But why should he care about money? I wouldn’t either if I had all he’s got. Why should he blame me, a poor, helpless sick old woman for sounding a little excited?
He was very mean and insulting. Not that he usually isn’t. As soon as I was convinced that there was nothing to worry about, I ordered him out of the house. I should have done it long before, because I’d heard some pretty unpleasant stories about that man. How he’d cheated and swindled people right out of their eyeteeth. I can’t say just who I heard them from, but they’re all over town. And where there’s so much smoke, there must be some fire.
At any rate, he not only insulted me, but he gave me some very bad advice. Because I most certainly did have something to worry about! He convinced me temporarily—and against my will—that I hadn’t. But I knew better. The season was only two days old, and I’d already seen it in Ralph—seen it in the way he talked and acted and looked. And that was only the beginning.
He came home late that night, very late, I should say, since he is always out working as long as he can find work to do. I sleep a lot during the day, however, so I was awake.
He fixed a snack for me; he was too tired to eat, himself, he said. He was going to go straight to bed—in fact, he got a little stubborn about it. But I cried a little and pointed out how lonesome it was for me all day by myself, so we talked a while.
I studied him, listening to what he said, noticing what he didn’t. I began to worry again. I began to get frightened.
I hardly slept a wink all night. I hardly slept a wink any night, because Ralph didn’t change back to what he had been—he kept going farther and farther the other way.
I was practically out of my mind by the end of the week. I was going to call Kossy, but I didn’t have to. He came to see me. As of course, I should have known he would. Catch him letting go of a good thing! He’s probably building up his bill, so that he can attach this property.
Anyway, he was afraid not to come. He knew what I could do if I took the notion. I’ve never said anything about him yet, mind you—hardly anything—but if he wanted to be mean and ugly, I certainly had a right to defend myself!
I cried a little, and told him about Ralph. He sat and stared at me like I was some strange kind of animal, instead of a poor, sick, helpless old woman who needed comfort and sympathy. And then he said that he’d be goddamned.
“Kossy, darling,” I said. “I’ve asked you so many times please not to use—”
“I tell you what I won’t use,” he said. “I won’t use any words you ain’t used ten thousand times yourself. I hadn’t ought to bother with you at all, but as long as I am I’ll—”
“All right, Kossy, dear,” I said. “I’m just an old woman. I can’t stop you if you insist.”
“Luane,” he said. “For God’s sake—Aaah, nuts—” he said, and threw up his hands. “Never mind. Let me see if I got this straight. Ralph is seeing this girl every night; you’re sure of that. But he isn’t sleeping with her. And you’re bothered because he isn’t!”
I said, no, Ralph wasn’t. “He always has before,” I said. “He’s a-always been honest before—c-come home and told me about it afterwards.”
“But—but—” He waved his hands again. “You mean you want it that way? You want him to make these babes?”
“W-well. I don’t really want him to,” I said. “But it wouldn’t be fair to stop him, since I—well, you know. And as long as he tells me about it…”
He gave me an odd look, as if he was a little sick at his stomach. He said something about, yes, he could see how I might enjoy that.
“Well, never mind,” he went on. “It kind of knocked me over for a minute, but I guess I get the picture. Ralph is playing it clean with this gal. In your book, that makes him in love with her. Suppose he does a switch, goes after what he always has, what does that make him?”
“Please,” I said. “Please don’t joke about it, Kossy.”
“Okay,” he shrugged. “Say he’s in love with her. Say he’s going to stay in love. And you don’t like it, naturally. But it don’t add up to his planning to kill you.”
“But it does! I mean, it could,” I said. “I—well—”
“Yeah?” He waited, frowning at me. “How does it? I seem to remember that we were all over that the other day. Ralph could get a divorce. He could just up and leave. We agreed that he could.”
“Well,” I said. “I guess he could—I mean, I know he could. But—but—”
“Yeah?”
He stared at me. He—and that shows what a crook he is! Honest people move their eyes around. They don’t have a guilty conscience, so they don’t feel they have to brazen someone down. It’s only crooks who do that.
“Okay,” he said. “You want to hold out something, go ahead. It ain’t my neck.”
“But I’m not,” I said. “I—it’s just that when I talked to you the other day, I didn’t know he was so serious about this girl. I—”
“So now you know. And he can still walk away or get a divorce, so it still don’t shape up to a murder.”
“I—well, here’s what I was thinking,” I said. “The season will end in a couple months, and of course the girl will be leaving. So whatever…if Ralph is going to do anything, he’ll have to do it by then. And—and—”
Kossy waited a moment. Then he grimaced and reached for his hat.
“Don’t!” I said. “I’m trying to tell you, Kossy. After all, it isn’t easy for me to discuss Ralph this way, to think of some reason why my own husband would w-want t-to—to—”
“Well, sure.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I don’t suppose it is. But—”
“But there is a reason why he might, Kossy. This property isn’t worth nearly what it used to be, but it would still bring five or six thousand dollars—maybe as much as ten. And if Ralph needed money, if he was so mean and selfish that he couldn’t wait until I died…”
Kossy’s eyes narrowed. Blinked. He nodded slowly.
“Yeah,” he said. “Could be. That would seem like a world of dough to Ralph, particularly now that he’s been so hard hit in the job department. I don’t suppose there’s any use pointing out to you that if Ralph is planning something, you’re at least partly at fault.”
“I am not!” I said. “I haven’t said a single solitary word about anyone! Anyway, Ralph doesn’t blame me in the least, he knows I haven’t said half as much as I could have, and—”
“Okay. Okay,” Kossy sighed. “Forget it. Ralph wants to kill you, maybe. He’s got a double motive, maybe: to clear his way for the girl, and to cash in on what’s left of the estate. Say that that’s the situation. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Well, I…”
I didn’t know. How should I know what to do? That was his job. And he’d been plenty well paid for it! I hadn’t ever actually caught him stealing from me, but there’d been a great deal of talk about—
“You think it over,” he said. “See what develops, and we’ll talk again in a few days. Meanwhile, I want to say something about these lies of yours—shut up! don’t interrupt me!—and I want you to take it to heart. If—”
“But I haven’t said a word!” I said. “Honestly, Kossy. I—And I just hope someone does try to start something! I’ll—”
“You’ll damned probably get killed,” he said. “I mean it, Luane. It’s the law of averages. You get enough people sore enough to kill you—and you’ve got just about the whole damned town—one of them is almost certain to do the job. So cut it out, get me? Better still, see if you can’t undo some of the damage. Try to do it. Admit you’ve been lying, apologize to the people you’ve harmed. Use that phone for something decent for a change.”
Well, of course, I wasn’t going to do anything like that! I’d die before—I just wasn’t going to do it! In the first place, I hadn’t said anything. He was just irritated by the few harmless little jokes I’d told about him. In the second place, it was all true what I’d said; and
I guessed that if anyone was cowardly enough to harm someone for telling the truth, they’d have done so by now. And just what was I supposed to do all day, pray tell? Just lie here all day like a bump on a log, and never have a little harmless chat with anyone?
I tried to explain to Kossy how absolutely ridiculous it all was. But just try to tell that man anything! He looked at me, not really listening to what I was saying, and then he sighed and shook his head.
“Okay, maybe you can’t help it,” he said. “Take it easy, and I’ll see you in a few days.”
I was just a little worried after he’d gone; I mean, about someone wanting to kill me besides Ralph. Then, I just shoved it out of my mind—almost—because a person can only worry about so much and that’s all, and I had more than my limit with Ralph.
Because I hadn’t told Kossy everything. I hadn’t told him the most important thing.
He came back the latter part of that week. He kept coming back, week after week—he was here the last time this morning—but it didn’t help any. I certainly couldn’t do any of the silly things he suggested.
Ralph hadn’t said or done anything out of the way. He was different, but it wasn’t something you could put your finger on. Outwardly he was just as nice and considerate as ever, so how could I have put him under peace bond? Obviously, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have even if I had a concrete reason to, because that would have fixed things up. It would have brought everything to a showdown—killed the last bit of hope I had. And the same thing would happen if I let Kossy speak to him. Or if I had one of the county authorities do it.
Ralph wouldn’t feel sorry for me any more. He wouldn’t pity me. He’d just go ahead and do what he wanted to do—what he wasn’t yet nerved-up to doing.
As you can see, Kossy has been absolutely no help to me. None whatsoever. Here I am, a sick old woman whom nobody loves, and I can get no help from my own attorney, a man who has stolen thousands of dollars from me.
The foolish little squirt even brought a gun here, a revolver, and wanted me to keep it! I refused even to touch it.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” I said. “No, siree! People have accidents with guns. Accidentally-on-purpose accidents. As soon as Ralph or anyone found out I had that thing, they’d fix up a little accident for me.”
“But, dammit, Luane,” he said. “What the hell else can you do? What can I do for you? Now, you keep it—keep it where you can get to it fast. And if anyone goes for you, use it.”
“Wh-aat?” I said. “You’re suggesting that I should shoot someone? W-why—why, how dare you, Kossy! What kind of woman do you think I am?”
“God!” he almost shouted. “I don’t know why the hell I don’t kill you myself!”
He said some other very mean, nasty things, and then he slammed out of the house.
He came back for the last time this morning.
He said that he still thought I was in much more danger from others than I was from Ralph. Then, when I said he simply didn’t know what he was talking about, he began to get ugly. And nosy.
“Y’know, Luane,” he said, “the more I think about it, the less I can see Ralph committing murder for the few thousand bucks this estate would bring. It’s hard for me to see him as a murderer, anyway, and for that kind of dough it just don’t seem to figure at all.”
“Well, you’re absolutely wrong,” I said. “For a man like Ralph, who’s never really had anything—”
“Uh-huh. Because he’s cautious, ultra-conservative. Ralph wouldn’t bet that the sun comes up in the east unless he got a thousand-to-one odds. He’d take no chance except for something big. He—no, now, wait a minute! Let’s take a good look at Ralph. He’s been odd-jobbing around this town for more than twenty years. Working around people who are hip-deep in dough—who are almost disappointed if they don’t get chiseled. But did Ralph ever clip one of ’em? Did he ever pad a bill, or walk off with a few tools or steal gasoline and oil, or pull any of the stunts that a guy in his place ordinarily would? Huh-uh. Never. In all those years, he—”
“Oh, yes, he did!” I said. “He most certainly did! How do you think he got that car, pray tell?”
“Not by killing anyone. Not by running any real risk at all. In all those years, he pulls just one perfectly safe bit of chiseling—and he collects a high-priced car!” Kossy shook his head slowly, giving me that mean, narrow-eyed grin. “Who are you kidding, sister? You know goddamned well Ralph wouldn’t kill you for this estate. If you really thought he would, you’d just sign it over to him.”
“Why, I would not!” I said. “There’d be nothing to stop him then. It would be just like throwing him in that girl’s arms!”
“Well?” he shrugged. “What choice you got? What choice has Ralph got? How you going to get by if he stays here?”
“Why, we’ll get by just fine!” I said. “We’ll—uh—”
“Yeah? How will you? Out with it, goddammit!”
“Well, we’ll—You leave me alone!” I said. “You stop it! You’re j-just as mean and hateful as—as—” And I broke down and began to cry. Undignified as it was, and as much as I despise weepy women.
That’s probably how that girl holds onto Ralph—by crying all over him. Making him feel sorry for her. Ralph is so good-hearted, you know. He hates to see anyone unhappy, and he just won’t let them be. And they just about can’t be when he’s around. He’s so much fun, so sweet and funny at the same time, and—
At least, he was—the mean, selfish thing! Why, even this morning, he was carrying on pretty much as he used to. And it was just pretense, of course, but I almost forgot that it was, and…and it was nice.
“Come on, Luane,” Kossy said. “Let’s have it.”
“I c-can’t!” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You leave me alone, you mean hateful thing, you!”
“Look, Luane—” He put his hand on my shoulder, and I shook it off. “Don’t you see it, honey? Don’t you see that you can’t hold Ralph in a trap without being in it yourself? Of course, you do. That’s why you’re so frightened, as you have every right to be. Let him go, Luane. Let him out of that corner you’ve got him in. If you don’t…”
“K-Kossy,” I said. “Kossy, d-darling…you don’t really think he would, do you? Y-you said you didn’t—couldn’t see him k-killing—”
“God!” He slapped his forehead. “Oh, God! I—Look. Tell me what it is, what you’re squeezing Ralph with. I have to know, don’t you understand that?”
“I k-know…I mean, I can’t!” I said. “There isn’t anything, and—don’t you dare say there is! Don’t you dare tell anyone there’s something—that I’m—”
He sighed and stood up. He said something about my being his client, God help him, whatever that meant: probably that it wouldn’t be ethical for him to say anything. Not that that would stop him, of course. He’s always talking, saying mean things about me. I haven’t said anything half as mean about him as he has about me. Every time he leaves here, he goes around laughing and telling people how old and ugly I look.
Anyway, he certainly doesn’t know anything. He’s always contradicting himself, saying one thing one minute and something else the next.
First he tells me that Ralph won’t kill me, and then he says he will. He says that Ralph won’t, but that there’s plenty of others who might. And if that doesn’t prove he’s crazy, what would? Kill me—a bunch of cowardly, lying, lowdown sneaks like they are! They don’t have the nerve. They have no reason to. I’ve never done anything to harm them.
I’ve never harmed anyone, Ralph least of all, but now…
NOW!
…Ralph? Is it Ralph on the stairs?
But why won’t he answer me? What can he gain by not answering? Why is he doing it—if it is he, if he is going to—this way?
To lure me out there? Maybe I shouldn’t go. But if I don’t…
It must be someone else. It simply wouldn’t make sense for Ralph to do it this way. As for someone else, why w
ould they—he—she…?
They’re afraid, unsure? They haven’t made up their mind? They’re waiting to see what I do? They’re trying to lure me out of the room—like Ralph would, is, might?
If I only knew, I might save myself. If I knew who it was—before the person becomes sure—I might save myself.
If…If I go out. If I don’t go out.
Save me, I prayed. Just let me save myself. That’s all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. And that’s certainly not very much to ask, is it?
I went out.
I saw who it was.
9
Danny Lee
Although I am but of a humble station in life, I come from a proud old southern family, which was directly descended from that proud old southern warrior, Robert E. Lee, and we lived in a proud southern village which shall here be Nameless. Then, when I was but a slip of a girl, I loved unwisely and not too well, and my proud old father drove me out into the storm one bitter night. So, I went to a large city where I stumbled anew into a new pitfall. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, really. Never again did I repeat my first and only fatal mistake. But there was this place I worked in where you could hustle drinks and where if you could sing a little or dance or something like that, you could keep whatever the customers gave you. And one night an orchestra leader entered its portals, and I innocently agreed to accompany him to his room. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what evil designs he wanted. I simply went because I felt sorry for him, and I had to send some money back to my invalid mother and my two brothers, and—
Oh, I did not! I’m making all of this up.
I don’t have any mother or brothers or any family except my father, and if he has anything to be proud of I don’t know what it is. The last time I heard he was in jail again for bootlegging back in our home town.
He had a little two-by-four restaurant. I used to serve drinks to the customers, and two or three times when it was someone I liked real well and I simply had to have something to wear or go naked, I let them you-know. I finally picked up a dose from one of them. Pa said that as long as I got it, I could figure out how to get rid of it. So I stole ten dollars he had hidden, and went to a place near Fort Worth.