13 French Street

by Gil Brewer

  At noon Verne went up to look at his mother’s grave. The headstone was supposed to be ready in a day or so, he told me.

  Petra was washing the dishes from lunch. She was a good cook. Almost as good in the kitchen as she was in bed.

  I went upstairs and into her room and started going through the drawers in her dresser. Then I went over to her dressing table. There hadn’t been anything. That’s the way it would be with her. Only in the top right-hand drawer of her dressing table there was a .32 Savage automatic. A deadly little thing. I stared at it. There was a full clip in it.

  Lots of people keep a gun around.

  “It’s just like you,” she said from the doorway. “Especially the way you’ve been drinking.”

  I dropped the gun back into the drawer and closed the drawer. “What have you got that for?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What difference does it make?” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  She was close to me. She had her hair tied up with a ribbon in back and she wore a white apron over a black dress. Her eyes were clear and her smile was something you could watch for a long time—if you didn’t know her.

  “We won’t have time now,” she said. “He might come back.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that.”

  “Like hell you weren’t.”

  “Suppose I beat it and leave you with this mess in your lap?”

  “You won’t,” she said. “But, Alex, if you do try anything, I swear I’ll go to Verne and tell him you killed his mother. I’ll tell him you’ve been making love to me. I’ll tell him anything, you hear? I mean it, Alex.”

  We watched each other. She was quite serious.

  “He’ll believe me, Alex. You may be his friend, and all that rot, but he’ll believe me. Because I’ve never told him how I felt.” She smiled slowly and her eyes glistened. “I just sort of worked on him.”

  He would believe her.

  “He kept me cooped up here, I tell you. With that damned … And I want that money. He’s no good any more. It’s us now, Alex—us, you hear?”

  “Yeah. Us.” I started past her, but I didn’t get by. It was like passing a magnet, once of these huge electromagnets they use to hoist junk. Like trying to pass one of those with twenty pounds of steel buttoned inside your shirt.

  Holding her tight against you with her moaning a little. Then both of you tearing, trying to get away, because you knew he might come back any minute from up there on the knoll by the sycamore.

  I made it and got downstairs and found a bottle.

  • • •

  The next day the headstone came. And while Verne was up there on the knoll with the men and the headstone, Petra and I were on the living-room couch.

  And the days went on like that. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, until Saturday I was still drunk and maybe a little out of my head. Verne was concerned about me. He well might be.

  But he suspected things now. I knew he did; it was in the way he looked at me. He suspected but I couldn’t allow myself to think of it.

  I locked myself in my room and paced the floor and wrote letters to Madge that I tore up. I couldn’t get away from Petra.

  She was everywhere. It was a mad hot hell from which I couldn’t escape even by crawling into a bottle. And through it all Verne strolled, amiable, smiling, saying, “Couple more days and I’ll be feeling tops. You stay on, Alex. Then we’ll get out and do things. I just want to be feeling right.”

  • • •

  Saturday night at six o’clock I got up from the dinner table.

  “I’m going to take a walk,” I said. Neither of them paid any attention. I’d walked out into the orchard or along the road several times. This time I took a pint of whisky and my topcoat and started down the road toward Allayne. There was one way left. Hair of the dog. The antidote. Bounce one woman out of your mind with another. If I could do that, if I could stay drunk enough so I wouldn’t turn around before I got to Allayne …

  It was a windy fall night and the sky was black and moonless but with a million lazy stars blinking up there.

  Hell was nearby, all right. But I only thought I knew what it was like. I hadn’t seen any of it yet.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  SATURDAY night in Allayne was the big night. It was the night when those from the surrounding country came to town and when those in town went to town. The main street was jam-packed with cars and trucks, parked diagonally in toward the curb, fender to fender. The stream of traffic up and down the street was continuous and erratic in movement. Farmers and townspeople mingled in a bobbling, elbowing stream on the sidewalks, and the brisk autumnal wind blew dust in their eyes. The cheaper bars were loud with booming jukebox songs, loud red-faced laughter, the tinkle and clash of glass.

  This was everywhere:

  “Feller Lawrence. Out on French Street, there. Dug himself a hole in the ground an’ stuck his old mother in it.”

  “So I hear. Guess she was dead, anyways.”

  “Dead, all right. Know what I think? Think she committed sewerside, by damn. Taken it into her head an’ jumped plumb outen the danged winder.”

  “Seen ‘im on the street the other day. Looked peaked. Walked like he was in a trance, like.”

  “Mebbe you’d look dangle-eared with a wife like her.”

  “She sure is a whingding, ain’t she?”

  “Give us another beer, Charley. Say, I’d pay to get peaked over that.”

  “It wouldn’t take long, neither. But you ain’t got enough.”

  “Feller stayin’ out there now. Cece Emmetts says he met up with ‘im at the funeral. Says he packs a pint ever’where he goes.”

  “Say, you don’t suppose …”

  In three different bars where I stopped for a beer, such conversations reached my ears. Verne Lawrence was literally the talk of the town, and Petra was the added spice. Doubtless the exact truth was spoken more than once, all unknowing.

  Without drinking too much during the past few days, I had managed to keep myself in a light haze. There was no sign of its catching up with me. I’d eaten regularly and I hadn’t overdone it. But now I felt like blotting it out. The haze was all right, but every day I had to increase the dosage to prevent descending clarity of mind.

  There were two hotels in Allayne, one a rather rundown establishment with a loud, roaring bar, on the main street. The other, Allayne Hotel, was more imposing, a block off the main drag on an elm-shrouded street.

  I drifted that way and found the cocktail lounge. There was a jukebox here, too, but it wasn’t quite so loud and the selection of recordings was of the sirupy rather than the bang-slap-bam type. It was cool, rustic, and obviously frequented by some part of the town’s elite. Men and women conversed over highballs and cocktails rather than beer and wine. They dressed differently and the men had haircuts. They probably said the same things as in the other places, and they certainly got just as drunk—or drunker.

  I had a bottle of beer at the bar. In another room off the bar there were tables with chatting couples beneath a low-beamed ceiling.

  I stared at her for perhaps a full minute before I knew who it was. Jenny. She didn’t see me. She was with a broad-shouldered man who sported a hand-painted tie but very little chin.

  Turning, I went out the side door of the bar into the parking lot and tilted my pint. I drank as much as I could without retching, pocketed the bottle, and returned to the bar. The whisky was taking hold fine now. I had a glass of water at the bar, then went in and approached Jenny’s table. I didn’t know whether it would work, but I was going to try. I didn’t feel bad about it, either, because the guy with Jenny didn’t look like her type. Besides, the whisky was taking hold fine.

  I came up to them from behind the man’s back and winked at her. “Miss Carson,” I said. “Something important’s come up, and—” I turned to him and said, “No, sit still,” although he hadn’t moved. “You’ll have to come with me.”

&nb
sp; Jenny frowned, her eyes puzzled. She looked fine with her carrot-colored hair and gray dress with a thick silver chain around the waist. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean, something’s come up. Very important. I’m sorry, but—”

  “Say,” the man said. “What is this?”

  “It’s nothing at all,” I said. “Merely something Miss Carson has to attend to.”

  Jenny looked from the man to me, then back again. She was obviously puzzled. She started to say something and I shook my head slightly. She began to play along.

  “You mean the house?” she said.

  I nodded. “Yes, and you’ll have to come along right away. Can’t afford to lose any time.”

  I reeled slightly.

  The man said, “But Jenny—” What chin he had positively vanished.

  Jenny said, “I’m terribly sorry, Tom. I didn’t know this would come up.”

  Her coat, also gray and light, was over the back of her chair. I held it up. The guy looked at me, I looked at him and nodded. He stood. Jenny stood. I slipped the coat over Jenny’s shoulder and took her arm.

  “I know it’s tough,” I said. “But you know you’d better see about it right away.”

  “But, Jenny—” the guy said. “Listen here,” he said to me. “What is this?”

  “You’re spoiling the record,” I told him. I guided Jenny carefully away from the table. The guy took three steps.

  “Will you be back?” he said. “Jenny!”

  “Tom, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll try. I’m terribly sorry. You can have my drink, I didn’t touch it.”

  He stared at her drink. We left by the door into the hotel lobby and a moment later we were in the street. I wondered if he enjoyed her drink.

  I glanced back through the large glass doors. The guy was coming down the length of the lobby with a determined stride.

  “Now, listen,” Jenny said. “What’s so important?”

  “Me,” I said. “Me.” There was a taxi stand and two minutes later we were turning onto the main street of Allayne.

  I looked back toward the hotel. The guy was standing out in front, lighting a cigarette.

  “You’re drunk,” Jenny said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “You looked unhappy.”

  “That was a mean thing to do, Alex.”

  “You went along with it.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Sure. Never mind. But you weren’t happy, were you?”

  “No.”

  “All right. How’d you like to take a walk? It’s a beautiful fall night and we could take a walk.”

  She sighed and stared at the back of the cab driver’s head. He had a fat neck that bulged over his shirt collar.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll take a walk. Is something the matter?”

  “Not something. Everything.”

  “I didn’t think you drank like this?”

  “I don’t.” We were coming near the end of the main street, and traffic was thinning out. “Look,” I said. “We’ll get out here. Can you drink warm Martinis?”

  “I never tried.”

  “I’ll get a bottle of it already mixed,” I told her. “And some paper cups. We can drink it that way. It may not be fine and there won’t be any olives, if you’ve got to have olives, but it will be something.”

  She watched me and broke into a grin. “All right.”

  When I paid the driver I slipped him what was left of the pint of whisky. He said he didn’t drink. I told him not to be foolish.

  After we bought the bottle and the paper cups, we started off down the street. I felt fine. I knew there was Petra and the house out there and murder and that I was impaled on a hook, but I didn’t care so much. I knew that when it wore off I would be in a complete hell, but right now it was all right.

  “Where will we walk?” I asked.

  She hesitated. “Let me carry the cups,” she said. “Well. We can walk to the end of this street and then cross the park to the lake. Will that be all right? It’ll be chilly, but the lake will be nice tonight.”

  “The lake it is.”

  We stopped. It was a dark corner. I drew her close and she looked up at me and she was fresh and clean like a summer’s wind. Her lips were warm and sweet and for a single moment she responded, then I felt her stiffen.

  We walked on. “Jenny kissed me,” I said.

  “All right.”

  We went on through the dark shadows of the park to the edge of the lake. She was right. The lake was something to see beneath the star-freckled night with the dark hills humped and leaning over against the living mirror of slowly broken water. The water was very cold, so I put the bottle between two rocks in the water and we sat on a bench close by.

  The wind smelled of pure clean autumn and pine and water. We sat very close together now because it was rather cold.

  “We could have gone to your house,” I said.

  “Yes. I guess so.”

  “But it’s nicer here.” I took her hand. I started to put my arm around her but then I remembered the bottle. “We’ll try a drink,” I said. “It won’t be cold but it’ll be cooler.”

  She smiled hesitantly but her eyes were bright and I told myself I must be very drunk because I thought her eyes reminded me of the stars. I did need a drink. She sort of reminded me of Madge, too.

  “I have the cups,” she called to me.

  I thought for a minute I’d lost the bottle, but I found it. It felt cool. The water was so cold my hand ached just reaching for the bottle. I remembered how only a short while ago Petra had gone in swimming. It certainly hadn’t cooled her.

  “It tastes good,” she said. “Really.” She was lying.

  “After the first few swallows it’ll taste all right.” Then I noticed something and remembered. “We’ll have to drink each drink quickly.”

  “Why?”

  “The gin softens the bottom of the cup. See?”

  “Oh,” She stared at me for a minute, holding the hair away from the side of her face with her hand. “It’s a fine way to get a girl plastered, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” I touched my cup to hers. “Drink up.”

  We had another.

  “What’s troubling you, Alex? What is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” I said. “Kiss me.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? We know each other, Jenny. You know we do.”

  “Yes, I do know you, Alex. Maybe better than you think.”

  “Then come on.”

  “You really want to?”

  “The other one doesn’t count.”

  She moved closer to me and her body felt warm even through both our coats. Maybe it was something more than just warmth. I kept thinking of Madge and Madge was all mixed up with Petra when we kissed. She drew away. “Please,” she said.

  I poured us each another drink. She drank hers fast. “The bottom of the cup,” she said. “It’s come out.”

  I started to hand her another cup. “It’s getting colder,” I said. There was a large thick clump of bushes beside the bench, and a few feet beyond the bushes was a large tree trunk with thick well-mowed grass. between. “Wait.” I got up and took off my coat, spread it out between the bushes and the tree.

  She sat there looking at the coat. The park and the lake seemed very still but the wind blew stronger.

  “Alex,” she said.

  “Come here,” I said. “We’ll sit on the coat.” I put the bottle and cups down. “It’s warmer here, very good here.” She didn’t move. I walked over by her and took her hands. She stood up against me, watching me, not smiling.

  “Please,” I said.

  “All right.”

  We went over and sat on the coat. For a while we sat quite still and with perhaps a foot between us. The bushes did break the wind and on the ground it was much warmer. I was very warm. I was drunker now but doing O.K.

  Every now and th
en I’d remember Petra and it was like a black sack dropped over my head. I wanted to yell. Because there was no release. The sensation of despair and panic cropped up inside me. And when I thought, Tomorrow is Sunday; Sunday night we have to meet Emmetts by the road. I wanted to get up and run. It’s that way sometimes. It’s a complete helplessness that you feel, knowing all the time that the helplessness is only yourself. That you should be able to stand up to it—act. So you take another drink sometimes.

  I looked at Jenny and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. I felt bad about tonight. Then I saw she wasn’t going to cry and I felt all right.

  I was kissing her and we lay down on my coat.

  “I think I’m a little tight,” she said. “Alex, don’t.”

  My hand moved down across her hip beneath her coat, down across her thigh.

  “Let’s take your coat off. We could put it over us.”

  She didn’t say anything. I helped her out of her coat and we lay there with her coat over us. We lay on our sides, facing each other, pressed tight.

  “Alex,” she said. “This isn’t right.”

  “Why not?”

  She didn’t answer. But I knew she was right, too, and something inside me began to draw away. She burrowed her face into my neck. I moved my hand along her leg across the hollow in back of her knee, and suddenly she moved against me, reached up, and unbuttoned the front of her dress.

  “You don’t love me, though,” she said. “It’s nothing like that.”

  I couldn’t answer.

  “The coat doesn’t cover us very well,” she said rapidly.

  “There is one way it will.”

  “Yes, Alex, only—” she stopped. Her arms were tight around my neck.

  “Only what?”

  “Only hurry up!”

  I held her very tight, then, very tight, and it was perhaps the most difficult thing I ever said in my life when I whispered, “I’m sorry, Jenny. We’ve made a mistake.” I kissed her and rose. She lay quite still, her face pale.

  • • •

  Jenny sat on a large boulder beside the lake and stared at the dark water with errant starlight moving in it. I had thought wrong. I didn’t want and wouldn’t have anyone but Petra.