TRANSCRIPTION OF TAPE RECORDING POM-20JUL68-EVERLEIGH. This recording began at 1:14 P.M., 20 July, 1968, and ended at 2:06 P.M., 21 July. It was recorded at Apartment 3B, 535 East Seventy-third Street. This tape has been heavily edited to eliminate extraneous conversations, names of innocent persons, and repetition of information already obtained from other sources. During the more than twenty-four-hour period mentioned above, it is not believed that Mrs. Agnes Everleigh and John Anderson left Apartment 3B.
SEGMENT I. 20JUL-1:48PM.
ANDERSON: … can’t. I had last weekend off.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You can call in sick, can’t you? It’s not the whole weekend. It’s just tonight. You can be back at work tomorrow night. You get sick leave, don’t you?
ANDERSON: Yes. Ten days a year.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Have you taken any?
ANDERSON: No. Not since I been working there.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: So take tonight off. I’ll give you fifty dollars.
ANDERSON: All right.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’ll take the fifty?
ANDERSON: Yes.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: This is the first time you’ve ever taken money from me.
ANDERSON: How does it make you feel?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You know … don’t you?
ANDERSON: Yes. Go get the fifty. I’ll make a call and tell them I’m sick.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’ll stay with me? All night?
ANDERSON: Sure.
SEGMENT II. 20JUL-2:13PM.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: I love you when you’re like this—relaxed and nice and good to me.
ANDERSON: Am I good to you?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: So far. So far you’ve been a perfect gentleman.
ANDERSON: Like this?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Must you? Must you do that?
ANDERSON: Sure. If I want to earn my fifty bucks.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’re such a bastard.
ANDERSON: Honest. I’m honest.
SEGMENT III. 20JUL-5:26PM.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: … at least forty percent. How do you like that?
ANDERSON: Can they do it?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You idiot, of course they can do it. This apartment is a cooperative. I’m not on the board. After my husband moved out, our lawyers got together and I agreed to pay the maintenance and he agreed to keep paying the mortgage. The apartment is in his name. Now they’re going to increase the maintenance by at least forty percent.
ANDERSON: What are you going to do?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: I haven’t decided yet. I’d move out tomorrow if I could find something better. But go look for an apartment on the East Side of Manhattan. These new places charge one hundred and eighty-five dollars for one room. I’ll probably give them what they want and stay right here. Roll over.
ANDERSON: I’ve had enough.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: No you haven’t.
SEGMENT IV. 20JUL-6:32PM.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: It depends on what you want. Feraccis has barbecued chicken or short ribs—stuff like that. It’s a kind of a delicatessen. If we’re going to cook, we can order up from Ernesto Brothers. We can get frozen TV dinners or Rock Cornish hens or we can get a steak and pan fry it or broil it—whatever you want.
ANDERSON: Let’s have a chicken—a big chicken. Three pounds if they’ve got a fryer-broiler that size. We’ll fry it. And maybe some French fried potatoes and greens.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: What kind of greens?
ANDERSON: Collards? They got collards?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: What are collards?
ANDERSON: Forget it. Just get us a big chicken we can fry and a lot of cold beer. How does that sound?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: That sounds scrumptious.
ANDERSON: Order it up. I’ll pay for it. Here’s fifty.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You sonofabitch.
SEGMENT V. 20JUL-9:14PM.
ANDERSON: What are you going to do in Rome?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: The usual … see the new fall collections … visit some fag boutiques … buy some stuff … it’s a drag.
ANDERSON: Like I said, I wish I could travel. All you need is money. Like this apartment house. You’re going to Rome. Your neighbors are going down to the Jersey shore. I bet everyone in the house will be going somewhere on the Labor Day weekend—Rome, Jersey, Florida, France … somewhere. …
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Oh, sure. The Sheldons—they’re up in Four A—they’re already out in their place on Montauk. The people below me, a lawyer and his wife, will be out in East Hampton. Up on top in Five B, Longene and that bitch who’s living with him—they’re not married, you know—are sure to be invited some place for the Labor Day weekend. So the house will probably be about half full. That fag in Two A will probably be gone, too. What are you going to do?
ANDERSON: Work, probably. I get triple-time when I work nights on a holiday. I can make a lot of loot if I work over the Labor Day weekend.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Will you think of me?
ANDERSON: Sure. There’s one drumstick left. You want it?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: No, darling. You finish it.
ANDERSON: All right. I like drumsticks and wings and the Pope’s nose. More than I do the breast. Dark meat got more flavor.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Don’t you like white meat at all?
ANDERSON: Maybe. Later.
SEGMENT VI. 21JUL-6:14AM.
ANDERSON [groaning]: Mammy … Mammy. …
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Duke? Duke? What is it, Duke?
ANDERSON: Mammy?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Hush … hush. You’re having a nightmare. I’m here, Duke.
ANDERSON: Mammy … Mammy. …
SEGMENT VII. 21 JUL-8:56AM.
ANDERSON: Shit. You got a cigarette?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: There.
ANDERSON: Filters? Christ. These places around here—they’re open on Sundays?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Ernesto’s is. What do you want?
ANDERSON: Cigarettes—to begin with. You mean this place is open on Sundays?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Sure.
ANDERSON: Holidays too?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: They’re open every day in the year, twenty-four hours a day. That’s their brag. They have a sign in the window that says so. If you’re pregnant, you can get a dill pickle at three in the morning from Ernesto’s. That’s how they stay in business. They can’t compete with the big supermarkets on First Avenue, like Lambreta Brothers. So they stay open every minute of the day and night.
ANDERSON: My God, don’t they get held up?
MRS. EVERLEIGH: They sure do … about two or three times a month. But they keep open. It must pay off. Besides, doesn’t insurance pay when you get robbed?
ANDERSON: I guess so. I don’t know much about those things.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Well, I’ll call and have them deliver some cigarettes. It’s about nine now. When do you have to go?
ANDERSON: Around two o’clock. Something like that.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Well, suppose I order up some food for a little breakfast and some food for a dinner about noon. Like a steak and baked potatoes. How does that sound?
ANDERSON: That sounds all right.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: You’re the most bubbling, enthusiastic man I’ve ever met.
ANDERSON: I don’t understand that.
MRS. EVERLEIGH: Forget it.