Love's Lovely Counterfeit

by James M. Cain

  She whispered: "You scared?"

  "Yes."

  "Isn't it delicious?"

  He caught her in his arms, then felt his head pulled down, as a pair of lips were pressed against his.

  He would probably have thought little of all these matters if she had not insisted, around one o'clock that she had to go home, as Mr. Jansen's guard was still on, and would unquestionably report the time of her arrival; and if, after he had dropped her near the apartment in which she lived, he had not passed a parked car of the identical make, year, and color as Mr. Jansen's. He drove by, headed for home. Then suddenly he stopped, got out, and walked back to the other car.

  In his little red book he copied the license.

  Chapter 6

  He saw her the next night, the night after that, and the night after that. She continued to act with that complete abandon of a novice having her first drink, and yet, when he suggested dinner at the Savoy Grill, she preferred Castleton; when he wanted to linger longer at the shack, she had to get home; when she dropped off at a corner, pleading an errand at a drug store, he found the green car, parked half a block away. His manner, these three evenings, changed just a little. He didn't exactly resist her; he would hardly have been human if he had, considering the inducements. But he was not quite so oafishly pleased, not so completely at a loss for replies. They were a little flat, perhaps, but they were articulate, and quite coolly considered. And constantly he studied her, as though he were trying to make up his mind about something, or to figure out something, into which she definitely fitted.

  Sunday night her high spirits had vanished, and she was glum, sad-eyed, clingy. Some men would have been bored, but he studied her more narrowly than ever, and patted her with tender sympathy. In the shack she broke down completely. They didn't dare burn electricity here, but they had become sufficiently bold as to light a candle, and stick it to the floor, in front of the sofa in the, living room. By this murky light her eyes glittered as she sobbed, and when he gathered her in his arms, and whispered in her ear, she quieted down, pulled herself together, and began to talk. "It's the same thing, Ben."

  "Family?"

  "Not my whole family. Just my—sister."

  "She the one that causes that frown you got?"

  "Ever since I can remember I've had to think about her, worry about her, get her out of messes. She's all right, Ben. She's the sweetest kid you ever saw, but—she's always in trouble. And it's always me that has to get her out."

  "She younger than you?"

  "Three years. She's twenty-two."

  "What's she done this time?"

  "Well, you see, she's in college, and—"

  "You pay for her there?"

  "Pretty near all."

  "That's why you can't keep all you make?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "Go on."

  "So, she has a room-mate—a girl I never did like—and this girl took some things. From other girls, in the dormitories. And Dorothy had no more sense than to let her store them in the room. In a trunk. And—then day before yesterday the room was searched. And the things were found. And—"

  "The cops got her, hey?"

  "No, it's not that bad, yet. Nobody wants to prosecute. But yesterday a lot of the things were traced, and this girl, Dorothy's room-mate, has to pay for them, or else."

  "How much does it tote?"

  "Over two hundred dollars."

  "Quite a lot of dough."

  "And I don't know what I'm going to do."

  Ben got up, lit a cigarette, flicked the match into the fireplace, and stood facing her. For a time he smoked, eyeing her steadily. Then: "I don't see why you're taking it so hard. Two hundred bucks, sure that's a lot of money. But you can get it easy enough."

  "Where?"

  "Jansen."

  "No, I couldn't do that."

  "Why not?"

  "Oh—I couldn't go to him, that's all. He—he's going to make me Chief of Social Service, and I can't ask for more than that. I could pay it out of my salary, if I only had time. But my first pay check will be in August, and if I don't make this thing good she'll be put in jail, and—"

  "You sure that's why you can't go to Jansen?"

  "Of course it is."

  "You're not stuck on him, by any chance?"

  "...You! Can ask that!"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "I don't even know what you mean."

  "No? That first night we were out together, you had to leave here because the guards were at your place, and they'd tell Jansen what time you came in. But Jansen's car was outside, and Jansen was downstairs waiting for you. He was there Thursday night, and Friday night, and last night. Each night he stayed over an hour. What are you trying to do, kid me? I say you're stuck on him."

  He was cold, but not particularly indignant. From his manner, one might think he was playing a carefully rehearsed scene. She shook her head emphatically. "No, you're wrong, though I can see why you think what you do. I'm not stuck on him. And—he has no personal interest in me. It was business, things we had to talk over. He's married, and—"

  "His wife's in a sanitorium."

  "I wouldn't know. I—"

  "No? I'd imagine he'd have quite a lot to say about that wife, how long she's been in the sanitorium, how sick she is all the time, how much he loves her, how much it means to him that he has somebody he can tell about her, and that understands how he feels. If you're not stuck on him, it certainly looks like he's stuck on you. It looks—"

  "All right, then, but if somebody got stuck on me, I'd certainly not go and tell anybody. You, or anybody."

  "Then O.K."

  "And I'd never go and ask them for—"

  "Then O.K...There's other places to get dough."

  "Where?"

  She was eager, but he took his time about answering, lit another cigarette, flicked another match into the fireplace. "Well, me for instance."

  "You? Would you let me have two hundred dollars?"

  "I got two hundred. I got two thousand."

  "Why couldn't you have made this offer without all these ugly insinuations about me and Mr. Jansen?"

  "I got to know where I stand."

  "Yes, of course he likes me. He—likes me a lot. He ought to, after all I've done for him. But—honestly, Ben, I just hate it that you stood out there and—"

  "Can't a guy be jealous?"

  He didn't look jealous. He looked like a man who had thought up something he was sure would score. It did. She drew breath to say something, then got up, put her arms around him, looked him in the eye, and kissed him exaltedly on the mouth. "I think that's one of the sweetest things I ever had said to me. I—just love you for that."

  "What she do it for?"

  "Who? That girl?"

  "Yeah, Dorothy."

  "It was the room-mate, Ben. She—"

  "Hey, hey."

  "All right, there isn't any room-mate. Are you really going to let me have the money?"

  "Sure. How much is it?"

  "Two twenty. And the wire charges."

  "You'll have it. Tomorrow morning. By the way—"

  "Yes?"

  "Is Jansen going to be there tonight?"

  "Not if you object."

  "Oh, I don't object."

  "That's right. There's nothing to be jealous of."

  "You could ask him a favor, though."

  "Anything you say."

  "Ask him to appoint Cantrell Chief of Police."

  "Appoint—whom did you say?"

  "You heard me."

  They had been standing in front of the fireplace, she snuggling against him, he patting her on the shoulders. Now he walked over and sat down near the candle, so its light shone upwards on his face as he looked at her. It gave him a curiously wolflike look. She stared, then came over and sat beside him. "Ben, what on earth are you talking about?"

  "Cantrell."

  "But he's a dirty crook. Why, he—was hand in glove with Caspar. Why, Ben, how could Jan
sen appoint him? It would make a laughing stock of the whole campaign."

  "If Jansen really wants to appoint the best available man, and goes into the qualifications of them all, he'll find that Cantrell is the best officer on the force. It's not his fault if crooks get elected and he has to play along. Give Cantrell a break, and he's one of the best officers in the country. And a good officer Jansen will have to have, if he's going to put across what he's been promising the voters. He can't deliver with jerks and thugs."

  "He can't appoint Cantrell."

  "O.K."

  He yawned, coldly and indifferently. "You mind if we blow along now? I been thinking about it, and I think I better be making an early start over to Castleton, start looking for a job."

  "How early?"

  "Ah, seven, eight o'clock probably."

  "Before the bank opens?"

  "Oh yeah, long before that."

  She sat a long time looking at him, her face wearing a look of pain. "I guess I see it now, Ben. What this is all about. Why you've been acting just a little peculiarly these last few days."

  "Yeah? Why is that?"

  "Once you found out that Jansen was insanely in love with me, you knew, or thought, you had him, didn't you? That through me you could make him do whatever you wanted him to do, even to appointing that filthy swine, Cantrell. And tonight, when you heard about Dorothy, you saw something that played right into your hand, didn't you?"

  "I haven't asked for a thing in this campaign."

  "That's right. You were satisfied just to get Caspar, and be a free man once more. But the Jansen angle—I don't have any idea how you found out about it. You seem to have a habit of finding out things, and thinking up schemes. But when you did find out about it, you decided to use it for your own ends, didn't you? Just as you used what you knew about Caspar—"

  "So did you. Don't forget that."

  "I wasn't working for him."

  Ben got up, picked up the candle, blew it out. In the dark there was a long pause. Then he said, "Just one more thing about Cantrell—"

  "No, not even one thing. I know what you can do it you can get Cantrell made Chief of Police. You can run this town exactly as Caspar did. Well, you won't, that's all. He'll not be appointed."

  "O.K. Sorry about Dorothy."

  "...Never mind—about Dorothy."

  Lefty materialized from a shadow when Ben headed into the parking shed, and walked with him into the hotel and up to his room. He wanted to borrow $5. Ben let him have it, and lay down on the bed. He lay there a long time, his eyes on the ceiling, listening to Lefty's downhearted view of the future. He was preoccupied, as though he were waiting for something. When the outside phone rang he stiffened a little, reached for it, then changed his mind. It rang a great many times, until Lefty became annoyed, and wanted to know why he didn't answer. When it stopped, Ben abruptly sat up. "Lefty, how much did Sol pay you?"

  "Eighteen."

  "What—a week?"

  "O.K., then laugh, let's see you laugh. For all I did, taking a chance on my neck every other day—he paid me eighteen a week and I took it, that's the funny part. For something special he slipped me extra."

  "You can start tomorrow at twenty-five."

  "Who from?"

  "From now on I'm running it."

  "...Ah, so it was you!"

  "So what?"

  "Not a thing. I got not a word to say."

  "Pals?"

  "Two beers, Ben, and they're on you."

  Chapter 7

  Inspector Cantrell raised his eyes as Ben came in, motioned vaguely to a chair, went on reading. In his manufacture, one would say that God had started with the feet, shaping them delicately; then proceeded to the body, making it strong and at the same time supple, not too large and not too small; then reached the head as the whistle blew for lunch. It was a round, bulletlike head, on the front of which a face had indeed been moulded, but a face hastily conceived, whose component parts didn't noticeably match; the heavy jaw was out of kilter with the narrow, low forehead; the right side was seamy, the left side not; it was even somewhat out of plumb, skewing off at an angle in a baffling way. Yet its dark mahogany color gave a startling, sharklike vividness to the light blue eyes, so that while one might instinctively avoid Mr. Cantrell, one would hardly trifle with him. He was, at this moment, taking his ease after lunch. His feet rested comfortably on the desk, his knee cradled a magazine. Under his chin, a light blue handkerchief protected a dark blue shirt, and behind him, a hanger spread his double-breasted coat. He wore no waistcoat. His belt, as it rose and fell with his regular breathing, was held by a monogrammed clasp.

  Presently he yawned, pitched the magazine aside, clasped his hands behind his head. "Well, Ben, what do you know?"

  "Not a thing, Joe."

  "Me neither. Things awful slow. What you doing?"

  "Nothing yet."

  "You hear from Sol?"

  "No, nobody does."

  "Sol, when he skipped he skipped high."

  "He going to be indicted?"

  "You couldn't prove it by me. You wouldn't hardly expect him to be, many friends as he's got right now in the D.A.'s office. But when this new gang comes in, I don't know. I wouldn't put much past them."

  "When's the new outfit come in?"

  "Week from tomorrow."

  "Gee, time sure does fly, don't it?"

  "Sure does. Well, Ben, what's on your mind?"

  "Who's the new chief?"

  "Search me."

  "O.K., stand up."

  "...What?"

  "I say come over here and back up. I might be able to find a card or a letter or something with the name of Cantrell on it."

  Mr. Cantrell smiled the smile of one who wants to be polite in the presence of the feeble-minded. "No, Ben, sometime your number's up and sometime it's not. For the next four years I imagine I got outside position."

  "Suppose they disqualified the winner, the place horse, the show horse, and the horse that was trailing them, and you saw your number going up to the top—what then?"

  "They don't often do that."

  "Not in a straight race."

  "I figure this one's not fixed—for me, anyway."

  "Suppose you're wrong."

  "It's too hot for supposing. What you want, Ben?"

  "Take your feet off that desk."

  "...Says who?"

  "You think I came in here to crack jokes?"

  There was quite a change in Ben's manner since the last time Mr. Cantrell had seen him. Then he had been a face in the shadows of Sol's big room, grinning appreciation of barbers, blondes, and cops; now he was callous, calm, and cold. How much of this was real, how much was an imitation of Caspar, and how much was play-acting, to bring Cantrell to heel, it would be hard to say. Possibly it involved all three, and yet it wasn't all bluff. Ben evidently felt a great sense of power, an intoxicating sense of power. He lit a cigarette, walked over, dropped it into the constabular ashtray, and stood looking at Mr. Cantrell's feet, as though they were almost more than his patience could endure.

  Mr. Cantrell stared for some time, then said: "If my feet bother you, Ben, I can take them down. I can treat you with courtesy, or hope I can. But I don't take them down, for you or anybody, or any such say-so as that."

  "If you don't mind, Joe. I ought to have said that."

  "That's a whole lot better."

  "You ready to suppose?"

  "That all depends, and I got to know a lot more about it first. But you can get this straight, right now: I don't take anything, off you or anybody. I didn't even take it off Caspar. You did, Ben, but I didn't."

  At this reminder of the lowly role he had played, Ben's eyes flickered. Obviously he would have liked to let the thing rest there, to let Mr. Cantrell have his dignity, to get on with the deal. It would be less trouble that way, and he hated trouble. But something must have told him this was really a test of strength, that if he weakened now, he couldn't handle this man, even if he bagged him.
He smiled pityingly. "So you never took it off Caspar, hey? It's a good thing he's not here to hear you say that. Now you know and I know and we all know that if you stuck around Caspar you took it or you didn't stick. I notice you were there, right up to the last whistle blow, and that means you took it. So that's what you're doing now."

  His big halfback's paw hit Mr. Cantrell's feet, which were still on the desk, and Mr. Cantrell's feet hit the deck. Mr. Cantrell came up standing, then walked around the desk, and the two men faced each other malevolently. Then Mr. Cantrell's face wrinkled into a grin, and he nudged Ben in the ribs. "Hey, Ben, you forgot something."

  "Yeah, and what's that?"

  "It's not the heat makes me like this, it's—"

  "The humidity?"

  "Right!"

  Both roared at this sally, in a room-shaking, tension-easing laugh, and Mr. Cantrell felt in Ben's pockets for a cigarette. "Were we supposing, Ben?"

  "That's it, copper."

  "Go on, tell me some more."

  "If you want to be Chief, I might swing it."

  "You in person?"

  "Yeah, me."

  "You and Jansen; I didn't know you were that thick."

  "We're not."

  "O.K., just getting it straight."

  "Just the same, I can swing it."

  "Keep right on."

  "Of course, you got to sell him. You got to convince him that you, or any cop, can clean this town up in twenty-four hours, providing one thing."

  "Which is?"

  "You get a free hand."

  "And then?"

  "Surprise, copper, surprise! Then you clean it."

  "A clean tooth don't grow much fat."

  "You follow the chickens?"

  "Yeah, a little."

  "O.K., then you know how they cut off the spur, just a little way from the foot. And you know how they fit that gaff over the stump—that pretty-looking thing that's all hand-forged steel, with a point on it that would go through sheet-iron, and a nice leather band to go around his leg, soft, so it don't hurt him any, and he likes it...So you clean up the town, you do it for Jansen, just like you said you would. You cut off the spur, and that cleans it. How can a chicken violate the law with no spur to fight with? O.K., you just don't tell him about that gaff in your pocket, that's all. You got it now?"