… Mom! Oh Mom! When an old woman is hungry in China it hurts everybody in the world. Remember that, Jeff.… Yes, Mom.
Keeley’s life ran away from his fingers and he fell down the stairs.
CHAPTER XXIII
Dawn was breaking over the rooftops of Washington as Mary mounted the dimly lighted stairs and walked down the silent hallway. She had no trouble finding the apartment.
But now she was frightened. She raised her gloved hand to knock at the door, and then lowered it without knocking. She looked at the number again. It was the same as the number on the slip of paper Jeff had given her. The smell of eggs frying reminded her that she was hungry and tired. For a moment she thought of going back downstairs and telling Captain Finlay that she couldn’t do it. Why hadn’t he let Jeff come along?
Mary opened her brown leather handbag and took out a small mirror. She thought she looked all right. She wondered how she ought to look. Perhaps more wifely. Certainly more beautiful. She applied more lipstick, then raised the mirror and glanced at her hair. It was neat and orderly, no stray wisps straggling from beneath her hat. But her eyes looked tired. Well, she would sleep after this was over. The sound of a cup on a saucer came from the other side of the door and reminded her to get on with it.
She knocked at the door. There was no answer from inside the apartment. All sound seemed to have stopped. Even the smell of fried eggs seemed to be gone.
She knocked again. Still no sound, no movement. For a moment she felt better. Maybe no one was in. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go through with it. Maybe everything would turn out all right by itself. Maybe all you had to do was go to sleep and wake up and find that the horror of these last hours was only a bad dream.
Somewhere inside the apartment a chair scraped on the floor. Then Mary heard footsteps. It was a shuffling sound, a sort of slide-and-slap, as of someone walking in loose bedroom slippers. The door opened. Ginny stood there. Her left hand held the knob and her right hand rested on the door-jamb. She wore a deep maroon bathrobe with a sash around the middle. The sash had tassels. Her feet were stockingless and encased in pink, fuzzy mules.
“I … I’m Mrs. Mitchell,” said Mary, as though that explained everything.
Ginny looked at her and said nothing.
So this is the girl, Mary thought. The girl Jeff went to bed with. This girl had taken something that belonged to her. She ought to feel jealous, yet somehow she didn’t. Perhaps it was the fear she read in the girl’s eyes, a certain wild and hunted look belying the cynical hardness of her mouth, which evoked pity and left no room for jealousy. She looked into Ginny’s face and managed to see there everything she wanted to know about the girl. There was a haunting quality in the face, a strange blending of irreconcilable opposites. Youth combined with experience. Pride, yet the kind of pride that asserted itself too fiercely, as if to show it had not yet been broken but knew it soon would be. And not beauty exactly, but a certain indefinable grace which illuminated the features like the vanishing light of a beauty that had once been there. Mary saw how a man could be attracted to this girl. And suddenly she found herself trying to picture Ginny and Jeff together. In the same instant she was ashamed of herself for thinking such things when Jeff was in danger, when Captain Finlay was waiting downstairs, when she was here to save Jeff’s life.
“I’m Jeff’s wife,” Mary began again. “He’s the soldier who.…” She paused. Who what? What was it Jeff had done? How could she say it to this girl? How did she even know this was the woman?
“What do you want?” asked Ginny. “Nobody’s here. Only me.
“I wanted to talk to a girl called Ginny, It’s about.…”
“Well, it’s awful late. I got to get some sleep. Why don’t you come around this afternoon?”
“Are you the girl?”
Ginny looked at her steadily for a moment. “My name’s Ginny,” she said. “But I don’t know any soldiers. I don’t have anything to do with soldiers. Sorry, lady, but you’ll have to go.” She started to swing the door shut.
“Please,” Mary burst out, “please let me talk to you. It’s very important. I know it’s late. But you’ve got to help me. Can’t I come in—for just a minute? Please!”
Ginny let her eyes move from Mary’s face, slowly down the length of her, then back up again. She held the door open and Mary entered the apartment.
The smell of eggs was stronger now. At the far end of the room, in the kitchenette, was a table, and on it two cups and saucers, two plates with fried eggs on them, salt and pepper shakers, a package of cigarettes, and the morning newspaper.
“My husband,” Mary began, “Jeff—he’s in trouble.”
Ginny remembered him all right. He was the lonely one. The soldier who got the malaria shakes. The one who was so nice, who wanted to be Ambassador to Lonely People. The one to whom she had given her address and key. She shouldn’t have done that. God, what a fool she’d been! Didn’t she know something always happened with soldiers? Always trouble. Always something.
“Look,” she said, “I don’t know anything about your husband. Honest. Why don’t you go home? Maybe he’s waiting for you.”
“He’s in jail. They say he killed a man. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.”
“How would I know about that?” snapped Ginny. She went to the table and took a cigarette from the package. Her glance took in the front page of the newspaper and the name, Jeff Mitchell, jumped out at her again. She shuddered. She felt cold. She turned away and lit her cigarette. She had bought the paper on her way home, but had not read it until she got inside her apartment. She had expected to find Jeff there. She had wanted to find him there. As she walked home she had even made believe they would have something to eat and talk some more, as they had at Mama Bell’s. And Sunday morning they would sleep late and read the funnies together, and maybe even go window-shopping. But Jeff had not been there. So she had looked at the paper, and the first thing she saw was the story of the murder. And she had become scared.
“Jeff didn’t do it,” Mary pleaded. “He couldn’t. He was … he was with you.”
“A lot of men come to see me,” said Ginny flatly. “I never remember ’em.”
“But you’ve got to remember. Please.”
Mary saw Ginny’s face harden.
“I don’t know anything, Mrs. Mitchell. You shouldn’t of come here. How’d you know where I live anyway?”
“Jeff told me.” Mary reached into her handbag and took out the piece of paper with the scribbled address.
Ginny didn’t look at it. She knew it was hers. Then he had told his wife about her. He had sent this woman. Things must be bad if a man will tell his wife he was with a whore. Ah-h, he was like all the rest of ’em.… No. No he wasn’t. He was different. But what could she do? Keep out of it, for Chrissakes! It wasn’t her funeral.
“Maybe you’re all excited over nothing, lady,” said Ginny, her voice flat again. “Anyway, you can’t stay here. Come back tomorrow. We’ll talk some more tomorrow, huh?” She walked swiftly toward the door and threw it open.
A jab of fear leaped at her throat. Captain Finlay stood in the doorway, a blot of ominous blue and brass. Ginny felt trapped. That’s the way it always was. The moment she let herself like a man, there was trouble. That’s the way it had always been, the way it always would be. And now the police.
Captain Finlay smiled softly and walked into the apartment. Ginny closed the door. She noticed that Mary had tears in her eyes. She wasn’t sorry for her. She was sorry for Jeff and for herself and for Mama Bell. This might even mean that Mama Bell would have to close up.
Finlay walked to the table and emptied his pipe in an ash tray. He saw the table set for two and the uneaten eggs and the newspaper unfolded with the front page up. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Virginia Tremaine. Why?”
“What’s your real name?” he said softly, no accusation in his tone.
“Esther.”
“Esther what
, please?”
“Esther Goslav.”
“Where you from?”
“Wilkes-Barre. That’s in Pennsylvania.”
“Live here alone?”
“Yes sir,” said Ginny. “But look, is this a raid or something? What do you want? I didn’t do anything.”
Captain Finlay filled his pipe from a worn pouch.
“He won’t hurt you,” said Mary. “He promised me. We just want you to help us, that’s all.”
“I don’t like cops,” said Ginny.
“No one likes cops,” said Captain Finlay sadly.
“You can’t make me talk,” said Ginny defiantly. Then quickly: “I don’t know anything. I got a right to a lawyer.”
“You don’t need a lawyer,” said Finlay. “Sit down, Virginia.”
She sat down and looked out of the window. It was light now. The sun was up. Finlay struck a match and puffed at his pipe.
“Now about Jeff Mitchell,” said Finlay quietly. “He’s in a bad way, Virginia. Looks like he killed a man. Mrs. Mitchell here says he didn’t do it, but most wives say that.”
“He didn’t!” said Mary fervently. “I know he didn’t! And this girl here, she knows he didn’t!” She turned to Ginny, and there was a plea in her voice: “Please,” she said, “please tell us what you know. Don’t you see? You’ve got to give Jeff a chance.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Ginny, her voice sullen with suppressed fear and mounting anger.
“Please,” insisted Mary. “Don’t you realize what I’m saying to you? I know Jeff was with you. He told me. But it doesn’t matter any more. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter. Never mind me. You’ve got to think of him.”
Ginny turned in her chair until she faced Mary. Her face was flushed with pent-up fury, her lips contorted in a grimace. “Now just listen to that, won’t you?” she mimicked, her voice dripping with the venom of affected sweetness. “You’re a fine, noble wife, now ain’t you? ‘Never mind me,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’ Now ain’t that just too goddam noble for anything? Guess I’m not good enough for that precious husband of yours.” And suddenly all the bitterness and frustration of her life came to the surface and boiled over. “You bitch!” she said. “You fine, noble bitch! And where were you when he needed you? That’s what I want to know. If you’d been where you should of been, at home in bed with him, all this wouldn’t of happened. But I guess you’re too good for anything like that. Yeah, too good. Too goddam good!”
“Easy now,” said Finlay. “Take it easy. There’s no call for anything like that.” This wasn’t going right at all. The girl was in no mood to tell what she knew. Things had got off on the wrong tack at the start. “Listen to me,” said Finlay quietly. “You’re not involved in this murder, so nothing’s going to happen to you. That’s the first point. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Ginny said. “You’re damn right I got it. I didn’t have anything to do with the murder. So why’n you go on away and leave me alone?”
“Sure,” said Finlay. “We will. Just as soon as we get what we came here for.”
“What’s that?” she said.
“I’ll tell you,” Finlay went on unemotionally. “It’s like this. Jeff Mitchell is charged with murder. The case against him looks pretty tight. Of course he says he didn’t do it. Claims he’s got an alibi. And you’re it. Now if he didn’t do it and can prove his alibi, he’s got nothing to worry about. Understand? But if he did do it,” here Finlay paused and emphasized the grave meaning of his words by pointing his pipe at Ginny, “if he did, he’ll go to the chair. Got that straight? The chair.” He put his pipe back in his mouth and puffed on it a moment. “Now,” he said, “what is it I want out of you? The truth, that’s all. I want you to tell me what you know about Jeff Mitchell.”
Ginny sat silent, staring into space. At last she shook her head, and when she spoke her voice was flat again. “There ain’t anything I can tell you,” she said. “Not a single thing that’ll do anybody any good. Oh, why don’t you go away?”
“All right,” said Finlay curtly. He rose and went over to Mary. “We’d better go,” he said to her sadly. “We’re just wasting our time here. This girl’s word wouldn’t stand up anyhow.”
“Why not?” snapped Ginny. She was out of her chair and halfway across the room toward him. “What’s the matter with my word?” she flung at him angrily. “I’m as good as anybody else. Just because I’m a whore don’t mean I’m a liar!”
“No?” said Finlay. The upward intonation of his voice and a single raised eyebrow packed the word full of meaning. It said that no matter how dubious he might be, he was still a reasonable man, open to conviction.
“I’m not a liar,” she spat out. “These decent women, they lie more’n we do anyway. They start by lying to themselves, and wind up lying to live. They haven’t got the guts to face the truth. All these good women … aaah!” She yanked the sash of her bathrobe tighter and faced Mary. “What were you doing away from your husband anyway? A lonely fella like that. Why weren’t you with him? What do you think a soldier wants, anyhow? He wants a woman. He wants love. They’re lonely, that’s what they are.” She recognized the words as Jeff’s as they rolled off her tongue. “Trouble is, all you wives really believe that crap about men winning the war for you. You don’t know anything about the war. You’re damn right he was with me! He was with me for almost an hour, and I’ll tell that to anybody. I’m not afraid of anybody. He was lonely when he came in. But he wasn’t lonely when he went out. We even danced. It was nice. I like him.” Her voice slowed down and was going flat again. “But he don’t like me. He was just lonely, that’s all. If he’d of picked one of the other girls it would of been the same thing, I guess.” She turned to Finlay, and her words dribbled off meaninglessly, “He’s got malaria, too.”
Captain Finlay nodded his head at nothing in particular. “What time was he with you?”
Mary was crying. No sobs, just tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I don’t know,” said Ginny. “Maybe eight-thirty. Maybe nine o’clock. I don’t remember. But I’m not lying, if that’s what you mean.”
“I believe you, Virginia,” said Finlay. “But you know how juries are. Sometimes they believe lies, and sometimes they don’t believe the truth.”
“Will I have to go before a jury?” asked Ginny. The thought filled her with fear, and the fear was washing over her anger.
“Yes, I’m afraid you will, Virginia. Maybe only the coroner’s inquest. Maybe more.”
Ginny thought of Mama Bell and the other girls. With all the publicity the police would have to close down the house. She sighed, then looked at Mary. She’ll have him back all right, she thought. She don’t deserve him, but she’ll have him.
“All right,” she said. “All right. Whatever you want, all right.”
Mary spoke up then: “Will you let Jeff go now, Captain Finlay?”
“I don’t see how, Mrs. Mitchell. One girl’s word is hardly enough. We’ll have to check on it.”
Finlay stopped talking. His eyes were on the bedroom door. A man stood there. He was smallish and had a yellowish face. His nose was straight and small, and underneath it his thin mouth twitched.
“I saw the soldier go up there,” the little man said without looking at Ginny.
“Who are you?” asked Finlay.
“What’s it matter? You want to know if anybody saw him. I saw him. It was about eight-thirty. He got out of a cab, and I saw him go into the apartment house.”
“Why should you notice one soldier out of thousands in Washington? What were you doing at the apartment house?”
“I notice every man who goes into Mama Bell’s house.”
“Why?” asked Finlay.
“Get back in there,” said Ginny to the man. “This is none of your business. Get back in there and mind your own business.”
“Every man who comes to see you is my business,” he said.
“It’s
not your business to spy on me,” Ginny flung back angrily, “to watch me like I belonged to you or something. Because I don’t, see? I hate you,” she said. “I hate your guts.”
The words seemed to make no impression on him, as though he had heard them many times before. The smile on his lips was weak and ineffectual. He swallowed, and then the twitch made the smile disappear.
“She don’t like me to spy on her,” the man said to Finlay. “But I can’t help it. That’s because I love her. You can see how much she likes me. But that don’t matter. I saw the soldier go into the apartment house, all right. I saw a lot of others, too. I never know which ones buy her, so I watch all of ’em. I can’t see how any man would take anybody but her. She’s the only one.”
Finlay looked steadily at the little man. “You say you saw a lot of soldiers go into the house?”
“Yep. Sure did.”
“Then how do you know which soldier we’re talking about?”
“Oh, I saw him afterwards, too,” the man said, “and remembered him. He came up here. I talked to him. I should of killed him when I saw he had the key to her apartment. But I haven’t got any nerve. That’s why she hates me. I take whatever she says to me and never answer back. I can’t. I know I ought to. But I can’t.”
“Where can I reach you when I want you?” asked Finlay.
“I live in Chevy Chase.” He rattled off an address. “But I’ll be here if you want me.”
“No you won’t,” said Ginny. “You’ll get out. Right now.”
“She hates me, all right,” said the man, but he made no move to leave. And when Ginny saw he wasn’t going, she went into the bedroom and slammed the door.
“I’ll be around for you later,” said Finlay. “We’d better go now, Mrs. Mitchell.”
The little man stood there and seemed to take no notice that they were getting ready to leave. The same weak, self-conscious smile was on his lips. He said tonelessly: “She sure hates me. I’m a D.D.,” he said to Finlay, and then, as though he needed to explain, “Dishonorable Discharge, you know. I was in the Army. I met her over at Mama Bell’s, same as …” he looked at Mary … “same as everybody else. We made a lot of plans. They fell through. I’m one of those guys never finishes anything.” He smiled at Finlay. “I’ll be around when you want me, Captain. Any time. Any time at all.”
The Brick Foxhole Page 25