Young Joe thought he had found a shortcut to happiness ... He lived by his wits, preying on the sexual hunger of aged homosexuals and aging woman ... Like Helen, who loved him with all the passion and devotion of a mother, a wife and a mistress ... But when he let a younger woman talk him into a plot to steal Helen's money-and bring about her death-the shortcut turned into a blind alley from which there was no escape ... Waiting hopelessly for relentless fate to catch up with him, he heard his father's voice: "You who chose the easy way, the short sweet life, have you found happiness? ... One hour of it? One minute of it? ... No, there is no easy road to happiness, you must take the hard road!" ... But now it was too late for that....
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CHAPTER ONE
MIDSUMMER. A WARM AND humid night in Coney Island. A man of medium build, with plumpish face and soft effeminate features, strolls aimlessly along the boardwalk. It's late, nearly midnight, but the boardwalk is still crowded. His eyes can scan the sea of faces, darting here and there, searching hungrily. Suddenly they light on an approaching figure and pause. The man gives a little inaudible gasp of pleasure.
The boy wears a blue polo shirt and a pair of gray cotton trousers. He is nineteen, at most twenty, but his ease of carriage, his dignity, and the cynical curve of his lips, seems to belie his youth. Unless you look close, he might pass for twenty-eight. He is tall, broad-shouldered, sturdily built. His mouth is rather large and sensuous, his eyes are alert, and clear and penetrating. He does not search, but he misses nothing. He is dark complexioned, and his skin is tan.
He walks past the effeminate man, and as he does he averts his eyes. It would seem he hasn't seen the other, yet when he is a few paces past he darts a look back.
The effeminate man has paused. Trembling inwardly he turns. He sees the boy, notices that he has changed his direction and is walking towards the beach rail of the boardwalk. He wonders if it's a signal to him. Dare he hope for such good fortune-a boy of this sort, a dream boy, attracted to him? It never happened before. But how often he had dreamed of it happening!
The boy stopped at the beach rail, put one foot up on the lower rung, and stood there, gazing across the deserted beach. He might be watching the tiny waves fall to shore, listening to the murmur of their advance and retreat. The effeminate man screwed up his courage and started towards the figure at the rail. His was an inward, retreating nature, and in all matters but this-the search for love-he was shy, hesitant, backward, he dared not. But now, though it was against the grain, he dared. He knew that he must. Without brazen boldness, such as he were lost. Every fiber of his being revolted; his knees trembled, sweat formed in his armpits. "Nice evening, isn't it?"
The boy turned to him, looked him up and down, nodded.
Soon they were talking. Talking of the weather, past, present, and future-false, forced conversation, in which neither said what was on his mind. They spoke of Coney Island: the beach, the boardwalk, the crowds. The boy said he lived there all year round, the man said he was a visitor.
"Name's Joe-Joe Brody," said the boy, smiling.
They shook hands. The boy seemed to be friendly enough, but there was something evil and cruel in his smile. The effeminate man feared him secretly. So handsome, quite the loveliest boy, and yet ... He had half a mind to turn now, now while there was still time, turn and flee.
Instead he offered to take the boy riding...." I've got my car parked only a few blocks from here"-his voice stuck in his throat as he said it.
The boy shrugged. "It's up to you, friend....
Nice night for a ride."
In silence, each occasionally glancing out of the sides of his eyes to the other, they walked to the car.
The car turned into a dark unpaved street that dead-ended at the bay. "Park it there, between those two cars," said Joe. "This is a good street. No one ever bothers you."
The man with the soft face brought the car to a stop, shut the ignition, and sat motionless, seemingly frozen, staring off into space. "I-I-" he began, but the words stuck, he could not get them out. His pulses raced, his heart tripped. Then, wildly, he reached for Joe's hand, grasped it, and swooping down kissed the hard bony knuckle.
Joe drew his hand away as the other continued to kiss it greedily. "Wait a minute. Take it easy, will you!" And when the other had released his hand, he grinned, rubbed his cheek, and muttered, "I'm a little short of dough, friend."
"Money?"
"Yeah, money." There was impatience and shame in the boy's voice. It was a game he had played before, but he was not yet hardened to it.
The soft-faced man took out a wallet, drew a ten dollar bill from it, and handed this to the boy. "You should have asked me. If I'd known I would have-"
Joe crumpled the note and stuck it into his shirt pocket. "Thanks, friend. Now, if you don't mind, I'll have the rest." He grabbed for the wallet and yanked it out of the other's grasp. He looked into it, removed the bills, crumpled them, and stuck them into his shirt pocket. Then he tossed the wallet back to its owner, and grinning pressed the door open.
"Wait a minute-not so fast! What is this? Are you a thief-a common thief?"
The effeminate man clutched at him, held on to his clothes. Joe lashed out with his open hand, slapped the soft face, slapped it hard. It fell to the steering wheel and a sound of choked sobbing issued from it.
Joe slammed the door shut behind him.
"Queer!" he muttered in disgust; and he spat on the ground. "Stinking queer!"
He moved off into the dark warm summer night, a cab passed, but he didn't hail it. He walked all the way to Mrs. Gowan's rooming house. He wasn't worried, he knew that the queer wouldn't preach to the cops. Queers never preached-he had learned from experience.
He entered the tall gray building and ascended the creaking wooden stairway to the top floor. In his room he drew out the bills, pressed them flat on the dresser. Thirty-five bucks-better than he had expected. Enough to pay Mrs. Gowan the back rent and keep him in eats for a while. He stripped off his shirt and looked at his hard, muscular body in the glass. He grinned at the reflection, stretching the cruel lips, baring the strong white teeth. It was great to be alive, to be on his own and living by his wits!
He got to the beach late, about noon, and found Rudy Gowan waiting for him. Rudy was about the same age as himself, a chubby round-faced boy, with fat rosy cheeks and black curly hair. He was good-natured and easy-going, and Joe liked him. They saw each other in the mornings, meeting here on the beach and going out for a long swim together. The rest of the day Rudy was busy helping his mother at the rooming house. Rudy grinned at him.
"You come in late last night, didn't you?"
Joe nodded.
"Out on a date?"
"No-just walking," Joe lied.
They went towards the water, side by side. Rudy laughed and ran in, diving under when it was knee deep. He began to swim out with easy graceful strokes. Joe dived in and swam after him. They were silent, neither venturing to speak, each sensing perhaps that there was an unearthly beauty to their synchronized movements which their commonplace words would impinge upon and spoil. They swam out, far out, as they always did. Till the beach was little more than a brush-stroke of white on a canvas of blue, and the people on it were bright-colored shifting specks, insects or optical illusions. Then they returned to shore, swimming slowly and leisurely.
After they emerged, they stood at the water's edge, letting the sun dry them. They usually did this. And usually, after they were a bit dry, Rudy took leave of Joe. He started to do this now, but seemed suddenly to remember something.
"Something I meant to ask you, Joe, but it slipped my mind. You doing anything special tonight?"
"Nothing special," said Joe.
"Would you go out on a double-you and me and two babes? It would be a blind date for you."
"I might. What does she look like?"
"Yours?-I wouldn't know. All I knew is that her name is Susan-Susan Carter ... You see, I had some time off yesterday afternoon, and I took a walk along the boardwalk and picked up this babe Sylvia. She gave me her phone number and asked me to call her. I did-last night. But when I ask for a date, she said only if I had a friend for her friend. I mentioned that I had a buddy and that his name was Joe-Joe Brody. So she told me her friend's name."
"Susan Carter, eh. I don't like the name."
"Then it's off-is that it?"
"No, it's on," said Joe softly. "What time do we meet?"
Rudy walked away confused, understanding Joe less than ever. This was precisely the effect that Joe wished for; it pleased him to have people wonder about him and try to figure him out. It was only to attain the effect that he had assented to the date. That was the way he felt it was sometimes, like a game-you said something on impulse and it committed you.
Susan Carter had turned out to be pretty much the personification of her name-a clean-cut clean-living young girl who used big words which she didn't know the meanings of, laughed too much, blushed too readily, and knew nothing about life. The date had been a flop, as he had known it would be. He'd stuck it out, though. And when it was over, instead of putting her on the subway and sending her home alone, as he usually did girls who bored him, he took her home. He couldn't have explained why; later on he would often think back to this night and it would seem to him that things had to happen just the way they did-that it had all been planned by something larger than himself, and he'd been assigned the part of Susan Carter's escort for the night.
They got off the subway somewhere in Flatbush and walked the rest of the way to her house. They were both tired by" the time they reached it, and when she invited him in for some coffee his first reaction was to accept and ask no questions. He caught himself in time. No, he wasn't in the mood just now to meet any girl's parents, least of all Susan Carter's.
"Your folks at home?"
"I haven't any. They're dead. There's only my older sister and myself."
At the door she whispered to him, "You'll love Helen-she's swell! And intellectual too-you won't believe it! She went to college-graduated with the highest honors in her class. And do you know what she does now? Secretary to Barton Whitmore ... Barton Whitmore-you know-the publisher. She's good for a hundred and fifty a week!"
Helen Carter, it turned out, was not a girl-not in Joe Brody's book, anyway. She was a woman of twenty-eight, or maybe thirty. But she had a nice figure, and was an exceptionally friendly, goodhearted creature. It was she who made the coffee, and she who fluttered about diem, serving them, anticipating their every wish. "You sure you don't want another cookie, Joe? Oh come on, have one, please-please Joe, just for me?" She acted the part of the older sister. But he had never had a sister, and he couldn't quite see her in that light.
After coffee they chatted a while, and he sat across the room from Helen. It was the girls who chatted really, he wasn't in the mood for talk. They tried to get him into it, but he kept his answers short and to the point. He was tired and resting, that was all. He must have stared at Helen, though, because he noticed once or twice when she suddenly looked in his direction, she blushed and quickly averted her eyes. It surprised him that a girl of her age could be as shy as all that, and it made him think. He kept remembering that she earned a hundred and fifty dollars a week. "A hundred and fifty smackers"-the phrase kept repeating in his thoughts. And she wasn't hard to take, either. You could see, even with the plain housedress she wore, that she was built for action. Her smile, there was something sad and yet pleasant about it-something motherly. Yes motherly, he would call it that.
He announced suddenly that he had to be on his way, and got to his feet. The younger sister accompanied him into the hall. He supposed she wanted to be kissed, but he wasn't in the mood to kiss clean-cut clean-living little girls just then. He did ask her for her phone number, though. He didn't know why, since he had no intention of seeing her again.
CHAPTER TWO
AT SEVEN, ONE EVENING ABOUT a week later, Joe Brody passed a phone booth. He remembered something, stopped and searched his pockets. Finding the number, he entered the booth and dialed, not knowing exactly why. When the voice sounded at the other end of the line, however, the answer dawned on him. It was Helen Carter's voice, and it was in the hopes that she and not her younger sister would pick up the receiver that he had dialed. He wanted to feel the older girl out, to learn if there was a chance he might date her. "A hundred and fifty smackers"-the phrase repeated in his thoughts. He was short of money, and he often heard that an older girl could be made to pay for a young man's love. "If you work it right, of course," was the way Rudy Gowan put it. "You got to give them a sample first, and make diem crave it." (As if Rudy would know-innocent, rosy-cheeked Rudy, who still blushed sometimes, and always doubted you, when you told him you'd done so and so with this or that babe!
Helen Carter's laughter sounded in the receiver. There was a note of doubt, possibly fear, in it.
"But Joe dear, you're mistaken. You think I'm Sue, I've been trying to tell you that-"
"I know who you are," Joe cut in impatiently.
Helen Carter couldn't believe it. "Joe, you're mistaken. Why, I'm old enough to be your-" Aghast, she blushed to the roots of her hair.
He persisted, anger and then desperation in his voice.
"You've got to give me a break! ... I fell for you that night. I know it sounds fantastic, I know you don't believe it, but why don't you-"
She shook her head in confusion and lowered the phone so that she couldn't go on hearing the dunning, pleading voice. Suddenly she raised it again, and spoke into the mouthpiece:
"All right, I'll see you Joe. But only for an hour. to convince you that you're mistaken. I really shouldn't ... what will Sue think?"
"It was a blind date, Helen. You know how it was. There's nothing between Sue and me, honest...." It was funny, Joe thought, staring unseeingly at the dialing instructions, how he could detect the dishonesty in his own voice, seeing that what he was saying was true ... it had been a blind date, of course; it was the thought of what he had in mind for Helen that made his voice gruff.
"I really shouldn't, Joe ... What was that? Meet you at the Regent? ... the Regent Theatre? ... yes, I heard you ... I get off the subway at the last stop. That's Coney Island, isn't it? You'll be waiting for me ... nine o'clock; yes I'll be there, Joe. But only to convince you ... bye...."
Sure, you convince me! Joe grinned at the receiver as he replaced it. He was pleased with himself. Nothing to it, you just had to know how to follow up a hunch ... But he was uneasy when he left the telephone booth.
Helen placed the phone on its hook and for a moment stood over it, staring down at it. She raised her fingertips to her flushed brow and thought over what had happened. She had agreed to date Joe Brody, the quiet, good-looking boy whom Sue had brought home a week ago. A young boy, twenty, at most. How awful! And what would Sue think if she found out? What if he! ... Oh God, she had let herself in for something! Why? Why must misfortune dog her tracks. And it was misfortune, it was really! She had given in only to soothe him. She was altogether too submissive. She would be more firm next time. Never again! Oh, never, never again!
. . Regent Theater, was that what he'd said, She must write it down or she would forget. Nine o'clock.
She scampered about the room, searching for pencil and paper.
What she had thought of herself was true. It was her nature to be submissive; she had been so all her life and would probably go on being so till the day she died. And it was true also that misfortune dogged her tracks. It was because she was submissive that misfortune dogged her tracks-the two went together.
As a child she had been happy enough. Her parents had adored the rather plain, quiet little girl because she was modest and undemanding. But her parents had died young and her childhood had been abruptly cut short. They had left her money enough to continue her education, but now she must take care of herself, and must shoulder the responsibility of caring for her baby sister.
When she was done with college she went out into the world. There were the men in her life; for men are attracted to submissiveness. They had taken her and used her and left her when their need for her was on the wane.
At thirty-one, after much soul-searching, she had decided that she could not have a man she loved. Not if she really loved him, for then he would use her and abandon her, as all the others had done. She knew her weakness, how she was tempted all the time to give in. Love was dangerous. She could not have a man she loved. This decision led to another: she would settle for less than love.
So this thirty-one year old spinster who all her life had put herself out for others, and been used by them and then abandoned, had finally settled for a childless widower named Henry Kohler. This young man-he was forty-five-had qualities in his favor. He was intelligent, well-read, worldly. He had good manners, danced nicely, dressed immaculately. By profession he was an attorney and his future seemed assured.
But there was the debit side of his character-qualities that made him less than lovable to even so warm a human being as Helen Carter. For one thing he had no sense of humor. He frowned readily and smiled rarely, and when he did smile his face seemed contorted, twisted out of shape. A minor failing perhaps; but add to this the facts that, as humorless people often are, he was also demanding and aggressive, and was a stickler for details. And to sum it up, there was the man himself. He was short and stocky, wore rimless glasses, was starting to lose his hair.
It was him that she meant of course, when she said, "And Henry, what if he-?" Not that she had thought of herself as being unfaithful to him in any way. Hardly that. Why, Joe Brody was only a boy-a confused boy! Besides, she was going to see him only to prove to him that he was mistaken.
Midnight and he was walking her along a dark deserted street. He had promised to take her to the subway and escort her home. She was becoming uneasy. Not that she doubted him-he was taking her to the subway, she was convinced of this. Why would he lie to her? He had been so straight-forward and honest all evening long, so pleasant and gentle. He had walked her along the boardwalk, and chatted and laughed with her, and bought her things. Little things-a frankfurter and a root beer, a frozen custard, a ball of pink cotton candy-; but coming from him, who was so young and probably not working yet, they meant much.
"Here it is," he announced suddenly.
She looked in the direction in which he nodded and saw a shabby wooden building, tall, gray and ugly. She took hold of his arm and smiled nervously up at him. "But Joe, you promised."
"I know what I promised. But I want you to come up to my room and have a nightcap with me now." He turned to her angrily. "You're not that anxious to be rid of me, are you?"
"No, it isn't that. But I don't drink, Joe-I told you that. And you said you didn't either-remember?" She clutched at his arm anxiously. "Please please, dear, do take me to the...."
His eyes were narrowed. Damn her! She wasn't going to get away so easy. He began to talk loudly. He knew she was afraid of making a scene.
"Please Joe-oh please! Don't talk so loud! People will hear you. You'll waken everyone in the building!" Above all things she dreaded making a public display of herself.
"I'll go with you. Yes, I'll go with you! But hush, hush-oh please, do be quiet!"
He led her through a dark smelly hall and up a long winding stairway which creaked at every step. Then through a narrow corridor to a door which stood ajar. Beyond this was a room, tiny and cramped, which contained a huge old-fashioned bed, a closet made of cardboard, and a dresser with a cracked mirror.
The moment they were in the room he shut the door. He came at her, smiling cruelly. She tried to resist.
"No! I should say not! What is the meaning of this? You-you-"
His mouth clamped down, shutting off the flow of words. He stuck his tongue between her lips, forced it into her mouth. She squirmed and gasped, her head swam. "Oh God!" she pleaded silently. No-not with him, a boy. Nasty, nasty young scamp! Oh, how would she ever explain ... Sue and Henry.
He had his hand on her breasts, massaging them roughly. He forced her back, back to the bed. She tried to break loose, escape. He ripped her blouse in opening it.
"See-see what you've done now!" she scolded. Then, in panic: "No, oh no, please!" His hands were on her thighs, pinching the flesh, lifting her skirt. "Oh, my God! Good heavens, you young monster! No! Oh-oh, no!"
The words seemed to congeal in her throat. It had suddenly become too serious for words, for protests. The realization struck her like an electric shock and her struggling contorted body was all at once drained of resistance. It was no longer subject to her will. In that split second when her defenses fell and her struggle for breath died, she felt the last fragile layer of her frilly underwear ripped downwards with the sound of tearing silk over the hot heavy flesh of her belly. Belly ... it was as though she hung on the word, a word which under normal circumstances she winced to hear spoken. A small wind. And fear. And a hard knuckle at her groin. And the sweat. And the pain as the knuckle ground into the sensitive gland. And his hard forehead at her mouth. And ... Joe!
She was free now and she had the sudden image of her nakedness from the navel down, her body thrusting whitely downwards like a new banana from its skin, half-peeled, open, her knees crooked, a floating feeling ... sailing on it, seas, the winds freshening, the hot rasp of his breath at her cheek, like sandpaper ... My child is raping me! My son is raping me....
... Pigs, five white sows, wobbled down her belly on little trotters towards the dell, the well, the valley-o. For long before, in-the country, on the farm, was the smell of straw and eggs and dung ... that was what she could remember. In her print frock fluttering upwards with the straw hard and prickling under her young thighs. It was her uncle's farm in upstate New York to which she had come with her young sister after the death of her parents. The young man was in the Marine Corps. It was the last day of his leave and he was posted to a unit which took part in the recapture of Guadalcanal. Davis-that was the young manls name-had agreed that when they were married they would take little Sue with them. He was going to be an engineer. But suddenly, in her first year of college, she had received the news of his death. It had been all the more necessary then for her to complete her own studies successfully. Helen's position was not unlike that of a young war widow, her lover dead and an infant for whose upbringing she was responsible ... the only difference was that she could expect no pension from the government. She had thrown herself unselfishly into her work, taken her degree, and, after graduation found a good position in a publishing house in New York. From the beginning she was a mother before she was a wife; and this was the root of the series of unhappy affairs she had with men. Submissive, motherly and kind, men had used her without considering her seriously.
And now this! It was only now that the knowledge of his remarkable resemblance to David came over her. Joe seemed to be the same age as David had been when he was cut in half by a hail of tracer bullets. It was as though after all these intervening years during which Sue had grown up and Helen had grown more and more motherly David had returned, impulsive as ever, demanding. David! And all the accumulated tenderness stored up in secret memories over the years was suddenly flowing outwards to this strange and demanding boy Joe whom she identified with that other who, no less urgently, had had his will of her in the barn so many years ago....
Afterwards, it wasn't surprising Joe was gentle with her. He kissed her tenderly on the lips and hugged her to his strong young chest. He was really very young, and mixed-up, and lovable, trying so hard to be tough and a rebel. It occurred to Helen that she might just be the woman Joe needed to make him more mature, a fine man.
"Silly, you really are a silly," she murmured now. "You shouldn't have-it was nasty of you. Why, I could have had you arrested for doing that ... Supposing I had ... Not that I would have, but just supposing." She caressed the firm flesh of his upper arm. "You really are a child. You really are!"
And when he had dozed off, she thought of him as precisely that. A cruel man-child who had done his mischief for the day, and now lay with his head upon her breast, sleeping the untroubled, innocent sleep of a child. For the present, for this night, he was hers. Tomorrow there might be consequences, but she would think of that tomorrow.
"Who was the babe?" Rudy asked.
"What babe?" Joe bared his big teeth in a grin.
They were on the beach, lying side by side. The sun beat down, a ball of fire, but they had recently emerged from the water and were damp and cool.
"You know what babe. The one you sneaked out of the house this morning!"
"Her?" Joe liked to tease his friend. "She was no babe."
"Pretty good imitation, then. What would you call her?"
Joe pondered the question a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "An old bag. She's thirty-one, you know. Told me so herself."
"Thirty-one!" Rudy was surprised. "How'd you happen to meet her, how'd you get her up in the room?"
Joe told him all about it, laughing, sparing no details. Rudy listened with mouth agape, staring at him, occasionally interjecting a remark of his own. "No kidding! ... Aw, you're kidding now!"
Afterwards, Joe said that he intended to get away this winter, it was too cold for him. "I always did want to go to Florida-see what it was like."
"What about this babe and her hundred and fifty per?"
"What about her?"
"Well, if you go to Florida-"
Joe cut in, "She and her money are going to help me get there!"
CHAPTER THREE
THE PHONE RANG AT SIX-THIRTY sharp. Helen, standing at the far side of the room, stared at it and shuddered. She knew it was Henry Kohler ringing her, for he always rang at precisely this time of the night-just fifteen minutes after she returned from the office. She started across the room. She must reply, though she dreaded hearing the sound of his voice just now. The dry, monotonous voice, chiding, reprimanding, scolding-trying to make her see the light. It would probably be true, all that he would say, but that would make it no easier to take. She lifted the phone.
He began to scold at once. Why had it taken her so long to answer?-did she suppose he had nothing else to do than stand in a phone booth and listen to the ringing of a phone?-he was a busy man, she knew that. An instant of silence; then, accusingly: "You were out with the boy last night, weren't you?"
"Yes," she admitted in a hushed, choked voice.
"It's insanity, you know-it will lead to no good!"
She admitted that what he said was most likely true, but added: "Yet I must go on seeing him, I can't help myself."
Bitterly he asked, "Did you pay him his weekly stipend?"
She hesitated, blushed to the roots of her hair, but finally said, "I paid him."
"The usual forty, I suppose."
"Yes."
Another instant of silence; then, in a voice that tried for detachment, he remarked. "I had a chat with your boss-Barton Whitmore himself. Ran into him at lunch today. I suppose you know whom our conversation revolved about."
"Me?-you spoke about me?"
"About you, Helen. He told me that he's worried about you-your work has fallen off badly." Henry's voice took a note of supplication. "Take yourself in hand, my dear....Oh, if only you could see as I do, how this past month has changed you! You were a happy thing-gay, carefree, smiling, not a worry in the world: You danced, you laughed, you chatted light-heartedly. Now what's become of you?"
"I'll try-But I can't promise .. ... Yes, goodbye Henry, and thank you for calling....I'm sorry."
She hung up the phone. A month, Henry had said. Was it really that? Had she been seeing Joe Brody as long as that? The calendar verified that the date was the eighteenth of September. It was true then, she had been seeing him a month. And in that time she had fallen madly in love with him. It was not his youth, or his strength, or his looks. These things may have helped, yes-but it was something else-something-she could not describe it precisely-but it had something to do with the way he slept, with his head on her breast. And something else, too. The look she sometimes caught in his eyes, perhaps, when he was off guard, when he did not expect her to be searching his eyes. A look of deep sadness, in which there was a trace of uncertainty and possibly fear. It reminded her of the look you might glimpse in the eyes of a small boy when he at last realizes that he has overstepped the limits of allowable bad behavior and sees the punishment awaiting him. It reminded her of the image of the young Marine with whom even now she found herself identifying him.
She saw him twice a week, on Wendesday and Saturday, and on one of those days, she gave him money. This practice had started at the end of the third date. He had suddenly confided in her, telling her that he was out of work and in desperate need. Pity had welled up in her and she had given him all she had in her purse-forty dollars. He had accepted it humbly and promised to repay it. But since then he seemed to have come to expect forty dollars each week. Now he wanted her to go to Florida with him.
It was just too confusing. She must think it out.
She had no time to think, however, for Sue made her entrance just then, and she hurriedly set about preparing supper. Sue sat at the table, watching her, saying nothing. It made her uneasy. Lately tension had sprung up between them, they who in the past had always been so tender and confiding, had loved and respected each other. Sue was jealous, and it was all so silly really! A nineteen-year-old jealous of her thirty-one year old spinster sister....Yet Joe Brody had preferred the thirty-one year old spinster to the fresh, blossoming girl. Why? He had explained it to her and it had made sense at the time, but now ... Oh God, how confused she was!
They ate in silence, with eyes lowered to the food, but when they were having dessert Sue suddenly set down her spoon and in a voice of reproach de manded:
"You were out late last night. Why?"
She raised her eyes and tried to smile at her younger sister, but her lips trembled. "Wednesday-it was Wednesday," she faltered. "And you know that-"
"That you see him Wednesday"-Sue finished it for her, tauntingly.
"Yes-yes-I see him Wednesdays." She bowed her head, unable to face her sister's accusing eyes. "Oh, Sue-Sue, forgive me! You see, I-"
"Forgive you-I, forgive you!" She leapt to her feet and tears of rage shone in her eyes. "He's making a fool of you-taking money from you-don't you see that! Are you blind? He doesn't prefer you to me, you-you old woman!"
She ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Helen sat at the table, dazed, more confused than ever. If only she could get away, think this out for herself. She remembered again that Joe had been pressing her to run off with him to Florida, and wondered suddenly if this were not the best thing she could do. Pick herself up and leave them-Sue, Henry Kohler, Barton Whitmore-leave them all behind. She would be alone with Joe, and she would have' time to herself, to think it all out. They all of them condemned her, all but Joe. He was young and yet he alone understood her. He alone loved her.
She got to her feet wearily, shuffled across to the door of her bedroom, and pressed on the light. Making her way to the dresser, she leaned on it and looked into the glass. A plain little face, pale, oval-shaped, with shadows under the eyes, looked back at her. A thirty-one year old spinster's face. Could a nineteen year old boy, strong, handsome, possibly love her?
She began to wonder about Joe also. There was evil in him. The cruel curve of his lips, the way his eyes seemed to laugh at her sometimes, the nonchalant way he took money from her and pocketed it, as if he had earned it and it was his. She had confided in him that she had thirty thousand dollars in the bank. Knowing of that money, might he not have an ulterior motive in wishing to have her go to Florida with him? Might he not, as Henry Kohler had so ruefully warned her, be seeking to get his hands on her money and run off? What if these were his intentions? Oh God, she was confused-utterly and completely confused!
She cut short this line of thought. No, Joe Brody wouldn't do that to her; he couldn't. He loved her. He had said so, and had spoken so earnestly, with-for his age-such deep and tender feeling. But even if these were his intentions, she still didn't cure. It didn't matter; nothing mattered. Only that he was hers for the present, and that she loved him, adored him, worshiped him. He was everything to her-everything. He was both her son and her lover.
A week and half later the three of them-Henry Kohler, Joe Brody, and herself-sat together in a Madison Avenue restaurant. They had been to the theater together, and had dined, now were sipping coffee and puffing cigarettes. She smoked only on very special occasions, and this to her mind was one. The trio on a date had been her idea. The men had been against it, but she kept at them and finally they had given in.
Things had come off fairly well, better perhaps than she had expected. How debonair, how worldly beyond his years, her darling had looked in the dark blue suit and contrasting white shirt that she had bought him. (After finally agreeing to the date he had confessed rather shamefacedly that he had no clothes for the occasion.) The men had shaken hands and looked each other squarely in the face, and when Henry had winced first and lowered his gaze, she had been secretly delighted. Oh how decent and honest Joe looked tonight; not like a hunting animal prowling the night, but like a man, an ordinary young man. Her man!-the thought of it made her pulses race.
At the start the men had tried to be pleasant, had even tried to carry on a conversation of sorts. But after a while they had given up the attempt and both of them remained silent. Joe looked at Henry with open disdain, as if his homeliness and age put him in another category. Henry when he glanced at Joe, had done so slyly and-so she thought-with disguised hatred. She believed that Henry feared Joe, was actually physically afraid of him, and that this prevented him from coming out with what was on his mind. On the other hand, Joe's silence was not restraint, it was part of him. He was silent by nature, only in rare moments came out with what was on his mind.
Henry set down his cup, and looking to her asked, "Shall we leave? It's rather late."
He paid the check; on his own insistence, it was he who was standing treat tonight.
When they emerged from the restaurant, Henry hailed a cab. Tliey got in and he told the driver to take them to Brooklyn. The silence became irksome. The squeaking and rattling of the cab got on her nerves. She started a conversation, as she had been starting them all evening, but like previous attempts this one came to naught.
She glanced towards Henry, and feeling a pang of pity, moved closer to him. He drew away abruptly, and the quick movement caused his glasses to slip from his nose and fall to the floor of the cab. He bent to retrieve them, and as he did she looked down at the bald spot in back of his head. The pity rose in her, choking her, bringing tears to her eyes. How abject in defeat was this once proud and supercilious man. Had he loved her as much as all that? Could any man possibly love her that much?
How sorry she was for Henry at that moment! Yet, at the same time, she was more certain than ever that she was done with him.
Yes, she would run off with Joe to Florida, leaving everything and everyone behind-her career, her home, Henry, Sue, Barton Whitmore! She would run of! at once, the moment he was ready to go. Nothing, no one mattered to her now. She loved him, she was his slave.
...."Where have I seen him before?" Joe was drinking. And then he found himself thinking of the homosexuals he had picked up on the Coney Island boardwalk....There was a resemblance, no, it couldn't be ... but there was a resemblance....
CHAPTER FOUR
"WELL, HAVE YOU GOT IT WITH YOU?" if Joe asked. "What?" asked Rudy.
Joe grimaced in disgust. Then suddenly, unable to keep up the pretense, he grinned. He couldn't be sore-not just now, when the things he had always dreamed of were starting to come true. Yes, this was a great day in his life-real great! "Your driver's license," he said. "I told you to bring it with you."
"Oh, I've got that."
"Let's have a look at it."
Rudy handed it to him and he glanced at it and returned it.
They were on a subway train, riding to Flatbush.
Rudy shook his head and murmured. "I still can't believe it. It don't seem right, her buying you a new car. Why, you met her less than two mondis ago."
"I didn't say it was a. new car."
"All right, a used car-what's the difference? Naw, I just don't believe it."
Joe grinned again, slowly, thoughtfully, and looked out of the window at the wall of the tunnel hurtling by. "We'll soon be there," he said casually. "You'll see it there, nicely parked in front of her house.
They stood at the curb, admiring the clean red convertible.
"But I don't get it-how do you know this is it?" Rudy shook his head doubtfully. "Naw, this isn't it. She wouldn't get you a classy convertible like this."
"The one in front of her house-that's what she told me," Joe replied smugly.
"Aw, there must be some mistake." A note of envy crept into Rudy's voice. "It's too nice a car for a guy like you. You won't take care of it-you'll wreck it."
"Maybe. But that's what cars are for, aren't they?"
Rudy got in and slid behind the wheel. Grasping it with his pudgy hands, he tried turning it. "She's a honey, all right." Suddenly, staring down at the dashboard: "Hey, where's the keys?-how'm I gonna drive it away without the keys?"
"There's a note pinned to the back of the seat," said Joe.
He ripped the slip of paper loose and read it. "Keys are inside," he said. "On the kitchen table. She wants me to go in and get them."
"She leave the door open?" Rudy asked.
Joe looked towards the house. "Guess so. How else would she expect me to get in?"
The door was open, and he entered. As he walked across to the kitchen table, he heard a sound, saw young Sue Carter standing in the doorway of her bedroom eyeing him disdainfully. "Oh, it's you she twisted her lips in an effortless smile. She was wearing an old bathrobe, faded and stained, its belt hanging loose. She clutched at this now and pulled it close.
"What are you staring at? What do you want?" she demanded imperiously.
He saw the keys on the table, took them and pocketed them.
Sue drew closer to him, clutching the bathrobe tight er than ever. "Did Helen say you could take those?"
He handed her the note and she read it, crumpled it, and dropped it on the floor.
"You look kind of pale, Sue. Something wrong?"
"I should say so-I'm sick. That's why I'm at home."
"Well, take it easy. Drink plenty of hot lemonade." He grinned at her and chuckled her under the chin.
She slapped viciously at his hand and snarled, "Don't you dare touch me!"
Genuinely surprised, he stared at her. Her face was flushed, her eyes narrowed and venomous, her lips dry and caked. She really did appear to be ill. She tightened her grasp on the bathrobe, as if in dread he might see what it hid.
He grinned at her again, then abruptly turned and started for tire door. She darted around him and stood in his path.
"What now?" he asked.
"I-" She was flustered, uncertain. "I-wanted to-" She crimsoned and her lips trembled. She lowered her eyes and as she did she dropped her arms to her sides. The bathrobe came open, exposing a pair of small virginal breasts tipped with pink. She forced herself to look up; a parody of a smile, wan and sickly, appeared on the caked lips. "Don't you want to stay with me a while, Joe?-keep me company?"
"I've got a friend waiting for me downstairs," he said. He knew that she was up to no good, was out to get something on him. He tried to pass around her but she backed off quickly and stood between him and the door.
"Look, don't go yet-don't!" She giggled nervously then shuddered, as if a chill of fever had suddenly swept her. "See?-watch!" She tugged at her bathrobe and it came open all the way down. "I'm hot, Joe-I'm hot. This is your chance!" She began to undulate her small hips suggestively. "You like it?" It's nice, isn't it?" She shut her eyes, covered them with the back of her palm, and continued to roll her hips, gradually increasing the speed of the movement. "I'm hot-hot-hot!" she whispered hoarsely.
He tried to push past her, but she threw herself at him, wound her arms around him, pressed her body against his. Her lips, wet now, sought his hungrily; her tongue darted in and out, licking at his chin. He shoved her roughly out of the way and made for the door. His hand was on the knob when she caught hold of the back of his trousers. She was ferocious, an enraged wildcat. She clutched at his shirt, ripped it, scratched at the skin beneath. "Pig!" she screamed. "Dirty pig! I'll tell, I'll tell everything!"
He stared at her with incredulity. What was she trying to pull:' She was clawing at his face. "Dirty pig!" she was snarling, "dirty pig!" The thought came and went that it was too bad ... he'd read somewhere that hatred could make a woman hotter ... he could smell her excitement ... any other time, if she hadn't been Helen's sister. "Dirty pig!" She was hysterical and her nails were at his throat.
He brought his open hand sharply against her cheek, stunning her. "Now! will you let me out?" he gasped. He took another threatening step towards her. Tears flooded her eyes, reddening them, left crisscrossing paths of wetness on her rather plump cheeks. "You little bitch-let me out!"
"I'll tell everything-I'll tell her."
He grabbed her arms, held them imprisoned at her sides. "Tell her? Tell who?-Helen?"
"Yes-yes, her! I'll tell her everything."
"What? Just what?"
"That you"-she giggled hysterically-"that you tried to rape me." Her nakedness framed by the shabby old bathrobe was suddenly pathetic.
He laughed, released her, and opened the door. "Tell her. See if it makes any difference."
"Hey!" said Rudy, aghast. "Hey, what happened to you, Joe?"
Joe opened the door of the car and inserted the key in the ignition switch. "Get going!' he snapped irritably.
"What happened?" Rudy asked. "Aw, come on, you got to tell me, Joe. You run into a cyclone or something?"
Joe rubbed the sore spot on his throat. "No, not that. If I ran into anything, it was a heat wave."
"Joe, your shirt-and your neck's bleeding-boy, are you a mess!"
"Shut up, damn you! Shut up and teach me how to drive this buggy! That's what I brought you for."
CHAPTER FIVE
LATE OF A CHILL AFTERNOON in October. Rudy sat on the rail of the porch, watched Joe carry his suitcase down and toss it into the back of the red convertible. Joe was leaving, and he regretted seeing him go. It wasn't every day you found a friend like him-a guy who loved to swim as much as you yourself did and wasn't afraid to go out, all the way out. He was mysterious, this guy Joe-hard to figure out. You couldn't tell when he would laugh or get sore; and when he did laugh it was nearly always at someone's expense, often yours. There was something not quite right about him.
He was pushing towards something-but what, Rudy could not have said. He wondered if Joe himself could.
Joe returned to the porch and they shook hands. "Well, Rudy, so long."
"You're off to Florida? I'm sorry to see you go."
They lit cigarettes and sat beside each other on the rail, staring off into space, smoking in silence.
"I'll probably be back next summer," said Joe.
Rudy shook his head. "You'" never be back. You'll be too big for a dump like this, once you've been to Florida.
"You starting now-this time of day?" Rudy asked.
Joe said he was going up to the Bronx to visit his parents, whom he hadn't seen in nearly a year. He would return to Brooklyn first thing in the morning, pick up Helen Carter and take off for Florida.
"Don't go pushing it up to a hundred miles an hour," Rudy warned him. "You're not that good a driver yet-even if it was me who taught you how."
Joe flicked away his cigarette. "You taught me pretty good, Rudy old boy-good enough to get my driver's license, anyway."
He started for the car. When he reached it he turned, waved his arm, and said, "Be seeing you."
He got in, the motor cranked and caught with a roar, the car sped from the curb.
It was nine o'clock at night and the Brodys were in their living room, watching TV. This was the time of day when work is farthest from the thoughts of most workingmen, when they lounge about and relax, puffing on pipes and cigars, getting drowsy. But in Arnold Brody's mind the thought of work was uppermost-the night's work that lay ahead. A baker by trade, he started at midnight and worked through till eight in the morning.
He was about fifty. Once a tall sturdy man, he was now bent and broken by hard work. Thirty-five years in the bakery was wearing on a man's health and appearance. But he was a hard worker, proud of his trade, of his skill at it. He had awakened at eight, been served a warm breakfast by his wife, and now sat beside her on the couch, watching the actors perform. He was not impressed with TV. Or with movies, automobiles or washing machines either. He was from the old country, and over there the things that mattered were the ordinary, down-to-earth things-good food, friendship, hard work, and a place to rest your head when you are weary. And children, of course. He shook his head sadly....It was no fault of his, that he had but one son, and that he....
The doorbell rang and the old man had a presentiment. It came as no shock to him then that when the door was opened his son Joe should walk in.
To Mrs. Brody however, who had opened the door to her son, it did corneas a shock. She had not seen her darling for a whole year. Though he had left three years before, when he was sixteen, and gone off to live somewheres far away-in a rooming house in Coney Island-she still loved him with all the tender compassion that her mother's heart was capable of. She clasped her hands, sighed, shuddered, and sobbing threw herself into her boy's arms. He hugged her and kissed her on the lips. Then, laughing softly, he held her from him.
"Gee Mom, let me look at you-gee, it's swell to see you again!"
He was the same as ever, he was her boy, the boy she had brought into the world.
Joe released his mother and walked across the room to where his father stood. He grasped the older' man's hand and shook it warmly.
"Pop-hello! It's nice to see you again. I'm sorry I stayed away so long. It was bad of me. I'm not a good son."
Arnold dropped the boy's hand, averted his eyes, and sat down on the couch. "Your mother-she is lonely for you-she misses you." It had always been that way, he always scolded the boy indirectly.
Look what you done to your mother.
Mrs. Brody scurried about, preparing a meal for her boy. "Come Joe-Joe darling-you must be hungry. Here, sit down at the table. I will have something for you to eat in a minute!"
After he had eaten, and while he was sipping that coffee, Joe broke the news to his parents, told them that he had come to say goodbye, that he was going to Florida. The immediate effects of the pronouncement on his parents were silence and sadness. Joe looked uneasily from one to the other of them.
"Well, cheer up. It's only Florida, it's not that far away. I'll be back and visit you more often from now on-I promise you!"
But the woman could only look at her son ruefully and shake her head. She knew-perhaps because she was his mother, perhaps because in matters such as this she trusted to instinct rather than logic-that what he told her was not true. He would not come back from Florida ever, he would not visit them again, she would never see him again.
The old man had sat brooding on the couch since his son had arrived; now he turned to him angrily and asked: "How you go to Florida? You walk? You got no job, no money-how you go, huh? Tell me!"
"I've got a car," Joe muttered.
"You-a car!" Arnold laughed harshly. "You got no car-you don't work."
"I don't work-but I got a car. A friend of mine gave it to me."
"You lie! You lie!" The old man leapt to his feet and stood glaring down at his son. "Where you get the car:' Where you get it? You steal, huh? You steal!'" lie raised his hand threateningly.
Joe got to his feet and started for the door, but his mother ran after him, pleading, "No, Joe-stay. Don't mind Poppa. He loves you, he don't mean what he say."
Joe turned to her. "I intended to spend the night here, Mom. Put if he feels that way about it, I'll push oil."
"Stay, you stay! He be good, he don't fight with you no more. Sit there-there on the couch-I make some more coffee."
Joe returned to the couch and sat there, across the width of it from his father. He sipped coffee and chatted pleasantly with his mother, who had drawn up a chair in front of him and was staring at him rapturously. Now and then he cast a surreptitious glance to his father, but did not address him. His father did not speak to him either but sat silent and morose, frowning at the wall across the room. The old man looked bad, worse than he had a year ago.
He was more stooped, more haggard and worn. His skin was pasty-colored and hung loose on his lace, his eyes were sunken and circled with shadows. "That's his reward," Joe thought. "His reward for being honest and decent and hard-working all his life. And now he hates me because I don't want to be like him and wind up like him ... Yeah, he hates me, I can see it!"
But Joe was wrong there, Arnold Brody did not hate him; in fact, though his behavior might indicate otherwise, he really loved him. Joe was his only child. It was just that he could not understand what had got into the boy. That look in his eyes-cold and cruel and aloof. Living alone in a rooming house-and not working-and neglecting to write to his parents or visit them. It would be different-he could understand it-if Joe had given some hint of what was to come, if he had shown mistiness or spite as a child, or been cruel or rough, or stayed away from school, or hung out with other teen-agers in a gang. But till he had been sixteen he had been a quiet, serious, studious lad, polite to his elders, kind and considerate to his parents, always at the head of his class at school. Then suddenly, just when he had started to grow physically, to put on muscle and weight, become manly and handsome, some tiling had happened. What? What had happened to the boy, his kind, gentle, lovable boy, to change him to this-to make him run off to that rooming house, to put that look in his eyes. He was his lather, but he couldn't understand. He tried but couldn't.
No, Arnold Brody could not understand. He had worked hard all his life and had become skilled at his trade, even as he had become stooped and old at it. He was a workman, a bread baker, that was all. He was not learned or wise in the workings of the mind. Often in the past a thought had come to him when he had tried to understand what had happened to his boy. This thought came to him now. A devil had gotten into the boy and taken possession of his soul!
But sometimes when he was alone the biblical words came back to Arnold Brody: "Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son...."
Joe got up early the following morning, had a quick breakfast, kissed his modier, and left the house. lie wanted to be out before his father returned from work, he didn't want to see the old guy again. It made him uneasy to see what life had done to him.
When the door shut behind him, Mrs. Brody leaned against it and wept bitter tears. She knew that her darling whom, good or bad, she had always loved, would not return from this place-this Florida-where he was going. She knew she would never see him again.
CHAPTER SIX
THE HEADLIGHTS OF THE RED convertible pushed a swath of brightness into the night. Below them the tires hummed a tune, beside them the wind moaned threateningly, like a cat about to leap. Approaching lights blinded her momentarily, she shut her eyes and held her breath. How fast they were going! Was it safe? A subway rider all her life, she had never driven a car, had no driver's license. In fact it was only on rare occasions that she had sat in the front seat.
"Joe, the speedometer says ninety," she murmured timidly. "Don't you think you ought to-"
"It's all right, Helen. Stop worrying. I'm the one that's behind the wheel." He grinned and tightened his hold on the wheel. His eyes stared into the windshield, following the swath of light ahead. He seemed to be thoroughly engrossed, tense, happy-like a boy who has found a new, if dangerous, toy. She smiled in spite of herself. Oh well, let him enjoy himself, he would be young only once!
"Look at the speedometer now. I've got the gas pedal down to the floor."
"Ninety-five."
"Hm-m. Not bad for a second-hand jalopy."
Joe realized the danger, knew that tires did blow even if they were practically brand new, knew that curves did come up unexpectedly now and then, and that once in a while a truck going in the opposite direction did cross the white line. The danger was part of it-if it weren't dangerous there would be no excitement. Vet the danger seemed unreal. Death was inconceivable to him, as it usually is to the young and vigorous of the species. It was a misfortune that might befall others, but not himself.
"Let's stop and get some sleep, Joe. I'm awfully tired." For the past two or three hours she had been putting out the suggestion.
"Soon," he said, "-another half hour."
In a little while he heard the even rise and fall of her breathing and knew that she had dozed off. ! He eased up a bit on the gas pedal and held the wheel less tightly. Seventy-that was fast enough when you were getting drowsy. No cops had given chase yet, though he had been half-hoping this would happen. The red convertible would give a prowl car or motorcycle a run for the money.
His mind wondered. He thought of his mother, how she had looked when he had kissed her goodbye-so unhappy, and trying not to show it. She was the one person in the world whom he genuinely I loved. He had been cruel to her, leaving her so unexpectedly three years before, neglecting to visit or j write ... But he'd had to leave her. And he couldn't have written, because he must lie in his letters and j he did not wish to lie to her.
And his father had come to hate him-he had seen it in the old man's eyes. Well, let him! He felt sorry for the old guy. He had been proud, honest, and hard-working all his life, and what did he have to show for it? A few thousand in the bank maybe, to keep him going after he reached sixty-five. If he ever did. But his strength was gone, he was a bald, I bent old man. What good was money in the bank, what good living that long, if you looked like that? You were only prolonging the suffering. Himself, he had already decided when he would cash in.
When he reached forty. By then he would have got all the fun that was to be had out of life, and what was left-the slow agony of aging-would not be for him. He had even decided how he would do it. He had thought it all out.
Later, in a motel with the silly sounding name "Sleep-E-Zee Grove," he fell asleep with his head on Helen's breast. He seldom admitted it, even to himself, but sometimes at night it was a relief to give himself up to her ... it was as though he were admitting his ultimate dependence upon her in the only way consistent with his male pride. Some times, he knew he was hard on her only because it hurt him to be financially dependent on her. At night when he was tired the pretense fell away and he communicated his knowledge of this to her in this particular physical way.
Helen also was very tired but she couldn't doze off. Her fingers were lost in his thick wavy hair. It was so soft and silky, like a child's rather than a man's. David's hair had been like that. It occurred to her that if Joe had been a few years younger he might have been David's son. Sometimes she wondered it would have been if Joe and Sue had got together. She could have given them money and Joe would not have been driven by guilt to hurt her as he did. But would she have done so? And would Joe have been happy with Sue? His hair was so soft ... She recalled Henry Kohler's dry skimpy hair. Ugh! And his scalp had always been moist and sticky. Then she thought of Henry, how beaten and dejected he had been at the end, when he knew for certain that he could not bring her to her senses. He had loved her-probably the one man who ever had ... Joe? Well, he said he loved her, tried to convince her of it, and sometimes, because she so badly wanted to, she believed him. But deep in her heart she knew better. Joe was using her for his own purposes. Yes, but what of it? She had this night, and the night after, and possibly the night after that ... After then?-oh, but she wouldn't think of that!
All the same she did, and her thoughts made her shiver. Oh God, what had she let herself in for? She had forsaken everything-a career, a comfortable home, a man who loved her, a sister who needed her-to run off with this boy. This boy who sometimes reminded her of a fierce irresponsible child and at other times of a hunted animal.
They were on their way to Florida. Why Florida, why so far from home? Did he intend to steal her money and abandon her there, as Henry said? Could he?-did he have it in him? She continued to play with his hair. And what if she should become pregnant? It was unlikely, but it might happen. She remembered what the doctor had told her a few years back: "You're not exactly sterile, Miss Carter-hardly that-but if you wish to conceive...." But she didn't wish to conceive. In fact she wished not to conceive! Joe was her baby and she had room in her heart for no other ... But why had she thought of becoming pregnant?-why such a farfetched notion at this particular moment? ... She was confused, conscious of a vague apprehension. She would be falling asleep soon.
The following night they were in another motel on the outskirts of Jacksonville, and surprisingly, it was Joe who was unable to sleep this time. He sat up in bed, puffing a cigarette and reading the paper which he had picked up in town that afternoon. Now and then he glanced at the sleeping woman beside him and grinned. It was warm and she had thrown off the covers. He liked her asleep-liked her tousled brunette hair on the pillow, her full firm breasts jutting up, the smooth white skin of her If you looked close she wasn't bad. Not half-bad. And there was youth and pure tenderness in the small wan face-qualities which he saw only when she was asleep, probably because of the lowered lids and the lack of make-up.
A freight train passed, and the sound of it shattered the stillness of the night. The motel was on a highway that ran parallel with the tracks, and when a train approached it seemed to be headed for the very room in which they were.
He got out of bed, slipped into his trousers and shirt, stepped into his shoes. No use trying to sleep, it was just too noisy in this dump. What a place for a motel-right next to the railroad tracks! He looked at his wrist watch. Quarter of one-six hours to dawn. And he'd read the paper all the way through ... Maybe he ought to wake Helen and push on to Miami Beach. The earlier they started, the earlier they'd get there ... But no, he'd had just about enough of driving with the lights of trucks shining in his eyes, blinding him. Besides, Helen looked as if. she needed the sleep. He was more considerate of her than usual tonight.
He opened the door of the cabin and stepped out. The courtyard was oval-shaped, circled with cabins, and in the center of the oval was a bench.
At one end of this sat a girl smoking. She did not look in his direction, though he knew she must have heard the door open and seen him emerge. It was dark and he could not make out her face from where he stood. He could tell she was slim and of average height, but could not tell whether she was young or old, ugly or plain. "Young-young and ugly"-that was his guess. It would take a brave woman to be out there by herself, and the few brave women he had come upon had all been young and ugly.
He lit a cigarette and strolled towards the bench. As he drew close he recognized her. She had checked in about the same time he and Helen had. He recalled that she had been with a man, that the pair had arrived in a huge late-model car with an Ohio tag. It was the man who caught his eye first. A flashily-dressed man in his late thirties, puffing angrily on a fat cigar. He had a brisk businesslike manner, spoke rather brusquely in a hoarse guttural voice to the motel keeper. At first Joe assumed the girl was his daughter, but on second thought decided she couldn't be. The girl was coarse and hard, with eyes like flint-no, he wasn't anyone's father!
He sat down on the bench and puffled languidly at the cigarette. Another freight train went by, and somewhere in the noisy interim of its passage his thoughts took another turn. He had forgotten the girl who sat on the bench with him, she no longer existed. He was thinking of his mother again, of the wrongs he had done her. He had known all along, ever since he left her three years to go to Mrs. Gowan's, that he was doing wrong by her. He tried not to think of it. Sometimes you couldn't help it, though, like now. You had nothing to do, and memories kept pushing in.
His father, too-the old man's sickly face, his stooped figure-kept reappearing in his thoughts. "He's old and bent and bald-worn out, disgusted-so he hates me ... because I'm young and strong and healthy ... hates me!" But the more he tried to convince himself, the less certain he became. Maybe it wasn't so. After all, he was his son, his only child. It didn't seem natural somehow. " ... Maybe he's just bitter because I'm taking the easy way, because I'm not doing what he thinks is best for me."
Best for him, hell!-he knew what was best for him. It was this-having a classy car, a babe to support him, being on his way to Florida. The old man would have had him stay on at school till he was eighteen, slaving away at his studies, getting the best grades in his class. Why? What for? So he could get out and get some cheap job-like a clerk or a mechanic (or maybe a baker, eh?)-work hard for the rest of his life and eventually get to look like ... No, not for him! It was just that-watching his father age, watching him get bent and bald, knowing he was getting no reward for it, had nothing but a measly few bucks in the bank-that had made him pick up that day three years before and move into Mrs. Cowan's. It had been tough at first, because living by your wits-cheating, stealing, rolling queers-can be tough. But now he had it made, was being repaid for the lean years ... Why, he was only a kid, only nineteen, and already he had more to show of the better things in life than his father, for all his straightness, decency and hard work.
He lit another cigarette and inhaled a lungful of smoke. He felt better now, relieved somehow, though he could not have said why. The sense of guilt was gone. He was suddenly very tired, believed that if he were to get into bed with Helen he might doze off. The thought of being with her, next to her who loved him so much, was comforting. She was the only one in the world who did love him, outside of his mother. Too bad she was thirty-one.
He pushed himself to his feet and was about to start for his cabin when the girl at the other end of the bench said, "Can I trouble you for a light?"
He walked to her and handed her his cigarette. As she reached for it her hand touched his. She placed the cigarettes end to end, puffed several times till hers was lit, then returned his.
"Thanks, little boy," she murmured. Her expression was bored and disinterested.
There was something about her he didn't like. He would have walked off and never given her another thought if she hadn't spoken again.
"Don't go yet. You won't be able to sleep."
His curiosity aroused, he asked, "Why not?"
He was surprised upon looking to her again to see that her expression had changed. She looked anything but bored.
"Because those cabins were disinfected last night, and the smell is enough to choke you."
"I didn't notice it in mine." He told her he thought it was the trains that kept him awake.
"Oh, those-they don't bother me. I was born and raised next to the railroad tracks. But the thought of those bedbugs and cockroaches lying dead all over the place-ugh!" She grimaced and shook her head. "By the way, who am I speaking to?"
He told her his name, and she said that hers was Frances, "-Fran to you,"-she added; and smiling suddenly: "I only let the people I like call me that."
She was young, about his own age, had small even features and long straight hair which in the darkness appeared to be chestnut-colored. The thing about her that he disliked-he realized now-had been her eyes. There was a cheap, hard look in diem-knowing, wise beyond her years. They told him she was a tramp and like himself, lived by her wits. She had been through the mill and knew all the answers, you couldn't pull the wool over her eyes.
Her smile was nice, though, she had small, even white teeth. And when she smiled that look faded from her eyes.
It wasn't her smile that kept him, it was curiosity. He had come upon very few hard women in his life, and none of these had been as young as she.
"Where you headed for?" he asked.
"Miami Beach," she said. "And you?"
He told her, she nodded thoughtfully and said, "Good, then we'll be seeing more of each other."
"Maybe."
They chatted and smoked cigarette after cigarette. She was a good conversationalist, quick-thinking, wisecracking, snappy on the come-back. She didn't fall all over him either. She was friendly-yeah, and yet she kept her distance, was-well-aloof, you might say. Or proud. He liked that about her.
They had been talking of impersonal matters for the most part, so it came as a surprise to him when she suddenly asked, "Who's the old lady?"
He knew who she meant but pretended not to.
"You know-the one you're sleeping with."
"Oh-you mean my wife?"
"She's not!"
"You saw the ring on her finger."
"I've got one of those, also-" she raised her hand to show him-"but that doesn't mean I'm anyone's-" She broke off and laughed; then, on a note of finality said, "I don't care what she is to you."
Yet she continued to talk of Helen, bringing her into the conversation unneccessarily, commenting on her dress, her looks, her age, referring to her as "your Aunty." At last, much to his surprise, he found himself actually blushing for Helen, and muttered under breath, "Lay off, will you Fran. I haven't mentioned the flashy old bum you checked in with!"
"It's about time you did," she retorted. "I was waiting for that."
She was surprisingly frank and open with him. She told him that the man's name was Charley Grant, he was a gambler, she had met him in Columbus, Ohio, in a honky-tonk nightclub where she had been working as a stripper.
"If you had a job, why did you take off with him?" he asked.
"Did it ever strike you I might go for him?"
He laughed. "Who you trying to kid?"
Suddenly thoughtful, she shook her head. "No, I wouldn't try to kid you, Joe. He promised to take me to Miami Beach and keep me in style, all winter-that's why I went with him."
She went on to give him a quick resume of her life, from birth to the present. She spoke in a flat, detached voice, as if it were a stranger she referred to. She had been born twenty-one years ago in Kansas City, Missouri to a mother who did not want her and a father who was an alcoholic. She had known little love or tenderness as a child, been beaten mercilessly and made to suffer all sorts of deprivations. At fifteen she ran away from home, ever since she had been on her own, making her way as best she could. She had traveled through several midwestern states, working first as a waitress and later as a B girl in cheap bars and honky-tonk nightclubs.
"Experience has taught me that the easy way is the best way," she concluded. "So when Charley Grant came along just when I'd been thinking of going to Miami Beach...."
He asked her if she'd been to Miami Beach before, and she said, Yes, the previous winter. And added, "I intend to spend every winter of my life there, from now on. It's a fast town-my sort of town."
Then she confessed that she had a secret ambition, which she never told anyone about, except-well-except people like herself, whom she liked. She had lost her certainty and spoke shyly now hesitating, looking away from him. He thought she might even be blushing. She said she wanted to be a dancer.
"Oh, not a stripper-anyone can take her clothes off and grind her hips. I mean-well-a dancer. You know-ballet ... that sort ... I took some lessons."
She got to her feet, took a few steps, spread her arms, and humming softly began to dance. It was a weird sight at two-thirty in the morning, in the oval-shaped courtyard of a cheap motel in Jacksonville. There was something unearthly, unreal about it-the way she glided and spun with her skirt flaring, the patter and scratching of her shoes on cement, the muted song issuing from her. And all around the blackness, the silence. It seemed that all living things on earth had died and only the two of them remained-he the watcher, she the dancer.
Watching her, he began to feel sorry for her. She was hard and lived by her wits; like himself, he thought in a fit of self-recrimination, she had taken the easy way. But maybe there was more excuse for her, maybe there had been no other way open to her. He recalled the story she had told him, the flat detached voice in which she spoke. Now she danced for him, a stranger, exposing herself, laying bare her soul.
When the dance ended she drew close to him, and breathing heavy stood there, looking into his face, waiting.
He told her what he thought she was waiting for-that he had liked the dance. It was true. He knew nothing of dancing, had never been to the ballet, but he understood, felt with her, while she danced.
It was not his compliment she was waiting for, however; she remained where she was, continued to look up at him, searching his eyes. She moved a step closer, so that their bodies touched. She reached up, put her arms around his neck, drew his face close to hers. Their lips met for just an instant. Then they broke apart and stepped back, as if by mutual consent.
He was suddenly weary, anxious to have another try at sleeping. It was three a.m. and he planned to get an early start.
She seemed to sense his change of mood, there was a note of humility in her voice as she asked, "Will I see you again?"
"I guess so," he said.
"Where?"
"On the beach-the sand, where people lie about in their bathing suits."
"Do you?"
"No, I just go there to swim."
"The beach is big-where on the beach?"
"I don't know," he said impatiently. He wished to be rid of her.
"The part of the beach nearest the dog track," she suggested.
"Okay ... But why there?"-he had been pricked by curiosity again.
"Because if I know Charley, he'll want to live close to the track as possible."
"See you, then."
"See you, Joe."
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN JOE ARRIVED IN MIAMI Beach he did not go looking for the hard-eyed girl named Frances who had danced for him that pre-dawn morning. In fact she had slipped from his thoughts as soon as he parted from her, by the time he got to Miami Beach he had completely forgotten her.
He fell in love with the town at first sight. He liked the semi-tropical weather, but he had expected this. It was the excitement that got him, the chrome and the glitter. Stream-lined cars and pink hotels; flashy men, tan and handsome, strolling arm in arm with gaudy, smiling women who wore pedal pushers by day and gaudy, backless, low-cut gowns by night, carried metallic purses and tripped about on glided shoes. And the palm trees on' the streets, the crowds, the taxicabs, the elaborate storefronts, the showy nightclubs, the quaint bars and cafes which sent the muted sound of laughter and the faint strains of jazz out into the balmy summer atmosphere. The very air was charged with action-the sort of action he went for. Horses and dogs were raced, long shots coming in; card games played in secret, fortunes changing hands. And cocktail glasses were clinked together, and husbands sneaking kisses from other husbands' wives, wives were laying bare their charms to other wives husbands.
He had planned to spend his days on the beach, sunning and swimming, but as it turned out he never got there. Not once. There was too much to do by night. So he slept the hot sunshiny days away, and prowled the streets by night, watching, observing, catching wise, getting the lay of the land. There was money here, big money. He smelled it as a shark does blood, thought of it, and dreamed of getting his hands on it. He was going great-had moved from the lower to the upper brackets, was hobnobbing with the rich. But this was only the first step, he would go higher. Someday he would be one of them-a flashily-dressed man, tan and handsome, strolling arm in arm with a gaudy, smiling woman, dashing in and out of taxicabs and nightclubs, playing cards the whole night through, betting horses and dogs, sneaking kisses.
But water seeks it own level, and eventually Joe Brody sought his. One night, strolling aimlessly down a side street at the south side of town near the dog track, he came upon a shabby-looking cafe called Mique's. He entered, bought a bottle of beer, and looked about him. He had sized up the place right from the outside-it was a dive. Waiters, cabbies and bellhops came here on their nights off. Overly made-up prostitutes, aging, smelling of perspiration and cheap perfume, drank beer with overdressed, undernourished race-track touts. Homosexuals clinked glasses with , lesbians fawned into the faces of sickly chambermaids. On the bandstand in the rear a cowboy strummed his guitar and sang off key. No one paid any attention to him; his song melted into, became part of, the noise and confusion.
Joe liked the place, he felt at home here. Every night after he had prowled the ritzy part of town, had looked and admired and dreamed his dreams, he returned to Mique's. He got acquainted, chatted with the prostitutes and the cabbies, teased the lesbians, flirted with the homosexuals. He got friendly with a youth named Cal Royce, and began to look forward to seeing him.
Cal was a long, lean, sickly-looking youth, sallow complexion, thin-faced, with a tendency to break out in boils. His hair was black and limp and hung down over his eyes, so that he was constantly compelled to brush it back. His eyes were small and shifty, his mouth was forever curled in a sneering grin. He was about the same age as Joe, but looked younger and was ashamed of it. Secretly he wished to give the impression of worldliness, yet, try as he might, he looked like a nasty, truant schoolboy. He was from Brooklyn and was forever bragging of it. He hated the natives or "Goddam Crackers," as he called them. He hated all southerners. And westerners, northerners and easterners too. He even hated New Yorkers if they were decent ordinary people, not slimy, crooked and deceitful as himself. In fact, if you narrowed it down, there was but one person in all the world he did not hate-Cal Royce.
Joe, seeing through him at once, nevertheless took to him. The evil Cal exuded was not distasteful. In truth he took a secret delight in someone who was more unscrupulous than himself. And he liked Cal's talk-the bragging, the jeering at others, the hints of being acquainted with those "in the know," the inside tips on the horses and dogs that some how always fell through; and the whispered descriptions of crap games played with loaded dice, of stick-ups he'd pulled, of hijacking deals in the offing, of pimping deals that anyone but he, who was too proud, would not have turned down. He knew that Cal was a liar. He had learned from others that Gal's widowed mother had money, that it was she who supported him, and that if it were not for her he would have long since starved to death. Knew also that he beat her and stole from her and insulted her shamelessly in public. Yet, in spite of all, he found Cal stimulating, could go on listening to him for hours on end. And he felt at ease with him, more so than with anyone else he had met in the last three years, with the possible exception of Rudy Go wan. Cal was useful, could fill him in on who was who in the night-life of Miami; but most important was the fact that he felt at ease with him. Somehow Joe always had it at the back of his mind that he could change. But Cal couldn't. That made Joe feel superior.
On their arrival in Miami Beach, Joe and Helen had rented a neat little apartment in a neat little two-story house on Alton Road near the MacArthur Causeway. It was here he returned at about four each morning, here he ate and shaved and showered, here he slept while the summery sun beat down.
She would weep as she sat up waiting for him-weep bitter tears, pace the floor, and curse her fate. Oh, how memories tortured her during those dark lonely hours! And if she dozed, only for a moment, she would see the faces of Sue, Henry Kohler, Barton Whitmore-beloved faces now-and hear their voices, chiding, scolding, warning her. She would moan in her sleep-actually moan-and the sound would wake her. She would get to her feet and begin to pace the floor again like a caged animal. Memories would come pushing in again, she would try to shut them out and fail miserably.
Then she would hear his footsteps approaching in the still night. He had a peculiar shuffling walk which she could not mistake. She would pause and stand where she was, motionless, facing the door, waiting, like a lowly cur who has smelled his master from afar. Her pulses raced, yet she did not stir or blink an eye. And when he burst into the room, the spell was broken, her cup of joy ran over. She fairly threw herself at him, hugged him, kissed him, brushed his hair back with her fingers. She would have done anything in the world for him at that moment. Anything! She would have crawled to him, hugged his feet, kissed his shoes. She would have died for him, gladly.
"Oh darling-darling, I'm so lonesome without you! If only you knew!-if only you could understand!"
On some rare occasions, feeling especially kindly to her, he would promise to be home earlier the following morning. But he never kept his word.
She cooked his meals lovingly and fluttered about him when he ate.
"Is the coffee too hot, dear? ... Not so fast, dear, you'll burn your throat! Oh, whatever shall I do with you?"
He bolted his food rapaciously, and though she scolded him for it, she loved to watch him. It was proof that her cooking had pleased him. The only proof she could hope for, for he never praised it.
She would have him healthy. She-included orange juice, eggs and prunes in his diet, and even milk, which he despised.
"Drink it, dear, it's good for you."
And he drank it to stop her "nagging."
She noticed and took delight in things that no one else would notice, or care about if they did. For instance, one day she saw him read a book. It was only a soft-cover novel of the sort that flood the newsstands ... and yet that he should be reading a book! Why, it was simply wonderful!
And once she caught him doing-of all things-a crossword puzzle. She watched him slyly, from afar. And when he set the paper down and walked from the room, she ran to the table and looked to see how far he had got. Her heart skipped a beat, she blushed; tears of happiness flooded her eyes. Bless him, he had done it halfway through! Her Joe, the fierce irresponsible child, the night prowler! What made it all the more wondrous an accomplishment was that she herself had never in her life completed a crossword puzzle, though she had often tried. And indeed it was seldom she had got as far as half-way.
She shined his shoes, washed his clothes, darned his socks, scrubbed the tub and drew the water before he got in. She petted and pampered him. A glance from him would send her scurrying All the energy and warmth in her, which had previously been spent upon her sister Sue, Henry Kohler, Barton Whitmore, her home and her career, were now concentrated and spent upon him.
Her reward was abuse.
He began to snap at her irritably when he came home from his nocturnal prowlings. He laughed at her and called her "neurotic" (she wondered where he had picked up the term) when she insisted he eat what was good for him. He took her to task if the water in his bath was too hot or too cold for him.
But with the abuse came something else which more than made up for it. Tenderness. Heal and genuine tenderness. He surprised her by proving to her that he had a capacity which she had not allowed him. So when he proved to her that he had a capacity for genuine tenderness, it made for the usual sort of surprise. He had pretended before, but the effect had not got through to her. She wished to believe in it, and tried. At times she tried so hard that she succeeded. But only for a little while, and then she quit deceiving herself. Now occasionally he would kiss her on the lips, not roughly but gently, and the feeling-the unmistakable feeling-would pass from his lips to hers. Or he would suddenly, for no apparent reason, reach out and stroke her hair. And once he had taken her head in his hands, holding it imprisoned as in a vice, and looked into her eyes.
Afterwards, thinking of those moments, she would laugh at Sue, Henry and Barton. They had been mistaken. Oh, how sadly mistaken! He loved her! She could not have been deceived, she felt it!
When they had been in Miami Beach about two weeks he began to tell her of a new friend of his, a boy of his own age named Cal Royce. His description of him was simply awful! She could hardly believe that a young boy could possibly be as repulsive as that, physically. But what he said of Cal Royce's character was even worse.
"I should think you would hate him," she remarked one afternoon, as they sat together at breakfast.
He lowered his coffee cup and gazed at her perplexed."
"llate Cal? Why do you say that?"
"Why, the way you talk of him."
"I don't hate him."
"Hut your description of him, and what you said about his insulting and beating his mother! And you say he constantly talks of crime-of cheating at cards, and stealing, and fixing horse races."
"Well?"
"But doesn't that mean-?"
He shook his hand. "No. Because if I hated him I wouldn't be going to Mique's every night to find him. Fact is, I kind of like him."
The confession chilled her. "But how could you possibly? After what you tell me about him, it doesn't make sense. Oh Joe, sometimes you frighten me! You really do!"
A day or two later he explained the contradiction to her.
"I figured it out," he said. "What?" she asked.
"Why I like this guy Cal Royce, even if he is the slimiest rat I've ever come across."
She waited for him to go on.
"It's because he is what he is-because he is a slimy rat ... Looking at him, talking to him, I can say to myself, 'See Joe, you're not as evil as he is. You're evil, yeah-but not that evil.' And it's good to be able to say that to yourself-good to know there's at least one guy on earth that's worse than you are!"
That was how she came aware for the first time that Joe Brody, the hunted animal, had a conscience which sometimes bothered him.
One day she noticed him staring at her, and asked, "What is it, darling?"
"Nothing," he said, "I was just thinking." He did not tell her what it was he was thinking of.
But a moment later he called her. He was seated on the couch, and when she crossed the room and was standing near him, he said, "I've got something to ask you. You've got money in the bank-thirty grand, I believe you once told me?"
She nodded. And suddenly her heart began to beat erratically.
"Now listen carefully to a question I'm going to ask, think it over before you answer. Give me the true answer. What if I were to get my hands on your money and run off and leave you? What would you do then?"
She thought carefully, and then replied, "I'd kill myself."
"Why? Because of the money? Does money mean that much to you?"
"No," she said, "the money would have nothing to do with it. I'd kill myself simply because you had run off and left me. I'd do it if there were no money involved."
Joe nodded thoughtfully. He knew, somehow sensed it perhaps-that she meant precisely what she said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JOE ARRIVED AT MIQUE'S AT ten-thirty, a bit early for him. He spotted Cal Royce at a corner table, sauntered over and joined him. There was something wrong with Cal. He could see it in his eyes which were slyer, more shifty than usual. There was sweat on his forehead, and the long skinny fingers tipped with bitten, grubby nails trembled slightly as they reached for and replaced the cigarette that hung on his lip.
"Sit there, Joe." He nodded to the seat across from him. Then he leaned close and whispered, "I'm in trouble. You gonna run or stick?"
Joe thought it over before he said, "It's all according. What's it about?"
Cal continued to lean forward and whispered. "Don't look now. Whatever you do, don't turn around! They're behind you at the far end of the bar.
I been sittin' here, hopin', prayin' someone would come in that I know, a guy that'd stick. You're the answer to my prayers."
Joe did not stir. "Who's behind me?"
"Three guys-three of 'em. They'll kill me Joe, they'll kill me! You got to save me!" Panic flared in the whispered entreaty. "I been sittin' here-tryiri" to get up the guts to bolt for the door. Rut I'm scared.
II I get up they'll spot me. They're sure to!"
"What did you do to them? Why have they got it in for you?"
"Nothin'-I din do nothin'. They just got it in for me, that's all."
"Why?" Joe persisted.
Cal's eyes narrowed, shifted, tried to look around Joe. "I owe 'em some dough-that's all. But they're tough-real tough babies. I know 'em."
"Why don't you just pay up, then?"
Cal shook his head. "It's too much. More'n I got-more'n I could hope to lay my hands on."
"All right," said Joe, "I'm with you." He felt the fool, saying it; he knew that Cal would not have done the same for him if the situation had been reversed. "Now, can you see them? Cot your eyes on them?"
"Yeah-?"
"They looking this way? Any one of them?"
"No, not exactly. One of 'em keeps lookin' over-he's been doin' it all along. He sees me but don't recognize me. Not yet, anyway."
"Is he looking over now, right now? If he's not, bolt for it."
"The door?"
"Yeah."
Cal bit his lower lip to keep it from trembling. Tears shone in his eyes, which had suddenly popped wide. "Too late,"-the words bubbled in his throat. "Oh, my Gawd-it's too late! Recognizes me-talkin'-pointin'! So long-Joe-everyone for hisself!" He pushed himself up and made for the door.
From the rear of the cafe, an angry exclamation followed by a snarled oath. Then-just as Joe turned-the clatter of footsteps, running, tripping, sliding toward him. He saw them, three of them, dashing across the room in an effort to head off Cal, jostling and bumping one another in their haste. But Cal was running for his life and knew it. He got through the door before they reached it. His footsteps sounded on the cement outside, then faded away. They followed him out the door and gave chase.
They must have chased him quite a distance, because they were gone about fifteen minutes. Joe had plenty of time to get out. He might have had another beer and said, "Be seeing you," to someone or other of his acquaintances. But he chose to remain. He went to the bar, ordered a beer, and sipped it slowly. He surely could not have guessed what would happen.
The trio returned.
Joe, at the bar, raised his glass and watched them in the mirror. They were young, hard-looking punks about his own age, dressed in bright-colored polo shirts. Their eyes scanned the crowd, searching for someone; he knew that someone was himself. Then they spotted him, whispered to each other, started toward him. He turned to face them.
One of them appeared to be the leader, a dark lantern-jawed youth with jagged broken teeth, which he tried to keep hidden when he spoke. He came up close, and with a grin that was both evil and self-conscious, said, "Your buddy got away-the double-crossing stool!"
"So?"
"So nothing! Only you ain't-!"
The crowd had made an opening around them; when the lantern-jawed youth swung, Joe was able to duck and drive his fist into the other's gut. Then waiters and bartenders converged on the four of them, grabbed them by the scruff of their neck and the seat of their trousers and shoved them out the double-doors.
Joe picked himself off the cement and started to run, having decided somewhere between the bar and the cement that he was done playing the hero. One of the trio drived at him, caught his legs, and brought him down. They swarmed on him, kicking his ribs, punching viciously at his head. He tried to fight back, but knew it was a lost cause. Brightness exploded in his brain, showering fragments into the darkness. Then darkness, he was alone and felt no pain.
Earlier in the evening Fran Mullins had gone out for some air.
Charley Grant had left the hotel room at nine, promising to be back within the hour.
"Don't hurry," she remarked casually. She was reading the movie column of the local newspaper and did not bother to look up.
But when the hour passed and Charley did not return, she was bored. She had thrown the paper aside long ago, the soft-cover novel she tried to read afterwards proved dull.
She walked all the way to Lincoln Road, spent an hour strolling with the vacationing stenographers and salesmen, eyeing and being eyed, pausing here and there to window-shop, lighting cigarette after cigarette. Her boredom unrelieved, she turned south on Collins and started back to the hotel. On the way a bald-headed young man tried to pick her up. She didn't go for his approach, or for his sport jacket either, which was much too loud, and she sent him on his way.
It was nearly one and the streets were deserted, but she wasn't scared. She was used to being alone, taking care of herself-she had been doing it all her life. Yet the loneliness got her after a while. She began to wish that she would see a cab. When one finally did pass, however, she did not had it. At the last moment a picture of the room flashed through her mind: all cluttered with cigar butts, and newspapers and big Charley Grant on his stomach in bed-he would be back by now-snoring, stinking up the tight little place with his sweat and exhalations; the ashtrays and racing forms on the floor, clothes strewn over the chairs and couch. No, she didn't want to be home any faster than she had to!
She turned into a side-street, for no other reason perhaps than that it was new to her. It was a dark, narrow little street. Halfway in she came to a bar, the name printed in huge gold letters on the window was Mique's. As she passed it she heard within a cacophony of drunken laughter and shouting, interwoven with some weird sort of music-a man singing off key, to the accompaniment of a guitar.
She walked on a few steps and suddenly paused. It seemed to her that she heard a sound, like someone moaning. "A drunk probably," was her first thought-."Serves him right!" Drunks disgusted her, and yet they stirred pity in her. She noticed a pair of legs projecting from an alley, assumed that she had guessed right the first time. A drunk all right, sleeping it off next to the garbage cans.
The man in the alley moaned again. The sound touched a chord somewheres in her subconscious. She hesitated, entered the alley, and bending over the figure, struck a match. She recognized Joe Brody not by his face, which was cut, bruised and swollen, but by the shape of his head. She sat him up, using all her strength, and propped him against a wall. When several sharp slaps failed to bring him to, she let him sag to the cement, emerged from the alley, walked the several steps back to Mique's, entered, and pushed through the noise and confusion to the phone booth in the far wall. She called a cab company and asked to have a taxi sent to Mique's.
Then she returned to the alley and stood over him, watching him.
When the taxi arrived she was waiting for it. She had the cabby follow her into the alley, and together they managed to drag Joe across the curb.
"Hold him up, sister-I'll open the door."
When the cab pulled up at her hotel she asked the driver if he would help her get Joe into the lobby, explaining that from there the desk clerk and she would somehow manage to get him upsirs.
In the lobby she tipped the driver and let him go. She had intended registering Joe in a room of his own, paying for him; but when, in answer to her query, the desk clerk told her that ('barley Grant hadn't returned yet, she decided to take him up to her own room. Till he came out of it, anyway. The clerk didn't like the idea. He was a bit afraid of Charley. She flattered and cajoled him, boasted that she could handle Charley-he was putty in her hands. And she promised that should anything go wrong she would take all the blame on herself. At last he came from behind his desk and helped her get Joe to the elevator. Together they dragged him into the room and 'laid him on the couch.
When the desk clerk was gone she set about washing the blood from Joe's face, cleaning the wounds, putting cold compresses on the swellings. She knew how to care for drunks and badly beaten men, for as a child she had often enough found her own father lying unconscious in an alley and-there being no one else-had to care for him herself.
Finally Joe started to come to. He moaned, stirred, made an effort to sit up. She helped him, leaned back on a cushion. He stared about him, dzed, then looked back to her slowly.
"Where am I? What happened?"
She told him where he was and also how he had got here and where she had found him. She suggested he answer his second question,-"Since you're the only one who can."
Then it must have come back to him, for he grimaced in disgust and muttered that he had it coming. " ... I was playing the hero."
He looked at her suddenly and said, "You're the ballet dancer, aren't you?-Frances, I believe you said."
"Frances to strangers." But, softening at once, and smiling, "Fran to you. Why didn't you look me up when you arrived?"
He admitted that in the excitement of a town like this he had let her slip from his thoughts. " ... Glad you remembered me, though, when you found me next to those garbage cans."
He told her briefly as possible how it had happened, then lit a cigarette and got to his feet. He stood a bit unsteady, shook his head in an effort to clear it.
"Sit a while," she suggested. "There's no hurry." He did as she said, but asked, "What about your friend?"
"He probably won't be home tonight. He gets into these all-night poker games."
She offered him a beer, "-If you can drink it warm. It might help to clear your head."
"No thanks. I'll just finish this cigarette and push off."
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps in the corridor, had time to warn him, "Sit tight! Let me handle this!"
Charley opened the door and stood in the doorway, his flinty eyes taking in the situation. He shut the door softly behind him, walked to the center of the room, and muttered, "Start explaining."
She quickly decided that the truth would be best, and said, "This is Joe, a friend of mine. I found him hurt, and-"
"Can it! Get him out of here!"
She got up angrily and approached him. She wasn't afraid of him. "Joe's my guest-d'you hear! You're not shoving him out!"
He slapped her hard, knocking her back.
Joe leapt to his feet but Charley pulled out a gun and barked, "Stay there, boyfriend! I ain't dirtying my hands on you."
She had known of the gun, but hadn't thought him stupid enough to pull it in a situation of this sort. "Do as he says, Joe," she warned. She was afraid of Charley now, very much so.
Charley's lips curled, baring yellow teeth in a grin of hatred. "Get going, boyfriend. There's the door."
Joe moved in the direction indicated. He was at the door when Frances shouted, "I'm going too!" and started after him.
"You stay!" Charley ordered But she paid no attention to him, because Joe was out of the room by then and she knew that he would not use the gun on her.
They did not wait for the elevator but descended the stairs. When they were out-of-doors he suggested she return to Charley.
"I'm through with him," she said. "I'll never go back."
He shrugged and said, "Suit yourself."
A cab cruised by and he hailed it.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Come on, I'll buy you some coffee," he said. lie gave the driver the name of an all-night cafeteria.
When they got out of the cab he asked her how bad his face was.
"It's cut and swollen and you've got an awful shiner."
"Yeah. Well, let's go in anyway."
Except for a handful of seedy-looking people, the cafeteria was empty. The hands of the huge clock over the door pointed to two-thirty. Joe went to the counter, got two cups of coffee. They sat across from each other, sipping the coffee. He suddenly looked bored, almost angry with her. Sensing that he wished to be rid of her now, she felt bitterness rise in her. They finished the coffee in silence, walked out, stood on the neon-lit patch of curb in front of the entrance.
"Beat it back to Charley," he snapped irritably.
Hatred lashed through her. She clenched her fist and swung at him with all her might, but he caught her arm in mid-air and held it there.
"You dirty pimp!" she spat. "You're no good at all!"
He laughed into her face, and lowering her arms to her side, kept diem imprisoned there. His expression changed; he frowned at her and muttered, "You don't get it, Fran. I don't want to think you're out in the cold because of-"
"Not because of you!" she cut in. "D'you think I'd walk out on a guy who meant two-bits to me for a pimp like you? I was bored-looking for a way out!" It was her turn to laugh: she despised him at that moment.
"You'll have no one to take care of you-keep you in style," he reminded her.
"I can take care of myself," she retorted. "I've been doing it all my life."
A cab passed just then and he whistled it down.
"Get in," he said, and opened the door.
"No," she said-"No, I'm done with you!" Yet she offered surprisingly little resistance when he grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the interior. She hated him, but she was afraid of losing him again. lie told the cabby to start driving, he'd tell him the destination in a minute or two. "Where do you want me to drop you?" he asked her.
She shrugged and said, "Any hotel, as long as it's not too expensive."
"A hotel room can be lonely if you're by yourself."
"I've been lonely before."
"You got money?"
"Enough."
He thought a moment and said, "It's too damn late to go shopping around for hotel rooms. Tell you what, we'll go to my place."
The idea appealed to her, but she hesitated, remembering. "Will your aunty be there?"
"Helen?-yeah. But don't worry your head about her, she obeys me."
"Nothing doing."
"Look, you bitch, I've just had a beating and I'm all aches and bruises! And on top of that I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open. Don't argue with me! Either I stop this cab right here and let you out, or we do as I saw."
She knew that he meant it, realized in a flash that if they were separated now she might lose him and never find him again. She decided she would go with him, if only to find out where he lived.
She shrugged her shoulders.
He gave the cabby an address on Alton Road.
She would go there with him, but when she got there she would leave him. She had never yet shared a man with another woman and didn't intend to start now. Maybe she was just a tramp, but she did have her self-respect!
CHAPTER NINE
HELEN HEARD THE CAR PULL UP in front of the house, but thought nothing of it. The time was three-fifteen, too early to be expecting Joe. Besides, he always came on foot and she heard his footsteps from afar.
Then suddenly she heard his voice, muffled but unmistakably angry. He was talking to someone-it seemed-a woman. A woman whose voice rose and fell bitterly. They were arguing, Joe and a woman!
Dread gripped Helen's soul, but she took hold of herself, steeled herself for what must come. It had happened: the other woman had come into the picture. She had been hoping, offering up silent prayers, that the Fates would delay this moment; but deep in her heart she had all along known that sooner or later it must come. She had vowed to fact it calmly, to hold on, to fight with every fiber of her physical, every wile of her mental being; and if at last she must give him up, why then she would see! ... She could no longer conceive of going on without him-eating, sleeping, washing, combing, cooking her food, caring for herself. These things would not matter then. Nothing would matter.
He entered the house, not noisily as he always did, but silently. His face was cut and swollen, one of his eyes was blackened and almost shut. Her breath hissed through her teeth, but she did not cry out and rush to him, as her every instinct bade her. The girl, slim, long-haired, thin-faced, stood beside him in the doorway, sullen, making no attempt to disguise her boredom. He came towards her, forcing his thick broken lips to smile.
"Helen, I want you to meet a friend of mine. Her name is Fran. She has no place to stay, so I invited her to spend the night here."
She nodded, but said nothing.
The forced smile faded, the lines of his jaw hardened. "I promised her you'd tell her she was welcome, Helen. Tell her it!"
Not looking at the girl, she murmured, "If you're a friend of Joe's, you're welcome." The words stuck in her throat and she had to swallow to get them out.
Joe turned to the girl impatiently, "dome on in out of the door. Don't stand there like a zombie!"
"I'll make some coffee," Helen offered, in confusion. She could not bear to stand there, facing the smug creature.
Joe nodded, "Fast as you can. I need the shuteye bad."
They drank the coffee silently, sitting at the kitchen table, avoiding each other's eyes. Even Joe, brazen as he was, seemed unsure of himself. Who was this girl? Why did Joe want her here? How did he get beaten up like that? She wanted to ply him with questions but couldn't in front of the girl. She felt low, degraded, shamed to the core. She had thought she had been mistaken. Even a worm had pride, she supposed. She had to swallow hard to keep from sobbing ... Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions. After all, he had been honest enough to bring his friend home. He could easily have kept her ignorant of the existence of this ... She was just the kind of shameless little hussy she had tried to shield Sue from. And now Joe had brought her here. Why? Why didn't he explain? For perhaps there was an explanation. There must be! Joe had defended her in a brawl somewhere, that would account for his face. That must be it, Helen thought. He had said he wanted to sleep, poor boy. She must control herself, not jump to conclusions. But ... how would they sleep'.' There was only one bed....
And how would he arrange it, she wondered? There was only the kitchen and the one room. Who would lie have sleep on the couch? Would he expect that of her in her own house? That she let him share the bed with that-that smug young hussy! I Oh, God, no! Not in the apartment for which she paid the rent! Would they dare ask her? And if they did, would she do their bidding? ... Good Heavens! She was becoming confused. The coffee cup trembled in her hand and she was compelled to set it down.
She breathed a sigh of relief when Joe announced that he would sleep on the couch. She and the girl went into the bedroom together, while he smoked a final cigarette in the kitchen.
"Hurry it up, you two. I can't keep my eyes open much longer!"
Standing on either side of the bed, they shed their clothes. She slipped into her nightgown quickly, embarrassed at the thought of having to expose her body to a stranger, even for a moment. Fran un dressed slowly, carefully folding her skirt, blouse and underclothes, each thing as she removed it, placing diem neatly on the chair beside the bed. She seemed to be doing it purposely-to show her more youthful body in the hope this would discourage her, weaken her resolve to fight for Joe. If this was her intention, she failed to achieve it. Helen did not think herself in the least inferior to Fran, for all the difference in the age. In fact, if anything, seeing Fran in the nude encouraged her. The girl's breasts were a bit too small, her hips a bit too narrow, her legs a bit too sturdy And her skin-why, it was not at all as smooth as her own! All she had was youth. That, and nothing more.
Later, when Joe came into the room and stretched out on the couch, she shut her eyes and tried to sleep. It was a vain effort. She knew that sleep would not come. She could not stand the thought of another girl in bed beside her. When Fran as much as stirred or took a deep breath, a wave of repulsion swept her. She was so used to sleeping with Joe, with his head on her breast and her fingers in his hair, that it seemed a part of her was not there, she was incomplete ... It was dark and-but for their respirations-silent in the room. Joe and Fran were not asleep, either. She could tell from their occasional impatient stirrings, and from the sound of their breathing. Soon, in an hour or so, the dawn would break. She wished to hurry it, to bring it here. Oh, if only the light would shine through the drawn blinds and the darkness be disspelled!
But she knew the dawn would not come in time. She had sensed that something would happen in the darkness. Soon. In a minute or two, or five perhaps, or ten at the most. Something dreadful. And unseen, she blushed in the darkness, blushed to the roots of her hair.
Joe was not asleep. He tossed restlessly and shifted to get his aching ribs in a more comfortable position. He kept reliving the moments when he lay helpless on the sidewalk in front of Mique's, with the three toughs showering blows and kicks down on him; brightness exploding, and then darkness and no more pain. He had the pain now. More than enough of it to make up. His head felt as if it had been cracked oepn, and his mouth as if every tooth had been jarred loose. Served him right! No more playing the hero for him! If only he could fall asleep, everything would be all right.
He wasn't worried about Helen, she would forgive him anything, even his having brought a strange babe into the house. As for having caused the breakup of Fran and Charley Grant, he wasn't worried about that either. Fran was a hard babe. As she had said, she could take care of herself. Yeah. Yeah, everything would be all right, if only ... Damn! Listen to that alarm clock tick away!
Suddenly the bedside lamp was lit. His head was to the back of the couch, he turned to see what was happening. It was Fran. She got out of bed, without a stitch of clothes, and was coming towards him. Helen sat up in bed, was watching her. So was he-he couldn't help himself. Her slim white body passed close to him. There was a knowing little smile on her lips. In the doorway of the kitchen she paused, and looking back over her shoulder asked, "Is the bathroom in here?"
"The door on the right," he said.
"Bitch!" he thought; she didn't have to go to the bathroom. Not this soon after getting into bed. She was doing it to hurt Helen, make her think things that weren't so. And maybe she was doing it for another reason too-to get him worked up. Why? So he would get into bed with her, and she could get at Helen that way. Bitch! Well, he wasn't that desperate, he had seen a few babe's bodies in his time! And hers wasn't that hot, either. Far from it. Fact was, if he had never seen either of diem before, her or Helen, he would probably have preferred Helen. He went for them short and with a bit of meat on them, not tall and slim like her. He glanced to Helen, wishing to reassure her; but she had lain back and shut her eyes.
When Fran returned, got under the covers and clicked off the light, Joe was still thinking of her. Previously he had thought only of her purpose in exposing herself to him like that, in front of Helen. But now he was thinking of the act itself, of the knowing little smile on her lips, of the way she had paused in the doorway with her back to him, of the slim figure, the tiny shapely breasts, the small hips which had swayed seductively as she had come close. He kept comparing her to Helen, assuring himself that it was only youth that favored her. Youth and the novelty of her-the contrast between her body and Helen's, which by this time he knew as well as his own.
Whatever it was, he could not get her out of his mind. He grew warm, his wounds ached him more than ever, he shifted from side to side. Listen to that clock tick, just listen to it! He would never fall asleep. Not here on this couch.
And suddenly a new thought: he would fall asleep if he were next to Helen, lying with his head on her breast. He had become used to sleeping this way. It would comfort him. He was human-there were times when he needed comforting. And he would behave, he wouldn't touch Fran, wouldn't hurt Helen, He had that much self-control. Suppose he were to get into bed with them? ... The idea caught fire in his brain, and the flame spread through the fibers of his being.
He got up, in the darkness stepped out of his trousers, rationalizing mat it would be too hot under the covers with his clothes on. Fran wouldn't mind. How could she, after showing herself in the nude that way? As for Helen-well, she would forgive hint tomorrow. She would have to!
He got into bed on Fran's side, climbing over her. She moved aside to make room for him. Helen, pretending to be asleep, did not stir; but she was breathing heavily, unevenly.
He got under the sheets between them. For a while he lay flat on his back, staring into the darkness, waiting. He was in contact with them on either side, his arms and legs touching theirs. Helen was warm and damp, Fran surprisingly cool. Suddenly Fran's hand was on his arm, stroking it gently. "Tramp!" he thought, in disgust. He drew free, turned to Helen, put his arms around her and lowered his head to her breast. She was still pretending, not letting on she knew he was there.
He tried to sleep. His mind was wandering hazily. He couldn't get her out of it. Her, the bitch, the tramp, on the other side of the bed, whose icy feet were touching his, rubbing, signaling.
Then he felt her hand on his thigh. She touched the skin so lightly at first that he thought he was only imagining it. Then the pressure became more definite, the hand bolder. It strayed all over him, touched just the right spots, the nerve centers. At last he could hold out no longer. "Bitch!" he muttered under his breath-"Bitch!" He raised his head and turned it to her, then moved into her waiting arms, and kissed her so savagely that a crack broke on his lip and he could feel the wetness, and taste the salt, of his blood. She moaned and sighed, bit his shoulder and dug her nails into his flesh. "Dirty bitch!-dirty bitch!" he kept muttering. He wished to hurt her, to avenge Helen for the hurt they were doing her; yet he knew that he could not hurt her enough, it was the very savagery of his onslaught that she craved.
He did not think of Helen till later, staring into the darkness, listening to Helen's choked sobs, feeling the bed tremble under him. Pity surged up in him and he turned to her and said, "I'm sorry, Helen. Forgive me! I didn't mean-listen, will you listen-!"
For Helen it had been like some terrible nightmare. She willed Joe to remain where he was the minute she heard him move. But he was coming and a moment later his head was on her breast. Oh God, she couldn't! And yet she wanted to run her fingers through his hair and hold his hard muscular body close to her! Not in front of Fran. She couldn't. It would be like taking part in an orgy. Even as he turned towards her ... thank God he had done that ... she felt the blood mount to her cheeks. She was pretending to be asleep. She couldn't encourage him. She couldn't have stood it if he began to make love to her beside Fran.
And then suddenly she felt him shifting. Helen froze. He was turning away from her. "Bitch," he was saying, "bitch!" She heard the girl breathe outwards and then inwards quickly as though she had been struck. A foot struck her ankle ... it was Fran's, the girl's ... At that point Helen held her breath and listened. Every groan, every shudder, every muffled movement came to her. How horrible! Oh God, take me away from here! How could she ever have had anything to do with him! He was a tramp, like the girl. She had known it all along! They had probably planned it all! To shame her! In her own bed!
A strangled grunt came from her lover. "Dirty bitch! Dirty bitch!" he gasped. Don't touch me! something shrieked inside Helen. Joe was turning, his forearm struck her elbow. No! It burst from her lips in a desperate whisper, and then her whole body began to cave in, her knees fell apart, crooked high, her large cream-soft thighs forming the gaping maw of a silken crocodile....
Joe was too mixed up to take cognizance of her just then. He stared up at the darkness silently. The little bitch! She made me do that! She taunted me! And then suddenly I wanted it just like she did, and I forgot about Helen. What a bastard I am!
Oh hell, I made every more for her to overhear. I was holding Helen, not Fran; both, gosh, them both! I wonder if she got hot? At that moment Helen's left thigh fell like a soft kitten on his right kneecap.
Helen felt herself open up in a huge snarl at Fran....
And Fran, after listening to his lousy pleading! He was going on to Helen! That fat old bitch! Probably sends him out every night like this to get a girl like me back for extra thrills! Who does he think he's kidding?
Joe and Helen didn't seem to be kidding. He was moving over her....
Fran listened too. She could not help it. She heard Helen's sobs, heard him beg her forgiveness, heard diem embrace and kiss. And then she heard Helen's sighs and gasps and moans, felt the bed shake and move, knew just what was happening; and she couldn't stand it, she'd scream if it didn't stop!
But was it really happening? Was it happening to her? She couldn't believe it. No man would do this to her, move from her arms to those of another woman, beg that other woman's forgiveness for having made love to her, and now this!
She pressed the pillow around her ears to shut out the sound, but that didn't help. She dug her nails into her palms till she felt blood, but that didn't help either. And she couldn't leave, she wanted to but couldn't; she must stay it out, must drink the bitter draught down to its dregs.
She stared into the darkness as the bed moved under her. She did not shed tears or sob or tremble as Helen had, yet her weeping was no less for its being dry and silent and immobile. She wept within-the only way she could. The unshed tears were stored inside, turned rancid, became a vile and poisonous brew. She would never forget the one who had done this to her, would never forgive. That one was not Joe, but Helen. She had forgiven Joe; in her own hard fashion she loved him-had loved him from the night they had met in that smelly motel in Jacksonville where she had danced for him.
Despite her youth and vivacity, Frances Mullins' soul was small and warped. Life had spat on her, laid her down and stepped on her. Much as she might try to disguise it from others, and even from herself, she hated the world of men.
Such hatred, were it concentrated and focused on a symbol, might be a most dangerous thing....
CHAPTER TEN
HELEN WAS OUT OF BED at ten, and half an hour later Joe joined her in the kitchen. He wore his trousers but was barefoot and shirtless. She said not a word to him, averted her eyes. The memory of what had happened in the dark predawn tortured her, though it had been none of her doing and she had silently prayed the inevitable would not transpire. She squeezed his orange juice and set it on the table. He drank it at a gulp, and set down the empty glass. She turned from him and looked out the window. "Helen, turn around, will you?"
She hesitated, but. did as he said.
"Look at me, not at the floor."
With effort she raised her eyes. He came close to her, grasped her arm, and holding it tightly said, "I'm going to shock you now. Are you set?"
She nodded.
"Fran stays!"
She couldn't believe her ears. "Hut-but I thought-"
"But nothing! It's final!"
"Joe, you don't understand. Three of us-and this tiny apartment ... What will the landlord say?"
"Damn the landlord! We're paying good rent, aren't we? If he doesn't like it, we'll move elsewhere."
She continued to protest, but finally he became so nasty that she could stand it no longer, had to submit.
"If that's the way you want it-" She shrugged helplessly.
But Joe was in for a bit of a surprise.
Helen was out, having gone to do some shopping, when he made Fran the offer. She had just got out of bed, her eyes were heavy with sleep and sticky at the corners. She refused with a curt, "No thanks!"
"Why not?"
She would not explain, remarked that he was more of a fool than she'd thought. "Any kid would know why not!"
"Well, suit yourself."
She washed up and returned to the bedroom. When she emerged, she was dressed, looking clean and refreshed. She started for the door, and said, "Be seeing you."
"Where you going?" he asked.
"That's none of your business."
"Sore?"
"No."
He got up, grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. "What's the idea?"
She smiled at him and said, "Nothin's the idea. I was just curious to see if you'd stop me."
"So now what?"
"So now I'm going. I'll meet you."
"Where?"
"In the cafeteria-same table as last night. At midnight."
"What are you going to do till then?"
"That's my business."
When Helen came back with the groceries she asked where Fran was.
"Oh, she split," Joe said as casually as he could. "I didn't want her hanging around during the day. He would give another story later, as a proof of his love.
But she must have sensed something in his voice, because she flushed bright scarlet. She could hear Fran's ugly voice, telling a friend perhaps: "I found out he wanted her to stay too, the three of us in one bed! And she agreed! Can you imagine that, she agreed!...."
For a week thereafter he met her each night at twelve. They had coffee together, chatted a while; and afterwards, if the weather was right, took a walk together in the dark still night. She loved to walk at this hour, for by then the noise and com fusion of the day was over, the hustling, hard-breathing workaday world slept. Those who were left now were the drifters, the joy-seekers, the lonely ones like herself-the detached entities, the ones who did not belong. She felt at home amongst diem, could meet their eyes when they passed her in the darkness.
Joe began to look forward to seeing her. At midnight there was nothing else to do. He had prowled the streets, looked and admired, dreamed and planned. He had no wish to see Cal Royce again; the memory had for some inexplicable reason become repugnant to him. As for returning to Mique's-no, that was out of the question! He would never forget, or forgive, their having tossed him out that night to face the three toughs alone.
Fran admitted to him that she was broke; he borrowed money from Helen and gave it to her.
"There, that ought to hold you for a couple of days. I'll have more for you then."
'"Thanks," she would say. But she was not really grateful. She handled the money as if it were contaminated, crumpling it up and sticking it into the slit pocket of her skirt-out of sight, out of mind.
Watching the performance, Joe had to grin. She was proud, all right-or pretending to be. Who was she trying to kid, the little guttersnipe!"
"I intend to get a job," she announced suddenly, as they walked along the shore one night, "-a job and an apartment."
"Why that? Aren't hotel rooms good enough for you anymore?"
"They're good enough for me, but not for you."
They stopped and stood facing each other. The moonlight cast a ghostly glow on her.
"I want to have a place where you can be at home. And I want to cook for you."
He laughed, reminded her that he had an apartment right now where he was fairly well at home.-"And as for cooking for me, Helen does okay in that apartment."
"Helen!" she scoffed. "That old bag!"
They continued to walk along the hard-packed sand, side by side. They walked in silence, each lost in thought, seemingly unaware of the other. There were tears in her eyes and her face was contorted with rage.
"You know, Joe Brody, I hate you!" she declared softly.
He lit a cigarette and offered her one. She took it.
The following night, while they sipped coffee, she suddenly said, "Joe, there's something I've got to tell you. I didn't want to, but it's troubling me keeping it to myself."
"Big secret, eh?"
"Yes."
"Shoot."
"I love you."
He laughed at her, but for some reason the announcement irked him. His lips shed the curl of laughter rather abruptly.
"Don't talk that way, Fran. Coming from you it sounds corny."
She smiled a sour little smile and said, "I know."
One night she arrived at the meeting place half an hour late. He saw her get out of a cab and come dashing through the revolving doors.
She was pale and breathless. Her hand trembled slightly as she lit a cigarette and sat down across from him.
"You're late."
"Yes, I know." She laughed nervously. "I thought I'd miss you."
"Want some coffee?"
"Lots of it ... but wait!" She reached across the table and caught his wrist. "I've got news."
"Why the build up? Just tell me, if you want to."
"I've got a job-I'm working. I was looking all week, but I kept it a secret from you."
"Good job?"
She shrugged and said, "Stripping-at the Club Seventy-Seven. The pay is not bad. And I got an advance on my first week's salary." She put two tendollar bills on the table.
He said, "Swell! You needed a break."
She nodded towards the money and said, "Take it."
"What for?"
"That's half of what I owe you. At the end of the week you get the balance."
He looked at her, but couldn't believe it. "You're not kidding?"
"Why would I?"
"You need it more than I do. Keep it."
"Give it back to Aunty." She had got into the habit of calling Helen that. "She doesn't need it either."
"I don't care whether she needs it!" she burst out. She bit her lip. Her face was flushed with anger.
She insisted so vehemently that finally he took the money and put it in his wallet.
"I'll see that she gets it," he promised.
They went out and walked afterwards, and when they had returned to the hotel where she was staying she caught his hand and squeezed it.
"No more walks at night. I'm going to miss them."
"They were nice," he admitted, "but you don't get paid for walking."
"You'll come and see me at the Seventy-seven?"
"I don't know if I can afford it."
"Be there. It won't cost you."
He promised he'd try to make it.
"I'll be looking for you at about ten tomorrow."
As he left her and walked towards Alton Road he was thinging of the money on the table-the way she had insisted he take it. Imagine that! A guttersnipe like her, pressing him till he had to give in. She had pride, all right. Low-class and yet-no other word for it than "pride." Maybe she wasn't so bad, afer all. He'd thought she was as bad as he, but now she had given him something to wonder about. Maybe she wasn't.
No maybes about it, who was he trying to kid? The very minute she had got her hands on a bit of it, her first thought had been to pay back the money he had given her. Given, not lent her. Suppose he were to get some dough of his own, would he think of repaying Helen? He knew the answer to that!
At the Club Seventy-Seven one night about a week later, she came to him between performances and said, "Can't stick-got to entertain the suckers, keep 'em buying drinks. But listen: stay till closing time this morning, will you hon?"
"Why?"
"I'll show you then. Will you stay?" He said he would.
At 4 a.m., they emerged from the cafe. Fran had a deal on with a cabby to pick her up each night at closing time. Joe noticed that the driver winked to her as they got in, but thought nothing of this till they arrived at their destination.
This turned out to be not the hotel where Fran had been staying but a neat little bungalow with a sun window in front, on Tenth near the bay. The cab pulled away and left them standing at the curb.
"This is it, Joe-what I wanted to show you."
"You've got an apartment, eh?"
"It costs a lot, but it's worth it. Wait till you see-it's gorgeous!"
She opened the door, flicked on the lights. He came in behind her, looked around him and said, "Not half bad!" In fact he was putting on, he wasn't really impressed. To him an apartment was an apartment; the only difference between this and his own was the arrangement of the furniture.
"Do you like it?" she asked, searching his eyes as if she had seen through the pretense.
"It's all right. But why do you keep asking?"
"I never had a place of my own. Hotels and rooming houses were good enough for me."
"You've stepped up."
"Joe, listen-" she moved close to him and put her arms around his neck. "I-" She seemed to be at a loss for words.
He put his arms around her and kissed her; when he drew his head back and looked at her he saw tears in her eyes.
She hugged him to her and whispered into his ear, "I've waited so long for this-so long-to have you to myself."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JOE CONTINUED TO PROWL THE streets of Miami Beach, to gaze at the swaggering rich, the pink hotels, the chrome and the glitter, to admire and dream. But the edge was off the original enthusiasm and excitement. He observed more coolly, at times almost with detachment. Some of the tanned and healthy-looking men had paunches and bald heads and worry lines in their foreheads. Some of the gaudy women who swung metallic purses and tripped about on gilded shoes, reeked with age beneath their loud perfumes, were gray beneath their bleaches, wrinkled beneath their pancake make-up, flat-chested beneath their falsies.
Gradually he began to spend less time at his wanderings and more with Fran and Helen. Ten each night would find him at the Seventy-Seven Club, sitting at a corner table, sipping beer, watching the show. Between performances, if she was not occupied with the suckers, Fran would slip over and chat with him a while. Though she wore satiny low-cut gowns and lots of make-up, laughed often and was more vivacious than ever, the long hours of night work were beginning to tell on her. Caught unawares, she sometimes looked haggard and worn. Her eyes had lost their sparkle and were circled with gray off-color skin. She smoked constantly, whenever her hands and mouth were not otherwise occupied, and her thin fingers were stained from cigarettes. She had developed a cough, which she treated with patent medicines.
Helen on the other hand seemed to be thriving in the warmth and sunshine. She had put on weight, her hair had become lustrous, her skin had colored slightly. If Joe did not wait till closing time at the Seventy-Seven, but returned home early, he would rise before noon the following day. He would spend six or seven hours with Helen, take her out to lunch and have long talks with her, in which he would occasionally make an earnest attempt to understand her. By now he had started to go to the beach, and sometimes he took her with him. She had a wonderful figure in a bathing suit, and would get admiring glances from the men around her, even the young among them.
Once when they had emerged from the water and were lying beside each other on the hot sand, Joe turned to her and asked, "Happy?"
She caught his hand in hers, squeezed it and murmured, "This is the happiest moment of my life."
He sought release in the sea. Swimming, being out there alone, he felt a sense of detachment from the past and future, of oneness with the present. He longed to go on swimming forever, never to return to the world of men-to what had been and could not be undone, to what must be. Now and then when he swam out too far a lifeguard would come after him in a boat and warn him about sharks, barracudas, and undertows. He would laugh good-naturedly and turn back; but later, thinking of it, he'd mutter under his breath. "Why don't they leave a guy alone-let him do what he wants? It's my own damn life!"
When he lay on the hot sand, and sometimes when he walked along the water's edge, he would think of his parents. In particular he would recall the last visit he had paid them, just before he set off for Florida. His mother's face would come to mind, as it had appeared at the final moment, just before he left her. A smile would twitch his lips, a smile in which sadness and tenderness were intermingled. However, he would frown when his father's face appeared. He would remember that his father seemed to hate him. "Well, let him-let him!" he'd tell himself defiantly. "But which of us is better off now?-which has more to show;'" His words would not console him. He felt bitter and unhappy, torn by a vague, indefinable sense of remorse.
At those times, too, he would think of the past-usually of Rudy Gowan and the rooming house first, then of the cheating, the petty larceny, the queers he had rolled. It made him uncomfortable to think back over all the things he had done. He had been no better than Cal Royce, the memory of whom actually sickened him now! Well, that was over and done with, never would he go back to it. lie had moved into respectability. The past was dead, so why not bury it?
At precisely this moment he would start to think of Helen. Wasn't he using her, in a way cheating her, having her support him and taking money from her? Was this any more respectable than cheating at cards, or rolling a queer? For all her thirty-one years, she was helpless, a baby in his hands. She trusted him, loved him, would the for him. She said he was giving her happiness. But eventually-he sensed it though he tried to shut it out of his thoughts-eventually he must harm her. Well, that was the future; and it was his policy to avoid thinking of the future.
So the weeks passed, and life took on a sort of routine, as it has a way of doing. His days were spent with Helen, except rarely when he went to the beach alone. His nights were spent with Fran at the Seventy-Seven Club, and now and then, when he waited till closing time, at her bungalow.
He sat at a small corner table, which by tacit understanding had become his when the place wasn't too busy. He made no new friends; his experience with Cal Koyce had discouraged him. He spoke casually with the waiters and entertainers, but when they tried to get familiar he damped them with a curt or cynical remark. He loved watching Fran dance. She wasn't just a hip-wriggler, she had real talent. She wasn't cheap or vulgar, like some of the girls, and her ankles weren't -----rimmed with dirt. It made him feel somewhat smug to see other guys ogling her, and know that they could not have her because she was his. "Let 'em look-looking can't hurt-let 'em sweat!"
If he waited till the end of the show he would ride home with her in a taxi and make love to her. Afterward they would sit in the kitchen and she would make him coffee. lie didn't want the coffee but he let her make it because it pleased her. She wished to do more for him-cook his meals, wash his clothes and darn his socks. She said she wanted to be like a wife to him, swore that it was the first time she had felt this way about a man.
She wished especially to sleep with him. She wanted to cuddle up in his arms and bury her head in the hollow of his neck, wanted to hug his strong arm to her breast, feel his warm breath in her hair. He rejected her gently.
"Not tonight trail. Next time maybe."
But next time was the same, and so was the time after. She began to realize that he was purposely avoiding sleeping with her, that regardless of his promises he most likely never would. She did not question him as to why, because she was too proud. She continued to wait and hope.
Joe himself could hardly have said why. lie hadn't bothered to think about it. He would just rather sleep with Helen, that was all. II he had taken the time to dunk it out, he might have realized that he was more at ease with Helen, more comfortable. When he awoke with her he felt clean and refreshed, and-strange to say-almost respectable. Deep in him, unrealized perhaps but none the less present, was a yearning for respectability-for the outer show of it, at any rate. He knew that sleeping with Fran would not give him this.
At last Fran could take it no longer. She began to question him. When his answers turned out to be evasive and indefinite, she lost patience and told him why.
"You're a kid, that's why! A silly kid with a mother complex." It was a theory which she, who had read a few sensational magazine articles on psychiatry, had picked up. Helen, or Aunty as she called her, was a mother symbol to Joe. "You're afraid of hurting mother-being a bad boy and staying out all night, sleeping with a girl like me!"
He laughed at her when she said it; but later, thinking of it, he frowned.
She began to tease him, asking him if he was going to grow up, give up being a Momma's boy. She became bitter and yelled at him and tried to slap him. It was she who got slapped, of course, but this didn't soften her anger. If anything, it was a puff of air on the flame.
She rubbed her cheek, and coming close to him again, said, "I'm not sharing you with your aunt any more-d'you understand ?"
He reminded her that she had called Helen his mother a few days ago.
"Aunt, mother-I don't care what she is to you."
"You'll go on sharing me."
"Why will I?"
"Because you're got no choice," he said, and started for the door.
She got in his path and softly, grimly, said "You're wrong. You don't know me. Leave now and it's for good!"
He hesitated, but at last returned to the couch and sat down. "I couldn't walk out on Helen if I wanted to."
Flushed and breathless with victory, she lit a cigarette and sat down beside him. "Why couldn't you?"
He told her what Helen had said she would do if he walked out on her. "And she means it," he went on, "I can tell you that. She means it all the way down the line!"
Fran's eyes narrowed as he spoke, the stained fingers that held the cigarette trembled ever so perceptibly. Suddenly she laughed, softly at first then louder. The laughter was shattered by a cough. Smoke had got into her eyes, causing them to tear. When she had dried them, she shook her head. A forced smile on her lips, which had gone bloodless, she said:
"Aunty:' No, not her. Not the type. She threatens often but never quite does."
He said that she had threatened only once. And that he was convinced she would do it.
"I never shared a man in my life"-she did not look at him, she seemed to be Looking inwards. He was uneasy and-perhaps for the first time since he had left the Bronx-cowed. He did not want to lose Fran. She was a tramp, she was worthless and evil; yet this was what he wanted and needed in a girl. The Wicked must cherish the Wicked, otherwise they are alone and lost in a world of the Good.
"You're not sharing me," he said. And he explained to her that though he slept with Helen he had very little to do with her, as he put it "in that way."
She reminded him bitterly of the morning, which seemed a long time ago now, when the three of them had slept together in the same bed. Her eyes glittered as she spoke, and her voice was muted, almost inaudible.
"That never happened to me before. And I won't forget it, ever!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
SO FRANCES DID AT LAST succeed in getting Joe to sleep with her, occasionally at any rate. One afternoon about a week later they were having breakfast together when she made a rather startling suggestion.
She set down her fork and stared at him in silence, then suddenly announced that she was tired of it all. "Of what?" he asked. "All-all of it."
"The Club?"
"That too. The long hours-working nights, sleeping days. And the worthless bums ogling me, and knowing what's on their minds, it's-well it's wearing me clown! Worse than that, it's beginning to show. This morning I happened to see myself in the mirror-caught myself unawares, I guess."
"'You look okay to me."
"Joe, I can't go on sharing you with her.
He knew as she said it that she had been building up to this. Knew that, being the sort she was, it had troubled her, tortured her, from the very start. She must have all or nothing; there were no half-victories for her. I explained to her again, as he had often been doing lately, that she wasn't really sharing him, even if he was spending more time with Helen than with her.
"I-ft's run off, Joe. Let's run off to California! You and me-the two of us!"
'"Nothing doing! Why would I, when I like it here so well:'"
"This isn't for us-it's not our sort of town."
He reminded her that she had once said the very opposite: had told him that she intended to spend every winter of her life here.
"That was before I knew you-loved you. Now I want an ordinary town, a place where we can live together, and work, and-well, you know, the rest of it-" she had to blush saying it-"marriage, kids, and all that." lie stared at her in amazement. These ideas were entirely beyond his conception, strange and foreign to him.
"Cut it out, will you Fran!" lie was angry, and she decided not to press him for the present.
From that day on, however, she kept alter him. Not about marriage and kids-she had only been testing him, to see if the normal might not strike some hidden chord-but about running off to California. In fact, she herself had little interest in such things as marriage and children. They were for the ordinary, the staid and settled people of the world, not for such as herself.
From the start he was dead set against running off with her, to California or anywhere else. First-and this was the big reason-because he had no doubts that Helen would carry out her threat if he left her. And second, because he liked what he had here. He went for Fran and told her so. But much as he might deny it to her, and even to himself, he cared for Helen also. She meant more to him than the sum total of what she gave him. He had a need for her, a vague need which, While it could not be explained, was no less real than his need for Fran.
To begin with, he offered no logical objections. He knew that to Fran the possibility of Helen's actually carrying out her threat would, ii anything, be added incentive. As for telling her the rest of it-that he had need of Helen-that would only be adding fuel to the fire! So he just said he didn't want to leave and that that was all there was to it.
Alter a while, however, when he could no longer put her off arbitrarily, he decided to show her the impracticably of the suggestion.
"California's a long way off. I low do we get there?"
"What about the convertible? You said it was yours-that she paid for it, but registered it to you."
"It's mine all right. But a car doesn't run on air-it wants gas."
"I've got some money put aside. Not much, but-"
"How much?"
"A hundred and sixty dollars."
He informed her that this might buy the gas. "It might, but I wouldn't take any bets on it. But suppose we do get thee-just say we do-what then? Do I get a job? What kind? I've got no trade. Wheel-barrow pusher?-truck driver?-delivery boy? No, thanks!"
In desperation: "I'd take care of you, Joe. I'd see to it you didn't-"
"Didn't have to dirty my hands that way?" He laughed cynicallv. "Id be taking money horn you instead of Helen then, wouldn't I:' Trading in the old model for the new. A good idea, lair exchange is no robbery. Only-" he hesitated and looked at her meaningfully-"I think the old model is a bit more reliable."
Surprisingly, she saw it from his point of view, allowed there was sense in what he said. He did not accept his easy victory without misgivings. She was up to something, he knew, up to no good. She was thinking, hatching a new idea. Or perhaps-the thought struck him suddenly-perhaps not! Perhaps she had hatched it long ago, stuck it away far back in her mind, and now was waiting, biding her time, till the right moment.
It was not long in coming.
One morning after they had returned from the club, he sat on the couch reading a newspaper. She stood over him, looking down at him, puffing a cigarette idly, apparently lost in private musings.
"I've thought of the answer," she suddenly announced.
"To what?" he asked.
"To the money question."
He shifted uneasily, perhaps because he guessed what was coming. "No build-ups, you know I don't do for diem."
"Aunty gives it to us!"
"You're crazy!" He tossed the newspaper aside and got to his feet impatiently.
"Listen, Joe!" She caught his biceps and dug her fingernails in. "She's got lots of it, she won't miss-"
He tore his arm free, walked across the room to the window, "(hazy!" he repeated. "Crazy and bitchy as they come!" He loathed her at that moment.
The feeling was not mitigated-if anything, it was intensified-when he recalled that the thought was not new to him, that he himself had long since been trying to imagine what life would be like if he were to get his hands on some of Helen's money and run off.
It became Fran's theme from that moment on: "She's got enough, Joe. Listen, won't you? Five thousand-would five thousand mean that much ... It would be so easy, Joe. She'd give it to you out of the goodness of ... Drop in the bucket. There's more where that came from-lots more! You said she had a good job in New York, made a hundred and ... But why would she miss it? She'd go home and get married-, that's what she'd do. You said there was a guy back home who wanted to marry her. Guy with a good job-lawyer, you said...."
His anger gave way to disdain. Fran was cheap and hard. What could you expect of her? He'd have nothing to do with the idea. Not him! ... True, he himself had played with it long ago, as far back as Brooklyn. But he had only played with it ... It would kill Helen, kill her! And he'd be responsible for her death ... Responsible had he said? That was a nice way of putting it. He'd be her murderer, that's what! For he would have murdered her as surely as if he had put a gun up against her head ... No, not him-never!
Yet eventually Fran's persistence began to pay oil. Though he still swore that he hated her, cursed at her, ranted at her, and even slapped her occasionally, yet she knew that he was thinking of it, considering, weighing. She tried to tip the scales in her favor, reminding him: "You want it short and sweet, don't you Joe? You said so yourself. And think of how sweet that five thousand can make it. A great big lump of green sugar!"
He looked at her but said nothing. When he raised his hand to his forehead, she noticed that his lingers trembled.
One day when she was not thinking of it, had for the moment forgotten it, he said, "You're the big brain. Tell me how." lie had been thinking. In the end he realized it was really tough to make it with an older woman who doted on you.
He was not looking at her, was gazing idly at the wall across the room when he said it. She could not think of what he meant.
"What do you-?"
"The five grand you keep nagging me about Helen's money. How do we get our hands on it? Not that I intend to-" He Hushed and glanced at her angrily. "I'm just asking, get it?"
"I get it," she said softly, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. She admitted that offhand she didn't know, hadn't planned that far ahead. "But now that it's decided-"
He pushed himself to his feet and stood close to her, snarling, his teeth bared. "I just told you it wasn't! Shut up! Keep your filthy trap shut!" lie turned from her in disgust and for several moments paced the room, puffing angrily at his cigarette, muttering under his breath. She had taken his seat on the couch and was watching him, when suddenly he paused, looked at her.
"She's got a bank account here, but I doubt it there's a thousand in it."
"Get her to transfer the rest."
"The rest? All thirty grand?"
"Why not?"
"Because she won't fall for it, that's why not. She's not an imbecile."
"Part of it, then."
"Part of it-yeah." lie crushed out his cigarette in the tray that was beside her on the couch and immediately lit another. "About seven grand, eh?"
"Ten."
"Seven is enough, if we're only going to take five." She shrugged.
He turned from her and began to pace the room, again returned to her. He stood over her, at her. His face was contorted with hate. She didn't mind. It wouldn't last long, a day or two at most. In the meantime she had the consolation of knowing she'd won her victory.
"When it's here, how do we get our hands on it?" he asked.
She told him they would think about that when it was here; for the present their problem was to get her to transfer it here.
"That's right-" he nodded thoughtfully-" first things first. What's your idea?"
"On getting her-"
"Don't stall. You know on what!" He was angry, nervous and irritable. I lis narrowed eves were fastened on her. there was sweat on his upper lip.
"I don't know." she said. "I haven't thought of it. (live me time to think."
He turned from her abruptly and walked to the door. But he paused with his hand on the knob, and glancing to her said, "I'm going out for some fresh air. I'll be hack in hall an hour. Meantime, try to think of something."
He was gone more than an hour, but when he returned she hadn't yet thought of anything. "It takes some sleeping on," she said.
"Sleep on it," ' he said. "I'll see you tomorrow, at about noon."'
"Won't you be at the club?"
"No, I'll take a night off. Spend some time with Helen, for a change."
For half an hour after the door had shut behind him she sat there frowning, lost in thought, carrying her "cigarette absently to and from her lips with long, thin, tobacco-stained fingers.
The following day she had to admit that she still hadn't thought of anything good.
"You might try telling her that a thousand isn't enough to meet emergency expenses-doctor bills, and that sort."
He shook his head. "Helen isn't stupid about money ... or about things, either. You've got the wrong idea about her."
"Have I?"
He reminded her that Helen had been to college and held down a good job, "At one fifty per. And she was paid for her brain, not her looks."
Fran puffed her cigarette and looked at him through narrowed eyes. She hated him at that moment, despised him, loathed him. But how many times more-infinite times more-did she hate Helen Carter!
"Don't worry your head about it," he said. "I've got an idea. It's not very good, but it'll work."
She asked him what it was. He said there was no need to waste words explaining, he would return to Helen now and start it going. It it worked, or seemed likely to, he would see Fran at the club tonight and tell her about it.
As he had said, it was not a very good plan. Its success was predicated not on its logic but on his power to sway the heart and mind of the poor submissive creature who loved him.
His conscience troubled him as he walked through the hot crowded streets on his way to Alton Road. "Why go on with it?" he asked himself over and over again. He had everything he wanted here. He would not be improving his lot by running off with Fran to California. Yet he knew that he would go through with it. he could not stop himself now, in fact that there was no other way. The seed of evil had been planted and it had taken root: he could not get the thought of those five thousand dollars-his own, to do with as he pleased-out of his mind. Yes, his own, his very own! For though he planned to run off with Fran to California, he had begun to toy with the idea of abandoning her there. He had plans for the future, vague as yet but rapidly taking shape.
When he once got his hands on that five thousand he would turn respectable. Go into some legitimate business perhaps; buy a home and a TV set, take up golf, become a straight and upstanding member of the community. He would not want her with him then-a cheap, hard tramp like her-to remind him of the past, of the cheating at cards, the petty larceny, the nights he'd spent at Mique's with Cal Royce. Above all, he would not want to have her with him because they would share the guilt of the crime they must commit against Helen Carter. Seeing her, talking with her every day, he could never forget.
Helen was waiting for him when he got home, he had told her he would be there at noon or shortly after, that he had something important to say to her.
She started to prepare his breakfast, for he had gone out without it. He stopped her.
"No, don't bother. I'm not very hungry. Had some orange juice and coffee on the way. Helen, I've been noticing something about you. I haven't told you about it, but I've noticed it."
She turned from the stove and stood facing him.
"You're homesick," he said.
She lowered her eyes for an instant, and that slight movement indicated to him that he had hit upon the truth. He needed no verification, however, for he had known it long ago, possibly the very day they left Brooklyn. It was a natural enough feeling in a girl like her, a decent girl who had lived a quiet secluded life within her own circle, never been very far from home.
"It's been bothering me, Helen."
"Bothering you?" She raised her eyes quickly and smiling came towards him. "Why darling? Why should it? I don't understand."
She had taken the bait, swallowed it whole.
He caught her hand in his and squeezed it. "I've been thinking that one of these days you might just pick up and leave me. No warnings, no goodbyes-just disappear."
"Joe, dear, you know I wouldn't."
He frowned thoughtfully and turned from her. He raised his hand to his mouth and stood thus, staring off into space, apparently pondering. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "Oh darling, you know-you just know I wouldn't! I'd be leaving a part of me behind. I'd rather the! I told you that once, darling, and I meant it. I'd the!"
"You could prove it to me, Helen," he said softly; "prove to me that you'd never leave me to return to them-Sue, Henry Kohler, Barton Whitmore, and the rest of it."
"You need no proof. You know!"
He turned to her, and smiling sadly said, "Humor me then, won't you sweet? Prove it to me."
"How can I? Tell me-I'll do it."
"It'll sound fantastic, I know. You won't believe me." He shook his head. "No. I won't tell you, you'll think I'm crazy. And yet, if only you would."
"What? What is it you'd have me do?"
He broke it gently: "Transfer some of your bank account here."
She looked at him in amazement. "Why? How would that prove ... I don't understand, darling."
Fie explained it to her. "You've got a thousand here, and that's enough for the time being, right? II we were transients and intended to return to New York in a month or so, it would be more than enough. Hut that's just it, don't you see? We're not transients, we're going to stay here permanently horn now on. You and me. We're going to settle down and live here."
"Oh, I see." There was doubt and uncertainty in her eyes. "You want me to put more money in the account so that you'd know-"
"So that I know you intend to stay on with with me-didn't intend to run back to them."
She shook her head and lowered her eyes. "It doesn't make sense, dear. How would that prevent me from running off?-Oh, but I wouldn't dear. How could I?"
"Then, just to humor me-put me at ease-do as I say."
She continued to debate the logic of it; yet he knew that in a little while she would submit. She had to she could refuse him nothing.
"How much?" she asked at last.
"Not much-a few thousand." He hesitated. "About seven, eh?"
"Seven thousand?" she considered a moment. "Do you want me to go to the bank this afternoon? There are papers to be made out."
"This afternoon would be all right. I'm not doing anything, so I could go with you."
The weeks that followed were most trying on poor Helen. She was weak, submissive, foolish, her eyes were clouded with the strange and almost unnatural love she felt for this boy. Yet she was as Joe himself had admitted-far from a stupid girl. A stupid girl might have entered, but surely would not have graduated from, college. A stupid girl would not have been capable of holding down the job she had, or have appeal as a wife to a-man like Henry Kohler. She knew that Joe had an ulterior motive in getting her to transfer part of her money to Miami Beach. She knew he was seeing Fran Mullins-the young hussy!-every night. He kept it no secret from her. She might even have guessed at what was on his mind, and who had put him up to it. Her instincts were sharp in such matters....
Yes, she knew, she couldn't go on deceiving herself! Joe, and that young hussy Fran Mullins, were planning to get their hands on the seven thousand which she had transferred. And then they would run off together! She must prevent it somehow. There was a way-there must be a way. For her sake, yes, but for his too. Not for the sake of the money, either. The way she felt now, she would give him it gladly, if only he would come to her and ask her for it, if she could only trust him to be honest with himself.
No, it was the prospect of his running off with Fran Mullins that alarmed her. Fran was a vulgar creature, hard, cynical and calculating. Should she once get Joe in her clutches she would never release him; she would ruin him, bring him down to her level, never let him rise again.
Worry began to tell on her. She stayed indoors, ate less, wept often, paced, the floor, muttered to herself. The problem never left her, never for a moment. She awoke with it on her mind, spent the long dreary day with it, slept with it. Occasionally a wisp of memory would float though her thoughts. She would seem to hear Sue's sweet voice, or see Barton Whitmore's kind face, or feel Henry Kohler's gentle, loving touch upon her wrist.
These tricks of the mind did not soothe her. She could think only of the wrong she had done them. Soft and submissive she might be to others, but to herself she was heartless. She did not allow the possibility that her loved ones might have forgiven her by this time. How could they?-she did not deserve to be forgiven for what she had done to them. And yet at the same time she realized she could not have helped herself, and would most certainly do it again if ever the same situation were to come up.
She began to suffer from headaches and insomnia, she lost weight, her color faded, circles of gray appeared around her eyes. When she walked she became dizzy, had to pause now and then and hold on. The things that had previously given her the merest bit of pleasure, she no longer allowed herself. No more ice cream or sweets. She refused to go to the beach with Joe. Without a sideward glance she passed the marquees of cozy air-conditioned movie houses. She ho longer read the books and novels she loved. Nothing mattered, nothing. Only that she must somehow think of a way to prevent Joe's running off with that awful creature!
One afternoon she was strolling aimlessly along Lincoln Road. It was mid-January and the winter season was at its height. The sidewalks were crowded to overflow with vacationers, the gutter was choked with autos and taxis. Horns were honking, humans were laughing and shouting, little Pekinese dogs were yapping. She looked about her and tried to focus her mind on something, to keep down the vertigo that' was rising in her. The sea of faces flowed by; the autos became shadows trimmed with chrome, and this chrome, reflecting the sun, cast beams which penetrated her brain. If only she could see an object, a thing, a person....
Then suddenly she thought she saw a familiar figure in the crowd ahead. She started after it, walking rapidly at first, then running. "Wait," she screamed. "Wait! It's me, Helen darter. Save me, Henry! Oh, you must save me, Hen-ry!"
She fell down in a faint.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHEN JOE RETURNED THAT AFTERNOON it came as a bit of a shock to find Helen in bed.
"It's nothing, darling-nothing at all," she assured him.
Rut he knew that she was ill when he came close to her and looked down at the small wan face, the eyes circled with gray-tinged skin, and the lips trembling perceptibly even as they tried to form a smile.
"I was walking in the sun, and-well-I suppose I should have had some protection for my head." She told him that she had fainted, but insisted she was feeling much better now.
"The sun wasn't that hot this afternoon," he said. "You're run down, Helen. You haven't been yourself lately." He realized, as he uttered them that his words were true.
He stayed with her till six, sitting beside the bed, holding her hand, chatting with her, thinking.
"It's because of us," he told Fran later. "We did it to her."
She laughed and retorted, "So that's what's got you down-worrying about Aunty's having had herself a swoon!"
"You're not satisfied, are you? You won't rest till she's dead. That's why you want to take the money-to make sure she'll kill herself."
"'You're convinced of it that she'll kill herself if we run off with her money, aren't you?"
He admitted it.
"She won't. I'm sure she won't. Hut just let's suppose that she would. I'm not saying she would, mind you-I'm only just supposing. Can you prevent it? Can you stop her from doing it? It's not the money. You yourself say she wouldn't do it for that, but only because you left her. So there's only one way to prevent it, and that's by staying on with her forever."
"So?"
"So are you willing to do that? Sacrifice yourself, stay on with her till she dies of old age? And if you do stay, will you make it legitimate, will you marry her eventually? You'll have to do that eventually, you know, if you stay on with her long enough. And you're too young to be married to her. You can see that, can't you? It would be unnatural, just plain unnatural, that's what!"
"You're talking foolish now. You know I won't marry her. And-" he hesitated as he said it-"I won't stay on with her forever, either."
She caught at his words. "You won't stay on? When will you leave her, then? Whenever it is, that's when she kills herself-if you're so certain that she actually will go through with it. Don't you see, she's a neurotic-a hopeless neurotic. If she threatens it now, she'll threaten it in the future. She's got you tied down forever, she'll never let you go."
He rubbed his forehead, said nothing. She sensed an advantage and pressed it excitedly. "The short sweet life-remember Joe? Short and sweet and the young, that's what you said. And how are you going to live it, with a dead beat like her tied to you? A thirty-one year old woman-too old for you, holding on, never letting go, strangling you!"
"Lay off!" he muttered. "Will you lay off!" He grabbed his head as if it had begun to pain him.
A moment later he got to his feet and began to pace the room. He paused at the window and stood there for a while, looking out. When he turned back to her his lips were curled in an ugly smile.
"The money-we would have to take that, I suppose"
She shrugged and said, "We'd need it, wouldn't we? You said yourself that-"
"Never mind what I said! What do you say?"
She thought it over before she answered, but then spoke with confidence. "I'd say, yes."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because-" she looked at him queerly-" Well, aren't you the one who-didn't you say that she would kill herself not because of the money, but because you'd-"
"You want to be sure she does it, don't you? No slip-ups, eh? You hate her, you want to kill her!"
She crimsoned. And suddenly there were tears in her eyes, her face was strangely contorted. "I won't ever forgive her," she whispered hoarsely "-ever!"
Of course, he decided, Fran was right. It was natural he should, since she had voiced no new thoughts, nothing that he himself had not gone over in his mind previously. She hated Helen and would have them take the five thousand to be certain that she carried out her threat. He did not hate Helen. Fact was, there were times when he felt ... She was good-kind and decent and fine. The best woman he had ever known, with the possible exception of his mother. With all his heart he would rather she did not carry out her threat. He would have her return to her home, her career, the ones who loved and needed her. And yet-there was no hope for it, he must have that five thousand.
Now the money was in a local bank, his next problem was how to get his hands, on it. He put long dreary hours into thinking up and rejecting plans. He began to spend more time alone, less with Helen and Fran. He took up walking again, but as he walked now he did not observe, admire and dream, as he used to. He walked absently, with no particular destination, at times hardly knowing where he was and caring less. The human beings about him no longer interested him, nor did the palm trees, the pink hotels, the stream-lined automobiles. He had his own worries, his own problems. He must think these out, decide and act. And he must do it quickly, for there was conflict and uncertainty in him now, and these things were wearing away at him, hurting him mentally and physically.
At last he decided upon a plan. Like the previous one, by means of which he had Helen transfer the money here, this was not very good. Like the previous one, the success of it was predicated not on its logic, but on his power to sway the mind of the submissive creature who loved him. "No use," ' he thought, "No other way out!" What else could he do? Could he-as Fran put it-stay tied to her forever? And if not, then what other choice did he have?
He put the plan into effect that very day, buying the afternoon paper and bringing it home with him.
After supper he opened it to the Classified Ads section. When he had glanced through the Houses for Sale columns for several moments, lie called Helen and patted the couch beside him. "Sit here next to me, will you sweet?"
She took the seat and he asked, "How much rent are we paying for this dump?"
"Not much. Why do you ask?"
"Two hundred a month, isn't it?"
She caught his hand and pressed it. "Don't trouble yourself, dear. It's-well, it's such a small price to pay for the-"
"Hut suppose you didn't have to pay that much?" he cut in. "Suppose we could live here for less?" He moved the paper over and pointed out the column he had been reading. "Houses, all shapes and sizes-the paper's full of them. So much down and pay the rest like rent. And it's cheaper than rent-much cheaper. Here, see for yourself."
She looked to where he pointed, shook her head and said, "I don't want a house, darling. I've got one back in Brooklyn."
"There you go again!" he muttered impatiently. "Back in Brooklyn! We're in Miami Beach, and we're going to stay here permanently, aren't we? And if we are, what good is your having a house there doing us? Well, answer me. Don't just gape at me with those sad eyes of yours!"
The following afternoon they got into the red convertible and went shopping for houses, and for the next two weeks they went out every day, except when the weather did not allow it. They looked at all sorts of houses, discussed down payments, interest rates, mortgages, and sewage systems. They debated and bargained with salesmen, afterwards talked it over between themselves, and laughed. It was not altogether unpleasant, for either of diem. It gave them something to do, kept their minds occupied. After a while it became almost a habit to get into the red convertible each day at noon and set off on, as they called it, "the real estate merry-go-round." Some of the houses they saw were quite beautiful. They fairly took her breath aw ay; even he was moved.
He liked being with Helen. She was easy-going. good-natured, kind, gentle as a lamb. She did not upset him, shout or scold at him, even make him think too deeply. And it was so small a task to please her: almost everything he did, every word he uttered, pleased her. There were times shopping for a house when he' actually believed, if only for a moment that it was in earnest, that he really wished to buy one and live in it with her for the rest of his life. At those moments Helen seemed to sense what was going on in him, her instinctive feeling for the workings of his mind was well nigh infallible. Her joy at those moments became rapture. She would laugh as he had never seen her laugh before, hug him till it hurt.
"I'll be good to you, dear-I'll be good to you," she would vow.
As d it were possible for her to be anything other than good! One thing she didn't seem to understand: her very compliance bored him.
For the most part, though, he knew that the shopping was just a farce-part of the plan to get his hands on the money. At those times she also seemed to see right through him, to know what was going on in his mind. Not his precise thoughts-how could she possibly guess these? But she sensed with that unfailing instinct of hers, that he was up to no good. Then she would go along quietly, submissively, without a word of protest, or a hint that she was wise to him. Her unhappiness seemed to shrink her at those moments, make her tiny and frail and helpless. He held her small cool hand in his and led her. He felt as if he were leading a child, who trusted him, to its doom.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE FEVER DID NOT SWEEP on him suddenly. For several days he had been bothered with headaches and nausea.
He had spent that afternoon with Fran, and when he returned home he lay down on the couch to rest while Helen prepared supper. "I may doze off," he told her. "Wake me if I do."
When she woke him he told her he wasn't hungry yet, to let him sleep a while longer. At ten he awoke with a start and tried to sit up. His stomach felt quivery, his head throbbed, every muscle in his body ached. Helen was seated beside the couch, watching him, her face drawn with anxiety. He asked her to help him get up, for he could not straighten his hack. She led him to the bed, helped him undress.
"It's cold in here," he muttered, "(let me some covers."
She covered him, tucked him in, yet he continued to shiver.
"I've called the doctor," she said. "He should be here any moment. You were moaning as you lay asleep, your face was flushed and perspiring."
Afterwards he vaguely recalled that the doctor, a gray-haired man with a pencil-line mustache, had been there, that he had tried to stay awake and answer questions. He awoke several times during the night, but each time was up only a moment or two then dozed off again. In the morning he tossed and moaned so much that he frightened Helen and she woke him. "Huh-what time's it?" he asked.
"It's eleven. Are you hungry, dear?" Is there anything I can-"
He turned from her in disgust, tried to fall asleep again. He succeeded in doing so, at once had a vivid, horrible dream.
It began with him finding himself alone in a large room, which for some reason looked very familiar. He tried to recall when he had been in that room before, but couldn't. His hand seemed weighted down. When he looked he saw that he was holding a hatchet. There was wet blood on the blunt edge of its steel head. In horror, he dropped it. It fell with a deafening clatter, which alarmed him still further. Just then he heard a man's voice shouting, and recognized it. His father! What was he doing here? He did not wish to seethe old man, who was coming directly to this very room. The thought of escape flashed through his mind. He started for the door and had almost reached it when his father burst through, blocking his way.
"Ah-ha, caught you red-handed. Yes, red-handed-look!"
He looked down at his hands, saw that what his father said was true. They were sticky with blood.
"Mother-killer!" his father screamed; enraged, he came towards him and raised his hand as if to strike him. He stood waiting for the blow, for he wished to be struck, to feel pain, to be punished. But his father, sensing this perhaps, didn't strike him.
"See what you have done!" The old man pointed to the far side of the room. He turned and what he saw made his skin crawl. On shaky legs he approached a corpse. As he drew closer he saw that it was his mother, her head had been crushed and was slowly oozing blood. He tried to scream, but no sound issued from his throat.
"You did it!" his father accused, "You killed her! You are a murderer!"
He tried to deny it, but again no sound emerged. He realized that his denial would have been a lie anyway, since he was the murderer.
He threw himself at his father's feet in the hope the old man would kick him, spit on him. He wished punishment for his crime. Anything-the more terrible, the better. He would have had his eyes gouged out, his fingernails pulled, had himself burned alive. He had to pay for the awful crime he had committed. but his father was wise to him, knew what he craved and wouldn't give it to him.
"There is your punishment." He pointed to the dead woman. "Look at her, see her, see her forever-and never forget that you did it!"
He got up and ran to the door. He had to escape-get out-keep running forever! But as he reached it, the door shut in his face.
"There is no way out," his father told him. "You must stay in this room forever!" His father came close to him, waving his arms and pointing to him with a long crooked forefinger, began to lecture him.
He couldn't bear this. He thought of escape again, remembered there was none. He placed his hands over his face to shut out the accusing voice, but the words penetrated and exploded in his mind like claps of thunder.
"Look at me, Joe Brody-" he called him by his full name, for some inexplicable reason-"look at me! I am a bread baker. I have worked at it all my life, now I am old and bent and broken by work. You see me and you do not like my looks, eh? You fool! Do not look at the outside, the shell of the man-look Inside, in the heart of a man before you judge him. I have taken the slow hard road, yes. It was a struggle. But I have hurt no one, I have led a clean honest life and I am not ashamed. I sleep easy of a night, and I am content with my lot. This is happiness, do you understand? This is all the happiness the world can offer a man.
"You, who chose the easy way, the short, sweet life-have you found happiness? One hour of it? One minute of it? One second of it? No, you have not found it, and if you think you did, you have lied to yourself, you have forced yourself to believe what you wished to believe. Because there is no easy road to happiness-to find it you must take the hard road!"
His father magically disappeared, and he was kit alone in the room with the dead woman. He returned to her and stood over her, weeping. It seemed that he had recovered his voice now and he wept aloud-so loud that the sounds filled the room.
Helen shook him and awakened him. "Joe-are you all right!"
He gazed at her and asked, "Where am I?"
"You're at home, Joe. Oh darling, you were crying in your sleep-wailing aloud, like a child. .It frightened me so!"
During the third day of the fever his head cleared somewhat, and he smiled to Helen when he saw her hovering about, taking care of him. In the morning of the fourth day he sat up in bed, and when Helen entered the room, he called her to him. She came to the side of the bed, and he reached out his arms, hugged her, and kissed her. He did not explain why, and she did not press him for an explanation.
The following day he was up and about. Helen tried to restrain him, but he overrode her protests. He went out-of-doors and took a cab in Fran's bungalow.
Fran threw herself into his arms and wept. When she stepped back and dried her eyes he noticed that she looked haggard and worn. He laughed and said, "To look at us, they'd guess you were the sick one."
"Was it very bad, Joe?" she asked. "I was half crazy with worry. I knew you were sick. I passed the apartment and saw the doctor."
"Why didn't you visit me, then?"
"How could I, with her there? No, I couldn't lace her. I made up my mind to, then just couldn't bring myself to mount the steps and ring the bell. It was awful. II you only knew how many times I walked back and forth past that house!"
He thought, fleetingly, of telling her about the nightmare, but changed his mind.
As if a mutual understanding had been arrived at by means of mental telepathy in the interval of their separation, neither of them mentioned California or the five thousand dollars for all of the week that followed. The nightmare had a profound effect on him, for the time being at any rate. The day he got out of bed, he put through a call to the Bronx and spoke to his mother. She was alive and well, and she gushed with joy upon hearing his voice. That evening he was home with Helen and he kept staring at her, and frowning and thinking. And when he lay in bed that night, he vowed to go straight-never to think of California or the five thousand again, to get himself a job and make some attempt to pay Helen back her money, stay on with both Helen and Fran as long as they would have him. He realized vaguely that they would not go on sharing him forever, sooner or later he must choose between them. That was the future, however; it was a matter of policy with him not to think of the future.
Fran didn't get the message of Joe's change of heart by mental telepathy: she read it in his eyes when he came to her that first day after his illness. The reason she did not speak of California and the five thousand was that she knew it would be a waste of effort. She realized that his mind was definitely made up; this time words alone would not budge him.
A gambler by nature, she decided to run a risk. If it came through she had him, and the money and California as well. If it missed-well, then she had lost everything, and it was back to. Columbus Ohio for her, back to the Charley Grants, the cheap cafes, the gray rooming houses.
It was on a Friday she made her decision, and since this was also pay day, she took the first step towards carrying it out. She quit her job at the Club Seventy-Seven.
The following day she told Joe not to meet her there anymore and explained why.
"You just up and quit?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"How come?"
She shrugged and said, "I'll need to rest a week before I set off for California."
"Who are you going with?"
"No one."
"On your lonesome, eh?" He laughed at her. "Go ahead, see if I care."
He knew the bait was out, that she expected him to take it. Well, he would never touch Helen's money, would never think of harming her for a low-down tramp like Fran. Not him. Not a chance!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WITH HIS THUMB ON THE AD he moved the paper over so Helen could read it.
$5000 cash, lovely ranch-type home, 4 bedrooms, etcetera-he knew it by heart, for he had been staring at it for hours, staring and thinking. Thinking of Fran's leaving for California in a day or two, of himself being left behind; of the chance let pass for a new life which might include a business of his own and respectability; and of Helen as she cared for him while he was ill, as she held his hand when he led her about on the purposeless shopping tours. Then the wrestling with his conscience as he had recalled the awful dream. The doubt, the uncertainty, the inner conflict. And at last the decision, final and irrevocable.
"What do you think?" he asked softly.
She shook her head, puzzled, frowning slightly. "I don't know. We'll have to drive out and see it, won't we?"
"No need to. I did that yesterday, when you were at the movies. It's okay-swell! Just exactly what we want. I told the guy we'd be around today and leave the down payment."
"Well then-" she hesitated-"I suppose I'll need to go to the bank and draw a check."
"No." He tried to smile at her, but his lips did not stretch properly. "Get it in cash, Helen. Hundred dollar bills."
"Clash? Why? I don't understand." The frown had deepened, there was fear in her eyes, helpless tear, such as might be glimpsed by the slaughterer in the eyes of the doomed calf.
"Cash-that's what the ad says. I don't want to start bickering with him when we get there. Let's make it quick and final. Resides-" he tried to smile again, and this time his lips trembled-"besides, I want to get the feel of holding that much money in my hands. I never held that much in my...." His voice fell off, and he knew that she had seen through him. "Let's go!" he said impatiently, "Time's wasting. To the bank."
The bank was only a few blocks away and they walked in silence, side by side. From time to time lie glanced to her, noticed her extreme pallor and frailty, the way she stared blankly off into space, directly ahead. Once she missed a curb and would have fallen if he hadn't caught her. "Watch where you're going, will you? What's wrong with you?"
She did not reply; she appeared to be immersed in her thoughts. He knew what she was thinking.
He waited for her outside the bank. When she emerged she held an envelope in her hand. Avoiding his gaze, she gave it to him. He glanced inside and saw the greenbacks, neatly stacked and taped. He stuck the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket.
"There's something wrong with you, Helen. You are not looking well at all."
"It's nothing-" she shook her head. ""Nothing at all."
"Helen, I'm worried about you. Go in the house and take a nap. I'll go and see this guy myself." He swallowed to moisten his throat. "I'll just buy it, sign the papers, give him the money. Tomorrow, when you "re feeling better, well go there, the both of us, and-"
"How long will it take?" she asked.
"To make out the papers and all that? About an hour, I guess. Yeah, an hour ought to do it."
"It's one now. I looked at the clock in the bank. Do you think you'll be back by three?"
"I don't see why not."
Suddenly she did an unexpected thing, which frightened him and at the same time touched him to the heart. Right there on the street, in front of the house, she caught his hand, and lowering her head kissed it fervently. For the first time that day, she raised her lace and looked deeply, searchingly into his eyes. Her eves were moist, shone with such selfless love and tenderness as he had never seen in diem. She began to speak in a subdued, almost hushed voice; and as she spoke there was a trace of a smile on her lips, a smile of resignation, of no hope:
"Joe darling, listen carefully. I'm going into the house now. To take a nap as you suggested. I'll wait there for you till five, which will allow you lots of time to get the business done and return. I beg you to come back by then. If you aren't back by then, please don't come back anymore. The money will be yours-my parting gift to you. I'll write a note and leave it on the table. The note will say that the money belongs to you-that I gave it to you of my own free will, because I loved you. Then, alter I've written the note, I will...." But she could not finish. She shook her head and tears flooded her eyes.
Sobbing, she turned from him and ran up the steps.
He walked away, dazed and confused. His temples pounded and his throat felt parched. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that at last he had the money in his hands; it was all his, with no strings attached to it. He could do with it as he pleased: she had given it to him, he hadn't stolen it. He could go to California or stay where he was. He could take Fran with him or he could leave her behind.
But though he kept touching it through his jacket, the money did not comfort him. Nor did the thought of what it made possible. He was racked by conscience. Self-hatred rose, swelled, threatened to overpower him. He had what he wanted, didn't he? So why complain? And yet the feeling of remorse, the wanting to harm himself, actually, physically. Was this the end he'd been striving for? And if so, then what was the good of it?
He walked along and did not see the faces of the people about him, did not see the traffic, or the hotels or the palm trees. Crossing a street he was almost hit by a bus; a policeman grabbed his arm and said, "Wake up, teller! You trying to get yourself killed?" Me yanked his arm free and continued on his way.
Hut if his mind had no particular destination, his legs did. He suddenly looked around to find himself standing in front of Fran's bungalow. A feeling of repulsion swept him, he turned and would have gone on his way if his name hadn't been called at precisely this moment. Looking back, he saw Fran standing in the door motioning to him. He shrugged as ii resigning himself to his fate, started towards her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HE TOSSED THE ENVELOPE ON the kitchen if table, said, "There it is," then sat down heavily on a wooden chair. She grabbed the envelope, opened it. She became Hushed, her hands trembled, a wild, almost insane, light shone in her eyes. Then she passed the envelope back to him, suggested he return it to his jacket pocket. "Why!'" he asked.
"Don't you think we ought to be leaving town? What if she calls the police?"
"You know she wouldn't!" he retorted angrily; and again a feeling of repulsion swept him. He had an urge to get to his feet, walk out the door and leave her forever. But he staved where he was, for his body would not rise from the chair. He told her all that had transpired between Helen and himself as they had parted; except that he omitted the hand-kissing incident, which had so strangely moved him. He thought she would not understand it; unlike himself, she would jeer at it and debase it.
Fran bubbled with excitement. She fluttered around, talking without let-up. She raved about California, mentioning and in the same breath rejecting places they might go first. She made plans and immediately altered them, put out ridiculous suggestions.
"Let's go out," she said brightly.
"Where?" he asked.
"Anywhere-oh, anywheres at all. In public-as long as we're seen in public!" 'Why?"
She hesitated, then shrugged and said, "Well, if she is going to do it at five, don't you think we ought to be noticed away from the scene...."
"Of what?" he asked. Before she could reply he reminded her of the note Helen would leave, which would clear everyone of responsibility for her death. He glanced at his wrist watch, saw that the time was two-fifteen. He took the watch off and set it on the table, next to the envelope. For a moment he stared at the two-objects and said nothing. Then he raised his eyes to Fran, who had begun to chatter again, and in a soft but ominous voice said, "Shut your trap, bitch!"
She gaped at him in amazement. Then her thin lips twisted in a sneer.
"Don't talk to me," he warned; "Not a word between now and five o'clock!"
She shrugged, turned from him, moved slowly to the window. He noticed, looking beyond that, that the sky had clouded over, become dark and foreboding.
They remained where they were, silent and almost motionless: she standing at the window, he sitting at the table. Time ticked away, infinitely slow. He tried to think, but couldn't-his mind seemed to have gone blank. He knew only that he must stay here and wait-count off the minutes, but wait!-till five o'clock. And then-why then he might get up and go where he pleased, do as he wished.
He glanced at the watch again. 2:45. Slow, much too slow, his lids were heavy. He lowered his head to the table and shut his eyes. He expected to doze off but he didn't, he remained awake. Awake, and yet, strange to say, he was dreaming. "But I'm awake," he thought, as the dream started to unwind. "My head is down on the table and my eyes are shut, yet I'm not asleep. And since I know it's a dream, it can't really be that, can it? Whenever I wish I can simply raise my head and bring it to an end."
Of course it was the same dream: the dream that the lever had brought on two weeks before. Or rather it was a continuation of it; for this began where the other had ended-with him standing over his murdered mother, looking down at her and weeping. It was a dream without movement or dialogue, a dark, gruesome, unchanging scene. It went on and on and he knew it would never change, it would be thus forever. Was this his punishment? That he should stand thus forever and look down on what he had done.
Time passed but there was no way of measuring it. There were no windows in the huge room, so he couldn't count the days; and he had no watch so he couldn't count the hours. How long had he been standing here weeping, looking down at his dead mother?-he wondered. A day? A year? A century? Ten thousand years? A million perhaps?
He realized that since he had to stand here forever, time meant nothing to him. Yet it did. He had an insane yearning to measure it. He began to imagine that somewhere nearby he heard a clock ticking. It was his imagination, of course, but it sound ed so real. If only he could have found that clock, look at it, and know! Oh, if only ... Then he remembered again that this was a dream, he could end it whenever he chose. There was a watch on the table-all he needed to do was sit up and look at it.
He raised his head and slowly gazed about him. lie saw Fran standing at the window. She appeared not to have budged since he had lowered his head to the table. He remembered the envelope. He grabbed it and stuck it into his jacket pocket. Then, fearfully, he turned the watch around and read it. A quarter of five.
He leap to his feet and started for the door. Fran heard him, ran toward him in an effort to head him off. Tears streamed from her eyes and her face was twisted with emotion. "No-no-don't! Don't, Joe-please!"
She grabbed his sleeve. He whirled on her and slapped her so hard that she fell to the floor, by the time she had recovered her senses, he was out the door.
He hailed a cab, gave the driver the address on Alton Road, and told him to step on it, this was a matter of life and death. Would he be in time to stop her? For the first time in years he prayed: silently to a God in whom he did not rightly believe.
He still held the wrist watch in his hand, and he glanced at it as the cab pulled to the curb in front of the house. Five minutes to five. lie handed the driver a bill, without waiting for the change rushed up the stairs. The door was ajar, he pushed it back and entered.
The house was silent. With a feeling of dread such as had never previously known, he slowly crossed the kitchen to the bedroom. In the doorway he paused, and the sight that met his eyes caused his skin to crawl precisely as it had in the feverish nightmare. Helen lay crumpled on the floor in the center of the bedroom. It might have, been the weirdly twisted position in which she lay, or the purplish pallor of her face, that told him. Whatever it was, he knew at once that she was dead.
He walked into the room hesitantly, stood over her for what seemed like a long time, though in fact it may only have been a moment or two. He did not weep, as he had in the dream. His soul was chilled. At first he noticed nothing, only that she was quite dead. Then his eyes came to a focus on the bright green necktie twisted around her neck, which he recognized as his own. At once a thought struck him-a fantastic thought. Vet it was true, obvious as could be, there could be no mistake about it.
Helen had not committed suicide, she had been murdered!
He thought of looking on the table for the note that she had promised to leave, which was to have cleared him, and all others, of connection with her death. Of course it was not there.
He turned, walked from the room, crossed the kitchen and went out the front door. Rain had begun to fall, he hailed the first cab that passed and gave the driver the address of Fran's bungalow. He sat in back of the cab, dazed, trying unsuccessfully to sift his thought and impressions, arrange them, make sense of diem.
Watching her eyes go wide with astonishment, he told Fran what he had found at Helen's place.
She grasped his arm excitedly. "Are you sure there was no note? Maybe it fell off the table. Did you look under? Did you-" lie shook his head. "There was no note. How could there be, if she didn't kill herself?"
"Do you mean to say she was actually murdered?" Fran somehow could not get this into her head. "But why? Who would want to do that to a harmless little rag doll like her? It's-well, it just doesn't add up!" But immediately glimpsing the brighter side of the picture: "If she didn't kill herself, then we had nothing to do with her death! We're not implicated at all."
"Implicated-" he seized on the word. "We're implicated up to our necks! Think it over, I'm nineteen, she's thirty-one. We're living together, but I've got a girl friend-you. She drew five thousand from the bank. It's missing, and it's in my possession. The green tie that's wound around her neck-that belongs to me. She knew no one here but us. No one who would want to kill her. She was a shy backward thing and made no friends or enemies."
Fran lit a cigarette. Her eyes shifted wildly about the room. They lit on the floor, hesitated, then quickly darted back to his face. "Let's take off, Joe. We've got the money and the red convertible. Get it. Get it and-!"
He cut her short, "No. The cops will be expecting us to take off, and will probably be watching the train stations and airlines. As for the red convertible, that would stand out like a black eye on an old maid. We'll hole-up here, in this bungalow, till things cool off a bit."
"But how will we eat? One of us will have to go out and get the food."
"You'll do that," he said. "The cops won't be looking for you. You were only in our place once, and I doubt if you were noticed then."
"You'll trust me? How do you know I won't take off now that things are hot?" Her thin lips curled in a taunting grin. "I might, you know."
"But you won't," he said. He patted his jacket where it bulged. "Not as long as I've got this."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HE REMAINED HOLED-UP, AS HE had said he would, but it was more of an ordeal than he expected. He could hardly bear it.
His body was young and hard, it needed to be used. He would pace the room for hours on end-to the window, back to the couch, and around again-like a tiger in a cage. As he paced, memories would come Hooding in, torturing him. Pangs of remorse would stab at him, cause him to pause in his tracks and stare vacantly into space. He could not get Helen out of his thoughts-her kindness and selfessness, her love and devotion to him. He realized too late that it had been she he loved-she, the good, the warm, the simple. She was dead-vanished like a puff of air, leaving no trace behind. He could not believe it. lie had seen her poor twisted body, her purple face, and yet he could not accept the finality of it.
And to think that he himself had planned to kill her, for this (he would draw the envelope from his pocket and gaze at it with contempt), a stack of greenbacks which meant nothing to him now! He would get an urge, a pressing urge, to tear up the Contents of the envelope and scatter it about the room. And when Fran returned and saw what he had done he'd laugh in her face and dare her to do her worst.
He managed to restrain himself, returned the envelope to his pocket. It wasn't his to do with as he wished; it was Sue Carter's more than anyone's, he would send it to her the first chance he got. Fran did not yet know this, but he'd tell her when the time came. Thinking of it, he laughed to himself.
In those two days he ate little and slept less. When he did manage to doze off, the recurring dream immediately took possession of his mind. It had changed in one detail, otherwise it was exactly the same. The dead woman he wept over now was Helen. In his waking moments he might console himself with the thought that he had not killed her, but when he slept his subconscious took sway, and his subconscious was a sterner judge: it accepted fact and intention as one and the same thing, so of course it found him guilty.
At times he would recall the words his lather had said to him in the first feverish dream: "You who have chosen the easy way, the short sweet life-have you found happiness? One hour of it? One minute of it? One second of it?" ... Then it would strike him that his father had been right: he had gotten no happiness from the life he had chosen, not an hour, or a minute, or a second of it. His father had wished him to take the hard road because, being older and wiser, he had known that this was the way to whatever happiness and contentment the world could offer a man. He neither pitied nor feared the old man now. He only loved him, wished to see him again so that he might get down on his knees and beg his forgiveness. bite in the morning of the third day Fran came into the house with the groceries and a startling piece of information.
"I was followed!"
He waited for her to go on, but when she began to unload the packages, set diem on the table, he lost patience. "Finish what you were saying! You were followed by who?"
"A man," she said. "I lost him in the crowd. I didn't get a very good look at him, but I believe I recognized him."
He noticed that she was quite pale, her lips were bloodless. Then he realized that she was frightened, was trying to hide it from him. "You're scared, aren't you?"
"Scared? No, I-" she hesitated, then blurted out, "Yes, I'm scared! This guy-there's something about him that gives me the willies, I don't know just what."
"Where do you recognize him from?"
"The Club Seventy-Seven. He used to come there now and then. Always took a front table and sat alone, ogling me. He frightened me then, too."
"Is he a cop?"
"How would I know? No, he's not a cop. At least he doesn't look like one."
"I don't get it. Why are you so scared of him?"
"I don't know. It's hard to explain. When he was following me I had a funny feeling-a feeling that it wasn't the first time, he'd followed me before."
"When?"
"I don't know when. I don't even know if he actually did. I told you it was just a feeling."
"Forget it," he suggested.
She turned her back to him and started for the stove. "I already have."
But that afternoon, when he suggested she go out and buy an evening paper, she was hesitant. "Why?" she asked; "is it that important?"
"I'd like to get the latest on the case."
"The body has been discovered and the police are looking for you. What else do you need to know?"
"Maybe they've got a lead on the one who really did it."
"Oh, don't be an optimist, Joe! As far as the police are concerned it's an open and shut case, and you know it."
"The newsstand is just at the corner. Walk fast and your creep won't spot you."
"I won't."
He continued to press her, however, and she did finally go. Five minutes later she returned with the paper, and reported that this time she hadn't been followed.
Nor was she followed the next morning. After that she seemed to have completely forgotten the incident.
That night she went out for a stroll. "Just to get some air," she said.
She returned in less than a minute, breathless and white as a sheet. He was seated on the couch reading the paper. "Him-it's him, Joe! Passed the house just as I stepped out the door, pretended not to notice me. But he did, he did! lie stepped into a doorway a few houses down the street and I ran back."
"Shut the door!" he muttered. Just then a knock sounded.
He leapt to his feet and started for the light switch, but he never reached it. The door burst open and a man stepped in, a man whom he at once recognized. Henry Kohler.
But this was not the same Henry Kohler he'd met in Brooklyn. 'Phis one appeared to be insane, with eyes glittering behind rimless glasses and lip's twitching spasmodically as they tried for a smile. He held a sawed-off revolver in his hand. "We meet again," he lisped, and laughed softly.
The instant he'd seen him, the answer to the mystery of Helen's death Hashed through Joe's mind. Now he decided to verify it. "You killed her, didn't you:'
"Helen?-why yes." Henry's lips finally managed a smile. In a mild, conversational tone he went on: "Yes, and now I'll do the same for you. But first, if you don't mind, I'd like you to squirm-squirm and plead, the way she did before I...."
With a lightning movement, Joe reached for the switch and flicked it.
The room was in darkness-hushed, breathless. Suddenly the insane little laugh sounded again, followed by a deafening explosion and a bright flash of light. Joe hurled himself to the floor, and lay there motionless, pressing himself flat. Two more shots in rapid succession shattered the stillness, flashed through the darkness. A thud, as if someone had fallen. Fran screamed feebly, moaned, coughed as if she were trying to catch her breath, then was silent. Joe pushed himself up and ran headlong toward the shadow by the door. Another shot exploded, he heard the bullet pop the air close by, then ricochet around the room. His head butted squarely into Henry's chest, and Henry thumped to the floor like a sack. His groping fingers found and twined around Henry's throat. He squeezed. A minute passed. Two minutes. Three. He relaxed his hands, got to his feet, and in the darkness made his way across the room to the light switch and flicked it on.
He saw Fran lying on her back in the center of the room. Her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Blood oozed slowly from a hole in her chest. She was dead.
He turned from her and walked to where Henry Kohler lay. He stood over him, looking down at him. In death he bore a strange resemblance to Helen Carter. His body was twisted grotesquely, the skin of his lace was purplish white.
Joe heard the wail of a siren in the distance, turned and started for the door. He went out.
He moved off into the night, taking long easy strides. He did not appear to be hurrying, and yet he was moving last. There was the swagger of youth in his walk, the impetus of purpose. A girl of twenty who passed him on the street paused to glance hack. He reminded her of her favorite movie star.
He walked onto the beach, trudged across the soft sand to the water's edge. He unlaced his shoes and kicked them oft, striped off his clothes. Naked, he walked into the water.
The sea was calm, hardly a ripple, he could hear the lapping of the dark water as his arms cut through it. Out and out he swam, easily, steadily smoothly-out into the tropical sea, beyond the point of no return, where undertows pull and shark and barracuda silently stir the warm water, ever hungry, ever on the search. As he swam he tried to think of nothing but the peace, the joy of being released at last from the past and the future.
Towards the end. however, when his limbs were weary and he grew short of breath, he did begin to think of the past. For a while, before panic struck, he imagined he wasn't alone, that Rudy Gowan was swimming beside him. He saw his parents; they were at home in the living room of their apartment in the Bronx, both of them were weeping silently. Why...?
But before he began to answer the question a feeling as cold as a knife blade moved at his stomach. The water was suddenly unfriendly and black and cold. His arms were so heavy he could hardly move them. He was going under. After the first gulp of sea water he shut his mouth tight, his teeth grinding together, his lungs suddenly searing, red-hot in his chest. He wanted to scream. The idea of turning back flashed through his dizziness. He came to the surface, gasped painfully for air, and uttered a bloodcurdling scream. It was as though it came from somewhere beyond him.
He recognized it as the last frantic scream of a dying man, and knowing it was his own scream bursting from his own quivering throat, he once again sank in a paralysis of terror with his mouth open. This time there was a hammer-blow of excruciating agony in his chest, he was falling, spinning, his eyes unseeing and rotating slowly for the last time under the dark blue bowl of stars above.
Helen! Helen! A wall of dark blood moved inexorably behind his forehead, deep behind the sockets of his eyes ... Frantically he wanted to clutch, to drag himself up and out ... But everything was going black, the tearing pain didn't exist any longer, it was as though he laid his head for the last time on Helen's breast and sank ... sinking down....
