“… No. Why?”
“You’ve been looking at me—for an hour!”
“I was—looking at the dress.”
“Is there anything the matter with it?”
“It’s different from what girls generally wear around a bank. It—doesn’t look like an office dress.”
“I made it myself.”
“Then that accounts for it.”
III
Brother, if you want to find out how much you think of a woman, just get the idea she’s been playing you for a sucker. I was trembling when I got home, and still trembling when I went up to my room and lay down. I had a mess on my hands, and I knew I had to do something about it. But all I could think of was the way she had taken me for a ride, or I thought she had anyway, and how I had fallen for it, and what a sap I was. My face would feel hot when I thought of those automobile rides, and how I had been too gentlemanly to start anything. Then I would think how she must be laughing at me, and dig my face into the pillow. After a while I got to thinking about tonight. I had a date to take her to the hospital, like I had for the past week, and wondered what I was going to do about that. What I wanted to do was give her a stand-up and never set eyes on her again, but I couldn’t. After what she had said at the bank, about me looking at her, she might tumble I was wise if I didn’t show up. I wasn’t ready for that yet. Whatever I had to do, I wanted my hands free till I had time to think.
So I was waiting, down the street from her house, where we’d been meeting on account of what the neighbors might think if I kept coming to the door, and in a few minutes here she came, and I gave the little tap on the horn and she got in. She didn’t say anything about me looking at her, or what had been said. She kept talking about Kaiser, and how we had put over a fine deal, and how there was plenty more business of the same kind that could be had if I’d only let her go out after it. I went along with it, and for the first time since I’d known her, she got just the least little bit flirty. Nothing that meant much, just some stuff about what a team we could make if we really put our minds to it. But it brought me back to what my face had been red about in the afternoon, and when she went in the hospital I was trembling again.
I didn’t go to the newsreel that night. I sat in the car for the whole hour she was in there, paying her visit to him, and the longer I sat the sorer I got. I hated that woman when she came out of the hospital, and then, while she was climbing in beside me, an idea hit me between the eyes. If that was her game, how far would she go with me? I watched her light a cigarette, and then felt my mouth go dry and hot. I’d soon find out. Instead of heading for the hills, or the ocean, or any of the places we’d been driving, I headed home.
We went in, and I lit the fire without turning on the living-room light. I mumbled something about a drink, and went out in the kitchen. What I really wanted was to see if Sam was in. He wasn’t, and that meant he wouldn’t be in till one or two o’clock, so that was all right. I fixed the highball tray, and went in the living room with it. She had taken off her hat, and was sitting in front of the fire, or to one side of it. There are two sofas in my living room, both of them half facing the fire, and she was on one of them swinging her foot at the flames. I made two highballs, put them on the low table between the sofas, and sat down beside her. She looked up, took her drink, and began to sip it. I made a crack about how black her eyes looked in the firelight, she said they were blue, but it sounded like she wouldn’t mind hearing more. I put my arm around her.
Well, a whole book could be written about how a woman blocks passes when she doesn’t mean to play. If she slaps your face, she’s just a fool, and you might as well go home. If she hands you a lot of stuff that makes you feel like a fool, she doesn’t know her stuff yet, and you better leave her alone. But if she plays it so you’re stopped, and yet nothing much has happened, and you don’t feel like a fool, she knows her stuff, and she’s all right, and you can stick around and take it as it comes, and you won’t wake up next morning wishing that you hadn’t. That was what she did. She didn’t pull away, she didn’t act surprised, she didn’t get off any bum gags. But she didn’t come to me either, and in a minute or two she leaned forward to pick up her glass, and when she leaned back she wasn’t inside of my arm.
I was too sick in my mind though, and too sure I had her sized up right for a trollop, to pay any attention to that, or even figure out what it meant. It went through my mind, just once, that whatever I had to do, down at the bank, I was putting myself in an awful spot, and playing right into her hands, to start something I couldn’t stop. But that only made my mouth feel drier and hotter.
I put my arm around her again, and pulled her to me. She didn’t do anything about it at all, one way or the other. I put my cheek against hers, and began to nose around to her mouth. She didn’t do anything about that either, but her mouth seemed kind of hard to reach. I put my hand on her cheek, and then deliberately let it slide down to her neck, and unbuttoned the top button of her dress. She took my hand away, buttoned her dress, and reached for her drink again, so when she sat back I didn’t have her.
That sip took a long time, and I just sat there, looking at her. When she put the glass down I had my arm around her before she could even lean back. With my other hand I made a swipe, and brushed her dress up clear to where her garters met her girdle. What she did then I don’t know, because something happened that I didn’t expect. Those legs were so beautiful, and so soft, and warm, that something caught me in the throat, and for about one second I had no idea what was going on. Next thing I knew she was standing in front of the fireplace, looking down at me with a drawn face. “Will you kindly tell me what’s got into you tonight?”
“Why—nothing particular.”
“Please, I want to know.”
“Why, I find you exciting, that’s all.”
“Is it something I’ve done?”
“I didn’t notice you doing anything.”
“Something’s come over you, and I don’t know what. Ever since I came in the bank today, with Bunny Kaiser, you’ve been looking at me in a way that’s cold, and hard, and ugly. What is it? Is it what I said at lunch, about my having sex appeal?”
“Well, you’ve got it. We agreed on that.”
“Do you know what I think?”
“No, but I’d like to.”
“I think that remark of mine, or something, has suddenly wakened you up to the fact that I’m a married woman, that I’ve been seeing quite a little of you, and that you think it’s now up to you to be loyal to the ancient masculine tradition, and try to make me.”
“Anyway, I’m trying.”
She reached for her drink, changed her mind, lit a cigarette instead. She stood there for a minute, looking into the fire, inhaling the smoke. Then:
“… I don’t say it couldn’t be done. After all, my home life hasn’t been such a waltz dream for the last year or so. It’s not so pleasant to sit by your husband while he’s coming out of ether, and then have him begin mumbling another woman’s name, instead of your own. I guess that’s why I’ve taken rides with you every night. They’ve been a little breath of something pleasant. Something more than that. Something romantic, and if I pretended they haven’t meant a lot to me, I wouldn’t be telling the truth. They’ve been—little moments under the moon. And then today, when I landed Kaiser, and was bringing him in, I was all excited about it, not so much for the business it meant to the bank, which I don’t give a damn about, or the two-dollar-and-a-half raise, which I don’t give a damn about either, but because it was something you and I had done together, something we’d talk about tonight, and it would be—another moment under the moon, a very bright moon. And then, before I’d been in the bank more than a minute or two, I saw that look in your eye. And tonight, you’ve been—perfectly horrible. It could have been done, I think. I’m afraid I’m only too human. But not this way. And not any more. Could I b
orrow your telephone?”
I thought maybe she really wanted the bath, so I took her to the extension in my bedroom. I sat down by the fire quite a while, and waited. It was all swimming around in my head, and it hadn’t come out at all like I expected. Down somewhere inside of me, it began to gnaw at me that I had to tell her, I had to come out with the whole thing, when all of a sudden the bell rang. When I opened the door a taxi driver was standing there.
“You called for a cab?”
“No, nobody called.”
He fished out a piece of paper and peered at it, when she came downstairs. “I guess that’s my cab.”
“Oh, you ordered it?”
“Yes. Thanks ever so much. It’s been so pleasant.”
She was as cold as a dead man’s foot, and she was down the walk and gone before I could think of anything to say. I watched her get in the cab, watched it drive off, then closed the door and went back in the living room. When I sat down on the sofa I could still smell her perfume, and her glass was only half drunk. That catch came in my throat again, and I began to curse at myself out loud, even while I was pouring myself a drink.
I had started to find out what she was up to, but all I had found out was that I was nuts about her. I went over and over it till I was dizzy, and nothing she had done, and nothing she had said, proved anything. She might be on the up-and-up, and she might be playing me for a still worse sucker than I had thought she was, a sucker that was going to play her game for her, and not even get anything for it. In the bank, she treated me just like she treated the others, pleasant, polite, and pretty. I didn’t take her to the hospital any more, and that was how we went along for three or four days.
Then came the day for the monthly check on cash, and I tried to kid myself that was what I had been waiting for, before I did anything about the shortage. So I went around with Helm, and checked them all. They opened their boxes, and Helm counted them up, and I counted his count. She stood there while I was counting hers, with a dead pan that could mean anything, and of course it checked to the cent. Down in my heart I knew it would. Those false entries had all been made to balance the cash, and as they went back for a couple of years, there wasn’t a chance that it would show anything in just one month.
That afternoon when I went home I had it out with myself, and woke up that I wasn’t going to do anything about that shortage, that I couldn’t do anything about it, until at least I had spoken to her, anyway acted like a white man.
So that night I drove over to Glendale, and parked right on Mountain Drive where I had always parked. I went early, in case she started sooner when she went by bus, and I waited a long time. I waited so long I almost gave up, but then along about half past seven, here she came out of the house, and walking fast. I waited till she was about a hundred feet away, and then I gave that same little tap on the horn I had given before. She started to run, and I had this sick feeling that she was going by without even speaking, so I didn’t look. I wouldn’t give her that much satisfaction. But before I knew it the door opened and slammed, and there she was on the seat beside me, and she was squeezing my hand, and half whispering:
“I’m so glad you came. So glad.”
We didn’t say much going in. I went to the newsreel, but what came out on the screen I couldn’t tell you. I was going over and over in my mind what I was going to say to her, or at least trying to. But every time when I’d get talking about it, I’d find myself starting off about her home life, and trying to find out if Brent really had taken up with another woman, and more of the same that only meant one thing. It meant I wanted her for myself. And it meant I was trying to make myself believe that she didn’t know anything about the shortage, that she had been on the up-and-up all the time, that she really liked me. I went back to the car, and got in, and pretty soon she came out of the hospital, and ran down the steps. Then she stopped, and stood there like she was thinking. Then she started for the car again, but she wasn’t running now. She was walking slow. When she got in she leaned back and closed her eyes.
“Dave?”
It was the first time she had ever called me by my first name. I felt my heart jump. “Yes, Sheila?”
“Could we have a fire tonight?”
“I’d love it.”
“I’ve—I’ve got to talk to you.”
So I drove to my house. Sam let us in, but I chased him out. We went in the living room, and once more I didn’t turn on the light. She helped me light the fire, and I started into the kitchen to fix something to drink, but she stopped me.
“I don’t want anything to drink. Unless you do.”
“No. I don’t drink much.”
“Let’s sit down.”
She sat on the sofa, where she had been before, and I sat beside her. I didn’t try any passes. She looked in the fire a long time, and then she took my arm and pulled it around her. “Am I terrible?”
“No.”
“I want it there.”
I started to kiss her, but she raised her hand, covered my lips with her fingers, then pushed my face away. She dropped her head on my shoulder, closed her eyes, and didn’t speak for a long time. Then: “Dave, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s pretty tragic, and it involves the bank, and if you don’t want to hear it from me, this way, just say so and I’ll go home.”
“… All right. Shoot.”
“Charles is short in his accounts.”
“How much?”
“A little over nine thousand dollars. Nine one one three point two six, if you want the exact amount. I’ve been suspecting it. I noticed one or two things. He kept saying I must have made mistakes in my bookkeeping, but tonight I made him admit it.”
“Well. That’s not so good.”
“How bad is it?”
“It’s pretty bad.”
“Dave, tell me the truth about it. I’ve got to know. What will they do to him? Will they put him in prison?”
“I’m afraid they will.”
“What, actually, does happen?”
“A good bit of what happens is up to the bonding company. If they get tough, he needn’t expect much mercy. It’s dead open-and-shut. They put him under arrest, have him indicted, and the rest of it’s a question of how hard they bear down, and how it hits the court. Sometimes, of course, there are extenuating circumstances—”
“There aren’t any. He didn’t spend that money on me, or on the children, or on his home. I’ve kept all expenses within his salary, and I’ve even managed to save a little for him, every week.”
“Yeah, I noticed your account.”
“He spent it on another woman.”
“I see.”
“Does it make any difference if restitution is made?”
“All the difference in the world.”
“If so, would he get off completely free?”
“There again, it all depends on the bonding company, and the deal that could be made with them. They might figure they’d make any kind of a deal, to get the money back, but as a rule they’re not lenient. They can’t be. The way they look at it, every guy that gets away with it means ten guys next year that’ll try to get away with it.”
“Suppose they never knew it?”
“I don’t get you.”
“Suppose I could find a way to put the money back, I mean suppose I could get the money, and then found a way to make the records conform, so nobody ever knew there was anything wrong.”
“It couldn’t be done.”
“Oh yes, it could.”
“The passbooks would give it away. Sooner or later.”
“Not the way I’d do it.”
“That—I would have to think about.”
“You know what this means to me, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
“It’s not on account of me. Or Charles. I try not to wish ill to anybody, but if he had to pay, it might be what he deserves. It’s on account of my two children. Dave, I can’t have them spend the rest of their lives knowing their father was a convict, that he’d been in prison. Do you, can you, understand what that means, Dave?”
For the first time since she had begun to talk, I looked at her then. She was still in my arms, but she was turned to me in a strained, tense kind of way, and her eyes looked haunted. I patted her head, and tried to think. But I knew there was one thing I had to do. I had to clear up my end of it. She had come clean with me, and for a while, anyway, I believed in her. I had to come clean with her.
“Sheila?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve got to tell you something.”
“… What is it, Dave?”
“I’ve known this all along. For at least a week.”
“Is that why you were looking at me that day?”
“Yes. It’s why I acted that way, that night. I thought you knew it. I thought you had known it, even when you came to me that night, to ask for the job. I thought you were playing me for a sucker, and I wanted to find out how far you’d go, to get me where you wanted me. Well—that clears that up.”
She was sitting up now, looking at me hard.
“Dave, I didn’t know it.”
“I know you didn’t—now, I know it.”
“I knew about her—this woman he’s been—going around with. I wondered sometimes where he got the money. But this, I had no idea. Until two or three days ago. Until I began to notice discrepancies in the passbooks.”
“Yeah, that’s what I noticed.”
“And that’s why you turned seducer?”
“Yeah. It’s not very natural to me, I guess. I didn’t fool you any. What I’m trying to say is I don’t feel that way about you. I want you every way there is to want somebody, but—I mean it. Do you know what I’m getting at, if anything?”
She nodded, and all of a sudden we were in each other’s arms, and I was kissing her, and she was kissing back, and her lips were warm and soft, and once more I had that feeling in my throat, that catch like I wanted to cry or something. We sat there a long time, not saying anything, just holding each other close. We were halfway to her house before we remembered about the shortage and what we were going to do about it. She begged me once more to give her a chance to save her children from the disgrace. I told her I’d have to think it over, but I knew in my heart I was going to do anything she asked me to.