A Swell-Looking Babe

by Jim Thompson

  “I know. We’ll talk about it another time,” Dusty cut in. “Now, please hurry, Dad.”

  He waited in the car while the old man got ready. Impatiently. Trying to stifle his irritation. Probably, he decided, his father was right. He made more money by working nights, but his expenses were higher. There was this car, for example; bus service was slow and irregular late at night, so the car was virtually a necessity. And that was only part of the story. There were usually two sets of meals to fix—or to buy away from home. There was his father, free to do as he chose and always in need of money. Still…

  Dusty shrugged and shook his head. He wouldn’t change jobs for a while, anyway. Not anyway until—and if—he went back to college. He didn’t sleep well at night. He hadn’t slept well since his mother’s death, and, yes, even before that. Of course, it was hard sleeping in the daytime, but that was different. It wasn’t like lying alone in the darkness and quiet, thinking and worrying and—and listening.

  …He drove the old man downtown, and opened the car door for him. Mr. Rhodes started to slide out of the seat, hesitated.

  “You know, Bill, we never did get around to talking about my case. I mentioned that letter the other night, and you said—”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Dusty said. “We’ll see about it.”

  “Well…” Mr. Rhodes looked at him thoughtfully, he sighed and put a foot on the sidewalk. “I thought I might go to a show after I get through here, Bill. If that’s all right with you.”

  “You do that,” Dusty nodded. “Pick some place with air-conditioning.”

  “Well, I-I’m not sure that—”

  “I am,” Dusty said firmly. “You must have enough money, Dad. You couldn’t help but have.”

  “Well…well, maybe,” the old man mumbled. “I guess I have at that.”

  He got out and trudged away. Dusty drove home, and went to bed. This was one day, he thought, he’d really get some sleep. He was so tired that…that…

  He was asleep almost the moment that he climbed into bed. An hour later he was aroused by the laundry man.

  He put the laundry away, and went back to sleep. Another hour passed—roughly an hour. And the man from the cleaner’s came.

  This time it was harder returning to sleep. He smoked a couple of cigarettes, got a drink of water, tossed and turned restlessly on the bedclothes. Finally, at long last, he drifted off into unconsciousness. And the phone rang.

  He tried to ignore it, to pretend that it was not ringing. It rang on and on, refusing to be denied. Cursing, Dusty flung himself out of bed and answered it.

  “Mr. Rhodes? Hope I didn’t interrupt anything, but your father said I was to be sure to…”

  It was the optometrist.

  Dusty learned the amount of his bill, muttered a goodbye and slammed the phone back in its cradle. He returned to bed, but now, of course, sleep was impossible. His eyes kept popping open. His head throbbed with a surly, sullen anger. Unreasoning, focusing gradually on just one object…Why the hell did he have to go to a show today? Why couldn’t he ever do anything except make a damned nuisance of himself? All he thought of was his own comfort, his own welfare. Lying and sponging to get money for those—

  Abruptly, Dusty got up. Sullenly ashamed, vaguely alarmed. He didn’t really feel that way about his father. He couldn’t be blamed much if he did, but he didn’t. He didn’t feel at all that way. He was just grouchy with the heat and work and not being able to sleep.

  There was still some coffee on the stove. He drank a cup, smoking a cigarette with it, and went into the bathroom. Today was as good a time as any to see those lawyers. A good time to get it over with, since he couldn’t sleep. He came out of the bathroom, dressed and headed for town.

  …The building was an old faded-brick walkup, squatting almost directly across the street from the county courthouse. Dusty climbed the worn stairs to the second floor, and proceeded past a series of doors with the legend:

  McTeague & Kossmeyer

  Attorneys at Law

  Entrance 200

  Room 200 was at the end of the corridor, uncarpeted, high-ceilinged, barren of everything—it seemed to Dusty—except spitoons and people. A low wooden rail with a swinging gate enclosed one corner of the room. Dusty made his way to the barrier, and gave his name to a graying, harried-looking woman.

  “McTeague?” she said. “Something personal? You a friend of his? Well, you don’t see Mac then. Kossy does all the seeing in this firm.”

  “Well…” Dusty hesitated. He didn’t want to see Kossmeyer—“Caustic” Kossmeyer, as the newspapers called him. From what he had observed of the attorney, it would not be easy to say the things to him that he had come to say.

  “Well,” the woman said. “Kossmeyer?”

  “You’re sure I can’t—?”

  “Kossmeyer,” she said grimly. With finality. And jabbed a plug into her switchboard. “Now sit down and stay put, will you? Don’t go wandering off someplace where I can’t find you.”

  She kept her eyes on him until he sat down—on a bench between a middle-aged Mexican in soiled khakis and a middle-aged matron in crisp cretonne. Dusty started to light a cigarette, then noting the sidelong glance the matron gave him, dropped it into one of the ubiquitous spittoons. Uncomfortably, he looked around the room.

  A young, scared-looking couple sat in one of the windows, holding hands. A few feet away from them, a paunchy man in an expensive suit talked earnestly to a bosomy, flashily dressed blonde. Two men with zoot coats and snapbrimmed hats were playing the match game. Three Negroes, obviously mother, father and son, huddled in a corner and conversed in whispers…It was as though a cross-section of the city’s population had been swept up and set down in the room.

  Dusty stood up, casually. The receptionist wasn’t looking at him. He’d just saunter on out. Tomorrow he’d write a letter to the firm. A letter would do just as well as a personal talk—almost as well, anyway—and…

  The door inside the barrier opened, and Kossmeyer came out. Rather, he lunged out, pushing a sharp-faced oldish young man ahead of him. His voice rasped stridently through the suddenly stilled room.

  “All right,” he was saying. “Suit yourself. Be your own lawyer. But don’t come crying to me afterwards. You want to go to the jug, it’s your funeral, but I ain’t sending any flowers.”

  “Now, look, Kossy”—the man’s eyes darted around the room. “I didn’t mean—”

  “You look,” said Kossmeyer. “You ever see yourself in a mirror? Well, take a good gander…”

  Dusty watched, fascinated.

  Kossmeyer didn’t look anything like the other man; he was barely five feet tall and he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. But now, despite their facial and physical dissimilarity, he looked strikingly like him. In an instant, he had made himself into a hideous caricature of the other. His eyes had become shifting and beady, his face sinisterly slack-jawed. He had caved in his chest, simultaneously squaring his shoulders so that his elbows were forced out from his sides. His pants were drawn high beneath his armpits. He wore no coat, but he seemed to, a coat that hung almost to the knees like the other man’s. Eyes darting he slowly revolved, not moving a muscle of his dead-pan face…

  He was preposterous. Preposterous yet somehow frightening. A cartoon labelled CRIME. And, then, suddenly, he was himself again.

  “You see, Ace? You got three strikes called the minute they look at you. Just handing it to ’em straight ain’t good enough. We got to knock’em over, know what I mean? Pile it around ’em so high they can’t see over it.”

  The man nodded. “You got me sold. Now, how about—”

  “Beat it. Come back tomorrow.” Kossmeyer gave him a shove through the gate, and bent over the receptionist. He said, “Yeah? Where?” and glanced up. Then Dusty heard him say, “Oh…the son…junior…”

  And the next instant he was out of the enclosure and gripping Dusty’s hand.

  “Glad to see you, Rhodes
, Bill…No, I bet they call you Dusty, don’t they? Come on in.”

  Dusty hung back. Or tried to. “I—it’s nothing important, Mr. Kossmeyer. I can come back some other—”

  “Nonsense.” The attorney propelled him through the throng. “Been hoping you’d drop in. Let’s see, you’re over at the Manton, right? Nice people. Done a little work for them myself. How’s your father? How you like this weather? What…?”

  Talking rapidly, answering his own questions, he ushered Dusty into his office and slammed the door.

  Except for the bookcases, the room was practically as barren as the one outside. Kossmeyer waved Dusty to a chair, and perched on the desk in front of him.

  “Glad you came in,” he repeated. “Wanted to ask you, but I knew you worked nights. How about a drink? You look kind of tired.”

  “Thanks. I don’t drink,” Dusty said.

  “Yeah? Well I was saying— I’m damned glad you came in. I got a pretty good idea how you feel, Dusty. We’ve been on this thing about a year now, and we seem to be getting nowhere fast. Your father still out of a job. You stuck with a lot of expenses. You’re asking yourself, what the hell, and I don’t blame—”

  “About that”—Dusty cleared his throat. “About the expenses, Mr. Kossmeyer. I’m afraid I can’t—I mean, it seems to me that—”

  “Sure.” The little man nodded vigorously. “They’ve been high. Just the costs alone on a deal like this can hit a guy pretty hard. I—” he paused. “You know that’s all we’ve taken, don’t you? Just the actual expense of filing briefs and serving papers, and so on.”

  “Well, no,” Dusty said. “I didn’t know it. But—”

  “But it’s still too much,” Kossmeyer interrupted. “Anything’s too much when it ain’t buying anything. But that’s just the way it looks to you, y’know, Dusty? It’s just the way it looks from the outside. Actually, we’re making a lot of headway. We’ve been pouring in the nickels, and now we’re just about to hit the jackpot. I—”

  “Mr. Kossmeyer,” said Dusty, “I want you to drop the case.”

  “Huh-uh. No, you don’t,” the lawyer said. “You just think you do. Like I’ve been telling you, kid, we’re just about to pick up the marbles. Give me two or three more months, and—”

  “It won’t do any good if Dad does win. He’s not going to be able to go back to his job. He’s not—well, he’s just not himself any more.”

  “Who the hell is?” Kossmeyer shrugged. “But I know what you mean, Dusty. I’ve seen him myself, y’know. This knocked the props out from under him, and he’s still going around in a daze. I’d say the best way to snap him out of it is to—”

  “He’s not physically well either. He’s—”

  “Sure, he’s not,” Kossmeyer agreed. “A man’s sick, he’s sick all over.”

  “I want you to drop it,” Dusty said stubbornly. “Winning the case won’t really change anything. People will go right on thinking that—what they’ve been thinking. It would be impossible for him to work.”

  “Yeah, but, kid…” Kossmeyer paused, a puzzled frown on his small, sharp-featured face. “Let me see if I got you right, Dusty. We’re supposed to have free speech in this country; it’s guaranteed by the constitution. So a man does something in support of that guarantee, and a bunch of know-nothings and professional patriots do a job on him. He’s right and they’re as wrong as teeth in a turkey, but he’s supposed to take it. Just crawl in a hole and stay there. Don’t give ’em no trouble, so they can go on and do the same kind of job on another guy. Is that what you mean?”

  “I’m sorry,” Dusty said doggedly. “I can’t help it that things are the way they are. It’s not right, of course, but—”

  “I think you’re low-pricing your dad,” Kossmeyer said. “He thought enough of this issue to go to bat on it. I don’t see him running for the dugout just because they’re tossing pop bottles. If he gets his job back—when he gets it back, I should say—he won’t let ’em smoke him out. He’ll be right in there pitching a long time after these bastards are ducking for cover themselves.”

  He nodded firmly. Dusty shook his head. “I don’t think he felt that way. I mean, well, like he was fighting for something. I doubt that he even knew what he was signing. Someone handed him a petition and he just…”

  “Yeah?” Kossmeyer waited. “Why didn’t he say so, then? That it was all a misunderstanding? That would have let him off the hook.”

  “Well,” Dusty hesitated. “I…he probably thought they wouldn’t believe him.”

  “I see,” said Kossmeyer. “Well, possibly you’re right. After all, if a son doesn’t know his father, who does?”

  He stared at Dusty blandly, his bright black eyes friendly and guileless. And yet there was something about him, there had been something for several minutes now, that was vaguely disturbing. He was like some small deadly bird, coaxing a clumsy prey within striking distance.

  Dusty took out his cigarettes, fumbled one from the package. Instantly, Kossmeyer was holding a match for him.

  “Had a pretty rough time of it, haven’t you, kid? Losing out on your schooling. Losing your mother. Working and trying to take care of a sick old man at the same time.”

  “I don’t mind,” Dusty said. “I’m glad to do what I can.”

  “Sure, you are, but it’s plenty tough just the same. Well, I thought we’d gone pretty easy with you on money, but maybe we can make it a little lighter still. That’s your only objection to going on with the case, isn’t it? The expense. If we can take care of that, you’d just as soon we went ahead.”

  “Well, I—I wouldn’t want you to—”

  “We’ll work something out,” Kossmeyer said. “Maybe—y’know, it’s just possible we can get by without any more expenses. If I can get your father to cooperate.”

  “If…?” Dusty’s head was beginning to ache. “I don’t understand.”

  “You gave me an idea a minute ago. About your father signing that petition without knowing what he was doing. Now, that might be pretty hard for people to swallow, particularly at this late date. And I kind of think he wouldn’t want to make such an admission, anyway. If he wasn’t any brighter than that, he shouldn’t have been holding the job he was in…”

  “But what—”

  “That petition was floating around everywhere. Different copies of it. Maybe someone signed your dad’s name to it. You…Here! You’re about to burn your fingers, kid.”

  Kossmeyer reached behind him and procured an ashtray. He extended it in a lean, steady hand.

  Dusty ground out his cigarette. “Why would anyone sign his name?”

  “Some joker maybe. Some guy who wanted to get him into trouble.”

  “But why wouldn’t Dad have said so if—”

  “We-el”—Kossmeyer pursed his lips—“now, that’s a question, ain’t it? Ordinarily, I’d say he was standing on the principle of the thing. He had a right to sign it, and regardless of whether he did or not isn’t important. It’s the principle involved, not the physical action itself. But you say he doesn’t feel that way, so— That is what you said, isn’t it?—so I guess he must have another reason.”

  He continued to stare at Dusty, frowning thoughtfully, interested and sympathetic: a man helping a friend with a puzzling problem. He waited, watched and waited, and Dusty could only look back at him wordlessly, his throat dry, a slow hot flush creeping over his face. The silence mounted. It became unbearable.

  And then Kossmeyer shrugged, and grinned deprecatingly. “Listen to me rave, huh? Who the hell would forge your old man’s signature? It don’t make sense any way you look at it. All your dad would have to do is call in a handwriting expert, and he’d be in the clear like that.”

  He snapped his fingers, demonstrating. He slid off the desk, and held out his hand. “Don’t want to rush you off, kid, but I got a lot of people waiting and…”

  “I’ve got to run along, anyway.” Dusty stood up hastily. “I’ll—thanks very much for see
ing me, and—”

  It wasn’t what he wanted to say. He hadn’t said anything he’d wanted to say. He’d gotten all twisted around, and all he could think of now was release. All he wanted now was to escape from this friendly, helpful and terrifying little man.

  “I’ll—I hope I see you again,” he mumbled weakly.

  “Sure you will.” Kossmeyer gave him a hearty clap on the back. “Any old time, kid. If it ain’t convenient for you to come in, I’ll look you up.”

  He held the door open, beaming, ushered Dusty through it. He shook hands again. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll keep in touch. You can depend on it, Dusty.”

  6

  As it often did, after a scorching day, the night brought rain. It had started a few minutes before Dusty came to work; now, at three in the morning, it had settled down to a slow steady drizzle.

  It was a quiet shift. No guests had come in on the late train, and there had been hardly a dozen room calls thus far. He and Bascom were practically through with their paper work; at least, there was little remaining that he could help with. Lounging at the side of the door of the lobby, he drank in the wonderfully cool clean air, watching the curtain of rain flow endlessly into the oily black pavement.

  He was feeling good, all things considered, considering that he had had almost no sleep. It was cool, and Kossmeyer hadn’t guessed anything—what the hell was there for him to guess, anyway?—and Bascom was being decent for a change. Bascom had been taking a lot out of him, Dusty decided. You were bound to be nervous and depressed when you had some guy riding you night after night.

  Dusty flipped his cigarette into the street, and went back into the lobby. Bascom called to him pleasantly from the cashier’s cage.

  “How does it look, Bill? Still coming down pretty hard?”

  “Not too bad. You can make it all right if you take an umbrella.”

  “Good. Think I’ll go get a bite to eat, then.”

  Dusty went behind the desk. Bascom came out of the cashier’s cage, locked the door behind him and got an umbrella. He opened the door at the rear of the keyrack, and emerged into the lobby.