by Jim Thompson
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Oh, sure. And it followed you back to the corner again?”
“Yes. Well, no, not quite. You see, there were quite a few cars passing and—”
“I see,” I said. And, boy, did I want to paste her. Scaring hell out of me; coming down around the store where Staples might have seen her. “Are you even sure that it was the same car? What kind of car was it, anyway?”
“I—I d-don’t know. I don’t know much about cars. I t-think it was the same as this one.”
“You do, huh?” I said. “And do you know how many cars there are like this one on the road? Well, I’ll tell you. Just about eight million!”
“Then you don’t t-think—?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t trust myself to speak. She saw how I felt, apparently, and she shut up, too.
Stupid. How stupid could you get, anyway? It wasn’t enough that she was a tramp, she had to be stupid on top of it.
There were a lot of college guys out in that section of town. One of ’em—or some guy—had tried to pick her up. He sees a swell-looking kid out by herself at night, so he follows her, thinking she’ll give him a tumble. And all he’d have to do was say how about it, toots, and she’d probably have jumped into his car. But he didn’t know that, so…
Well, anyway, that’s what had happened. Something of the kind. It had given her a hell of a jolt, naturally, being scared and having a guilty conscience and having to stay in that house where everything had happened. But still she shouldn’t have acted like this. This was a hell of a stupid way to act.
I drove along toward the country, calming down. I began to feel sorry for her, to think that I couldn’t really blame her for losing her head. It might have jarred anyone that was in the spot she was in. Even me, I might have been jarred myself. And I’m a guy that’s used to taking it.
I started talking again, dropping in a sweet word now and then. I explained to her what had happened—that there wasn’t a thing in the world to be scared about. She couldn’t believe it at first. She’d been knocked for such a loop that she couldn’t see the truth when it was pointed out to her. And proved to her. But I went on talking, and finally she did.
We were in the country by then. I turned off the highway, and parked. She leaned toward me a little, smiling kind of timidly. I put my arms around her. The coat she had on was worn thin, and all she had on underneath was one of those wraparounds. I could feel her, the warmth and the softness.
“Well?” I put my mouth to her ear and whispered. “Howzabout it, toots?”
“W-what? Oh,” she said, and she blushed. “You mean here—in the d-daytime.”
“What the hell?” I said. “You know the score. You ought to know it, anyway.”
She didn’t say anything, but something happened to her eyes. They went sick, so sick, as sick as a sick dog’s. And I moved my hands away from where they had been, and just hugged her tight around the shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I talk pretty rough, you know, and I just wasn’t thinking how it sounded.”
“I-it’s—it’s all right, Dolly.”
“Forget I said it, huh? Because I didn’t mean a thing; just a manner of speaking. Hell, I knew all about you—everything there was to know in the beginning, didn’t I? And it didn’t make a damned bit of difference, did it?”
“I n-never wanted to, Dolly. With you, yes. Everything was different and I wanted to give you everything that I—”
“Sure. Don’t you suppose I know that?” I smiled at her, gave her a big hug—and for a moment I forgot all about Joyce. “You’re the sweetest, nicest girl in the world, and we’re going to have a swell life together. We’ll hang around town two or three weeks longer—just to make sure—and then we’ll pull out. And there won’t be any past, baby, just the future, and…”
She snuggled up against me. After a while, I ran out of words, so I just held her and patted her. I kept it up for, well, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Then, a string of cars started to go by, and we had to move apart.
“Dolly. I hate to—I don’t like to bother you, but—”
“You couldn’t bother me,” I said. “You just tell old Dolly about it, and if he can fix it up he will.”
“Well, could I see you tonight? Just for a little while. I get so s-scared in that house! If I could see you for just a little while b-before I went to bed…”
There was still some of the sickness and hurt in her eyes. Not a whole lot, but it wouldn’t take much to make it into a lot. I couldn’t have her think I was slapping her down again.
“Well, I’d sure like to,” I said, “but it might not be too smart, see? If someone should spot me over there around your place—”
“Let me come over to yours, then! P-please, Dolly. Just for a few minutes and I won’t ask you again until—until it’s all over.”
Well…
Well?
“You weren’t—you meant that about the police? You’re sure they’re not watching me? You’re not afraid to have me—”
I said sure I was sure; I wouldn’t snow her about a thing like that. “You see it’s this way, honey. Here’s the rub. My boss, this character Staples—the guy you took the bail money to—well, he drops out a lot in the evening. To talk about the work, you know. And if he saw you there, it would blow things higher than a kite. He was pretty suspicious about that dough, anyway. I wasn’t supposed to have any, see, and you’re sure not supposed to have any. We’re not suppose to mean a thing to each other. So if he found out—”
She was nodding almost impatiently. She understood about Staples. But that still didn’t take me off the hook.
“I could come later, Dolly. Any time—midnight. He wouldn’t be there that late.”
“Well, yeah, sure,” I said. “But—uh—”
“Oh,” she said, dully.
“Now, wait a minute,” I said. “I’m trying to explain, honey. You see, well, it’s kind of hard to put into words, but—uh—uh—”
“I understand,” she said.
I couldn’t have her feeling that way. It made me squirm, and it just wasn’t safe. Not now. Not at this stage of the game, anyway, when she was still so shaky that she could hardly cast a shadow.
“Why don’t we do this?” I said. “Suppose you come over around nine o’clock, and I’ll meet you outside. I’ll say—in case someone’s there—I’ll say that I want to get some cigarettes, and I’ll meet you down the block there from the wrecking yard. On the corner there by the drug store.”
“Well…If you’re sure you want to.”
“I’d love to. I just wanted to play it safe, see, that’s all. Hell, baby, there’s nothing I like better than being with you.”
I made her believe it. I said I’d been worried about her being without dough, and I started to reach back to my sample case. And, then, I caught myself, and took out my wallet. I didn’t want her to know I had the loot with me. The way she’d been feeling, just a little doubtful about me, she might decide to ask for a cut.
I gave her five bucks of my own money. We talked a little longer, and then I drove her to the bus stop and let her out.
I didn’t feel like working that day, either, but I put in a few hours, just to pass the time. I took in around twenty dollars, padding it out with forty from the satchel. The rest of the day, I just fooled around; and at six I checked in.
Staples was okay. I mean, he didn’t give me the needle. I was out of the store in ten minutes, and on my way home.
The gravel cars had been pulled off the siding, and three gondolas of coal were there tonight. One of the cars was sticking half way out into the street, and it was a close squeeze getting the car past it. I finally made it and I parked and went into the house.
I called out to Joyce. Her voice came back to me faintly from the bedroom. I glanced into the dinette.
Dinner was ready. It was on the table, but there was only one place setting. Mine.
I set down the sample case, took off
my hat and coat. I hesitated, and then I went back to the bedroom. I paused in the doorway—it didn’t seem like I could go any further—and stood looking in at her.
She was in bed with the covers pulled pretty well over her, but I could see she had on her nightgown. She was facing the wall, her back to me, and she didn’t turn around.
“Y-you”—I cleared my throat—“You sick or something, honey?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. Then, she said, her voice muffled, “I don’t feel too well. Go and eat your dinner while it’s hot, Dolly.”
“Well, hell,” I said. “Where are you sick, anyway? What’s the matter?”
“Eat your dinner,” she said—pretty crisply. “We can talk afterward.”
“Well, okay,” I said. “Maybe I’d better.”
I didn’t have much of an appetite for some reason, but I ate. I ate slow, taking my time, and I drank three cups of coffee afterwards. And when I couldn’t hold any more coffee, I started smoking, lighting one cigarette after another.
She called to me.
I called back, “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute, honey.”
I finished my cigarette. I got up and went down the hall toward the bedroom. And I got there. And I couldn’t make myself go in. I said, “B-be…be with you in a minute, baby,” and I went into the bathroom and closed the door.
I looked around in there, and it was like I’d never seen the place before. No, nothing had been changed, nothing had been done to it, but something had happened to me. Everything seemed strange, twisted out of shape. I was lost in a strange world, and there was nothing familiar to hang onto.
Nothing. No one. No one I could talk to, explain things to.
I sat down on the edge of the tub, and lighted a cigarette. I crushed it out in the sink without thinking; and then I got up and crumbled the butt into shreds and washed the shreds down the drain. I washed the sink out real good until there wasn’t a spot or a stain left on it.
I sat down on the toilet, and lighted another cigarette.
I stayed there in the bathroom. It was a strange world, but it was even stranger outside. I could sit here and explain to myself, and hell, it was clear as daylight. But I couldn’t explain to her.
She called to me.
I yelled that I’d be out in a minute…and I stayed where I was.
She called again; I yelled again. She came to the door—finally—and knocked. And I yelled, for Christ’s sake, what’s the hurry, anyway? And she turned the knob and came in.
She’d been crying; so much and so long that she was cried out. And now her face was drawn, streaked with tears. But her eyes were clear, and her voice was steady.
“I want to know, Dolly. I intend to know, so don’t try to lie to me. Where did you get that money?”
18
THROUGH THICK AND THIN: THE TRUE STORY OF A MAN’S FIGHT AGAINST HIGH ODDS AND LOW WOMEN…by Knarf Nollid
Well, dear reader, in looking over my last installment I discovered that I have made a small error or two in fact. This was no fault of mine because, although I seldom complain, you have doubtless discovered that I am one hard luck son-of-a-bitch, and people keep pouring it on me until I don’t know my tail from a t-bone. So this was the case in this case. There was so much happening at once that I got slightly balled up in my facts.
The truth is this—the truth about this girl, Mona, I was telling you about. This old woman she was living with, she wasn’t actually her aunt at all. She was a kidnapper, see, and she’d kidnapped this poor girl from her wealthy parents while she was still no more than a tot—so naturally she didn’t remember anything about them—and this one hundred thousand dollars was ransom money. The old woman was afraid to spend it because, well, hell, how do I know? Oh, yeah. She was afraid to spend it because at first she had to lay low until the heat was off, and after a while everyone got to believing that she didn’t have a dime to her name and she couldn’t spend it. It would have looked funny as hell, know what I mean? So that was the way it happened, or something like that. She couldn’t bring herself to throw the dough away, but she couldn’t spend it either. It was some sort of screwy deal like that, and however it was, it isn’t really important. The important thing is that the money really belonged to Mona, since her wealthy parents had been dead many years of broken hearts. And since I had saved her from a fate worse than death, it wasn’t any more than right that she should kind of let me take care of it for her. Or maybe even keep it all. Because if she was actually a tramp, like rumor said, I sure as hell wasn’t going to have her tagging around with me.
Well, I was going to explain these true events to my wife, Joyce, when she returned unexpectedly and caught me with the dough. But I just couldn’t think fast enough, I guess, so I stalled and a day or so later I told her I’d found the money. It sounded more logical than the truth, and anyway I hadn’t been able to figure out the truth yet. Hell, how could I, the way things were popping at me right and left? This character Staples was giving me a hard time. Mona was giving me a hard time: worrying me about whether she was a tramp or not, and getting scared and making me scared. And, Joyce, well, I was glad she’d come back, because it looked like she’d turned over a new leaf and all was about to be well between us. But you can see how it was just one more goddamned thing to mix me up.
So I hadn’t got around to tell her the truth yet. There wasn’t any real incentive to, you know, as long as she believed that I’d found the money. Then the day came when she gave the house a good cleaning—and believe me it could stand it!—and when I get home that night, all knocked out after a rugged day of toil, she starts giving me a hard time. She hardly lets me finish my dinner before she starts yapping at me—wants me to come back in the bedroom and do some talking. So I rush through my meal and step in the bedroom for a minute—for God’s sake, what’s the world coming to when a guy can’t go to the bathroom? But it seems like even this humble privilege is not to be mine.
I hardly have the door closed before she’s calling to me. And I know something’s plenty wrong, see, and all I want is time enough to figure out a good story. It’s for her own sake, understand? Because if she decides I’m lying about the money, it leaves her in a pretty bad spot. She’ll want me to go to the police or she’ll go herself and I just can’t allow that. Even though the money is rightfully mine. The cops won’t believe the truth any more than she does, so…so, well you can see the situation.
I’m a pretty easy-going guy, and never hurt anyone in my life if I could get out of it. But if she tried to pin me down, give me a hard time when I already had more than I could stand, it would be just too bad for her.
So I stalled in the bathroom, wondering what the hell she’d found out and how the hell I could squirm out of it. But she just wouldn’t have it that way; she wouldn’t let me protect her. She had to bust into the bathroom on me, and ask where did I get the money. I told her. I said hell, honey, I already told you where I got it. And she said, you lied, Dolly. I must have known it right from the beginning, but I wanted so much to believe that—that—
“Where were you on Monday night, Dolly?”
“Monday night?” I said. “Oh, the night you came home. Why, I was out collecting, baby. I caught up with some long-time skips, and they paid off like—”
“They did not pay off. Because you weren’t collecting.”
“Now, wait just a minute,” I said. “I told you about it at the time, told you exactly where I’d been. You saw the money I took in, and—”
“I saw you take some money out of that little bag and put it in your wallet. That was all you had, Dolly, except for a dollar or two. I could see that it was the next morning when you took the money I’d brought back from my trip.”
I shrugged. I gave her the cold eye. Hell, what if I hadn’t told her the whole truth? Was that any reason for her to break into the bathroom and accuse me of lying, and act like I’d committed a crime or something?
I will leave you to be the judge, dear r
eader.
All I will say is that, if you insist on putting yourself on a spot, pushing a man who has already been pushed too far, you have got to take the consequences.
“How well did you know Pete Hendrickson, Dolly?”
“Pete?” I said. “Pete Hendrickson? I never heard of him in my life.”
“He was killed Monday night. He and a woman named Farrell.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Oh, yeah. Seems like I remember reading something about it.”
“You didn’t know him personally?”
“Know him?” I laughed. “Why would I know a character like that?”
“You didn’t know him?”
“I’m telling you,” I said.
“Then why was he in this house? Why did he sleep here?”
I gave her a look like I thought she was crazy. I wanted to protect her, see, and believe me I was doing everything I could. “Why, my God, honey,” I said. “That’s the screwiest thing I ever hear of! What ever gave you the idea that—?”
“This,” she said. “I cleaned house today, and I found this. Down on the floor behind the bed.”
She opened her hand, and held it out: a little blue and white card. Pete Hendrickson’s social security card.
The stupid, sloppy bastard had slept with his clothes on that one night, and he’d let this slip out of his pocket. Just to give me a hard time later, sure. And—and what did it matter, anyhow? Look at the way he’d treated Mona; and besides that he was a Nazi or a Communist or—
“Why did you lie about it, Dolly? Why did you tell me you didn’t know him?”
“Well, hell,” I said, “I know a lot of people. I just didn’t see that it made any difference.”
“Were any of those other people here while I was away?”
“You think I’m running a hotel?” I said. “No, there wasn’t anyone else here, and the only reason he was here was because I felt sorry for him and—uh—”