At first she put on her slightly stupid demure look, but after a few of his words she gave that up and bored into him with her eyes, trying to read his thoughts. He neither looked in her eyes nor avoided them. But she was aware that he was inspecting her as she inspected him. She felt his glance go over the scar on her forehead almost as though he had touched it.
"I don't want to make a record," he said quietly. "I've held office a long time. About one more term will be enough. You know, young woman, if this were fifteen years back I'd do some checking, and I guess I'd find something pretty nasty." He waited for some reaction from her but she did not protest. He nodded his head slowly. "I don't want to know," he said. "I want peace in this county, and I mean all kinds of peace, and that means people getting to sleep at night. Now I haven't met your husband," he said, and she knew he noticed the slight movement of her tightening muscles. "I hear he's a very nice man. I hear also that he's pretty hard hit." He looked into her eyes for a moment. "Don't you want to know how bad you shot him?"
"Yes," she said.
"Well, he's going to get well--smashed his shoulder, but he's going to get well. That Chink is taking pretty good care of him. Course I don't think he'll lift anything with his left arm for quite a spell. A forty-four tears hell out of a man. If the Chink hadn't come back he'd of bled to death, and you'd be staying with me in the jail."
Kate was holding her breath, listening for any hint of what was coming and not hearing any hints.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
The sheriff's eyes became alert. "Now that's the first time you've made a mistake," he said. "You're not sorry. I knew somebody like you once--hung him twelve years ago in front of the county jail. We used to do that here."
The little room with its dark mahogany bed, its marble-top wash stand with bowl and pitcher and a door for the pot, its wallpaper endlessly repeating little roses--little roses--the little room was silent, the sound sucked out of it.
The sheriff was staring at a picture of three cherubim--just heads, curly-haired, limpid-eyed, with wings about the size of pigeons' wings growing out of where their necks would be. He frowned. "That's a funny picture for a whorehouse," he said.
"It was here," said Kate. Apparently the preliminaries were over now.
The sheriff straightened up, undid his fingers, and held the arms of his chair. Even his buttocks pulled in a little. "You left a couple of babies," he said. "Little boys. Now you calm down. I'm not going to try to get you to go back. I guess I'd do quite a bit to keep you from going back. I think I know you. I could just run you over the county line and have the next sheriff run you, and that could keep up till you landed splash in the Atlantic Ocean. But I don't want to do that. I don't care how you live as long as you don't give me any trouble. A whore is a whore."
Kate asked evenly, "What is it you do want?"
"That's more like it," the sheriff said. "Here's what I want. I notice you changed your name. I want you to keep your new name. I guess you made up someplace you came from--well, that's where you came from. And your reason--that's when you're maybe drunk--you keep your reason about two thousand miles away from King City."
She was smiling a little, and not a forced smile. She was beginning to trust this man and to like him.
"One thing I thought of," he said. "Did you know many people around King City?"
"No."
"I heard about the knitting needle," he said casually. "Well, it could happen that somebody you knew might come in here. That your real hair color?"
"Yes."
"Dye it black for a while. Lots of people look like somebody else."
"How about this?" She touched her scar with a slender finger.
"Well, that's just a--what is that word? What is that goddam word? I had it this morning."
"Coincidence?"
"That's it--coincidence." He seemed to be finished. He got out tobacco and papers and rolled a clumsy, lumpy cigarette. He broke out a sulphur match and struck it on the block and held it away until its acrid blue flame turned yellow. His cigarette burned crookedly up the side.
Kate said, "Isn't there a threat? I mean, what you'll do if I--"
"No, there isn't. I guess I could think up something pretty ornery, though, if it came to that. No, I don't want you--what you are, what you do, or what you say--to hurt Mr. Trask or his boys. You figure you died and now you're somebody else and we'll get along fine."
He stood up and went to the door, then turned. "I've got a boy--he'll be twenty this year; big, nice-looking fellow with a broken nose. Everybody likes him. I don't want him in here. I'll tell Faye too. Let him go to Jenny's. If he comes in, you tell him to go to Jenny's." He closed the door behind him.
Kate smiled down at her fingers.
4
Faye twisted around in her chair to reach a piece of brown panocha studded with walnuts. When she spoke it was around a mouth full of candy. Kate wondered uneasily whether she could read minds, for Faye said, "I still don't like it as well. I said it then and I say it again. I liked your hair blond better. I don't know what got into you to change it. You've got a fair complexion."
Kate caught a single thread of hair with fingernails of thumb and forefinger and gently drew it out. She was very clever. She told the best lie of all--the truth. "I didn't want to tell you," she said. "I was afraid I might be recognized and that would hurt someone."
Faye got up out of her chair and went to Kate and kissed her. "What a good child it is," she said. "What a thoughtful dear."
Kate said, "Let's have some tea. I'll bring it in." She went out of the room, and in the hall on the way to the kitchen she rubbed the kiss from her cheek with her fingertips.
Back in her chair, Faye picked out a piece of panocha with a whole walnut showing through. She put it in her mouth and bit into a piece of walnut shell. The sharp, pointed fragment hit a hollow tooth and whanged into the nerve. Blue lights of pain flashed through her. Her forehead became wet. When Kate came back with teapot and cups on a tray Faye was clawing at her mouth with a crooked finger and whimpering in agony.
"What is it?" Kate cried.
"Tooth--nutshell."
"Here, let me see. Open and point." Kate looked into the open mouth, then went to the nut bowl on the fringed table for a nut pick. In a fraction of a second she had dug out the shell and held it in the palm of her hand. "There it is."
The nerve stopped shrieking and the pain dropped to an ache. "Only that big? It felt like a house. Look, dear," said Faye, "open that second drawer where my medicine is. Bring the paregoric and a piece of cotton. Will you help me pack this tooth?"
Kate brought the bottle and pushed a little ball of saturated cotton into the tooth with the point of the nut pick. "You ought to have it out."
"I know. I will."
"I have three teeth missing on this side."
"Well, you'd never know it. That made me feel all shaky. Bring me the Pinkham, will you?" She poured herself a slug of the vegetable compound and sighed with relief. "That's a wonderful medicine," she said. "The woman who invented it was a saint."
Chapter 20
1
It was a pleasant afternoon. Fremont's Peak was lighted pinkly by the setting sun, and Faye could see it from her window. From over on Castroville Street came the sweet sound of jingling horse bells from an eight-horse grain team down from the ridge. The cook was fighting pots in the kitchen. There was a rubbing sound on the wall and then a gentle tap on the door.
"Come in, Cotton Eye," Faye called.
The door opened and the crooked little cotton-eyed piano player stood in the entrance, waiting for a sound to tell him where she was.
"What is it you want?" Faye asked.
He turned to her. "I don't feel good, Miss Faye. I want to crawl into my bed and not do no playing tonight."
"You were sick two nights last week, Cotton Eye. Don't you like your job?"
"I don't feel good."
"Well, all right. But I wish you'd take
better care of yourself."
Kate said softly, "Let the gong alone for a couple of weeks, Cotton Eye."
"Oh, Miss Kate. I didn't know you was here. I ain't been smoking."
"You've been smoking," Kate said.
"Yes, Miss Kate, I sure will let it alone. I don't feel good." He closed the door, and they could hear his hand rubbing along the wall to guide him.
Faye said, "He told me he'd stopped."
"He hasn't stopped."
"The poor thing," said Faye, "he doesn't have much to live for."
Kate stood in front of her. "You're so sweet," she said. "You believe in everybody. Someday if you don't watch, or I don't watch for you, someone will steal the roof."
"Who'd want to steal from me?" asked Faye.
Kate put her hand on Faye's plump shoulders. "Not everyone is as nice as you are."
Faye's eyes glistened with tears. She picked up a handkerchief from the chair beside her and wiped her eyes and patted delicately at her nostrils. "You're like my own daughter, Kate," she said.
"I'm beginning to believe I am. I never knew my mother. She died when I was small."
Faye drew a deep breath and plunged into the subject.
"Kate, I don't like you working here."
"Why not?"
Faye shook her head, trying to find words. "I'm not ashamed. I run a nice house. If I didn't somebody else might run a bad house. I don't do anybody any harm. I'm not ashamed."
"Why should you be?" asked Kate.
"But I don't like you working. I just don't like it. You're sort of my daughter. I don't like my daughter working."
"Don't be a silly, darling," said Kate. "I have to--here or somewhere else. I told you. I have to have the money."
"No, you don't."
"Of course I do. Where else could I get it?"
"You could be my daughter. You could manage the house. You could take care of things for me and not go upstairs. I'm not always well, you know."
"I know you're not, poor darling. But I have to have money."
"There's plenty for both of us, Kate. I could give you as much as you make and more, and you'd be worth it."
Kate shook her head sadly. "I do love you," she said. "And I wish I could do what you want. But you need your little reserve, and I--well, suppose something should happen to you? No, I must go on working. Do you know, dear, I have five regulars tonight?"
A jar of shock struck Faye. "I don't want you to work."
"I have to, Mother."
The word did it. Faye burst into tears, and Kate sat on the arm of her chair and stroked her cheek and wiped her streaming eyes. The outburst sniffled to a close.
The dusk was settling deeply on the valley. Kate's face was a glow of lightness under her dark hair. "Now you're all right. I'll go and look in on the kitchen and then dress."
"Kate, can't you tell your regulars you're sick?"
"Of course not, Mother."
"Kate, it's Wednesday. Probably won't be anybody in after one o'clock."
"The Woodmen of the World are having a do."
"Oh, yes. But on Wednesday--the Woodmen won't be here after two."
"What are you getting at?"
"Kate, when you close, you tap on my door. I'll have a little surprise for you."
"What kind of a surprise?"
"Oh, a secret surprise! Will you ask the cook to come in as you go by the kitchen?"
"Sounds like a cake surprise."
"Now don't ask questions, darling. It's a surprise."
Kate kissed her. "What a dear you are, Mother."
When she had closed the door behind her Kate stood for a moment in the hall. Her fingers caressed her little pointed chin. Her eyes were calm. Then she stretched her arms over her head and strained her body in a luxurious yawn. She ran her hands slowly down her sides from right under her breasts to her hips. Her mouth corners turned up a little, and she moved toward the kitchen.
2
The few regulars drifted in and out and two drummers walked down the Line to look them over, but not a single Woodman of the World showed up. The girls sat yawning in the parlor until two o'clock, waiting.
What kept the Woodmen away was a sad accident. Clarence Monteith had a heart attack right in the middle of the closing ritual and before supper. They laid him out on the carpet and dampened his forehead until the doctor came. Nobody felt like sitting down to the doughnut supper. After Dr. Wilde had arrived and looked Clarence over, the Woodmen made a stretcher by putting flagpoles through the sleeves of two overcoats. On the way home Clarence died, and they had to go for Dr. Wilde again. And by the time they had made plans for the funeral and written the piece for the Salinas Journal, nobody had any heart for a whorehouse.
The next day, when they found out what had happened, the girls all remembered what Ethel had said at ten minutes to two.
"My God!" Ethel had said. "I never heard it so quiet. No music, cat's got Kate's tongue. It's like setting up with a corpse."
Later Ethel was impressed with having said it--almost as if she knew.
Grace had said, "I wonder what cat's got Kate's tongue. Don't you feel good? Kate--I said, don't you feel good?"
Kate started. "Oh! I guess I was thinking of something."
"Well, I'm not," said Grace. "I'm sleepy. Why don't we close up? Let's ask Faye if we can't lock up. There won't even be a Chink in tonight. I'm going to ask Faye."
Kate's voice cut in on her. "Let Faye alone. She's not well. We'll close up at two."
"That clock's way wrong," said Ethel. "What's the matter with Faye?"
Kate said, "Maybe that's what I was thinking about. Faye's not well. I'm worried to death about her. She won't show it if she can help it."
"I thought she was all right," Grace said.
Ethel hit the jackpot again. "Well, she don't look good to me. She's got a kind of flush. I noticed it."
Kate spoke very softly. "Don't you girls ever let her know I told you. She wouldn't want you to worry. What a dear she is!"
"Best goddam house I ever hustled," said Grace.
Alice said, "You better not let her hear you talk words like that."
"Balls!" said Grace. "She knows all the words."
"She don't like to hear them--not from us."
Kate said patiently, "I want to tell you what happened. I was having tea with her late this afternoon and she fainted dead away. I do wish she'd see a doctor."
"I noticed she had a kind of bright flush," Ethel repeated. "That clock's way wrong but I forget which way."
Kate said, "You girls go on to bed. I'll lock up."
When they were gone Kate went to her room and put on her pretty new print dress that made her look like a little girl. She brushed and braided her hair and let it hang behind in one thick pigtail tied with a little white bow. She patted her cheeks with Florida water. For a moment she hesitated, and then from the top bureau drawer she took a little gold watch that hung from a fleur-de-lis pin. She wrapped it in one of her fine lawn handkerchiefs and went out of the room.
The hall was very dark, but a rim of light showed under Faye's door. Kate tapped softly.
Faye called, "Who is it?"
"It's Kate."
"Don't you come in yet. You wait outside. I'll tell you when." Kate heard a rustling and a scratching in the room. Then Faye called, "All right. Come in."
The room was decorated. Japanese lanterns with candles in them hung on bamboo sticks at the corners, and red crepe paper twisted in scallops from the center to the corners to give the effect of a tent. On the table, with candlesticks around it, was a big white cake and a box of chocolates, and beside these a basket with a magnum of champagne peeking out of crushed ice. Faye wore her best lace dress and her eyes were shiny with emotion.
"What in the world?" Kate cried. She closed the door. "Why, it looks like a party!"
"It is a party. It's a party for my dear daughter."
"It's not my birthday." Faye said, "In a way maybe it is."
<
br /> "I don't know what you mean. But I brought you a present." She laid the folded handkerchief in Faye's lap. "Open it carefully," she said.
Faye held the watch up. "Oh, my dear, my dear! You crazy child! No, I can't take it." She opened the face and then picked open the back with her fingernail. It was engraved.--"To C. with all my heart from A."
"It was my mother's watch," Kate said softly. "I would like my new mother to have it."
"My darling child! My darling child!"
"Mother would be glad."
"But it's my party. I have a present for my dear daughter--but I'll have to do it in my own way. Now, Kate, you open the bottle of wine and pour two glasses while I cut the cake. I want it to be fancy."
When everything was ready Faye took her seat behind the table. She raised her glass. "To my new daughter--may you have long life and happiness." And when they had drunk Kate proposed, "To my mother." Faye said, "You'll make me cry--don't make me cry. Over on the bureau, dear. Bring the little mahogany box. There that's the one. Now put it on the table here and open it."
In the polished box lay a rolled white paper tied with a red ribbon. "What in the world is it?" Kate asked. "It's my gift to you. Open it."
Kate very carefully untied the red ribbon and unrolled the tube. It was written elegantly with shaded letters, and it was well and carefully drawn and witnessed by the cook.
"All my worldly goods without exception to Kate Albey because I regard her as my daughter."
It was simple, direct, and legally irreproachable. Kate read it three times, looked back at the date, studied the cook's signature. Faye watched her, and her lips were parted in expectation. When Kate's lips moved, reading, Faye's lips moved.
Kate rolled the paper and tied the ribbon around it and put it in the box and closed the lid. She sat in her chair.
Faye said at last, "Are you pleased?"
Kate's eyes seemed to peer into and beyond Faye's eyes--to penetrate the brain behind the eyes. Kate said quietly, "I'm trying to hold on, Mother. I didn't know anyone could be so good. I'm afraid if I say anything too quickly or come too close to you, I'll break to pieces."
It was more dramatic than Faye had anticipated, quiet and electric. Faye said, "It's a funny present, isn't it?"
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