The Notorious Mrs. Wright. Fay Robinson
stuffed the middle with more clothes to round me out and give me a saggy top. Gloves cover my hands and forearms. Dark stockings hide my legs.
Since I needed wrinkles, I’d made a life mask out of foam latex to put over my face and neck. That part’s always a drag, two hours of baking, painting and gluing, but when I’m done—wow! There’s a gray wig over my dark hair. Artificial teeth force my mouth into a slight pucker. With the glasses and a walking cane, I look like somebody’s sweet, plump granny.
I call my lady Mrs. Abercrombie. She’s my favorite character, but I have others as good: a Puerto Rican woman in her forties, a twenty-something dancer, a fat maid with an attitude. The psychic and fortune-teller I do would fool anybody.
Pretending is fun. Anything’s better than being me. The bad part is ripping people off. And knowing I’m helping Ray, of course. I’d rather poke pencils in my eye than do that.
“Emma, Emma, Emma,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. He shook his head. “What’s got into you lately, girl? Ain’t like you to be so contrary.”
“I just don’t want to do it, Ray. Please, can’t we go home? I’m freezing to death.” Twenty-seven degrees, and the heap of rust that had brought us downtown didn’t have a heater. “Why can’t you lift some wallets instead?”
“Now, Em, you know this works better. Put a hand in a man’s pocket and even if you get away with it, he’s goin’ to the cops. Scam him, though, and he’ll keep his mouth shut. He’ll figure it’s his own fault for bein’ stupid.”
“Get Vinnie to play my part.”
“We need Vinnie to take the call. J.T. here can’t do it. He’s too little.”
J.T.’s twelve and already near big as Ray, but I knew what Ray meant. We needed a man’s voice to pull this off because of the supposed call to Cowell and Hubbard jewelry store a few blocks east on Euclid Avenue. A kid talking on the other end of the phone wouldn’t work.
Ray had asked his friend and sometime-partner Vinnie DeShazo to be that voice. We’d spent most of the day at Vinnie’s apartment, where I’d put on my granny clothes and made my mask.
His wife, Estelle, is the one who taught me about latex appliances and junk like that. She has a job in a funeral home making smashed-up dead people look right again. Creepy job, but the makeup works great for disguises. She lets me have all the free samples she gets from the salesmen, too, so usually I don’t have to fork out any money.
We’d dropped Vinnie off at a public phone before parking so he could wait for my call. He’d play the boss of the swindle.
A cap, a boss and a catch. Three people. That’s what Ray likes to use. As the cap, Ray’d find the victim and set him up for the sting. Vinnie as the boss—or in this case the voice—would make everything seem legit. Then, I’d make the catch. But in short cons like this, the cap can also play the catch. I told Ray that’s what he should do, and to leave me out of it.
“Now, Emma, I’ve taught you better than that. Who’s a mark more likely to trust, a strange man or a kindly grandma?”
“A grandma.”
“That’s right. Besides, I don’t have your touch. I might get caught again. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?”
Maybe I would, but I didn’t say it. The only times I could remember being happy were the months Ray’d been in jail.
“We could pawn something,” I suggested, desperate.
“Can’t. Ain’t got nothin’ left to pawn or fence. I’ve hit rock bottom, Princess. That’s the truth. And you know today’s the fifteenth.”
Yeah, I knew. Keel Motor Company paid its sales-people on the fifteenth and the thirtieth. Mama would expect Ray to come home with money from his check and some kind of Christmas bonus. Only…Ray hadn’t worked for Keel in almost two years.
I closed my eyes and tried to send myself somewhere warm and safe, where I didn’t have to decide between hurting my mama and breaking the law. I was almost there. A log fire burning in a cozy house…my toes stretched out toward the hearth…
A rumbly noise yanked me back to the cold car. J.T.’s stomach growled loud enough to wake the dead. We both giggled, not that it was funny but laughing helps sometimes when you’re stuck in hell.
He was hungry. Cripes, I was hungry! At least during the week we got a free lunch at school, but this was Saturday afternoon and all we had at home was a dented can of peas and a box of raisins. Knowing Ray, he’d throw them together and call it dinner.
I sagged against the door, unsure of what to do. If I helped Ray, at least me and J.T. would get a decent meal out of him for once.
But I’d hate myself, too. I always did.
Then again, I had to think of Mama, suffering in that tiny basement apartment with its peeling paint and leaking pipes. We shared the floor with the building’s ancient furnace and the coal pile. The heat went up. The dust came down.
If I could scam more cash than Ray needed to buy groceries and pay the worst of the bills, Mama might give in and get some medicine for the hurting in her chest.
J.T. slipped his hand in mine and gave it a little squeeze, his way of letting me know he understood the fight going on inside me and whatever I decided was fine with him. My brother can be a jerk sometimes, but mostly he’s pretty great.
“Okay, I’ll pull the stupid drop,” I told Ray with a hard look. I forced him to give one of his tens and swear to use the other to feed J.T. at the restaurant.
“Twenty minutes after we go in, you come,” he reminded me as we got out of the car and headed south on foot. “I need time to pick us one.” A mark, he meant. Some traveler in an expensive suit or an out-of-town businessman we could fleece for whatever money and jewelry he had on him.
As we walked, we left behind most of the run-down buildings. Two blocks over, we came to Public Square and found it packed with people—mamas and daddies shopping or who’d brought their kids to see the Christmas decorations. Higbee’s and May’s department stores had tried to outdo each other with wreaths and bows and lights. Red, green and blue bulbs even glowed from the leafless branches of the trees.
“Look!” J.T. said, pointing. He ran about laughing, taking in all the sights. A fake gingerbread house stood in one part of the square. In another was a manger scene. Music spilled out every time a door was opened.
For a few seconds I let myself believe we were a family and that Ray had brought us to see the animated figures in Higbee’s windows. Stupid. But I couldn’t help it. Those Christmas carols fried my brain, I guess.
I stopped and gazed at the fragrance rings on display at a boutique. Big and gaudy, they had a fake “jewel” that opened, and inside they held a soft wax perfume you could rub with your finger and dab on. All the girls at school had one. I thought they were about the neatest things I’d ever seen.
“Pretty,” Ray said, coming up beside me.
“Pretty hokey,” I said, as if I wouldn’t wear something like that in a million years.
Lesson Number One in Emma Webster’s Book of Survival: never let Ray know what you like or don’t like. If he knows you, he can hurt you. That’s why the Emma he sees isn’t real. She’s a character, like all the others I’ve created.
Ray handed over a small sack, one of the props I’d need, and I stuck it into a pocket I’d sewn into the inside of my coat. He’d chosen to play the game at The French Connection, a restaurant inside a ritzy hotel called Stouffer’s Inn on the Square. Ahead of us, the hotel rose up like a sideways E and seemed to disappear into the clouds.
“You remember the number where Vinnie’s at?” Ray asked me. I nodded. “Don’t let the mark get too good a look at the real number on the receipt or we’re sunk.”
“I