“What’s funny about it?”
She went on as though she hadn’t heard me. “Then after we’d been going around for about a week you asked me to come up here and talk to a detective. He wanted to know where you were Sunday night. When I told him I was here with you at eight-thirty you looked pretty relieved.”
My glass was empty and I filled it again. I took my time about it so I could think. But I wasn’t thinking very well. I didn’t know what she was getting at, but it was bringing back the tight, wound-up feeling that had been building all during the past week.
I sat down and drank a little and tried to match her steady even look. She still had the funny little smile on her face.
“That’s why I thought we’d better get married right away,” she said.
“What are you trying to get at?” I said. “Do you think I started taking you around just so I could prove an alibi for Sunday night. Is that what you think?”
“No, I was thinking about something else, Johnny. Sunday night I guess I got pretty tight. When you left me I was asleep, but I woke up before you got back. It seemed like you’d been gone a long time so I called the operator and asked her what time it was. She said it was a quarter of nine.”
I heard the words all right but they didn’t come to me like words. They were like a piece of cold iron driving up through my stomach. I raised my glass and drank a little but I don’t know whether I tasted the whiskey. All I know was the tight ache inside me and the funny little smile on her face.
She said, “When you came back and we argued about the time I thought I might be wrong. I went into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. You told me to, remember? Just as I was coming out the phone rang. You pulled me down beside you on the bed and asked the operator what time it was. When I got thinking about all this I thought that was funny. When you answer a phone you say hello, or something like that. If you want to know the time in a hotel you call the operator. She doesn’t call you. How would she know you wanted to know the time?
“Anyway she said it was eight-thirty. You held the phone over against my ear and asked her to say it again. And she did. But it wasn’t eight-thirty then. I know it wasn’t, because I’d called her before and she said it was a quarter of nine.”
“What’s the rest of it?” I said.
“That’s all. You didn’t get here until about nine o’clock. But you wanted me to say you were here at eight-thirty. And that’s what I said.” She looked at me evenly for a while and then she said in a low voice, “That’s why I think we ought to get married right away.”
I didn’t say anything. I finished my drink and made another. I was a little drunk already, and I wanted to get drunker. I wanted to do anything that would kill the fear that was making me shake all over. Then I put the glass down on a table and went back and sat down. I had to fix this but drinking wouldn’t do it.
“Why do you want to marry me at all?” I said. “You know I’m in trouble. And if you think the things you do about me you can’t love me very much. Why not run to the cops right now?”
“If I’m married to you they can’t make me talk against you can they? I read that somewhere. Isn’t that right, Johnny?”
That stopped me cold. I looked at her and saw that she meant it. The wise little smile was gone from her face. She looked scared now. Her mouth was open a little and her eyes were big and staring.
“I do love you, Johnny,” she whispered.
I went over to her and knelt beside the chair and took her in my arms. She buried her face in my chest.
“I had to tell you that or you wouldn’t let me help you, Johnny,” she said.
“I’m glad you did, honey,” I said.
While I held her she started to cry. I patted her shoulders and all the time my mind was racing.
Maybe she loved me. Maybe she was on the level about that but when I gave her the final brush she’d blow wide open and start talking. And Harrigan, for one, would listen to her with a lot of interest.
I had to shut her mouth. Marrying her would do it, but that would tear Alice wide open and if that happened everything would tear with her.
It was funny how quick I thought of murder. Once you get out of a mess by murdering, it must change the way you think. It’s so sure and final that it’s the first thing to come into your mind when you’re in trouble.
Lesser was my first. When he was there on the floor, groaning and rolling his head, I had a problem. But when I got the gun and put two shots in his head the problem was over, and Lesser wasn’t anything at all.
Now I knew it had to be the same way with the blonde. Only there wasn’t time for any plans. This would have to be cold and sure and quick.
“Don’t cry, honey,” I said. “You were right to tell me all that. Now just keep it quiet until we’re married. I’m in a jam but it’s nothing serious. Tonight we’ll take a nice long drive and everything will look a lot better.”
“When I’m with you everything seems all right,” she said. She looked up at me and smiled. “I feel it’s going to be right.”
“Sure it will, honey.”
After a little while she went into the bathroom to put on some make-up, then I kissed her and took her to the door.
When she was gone I looked at the drink I’d made and then I went into the bathroom with it and poured it down the toilet. I was shaky enough without knocking myself out with more liquor. I had to be sharp now.
I grabbed my hat and went down to get some food. It was almost two-thirty then and I sat in the restaurant, drinking tomato juice and thinking of how I was going to get rid of the blonde.
I had work to do that afternoon but there was too much on my mind now. When I’d think about the work my thoughts would twist around and pretty soon I’d be thinking about the blonde. That was the big thing now.
About three I went across the street to a little bar that made a practise of picking up race results on the radio every day. I had a beer and sat around talking to some guys I met there. The beer tasted good. Cold and sharp and it made me feel a lot better than the whiskey I’d been drinking.
The guy next to me was talking the seventh race at Hialeah. He’d been on the winner for a few bucks and now he was moaning because he hadn’t shot the whole roll.
I’d forgotten about Banghart’s bet. Now I remembered it and the thought made me cold. I took a long swallow from my beer...
“Who took the sixth?”
“Some dog, name of Adelaide.”
“What did she pay?”
“Nine to one. First race she won as a three-year-old. Can you beat that?” He went on talking about something else, but I wasn’t listening.
I pushed the bottle of beer away from me and told the bartender to give me a shot of whiskey.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “You look bad.”
I drank the shot and tried to keep my hands steady. I felt numb all over. The noises in the bar seemed to be coming from miles away.
Adelaide at nine to one.
I felt people were looking at me. I got up and walked out and went up to my room. All the way I was looking over my shoulder and even while I was doing it, I knew I was being silly.
I hated the look of the room. I hated the smell. I hated the gloomy shadows that settled down when the sun moved to the other side of the building. But there wasn’t any other place I could go.
I locked the door and pulled down the shades. I sat on the edge of the bed and I was dripping with sweat. Nine thousand bucks. A guy with a face like a steel trap would be asking me for nine thousand bucks pretty soon.
I snapped on a light and started walking around the room, pounding my hands together. After a while I calmed down enough to go through my accounts, trying to find some guys that owed me money. There were a few. A fin here, a sawbuck there, adding up to about forty bucks. Forty buck and I needed a mint full.