Girls' Dormitory (18 page)

"And look what's he's doing to himself with Helen."

Peggy was silent for a moment and the wheels of the car splashed on through the slush and loose snow. "I wish I knew what to do," she said.

"Try talking with Helen."

"I did, as soon as I got in from school. But she wouldn't listen to me. She said my father was old enough to know what he wanted and that it wasn't any of my business."

Jerry felt tired and old. There was nothing he could do about the affair, either. He knew what Helen was, but to tell would mean to strip his own past bare. And he didn't want to do that. He loved Peggy too much. He didn't want to hurt her.

"I'll think of something," Jerry said. "I don't know what, but there must be something."

"I hope so."

"Trust me."

She crept closer to him.

"I trust you," she whispered. "If you park the car I'll show you how much."

A mile up the road he took the car off the highway and into a place that the snowplows had used for turning around.

"I love you," he said.

"And I love you."

Jerry knew he shouldn't make love to her but she was there with him and she was beautiful, and he couldn't stop. This moment was for them, wild and glorious, and if there was nothing after this, it could be good enough to last.

His room was hot, not as hot as usual, but hot enough. He supposed the fire was down or something, but he made no move to investigate. There were too many important things on his mind, too many things that had to be solved and solved quickly.

Overhead he could hear Mrs. Reid walking back and forth in the kitchen, running water in the sink occasionally and slamming the refrigerator door. The footsteps came across the kitchen floor and paused at the top of the stairs. One of the hinges squeaked as she opened the door.

"Jerry?"

"Yeah?"

"It's cold up here. What about the fire?"

"I'll fix it."

"You'd better."

He got up and took a look. There was nothing wrong with the fire. If she had some storm windows put on the place she wouldn't have any troubles.

"Jerry?"

"What?"

"The hot water, too. It's very low."

"It's always very low."

She started down the stairs.

"You're in a friendly mood," she said.

He wished that she would go to bed or something. He didn't want to bother with her.

"Must be the money I get," he said sourly. "It makes me so happy I don't know what I'm doing."

He waited at the bottom of the stairs while she came down. She was wearing a robe as she usually did at night, and the slit was wide and revealing. Sometimes, when she had been drinking, he thought she wanted him to make love to her. But when she was sober, he was sure that she didn't.

"You put the car away?" she wanted to know.

"I put the car away."

"Where are the keys?"

"Where I always leave them. On the dining room table."

"I know," she said, coming all the way down. "I was in the car. It smells of perfume."

"Shaving lotion," he corrected her.

"No. Perfume. And only one girl in the house wears that kind. Peggy Markey."

She was always butting into his life, damn her. He felt his anger begin to rise.

"So?"

"I told you to leave her alone."

"Why?"

"That's my business. You don't think I want another Evelyn Carter thing happening here, do you? The police took up a lot of my time and asked all sorts of questions. I don't want to go through that again."

Thelma Reid had not been drinking.

"She wanted a lift," Jerry said. "I gave her a lift."

"Where?"

"Downtown."

She reached in the pocket of her robe for a cigarette and then lit it.

"I've got bad news for you," she said.

"Such as?"

"Letting you go."

"Go on."

"Forty a week is quite a lot of money."

"My heart bleeds for you."

"And I've got the feeling that you'd rather be doing something else."

"You're right."

She smiled. "No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings."

She filled her lungs with smoke and let it drift slowly from her nostrils.

"It won't be right away," she said. "I'll give you a chance to get another job."

"Thanks."

"You haven't been paying attention to a lot of things for the last few days."

"No, I guess not."

"Any reason?"

There was plenty of reason.

"Not one," he said.

"But I won't put up with you fooling around," she said. "If you're going to get paid you're going to work."

"All right."

"In the morning you scrub the floor in the girls' dorm."

"Okay."

"But only if all of the girls are out."

"Sure."

"And stay away from the rooms."

"Okay."

She slid her hands down over the robe, flattening it out over her thighs.

"You want a drink?"

"No."

"On the wagon?"

"You could say so."

"Why?"

"Poverty."

She said something about him not being worth any more than forty a week and started up the stairs. He stood there watching her. He just couldn't figure her out. She was a strange one, all right.

He waited for quite a while and when he heard no sounds from the first floor he walked upstairs and sat down in the living room, waiting in the dark. Maybe this was foolish, but he had to start somewhere.

The dark bothered him. First he saw Evelyn's face and then he saw Peggy's face. One was filled with pain and hate and the other was filled with love. Two women, he thought, and both of them very much a part of his life. One was dead, buried someplace in upper New York State, and the other was still alive. What a lousy mess.

The front door opened and two girls came into the hall. They did not see Jerry sitting in the" dark.

"Wasn't he a doll?" the one demanded. "A living doll!"

"Breathless."

"Do you suppose he really works for an undertaker?"

"That's what he said."

"It must be horrible, seeing all of those dead bodies and everything."

"He saw Evelyn what's-her-name."

"He did!"

"He said she was pretty, awfully pretty. But I didn't think so. I thought she looked like any other girl."

"Only she was pregnant."

"Yes, she was pregnant."

The girls walked up the stairs, still talking. Jerry fumbled for a cigarette, found none and yawned. It was hard to guess when Helen would get in. Maybe midnight, maybe morning. Or maybe not at all. But he would wait. He would wait as long as he had to.

She came in about eleven-thirty. He could tell it was Helen because something got in her way and he heard her curse.

"Damn house," she said.

"Helen?" he said in the dark.

She paused at the foot of the stairs.

"Now my evening is ruined," she said.

"Not as much as it's going to be."

She came away from the stairs and moved toward him through the shadows.

"I suppose you're waiting for yours," she said.

"Sit down."

"I don't want to sit down."

"Sit down!"

She sat down. Now that his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness he could see her quite clearly.

"There's a couple of things I want to get straight," Jerry said.

"I'm listening."

"Are you going to marry Otis Markey?"

"He hasn't asked me yet. But he will.”

"How do you know?"

"A girl can tell."

"A girl like you can tell a lot of things."

She started to get up but he grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back down to the davenport.

"I don't have to take that from you, Jerry."

"You have to take plenty from me," Jerry said. "Plenty. And don't forget it."

"Take your hands off of me."

"Not until I get finished talking to you. Not until you tell me a couple of things."

"You've been talking to Peggy."

"Never mind whom I've been talking to. Why are you thinking of marrying him?"

"I didn't say I was."

"But you are."

"Of course."

"Why?"

She laughed. "Maybe I'm in love with him."

"Or his money."

"That's not fair, Jerry. A girl can really fall in love, you know.”

"Not your kind of girl," Jerry said. "Your kind never does. All you go for is the fast buck, the easy dollar."

Her voice was savage. "Leave me alone!"

"I won't. What do you think he would say if he knew what you were? If he knew you were nothing but a prostitute?"

"The same thing Peggy would say if she knew you were a pimp."

It was like a slap across the face. He wanted to help Peggy any way he could, and he wanted Helen to do the right thing. But he wanted Peggy to keep thinking that he was a good guy, too, and that began to look impossible.

"You're a bitch," Jerry said.

Helen laughed again and pulled her shoulder free.

"And you're a fool," she said. "You can't scare me and you know it."

"It's not the right thing to do," he said, stubbornly.

"Not the right thing to do? What do you know about what's right and what isn't right? You don't know a single thing. You've lived like an animal half your life and you think everybody else wants to do the same thing. Well, you're wrong. I don't. I hated that room on Kennedy Street and hated you and everything I had to do. Just give me the chance to get out and I'll take it in a hurry. Just one chance. That's all I need, Jerry. And I've got it."

"Everybody has a conscience."

"You don't. Why should I?"

There was nothing he could do. He knew talking to her all night wouldn't get him anywhere. She had the heart of a snake and the mind of a beast.

"There's one thing about it," Jerry said. "You won't be selling yourself for twenty bucks."

"Shut up."

"It'll be top dollar this time, baby."

"You just shut up!" she flared at him. "Who are you to talk? You're just a lousy pimp without a girl. You don't care about me. You don't care about anything. And there's something else you ought to know, Jerry, something that you ought to know for sure."

"All right."

"The last day Evelyn was here—do you remember that?"

Something tightened inside of him.

"Yeah, I remember."

"That was one of the days you used Mrs. Reid's car."

"So what?"

"So I was down the street, on the corner, and I saw you go by. You weren't alone. Evelyn was with you."

The thing inside of him became tighter. He felt almost as though he were being strangled.

"You can't prove that," he said.

"I don't have to prove it. All I have to do is tell that to the cops." She hesitated to make it hurt more. "The cops are looking for the guy who was with her. I've got an idea that you were that guy."

"What if I was? I didn't kill her."

"You took her there."

That was true. He was trapped.

"You took her there and she died. I know you weren't the guy who got her that way—or were you?—but that doesn't make any difference. She was violating the law when she went there and you were violating the law when you helped her. You could get a long time in jail for that, Jerry. A long, long time."

Jerry was sweating. No matter where he turned this girl had him fenced in.

"Forget it," he said.

"Now you're being sensible."

But he wasn't forgetting it.

"You win," he said. "For this time."

Helen stood up and walked toward the stairs.

"I'll always win," she said. "Every time."

He sat there, listening to the sounds of her shoes on the stairs. She was a slut, a no-good slut, and he couldn't do a thing about it. She would marry Otis Markey and get his money. He could imagine what Peggy's life would be like after that.

Down in the cellar he sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. There was no point to lying down because he wouldn't be able to sleep. He doubted very much if he would ever be able to sleep again; this thing had become a nightmare.

He was in love with Peggy Markey.

And he was no good.

Those were the two things that mattered, the things that were important. At the beginning, he had wanted some of her money but she had given him something far better than that. She had given him a love that was fragile and tender, a love that went far beyond anything he had ever known before.

He felt sick as he recalled stealing Peggy's coat and pawning it, all to help Evelyn on her way to death. But all of these things had happened and he could not change them. Nothing could change them.

He rocked back and forth, wanting to cry, unable to cry. He wished he had a drink, a full bottle, but there wasn't an ounce in the room. And he had less than five dollars in his pocket. Well, the hell with it.

He left the house and walked down to the nearest bar.

Helen took a cab from the rooming house to Otis Markey's hotel. Jerry had offered to drive her over in Mrs. Reid's car, but she didn't want to have anything to do with him. If she never saw him again, that would be fine, just fine.

"I fired him," Thelma had told her. "I gave him the boot."

"That's good."

"He doesn't earn his keep any more. All he does is loaf around."

She told the cab driver to take the long way to the hotel and to drive slowly. She needed time to think.

"You marry this Otis Markey," Thelma had said, "and neither one of us will ever have to worry again."

Marrying Otis Markey was all right with Helen. Marriage to Otis meant money, lots of money, money to buy the things she wanted, all the things that she had always longed for. Peggy did not worry her. She would be easy to keep in line. In fact, living in the same house with Peggy, living close to her, might be fun. The only bad feature in the whole thing was Thelma. She was tired of working and wanted somebody to keep her. And she thought that she had found a way.

"You send me a few hundred every month," she had said, "and I won't bother you. But you miss one payment for one month, and he'll know just who and what you are."