The Woman Aroused

by Ed Lacy

  She left the kitchen and when I had the food on the table I went into the living room to call her. She was sitting in the big leather chair—ashes all over it. The robe had fallen from her , legs, exposing her strong thighs. I looked at the other piles of ashes and cigarette butts around, said, “Thought I told you to get dressed? Look at yourself. My God, haven't you taken a bath lately?”

  She stood up, smiled—her little mouth becoming so big—said, “Eat first. I am hungry.” She started for the kitchen and I caught her at the doorway, held her arm.

  “No. First you wash your face, brush your teeth, comb your hair.”

  She was staring at me with a faint tolerant smile, as though I was an idiot she had to humor. She pointed to the food on the table. “Food... cold.”

  “Then let it get cold! I told you a half hour ago to dress. Now do it.” I walked over and sat down and started to eat. She didn't move, merely stood there, staring at me. I ate some more, then got up and went over to her, said as if talking to a child, “Do as I told you or you won't....”

  She suddenly said something in German that sounded like a curse, brushed past me and made for the table. As I turned I saw Slob up on the table, eating from her dish. The poor cat had never done that before, but I had forgotten all about feeding him.

  Lee made a savage swipe at him with her big hand, sending him crashing against the opposite wall. He hit with a really sickening thud, dropped to the floor on his back, blood streaming from his mouth.

  I cursed her as I bent over the cat. He was moaning with a weak, pitiful sound. I lifted him as tenderly as I could, ran out and hailed a cab. He was dead before I reached the vet's, and I left him there.

  I was chilled to the bone and in a furious mood when I returned. Lee wasn't in the kitchen, although the light was still on. She had eaten her supper and most of mine, and several crushed butts were on the dirty dishes. I ran into the bedroom. She was propped up on the bed. “You bitch, you killed Slob!”

  “Eat my food,” Lee said casually.

  “Goddamn you, that was my cat!” I tried to control my voice.

  “In Europe no katzen—people eat katzen,” she said. Her robe was open, showing her big breasts and she seemed the most obscene creature I'd ever laid eyes on. I said coldly, clearly, “Lee I want you to get out. To-night, you understand? This is my house and I want you out!”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “No? Get up and start packing or I'll throw you out!” I screamed.

  She opened her robe farther, smiled up at me.

  I cursed her, words I hadn't used since I was a kid. I grabbed her hand, yelled, “You're getting out, bag and baggage and...!”

  She suddenly pulled me down on the bed, on top of her, and I struck her across the face, a loud hard slap. For a moment we wrestled and her eyes seemed very bright. Then her hands were at my throat as I frantically punched and clawed at her.

  There was no mistaking the look in her eyes, she was going to strangle me with her powerful hands!

  I twisted and pulled at those hands, but she was too strong and big for me. My throat seemed on fire and the room started to become hazy as I battled her. I must have worked my way to the side of the bed, for suddenly I fell off the bed. The sudden jerk of my body broke her hold on my throat. As I gulped air, I rolled away from her clutching hands, scrambled to my feet. She jumped off the bed, a crazy sneer on her face.

  I ran for the door and the street but moving with startling speed, she cut me off. I crossed the living room, made the kitchen. I knew I'd never have time to open the back door, and I grabbed a large bread knife, turned to face her. The sight of the knife slowed her up, but didn't stop her. She advanced toward me slowly and I knew I'd have to kill her or she would certainly kill me. I was sick with fear, and without knowing I was saying it, I suddenly shouted, “Achtung! Achtung!” and waved the knife at her.

  She stopped stock still, her big face turned pale, the anger left her eyes and the usual blank look returned. All I needed was the Nazi double-cross on my arm. I felt relieved, and ashamed, it was pretty low, even to save my life. I think the words meant, danger, or attention. I remember seeing them in war pictures of mined fields.

  Lee reached over and took a cigarette from the pack on the table, lit it, thumbed the match at me, then turned and walked leisurely out of the kitchen. She sat down on the couch in the living room, blew out a cloud of smoke. I looked down at the knife in my hand and nearly fainted. If it was a shock to think I had been ready to kill, if it was more of a shock to think of the Nazi role I had taken, the greatest shock of all was the thought deep in my mind, bursting to the surface: Lee had killed Hank!

  My hand was trembling so I couldn't hold the knife. I rested it on the kitchen table for a moment, then picked it up, went into the living room. I sat facing her—and near the door. For a long moment we stared at each other, this semi-nude giant of a woman and I, and the big bread knife gave the scene melodramatic, almost comic overtones. The past few minutes seemed a fantastic nightmare that had never happened—yet they had.

  She smiled, “George, everything okay. We forget, hey boy?” She had that damn drawl back in her voice.

  I said, “I'm giving you ten minutes to pack and get out, or I'll call the police. You understand... police... cops... p-o-l-i-c-e!”

  She shook her head. “I stay here.”

  “The hell you will! I know damn well you killed Hank. You were supposed to be in the basement using a washing machine! Why they'd have to beat you to make you use a washing machine!” I sounded like Marion. “I'll have something to tell the police—if you don't get out.”

  She kept staring at me in that odd, puzzled way she had, as though trying to understand what I was saying. Then she said, “No, I stay here. Police tell Lee have no reason to kill Hank. Police say Lee finish with that. I stay here, like it here. Maybe you have reason to kill Hank.”

  “Me!”

  She nodded. “Lee not very bright. Hank say so, you say too. Lee have no reason push Hank from window. Lee downstairs. Maybe you push Hank? Possible, it is... moglichkeit.”

  “What the devil are you talking about? Look, you're wasting time.” I glanced at my wrist watch. The crystal had been broken during our fight and the watch had stopped, but I told her, “You have just seven minutes to pack and leave, or I call the police.”

  She shrugged her heavy shoulders. “Lee stay, maybe George go. Maybe Lee ask for police. Police be... how you say... want to know why you kill Hank. But you say I no go, you give me money.... all weeks... like before, Lee forget why George kill Hank... you and Lee be... okay. Good here, okay here, boy.” She looked around the room, lit a cigarette calmly, then blew out a cloud of smoke and laughed in my face. Her laughter was shrill, unreal, and made me shiver.

  I didn't know what to say. It didn't make sense, nor had I ever heard her talk so much before. And all this stupid talk about my killing poor Hank... I suddenly wondered if Lee had gone completely off the beam. And there was something about her eyes... something... they seemed far from blank, seemed to take a certain shrewdness.

  We stared at each other for a few minutes, then I glanced at my broken watch again. “Only three minutes left, Lee. Start packing.”

  She knocked the ash from her cigarette on the floor, got up and went into the bedroom. I sighed with relief as she opened a drawer, pulled out one of her old pocketbooks. It was all over, I was rid of her. First thing I'd have to do, as soon as she was packed, would be to call a hotel, arrange for a room for a week or till I figured out where she could go.

  I put the kitchen knife under the chair, wondered if she would be better off in a small hotel or a big one, would her odd behavior be more conspicuous in a....

  She walked back into the room, sat down again. She was completely nude. She held up her left hand.

  For a moment I didn't get it, then I saw she wasn't completely nude—she had her wedding ring on. “I thought you were packing?” I said coldly.

&
nbsp; “Oh, no! You like, you go. No Lee go. Police... police maybe no like George taking Hank's wife. Me, Lee, no bright... George very bright, George do everything. This look very bad. Also... maybe... this and other reason... why you push Hank.”

  “Goddamn it, get out of here! I'm tired of talking—get out! And stop all this crazy nonsense about my having a motive for killing Hank. Certainly living with you isn't any. You were starving. I was only helping you. I warn you, if I'm forced to call in the police, you'll get the worst of this, you'll...”

  She glanced casually at the wall... and then it all came to me. Oh brother did it come to me! I thought I had been outsmarting her and all the time... I was the spider who instead of asking a fly into my parlor had merely asked a bigger spider in! I was some spider.

  I ran over to the wall panel, fumbled with the damn thing till it slid open. It was empty... of course! She had the note I'd written for Hank's seven thousand.

  I turned and stared at her and now I was the one sporting the stupid look.

  She said—almost gently, “Police say no reason to kill Hank. Now... you take Hank's wife and Hank's money... What police say?”

  “Where's that note, you bitch?” I shouted. “You know damn well you killed Hank. Give me that note!”

  As I walked toward her she threw her cigarette on the coffee table, burning it, got to her feet. I stopped. I didn't have the slightest doubt in my mind that she could (and would) not only beat me, but kill me.

  I turned and went to the closet, took my hat and coat. She walked over to the door, asked, “Where you go?”

  “You can stay here, I'm leaving.” I said, full of fear as I walked by her, expecting those big hands on me as I opened the door. A draft of cold air hit her naked body.

  “George!”

  I was safely outside. I turned and asked what she wanted, or maybe I merely opened my mouth and tried to talk: I was so upset my mouth was cotton dry.

  “On Montag... Monday... you bring Lee money like before? Yes? No?”

  I wanted to scream, tell her to go straight to hell, but she had me over a barrel. I nodded and walked away from my own house.

  I walked down Park Avenue, trying desperately to think. I was in a rough spot. Would the police suspect me of murdering Hank? I didn't have an alibi, or even the faintest idea where I was on the night Hank was murdered. In fact I didn't know the exact date. I was probably out at Southampton, but that wasn't an alibi. Would the police really suspect me? For all I knew the note for the money, my living with this backward girl, might be enough to convict me, hold me for trial. Actually, I wasn't worrying about a murder rap so much, I was worrying like hell about the mess it would stir up, the juicy newspaper stories... as if I had been found robbing and sleeping with a ten-year-old girl. That note made it much more than merely an affair.

  If this ever hit the papers, got out... what could I do? Run away? Kill myself? I could see the whole world staring at me; “they” would be pointing a million fingers of shame and scorn at me. (Actually, if I had been able to reason it out I would have realized that the worst the scandal could do to me would be the loss of my job, my few friends. As for the murder angle, it would never stand up in any court, but the very thought of a trial made me hysterical.) My comfortable velvet rut was being smashed to tiny pieces.

  As I walked I thought of a hundred outs: call a mental institution, tell them there was a lunatic living in my house; get in touch with Ellis Island, Lee was certainly an undesirable alien; I even considered something as “basic” as getting her out of the house by a money ruse, then changing the locks and let her raise hell. And all the time I knew I couldn't do anything as long as she held that damn receipt. Without that piece of paper it might not be too bad, her word against mine. Living with a backward girl wasn't a crime, but with that note, my great “cleverness” exposed, that meant I was a heel of the first water... they might even call it some sort of forced prostitution, with the girl getting paid with her own money—which, as the old joke says, makes it rape. I wondered just how “backward” Lee was, when she had found the note, how long it took her to understand its power?

  I had a headache by the time I reached 42nd Street and it suddenly occurred to me I was homeless, had to find a place to sleep. I was also hungry. I had a sandwich and coffee, walked west till I reached the Turkish bath. I took a room for the night and didn't even bother with the baths.

  But I couldn't sleep and in the middle of the night I went downstairs, sat in the pine steam room and brooded. I was really in hell.

  In the morning I realized I didn't have a clean shirt and I bought one and a pair of socks, changed in the men's room of a hotel, throwing my old clothes away. After breakfast and a shave, I stopped at the bank and cashed a two hundred dollar check. It was another shock to find I had a little under $1500 left of the seven thousand. I had given Eddie a grand, spent another on her clothes, we had spent over a thousand—plus my salary—eating out, doing the town, and giving her a hundred a week accounted for another thousand.

  I'd slept a few hours at the baths and now I spent the morning trying to think of an out. Harvey was away on a story, so I had the office to myself. I fixed the approximate date of Hank's death, sent my secretary out to buy old copies of the Times. Joe came in to find out what horses I had, looked surprised when I told him I'd forgotten to play that morning. He was full of a lot of breezy small talk and when he left, I read and reread the newspaper reports of Hank's death. There wasn't much to go on, evidently the police never considered the murder angle too much. I wondered how I could get them interested in the case again—without getting them interested in one George Jackson.

  I dropped into Jake Webster's office. He said, “Early, Mr. Jackson, first race ain't started yet.”

  I told him I was going to do a feature on him for the Sun and he puffed up with pleasure. Then I said, “By the way, Jake, you know police methods. I'm writing a piece of fiction, going to try it on the Saturday Evening Post, but I'm in doubt about some of the police details.”

  “You came to the right party, Mr. Jackson. If I had the right people behind me, no telling how high I would have gone in the department. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, in this story I'm making up,” I said, picking my words carefully, “the girl was once suspected of killing her husband. He was a lush and died as a result of a fall....”

  “He was a no-good,” Jake said, nodding.

  “Well... yes. Anyway, he fell or was pushed down a steep flight of... eh... stairs, and died. The police made a routine investigation, called it an accident. But the hero of my yarn is suspicious of the girl. Now it's several months since the 'accident' happened. At the time, the gal's alibi was that she was down in the basement using the washing machine. Nobody saw her, the police took her at her word. As I said, months have gone by, the case is forgotten. Supposing the hero tried playing detective, wanted to get the cops interested in the killing again, what would he do?”

  “You mean the hero wants to turn in the wife of this no-good?” Jake asked, as if it was impossible.

  “Yes.”

  “But Mr. Jackson, in most stories it would be the cops trying to pin a bum rap on the gal and the hero saving her, especially if she's a pretty babe and...?”

  “This one is absolutely ravishing, but she's bad. It's a new twist,” I added, almost smiling. “How would my hero go about it?”

  “Tell you, Mr. Jackson, you ain't giving the hero much to go on. Like whether she was or wasn't at the washing machine. Your dick could go back to the house, question the other people there, and get no place. You got to count on the fact the cops did that too, at the time of the killing. Why don't you dream up some eh... thing, like a woman remembering she argued with her at the washing machine because maybe some colors ran and spoiled the woman's laundry, and it was the shirt she give her husband for his birthday, so that made it the day before the killing, or something like that? Get what I mean, using a washing machine ain't nothing anyb
ody could remember months later. In fact, if the gal was a murderess, that would be a smart alibi—it's simple. Them complicated alibis are the ones that fall apart. Even if someone claimed they did remember she wasn't at the machine, it would never hold up in court, unless you got a... a... thing to prove it. Understand?”

  “Yes. Looks like I'm stuck with my story.”

  “Well, change it. To get the cops interested, you'd have to come up with new evidence. Have her do something else, like buying something where you can use the date on the salescheck to prove what you want.”

  “Suppose the hero merely called the police, an anonymous call?” I said, knowing damn well I couldn't do that, the way things stood I didn't want the police in on it, I would only be involved.

  “No good, they get crank calls all the time. Unless the guy gives them some new evidence over the phone. I'd like to see the story when it's done, always get a bang out of a detective yarn. Say, when you going to start the... eh... article on me? Jesus, my wife will go crazy when she hears this. Know what, I won't tell her, show it to her when it comes out. She'll be fit to be tied.”