“It’s Hollingsworth’s car, and I feel certain he’d loan it to us if we asked nicely.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but we don’t have a key.”
That’s when I reached under the seat and pulled out the flathead screwdriver I’d been looking for.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Watch,” I said as I placed the tip of the screwdriver in the ignition and turned the engine over. I handed the screwdriver to Laura and pulled onto the Via Ammiraglio Carlo Mirabello, having decided that—in fact—it was better to stick to the main roads.
154.
WE HOLED UP AT LAURA’Sapartment for the rest of the afternoon. For the first hour we just paced, but when our heart rates returned to normal, Laura taught me how to play gin rummy.
For dinner, I made a basic Bolognese using some ground beef and tomatoes she had on hand. We cleaned up and when it got late, she handed me a spare set of sheets and a quilt; without discussing it, we had come to the conclusion that I would stay the night at the apartment.
After Laura went to bed, I lay on that sofa for a long time, thinking about everything that had happened. In particular, I spent a lot of time turning over what Francesca had said to me—that when we were forced to fight for things, we figured out what mattered. That was exactly what had happened this summer with Teo, and on the sidewalk this afternoon with Laura.
I had only just drifted off to sleep when there was a knock at the door. It was a little after one o’clock in the morning, and my first and really only thought was that Bobby had arrived home. Wouldn’t he have had a key? Sure, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Hang on,” I called as I struggled into a pair of pants.
As soon as I was decent, I flung open the door and was startled to find that it was not Bobby waiting to be let in but Mary Lou. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a cotton blouse. No makeup, no earrings, not so much as a bobby pin in that bleached-blond hair. “Is Laura up?” she asked.
I shook my head, too stunned to speak.
She gestured at the bedroom. “Will you wake her?” Because I must have been standing there with my mouth open, she added, “There’s been an accident.”
“Bobby?” I asked, and she nodded.
Laura’s bedroom was dark, and I could hear light snoring coming from her side of the bed. There was a lamp on her bedside table, and I turned iton, then watched her blink awake in surprise. “Hey, hon. Let’s get up,” I said softly. “Mary Lou’s here.”
“Mary Lou?”
Laura had been sleeping in an oversize T-shirt of Bobby’s, so I helped her into a pair of maternity pants and a cardigan and led her into the living room, where Mary Lou stood waiting for us.
“What’s going on?” she asked, but the way she clutched that big, beautiful belly, I got the feeling she already knew what was coming.
“Bobby’s having some problems,” said Mary Lou.
“Where is he?”
“Out on the tender. In the infirmary. I just talked to Jim, and he’s sending the captain’s gig for us.”
I’ve talked a lot of crap about Mary Lou, but in a crisis, she was perfect. An ombudsman to her core. She knew just what to say to get Laura out the door without making everything worse. “Do you have a bag packed?”
“Like for the baby?” asked Laura.
“You are having one pretty soon, right?”
We all looked at her stomach, which was as big as a beach ball.
“I’m not due for another five weeks.”
Mary Lou looked at me. “Will you throw some things in a bag? At least a couple of changes of clothes? And her toiletries?”
“When you say Bobby’s having problems, what do you mean?” asked Laura while I ran back to the bedroom and grabbed everything she needed, including her purse. By the time I had it all together, Mary Lou was guiding her out of the apartment and down to the Caprice.
In the car on the way to the pier, Mary Lou gave us a few more details, but not many. The Nuclear Repair team had been replacing a valve on board the U.S.S.Seneca, the sub with the busted nose, when something had gone wrong and there’d been a leak.
