Chapter 14
She changed into her cigarette girl's costume, ate her dinner in the kitchen, and got into the main room around nine. She had not seen Hank. While eating in the kitchen she listened to the idle gossip of the cook and his assistant and the single-bus boy. Food, as at Nicks in the Village, was not of prime importance at the Lighthouse, though the shore dinners were good. The chef was from New York, all the other help was local. None of them had ever paid much attention to Noreen, except for covert looks at her body. Rocco, she thought, had undoubtedly taught them the virtues of minding their own business.
The chef, his tall white hat askew, a cigarette dripping from his mouth, was complaining about the orders. "Thirty dinners," he lamented. "All got to be first class, Rocco says. Important people tonight. And me with no help."
The assistant bristled. "What ya mean? No help? Ya got me, ain't ya?"
The chef, who Noreen suspected was a good friend of Rocco's from the old days, laughed. "You okay, Pete. Only you ain't no cook. Let's face it. As a cook you wouldn't make a good pimple on my nose. But never mind. I still got to get the dinners out."
The assistant grumbled a moment, then asked. "What's so important tonight? We gotta break our backs? Ike is coming to dinner maybe?"
"Important people,"-the chef said. He glanced swiftly at Noreen, who feigned lack of interest.
"Big shots," continued the chef. "The biggest. One reason I want the dinners should be good. Lotsa my old friends here tonight. People I knew from way back, when I was cooking in classy joints."
As Noreen prepared her cigarette tray for the first round she was thoughtful. Hank had not yet put in an appearance, even though the place was beginning to fill up. A glance through the window showed her that the parking lot was crowded with Caddies and Lincolns and Chryslers. There were Jags and even one Rolls.
The owners of the cars were different from the usual crowd at the Lighthouse. Young, middle aged, older, they all dressed well and conservatively. They might have been any group of successful business men at a convention. They separated into little groups and there was not much table hopping. The hum of conversation was low and discreet. Rocco was everywhere, seating people, calling greetings, shaking hands. He did not so much as glance at Noreen.
The girl saw one jarring note. A set of six tables, back in the shadows and away from the stage, had been reserved. She watched as these tables were gradually filled by a crowd of hard looking young men. They were different from the rest of the patrons. They dressed too flashily and their clothes bulged here and there. Though they were grouped together they did not have much to say to each other, and Noreen noticed that they broke up into cliques, each to a table.
She was watching them when Hank touched her arm. "The guard of honor."
She turned to him. "What?" He was wearing his only good suit tonight, with a white shirt and blue tie. Against the starched white collar his face was pitifully thin.
"The guns," he explained. "Some of them need a good tailor. They come to this meeting, but none of them trust the others."
Noreen turned to look at die tables again. "Oh! You mean they're bodyguards?"
"What else! Every big time hood in the East is here tonight. Must be important. You ever hear of the Mafia?"
"No. Should I?" She glanced around for a sign of Rocco. It wouldn't do to be seen talking to Hank like this. And yet if this meeting was so important it might be a blessing. She and Hank could run for it.
"Skip the Mafia," Hank was saying. "Not important. Where were you, this afternoon? I waited for two hours."
Noreen saw Rocco ushering a new party down the steps of the foyer. "Don't ask questions," she whispered to Hank. "Just listen. This is life or death, Hank. We've got to get out of here, both of us. I-"
His dark eyes widened. "What in hell are you talking about?"
"Please, darling! Believe me! Trust me! Just go through our routines as usual, then go home. Meet me on the beach about three o'clock at the cove. I'll get there some how. Don't try to be alone with me, or even talk to me, before then. Okay?"
"Okay. But one thing-did you mean what you said just now?"
"Mean what?" Rocco was looking their way. "Darling?"
Noreen smiled at him. "I meant it. I never meant anything in my life like I meant that. I love you, Hank."
"Thank God you said it," he muttered. "I haven't been able to get up the nerve."
"This morning on the beach. Three. I love you! Now go and don't look at me the rest of the night."
Hank went to the piano and began to play softly. Noreen slipped the strap of the tray around her neck and began her rounds.
As the evening wore away she was conscious of Rocco's eyes on her. He always seemed to be watching. Noreen sang her few numbers-Rocco had ordered that they be only a few-without trying to talk to Hank. She hardly looked at him. Only during the final number did he speak. Then, during her last reprise, he muttered: "Is it Rocco?"
She was catching breath at the end of a long note. "Yes. Don't talk to me. At three."
"Okay. But if that fat bastard tries anything with you I'll kill him."
Just before two Rocco cornered Noreen. "You quit now, huh? I want the joint quieted down. Go to your room and stay there."
"What else would I do? Fly out the window?"
Rocco smiled in his fat face. "You might. Only I don't think so. I tell you Rocco wasn't born day before yesterday. You try to drop out that window you'll break your pretty neck, also cut those gorgeous gams to pieces. All the bottles in those cases now have the necks broken off. An old gag in the good days. I used to fight with a broken bottle. And I'll have a guard outside your door all night. To protect you, huh, in case the boys get ideas?"
Noreen forced herself to smile. She patted his cheek. "You sure trust me, don't you?"
"Rocco trusts nobody. Not even Rocco. If I'm fooling with jail bait I ain't fooling, if you get what I mean, huh?"
As she was heading for the stairs Rocco called softly: "You give that bum his walking papers?"
Noreen turned. "Yes. I told Hank I couldn't see him again. You satisfied?"
"Maybe. Goodnight. See you tomorrow."
In her room Noreen waited half an hour after changing into slacks, a blouse, and sandals. She made all the proper going to bed sounds. Rocco had kept his word. She heard the man come down the corridor, try her door, and draw up a chair. From time to time he coughed or scratched a match on the wall.
Finally she eased the window open as far as it would go. There was no screen. She leaned out and looked down at the pile of beer cases. Rocco had told the truth. The cases had been rearranged and now moonlight glinted on row after row of broken beer bottles. For a moment her heart failed her. If she lost her grip, or the gutter broke, she would be ripped to shreds. Probably kill her. A fall of twenty feet on those jagged glass daggers would impale her in a dozen places.
Noreen stared down for a long time, feeling the cold sweat collect. God! She didn't want to die like that!
Noreen lifted herself to the window ledge, careful not to make a sound. There had been no sound from the guard for a long time. Probably dozing.
She balanced precariously on the ledge and reached out and upward to grasp the guttering. It creaked ominously and she stopped, her heart leaping wildly as she listened. Had the man outside her door heard?
After a moment she exerted new pressure on the guttering. It complained but it held. Noreen glanced down, saw the light reflected from the bottles, and looked hastily away. She mustn't think of that.
She took a deep breath. Sweat congealed on her.
I'm scared, she told herself, scared to death! Only I got to do it! Get out of here, tell Hank, make him take me away. Tonight!
She took a final, gradual breath and easily, so easily, swung her full weight out on the guttering.
Fast, she told herself. Fast! Don't think. Just do it!
The guttering sagged, groaned, began slowly to pull away from its anchoring. Noreen, using every ounce of strength in her long and beautiful muscles, the heritage of swimming and tennis and of natural good health, lifted herself up. UP!
She reached and found a purchase on the roof. It was not steep. Her fingers encountered a wooden cleat, left by someone who had repaired the. roof long ago. That was the difference. Noreen blessed the man who had left the cleat as she tugged and rolled her body onto the edge of the roof. The guttering she had just left was sagging like spaghetti.
Ten minutes later she reached the little cove where she and Hank swam. He was waiting for her, sitting on a blanket in a small cave they had hollowed out of a dune. In the ghostly moonlight his tan was pallid, and his skin was drum tight on his skull. As she ran toward him her heart said: I've got to help him. He's .sicker than he thinks! But I'll take care ol him. He's mine now. Now and for always!
Hank said not a word. He drew her gently down on the blanket beside him and they kissed for the first time. It was a long kiss, the first such kiss that Noreen had ever known. Their mouths met and mingled and his breath was hot in her nostrils. She held him gently and stroked his dark hair and did not care that she could hardly breathe.
Finally he let her go. He rolled away on the blanket and said, "Now you've got the bug too. I guess you know that?"
"I don't care. I love you. And anyway I'm as strong as an ox and I never get sick. And if you're sick I want to be too."
"You're nuts!" He pulled her to him again. "So am I. Tonight I don't give a damn about anything. I've got a couple of bottles of champagne cooling down in the sand. I thought we would have a picnic to celebrate finding each other. If that sounds juvenile and corny then it is. I am. I've been crazy about you ever since that first day! You're all I've ever dreamed about, Mary."
She pushed him gently back on the blanket. "I know. Maybe it was that way with me too. Only there's no time right now, honey. We're in trouble. No! Keep quiet and listen! Please, darling, we haven't got much time. In the first place my name isn't Mary Cassidy...."
Swiftly she told him the story. All of it.
When she had finished he took her hand and rubbed it against his bony cheek. "I knew there was something. Okay, what do we do now?"
"Later," Noreen told him. "Later, darling. Now take me. Do everything to me! We might not get another chance. No. Don't talk. I don't want to hear a word out of you except that you love me!"
If I never have anything else, she thought fiercely, I'm going to have this tonight!
"You better know," Hank-whispered into my ear. "I'm insatiable. It's a symptom of my disease. People like me can never get enough!"
"I can never get enough of you," she whispered back. "Now will you shut up and make love to me!"
So it was, with the stars and moon bright, and the surf breaking soft and creamy on the sand, and the sleepy gulls talking to themselves, that Noreen came at last to grips with the real thing. Here was no furtive love making, no half-ashamed and shy groping. Hank was a man in the truest sense of the word. Tender at times, nearly brutal at others.
He undressed her slowly and with relish. When she was naked on the blanket, her eyes closed, her mind so much warm mush from his caresses, he kissed each inch of her superb body. His lips moved over each firm up-right breast, until she was nearly mad with delight and close to fainting. When he kissed her she felt as though death was imminent. But such a death!
By now she was incoherent. She could hardly breathe and could emit no sounds other than sighs and groans and long shattered cries. Noreen was unashamed. She didn't care who heard her. She screamed softly and clutched him to her and begged him to make her scream again.
She knew the end was not yet. There could never be an end! Not to this ecstasy!
When at long last, after a long time, when she lay supine and defenseless-like all women should be and want to be-he made love to her.
She exploded! This made everything that had gone before like the play of children. Noreen wrapped him tightly in the soft enclosure of her arms, penned him, imprisoned him, sought to draw him to her.
At last the agony was so terrible and beautiful and hurting that she could not bear it. She screamed again and flung him away from her. They both lay for a long time on the blanket, sobbing and gasping for breath.
So deep and delicious was her languor that she forgot the menace hanging over them. Forgot or did not care. This was her first real fulfillment, she had become a woman, and nothing else mattered at the moment. It was Hank who had to take over.
After a few minutes, when his own breathing was under control, he said: "I love you. I'm never going to lose you. Now we have to start thinking! Rocco is mean. Art old time gangster with no more scruples than a weasel. I don't think I'm a coward, honey, but I'm afraid of Rocco and his sort. For both of us. I think we had better run for it."
Noreen rolled over on the blanket and sighed. Her eyes were half closed, misty with satisfied desire and the urge to sleep. "I suppose so, darling. Oh-I never want to move again. Just lie here and-"
"We can't!" Hank spoke sharply. He got to his feet and pulled her up. "It will be getting light soon. If we're going to run for it we have to get started."
Noreen began to come back into the world. "My money! It's hidden back in my room. I can't leave without it-and my clothes."
"How will you get back in? Over the roof?"
"No! I can't. That gutter would never hold me again. Oh! I was a fool not to bring the money with me. But I was so worried-"
Hank put his arm around her. "Come on. We'll go to my place first. I have to get my music. You'll just have to kiss that money goodbye. The clothes, too."
She trudged beside him in the sand. "I don't care so much about the clothes. They're not much. But my money!
"We'll get by. I've got a little over five hundred saved. I think the old clunker will get us down to New York, then I can sell it for a few bucks. We'll find a little place and go to work."
She squeezed his hand hard., "I'll go to work! You are going to rest and write your music. And just as soon as your concerto is finished you're going in the hospital until you're well! Promise?"
Hank stopped to kiss her. "I promise."
False dawn was lurking in the east as they approached the little fishing shack where Hank lived. Noreen had been in it half a dozen times. It was only an unpainted shack with a crude plank floor. Hank had a cot, an oil stove, one chair, a few cooking utensils. It was enough for him. The important thing was the battered old upright piano and the packing crate littered with music sheets.
Hank pushed open the creaky, badly fitted door as he fumbled for a match. "Just a minute and I'll light the lamp. I think I got enough oil-"
The beam of a flashlight splashed over them.
"Never mind the lamp, huh?" said Rocco. "Just come on in and don't try nothing! Rocco he ain't in such a good humor."