A Hell of a Woman
Jim Thompson
Foreword by Joe R. Lansdale
Little, Brown and Company
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Foreword
Jim Thompson: An Appreciation
Jim Thompson has been called a dime-store Dostoyevsky, but an oil-field Faulkner might be more accurate. He wrote not only about the common man, he wrote like the common man, with words full of raw truth mixed with sweet and sticky lies; wicked stories written with a glass of whisky at his elbow.
I had never heard of Jim Thompson growing up. And this surprises me. I read all manner of novels by all manner of writers—and a writer like Thompson was just my meat—but it wasn’t until Stephen King commented on him that he hit my radar.
Not long after that, I saw Thompson’s work everywhere, and I dove in. As a fellow Texan, I recognized people I knew in his work, same as I had in the work of Robert E. Howard, another Texan. Howard gussied them up in loin cloths and gave them swords, made them melancholy heroes, but Thompson’s characters were contemporary and, though melancholy for the most part, were considerably short on heroics. They were the dregs of society, little people with dreams too large for them to hold, dreams they drove all over the highways of their ambitions like a drunk at the wheel of a muscle car with bad tires.
There is no one quite like Thompson in low or high literature. He was his own man, and stories like The Killer Inside Me, The Grifters, and, well, pretty much everything he ever wrote are as unique as the pattern of a snowflake. They are his snowflakes, and they are soiled and stink of cheap liquor, but you will find no others like them. Many have tried to imitate him, but have only brought the literary equivalent of loud horns and dirty laundry to the game.
Thompson was his own man. Sad and dark, oozing rotten sex and rotten dreams, all of it touched with a cheap kind of carnival atmosphere, the kind where the bolts on the rides shake and it’s best to keep your hand on your wallet. A writer primarily confined to the literary back alleys of cheap paperbacks, written in bursts as dynamic as the spewing of an oil gusher.
He was, for better or worse, the great and unique, Jim Thompson.
—Joe R. Lansdale
1
I’d gotten out of my car and was running for the porch when I saw her. She was peering through the curtains of the door, and a flash of lightning lit up the dark glass for an instant, framing her face like a picture. And it wasn’t a pretty picture, by any means; she was about as far from being a raving beauty as I was. But something about it kind of got me. I tripped over a crack, and almost went sprawling. When I looked up again she was gone, and the curtains were motionless.
I limped on up the steps, set my sample case down and rang the bell. I stepped back from the door and waited, working up a big smile, taking a gander around the yard.
It was a big old-fashioned dwelling, a half-mile or so beyond the state university campus and the only house in that block. Judging by its appearance and location, I guessed that it had probably been a farmhouse at one time.
I punched the bell again. I held my finger on it, listening to its dimly shrill clatter inside the house. I pulled the screen open and began pounding on the door. You did things like that when you worked for Pay-E-Zee Stores. You got used to people who hid when they saw you coming.
The door flew open while I was still beating on it. I took one look at this dame and moved back fast. It wasn’t the young one, the haunted-looking babe I’d seen peering through the curtains. This was an old biddy with a beak like a hawk and close-set, mean little eyes. She was about seventy—I don’t know how anyone could have got that ugly in less than seventy years—but she looked plenty hale and hearty. She was carrying a heavy cane, and I got the impression that she was all ready to use it. On me.
“Sorry to disturb you,” I said, quickly. “I’m Mr. Dillon, Pay-E-Zee Stores. I wonder if—”
“Go ’way,” she snarled. “Get out of here! We don’t buy from peddlers.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “Of course, we would like to open an account for you, but what I really stopped by for was some information. I understand you had a Pete Hendrickson working here for you. Did some yard work and so on. I wonder if you could tell me where I can find him.”
She hesitated, squinting at me craftily. “He owes you some money, huh?” she said. “You want to find him an’ make him pay.”
“Not at all,” I lied. “It’s the other way around, in fact. We accidentally collected too much from him, and we want to—”
“I bet you do!” She let out with an ugly cackle. “I just bet you collected too much from that drunken, lazy bum! No one never got nothing from Pete Hendrickson but a lot of sass and excuses.”
I grinned and shrugged. Usually, you had to do it the other way, because it’s damned seldom that even a man’s worst enemies will tip him off to a bill collector. But once in a while you find someone real low down, someone who just naturally likes to see a guy get it in the neck. And that’s the way it was with this old witch.
“Mean and lazy,” she said. “Wouldn’t do nothing and wanted two prices for doing it. Sneaks off an’ gets hisself another job when he’s supposed to be workin’ for me. I told him he’d be sorry…”
She gave me Pete’s address, also the name of his employer. It was a greenhouse out on Lake Drive, only a few blocks from where I was now, and he’d been working there about ten days. He hadn’t made a payday yet, but he was just about due.
“He came whinin’ and beggin’ around here last night,” she said. “Tryin’ to borrow a few dollars until he could get his wages. I guess you know what I told him!”
“I can imagine,” I said. “Now, as long as I’m here, I’d like to show you some very special items which—”
“Huh-uh! No, sir-ee!” She started to close the door.
“Just let me show them to you,” I said, and I stooped down and flipped the sample case open. I laid the stuff out in the lid, talking fast, watching her face for an expression of interest. “What about this spread? Make you a very nice price on that. Or this toilet set? We’re practically giving it away, lady. Well, some stockings? A shawl? Gloves? House slippers? If I don’t have your size here, I can—”
“Huh-uh. Nope.” She wagged her head firmly. “I got no money for such fol-de-rol, mister.”
“You don’t need any,” I said. “Hardly any. Just a very small payment now on any or all of these items, and you can set your own terms on the balance. Take as long to pay as you like.”
“I’ll bet,” she cackled. “Just like Pete Hendrickson, huh? You better go on, mister.”
“What about the other lady?” I said. “That other young lady? I’m sure there’s something here she’d like to have.”
“Huh!” she grunted. “And how do you figger she’d pay for anything?”
“I figured she’d probably use money,” I said. “But maybe she’s got something better.”
I was just being snotty, understand. I didn’t like her and I’d gotten everything out of her that I was going to get. So why be polite?
I started repacking the stuff, jamming it in any old whichway because that junk was hard to hurt. Then, she spoke again, and there was a sly wheedling note to her voice that brought my head up with a start.
“You like that niece o’ mine, mister? You think she’s pretty?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “I thought she was a very attractive young lady.”
“She minds good, too, mister. I tell her to do somethin’ and she does it. No matter what.”
I said that was swell or fine, or so
mething of the kind. Whatever a guy does say in a situation like that. She pointed down at the sample case.
“That chest of silverware, mister. How much you gettin’ on that?”
I opened the chest and showed it to her. I said I really hadn’t intended to sell it; it was such a bargain I was saving it for myself. “Service for eight, lady, and every piece of it solid heavy-Sterling plate. We usually get seventy-five dollars for it, but we’re closing out these last few sets at thirty-two ninety-five.”
She nodded, grinning at me slyly. “You think my niece…You think she could pay for it, mister? You could fix it up some way so’s she could pay for it?”
“Why, I’m sure of it,” I said. “I’ll have to talk with her first, of course, but—”
“You let me talk to her first,” she said. “You wait here.”
She went away, leaving the door open. I lighted a cigarette, and waited. And, no, I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles, I didn’t have any idea of what the old gal was up to. I knew she was pretty low down, but I’d never known many people who weren’t. I thought she was acting pretty goofy, but most of Pay-E-Zee’s customers were goofs. People with good sense didn’t trade with outfits like ours.
I waited, wincing a little when there was a sudden flash of lightning, wondering how many more goddamned days it was going to go on raining. It had been raining for almost three weeks straight, now, and what it had done to my job was murder. Sales way to hell down, collections way to hell off. You just can’t do good door-to-door work in rainy weather—you can’t get the people to open up. And with accounts like mine, a lot of day laborers and the like, it didn’t do much good when they did open up. They’d been laid off on account of the weather. You could cuss them and threaten them, but you just couldn’t get what they didn’t have.
I was getting fifty a week salary, just about enough to run my car. My earnings had to come from commissions, and I hadn’t been pulling down any. Oh, I was making something, sure, but not nearly enough to get by on. I’d kept going by doctoring my accounts, pocketing part of the collections and altering the account-cards accordingly. Right now I was in the hole for better than three hundred dollars, and if someone should squawk before I could square up…
I swore under my breath, flipping my cigarette into the yard. I turned back to the door, and there she was—the girl.
She was in her early twenties, I believe, although I’m not the best judge of ages when it comes to women. She had a mass of wavy blonde hair, kind of chopped off rather than bobbed, and her eyes were dark; and maybe they weren’t the biggest eyes I’d ever seen on a gal, but in that thin white face they seemed to be.
She was wearing a white wrap-around, the sort of get-up you see on waitresses and lady barbers. The neck of it came down in a deep V, and you could see she had plenty of what it takes in that area. But below that, huh-uh. Out around the ag college—I had an account or two out there—the guys would have said she was poor for beef, fine for milk.
She pushed the screen door open. I picked up the sample case, and went in.
She hadn’t spoken to me yet, and she didn’t now. She’d turned and was walking down the hall almost before I got inside. Walking with her shoulders kind of slumped, as though she were tipping forward. I followed her, thinking maybe she didn’t have much there in the rear but there wasn’t anything wrong with the shape of it.
We went through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. Her in the lead, me walking pretty fast to keep up with her. There was no sign of the old woman. The only sound came from our footsteps and the occasional clashes of thunder.
I began to get an uneasy, sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach. If I hadn’t needed to make a sale so badly, I’d have walked out.
There was a door leading off the kitchen. She went through it and I followed her—kind of edging around her, keeping my eyes on her. Wanting to say something and not knowing what the hell it would be.
It was a small bedroom; a room with a bed in it, rather, and a washstand with an old-fashioned bowl and pitcher. The shades were drawn, but quite a bit of light seeped in around their edges.
She closed the door and turned her back; started fumbling with the belt of the wrap-around. And I got the pitch then, of course, but it was too damned late. Too late to stop her.
The dress fell to the floor. She had nothing on underneath it. She turned back around.
I didn’t want to look. I felt sick and sore and ashamed—and, me, I don’t get ashamed easy. But I just couldn’t help myself. I had to look, even if I never looked at anything else again.
There was a welt across her like a hot iron might make. Or a stick. Or a cane…And there was a drop of blood…
She stood, head bowed, waiting. Her teeth were clenched tightly, but I could see the trembling of her chin.
I said, “God. God, honey…” And I stooped and picked up the wrap-around. Because I wanted her—I guess I’d wanted her right from the moment I’d seen her at the door, a picture lit up by lightning. But I wouldn’t have taken her this way if I’d been paid to.
So I started to get this doohickey back around her, but the way things worked out I didn’t quite get the job done. Not right at the moment, anyway. I was fumbling with the damned thing, telling her not to cry, she was a baby girl and a sweet child and I wouldn’t hurt her for the world. And finally she looked up into my face, and I guess she must have liked what she saw there as well as I liked what I saw in her.
She leaned into me, snuggled up against me with her head buried against my chest. She put her arms around me, and I put mine around her. We stood there together, holding on to each other for dear life; me patting her on the head and telling her there wasn’t a goddamned thing to cry about. Telling her she was a baby girl and a honey child and old Dolly Dillon was going to take care of her.
It seems funny as hell, now that I look back on it. Strange, I mean. Me—a guy like me—in a bedroom with an armful of naked woman, and not even thinking about her being naked. Just thinking about her without thinking about her nakedness.
That’s the way it was, though. Exactly the way it was. I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles.
2
I got her soothed down, finally. I helped her back into the dress and we sat down on the edge of the bed, talking in whispers.
Her first name was Mona, her last was the same as her aunt’s, Farrell. So far as she knew, that is. All she had to go on was what the old bitch told her. She couldn’t remember living with anyone else. She didn’t have any other relatives that she knew of.
“Why don’t you clear out?” I said. “She couldn’t stop you. She’d get in plenty of trouble if she tried to.”
“I…” She shook her head, vaguely. “I wouldn’t know what to do, Dolly. Where to go. I—I just wouldn’t know.”
“Hell, do anything,” I said. “There’s plenty of things you could do. Slinging hash. Ushering in a movie. Sales clerking. Housework, if you couldn’t find anything else.”
“I know, but—but—”
“But what? You can swing it, honey. Don’t tell her you’re leaving if you don’t want to. Just pull out and don’t come back. You get out now and then, don’t you? She doesn’t keep you inside all the time?”
No—yes, she nodded. She got out quite a bit. Downtown and around the neighborhood to shop for the old woman.
“Well, then?” I said.
“I c-couldn’t, Dolly…”
I sighed. I guessed she couldn’t either. She was too beat-down, completely lacking in confidence. If there was someone to take her away from here, keep her going until she was built up a little…
She was looking at me apologetically. Humbly. Begging me with her eyes. I looked down at the floor.
What the hell did she expect me to do, anyway? I was already doing a damned sight more than I should.
“Well,” I said, “you’ll be all right for the present. I’ll leave the silverware here for you. The old girl won’t know that—t
hat—she’ll lay off of you for a while.”
“D-Dolly…”
“Maybe you’d better make it Frank,” I said, trying to steer her away from the important thing. “Dolly”—I laughed at myself. “Now, ain’t that a hell of a handle for a big ugly guy like me to have?”
“You’re not ugly,” she said. “You’re pret…Is that why they call you that? Because you’re so—so—?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m a real pretty guy, I am. Pretty damned tough and ornery, and pretty apt to stay that way.”
“You’re nice,” she said. “I never met anyone who was nice before.”
I told her the world was full of nice people. I’d have hated to try to prove it to her, but I said it, anyway. “You’ll get along swell, once you’re away from here. So why don’t you give yourself a break, honey? Let me give you one? I can tell the cops what—”
“No!” She gripped my arm so hard I almost jumped. “No, Dolly! You’ve got to promise.”
“But, baby,” I said. “That’s all bushwa, she’s handed you. They won’t do anything to you. She’s the one that—”
“No! They wouldn’t believe me! She’d say I was lying and she’d make me say it, and a-afterwards—afterwards when she got me alone…”
Her voice trailed off into terrified silence. I put my arm back around her.
“All right, honey,” I said. “I’ll think of something else. You just sit tight, and…” I paused, remembering how quick the old woman had come out with her offer. “Have you had to do anything like this before, Mona? Has she made you?”
She didn’t speak, but her head moved up and down. A faint flush spread under the delicate white of her face.
“Just people stopping by, like I did?”
Again a reluctant nod. “M-mostly…”
That was good, if you know what I mean. Her aunt would pull that on the wrong guy—the right one, rather—and she’d be in the jug, but fast.