“Get her out of here,” Beckman said.
“Maybe you should leave, Ruby,” Maggie said.
“Why do you let a man like this give you orders?” Ruby said.
“He’s my employer.”
“Did you sleep with my son? Is that how you got him down here?” Ruby said. Her cheeks pooled with color in the silence. A bird flew into the window glass. “You scheming bitch,” she said.
“Let’s be done with this. Call the police, Maggie,” Beckman said.
“Be done with this?” Ruby said. “You kidnap my wounded son and say ‘be done with this’?”
“Madam, you have invaded my apartment, and you refuse to leave. I think you may be impaired.”
“Something is burning,” Ruby said.
“No, nothing is burning. Nothing here needs your attention,” he said. “There is only one duty you have to perform here, and that is to leave. Can you understand that? I look upon your son as a brother-in-arms. I can make him rich. Instead of thanking me, you come to my home and call me a pimp. Do normal people do that sort of thing? Would you please leave before you shame yourself and Captain Holland any worse than you have already?”
Ruby sniffed at the air again. “You could burn your building down. Is that the door to the kitchen?”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Beckman said. “Did you hear me? Where are you going?”
“Checking out your digs. What a grand place,” she said. “The building looks like a constipated circus elephant, but your apartment is elegant. You have all the new appliances and cookware? I was right, it’s a bit smoky in here. Maggie should take better care of you. What a lovely stove.”
“Get on the phone,” Beckman said to Maggie.
Maggie didn’t move.
Ruby dragged the heavy skillet off the stove. She dumped the sandwich on the floor and went back into the living room. “This is for the miners at Ludlow and Cripple Creek and the boys who didn’t come back from the Marne.”
She swung the skillet at Beckman’s head just as he raised his forearm to protect himself. The blow caught him on the cusp of his forehead, cutting a red star in the skin, scraping a la
yer off his nose, knocking him into the wall. His face went white with shock. The next blow caught him on the elbow, the next squarely across the face, slamming him into the wall again.
He cupped his hand to his nose, strings of blood hanging from his fingers. She kicked his shins, forcing him to drop his hands and bend forward, then swung the skillet sideways against his ear, flattening it into his scalp. “Tell me where he is or your brains will be on the carpet,” she said.
Beckman was half-collapsed against the wall, holding one hand to his nose, lifting the other for her to stop. He removed his hand from his nose so he could speak. “You could break a man on the wheel, woman, I’ll grant you that. But you’re stupid and ignorant. I am not the source of your problem. Your former common-law husband is.”
Ruby raised the skillet again.
“Don’t do it,” Maggie said. “Please. This will not get your son back. You’ve seen Arnold’s scars. He’s not afraid of pain. Talk to Hackberry. He’ll not listen to me, but he will to you.”
Beckman picked up a candlestick phone from a table by the bathroom door and dialed the operator.
“Ruby, please,” Maggie said. “We can work this out.”
“With a man like this?”
“Hackberry’s stubbornness brought all this about,” Maggie said.
“I should have hit you with this skillet instead of him.”
Beckman had the police on the line.
Ruby dropped the skillet on the rug and wiped her hands on her sides. She looked at Maggie. “You betrayed Ishmael and handed him over to this piece of scum,” she said. “I think you’re the most treacherous person I’ve ever known.”
“Say what you want. What you’re doing is stupid.”