Chapter 4
With people tromping over the onyx polished linoleum, huddled up in overcoats and sweaters, the Green Leaf Tea Room resembled more a shelter for hungry war-time refugees than it did a lady's luncheonette. Pink carnations in crystal bud vases topping the deep green gold-threaded tablecloths presented an ironic picture of propriety next to the groveling freeloaders taking advantage of the complimentary meal from the high priced delicatessen that most post-holiday bargain shoppers couldn't afford to frequent. Hungry jaws snapped like bear traps over cold chicken, smoked ham and rare roast beef, and in the free-for-all, one hefty grey haired lady elbowed her way to the front of the line and piled her plate high with crab legs, despite a barrage of four-letter invectives. The couch-minded, like the Bradley's ended up with a plate of soggy macaroni salad and a dry roll.
Outside the glass doors, the snow piled high and deep and throughout the store the crackle of prerecorded hi-fi music was interrupted now and then for local weather-reports, all disheartening as a toothache in the face of a hot fudge sundae.
Like drunken robots, the fifty some snowbound victims sauntered mindlessly around the department store, pacing from one department to the next in slow, time-consuming gaits. Some of the bargain-hunting females carried on like two-year-olds in Santa's workshops, sampling expensive French perfumes and trying on clothes either too expensive, too sheer for their sagging figures or too small. More than one seam ripped in a darkened fitting room as a size fourteen bosom slithered into a size seven gown in a ripping tug that popped buttons and tore egos. Others contented themselves in the television department watching the news from a seven foot high Advent screen, while across the floor in the stereo department, the younger s breed drowned out the TV with a combative disco beat turned up to volume ten on Slipshorn speakers. A shouting match sparked between the rivals until the teenage rogues stomped off down to the cafeteria and liquor department to see what trouble they could find there.
By midnight, most of the marauding shoppers had run out of curiosity and steam and the mad scramble for a place to call home began. Those with foresight plundered the bedding department earlier in the evening and headed on up to the furniture floor to bed down for the first night of mayhem, contentedly kicking off muddy boots and snuggling under satin sheets and coverlets, price tags dangling. The wiliest victims had scouted out portable colored television sets and vintage wine from the "Vino Gardens" in the basement and settled in for a relaxing evening of gratis accommodations. A few unmated stragglers monopolized king-sized beds in hopes of luring a cold and lonely body into warm and wanting arms. But this first night everyone was defensive as a mouse in a foxhole, and friendly acquaintances were rare as July snow.
The store had metamorphasised into a hotel with no doors and the Bradley's, who'd found a quiet corner in the children's furniture department, snuggled up like two spoons in the clown sheeted bed. Still wearing his long woolen underwear, Orin cuddled his stripped-down wife under the covers.
Mona's whimpering sobs were soothed by Orin's hand stroking her smooth forehead and, for one tremulous moment, she considered spilling everything to her compassionate husband and throwing herself on his mercy. If he can find any in his heart for me... after I've confessed. The terrifying threat that Orin's agreeable temperament might reach its tolerance point and cause him to dump her for jeopardizing his business for a stupid sunlamp stopped her; no man was expected to endure such selfishness from his lifemate. With a paralyzing, almost pathological fear, she remained painfully tight-lipped and reticent.
While Orin's snores rattled the pine bedstead, Mona's mind churned on. Over and over she reran today's episode, searching for the one factor that could set her free of Nick Harrington's evil threats. That damned application card was Joseph's Department Store's sole proof of her fraudulence. Thank God, she hadn't bought anything and charged it to her new account! She slept fitfully and awakened to the sound of eternally shuffling feet browsing boringly about the store.
Breakfast, again gratis of the Green Leaf Tea Room, still stacked with dirty dishes from last night's smorgasbord, was a solemn affair. Most of the stranded shoppers hadn't slept well, if at all, and a few who'd slipped down to the liquor department for a party sat nursing hangovers over day-old, reheated coffee. Glum and depressed over the negative weather report muffled through the twice-amplified speakers, a sniffle and blowing noses sounded ominously in the morbid crowd. Tomorrow night was New Year's Eve, a night for drinking and making merry with the one you love... not with a department store full of depressed strangers.
"The Buffalo Fire Department Rescue Squad reports that five people have been unearthed from their stranded vehicle west of here. These five deaths bring the total casualties to eleven. We advise no one to leave his shelter unless under dire emergency. Winds are whipping at forty-eight miles per hour, drifting snow obscuring visibility to zero..."
Dan, the armed guard sitting at Mona and Orin's table, grunted in disgust and shook his head. "Hell of a fix this is! My girl ain't never gonna believe why I didn't show up for New Year's Eve!"
Orin crunched on a dry breakfast roll, winced, and dipped it into his day-old reheated coffee. "Give her call."
"You kidding? Telephone lines are down. We're stuck here till the good Lord decides to shovel us out."
Mona gulped and turned snow white.
After breakfast, Mona left Dan and Orin to their gin rummy while she headed for the ladies room behind the lingerie department. "Frozen pipes... toilets out of order," read a sign posted to the bathroom door. Oh, that's just dandy! Now I have to go up to the fourth floor to the employees lounge. She shivered as if snake had crawled up her spine. Fears about crossing the credit manager's path and him making a lewd remark about their romp in the mattress warehouse prompted Mona to shake her head when Orin insist he come along. Still... was it her imagination, or was that a look of suspicion when she left Orin after the first hand of cards?
Enroute, she passed by the wig department and donned a long, straight black one-something she'd always wanted to try. Being blonde was fun, but a change did the heart good. The bangs curtained her satin forehead, grazing her turquoise eyes, Cleopatra-like. She congratulated herself, confident of her disguise, but absent-mindedly forgetting the out-of-season tan that stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.
The black-wigged blonde stepped coltishly past the furniture department where giggled lovemaking bubbled from a brass bedstead behind a lineup of dressers. Out of the corner of her eyes, Mona caught a naked nipple spiking out from a bosomy chest. Good God, is this what it's going to come to? Everybody doing nasty things with strangers? Mona tutted and pressed on toward the fourth floor where she finished her duties in the chilly bathroom, her attention split between the luscious effect of her raven wig and the credit card application sitting temptingly on Nick Harrington's desk, not more than one hundred feet away.
Knowing she'd caused enough turmoil from deceit, Mona tip-toed past the business office, determined to get off the cursed fourth floor before the curtains of hell descended on her once more. But the temptation at finding the door ajar flooded her better senses with foolish hope and she peeked inside at the cluttered desk, knowing her application card was amongst the litter. Holding her breath and walking on polished tip-toes, she snuck over the orange shag carpeting toward the desk. Her tiny hands fluttered over the mess, shuffling papers and scrambling for the card that would put an end to this foolishness.
She found it! Heaven is on my side! She rejoiced, closing her eyes and offering up a thanks to the Almighty, she pressed it to her chest. A gusty snarl curled her lips instantly and she'd made a half inch rip in it when a voice bellowing from in back of her, made her blood run cold as the icicles dripping from the department store eaves.
"Find what you're looking for?" a dry voice rattled. Terrorized by the evil sound of familiarity, Mona's clenched fist flew to her quivering mouth and the card fluttered from her helpless hands and floated away to the carpet several feet away, caught like a dry leaf on the breeze.
"Are you surprised to see me, Mona? Honestly, I didn't think you were that anxious." The same shallow black, canary eyes that horrified her yesterday froze her to the hot orange carpet in the few seconds they bored into her from bosom to bangs.
"Mona? Why ever are you calling me Mona?" her voice drawled dramatically into a southern accent, as sweet as blooming magnolias, one she'd learned from a high school Tennessee Williams play. She charmed him with her lullaby voice, but the effect was weak at best. He grabbed her by the sleeve halfway through the door.
"Don't play games with me, bitch!" His beady e sparked with malice. "Nobody else around here's got a tan in December... you think I'm stupid, don't you? Hot with anger and intimated insults, his balding head turned red as a polished apple. He grabbed her wig, tore it off, and stomped on it. "Really, Mrs. Bradley, you're only getting yourself in more hot water. The head honcho wants to see you about that phony application... and with thievery too," he tutted tauntingly. "Come on," he snarled through stained teeth and stale tobacco breath.
The credit manager dragged the kicking and spitting blonde through his office and into the adjacent chambers marked with Hugh Murphy's name plaque, then dumped her into a chair next to the secretary's desk.
In his plush inner office, Hugh Murphy sat hulkishly in his leather swivel chair, feeling a bit guilty for not alerting customers and employees to the severity of the snow storm and hoping to hell there were no lawsuits because of it... but hell, he'd been too busy 'dictating' to Blanche to think about the weather. Then, too, the matter of finding another secretary, one as 'qualified' as Blanche was once Nick was transferred, laid heavily on his mind.
Open-minded, loyal, and submissive women like Blanche were as rare as black pearls. Slowly, a lewd grin suffused his head at the tromping, stumbling sound of Mona Bradley bursting into Blanche's office being escorted, or rather dragged, by Murphy's womanizing credit manager.
"Hello, Mrs. Bradley. I hear you've caused quite a stir," A tight, secretive smile bordering on an outright smirk curled Blanche Harrington's sensuous lips as she watched Mona struggling to compose herself. The woman's frankly appraising look bothered Mona intensely and she shifted uncomfortably, her eyes searching out every nook and cranny in the room like a trapped animal. Perhaps she could have been thankful that she couldn't read the secretary's mind just then. Mona's attention shifted to the lean figure frisking past her, heading for Murphy's office... no doubt to brief him on the charges against Mona Bradley
Mona's mind frothed with indecision; she hadn't the slightest idea of how to defend her fraudulence. Several possibilities whirled confusingly through her mind, but in the end, she knew the truth must suffice. Above all, she would plead with this Mr. Murphy not to press charges... or to tell Orin. Anything but tell Orin!
As the few minutes stretched to an eternity, Murphy's voice rumbled from the intercom summoning Mona into his presence. To Mona's ears he sounded like the wrath of God on Judgment Day.
Nick Harrington lounged smirkingly at ease in a chair while Hugh Murphy stood behind his mahogany desk, pale blue eyes boldly sweeping over her contours as he courteously nodded to her to be seated. Relaxing a bit, lulled into a false security by his friendliness, didn't last very long. Hugh came to the point bluntly. "You've been dishonest in filling out a credit application, Mrs. Bradley!"
Mona struggled to explain... offered to forget the application and never shop at Joseph's again, but after a lengthy discourse, she saw that all of her imploring arguments were met with implacable negatives and she burst into tears with a final; "Then... I... I just don't know what to do! But I don't want Orin, m-my husband to find out what I've done!"
Hugh told her then: "There is one solution." He scratched his bald head, leaving claw marks. "I will be needing another secretary soon, and if you'll work for me as my personal secretary, starting on a trial basis for one month, during which, you'll learn your duties and prove your worth to me, I'll perhaps forget this ever happened. However... in the meantime, we can temporarily resolve it another way."
Through miserable, tear-dimmed eyes, Mona looked up at him and trembled. "H-How...?" Then, she saw the salacious lust in those pale, blue eyes, set wide in his craggy lined face. The answer was there in her before he even spoke. Oh, no! Oh God, no! Not him, too!
"From what Nick says, you would be willing to work it out, which is the only reason I won't be going to the authorities if you prove to be a very accommodating personal secretary," he leered. "Need I spell it out any more for you?"
Mona gasped in disbelief, aghast. "Do you mean... sex?!"
"Right! I can see you do have some sense in that pretty blonde head of yours," he smirked. "If you cooperate with us... eventually, you can rip up that application card and your husband will never know." Hugh's voice trailed off, but there was a hint of a real threat of possible consequences.
That little word us stuck with Mona, its importance to what he said bludgeoning her painfully with it's pregnant meaning.
"Us?" she questioned. "Y-You mean th-that? B-both of y-you? A-At one time?"
"At one time! You're catching on, baby!" Harrington grunted dryly with an approving nod from his superior, affirming Mona's worst fears. "We're both going to fuck you at the same time... until you can't even walk!"
"Ohhhh, My God! I-I'd rather go to jail!" she moaned.
"You mean that? Because we can accommodate you either way... of course your husband will find out..."
She hadn't the strength or courage to even notice who said that.
"No... no... NO!" cried Mona. She felt like a trapped animal that once caught in the steel trap struggled to free itself, but only succeeds in causing the cruel teeth to dig in deeper, hold the trapped paw tighter, more painful still. She would have to do whatever they both demanded of her... But both of them? The skinny, beady eyed canary and the hulkish bear?!
Deep in the morass of her self pity, Mona was wondering where her new debauchment by these leering animals would take place, when Hugh lumbered around his desk and took her by her slender arm, assisting her from her chair and said; "Come on now, Mona, let me show you into my private office.
Here? Right now? Oh, dear God! Didn't these men any compassion? She wondered, too, if in the times she'd shopped at Joseph's how many other unsuspecting, teary-eyed women who couldn't pay their bills or lied, ended up in this office 'working off' their transgressions on Mr. Murphy's lordly couch which she stared at now through the opened door of his plush private office. Numbly, she allowed herself to be led in; then, just as dumbly, she sat down on the couch, as he led her to it, shaking her head negatively only when he held a shot of whiskey to her parched lips.
"Why don't you give me vinegar?" she spat acidly.