He’d been reading about it one night — that was toward the end, after it had been going on for several weeks — and he started discussing it with me.
I twiddled my thimble-sized coffee-cup around disinterestedly, looked down at it. “Do you think there really is such a woman?” I asked idly. “Or are he and his lawyer just making it up, howling for her to try to distract attention?”
He grimaced undecidedly, didn’t answer right away. But Jimmy is not likely to be without opinions for long; that’s why he is as successful as he is. It came on slowly; I could almost see it forming before my very eyes. First he just chewed his lip in cogitation. Then he nodded abstractedly. Then he gave it words. “Yes. I dunno why, but — I have a feeling they’re telling the truth, as mealy-mouthed as they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some woman up there that same night. The prosecution doesn’t deny it, I notice; they just clam up each time. That’s what makes me half-inclined to believe—”
They hadn’t made use of any of the backstops Weill had prepared, up to this point, so there was still room for legitimate doubt: the affidavits on my affidavit; nor had Weill taken the stand to pinchhit for me. Maybe they were saving them for a bang-up finish, or maybe they weren’t going to ring them in at all, had found they didn’t really need them. My chief contribution had been to point out Sonny-Boy Nelson to them, and help them trap him, and that could be safely left out of it without damaging their case any. Otherwise what could I add? Only circumstantial strengthening to what was already an overwhelmingly strong circumstantial case. They’d even found someone who had seen him — Nelson — run out of the house next door, gun still unsheathed, and the door of Carpenter’s apartment and the two roof-doors had been found yawning wide open.
But there was one thing I couldn’t get straight in my own mind. I mentioned it aloud to him — although very carefully. “But why do they — Nelson and his lawyer — keep harping on this woman? What do they expect to get out of that? I should think it would be the other way around, that it would harm them.”
He shrugged. “Evidently they’ve figured out some way in which they think she can help them. They must have something up their sleeves. I wouldn’t know. I can’t figure out what goes on in the crooked minds of shady lawyers and their clients.” He pitched the paper disgustedly aside, as though the subject didn’t interest him any more. He delivered himself of a concluding postscript.
“Anyway, if there is such a woman — and most likely there is — she’s a fool. She should have gone to her own husband, whoever she is, and taken him into her confidence, before she got in that deep.”
How easy to say, I thought poignantly. “Maybe she was afraid to,” I mentioned. “Afraid he wouldn’t believe her or would misunderstand—”
He gave me a scornful look, as he got up, as though he thought I were a fool myself, to make a remark like that. “The right kind of a husband,” he said, sauntering out to the next room, “understands everything, forgives everything. He takes care of things for her. And above all, he doesn’t speak of it.”
Ah yes, I thought, in theory, on paper, how well that works out. But in real fife, just try it and see what cain it would raise!
He only spoke of it once again, after that. “I see he got the chair.”
“Who?” I asked. I’d known since nine that morning, when the first paper came.
“That fellow, what’s his name, Baby-Face — No, Sonny-Boy, Nelson.”
“He did?” I said, in polite echo.
He pretended to snap the light-switch of my room, to hurry me up.
It put me in mind, somehow, of a switch being thrown in a death chamber.
The maid came in and said, “There’s a man at the door to see you, madam.”
Something about it frightened me even before I knew of anything to be frightened about. I started up from the chair. “Who is he? What does he want?”
I saw her staring at me curiously, as if wondering what made me so jittery about such a trivial announcement. I tried to cover it up with a pass of my hand.
“Send him in here.”
I knew him by sight, right away. I couldn’t help wondering, though, how I’d known it was going to be something like this ahead of time. I went over and closed the door. He had sense enough to wait until I had.
“I’m from Weill’s office—”
I didn’t let him get any further. “He shouldn’t have sent you over here like this! I thought he said I was through! What does he want now?”
“Sonny-Boy Nelson is being taken up to the Death House on the three o’clock train. He’s pleading for a last chance to talk to you before he goes.”
“Then even he knows who I am! Is that how Weill keeps his bargains?”
“No, he doesn’t know your name or anything like that. He just knows that you saw him up there, and it was through you we captured him.”
“Can I reach Weill at his office? Get him for me.”
“Yes ma’am. The only reason he sent me over instead of calling you himself is he thought somebody else might intercept or overhear the call — here he is, now.”
“Weill? What about this?” I asked.
“No, don’t go near him, Mrs. X. There’s nothing to be gained by it. You’re not under any obligation to him.”
“Well, then why did you send someone over here to let me know about it?”
“Simply to give you your choice in the matter, to let you know he’s been asking for you. But you’re free to do as you please about it. If you want my opinion, there’s no need for you to see him any further. He’s been tried and sentenced. There’s nothing you can do for him.”
“But he evidently thinks there is, or he wouldn’t be asking for me. And if I refuse, I suppose he’ll go up there cursing me—”
“Well, let him. They all curse someone, and never the right one — themselves. Put him out of your mind. No use being sensitive about these matters.”
But he was used to dealing in them; I wasn’t.
“Would there be any risk?”
“Of identification? No, none whatever. I’ll see to that personally. But as I said before, if you want my honest opinion, I don’t see any necessity—”
I went anyway. Maybe because I’m a woman. Curiosity, you know. I mean, I wanted to hear what he wanted. I had to, for my own satisfaction and peace of mind. Remember, I wasn’t thirsting for his blood. My purpose in going to the police in the first place hadn’t been to secure his death. It had been to secure my own life. That had been accomplished from the moment he had been apprehended; he didn’t have to be executed to advance my safety any further than it was already.
I didn’t think there was anything I could do for him. Weill didn’t. But he did. Why shouldn’t I at least hear what he thought it was?
I wore such a heavy veil I could hardly see through it myself. Not for Nelson’s own sake, he’d already seen my face as plainly as anyone could that night up at Carpenter’s, but in order to avoid all risk going and coming from the place. Weill’s man went with me as far as the prison building; Weill took over there himself and escorted me into the cell. They didn’t keep me outside at the mesh barrier through which prisoners usually communicate with friends and relatives. They took me right into the cell itself, so my presence would be less likely to attract attention.