فصل 50

Chapter 50

Joe didn’t like for Kate to sit still and stare straight ahead—hour after hour. That meant she was thinking, and since her face had no expression Joe had no access to her thoughts. It made him uneasy. He didn’t want his first real good break to get away from him.

He had only one plan himself—and that was to keep her stirred up until she gave herself away. Then he could jump in any direction. But how about it if she sat looking at the wall? Was she stirred up or wasn’t she?

Joe knew she hadn’t been to bed, and when he asked whether or not she wanted breakfast she shook her head so slowly that it was hard to know whether she had heard him or not.

He advised, himself cautiously, “Don’t do nothing! Just stick around and keep your eyes and ears open.” The girls in the house knew something had happened but no two of them had the same story, the goddam chickenheads.

Kate was not thinking. Her mind drifted among impressions the way a bat drifts and swoops in the evening. She saw the face of the blond and beautiful boy, his eyes mad with shock. She heard his ugly words aimed not so much at her as at himself. And she saw his dark brother leaning against the door and laughing.

Kate had laughed too—the quickest and best self-protection. What would her son do? What had he done after he went quietly away?

She thought of Cal’s eyes with their look of sluggish and fulfilled cruelty, peering at her as he slowly closed the door.

Why had he brought his brother? What did he want? What was he after? If she knew she could take care of herself. But she didn’t know.

The pain was creeping in her hands again and there was a new place. Her right hip ached angrily when she moved. She thought, So the pain will move in toward the center, and sooner or later all the pains will meet in the center and join like rats in a clot.

In spite of his advice to himself, Joe couldn’t let it alone. He carried a pot of tea to her door, knocked softly, opened the door, and went in. As far as he could see she hadn’t moved.

He said, “I brought you some tea, ma’am.”

“Put it on the table,” she said, and then as a second thought, “Thank you, Joe.” “You don’t feel good, ma’am?”

“The pain’s back. The medicine fooled me.”

“Anything I can do?”

She raised her hands. “Cut these off—at the wrists.” She grimaced with the extra pain lifting her hands had caused. “Makes you feel hopeless,” she said plaintively.

Joe had never heard a tone of weakness in her before and his instinct told him it was time to move in. He said, “Maybe you don’t want me to bother you but I got some word about that other.” He knew by the little interval before she answered that she had tensed.

“What other?” she asked softly.

“That dame, ma’am.”

“Oh! You mean Ethel!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m getting tired of Ethel. What is it now?”

“Well, I’ll tell you like it happened. I can’t make nothing out of it. I’m in Kellogg’s cigar store and a fella come up to me. ‘You’re Joe?’ he says, an’ I tell him, ‘Who says?’ ‘You was lookin’ for somebody,’ he says. ‘Tell me about it,’ I says. Never seen the guy before. So he says, ‘That party toi’ me she wants to talk to you.’ An’ I told him, ‘Well, why don’t she?’ He gives me the long look an’ he says, ‘Maybe you forgot what the judge said.’ I guess he means about her coming back.” He looked at Kate’s face, still and pale, the eyes looking straight ahead.

Kate said, “And then he asked you for some money?”

“No, ma’am. He didn’t. He says something don’t make no sense. He says, ‘Does Faye mean anything to you?’ ‘Not a thing,’ I tol’ him. He says, ‘Maybe you better talk to her.’ ‘Maybe,’ I says, an’ I come away. Don’t make no sense to me. I figured I’d ask you.” Kate asked, “Does the name Faye mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.”

Her voice became very soft. “You mean you never heard that Faye used to own this house?” Joe felt a sickening jolt in the pit of his stomach. What a goddam fool! Couldn’t keep his mouth shut. His mind floundered. “Why—why come to think of it, I believe I did hear that—seemed like the name was like Faith.” The sudden alarm was good for Kate. It took the blond head and the pain from her. It gave her something to do. She responded to the challenge with something like pleasure.

She laughed softly. “Faith,” she said under her breath. “Pour me some tea, Joe.” She did not appear to notice that his hand shook and that the teapot spout rattled against the cup. She did not look at him even when he set the cup before her and then stepped back out of range of her eyes. Joe was quaking with apprehension.

Kate said in a pleading voice, “Joe, do you think you could help me? If I gave you ten thousand dollars, do you think you could fix everything up?” She waited just a second, then swung around and looked full in his face.

His eyes were moist. She caught him licking his lips. And at her sudden move he stepped back as though she had struck at him. Her eyes would not let him go.

“Did I catch you out, Joe?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, ma’am.”

“You go and figure it out—and then you come and tell me. You’re good at figuring things out. And send Therese in, will you?” He wanted to get out of this room where he was outpointed and outfought. He’d made a mess of things. He wondered if he’d bollixed up the breaks. And then the bitch had the nerve to say, “Thank you for bringing tea. You’re a nice boy.” He wanted to slam the door, but he didn’t dare.

Kate got up stiffly, trying to avoid the pain of moving her hip. She went to her desk and slipped out a sheet of paper. Holding the pen was difficult.

She wrote, moving her whole arm. “Dear Ralph: Tell the sheriff it wouldn’t do any harm to check on Joe Valery’s fingerprints. You remember Joe. He works for me. Mrs. Kate.” She was folding the paper when Therese came in, looking frightened.

“You want me? Did I do something? I tried my best. Ma’am, I ain’t been well.” “Come here,” Kate said, and while the girl waited beside the desk Kate slowly addressed the envelope and stamped it. “I want you to run a little errand for me,” she said. “Go to Bell’s candy store and get a five-pound box of mixed chocolates and a one-pound box. The big one is for you girls. Stop at Krough’s drugstore and get me two medium toothbrushes and a can of tooth powder—you know, that can with a spout?” “Yes, ma’am.” Therese was greatly relieved.

“You’re a good girl,” Kate went on. “I’ve had my eye on you. I’m not well, Therese. If I see that you do this well, I’ll seriously consider putting you in charge when I go the hospital.” “You will—are—are you going to the hospital?”

“I don’t know yet, dear. But I’ll need your help. Now here’s some money for the candy. Medium toothbrushes—remember.” “Yes, ma’am. Thank you. Shall I go now?”

“Yes, and kind of creep out, will you? Don’t let the other girls know what I told you.” “I’ll go out the back way.” She hurried toward the door.

Kate said, “I nearly forgot. Will you drop this in a mailbox?”

“Sure I will, ma’am. Sure I will. Anything else?”

“That’s all, dear.”

When the girl was gone Kate rested her arms and hands on the desk so that each crooked finger was supported. Here it was. Maybe she had always known. She must have—but there was no need to think of that now. She would come back to that. They would put Joe away, but there’d be someone else, and there was always Ethel. Sooner or later, sooner or later—but no need to think about that now. She tiptoed her mind around the whole subject and back to an elusive thing that peeped out and then withdrew. It was when she had been thinking of her yellow-haired son that the fragment had first come to her mind. His face—hurt, bewildered, despairing—had brought it. Then she remembered.

She was a very small girl with a face as lovely and fresh as her son’s face—a very small girl. Most of the time she knew she was smarter and prettier than anyone else. But now and then a lonely fear would fall upon her so that she seemed surrounded by a tree-tall forest of enemies. Then every thought and word and look was aimed to hurt her, and she had no place to run and no place to hide. And she would cry in panic because there was no escape and no sanctuary. Then one day she was reading a book. She could read when she was five years old. She remembered the book—brown, with a silver title, and the cloth was broken and the boards thick. It was Alice in Wonderland.

Kate moved her hands slowly and lifted her weight a little from her arms. And she could see the drawings—Alice with long straight hair. But it was the bottle which said, “Drink me” that had changed her life. Alice had taught her that.

When the forest of her enemies surrounded her she was prepared. In her pocket she had a bottle of sugar water and on its red-framed label she had written, “Drink me.” She would take a sip from the bottle and she would grow smaller and smaller. Let her enemies look for her then! Cathy would be under a leaf or looking out of an anthole, laughing. They couldn’t find her then. No door could close her out and no door could close her in. She could walk upright under a door.

And always there was Alice to play with, Alice to love her and trust her. Alice was her friend, always waiting to welcome her to tinyness.

All this so good—so good that it was almost worth while to be miserable. But good as it was, there was one more thing always held in reserve. It was her threat and her safety. She had only to drink the whole bottle and she would dwindle and disappear and cease to exist. And better than all, when she stopped being, she never would have been. This was her darling safety. Sometimes in her bed she would drink enough of “Drink me” so that she was a dot as small as the littlest gnat. But she had never gone clear out—never had to. That was her reserve—guarded from everyone.

Kate shook her head sadly, remembering the cut-off little girl. She wondered why she had forgotten that wonderful trick. It had saved her from so many disasters. The light filtering down at one through a clover-leaf was glorious. Cathy and Alice walked among towering grass, arms around each other—best friends. And Cathy never had to drink all of “Drink me” because she had Alice.

Kate put her head down on the blotter between her crooked hands. She was cold and desolate, alone and desolate. Whatever she had done, she had been driven to do. She was different—she had something more than other people. She raised her head and made no move to wipe her streaming eyes. That was true. She was smarter and stronger than other people. She had something they lacked.

And right in the middle of her thought, Cal’s dark face hung in the air in front of her and his lips were smiling with cruelty. The weight pressed down on her, forcing her breath out.

They had something she lacked, and she didn’t know what it was. Once she knew this, she was ready; and once ready, she knew she had been ready for a long time—perhaps all of her life. Her mind functioned like a wooden mind, her body moved crookedly like a badly operated marionette, but she went steadily about her business.

It was noon—she knew from the chatter of the girls in the dining room. The slugs had only just got up.

Kate had trouble with the doorknob and turned it finally by rolling it between her palms.

The girls choked in the middle of laughter and looked up at her. The cook came in from the kitchen.

Kate was a sick ghost, crooked and in some way horrible. She leaned against the dining-room wall and smiled at her girls, and her smile frightened them even more, for it was like the frame for a scream.

“Where’s Joe?” Kate asked.

“He went out, ma’am.”

“Listen,” she said. “I’ve had no sleep for a long time. I’m going to take some medicine and sleep. I don’t want to be disturbed, I don’t want any supper. I’ll sleep the clock around. Tell Joe I don’t want anybody to come near me for anything until tomorrow morning. Do you understand?” “Yes, ma’am,” they said.

“Good night, then. It’s afternoon but I mean good night.”

“Good night, ma’am,” they chorused obediently.

Kate turned and walked crabwise back to her room.

She closed her door and stood looking around, trying to form her simple procedure. She went back to her desk. This time she forced her hand, in spite of the pain, to write plainly. “I leave everything I have to my son Aron Trask.” She dated the sheet and signed it “Catherine Trask.” Her fingers dwelt on the page, and then she got up and left her will face upward on the desk.

At the center table she poured cold tea into her cup and carried the cup to the gray room in the lean-to and set it on the reading table. Then she went to her dressing table and combed her hair, rubbed a little rouge all over her face, covered it lightly with powder, and put on the pale lipstick she always used. Last she filed her nails and cleaned them.

When she closed the door to the gray room the outside light was cut off and only the reading lamp threw its cone on the table. She arranged the pillows, patted them up, and sat down. She leaned her head experimentally against the down pillow. She felt rather gay, as though she were going to a party. Gingerly, she fished the chain out from her bodice, unscrewed the little tube, and shook the capsule into her hand. She smiled at it.

“Eat me,” she said and put the capsule in her mouth.

She picked up the tea cup. “Drink me,” she said and swallowed the bitter cold tea.

She forced her mind to stay on Alice—so tiny and waiting. Other faces peered in from the sides of her eyes—her father and mother, and Charles, and Adam, and Samuel Hamilton, and then Aron, and she could see Cal smiling at her.

He didn’t have to speak. The glint of his eyes said, “You missed something. They had something and you missed it.” She thrust her mind back to Alice. In the gray wall opposite there was a nail hole. Alice would be in there. And she would put her arm around Cathy’s waist, and Cathy would put her arm around Alice’s waist, and they would walk away—best friends—and tiny as the head of a pin.

A warm numbness began to creep into her arms and legs. The pain was going from her hands. Her eyelids felt heavy—very heavy. She yawned.

She thought or said or thought, “Alice doesn’t know. I’m going right on past.” Her eyes closed and a dizzy nausea shook her. She opened her eyes and stared about in terror. The gray room darkened and the cone of light flowed and rippled like water. And then her eyes closed again and her fingers curled as though they held small breasts. And her heart beat solemnly and her breathing slowed as she grew smaller and smaller and then disappeared—and she had never been.

2

When Kate dismissed him Joe went to the barbershop, as he always did when he was upset. He had his hair cut and an egg shampoo and tonic. He had a facial massage and a mud pack, and around the edges he had his nails manicured, and he had his shoes shined. Ordinarily this and a new necktie set Joe up, but he was still depressed when he left the barber with a fifty-cent tip.

Kate had trapped him like a rat—caught him with his pants down. Her fast thinking left him confused and helpless. The trick she had of leaving it to you whether she meant anything or not was no less confusing.

The night started dully, but then sixteen members and two pledges from Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Stanford chapter, came in hilarious from a pledge hazing in San Juan. They were full of horseplay.

Florence, who smoked the cigarette in the circus, had a hard cough. Every time she tried, she coughed and lost it. And the pony stallion had diarrhea.

The college boys shrieked and pounded each other in their amusement. And then they stole everything that wasn’t nailed down.

After they had left, two of the girls got into a tired and monotonous quarrel, and Therese turned up with the first symptoms of the old Joe. Oh, Christ, what a night!

And down the hall that brooding dangerous thing was silent behind its closed door. Joe stood by the door before he went to bed and he could hear nothing. He closed the house at two-thirty and was in bed by three—but he couldn’t sleep. He sat up in bed and read seven chapters of The Winning of Barbara Worth, and when it was daylight he went down to the silent kitchen and made a pot of coffee.

He rested his elbows on the table and held the coffee mug with both hands. Something had gone wrong and Joe couldn’t figure what it was. Maybe she’d found out that Ethel was dead. He’d have to watch his step. And then he made up his mind, and made it up firmly. He would go in to see her at nine and he’d keep his ears open. Maybe he hadn’t heard right. Best thing would be to lay it on the line and not be a hog. Just say he’d take a thousand bucks and get the hell out, and if she said no he’d get the hell out anyway. He was sick of working with dames. He could get a job dealing faro in Reno—regular hours and no dames. Maybe get himself an apartment and fix it up—big chairs and a davenport. No point in beating his brains out in this lousy town. Better if he got out of the state anyway. He considered going right now—just get up from this table, climb the stairs, two minutes to pack a suitcase, and gone. Three or four minutes at the most. Don’t tell nobody nothing. The idea appealed to him. The breaks about Ethel might not be as good as he thought at first, but a thousand bucks was a stake. Better wait.

When the cook came in he was in a bad mood. He had a developing carbuncle on the back of his neck and the skin from the inside of an eggshell stretched over it to draw it to a head. He didn’t want anybody in his kitchen feeling the way he did.

Joe went back to his room and read some more and then he packed his suitcase. He was going to get out any way it went.

At nine o’clock he knocked gently on Kate’s door and pushed it open. Her bed had not been slept in. He set down the tray and went to the door of the lean-to and knocked and knocked again and then called. Finally he opened the door.

The cone of light fell on the reading stand. Kate’s head was deeply cushioned in the pillow.

“You must have slept all night here,” Joe said. He walked around in front of her, saw bloodless lips and eyes shining dully between half-closed lids, and he knew she was dead.

He moved his head from side to side and went quickly into the other room to make sure that the door to the hall was closed. With great speed he went through the dresser, drawer by drawer, opened her purses, the little box by her bed—and he stood still. She didn’t have a goddam thing—not even a silver-backed hairbrush.

He crept to the lean-to and stood in front of her—not a ring, not a pin. Then he saw the little chain around her neck and lifted it clear and unsnapped the clasp—a small gold watch, a little tube, and two safe-deposit keys, numbers 27 and 29.

“So that’s where you got it, you bitch,” he said.

He slipped the watch off the thin chain and put it in his pocket. He wanted to punch her in the nose. Then he thought of her desk.

The two-line holograph will attracted him. Somebody might pay for that. He put it in his pocket. He took a handful of papers from a pigeonhole—bills and receipts; next hole, insurance; next, a small book with records of every girl. He put that in his pocket too. He took the rubber band from a packet of brown envelopes, opened one, and pulled out a photograph. On the back of the picture, in Kate’s neat, sharp handwriting, a name and address and a title.

Joe laughed aloud. This was the real breaks. He tried another envelope and another. A gold mine—guy could live for years on these. Look at that fat-ass councilman! He put the band back. In the top drawer eight ten-dollar bills and a bunch of keys. He pocketed the money too. As he opened the second drawer enough to see that it held writing paper and sealing wax and ink there was a knock on the door. He walked to it and opened it a crack.

The cook said, “Fella out here wants to see ya.”

“Who is he?”

“How the hell do I know?”

Joe looked back at the room and then stepped out, took the key from the inside, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket. He might have overlooked something.

Oscar Noble was standing in the big front room, his gray hat on his head and his red mackinaw buttoned up tight around his throat. His eyes were pale gray—the same color as his stubble whiskers. The room was in semidarkness. No one had raised the shades yet.

Joe came lightly along the hall, and Oscar asked, “You Joe?”

“Who’s asking?”

“The sheriff wants to have a talk with you.”

Joe felt ice creeping into his stomach. “Pinch?” he asked. “Got a warrant?” “Hell, no,” said Oscar. “We got nothing on you. Just checking up. Will you come along?” “Sure,” said Joe. “Why not?”

They went out together. Joe shivered. “I should of got a coat.”

“Want to go back for one?”

“I guess not,” said Joe.

They walked toward Castroville Street. Oscar asked, “Ever been mugged or printed?” Joe was quiet for a time. “Yes,” he said at last.

“What for?”

“Drunk,” said Joe. “Hit a cop.”

“Well, we’ll soon find out,” said Oscar and turned the corner.

Joe ran like a rabbit, across the street and over the track toward the stores and alleys of Chinatown.

Oscar had to take a glove off and unbutton his mackinaw to get his gun out. He tried a snap shot and missed.

Joe began to zigzag. He was fifty yards away by now and nearing an opening between two buildings.

Oscar stepped to a telephone pole at the curb, braced his left elbow against it, gripped his right wrist with his left hand, and drew a bead on the entrance to the little alley. He fired just as Joe touched the front sight.

Joe splashed forward on his face and skidded a foot.

Oscar went into a Filipino poolroom to phone, and when he came out there was quite a crowd around the body.