Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(51)
Duke shocked her. “I will get her there. Just let me know when.”
Later, after Johnson and his retinue had departed, she sat on the kitchen stoop and, hands clasping her knees, stared up at the white-hot stars that rivaled candles for romantic display. She should be elated. She had the opportunity to earn extra money. She would be once again in a stimulating environment, as she had once been when roaming with her Gypsy clan through Europe’s capitals.
And Duke had volunteered to help her achieve all this.
Except she had the distinct impression he was making a determined effort to unload her. And once out from under the protective roof of the Jewish Relief Program, she was game for all sorts of predators, including Johnson. That was her preoccupation.
But, too, there was the niggling feeling, that she was not yet ready to be quit of Duke McClellan.
§ § §
At the telephone’s ringing, Romy left off beating the cake batter – it was Bud’s birthday. The kid from New York’s Hell’s Kitchen had never had a birthday cake.
Odd, she knew the ranch hands birthdays now but not Duke’s. She could ask him, of course, but the less she got in his way, the better.
Wiping her hands on a chuck wagon’s grease-stained apron she had scrounged up, she crossed to the far wall to stretch high on tiptoe and pick up the telephone receiver.
“Romy – Mamie here,” the exchange switchboard operator said, “putting through a call for you, hon.”
Several clicks followed, and then, “Romy, Moe. Saw the Austin Statesman – the photo of you with McClellan and Johnson at the Sagebrush and Sidewinders.”
What now?
“Hook me up with Johnson, Romy.”
“Congressman Johnson? I canna do that.”
“Find a way. I want a cushy government position, you understand.”
“I dunna know the Congressman well enough to do what ye’re asking.”
“Then, know him well enough, if you get my meaning.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. “That . . . could take time.”
“Are you kidding me? We’re talking about Lyndon Baines Johnson, who will fuck anything in a skirt.”
“Moe, this is a party line, for Saint’s sakes!”
“Well, any eavesdroppers offended by my remarks are welcome to hang up now.”
No ensuing clicks. With that, her tone burnt with helplessness. “The Congressman is in Washington.”
“He’ll be back. Everyone between Texas and Kingdom Come knows that family ranch of his means more to him almost than the crown jewel he has his eyes set on – the presidency.”
“And after this, Moe? What next will ye blackmail me with?”
“’Yours is not to question why – yours is but to do or die.’ Well, maybe not you, Romy, but your brother.”
There it was again, the persecution. Did it never end for the poor and the different?
§ § §
“ . . . NEWS AS IT OCCURS, WE SWITCH YOU NOW TO EDWARD R. MURROW IN OUR CBS EUROPEAN NEWS LONDON OFFICE, REPORTING NOW VIA SHORT WAVE RADIO.”
“IT’S EVENING HERE AND IN BERLIN, WHERE CHANCELLOR HITLER HAS ANNOUNCED GERMANY HAS OCCUPIED BOHEMIA, MORAVIA, AND CZECHOSLO . . . “
Duke yanked the radio’s knob to a lower drone and stalked toward the kitchen, only to step on a dog bone and go skidding. A quick snag at the doorframe kept his ass upright.
At the counter, Romy spun, “What – ” A grin broke out on her face, which infuriated him even further.
“Damn’t, Romy, are you deaf or something?” He snatched up the dog bone and flourished it at her. “And are you as wild as a barnyard animal?” Hearing his hurtful words, he cringed. Was he becoming as mean as his old man had been at the last?
Still, there was something of an animal in her, an animal magnetism. Hell, the vexing vixen was three sheets to the wind crazy, but still he had to be crazy the way he let her get to him.
Her chin shot up. “Acting the maggot, are ye?” She turned back to the cake she was icing. It looked pathetically like a collapsed pumpkin, three days after Halloween. “Well, bugger, ye should know Gypsy souls have wild hearts.”
“Look, can we get this birthday blow-out over quickly.” He must have been loony to let her persuade him to buy birthday candles. Hell, he couldn’t remember his family being able to afford a cake for birthdays. They had never been celebrated. “The hands should be stringing in shortly, but they’ve got their duties to finish, so let’s keep this short and swe – ”
“Tis a whackin’ we gave the birthday boy,” Jock said, tromping through the kitchen back door, “and he’s walkin’ a wee bit whopper-jawed.” He looked from Duke to Romy, and his gray swatches of brows pumped alert.
So, the Scotsman, too, sensed that insistent thrum of energy in the air. Behind him, one by one, filed the ranch hands, the last, Bud, looking sheepish.
“Heard you captured a snake under the sofa with a pillow case,” Glen told Romy.
“Aye, but t’was only a garden snake,” she said, giving Duke a protracted stare, as if he were one.
She shifted her focus to the kid. “Tis your birthday, Bud, and ye have to make a wish. Duke could ye light the three candles, please?”
Repressing his irritation, he dug a matchbook from his back pocket and flipped his thumbnail against the matchhead. She cosseted the kid far too much. At the moment, her small breasts beneath her clinging muslin blouse was the object of Bud’s attention.