A Hell of a Woman (Crime Masterworks) (3 page)

It was on a side street, a twelve-foot-front place between a shine parlor and a fruit stand. It had two small show windows, with about a hundred items in each one. Men's suits, women's dresses, work clothes, bathrobes, wristwatches, dresser sets, novelties- more stuff than I can name. Why it was there, I don't know, because it wasn't once in a month of Saturdays that we got a customer off the street. Practically all the selling was done on the outside by me and five other guys.

We did a volume of about fifteen grand a month, with collections running about seventy-five per cent. And, yeah, that's low all right, but our mark-up wasn't. With a mark-up of three hundred per cent you can take a big loss on collections. You'll still do better on a fifteen-g volume than most stores do on fifty.

I was a little late getting in that morning, and the other collector-salesmen were already gone. A heavyset guy-a "just looking" customer-was thumbing through the rack of men's jackets. Staples was in the office at the rear, a space separated from the rest of the store by a wall-to-wall counter.

Pay-E-Zee didn't have the usual office employees. Just the credit men-managers like Staples. I laid out my collection cards and cash on the counter and he checked one against the other.

He was a little guy of about fifty, gray-haired, paunchy, sort of baby-mouthed. Back in the days when he was ringing doorbells, they'd called him The Weeper. He'd get on some poor bastard's doorstep or maybe call on him on the job, and then he'd howl and cry and carry on until they could hear him in the next county. He wasn't up to the rough stuff, so he'd pull that. And they'd have to come across to get rid of him.

He talked kind of sissified, not with a lisp, exactly, although you kept expecting one. He finished the check, and smiled at me pleasantly. He removed his glasses, polished them slowly and put them back on again.

"Frank," he said. "I'm disappointed in you. Very, very disappointed."

"Yeah?" I said. "What's the beef now?"

"Such clumsiness, Frank. Such preposterous ineptness. We did things much better in my day. Why in the world didn't you steal from the profit and loss file-the inactive p. and l.'s? If you were at all clever, you might have got away with it for years."

He shook his head sadly, looking like he was about to cry.

I forced a laugh. "Steal? What the hell you handing me, Staples?"

"Oh, Frank, please!" He held up a hand. "You're making this very painful. Pete Hendrickson's employer called me yesterday; his ex-employer, I should say. It seems that he wasn't very favorably impressed with our way of doing business, and he felt constrained to tell me so."

"So what?" I said.

"Frank…"

"All right," I said. "I borrowed thirty-eight bucks. I'll have it back for you by the end of the week."

"I see. And what about the rest of it?"

"What rest?" I said. "Who you trying to crap, anyway?"

But I knew it was no use. He sighed and shook his head, looking at me sorrowfully.

"I've only had time to spot check your accounts, Frank, but I've already found a dozen-uh-defalcations. Why not get it off your chest, my boy? Give me the total amount of the shortage. I'll find out, anyway."

"I couldn't help it," I said. "It was the rain. It's cleared up now, and if you'll just give me a few weeks-"

"How much, Frank?"

"I've got it all written down." I took out my notebook and showed him. "You can see for yourself I was going to pay it back. Hell, if I didn't intend to pay it back I wouldn't have written it down, would I?"

"We-el, yes." He pursed his lips. "Yes, I think you would have. I know I would have. It looks much better in such unpleasant eventualities as the present one."

"Now, wait a minute," I said. "I-"

"Three hundred and forty-five dollars, eh? Why don't you just dig it up, like a good boy, and we'll consider the matter closed."

"I'll write you a check," I said. "For God's sake, Staples, if I had any money or if I'd been able to beg or borrow any, I wouldn't have taken this."

"Mmm. I suppose so. What about your car?"

"Who's got a car? Talk to the finance company."

"Furniture?"

"Nothing. I rent furnished. I'm telling you, Staples, I don't have it and there's no way Ican get it. All I can do is-"

"I see," he said. "Well, that's certainly too bad, isn't it? Very depressing. The company isn't at all vindictive in these matters, but… I suppose you're familiar with the law of this state? Anything over fifty dollars is grand larceny."

"Look," I said. "What's that going to make you? What the hell good is it going to do to have me slapped in jail? God, if you'll just-"

"Well, it might do quite a bit of good," he said. "A man faced with a long prison sentence often thinks of resources he's previously overlooked. That's been our experience."

"But I can't! I won't!" I said. "There's no one that will help me. I haven't seen any of my relatives in years and they're all poor as hell anyway. I don't have any close friends or-"

"What about your wife?"

"I'm telling you," I said. "There's just one way! can get that dough. Give me six weeks. Give me a month. Three weeks. I'll work seven days a week, sixteen hours a day until-You've got to, Staples! Just a few weeks, a-"

"Oh, I couldn't do that, Frank!" He shook his head firmly. "I'd love to, but I honestly couldn't. – .Officer!"

"For God's sake-_Officer?_"

It was the guy I'd thought was a "just looking" customer. He sauntered up behind me, a toothpick bobbling in the corner of his mouth, and gripped me by the elbow.

"Okay, Buster," he said. "Let's go bye bye."

Staples beamed at him. He smiled at me. "I can't bear to say good-bye, Frank. Shall we just make it _au revoir?_"

It was about ten o'clock in the morning by the time they got me booked and locked up. I looked around the tank, the bullpen, and I'm not snobbish or anything, you understand, but I went over in a corner and sat down by myself. I just couldn't take it, somehow. I couldn't believe that I was part of this, that I was in the same boat with these other guys and a lot worse off maybe. Me, old Dolly Dillon, in the jug on a grand larceny rap? It was crazy. I felt like I was dreaming.

I knew better, but all that day I kept thinking that Staples would soften up. He'd realize that I couldn't raise anything in here, and he'd withdraw the charge and let me work the debt off. I kept thinking that, hoping it, and I figured out just the proposition I'd make him. My rent was paid for the month, and I was paid up with the finance company. So I'd say, Okay, Staples, here's what I'll do with you. You buy me a few meal tickets and pay for my gas and oil, and everything over that…

I remembered that the store owed me money. Two-two-and-a-half day's wages if they'd allow a half for this morning. So, hell, there was twenty-five dollars right there. All I actually owed was, well, call it three hundred in round numbers. That wasn't any money, for God's sake! I could make it up in no time, now that Joyce had pulled out.

I knew Staples would get me out. I mean, I
knew
it.

And I guess you know he didn't.

The next day came and passed. And I began to think about other angles, other ways I'd get out. They were all as hopeless as the Staples deal, but I dreamed up one after another. Maybe some crew would hit town, and they'd know what I could do, and they'd all take up a collection-they'd find out where I was some way-and… Or maybe! had a big bonus coming from one of the companies I'd worked for and the check was just now catching up with me. Or maybe one of my kinfolks back east had passed on and I was down for the insurance. Or maybe Doris would pop up with a roll. Or Ellen. Or-or someone. Someone had to, dammit! Something had to happen.

No one did, nothing did. And it was hard to take, brother, but it finally sank in on me that that was the way it was going to be. I was stuck. I couldn't kid myself any longer.

I thought about Mona, how she was really the cause of the whole trouble. If I hadn't used Pete Hendrickson's money to pay for that silverware, Staples wouldn't have caught up with me. I called myself all kinds of a damned fool, and I cussed her a little, too, I guess. But I didn't really have my heart in it. I knew I'd have done the same thing all over again, and I wasn't sore at her that much. How could you be sore at a sweet, helpless kid like that?

I sat off by myself in a corner of the bullpen, thinking about her and getting a nice warm feeling. She'd come right to me that day. Put her arms around me and laid her head against my chest. She'd stood there naked and shivering. And she'd hugged me tighter and tighter until I seemed to be part of her.

She was out of this world, that little girl. Not one of these goddamned tramps like I was always latching onto. You could really go places with a kid like that. You'd do anything in the world for her because you knew she'd do anything in the world for you, and you could just naturally go to town.

I wondered what she'd think when I didn't come back. I wondered what would happen to her. I closed my eyes, and I could almost see it happening: the guys coming there to the door and the old woman propositioning them, and Mona. – . Mona there in the bedroom…

I opened my eyes fast. I forced my mind away from her, and started thinking about that house.

I'd had a feeling about it from the moment I set foot inside the door; that it wasn't as it should be, you know. I couldn't figure out what it was at the time, and I'd had plenty of other things to think about afterwards.

But now it finally came to me. There weren't any pictures in the place; pictures of people, I mean.

I guess I've probably been in ten thousand of those old houses, places occupied by old people. And everyone of 'em's got a flock of pictures on the walls. Guys with beards and gates-ajar collars. Women in high-necked dresses with leg-of-mutton sleeves. Boys in Buster Brown suits, and girls in middies and bloomers. Grandpa Jones, Uncle Bill and Aunt Hattie. Cousin Susie's kids.. All those old houses are like that. They've all got those pictures. But this one didn't have a damned one.

I kept turning it over in my mind, and finally I thought, So what? What's it to you, anyway? I got kind of sore at myself, you know, thinking about a thing like that in the spot I was in. So I forgot about it, went back to worrying about myself, and it was days before I thought of it again. And by that time- I don't know. You'll have to decide for yourself. Maybe any time would have been too late.

Maybe it would have turned out the same way, anyway… I went to jail on Wednesday morning. I was scheduled for arraignment Friday afternoon. The turnkey came around at two that day, and took me to the showers. I bathed and shaved while he stood and watched, and then he gave me my clothes.

I got dressed. He led me up a long corridor, through a lot of gates, to the receiving room. He gave my name to the cop behind the desk. The cop opened a drawer, thumbed through a bunch of envelopes and tossed one on the counter.

"Open it up," he said. "Anything's missing, you say so now."

I opened it up. My wallet was in it and my car keys and a check to the police parking lot.

"Okay?" he said. "Well, put your John Hancock on this."

I signed a receipt. I thought this was a screwy way to do things, put a guy through all this just to go before a judge. But like I say, I'd never been in jail, and I figured they ought to know what they were doing.

I put the stuff in my pocket. The door to the street was open, and I thought, man oh man, what wouldn't I give to be out there.

The turnkey had gone back behind the counter. He was over at the water cooler, rinsing his mouth out and spitting into a big brass gaboon. He seemed to have forgotten all about me. I stood and waited.

Finally, the desk cop looked up at me. "You like this place, Mac?"

"I guess I got to like it," I said.

"Beat it," he said. "What the hell you waiting on? You got all your junk, ain't you?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "Think you kindly, sir!" And I went out of that damned place so fast, I bet I didn't even cast a shadow.

I was sure it was a mistake, see? They had me mixed up with some other guy. I didn't see how it could be any other way.

I got my car off the parking lot. I came off of it like a bat out of hell, and I must have gone four or five blocks before I came to my senses and slowed down.

This wasn't going to get it. How far did I think I'd go with a finance-company car and a little over two bucks? Maybe the cops had pulled a boner, and maybe Staples had decided to give me a break. Either way I couldn't lose by seeing him. If this was on the level, swell. If not, that was swell too. At least I could beat his rotten tail off before I went back to jail.

I parked a few doors below the store. I sidled up to the window, and glanced through the door.

He was about halfway down the aisle, counting stock, it looked like. His back to me.

I jerked the door open fast, and went in. He started, and whirled around.

He came toward me, swiftly, hand extended.

"My dear boy! I'm so glad they released you promptly. I asked them not to take a moment longer than was necessary. I made it very urgent, Frank."

"Well, okay," I said. "I'm not kicking, understand. But you ask me, three days isn't very damned prompt."

"But, Frank." He spread his hands. "It wasn't three days. It was hardly an hour ago that your wife repaid the money."