If Tomorrow Comes

‘So!’ Mr Stanhope’s voice was hearty. ‘You and Charles want to get married.’

The word want disturbed Tracy. Surely Charles had told them they were going to be married.

‘Yes,’ Tracy said.

‘You and Charles really haven’t known each other long, have you?’ Mrs Stanhope asked.

Tracy fought back her resentment. I was right. It is going to be an inquisition.

‘Long enough to know that we love each other, Mrs Stanhope.’

‘Love?’ Mr Stanhope murmured.

Mrs Stanhope said, ‘To be quite blunt, Miss Whitney, Charles’s news came as something of a shock to his father and me.’ She smiled forbearingly. ‘Of course, Charles has told you about Charlotte?’ She saw the expression on Tracy’s face. ‘I see. Well, he and Charlotte grew up together. They were always very close, and – well, frankly, everyone expected them to announce their engagement this year.’

It was not necessary for her to describe Charlotte. Tracy could have drawn a picture of her. Lived next door. Rich, with the same social background as Charles. All the best schools. Loved horses and won cups.

‘Tell us about your family,’ Mr Stanhope suggested.

My God, this is a scene from a late-night movie, Tracy thought wildly. I’m the Rita Hayworth character, meeting Cary Grant’s parents for the first time. I need a drink. In the old movies the butler always came to the rescue with a tray of drinks.

‘Where were you born, my dear?’ Mrs Stanhope asked.

‘In Louisiana. My father was a mechanic.’ There had been no need to add that, but Tracy was unable to resist. To hell with them. She was proud of her father.

‘A mechanic?’

‘Yes. He started a small manufacturing plant in New Orleans and built it up into a fairly large company in its field. When father died five years ago, my mother took over the business.’

‘What does this – er – company manufacture?’

‘Exhaust pipes and other automotive parts.’

Mr and Mrs Stanhope exchanged a look and said in unison, ‘I see.’

Their tone made Tracy tense up. I wonder how long it’s going to take me to love them? she asked herself. She looked into the two unsympathetic faces across from her, and to her horror began babbling inanely. ‘You’ll really like my mother. She’s beautiful, and intelligent, and charming. She’s from the South. She’s very small, of course, about your height, Mrs Stanhope –’ Tracy’s words trailed off, weighed down by the oppressive silence. She gave a silly little laugh that died away under Mrs Stanhope’s stare.

It was Mr Stanhope who said without expression, ‘Charles informs us you’re pregnant.’

Oh, how Tracy wished he had not! Their attitude was so nakedly disapproving. It was as though their son had had nothing to do with what had happened. They made her feel it was a stigma. Now I know what I should have worn, Tracy thought. A scarlet letter.

‘I don’t understand how in this day and –’ Mrs Stanhope began, but she never finished the sentence, because at that moment Charles came into the room. Tracy had never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life.

‘Well,’ Charles beamed. ‘How are you all getting along?’

Tracy rose and hurried into his arms. ‘Fine, darling.’ She held him close to her, thinking, Thank goodness Charles isn’t like his parents. He could never be like them. They’re narrowminded and snobbish and cold.

There was a discreet cough behind them, and the butler stood there with a tray of drinks. It’s going to be all right, Tracy told herself. This movie’s going to have a happy ending.

The dinner was excellent, but Tracy was too nervous to eat. They discussed banking and politics and the distressing state of the world, and it was all very impersonal and polite. No one actually said aloud, ‘You trapped our son into marriage.’ In all fairness, Tracy thought, they have every right to be concerned about the woman their son marries. One day Charles will own the firm, and it’s important that he have the right wife. And Tracy promised herself, He will have.

Charles gently took her hand which had been twisting the napkin under the table and smiled and gave a small wink. Tracy’s heart soared.

‘Tracy and I prefer a small wedding,’ Charles said, ‘and afterwards –’

‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Stanhope interrupted. ‘Our family does not have small weddings, Charles. There will be dozens of friends who will want to see you married.’ She looked over at Tracy, evaluating her figure. ‘Perhaps we should see that the wedding invitations are sent at once.’ And as an afterthought, ‘That is, if that’s acceptable to you?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ There was going to be a wedding. Why did I even doubt it?

Mrs Stanhope said, ‘Some of the guests will be coming from abroad. I’ll make arrangements for them to stay here at the house.’

Mr Stanhope asked, ‘Have you decided where you’re going on your honeymoon?’

Charles smiled. ‘That’s privileged information, Father.’ He gave Tracy’s hand a squeeze.

‘How long a honeymoon are you planning?’ Mrs Stanhope enquired.

‘About fifty years,’ Charles replied. And Tracy adored him for it.

After dinner they moved into the library for brandy, and Tracy looked around at the lovely old oak-panelled room with its shelves of leather-bound volumes, the two Corots, a small Copley, and a Reynolds. It would not have mattered to her if Charles had no money at all, but she admitted to herself that this was going to be a very pleasant way to live.

It was almost midnight when Charles drove her back to her small flat off Fairmount Park.

‘I hope the evening wasn’t too difficult for you, Tracy. Mother and Father can be a bit stiff sometimes.’

‘Oh, no, they were lovely,’ Tracy lied.

She was exhausted from the tension of the evening, but when they reached the door of her flat, she asked, ‘Are you going to come in, Charles?’ She needed to have him hold her in his arms. She wanted him to say, ‘I love you, darling. No one in this world will ever keep us apart.’

He said, ‘Afraid not tonight. I’ve got a heavy morning.’

Tracy concealed her disappointment. ‘Of course. I understand, darling.’

‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ He gave her a brief kiss, and she watched him disappear down the hallway.

The flat was ablaze and the insistent sound of loud fire bells crashed abruptly through the silence. Tracy jerked upright in her bed, groggy with sleep, sniffing for smoke in the darkened room The ringing continued, and she slowly became aware that it was the telephone. The bedside clock read 2:30 A.M. Her first panicky thought was that something had happened to Charles. She snatched up the phone. ‘Hello?’

A distant male voice asked, ‘Tracy Whitney?’

She hesitated. If this was an obscene phone call… ‘Who is this?’

‘This is Lieutenant Miller of the New Orleans Police Department. Is this Tracy Whitney?’

‘Yes.’ Her heart began to pound.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you.’

Her hand clenched around the phone.

‘It’s about your mother.’

‘Has – has Mother been in some kind of accident?’

‘She’s dead, Miss Whitney.’

‘No!’ It was a scream. This was an obscene phone call. Some crank trying to frighten her. There was nothing wrong with her mother. Her mother was alive. I love you very, very much, Tracy.

‘I hate to break it to you this way,’ the voice said.

It was real. It was a nightmare, but it was happening. She could not speak. Her mind and her tongue were frozen.

The lieutenant’s voice was saying, ‘Hello …? Miss Whitney? Hello …?’

‘I’ll be on the first plane.’

She sat in the tiny kitchen of her flat thinking about her mother. It was impossible that she was dead. She had always been so vibrant, so alive. They had had such a close and loving relationship. From the time Tracy was a small girl, she had been able to go to her mother with her problems, to discuss school and boys and, later, men. When Tracy’s father had died, many overtures had been made by people who wanted to buy the business. They had offered Doris Whitney enough money so that she could have lived well for the rest of her life, but she had stubbornly refused to sell. ‘Your father built up this business. I can’t throw away all his hard work.’ And she had kept the business flourishing.

Oh, Mother, Tracy thought. I love you so much. You’ll never meet Charles, and you’ll never see your grandchildren, and she began to weep.

She made a cup of coffee and let it grow cold while she sat in the dark. Tracy wanted desperately to call Charles and tell him what had happened, to have him at her side. She looked at the kitchen clock. It was 3:30 A.M. She did not want to awaken him; she would telephone him from New Orleans. She wondered whether this would affect their wedding plans, and instantly felt guilty at the thought. How could she even think of herself at a time like this? Lieutenant Miller had said, ‘When you get here, grab a taxi and come to police headquarters.’ Why police headquarters? Why? What had happened?

Standing in the crowded New Orleans airport waiting for her suitcase, surrounded by pushing, impatient travellers, Tracy felt suffocated. She tried to move close to the baggage carousel, but no one would let her through. She was becoming increasingly nervous, dreading what she would have to face in a little while. She kept trying to tell herself that it was all some kind of mistake, but the words kept reverberating in her head: I’m afraid I have bad news for you … She’s dead, Miss Whitney … I hate to break it to you this way …

When Tracy finally retrieved her suitcase, she got into a taxi and repeated the address the lieutenant had given her: ‘Seven fifteen South Broad Street, please.’

The driver grinned at her in the rearview mirror. ‘Fuzzville, huh?’

No conversation. Not now. Tracy’s mind was too filled with turmoil.

The taxi headed east towards the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway. The driver chattered on. ‘Come here for the big show, miss?’

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she thought, No. I came here for death. She was aware of the drone of the driver’s voice, but she did not hear the words. She sat stiffly in her seat, oblivious to the familiar surroundings that sped past. It was only as they approached the French Quarter that Tracy became conscious of the growing noise. It was the sound of a mob gone mad, rioters yelling some ancient berserk litany.

‘Far as I can take you,’ the driver informed her.

And then Tracy looked up and saw it. It was an incredible sight. There were hundreds of thousands of shouting people, wearing masks, disguised as dragons and giant alligators and pagan gods, filling the streets and pavements ahead with a wild cacophony of sound. It was an insane explosion of bodies and music and floats and dancing.

‘Better get out before they turn my cab over,’ the driver said. ‘Damned Mardi Gras.’

Of course. It was February, the time when the whole city celebrated the beginning of Lent. Tracy got out of the cab and stood at the curb, suitcase in hand, and the next moment she was swept up in the screaming, dancing crowd. It was obscene, a black witches’ sabbath, a million Furies celebrating the death of her mother. Tracy’s suitcase was torn from her hand and disappeared. She was grabbed by a fat man in a devil’s mask and kissed. A deer squeezed her breasts, and a giant panda grabbed her from behind and lifted her up. She struggled free and tried to run, but it was impossible. She was hemmed in, trapped, a part of the singing, dancing celebration. She moved with the chanting mob, tears streaming down her face. There was no escape. When she was finally able to break away and flee to a quiet street, she was near hysteria. She stood still for a long time, leaning against a lamp-post, taking deep breaths, slowly regaining control of herself. She headed for the police station.

Lieutenant Miller was a middle-aged, harassed-looking man with a weather-beaten face, who seemed genuinely uncomfortable in his role. ‘Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport,’ he told Tracy, ‘but the whole town’s gone nuts. We went through your mother’s things, and you’re the only one we could find to call.’

‘Please, Lieutenant, tell me what – what happened to my mother.’

‘She committed suicide.’

A cold chill went through her. ‘That’s – that’s impossible! Why would she kill herself? She had everything to live for.’ Her voice was ragged.

‘She left a note addressed to you.’

The morgue was cold and indifferent and terrifying. Tracy was led down a long white corridor into a large, sterile, empty room, and suddenly she realized that the room was not empty. It was filled with the dead. Her dead.

A white-coated attendant strolled over to a wall, reached for a handle, and pulled out an oversized drawer. ‘Wanna take a look?’

No! I don’t want to see the empty, lifeless body lying in that box. She wanted to get out of this place. She wanted to go back a few hours in time when the fire bell was ringing. Let it be a real fire alarm, not the telephone, not my mother dead. Tracy moved forward slowly, each step a screaming inside her. Then she was staring down at the lifeless remains of the body that had borne her, nourished her, laughed with her, loved her. She bent over and kissed her mother on the cheek. The cheek was cold and rubbery. ‘Oh, Mother,’ Tracy whispered. ‘Why? Why did you do it?’

‘We gotta perform an autopsy,’ the attendant was saying. ‘It’s the state law with suicides.’

The note Doris Whitney left offered no answer.

My darling Tracy,

Please forgive me. I failed, and I couldn’t stand being a burden on you. This is the best way. I love you so much.

Mother

The note was as lifeless and devoid of meaning as the body that lay in the drawer.

That afternoon Tracy made the funeral arrangements, then took a taxi to the family home. In the far distance she could hear the roar of the Mardi Gras revellers, like some alien, lurid celebration.

The Whitney residence was a Victorian house located in the Garden District in the residential section known as Uptown. Like most of the homes in New Orleans, it was built of wood and had no basement, for the area was situated below sea level.

Tracy had grown up in that house, and it was filled with warm, comfortable memories. She had not been home in the past year, and as her taxi slowed to a stop in front of the house, she was shocked to see a large sign on the lawn: FOR SALE – NEW ORLEANS REALTY COMPANY. It was impossible. I’ll never sell this old house, her mother had often told her. We’ve all been so happy together here.

Filled with a strange, unreasoning fire, Tracy moved past a giant magnolia tree towards the front door. She had been given her own key to the house when she was in the seventh grade and had carried it with her since, as a talisman, a reminder of the haven that would always be there waiting for her.

She opened the door and stepped inside. She stood there, stunned. The rooms were completely empty, stripped of furniture. All the beautiful antique pieces were gone. The house was like a barren shell deserted by the people who had once occupied it. Tracy ran from room to room, her disbelief growing. It was as though some sudden disaster had struck. She hurried upstairs and stood in the doorway of the bedroom she had occupied most of her life. It stared back at her, cold and empty. Oh, God, what could have happened? Tracy heard the sound of the front doorbell and walked as if in a trance down the stairs to answer it.

Otto Schmidt stood in the doorway. The foreman of the Whitney Automotive Parts Company was an elderly man with a seamed face and a body that was rail-thin, except for a protruding beer belly. A tonsure of straggly grey hair framed his scalp.

‘Tracy,’ he said in a heavy German accent, ‘I just heard the news. I – I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

Tracy clasped his hands. ‘Oh, Otto. I’m so glad to see you. Come in.’ She led him into the empty living room. ‘I’m sorry there’s no place to sit down,’ she apologized. ‘Do you mind sitting on the floor?’

‘No, no.’

They sat down across from each other, their eyes dumb with misery. Otto Schmidt had been an employee of the company for as long as Tracy could remember. She knew how much her father had depended on him. When her mother had inherited the business, Schmidt had stayed on to run it for her. ‘Otto, I don’t understand what’s happening. The police say Mother committed suicide, but you know there was no reason for her to kill herself.’ A sudden thought stabbed at her. ‘She wasn’t ill, was she? She didn’t have some terrible –’

‘No. It wasn’t that. Not that.’ He looked away, uncomfortable, something unspoken in his words.

Tracy said slowly, ‘You know what it was.’

He peered at her through rheumy blue eyes. ‘Your mama didn’t tell you what’s been happening lately. She didn’t want to worry you.’

Tracy frowned. ‘Worry me about what? Go on … please.’

His work-worn hands opened and closed. ‘Have you heard of a man called Joe Romano?’

‘Joe Romano? No. Why?’

Otto Schmidt blinked. ‘Six months ago Romano got in touch with your mother and said he wanted to buy the company. She told him she wasn’t interested in selling, but he offered her ten times what the company was worth, and she couldn’t refuse. She was so excited. She was going to invest all the money in bonds that would bring in an income that both of you could live on comfortably for the rest of your lives. She was going to surprise you. I was so glad for her. I’ve been ready to retire for the last three years, Tracy, but I couldn’t leave Mrs Doris, could I? This Romano –’ Otto almost spat out the word. ‘This Romano gave her a small down payment. The big money – the balloon payment – was to have come last month.’

Tracy said impatiently, ‘Go on, Otto. What happened?’

‘When Romano took over, he fired everybody and brought in his own people to run things. Then he began to raid the company. He sold all the assets and ordered a lot of equipment, selling it off but not paying for it. The suppliers weren’t worried about the delay in payment because they thought they were still dealing with your mother. When they finally began pressing your mother for their money, she went to Romano and demanded to know what was going on. He told her he had decided not to go ahead with the deal and was returning the company to her. By then, the company was not only worthless but your mother owed half a million dollars she couldn’t pay. Tracy, it nearly killed me and the wife to watch how your mother fought to save that company. There was no way. They forced her into bankruptcy. They took everything – the business, this house, even her car.’

‘Oh, my God!’

‘There’s more. The district attorney served your mother notice that he was going to ask for an indictment against her for fraud, that she was facing a prison sentence. That was the day she really died, I think.’

Tracy was seething with a wave of helpless anger. ‘But all she had to do was tell them the truth – explain what that man did to her.’

The old foreman shook his head. ‘Joe Romano works for a man named Anthony Orsatti. Orsatti runs New Orleans. I found out too late that Romano’s done this before with other companies. Even if your mother had taken him to court, it would have been years before it was all untangled, and she didn’t have the money to fight him.’

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ It was a cry of anguish, a cry for her mother’s anguish.

‘Your mother was a proud woman. And what could you do? There’s nothing anyone can do.’

You’re wrong, Tracy thought fiercely. ‘I want to see Joe Romano. Where can I find him?’

Schmidt said flatly, ‘Forget about him. You have no idea how powerful he is.’

‘Where does he live, Otto?’

‘He has an estate near Jackson Square, but it won’t help to go there, Tracy, believe me.’

Tracy did not answer. She was filled with an emotion totally unfamiliar to her: hatred. Joe Romano is going to pay for killing my mother, Tracy swore to herself.

Chapter Three

She needed time. Time to think, time to plan her next move. She could not bear to go back to the despoiled house, so she checked into a small hotel on Magazine Street, far from the French Quarter, where the mad parades were still going on. She had no luggage, and the suspicious clerk behind the desk said, ‘You’ll have to pay in advance. That’ll be forty dollars for the night.’

From her room Tracy telephoned Clarence Desmond to tell him she would be unable to come to work for a few days.

He concealed his irritation at being inconvenienced. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he told Tracy. ‘I’ll find someone to fill in until you return.’ He hoped she would remember to tell Charles Stanhope how understanding he had been.

Tracy’s next call was to Charles. ‘Charles, darling –’

‘Where the devil are you, Tracy? Mother has been trying to reach you all morning. She wanted to have lunch with you today. You two have a lot of arrangements to go over.’

‘I’m sorry, darling. I’m in New Orleans.’

‘You’re where? What are you doing in New Orleans?’

‘My mother – died.’ The word stuck in her throat.

‘Oh.’ The tone of his voice changed instantly. ‘I’m sorry, Tracy. It must have been very sudden. She was quite young, wasn’t she?’

She was very young, Tracy thought miserably. Aloud she said, ‘Yes. Yes, she was.’

‘What happened? Are you all right?’

Somehow Tracy could not bring herself to tell Charles that it was suicide. She wanted desperately to cry out the whole terrible story about what they had done to her mother, but she stopped herself. It’s my problem, she thought. I can’t throw my burden on Charles. She said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m all right, darling.’

‘Would you like me to come down there, Tracy?’

‘No. Thank you. I can handle it. I’m burying Mama tomorrow. I’ll be back in Philadelphia on Monday.’

When she hung up, she lay on the hotel bed, her thoughts unfocused. She counted stained acoustical tiles on the ceiling. One … two … three … Romano … four … five … Joe Romano … six … seven … he was going to pay. She had no plan. She knew only that she was not going to let Joe Romano get away with what he had done, that she would find some way to avenge her mother.

Tracy left her hotel in the late afternoon and walked along Canal Street until she came to a pawn shop. A cadaverous-looking man wearing an old-fashioned green eyeshade sat in a cage behind a counter.

‘Help you?’

‘I – I want to buy a gun.’

‘What kind of gun?’

‘You know … a … revolver.’

‘You want a thirty-two, a forty-five, a –’

Tracy had never even held a gun. ‘A – a thirty-two will do.’

‘I have a nice thirty-two calibre Smith and Wesson here for two hundred and twenty-nine dollars, or a Charter Arms thirty-two for a hundred and fifty-nine …’

She had not brought much cash with her. ‘Have you got something cheaper?’

He shrugged. ‘Cheaper is a slingshot, lady. Tell you what. I’ll let you have the thirty-two for a hundred and fifty, and I’ll throw in a box of bullets.’

‘All right.’ Tracy watched as he moved over to an arsenal on a table behind him and selected a revolver. He brought it to the counter. ‘You know how to use it?’

‘You – you pull the trigger.’

He grunted. ‘Do you want me to show you how to load it?’

She started to say no, that she was not going to use it, that she just wanted to frighten someone, but she realized how foolish that would sound. ‘Yes, please.’

Tracy watched as he inserted the bullets into the chamber. ‘Thank you.’ She reached in her purse and counted out the money.