The Deep End

by Fredric Brown

  When I felt whole and human again I telephoned the bus terminal and learned that there was only one bus a day to Holton; it left at four-fifteen and got there at eight-thirty. No use, I decided, phoning the Whelans now to ask them to meet it; they’d be out on the lake catching walleyes. I could phone them just before I left, or even from Holton after the bus got there. I might even decide to drive up in the Buick, although I knew I shouldn’t; it had two tires ready to go at any moment and needed a general overhaul that I’d postponed until after vacation. In its present shape it was all right to drive around town where, at the worst, I might have to walk a few blocks to phone a garage, but it would be tempting fate to use it for a trip.

  I decided I’d better wait till bus time. That gave me time to kill, about seven hours of it. Might as well start by going out for a breakfast since there wasn’t anything in the house to eat. I got the Buick out of the garage and drove to a restaurant, picking up a paper—the Journal, the morning paper, not the Herald. I looked through it while I ate.

  There wasn’t any mention of Jimmy Chojnacki’s accident in the Journal, but that wasn’t surprising if nothing new had come up on it since Saturday; their Sunday paper would have covered the story and, since they had no grudge against Whitewater Beach, there was no reason for them to keep it alive unless there were further developments.

  I wondered, though, how their yesterday’s paper had handled it and whether they’d dug any facts that we’d missed, so I asked the waitress if there still happened to be a Sunday Journal around. She looked in a pile of papers under the counter and found one for me. The story, when I found it, was only six column inches on page two. It didn’t have anything I didn’t already know except the Chojnacki boy’s address. It was 2908 Radnik Street, which would be within a block or two of the back entrance of Whitewater Beach, which meant he’d probably hung around there a lot.

  Back in the Buick I looked at my watch and decided what the hell; now that I had been silly enough to come back to town I might as well do at least a few of the things I’d wanted to do, as many of them as I could before bus time. Maybe I could convince myself finally and completely that there wasn’t anything back of my wild hunch.

  I drove south to Radnik Street. Back of Whitewater it runs through the area known as Southtown, a tough, shabby district. It had been a red light district a good many years ago. The city had cleaned that up, but it was still a rough place, centering around one block, the 3100 block of Radnik Street, that was a Bowery or South State Street in miniature, with taverns, bums, drunks and all the trimmings.

  I found 2908 and it was a three-story tenement with sixteen mailboxes in the narrow dark hallway. I found the name Chojnacki on a rusty box numbered 306 so I went up the stairs to the third floor, found the right door and knocked.

  The door opened quickly. For what must have been at least two seconds the woman who opened it and I stared at one another and my expression must have been even more surprised than hers. Then I said, “Nina, what on earth–?”

  She put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Just wait a minute right here. I’ll be out and explain.” She closed the door quietly.

  I knew there must be some explanation but I couldn’t think of a logical one. And explanation or no it was the damnedest thing. I’d been thinking about Nina Carberry, had almost called her evening before last–and now I’d knocked on Mrs. Chojnacki’s door and Nina had opened it.

  And now she opened it again; this time she came out and closed it behind her. Then she turned to me, “You wanted to see Mrs. Chojnacki, Sam?”

  “Yes. What are you doing–?”

  “Social service work. Sam, you can’t see her right now. I just got her to sleep–she’s slept hardly at all since it happened and she needs sleep. Do you have paper and pencil?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Print. ‘Do Not Disturb’ on a piece of paper and I’ll pin it on the door. I’ve got a pin. Then if anyone else comes around they won’t wake her up.”

  I did the printing on a leaf of a notebook and handed it to her as I tore it out. She had a pin, from somewhere, in her hand by then, and put the paper on the door with it.

  She turned back to me. “You’re still working for the Herald, Sam? I suppose you wanted to interview her. But maybe I can tell you whatever you want to know. I know Mrs. Chojnacki pretty well, and I knew Jimmy, ever since he started high school.”

  “Fine,” I said. “And we’ve got more to talk about than that. After all these years. Where can we go to talk? And is it too early in the morning to suggest a drink?”

  She looked at her wrist watch. “Well–half past ten is a little early, but I wouldn’t mind having one. I’ve a few more calls to make today but I guess I can make them this afternoon just as well.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “Inviting yourself to lunch too. Okay, it’s a deal. But before we take off, wait a minute. Let me look at you.”

  I stepped back and looked. Six years had done a lot for Nina. She’d been a pretty girl; now she was a beautiful woman. Almost beautiful, at least. The dark horn-rimmed glasses gave her just a touch of primness, a school teacherish look. But her body didn’t look schoolteachers, not by miles. It had filled out, and in the right places and to the right degree, since I’d last seen her.

  I said, “How do you dare come in a neighborhood like this one wearing a sweater like that?”

  She smiled, or maybe I should say she grinned, a gamin grin. “The glasses protect me.”

  “Take them off.”

  “Not on your life, Sam, I’d say I need protection right now, the way you’re looking at me.”

  “Maybe you do at that,” I said. “All right, I’ve looked my fill, for the moment. Where would you like to go for that drink?”

  2

  We settled on the cocktail lounge at the Statler. We went there in Nina’s coupe instead of my car because she’d left hers in a limited-parking zone and would have had to move it anyway.

  Over Manhattans, I said, “You can take off the glasses now. We’re in a public place and the bartender is watching.”

  She smiled and took them off.

  “You are beautiful,” I said. “Nina, how come you’ve never married? Or have you?”

  She shook her head. “No I haven’t. But as to why, it’s a long and dull story. Let’s skip it–for now, anyway. You’re still a reporter for the Herald?”

  “Yes, but I don’t do much leg work any more. Mostly rewrite, on the city desk. And an occasional sob story.”

  “Is that why you were looking up Mrs. Chojnacki?”

  I hesitated, and then decided to tell her the truth, or at least a little of it.

  “No, I’m on vacation this week. It’s just—well, I helped cover the story Saturday when it broke and I got interested, curious about a point or two. I’m afraid I’d have told Mrs. Chojnacki I was interviewing her for the paper, but I wouldn’t have been.”

  “Don’t go back there today, please, Sam. She’s pretty upset and, outside of her own friends of course, the fewer people she has to talk to the better. Or tomorrow either; the funeral’s tomorrow, at two o’clock. Let me answer any questions that I can answer, about her or Jimmy, meanwhile. What do you want to know?”

  I said, “I’m not sure just what I do want to know. Just tell me things.”

  “Well–I started doing social service work three years ago; that was about the time Jimmy was just entering high school, South Side High.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I don’t want to interrupt you about the Chojnackis, but are you still working in the office at the high school or are you doing social service work full time?”

  “I still work at the high school. But that’s not too much of a job–it’s only six hours a day, five days a week.”

  “And nine months out of the year. Or do you work there summers, too?”

  “Oh yes, summers too
. They have a summer term–for students who want to make up subjects they’ve flunked in. Or sometimes to skip a grade or to take vocational subjects they can’t work into their regular schedules. And of course they have to keep the office running too. I’m not working there today because it’s a school holiday. Dr. Bradshaw is in town.”

  “Who the hell is Dr. Bradshaw?”

  “Just about the top authority in secondary education in the country; he travels for the National Board of Education to keep teachers all over the country abreast of the trends in educational methods. He’s holding a forum here today and every teacher who’s in town is supposed to attend.”

  I said, “Good for Dr. Bradshaw then. Otherwise you’d be working at the school right now and I wouldn’t have run into you. Which, in itself, is an amazing coincidence.”

  “Why a coincidence? I mean, it’s almost strange that we’ve lived in the same city for the last five years–or is it six?–and haven’t happened to meet somewhere or other.”

  I said, “I guess so,” and let it go at that because I didn’t want to tell her, not yet anyway, that I’d been thinking about her and had almost telephoned her just night before last. “But go on, tell me about the social service work–since you’ve started–before we get back to the Chojnacki business.”

  “There isn’t much to tell, about that. I’ve always done some kind of part-time work along with my thirty hours a week at the school; that’s not really a full-time job. Three years ago I learned that the Social Service Agency here took on part-time workers and I thought I’d like it so I took a job with them.”

  “Do you still like it?”

  “Yes. You see a lot of the seamy side, of course, unpleasant things, but it gives you a good feeling to be helping people who need help. The pay is pretty nominal but with my school job it lets me make out. And a good thing about it, from the practical standpoint, I don’t have to work any specified hours. I’m assigned a certain number of families to keep in touch with and help, and I’m supposed to see each family once a week–at least for a few minutes just to keep in touch with them, longer if they need any help I can give–but I can do it afternoons, evenings, Saturdays, any time I want.”

  “Sounds like a good deal,” I said. “All right, now the Chojnackis.”

  “They were one of the first families I was assigned to, and they’ve been on my list ever since. There’s just Mrs. Chojnacki left now; there were three Chojnackis three years ago. Her husband, Stanley–probably originally Stanislaus, since he was born in Poland–was a drunkard. Not the vicious or cruel type, just weak. But he couldn’t hold a job and couldn’t keep from spending any money he did get on drinking. They almost never had enough to eat despite the fact that Anna–that’s Mrs. Chojnacki’s first name and I call her that by now–worked as much as her health would let her, more than she should have, for that matter. Stanley died two years ago. Of pneumonia.

  “Anna has done a little better since then than before. Her health has been a little better–although she’s far from being a well woman–and she’s been able to work more hours at the laundry. She and Jimmy had enough to eat, if not anything over. Probably she’d have been taken off my list except for her troubles with Jimmy. Do you know about that?”

  “I know he had a record for stealing and picking pockets.”

  Nina nodded. “And it was almost as though he just couldn’t help stealing whenever he had a chance. He was a good kid in every other way, not mean or belligerent. Good to his mother–except for the hurt it caused her to have him in and out of reform school and–and being what he was. It wasn’t so much that he needed money, although there was that, too; Anna wasn’t able to give him any pocket money.”

  “Did he try working?”

  “Lots of times, but he just couldn’t hold a job for long. He had a kind of fierce independence that made it hard for him to take orders or to take any reprimand he didn’t think he deserved. And whether he was working or not– this is why I’m sure it wasn’t just a matter of money–he’d steal. And every time he’d lose a job for stealing from his employer it was harder for him to get another job next time.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a very nice kid,” I said.

  “That’s the funny thing about it, Sam. He was a nice kid, in spite of the way that makes him sound. And a smart one, too. He got excellent grades in school – I checked his record at elementary school when I started working with the Chojnackis, and of course I had access to his records at South Side High while he was a freshman there and he was doing wonderfully well–scholastically– right up to the time he was expelled. For being caught rifling clothes in the locker room of the gym.

  “And he really wanted an education. He spent most of his evenings reading, and not reading just junk. I’ve seen lots of the books he brought home from the public library–history, biography, literature. And grammar and composition. Sam, he spoke flawless English, better than mine, and he came from a home where only Polish or very broken English was spoken. He wanted to write.”

  “I’ll be damned,” I said. “Listen, do you happen to know whether he went to Whitewater alone Saturday morning, or whether he was with someone?”

  “No. Why does that matter?”

  “I’m not sure that it does. Do you know who his friends were?”

  “I–I’m afraid I don’t know that either.”

  “You don’t happen to know whether he knew a boy named Westphal?”

  “Obie Westphal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why–they must have known one another by sight; they were in the same class at South Side. But they wouldn’t have been friends.”

  “Why not? I know they’re from different social strata, but if Jimmy was as literate as you say, that might not have mattered.”

  “But–they wouldn’t have had any interest in common, Sam. None at all. Obie gets good grades in school, but he isn’t interested in studying or reading as Jimmy was. And Obie’s wonderful in athletics and Jimmy hated anything like athletics. Probably because he was small and not very strong, not able to compete in anything that took strength. And–oh, they were as different in every other way as their backgrounds were different. No, they might have known one another slightly–I don’t know about that–but they certainly wouldn’t have been friends. There wouldn’t have been any one common interest to bridge all the differences. Why do you ask about Obie?”

  “Jimmie had Obie Westphal’s wallet in his pocket when he was killed. He must have lifted it shortly before.”

  “Sam!” Nina looked frightened. “That isn’t going to be in the paper, is it?”

  “No. Not in the Herald, anyway. We knew that before we went to press the first day and didn’t run it then so there’s no reason why we should now. And the same goes for the Journal, I guess. I read how they handled it Sunday–the story broke too late for their Saturday morning paper–and they didn’t mention the wallet. They must have known.”

  “Thank God for that. Mrs. Chojnacki mustn’t ever find that out. It would almost kill her.”

  “Why? I mean, she knew Jimmy stole. So why would one more time matter?”

  “Because–well, Anna is deeply religious, Sam. And it happens that Jimmy hadn’t been in any trouble–hadn’t stolen anything, as far as she knew–for two months or so before he died. And her one big consolation in what happened, the thing that keeps her from going to pieces completely, is that she can think he’d reformed, that he ‘died good,’ she put it, that’s the idea she clings to. And if she ever learns he died just after stealing again, with the stolen property right on him–”

  “I can see that,” I said. “Not that I’m religious myself, but I can see how that would be important to someone who is. Okay, Nina, she won’t learn from me. And if the police didn’t tell her that right away, when she was notified about the accident, I don’t think they ever will.”

  “Oh, I h
ope not. That’s the thing that keeps her going, the consolation of believing he died a good boy. And too, he’ll have a nice funeral; that means a lot to people like Anna. The amusement park is paying for it.”

  “They are?”

  “It must be the park because Anna told me someone is paying for it and doesn’t want his name known. I told her it must be the park management–or possibly the concessionaire who runs the roller coaster–and the reason they’re doing it anonymously is that it might seem like they admitted responsibility if they did it openly. It wouldn’t matter–I mean, Anna realizes they’re not responsible and she wouldn’t sue. But they couldn’t be sure of that.”

  I considered telling her who was really paying for the funeral and then decided not to. I’d promised Haley I wouldn’t tell and there wasn’t any good reason for breaking that promise to tell Nina. In fact, it might be better if she and Mrs. Chojnacki kept on thinking what they thought now.

  “What time is it, Sam?”

  I looked at my watch. “A few minutes after twelve. Afternoon. It’s legal to have a drink now; want another one?”

  “Thanks, Sam. I don’t think I’d better. Are you hungry enough to have some lunch?”

  We moved to the coffee shop for lunch and then Nina said she’d better get back and finish her remaining calls.

  She double-parked beside the Buick when I pointed it out to her. I opened the door on my side but I didn’t get out yet.

  I asked, “Where are you living, Nina?”

  “I have an apartment near the school.”

  “Are you in the phone book?”

  She looked at me for a long moment. “You’re still married, aren’t you, Sam?”

  “I’m married, yes. But I still want to know.”

  “But it’s no good for us to see one another again if–” I didn’t help her.

  “Well–you can look in the phone book and see, can’t you?”

  I grinned at her and got out of the car. “Might do that sometime. ’By, Nina.”