Bertha Cool put down her cocktail glass and said, “Well, can me for a sardine. Now, ain’t that something?”
I couldn’t seem to work up a great deal of enthusiasm over spilling information to Bertha. I’d done too much night driving, and sitting up all night doesn’t agree with me. I said, “Dr. Alftmont’s running for mayor in Santa Carlotta.”
“Politics?” Bertha Cool asked, her eyes turning greedy.
“Politics,” I said. “Lots of politics. The man who beat me up and ran me out of Oakview was a man named John Harbet of the Santa Carlotta police force, evidently the head of the vice squad.”
Bertha said, “Oh-oh!”
“One of the newspapers has been throwing mud at Dr. Alftmont. The other newspaper intimates that Dr. Alftmont is going to sue for libel. Ordinarily that would be a nice hint, but the way I size it up, the mud-slingers are pretty certain of their ground. They’re going to keep on dishing out the dirt and then dare Alftmont to sue them for libel. If he doesn’t sue, he’s backing down. If he does sue, he has to show damage to his character. When that time comes, what the Santa Carlotta Courier will do to his character will be plenty. Alftmont realizes that. He doesn’t dare to sue. He wants to find out whether his wife ever remarried or got a divorce.”
The expression in Bertha Cool’s eyes was like that of a cat wiping canary feathers off its chin. “Pickle me for a peach,” she said, half under her breath, “What a perfect set-up! Hell, lover, we’re going to town!”
“I’ve already been to town,” I said, and settled back against the cushioned bench in the booth, too weary to talk.
“Go on,” Bertha said. “Use that brain of yours, Donald. Think things out for Bertha.”
I shook my head and said, “I’m tired. I don’t want to think, and I don’t want to talk.”
“Food will make you feel better,” Bertha said.
The waiter came, and Bertha ordered a double cream of tomato soup, a kidney potpie, a salad, and coffee with a pitcher of whipping cream on the side, hot rolls and butter, and then said, with a jerk of her head towards me, “Bring him the same. The food’ll do him good.”
I gathered up enough energy to protest to the waiter. “A pot of black coffee,” I said, “and a baked ham sandwich, and that’s all.”
“Oh, no, lover,” Bertha said solicitously. “You need some food. You need something to make energy.”
I shook my head.
“Something with sugar in it,” Bertha said. “Sugar makes for energy. Some old-fashioned strawberry shortcake, Donald, with lots of whipped cream, some French pastry, some—”
I shook my head again, and Bertha gave up with a sigh. “No wonder you’re such a skinny runt,” she said, and then to the waiter: “All right. Let him have his own way.”
When the waiter had gone, I said to Bertha, “Don’t do that again.”
“What?”
“Act as though I were a child whom you were taking out to dinner. I know what I want to eat.”
“But Donald, you don’t eat enough. There’s no meat on your bones.”
Arguing with her was going to take energy so I let it go at that, and sat smoking.
Bertha watched me while she was eating. She said solicitously. “You’re looking awfully white. You aren’t going to come down with typhoid or something are you?”
I didn’t say anything. The salty tang of the fried ham made my stomach feel a, little better. The black coffee tasted good, but I couldn’t manage all of the ham sandwich.
“I know what it is,” Bertha said. “You’ve been eating in those greasy-spoon restaurants up in Oakview. You’ve knocked your stomach out, lover. Hell, Donald, think of the break it’ll he if Dr. Alftmont gets out in front in a political campaign where the citizens can’t afford to let him back out, and the other side are gunning for him. We can write our own ticket.”
“He’s already done that,” I said.
“We’ve got to work fast. It’ll mean a lot of night work.” I started to say something, then gave up.
She said, “Don’t be like that, Donald dear. Tell me.”
I poured out the last of my coffee, finished it, and said, “Get the sketch. Dr. Lintig runs away with his office nurse. She’s probably Mrs. Alftmont now, but there wasn’t any marriage. It would have been a bigamous ceremony. If they’d tried to solemnize a marriage, that would be a felony. Well, they may have at that. Figure it out for yourself. If Mrs. Lintig is dead or had a divorce, Dr. Alftmont is in the clear. He hasn’t committed bigamy, and his office nurse is the legal Mrs. Alftmont. Perhaps there are children.
“But if Mrs. Lintig didn’t get a divorce — and she says she didn’t — if she’s alive and well, all the picture needs is to have her come swooping into Santa Carlotta on the eve of the election. She identifies Dr. Alftmont as Dr. Lintig, the husband from whom she’s never been divorced. The woman Santa Carlotta society has recognized as Mrs. Alftmont becomes Vivian Carter, the co-respondent. They’ve been living together openly as man and wife — sweet little mess, isn’t it?”
“But,” Bertha said, “they have to have Mrs. Lintig in order to pull that.”
“Probably,” I said, “they already have her. You’ve got to admit it looks suspiciously like it — her showing up at this time in Oakview, oozing love and affection for her husband, dismissing the divorce action so the records will be cleared.”
“Tell me all about that, lover,” Bertha Cool commanded.
I shook my head and said, “Not now. I’m too tired. I’m going home and get some sleep.”
Bertha Cool reached her jeweled hand across the table to grip my hand with strong fingers. “Donald, dear,” she said, “your skin feels cold. You must take care of yourself.”
“I’m going to,” I said. “You pay the check. I’m — going to get some sleep.”
Bertha’s tone was maternal. “You poor little bastard, you’re all in. Don’t try to drive the car home, Donald. Take a taxi — no, wait a minute. Do you think Alftmont’s sending me any an more money?”
“He said he would.”
Bertha Cool said, “To hell with what they say. It’s what they pay that counts. Well, anyway, dearie, take a streetcar. Don’t try to drive the agency car.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll need the car tonight. I can drive it.”
I walked out and piloted the agency heap out to my rooming-house, feeling like the tail end of a mis-spent life. I climbed into bed, took a big swig of whisky, and after a while drifted off into warm drowsiness.
It seemed that I was just really getting some good sleep when an insistent something kept trying to drag me back to consciousness. I tried to ignore it and couldn’t. It seemed to have persisted through an eternity of time in various forms. I dreamed that naked savages were dancing around a fire, beating on war drums. Then there was a respite and I dropped back into oblivion once more, only to have carpenters start putting up a scaffold on which I was to be hung. The carpenters were all women, attired in sunsuits, and they drove the nails to a weird rhythm of thump thump thump thump — thump thump thump thump — thump thump thump thump. Then they would chant, “Donald, oh, Donald.”
At last my numbed senses came to the surface enough to realize that the noise was a gentle but insistent tapping on my door, and a feminine voice calling, “Donald, oh, Donald.”
I made some sleepy, inarticulate sound.
The voice said, “Donald, let me in,” The doorknob rattled.
I got out of bed and staggered groggily as I walked over to the closet door for a dressing-gown.
“Donald, let me in. It’s Marian.”
I heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. I walked to the door, turned the key, and opened it.