The Key to Nicholas Street

by Stanley Ellin

  “But when I came to know you, when I came to see that we were sharing our feelings without being afraid or ashamed, I knew that everything was all right again. I had gone off the track for a little while, but now I was back again, and everything was wonderful. I love you, Betty.”

  He loved Betty, and Bettina Pickett Ayres lay awake in bed at night and cried because she didn’t really understand why he did.

  And he could hate, too, with a high, furious feeling that was terrifying. Last night, while I waited for him on the porch, I saw him drive in seated next to Kate Ballou in her car. I saw them in the reflected glare of the headlights against the garage door as they talked there. Without hearing a word I could feel the rising heat in him. I waited, shaking inwardly, for him actually to hit her. Then as he went to the side door of the house I ran through to the kitchen to open the door and meet him there.

  “What were you and Kate Ballou talking about, Matt?”

  “Nothing!”

  The heat was still there, and I shrank back from it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry ….”

  “Jesus, don’t start cringing and being apologetic now!”

  That pricked me like a needle. “You’re making it hard for me to do anything else,” I said angrily.

  “And don’t blame it on me. I’m not your mother telling you you forgot to wash behind your ears, or that you came home ten minutes late from a walk. I’m the guy who loves you, remember, and the only time I expect you to apologize for anything is when you do something to hurt me. And I’ll let you know about that quick enough.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You and Kate must have had a very interesting talk just now to get you worked up like that.”

  “We had an extremely dull talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About shoes and ships and sealing wax.”

  “And me.”

  “And you.”

  I began to understand.

  “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

  He looked at me narrowly. “Does that bother you?”

  “Of course not,” I said jauntily. And then I said, “Oh, what’s the use of my lying about it, Matt. She knows you so well, and she feels I’m not good enough for you, and, of course, it hurts. It hurts bad, Matt.”

  He said dryly, “You’re not bad at psychology, are you?”

  “I’m just a born little psychologist. It’s one of my hidden virtues.”

  “Then let me tell you something, my born little psychologist. Kate Ballou may not like you, but unless you know the merry little mess she’s gotten her life into you couldn’t possibly know why.”

  Kate Ballou’s life a mess? It was easier to think of Matt’s suddenly becoming prim and proper than that.

  He said, “You see, Kate Ballou’s jealous of you.”

  “Of me?” I said incredulously.

  “She didn’t believe it either, even after I told it to her tonight. But it’s true.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you have something she hasn’t got. A man who loves you enough to think you’re the only important thing in the world. Someone who loves you so much that all he can think of is marrying you and then spending the next fifty years being glad of it.”

  I could feel the fear rising in me like a cold bubble. “It’s you, Matt, isn’t it? She’s in love with you.”

  “Me?” he said with such honest surprise that the bubble was gone before it could catch in my throat. “No, it’s not me. It’s someone else. But he isn’t willing to give her what I want to give you, and that’s what she hates you for. So if you feel anything about her, Betty, it would have to be pity. That’s all it comes to, no more and no less.”

  No more and no less. The clock over the mantelpiece said five minutes after two, and now they would have stripped the clothes from her and put them neatly in a bag and locked them in a drawer, and put her in another drawer and slid it into the mortuary box where even pity would be wasted in the ice cold and the darkness.

  Five minutes after two, so it was only five hours and thirty-five minutes ago that my mother had told me who Kate Ballou’s man was, and I had died myself. It was not Bettina Pickett Ayres, nor even the dream Bettina that Matt talked to in my bedroom after breakfast, but something unfamiliar resurrected from their ashes, and Matt had seen that.

  “You’re not yourself when you talk like that, Betty. You’re being your mother, seeing everything from her viewpoint, but it’s not you.”

  “No, maybe it’s not the me you wanted, Matt, but it’s me just the same. And it’s wonderful. I’m getting out of this whole crazy world you set up for yourself where black is white, and everything is upside down, and you make up the rules as you go along. Nobody really belongs there, only you, and you’ll have to stay there all by yourself now.”

  “And you’ll be right back on Nicholas Street where the only sin is being caught.”

  “That’s a fine defense of adultery.”

  “I’m not defending adultery. I’m saying that your mother cheated your father out of what he expected in marriage. And when he finally found it with someone else she wouldn’t permit him to have that either. She could have divorced him any time so that at least he could have made a clean start, but she wouldn’t. If you live on Nicholas Street you’re never supposed to worry about another person’s happiness. You only worry about what the neighbors think.”

  “Or your children’s happiness.”

  “Oh, Betty, if you think your mother is concerned with your happiness and Dick’s happiness that way, you’re a fool. She just needs you like ivy needs the tree. Something to cling to, to feed on. The only difference is that the ivy doesn’t lie to the tree that it’s trying to make it happy!”

  “It won’t work, Matt. Since I’ve known you I’ve been torn apart. When I’m with you I find myself defending my mother; when I’m with her I have to defend you, and that’s all over now. I know just where I stand, and you don’t have any part of it.”

  “And with that merry farewell I am supposed to walk out of your life.”

  “Yes.”

  “If I do it, Betty, shall I tell you what’s bound to happen?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll tell you, anyhow. Sooner or later you’ll get married. And he’ll be some dreary hulk from Nicholas Street who gets a paunch and jowls, and never reads anything except the sports pages, or listens to any music except the Hit Parade, and is as dull as dishwater in bed. And after awhile you’ll begin to see that you’ve been cheated, and I’ll happen to come by some day, and then you’ll find out at first hand why your father did what he did. But it will be too late.”

  I slapped him then. I think when I did that I saw the scene, one where I was facing my dream Jonathan, and that somehow Matt would respond as Jonathan would: hurt, courtly, then brushing aside the sting with precise courtesy—but Matt was nothing that Jonathan was. He looked briefly surprised, and then his hand met my cheek so hard that the room whirled, and I found myself up against the wall, my eyes blind with tears, and the pain oozing from my face.

  “And now we’re even,” said Matt, and walked out of the room on that, banging the door viciously behind him.

  Now he sat with my father on the sofa, and the clock said twenty minutes after two, and we waited.

  It was almost three when Mr. Ten Eyck returned with Dick and Junie, and Bob Macek was with them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I remember wondering, when Junie started keeping company with Bob Macek, why she wasn’t frightened to death every time he put an arm around her. Unless you saw him playing football or baseball he looked slow and clumsy, but he was tremendously big and strong, and with a sort of violent need to prove his strength to you any chance he got. It was impossible to talk to him for more than two minutes without having him start on the subject of how hard he could throw a baseball, or how he could beat up some man, or how much meat he could carry in one armload, after which you would find yourself involved in the childish busine
ss of feeling his biceps and telling him how big it was.

  All this might have been amusing in someone else, but there was a hard, sullen arrogance in Bob which made it thoroughly unfunny and a little frightening. I think the only time I ever saw a crack show in that arrogance was the evening he challenged Dick to some sort of arm-wrestling where, with elbows propped on the kitchen table and hands clasped, each tried to force the other’s arm down to the table. For all that he is so quiet and bookish Dick is very strong, and after minutes of straining and grunting with both their faces turning beet-red it was Bob’s arm that was forced down. They did it again, and again Dick won.

  It was easy to see that Bob was sick with humiliation and was looking for some way to redeem himself when he turned to Matt. “How about you, Chaves? Want to try for the championship?”

  “No, thanks,” said Matt.

  “Hell, for a little guy you look hard as nails. There must be some muscles there.”

  “I retired them when I hit thirty. I figured that was the least I could do for them after they carried me this far.”

  Bob was grinning all over, and you could see that crack in the arrogance mending while you watched. “You don’t say? You mean if somebody got hold of you like that,” he grabbed Matt’s shoulders and shook him like a friendly bear, “and roughed you up a little you’d just holler for the cops? Why, man, you’re chicken.”

  Matt abruptly knocked the arms aside and stood there looking at Bob, his face deadly. “Look, my friend,” he said in a flat voice, “I’ll make myself clear. I don’t like to be roughed up. I don’t even like to be touched, and when anybody does it to me I take it he means business. If that’s what you’re aiming at we can take care of it right here in the kitchen where it’s nice and light. We’ll just push everything up to the wall and have all the room we want.”

  He looked like a taut watch spring against Bob, and Bob was growing bigger by the second. “Hell, if that’s what you want,” he said.

  “That’s what I want. But I also want to tell you one thing in advance. If we’re going to fight it won’t be for fun. The one thing I’ll be trying to do is kill you, and any way I can do it is all right with me, including getting hold of a knife and shoving it into you. That’s fair warning, so that when it’s all over nobody’ll have any kick coming.”

  We all looked at him dumfounded, and then Bob said what, I suppose, we were all thinking. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m dead serious.”

  Bob glowered at him. “Hell, I don’t fight like that.”

  “That’s because you believe in fair play. It’s just your tough luck that I don’t.”

  Bob shook his head blankly at that. “You know what?” he finally said with absolute conviction. “You’re crazy.

  But they didn’t fight, and the only thing that came out of the queer little episode was that Junie’s antagonism to Matt became sharper than ever. She worshiped my mother, who did treat her very well, and from the start she had taken mother’s viewpoint of Matt. And that scene in the kitchen, and the way Bob had somehow been subtly discredited, added the finishing touch. There was never any questioning Junie’s fierce loyalty to Bob or her devotion to him, even though, at times, it made me think of a particularly frisky little French poodle taking charge of a large, sullen mastiff.

  I had that thought now, watching them enter the room along with Mr. Ten Eyck and Dick and my mother. Junie looked scared to death, but seemed to be shepherding Bob along.

  Does a man want a woman to act like that at such a time? If I went over and sat down next to Matt, and held his hand, and looked around the room defiantly, what would he say and do? It was always hard to predict what he would say or do under any conditions, and it was harder than ever now. Suppose that he—suppose that Bob had really done to Kate what everyone thinks he has done—how would it feel to hold his hand? There wasn’t any question in Junie’s mind about that; why should there be such a tormenting doubt in mine?

  “I’m glad you all stayed here,” Mr. Ten Eyck said, “because it’s important to clear up as much of this as we can right now.”

  And suppose he did clear it up? Suppose that suddenly Bob broke down and admitted in front of us all that he had killed Kate Ballou? What would Junie do then? Again there wasn’t any doubt about the answer, but what if it were Matt who suddenly—

  But I had cut free of him, damn him! He wasn’t any concern of mine!

  “How it works is this,” Mr. Ten Eyck said, and he was every dull lecturer I ever sat through in all my years at Teacher’s College, “first, we have to get facts for the coroner’s jury. Second, if it looks like somebody special did it, we have to make out a case against him so he can be arraigned and held for Grand Jury indictment.” He cleared his throat. “Now, what I would like you to understand is that because I am one of you, so to speak, like a friend I would like you to co-operate. If we can put a case together that makes sense, well and good. If not, I am afraid there is going to be a lot of upset here.”

  “Could there be any more than there is now?” my mother said.

  “There could be a lot more, Lucille. When this case goes to the District Attorney the County Detective moves in. That will probably be Terhoven for this case, and he’s a tough man. But if I can go to him and say, this is the case, it all adds up one, two, three, you can avoid having him push you around. I’m being honest about this; I want you to be the same. Terhoven is not a pleasant character; cut him loose on an investigation, and next you know everybody’s dirty linen is flapping on the clothesline. Is that understood?

  “Well now,” he waved a piece of paper at my mother, and I saw it was the note found in Kate Ballou’s house. “You say, Lucille, you positively recognize this handwriting as Bob’s?”

  “There isn’t a question about it, Morten.”

  Mr. Ten Eyck suddenly wheeled on Bob. “Then why do you keep saying you didn’t write this?”

  “I didn’t! I swear I didn’t!”

  “And it also matches the writing in the account books you showed me. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. But I didn’t write it. I wasn’t near her house last night.”

  Matt slowly walked toward Mr. Ten Eyck. “Do you mind if I take a look at that note?”

  “If you stop right there,” Mr. Ten Eyck said, “and keep your hands right where they belong.” He held the note up toward Matt. “Now, do you have any opinions?”

  “Well,” Matt said thoughtfully, and studied the paper as if he were examining each word in detail. He suddenly turned to Bob. “Why didn’t you sign it?” he asked.

  “I did!” Bob shouted. “I’m sure I did!” and then his voice choked off, and for tick after tick the only sound in the room was that clock on the mantelpiece.

  Junie was the first one to react, and she did it violently. “You filthy scum!” she screamed at Matt, and in the same instant she dashed at him, her arms out, her fingers clawing. Someone met her with a jolt before she could get at him, and then as I went staggering I realized with astonishment that I was the one who had thrown myself at her. Now Morten had an arm around her and was dragging her back with everyone else watching stupefied, and all the time she cursed Matt with an insane ferocity. Word after word that she dragged up from the bottom of the Five Corners’ lexicon. Then Bob had his arms around her and she went to pieces there, hitting at his chest with her fists and sobbing over and over, “You didn’t do it, Bob! I know you didn’t! Tell them you didn’t!”

  It was terrible to watch, even more terrible the way Mr. Ten Eyck watched Bob over Junie’s shoulder.

  “So you admit you wrote that note,” MR. Ten Eyck said in a flat voice.

  “Sure, I wrote it! But I didn’t kill her! I wouldn’t do anything like that!”

  “The note says that you were calling her, and that you would be back again. You put the note in the door, and then you ran away because you were afraid somebody might know who you were, like Dick here. But you came back later, and you saw
the lady then. Isn’t that so?”

  “No! I didn’t come back. I never saw her at all last night.”

  “No? Then why did you threaten you would?”

  “I didn’t threaten anybody. I just wanted to get the money she owed on her bill. When she came by the store Thursday she said she was moving back to New York over the week end, and she wanted to close her account. Then I couldn’t seem to get in touch with her, so I started to worry. You know how people are. So I called a few times, and then I figured maybe the phone wasn’t working right or something, and I left the note I had to see her. But I didn’t go back, and I didn’t see her.”

  “That’s a pretty fancy note to leave for collecting a bill.”

  “I only wanted her to pay what she owed. You know how people are. So I started to worry ….”

  “You already said that.”

  “But I didn’t go back again and I never saw her. Why would I want to do anything to her? Why couldn’t it be that guy who was in the house when I left the note?”

  Morten gaped at him. I suppose we all gaped at him then.

  “‘That guy who was in the house’?” Morten echoed foolishly. “You mean there was somebody in the lady’s house when you were there? Who was it? Do you know him?”

  “I don’t know him, but he was there all right.”

  “So,” Morten said with sudden craftiness. “But how would you know he was there unless you were in the house, too?”

  Bob pulled himself free of Junie and looked at Morten with some scorn. “You don’t have to be in a house to know if somebody’s there when you can see him through the door. This guy was right there, right on the other side of the door when I shoved the note into it. There’s only this thin curtain ….”

  “It’s a glass curtain,” Junie cut in eagerly.

  “Whatever it is. Anyhow, there’s this curtain, and you can see through it a little. And there was this guy right inside, only when I put my face to the glass to make out who it was he pulled away quick. After that, I figured she probably had a date or something and it was no time to be butting in, so I just took off.”