James M. Cain
Jealous Woman
Part One:
The Playboy’s Second Wife
1
At the desk, when they said she was in 819, I knew hubby or pappy or somebody was doing all right by their Jane, because 19 is the deluxe tier at the Washoe-Truckee, one of our best hotels here in Reno, and you don’t get space there for buttons. They’re bright, big rooms on the southwest corner, facing the Sierras and overlooking the river, and they cost dough. I didn’t state my business, or mention insurance in any way when I rang her. No smart agent would. I just said I was Ed Horner of Edgar Gordon Horner, Inc., and that her husband had asked me to talk to her in connection with a certain matter, so she said come up. And waiting for me, at the door of her suite, a cigarette in one hand and the knob in the other, so she could step inside if she didn’t like my looks, was the Jane Delavan you read about in the papers.
Maybe you saw her pictures, but she was better-looking than they were, because it wasn’t Hollywood cheesecake that she had, but strictly class, like you see on the society pages, and sometimes it’s a little camera-shy. She was medium-size, and a little on the slim side, though there was plenty of shape of a nice, refined kind. But she didn’t dress to show it. Her clothes cost plenty, you could see that, but they hung on her loose and careless, so your eye went up one fold and down the other. Her face was long, with plenty of sunburn, and her hair dark, but with red in it. Her eyes were hazel brown, but they had something in them that was going to cost me some sleep before I got done with them. I mean they were beat up. Nobody had blacked them, but life had. She looked you straight enough in the eye, but not for long. Pretty soon she’d be looking at nothing at all, in a set, squinty way, and then she’d catch herself and come back to you, but with a little smile that was more to cover up than make like friendly. It was enough, pretty soon, to start me wondering about her, and unfortunately you don’t wonder about one part of a woman and let the rest go. When that starts, you wonder up the line and down the line, and across and between.
But I couldn’t honestly say I saw all of that at the time, even if I felt a little of it. What I saw mainly was a pretty girl that remembered my name from my giving it over the house phone, something an insurance man notices, because he’s got to fix names himself. I didn’t get to my business right away. I took a walk around the room, admired the view, said how lucky she was to get one of these suites. She said yes, it had taken some wangling. I asked if I could smoke, took out my cigarette case, got out a cigarette, felt for matches, didn’t find any, put the cigarette back, snapped the case fairly loud. I never carry matches. If you can make the prospect light you, you’re one up on him. He’s generally glad to do it, but what he doesn’t know is: it’s a little personal thing, and once he does it he can’t take it back. The time for a brush-off is past.
She lit me, and of course I jumped up very snappy and bowed to thank her and had a look at the lighter. “That’s an interesting thing, Mrs. Delavan. May I ask where you got it?”
“At the gift shop in the lobby.”
“Well — just the same, it’s nice.”
“I left my good one, that a soldier made out of a shell and that always lights in New York, and so I went down and got this. It cost $7.50 and I don’t think it’s a bit interesting and it hardly ever works, but if it has an admirer who am I to argue about it?”
“Anyhow, it’s some of that A-l local Reno stuff.”
“If that be a point in its favor.”
“...Somebody been gypping you?”
“Those blue chips. A bit expensive, I’d say.”
“Oh, them.”
“I was warned about the gambling, but—”
“Hey, hey, hey! It’s straight! Why, if they so much as thought one of their dealers had turned a crooked card they’d not only fire him, Mrs. Delavan, they’d put him in jail.”
“Well, it’s simply wonderful to know that instead of loaded dice it was Honesty Boys and their simple, barefoot, galloping percentage that took my money. I’m broke, just the same — or almost. It’s going to be two weeks before I can do anything at all. I’m furious at myself.”
“Oh, we got plenty to do here — practically free.”
“What, for instance?”
“You like to fish?”
“No.”
“Shoot?”
“No.”
“Ride?”
“Now there’s a nice cheap sport.”
“Not so fast, not so fast. We got a little number here called the Scout. It’s a dude ranch, but I keep a horse there and he’s yours any time you ring Jackie and tell her to get him ready.”
Well, not quite, if you know what I mean. I keep a horse there, and his name is Count Ten, which will give you some idea of the blood that’s in him. But anybody that would let a perfect stranger, and a girl at that, ride a thoroughbred horse, is plain crazy, and maybe I am, but not that crazy. But how would she know? For a pretty girl and a $100,000 sale, I could ring Jackie and have her saddle Bingo, who would put her back with his teeth, if she happened to fall off. “If you do like to ride, there needn’t be anything very expensive about it.”
“You seem most anxious to please me.”
“Why not? Your husband sure pleased me.”
“Do you mind giving me a rough idea of your business?”
“Insurance.”
Her face went hard. “I’m not interested in insurance, and I don’t believe my husband sent you here to talk about it.”
“You ought to be interested, and he did send me.”
I gave it to her, what he had told me, and I was casual, friendly and not too long-drawn-out. But the more I talked the more she burned, and pretty soon there was nothing for me to do but cut. Something was here I didn’t understand, and until I knew what it was I couldn’t go on. When I shut up she began to talk. “In the first place, everything my husband seems to have said to you is true. He has told you nothing that isn’t true, and yet he has not told you the slightest part of his real reason for taking out this insurance.”
“Which is?”
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to talk to him.”
She went in the bedroom, and in a minute I heard her voice on the phone. I could hear a little of it, and mainly it seemed to be: “Tom, you simply cannot do this thing to me. I can’t face it, and believe me it will have consequences you don’t even suspect” — stuff like that. So of course that made it perfectly ducky, because whatever it was that she meant I’d have to report what she said and that’s when the trouble would start.
It was quite some time before she came out, and when she did she had on riding clothes. They weren’t Western, like girls wear in Nevada, with tight dungarees, stitched boots, and cowboy hats. They were whipcord breeches, high boots, tailored coat, and derby hat, and crop, like they wear to the Eastern horse shows. She stood there a minute, pulling on her gloves, and then: “Mr. Delavan will speak to you about the insurance. Apparently I have no voice in the matter, one way or the other, except to protest, so I’d rather not be bothered about it any more, if you don’t mind.”
“There’s just one thing.”
“I’d rather you spoke to him.”
“I’m trying to tell you: Hara-kiri’s out.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We don’t pay off on suicide.”
“That’s not what he’s up to.”
“I heard some of your call, and it sounded like it.”
“Then you don’t pay off on suicide.”
“I just want you to know. And him to know.”
“I rang Jackie, by the way, and she’s getting me a horse. Do you mind if I go? It’s getting late, and I shouldn’t like to get caught in this country with night coming on.”