"In school, I guess, or home."
"What's he like?"
"He looks more like you."
"Oh, he does? Well, is he like me ?"
"He wants to be a minister," said Cal.
"I guess that's the way it should be--looks like me and wants to go into the church. A man can do a lot of damage in the church. When someone comes here, he's got his guard up. But in church a man's wide open."
"He means it," said Cal.
She leaned toward him, and her face was alive with interest. "Fill my cup. Is your brother dull?"
"He's nice," said Cal.
"I asked you if he's dull."
"No, ma'am," said Cal.
She settled back and lifted her cup. "How's your father?"
"I don't want to talk about him," Cal said.
"Oh, no! You like him then?"
"I love him," said Cal.
Kate peered closely at him, and a curious spasm shook her--an aching twist rose in her chest. And then she closed up and her control came back.
"Don't you want some candy?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am. Why did you do it?"
"Why did I do what?"
"Why did you shoot my father and run away from us."
"Did he tell you that?"
"No. He didn't tell us."
She touched one hand with the other and her hands leaped apart as though the contact burned them. She asked, "Does your father ever have any--girls or young women come to your house?"
"No," said Cal. "Why did you shoot him and go away?"
Her cheeks tightened and her mouth straightened, as though a net of muscles took control. She raised her head, and her eyes were cold and shallow.
"You talk older than your age," she said. "But you don't talk old enough. Maybe you'd better run along and play--and wipe your nose."
"Sometimes I work my brother over," he said. "I make him squirm, I've made him cry. He doesn't know how I do it. I'm smarter than he is. I don't want to do it. It makes me sick."
Kate picked it up as though it were her own conversation. "They thought they were so smart," she said. "They looked at me and thought they knew about me. And I fooled them. I fooled every one of them. And when they thought they could tell me what to do--oh! that's when I fooled them best. Charles, I really fooled them then."
"My name is Caleb," Cal said. "Caleb got to the Promised Land. That's what Lee says, and it's in the Bible."
"That's the Chinaman," Kate said, and she went on eagerly, "Adam thought he had me. When I was hurt, all broken up, he took me in and he waited on me, cooked for me. He tried to tie me down that way. Most people get tied down that way. They're grateful, they're in debt, and that's the worst kind of handcuffs. But nobody can hold me. I waited and waited until I was strong, and then I broke out. Nobody can trap me," she said. "I knew what he was doing. I waited."
The gray room was silent except for her excited wheezing breath.
Cal said, "Why did you shoot him?"
"Because he tried to stop me. I could have killed him but I didn't. I just wanted him to let me go."
"Did you ever wish you'd stayed?"
"Christ, no! Even when I was a little girl I could do anything I wanted. They never knew how I did it. Never. They were always so sure they were right. And they never knew--no one ever knew." A kind of realization came to her. "Sure, you're my kind. Maybe you're the same. Why wouldn't you be?"
Cal stood up and clasped his hands behind his back. He said, "When you were little, did you"--he paused to get the thought straight--"did you ever have the feeling like you were missing something? Like as if the others knew something you didn't--like a secret they wouldn't tell you? Did you ever feel that way?"
While he spoke her face began to close against him, and by the time he paused she was cut off and the open way between them was blocked.
She said, "What am I doing, talking to kids!"
Cal unclasped his hands from behind him and shoved them in his pockets.
"Talking to snot-nosed kids," she said. "I must be crazy."
Cal's face was alight with excitement, and his eyes were wide with vision.
Kate said, "What's the matter with you?"
He stood still, his forehead glistening with sweat, his hands clenched into fists.
Kate, as she had always, drove in the smart but senseless knife of her cruelty. She laughed softly. "I may have given you some interesting things, like this--" She held up her crooked hands. "But if it's epilepsy--fits--you didn't get it from me." She glanced brightly up at him, anticipating the shock and beginning worry in him.
Cal spoke happily. "I'm going," he said. "I'm going now. It's all right. What Lee said was true."
"What did Lee say?"
Cal said, "I was afraid I had you in me."
"You have," said Kate.
"No, I haven't. I'm my own. I don't have to be you."
"How do you know that?" she demanded.
"I just know. It just came to me whole. If I'm mean, it's my own mean."
"This Chinaman has really fed you some pap. What are you looking at me like that for?"
Cal said, "I don't think the light hurts your eyes. I think you're afraid."
"Get out!" she cried. "Go on, get out!"
"I'm going." He had his hand on the doorknob. "I don't hate you," he said. "But I'm glad you're afraid."
She tried to shout "Joe!" but her voice thickened to a croak.
Cal wrenched open the door and slammed it behind him.
Joe was talking to one of the girls in the parlor. They heard the stutter of light quick footsteps. But by the time they looked up a streaking figure had reached the door, opened it, slipped through, and the heavy front door banged. There was only one step on the porch and then a crunch as jumping feet struck earth.
"What in hell was that?" the girl asked.
"God knows," said Joe. "Sometimes I think I'm seeing things."
"Me too," said the girl. "Did I tell you Clara's got bugs under her skin?"
"I guess she seen-the shadow of the needle," said Joe. "Well, the way I figure, the less you know, the better off you are."
"That's the truth you said there," the girl agreed.
Chapter 40
1
Kate sat back in her chair against the deep down cushions. Waves of nerves cruised over her body, raising the little hairs and making ridges of icy burn as they went.
She spoke softly to herself. "Steady now," she said. "Quiet down. Don't let it hit you. Don't think for a while. The goddam snot-nose!"
She thought suddenly of the only person who had ever made her feel this panic hatred. It was Samuel Hamilton, with his white beard and his pink cheeks and the laughing eyes that lifted her skin and looked underneath.
With her bandaged forefinger she dug out a slender chain which hung around her neck and pulled the chain's burden up from her bodice. On the chain were strung two safe-deposit keys, a gold watch with a fleur-de-lis pin, and a little steel tube with a ring on its top. Very carefully she unscrewed the top from the tube and, spreading her knees, shook out a gelatine capsule. She held the capsule under the light and saw the white crystals inside--six grains of morphine, a good, sure margin. Very gently she eased the capsule into its tube, screwed on the cap, and dropped the chain inside her dress.
Cal's last words had been repeating themselves over and over in her head. "I'm glad you're afraid." She said the words aloud to herself to kill the sound. The rhythm stopped, but a strong picture formed in her mind and she let it form so that she could inspect it again.
2
It was before the lean-to was built. Kate had collected the money Charles had left. The check was converted to large bills, and the bills in their bales were in the safe-deposit box at the Monterey County Bank.
It was about the time the first pains began to twist her hands. There was enough money now to go away. It was just a matter of getting the most she could out of the house. But also it was better to wait until she
felt quite well again.
She never felt quite well again. New York seemed cold and very far away.
A letter came to her signed "Ethel." Who in hell was Ethel? Whoever she was, she must be crazy to ask for money. Ethel--there were hundreds of Ethels. Ethels grew on every bush. And this one scrawled illegibly on a lined pad.
Not very long afterward Ethel came to see Kate, and Kate hardly recognized her.
Kate sat at her desk, watchful, suspicious, and confident. "It's been a long time," she said.
Ethel responded like a soldier who comes in his cushion age upon the sergeant who trained him. "I've been poorly," she said. Her flesh had thickened and grown heavy all over her. Her clothes had the strained cleanliness that means poverty.
"Where are you--staying now?" Kate asked, and she wondered how soon the old bag would be able to come to the point.
"Southern Pacific Hotel. I got a room."
"Oh, then you don't work in a house now?"
"I couldn't never get started again," said Ethel. "You shouldn't of run me off." She wiped big tears from the corners of her eyes with the tip of a cotton glove. "Things are bad," she said. "First I had trouble when we got that new judge. Ninety days, and I didn't have no record--not here anyways. I come out of that and I got the old Joe. I didn't know I had it. Give it to a regular--nice fella, worked on the section gang. He got sore an' busted me up, hurt my nose, lost four teeth, an' that new judge he give me a hundred and eighty. Hell, Kate, you lose all your contacts in a hundred and eighty days. They forget you're alive. I just never could get started."
Kate nodded her head in cold and shallow sympathy. She knew that Ethel was working up to the bite. Just before it came Kate made a move. She opened her desk drawer and took out some money and held it out to Ethel. "I never let a friend down," she said. "Why don't you go to a new town, start fresh? It might change your luck."
Ethel tried to keep her fingers from grabbing at the money. She fanned the bills like a poker hand--four tens. Her mouth began to work with emotion.
Ethel said, "I kind of hoped you'd see your way to let me take more than forty bucks."
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you get my letter?"
"What letter?"
"Oh'" said Ethel. "Well, maybe it got lost in the mail. They don't take no care of things. Anyways, I thought you might look after me. I don't feel good hardly ever. Got a kind of weight dragging my guts down." She sighed and then she spoke so rapidly that Kate knew it had been rehearsed.
"Well, maybe you remember how I've got like second sight," Ethel began. "Always predicting things that come true. Always dreaming stuff and it come out. Fella says I should go in the business. Says I'm a natural medium. You remember that?"
"No," said Kate, "I don't."
"Don't? Well, maybe you never noticed. All the others did. I told 'em lots of things and they come true."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I had this-here dream. I remember when it was because it was the same night Faye died." Her eves flicked up at Kate's cold face. She continued doggedly, "It rained that night, and it was raining in my dream--anyways, it was wet. Well, in my dream I seen you come out the kitchen door. It wasn't pitch-dark--moon was coming through a little. And the dream thing was you. You went out to the back of the lot and stooped over. I couldn't see what you done. Then you come creeping back.
"Next thing I knew--why, Faye was dead." She paused and waited for some comment from Kate, but Kate's face was expressionless.
Ethel waited until she was sure Kate would not speak. "Well, like I said, I always believed in my dreams. It's funny, there wasn't nothing out there except some smashed medicine bottles and a little rubber tit from an eye-dropper."
Kate said lazily, "So you took them to a doctor. What did he say had been in the bottles?"
"Oh, I didn't do nothing like that."
"You should have," said Kate.
"I don't want to see nobody get in trouble. I've had enough trouble myself. I put that broke glass in an envelope and stuck it away."
Kate said softly, "And so you are coming to me for advice?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll tell you what I think," said Kate. "I think you're a worn-out old whore and you've been beaten over the head too many times."
"Don't you start saying I'm nuts--" Ethel began.
"No, maybe you're not, but you're tired and you're sick. I told you I never let a friend down. You can come back here. You can't work but you can help around, clean and give the cook a hand. You'll have a bed and you'll get your meals. How would that be? And a little spending money."
Ethel stirred uneasily. "No, ma'am," she said. "I don't think I want to--sleep here. I don't carry that envelope around. I left it with a friend."
"What did you have in mind?" Kate asked.
"Well, I thought if you could see your way to let me have a hundred dollars a month, why, I could make out and maybe get my health back."
"You said you lived at the Southern Pacific Hotel?"
"Yes, ma'am--and my room is right up the hall from the desk. The night clerk's a friend of mine. He don't never sleep when he's on duty. Nice fella."
Kate said, "Don't wet your pants, Ethel. All you've got to worry about is how much does the 'nice fella' want. Now wait a minute." She counted six more ten-dollar bills from the drawer in front of her and held them out.
"Will it come the first of the month or do I have to come here for it?"
"I'll send it to you," said Kate. "And, Ethel," she continued quietly, "I still think you ought to have those bottles analyzed."
Ethel clutched the money tightly in her hand. She was bubbling over with triumph and good feeling. It was one of the few things that had ever worked out for her. "I wouldn't think of doing that," she said. "Not unless I had to."
After she had gone Kate strolled out to the back of the lot behind the house. And even after years she could see from the unevenness of the earth that it must have been pretty thoroughly dug over.
The next morning the judge heard the usual chronicle of small violence and nocturnal greed. He only half listened to the fourth case and at the end of the terse testimony of the complaining witness he asked, "How much did you lose?"
The dark-haired man said, "Pretty close to a hundred dollars."
The judge turned to the arresting officer. "How much did she have?"
"Ninety-six dollars. She got whisky and cigarettes and some magazines from the night clerk at six o'clock this morning."
Ethel cried, "I never seen this guy in my life."
The judge looked up from his papers. "Twice for prostitution and now robbery. You're costing too much. I want you out of town by noon." He turned to the officer. "Tell the sheriff to run her over the county line." And he said to Ethel, "If you come back, I'll give you to the county for the limit, and that's San Quentin. Do you understand?"
Ethel said, "Judge, I want to see you alone."
"Why?"
"I got to see you," said Ethel. "This is a frame."
"Everything's a frame," said the judge. "Next."
While a deputy sheriff drove Ethel to the county line on the bridge over the Pajaro River, the complaining witness strolled down Castroville Street toward Kate's, changed his mind and went back to Kenoe's barbershop to get a hair cut.
3
Ethel's visit did not disturb Kate very much when it happened. She knew about what attention would be paid to a whore with a grievance, and that an analysis of the broken bottles would not show anything recognizable as poison. She had nearly forgotten Faye. The forcible recalling was simply an unpleasant memory.
Gradually, however, she found herself thinking about it. One night when she was checking the items on a grocery bill a thought shot into her mind, shining and winking like a meteor. The thought flashed and went out so quickly that she had to stop what she was doing to try to find it. How was the dark face of Charles involved in the thought? And Sam Hamilton's puzzled and merry eyes?
And why did she get a shiver of fear from the flashing thought?
She gave it up and went back to her work, but the face of Charles was behind her, looking over her shoulder. Her fingers began to hurt her. She put the accounts away and made a tour through the house. It was a slow, listless night--a Tuesday night. There weren't even enough customers to put on the circus.
Kate knew how the girls felt about her. They were desperately afraid of her. She kept them that way. It was probable that they hated her, and that didn't matter either. But they trusted her, and that did matter. If they followed the rules she laid down, followed them exactly, Kate would take care of them and protect them. There was no love involved and no respect. She never rewarded them and she punished an offender only twice before she removed her. The girls did have the security of knowing that they would not be punished without cause.
As Kate walked about, the girls became elaborately casual. Kate knew about that too and expected it. But on this night she felt that she was not alone. Charles seemed to walk to the side and behind her.
She went through the dining room and into the kitchen, opened the icebox and looked in. She lifted the cover of the garbage can and inspected it for waste. She did this every night, but this night she carried some extra charge.
When she had left the parlor the girls looked at each other and raised their shoulders in bewilderment. Eloise, who was talking to the dark-haired Joe, said, "Anything the matter?"
"Not that I know of. Why?"
"I don't know. She seems nervous."
"Well, there was some kind of rat race."
"What was it?"
"Wait a minute!" said Joe. "I don't know and you don't know."
"I get it. Mind my own business."
"You're goddam right," said Joe. "Let's keep it that way, shall we?"
"I don't want to know," said Eloise.
"Now you're talking," Joe said.
Kate ranged back from her tour. "I'm going to bed," she said to Joe. "Don't call me unless you have to."
"Anything I can do?"
"Yes, make me a pot of tea. Did you press that dress, Eloise?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You didn't do it very well."
"Yes, ma'am."
Kate was restless. She put all of her papers neatly in the pigeonholes of her desk, and when Joe brought the tea tray she had him put it beside her bed.
Lying back among her pillows and sipping the tea, she probed for her thought. What about Charles? And then it came to her.
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