upset with you—I've got a lot of thinking to do ... Sam, are you listening to me?"

"Yeah, sure," I managed, and it was the truth. But I was also listening to the fluttering in the air. It was behind me now. I turned my head, looked.

I saw a woman above me. She was hovering just at arm's length, her loose red blouse and pants fluttering on the breeze, her arms outstretched, her head to one side so it rested on her shoulder, her eyes closed, and her lips parted just enough that her bright pink tongue was visible.

She was a young woman. Her skin was smooth and very white. She was barefooted; her toenails were painted black. As I watched, she fluttered around me so she was between Leslie and me. I heard Leslie say, "Sam? What's wrong?" I started backing away, toward the Malibu. The woman's eyes popped open. Her head straightened. The thin, light pink line of her lips spread so that more of her tongue was visible.

I continued backing toward the Malibu.

"Sam?" Leslie called. "What are you doing?"

I shook my head. "Go away," I pleaded. "Go away, please go away!"

"What's
wrong
with you?" Leslie called.

I continued backing toward the Malibu.

"I love you," hissed the woman fluttering in the air above me. "Love me, please love me!"

"Go away!" I whispered.

"Sam, for God's sake—"

"Go away, go away!" I screamed, and I batted at the woman in the air above me as if she were some huge insect.

"Sam, you're scaring me!" Leslie called.

"Get out of here!" I screamed. And I backed hard into the Malibu, with my rear end first, then with the center of my spine—so it hit the roof edge—then, as I rolled to the right, I hit the roof edge with my jaw.

From behind and above me, from the woman hovering there, her loose blouse and pants fluttering on the breeze like sheets hung out to dry, I heard, "Love me, love me, love me!" and from Leslie, who had run down the walk to me, I heard, "Sam, for God's sake . . ."

I felt hands on my back. ,I looked. It was Leslie. "Love me!" screamed the woman in the air. "Leslie," I managed, my jaw alive with pain, "do you hear that?"

"Sam? Are you all right?" She pulled me around to face her, and chuckled a clearly false chuckle, one intended to put me at ease. "God but you're clumsy!"

"Love me, love me, love me!" screeched the woman in the air.

"Do you
hear
that, goddammit!"

I looked at Leslie. She looked down the street, called, "I'll be there in a moment, Orrin," and turned back to me. "Are you okay, Sam? Do you think you're hurt?"

"Leslie," I said, "do you
see
her?"

A man came up to Leslie; he put his hand on her arm and glanced at me. He was tall, in his late thirties, strong-looking, casually dressed. "What's the problem here, Leslie?"

"Orrin, this is my friend Sam Feary. Sam, my brother, Orrin Wirth."

"Hi," Orrin said, and stuck his hand out. "Our girl here has mentioned you before, Sam. It's good to meet you." He let his hand hover near my belly for a moment, then withdrew it.