She'd no idea how Freedman had gotten his reputation as a master criminal -- he was like nothing so much as an immature, irresponsible, hyperactive little boy. His "assistants", two leering transients named Hashford and Fillmore, did nothing but waste what little valuable energy he had.
Andrea might've been useful, as the Vice-President's daughter, but somehow Sandy doubted that her father was stupid enough to trust her with anything. Anyway, Sandy had a sixth sense for detecting losers, and Andrea was definitely a loser.
Sandy didn't need a sixth sense with Frogman -- five were more than enough. He was nothing more than proof that humans could have fertile relations with lower mammals.
And Baxter? It was a sad commentary on him that he found these people charming, intelligent and easy to get along with. There was very little she could do about his friends, though. She'd just have to let him find out, and hopefully drag him out of whatever mess they got him into, before he was hurt too badly.
They didn't speak to each other, outside of mumbled necessities, until they got to the door of Freedman's apartment.
Then Baxter turned to Sandy, and, noticing her back stiffen and her breath become forced, asked her, "You okay, honey?"
How good of you to ask, she thought, sarcastically. You drag me into a three-ring-circus that wants to rip-off the entire federal government, giving no thought to what might happen to us, and you want to make sure I'm happy as a clam. I'm fine -- just fine.
"I'm fine, really," she answered distractedly. "Let's get inside."
Baxter smiled, unimpressed, as he knocked on the door.
"Everything's going to work out fine, Sandy. They're really good people," he said, irritating and embarrassing her with the transparency of her own emotion.
Baxter was about to knock again when the door was opened -- by Frogman.
"What're you doing here?" he asked, looking up at them with a surprised and slightly threatening expression.Knowing he knew them but still unsure of himself, Baxter said nervously, "We're from the zoo. We've come to clean your cage."
Ignoring Baxter's feeble joke, Sandy said firmly, "We belong here!"
Frogman stared at her for a long, uncomfortable second.
Then, his face lit up and he cried, "Right!" and burst into laughter and turned away.As they followed him in, Frogman turned to Sandy and said, "I'll let you clean my cage, if you still want."
"That's okay," she said shortly, and turned to walk in another direction.
Catching up with her, Baxter said, "See, you can get along with him fine when you try to."
Sandy looked at him, and simply answered, "Shut up."
The meeting had dwindled away to nothing after only a few hours. Hashford and Fillmore had promised Andrea that they could show her something that would add new dimensions to her relationship with Frogman, and the three of them had disappeared. Then Freedman and Baxter had gotten into a nostalgic argument about whether the famous Craig-Zandovsky Robbery would've succeeded if they'd used the right amount of plastic explosive. This bored Sandy unimaginably, and she wandered into the kitchen to find something to drink.
There she found Frogman, who rather amiably asked her, "So, what are you doing here anyway?"
She was a little taken back by the question, and it took her a second to respond.
"I'm here...I'm here to make money."
Frogman smirked a little, and looked at a drink he was holding.
"Have tried selling seed packets?"
Sandy was indignant.
"Do you realize how hard it is for a young married couple to make ends meet? Just by ourselves, even, without children. We can't even have children. God! Do you know how much it takes to raise a family these days?""I don't know. Seems like a department store escalator would work."
"Oh, for Chrissakes!"
Sandy was about to storm out of the kitchen, but Frogman's hand gently caught her elbow and turned her back towards him.
"Sorry. Didn't know you were so sensitive on that subject."
Sandy was more than a little surprised at an apology coming from Frogman, and she didn't move.
"You want a drink?" he asked.
She nodded. He held up a bottle of bourbon as if to ask her if that was her preference, and she nodded again. He didn't hold up any mixer, and he didn't use any.
Handing her her drink, he said, "You gotta learn to calm down...not take things so seriously." She grunted an assent with a mouth full of liquor. "Anyway, go on with what you were saying."Not knowing what to do besides please him, but too flustered to remember anything, she asked, "What were we talking about?"
"I dunno, your family, I guess."
"My family?"
"Yah, you were telling me how poor your folks were." He saw her incredulous expression and responded, "No? Well, anyway, it's a good subject if you can't remember what you were really talking about. You know, 'I was born in a log cabin in the hills of New Jersey, blah, blah, blah....' "
Feeling strangely threatened, Sandy answered, "No, uh... I don't talk about my family," and she started to turn away.
"I see," Frogman said with mock understanding. "You're too embarrassed by them to admit they're relatives. Hmm... They must be famous, and obnoxious. Let me see... Are they in politics? Daytime television?"
"No, no," Sandy said, shaking her head violently and coming dangerously close to recollection. "It isn't like that." She paused, and Frogman was silent as she took a breath. "It's just that I didn't have a... no, I had a miserable childhood."
She paused again, waiting for Frogman to say something foolish. He said nothing, himself, but looked at her as if he expected her to say more.
"Anyway, I don't really want to talk about it."Frogman nodded his head sympathetically and said, "Yeah, I can understand what you're saying."
"Please, I don't..."
"No, really! I had a real tough childhood, myself."
"Oh?" Sandy knew she'd just have to let him finish.
"Yeah, I -- did you ever hear of Uncle Tom's Cabin? Well, I never read it, myself, but I knew this ol'e lady who did, and she said I was like Topsie, or Mopsie, or whatever, who was like the cabbages, 'cause 'I jess growed.'"
Frogman and Sandy stared at each other for a few seconds. She simply couldn't comprehend whatever he was trying to accomplish.
"Yeah, I jess' growed, heh, heh. Anyway, I thought you might be interested in that, oh fuck, who cares!"Sandy then watched Frogman shuffle off, chuckling and mumbling-to himself, "Today's kids, they know nothing about tradition, lucky bastards!"
Frogman lay in bed, kicking the covers away from him, then stopping to rest and let the dull ache in his knees to die down. He was that beat. He looked at the girl beside him, thinking, God, I hope this was my good deed for the day. Sandy lay beside him on her stomach, breathing in deep, panting sighs. Frogman shook his head as he watched her. He should've realized that she'd be so relentless yet so humorless, even in bed -- especially in bed.
She'll start crying any minute now, he thought. Before she did, however, Frogman heard her mumble, "Oh, Dear God, please forgive me, for I have sinned."
Frogman couldn't resist.
He cupped his hands over his mouth, and did his best imitation of an old Jew through a bad phone connection, saying, "Sweetheart, I'll forgive you fucking around on your husband if you'll forgive me for floods and earthquakes."
She quickly swung around, cried, "You shit!" as if she were spitting, and buried her head back in her pillows, sobbing.
Frogman leaned back in his side of the bed, and sighed heavily. Well, at least she's started crying, he thought, trying to convince himself that that was some sign of progress.
Sitting for a few minutes, failing to convince himself of anything except that he'd had a wasted evening, Frogman rose from the bed, gathered his clothes, turned to Sandy, who now stared at him with wild tear-soaked eyes, and said, "Look, sweetheart, if you're going to have to make a God-damn religious crisis out of everything, then I'm going to have to piss off. Well, Sandy, it's been..."
He would've said it'd been real, but he wanted some room to pretend like it hadn't someday.