A Stillness in Bethlehem(31)

“Married,” Faith said.

“To Reggie George. He was in my class in high school, if you could call that being in a high-school class, if you know what I mean. Bikes and black-leather jackets. He’s supposed to be a good mechanic, though. My father says Reggie got a job out at Mitchell’s Texaco and he’s doing really well.”

“He hides her,” Faith said.

“What?” Gregor asked.

“He hides her,” Faith repeated.

Ginny explained. “He won’t let Candy leave the house usually,” she said. “He won’t let her have friends over, and he never lets her have enough money to have lunch in town or keep up with anyone she knows. Of course, everybody just assumes he’s beating her up—”

“When I first came here, she’d just been chosen to be Mary and it was a big deal,” Faith said, “because everybody was surprised he let her try out, and everybody was even more surprised he let her take the part when she got it.”

“And it was all Peter Callisher’s fault in the first place,” Ginny said. “Peter Callisher owns the paper. He’s on the Celebration committee every year, and he saw Reggie and Candy in the pharmacy or someplace one Saturday last July and he just walked right up and told Candy she ought to try out.”

“It’s supposed to have made Amanda Ballard fit to spit,” Faith said.

“Who’s Amanda Ballard?” Gregor was confused.

“She’s Peter’s girlfriend,” Ginny told him. “She’s supposed to have wanted to play Mary herself, but she didn’t try out and that might just be talk—”

“Because nobody likes Amanda Ballard anyway,” Faith summed up. “I mean, it’s hard to like someone who looks like a miniature version of Michelle Phillips at twenty and is supposed to be a saint at the same time.”

“Not that she’s twenty,” Ginny put in. “She’s supposed to be something like thirty-five.”

“Why is she a saint?” Gregor asked them.

Faith shrugged eloquently. “It all depends on who you listen to. It’s because of this man, Timmy Hall, who is mentally retarded and was in Riverton, which is a place with a lot of different things going on for people who aren’t all there. You know, like the mentally retarded and crazy people and—”

“And druggies,” Ginny said. “That’s why there’s so much talk—”

“—because Amanda knew Timmy Hall when Timmy Hall was at Riverton, and then she got him the job here when he was ready to come out and live on his own because they train mentally retarded people to be self-sufficient, that’s one of the things they do. And then some people started to say that she knew him because she used to work with retarded children up there, but other people said it wasn’t retarded children at all, it was a drug problem, and they met in the patients’ lounge or something because all the patients mingle together up there unless they’re like in maximum security.”

“And she’s so cold,” Ginny said, “people don’t take to her.”

“But it’s probably all a bunch of junk, because around here people just go on talking.” Faith laughed again. “Listen to this,” she said. “You get a little gossip going, you get information about people you’re not even interested in.”

“If you let us go on for a while, we’d probably give you capsule histories of everybody in town,” Ginny said. “But if you’re worrying that Reggie was going to hurt Candy over some scene with Cara Hutchinson—Cara was probably just trying to get Candy to quit; she’s been at that for months—anyway, I wouldn’t worry. Reggie really wants Candy to play Mary. It inflates his ego.”

“Do wife beaters have egos?” Faith asked.

“Oh, well, they must,” Ginny said. “If you don’t have an ego, you aren’t anybody.”

“Is Reggie George anybody?”

“I think I’d better get back to my table,” Gregor said. “My friends are going to start wondering where I’ve been. Thank the both of you very much for the information.”

“Thank you for asking for it,” Ginny said. “Now, the next time we run into Peter Callisher, we get to tell him we’ve actually spoken to his hero, the great detective, Gregor Demarkian.”

“The Armenian-American Hercule Poirot,” Faith said brightly.

“The Armenian-American Hercule Poirot is going back to his table,” Gregor said, and he started to do just that. He was so intent in escaping the rash of jokes on Poirot, Christie and Armenian-Americans that he was sure were about to arise from the cauldron of bubbling giggles that was Faith and Ginny talking to each other, that he was halfway there before he realized Bennis and Tibor were not alone. With them was an older man with gray hair and a sagging face, holding his hat in his hands and standing just a little to the side of Bennis’s chair. Bennis was looking up into his face and trying to seem interested, when what she really was was amused. Gregor knew the signs.