A Hell of a Woman

by Jim Thompson

  “But she iss not! She could not be! And anyway, I did not force—”

  “The old woman says she’s a minor,” I said. “She says you threatened to kill her and the girl, and then you took it.”

  “B-but—but—”

  He lifted the bottle again. He stared at me, his eyes crafty.

  “I t’ink maybe you—maybe you not tell truth, Dillon.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Vy—vy vould she do such a thing? I am not the first; many others there have been. And—and how you know, anyvay?”

  “Let it go,” I said. “I felt like I’d given you kind of a raw deal getting you fired, and I wanted to make up for it. But as long as you think I’m lying, let it go.”

  I stood up and took out my wallet. I got out a couple of ones, letting him see them, and then I shoved them back and took out a five. I held it out to him.

  “And take the bottle along with you, too,” I said. “You’d better have a good one before they pick you up.”

  “B-but—” He drew back from the money. “I did not mean to offend. It iss chust—”

  “Just for your own satisfaction,” I said, “why don’t you call the old gal up? There’s the phone. Ask her if she isn’t going to send you over the road just as soon as she can arrange it.”

  “B-but if I did dot—”

  “But it isn’t true, remember? I’m lying to you.”

  His face was turning gray. He took such a slug out of the pint that he almost killed it.

  “Dillon,” he said. “How—vot—vot iss?”

  I sat down in front of him. I looked him in the eye and began to talk.

  So maybe he wasn’t the first one with Mona, I said. But could he prove it? And could he prove that she wasn’t a minor, and that she and the old woman had agreed to the deal? It would be his word against theirs. And he had a police record and a bad rep for drinking.

  Why was the old gal doing this to him? Well, she was a pure mean bitch and low down as all hell (he nodded), and she was sore at him, remember? They’d had a knock-down dragout brawl before he’d quit working for her (he nodded again), and she was plenty burned up about it. She was out for blood, that baby, and she meant to stick him.

  Pete shook his head dully. A thin thread of slobber oozed down from the corner of his mouth, and he brushed it away.

  “Vy?” he said. “I do not doubt you, Dillon, but vy does she tell—”

  “Because she thought I was on her side, see?” I lied. “I went there trying to trace you down for the store, and you know it was just business with me; I wasn’t sore at you at all, and I proved it to you. But, anyway, she figures I am, and I play along with her, so just as I’m leaving, she says to come back and let her know if you’re still there at the greenhouse. She’s got an idea how we can make it plenty tough on you.

  “Well, like I say, I wasn’t sore at you at all. I’m really your good friend and I proved it, didn’t I?” (He hesitated, nodded firmly.) “So I go back and tell her you’ve quit the greenhouse, and then I ask her what the score is. I want to find out, see, so I can tip you off.

  “I guess maybe she got a little suspicious of me about then because all she’ll say is never mind; the cops will be able to find you and when they do it’ll be just too bad. But I kept on hanging around, pretending like I’m burned up with you, too, and anxious to help her, and finally she tells me what she has in mind…”

  I coughed and turned my head. Man, it was all I could do to keep from busting out laughing!…That slobber running down his chin again; and his eyes—glazed and bugged out like marbles. He was one scared bastard, and I’m crapping you negative.

  “Well, I was afraid to try to talk her out of it,” I went on. “She’d have seen I was really your friend, see, and she’d probably have called the cops right away. So I said swell, I was all for it, but maybe she wouldn’t be able to make it stick. Maybe it would be better if I looked you up and brought you there. You know; had a few drinks with you and then suggested that we go over there for a party. We’d frame you—I told her—see? We’d call the cops in, and…”

  Yeah, it was pretty wild, but he was a pretty dumb guy. Didn’t have much education, anyway. And I guess he’d been pushed around plenty by the cops. He stared at me, his lips too stiff to move, his face turning green under the gray. And I coughed and turned my head again.

  “V-vot…I haf some time, Dillon? I can get out of town before—”

  “How far would you get?” I said. “The cops have your mug and prints. They put out a flier on you, and they pick you up in no time.”

  “B-but vot—”

  “I’m telling you,” I said. “She gave me until Monday night, so Monday night we go over there. I’ll go in first and tell her you’ll be along in a few minutes, and then you slip up on the porch and I start talking to her. I tell her I’m sticking my neck out a mile, so how about a roll with the gal for my trouble. And she’ll go for it, see; she practically propositioned me already. So then I say I’ve got to be sure she won’t try to stick me some time. She’ll have to give me something in writing to show that she and the gal consented to the deal. That the kid’s over twenty-one and she’s done it before and—Well, what’s the matter?”

  He’d been frowning a little. I gave him a hard look, and he cleared his throat apologetically.

  “It…a little strange, it sounds. You t’ink she vould do such?”

  “Sure, she will. It’s a cinch.”

  “Den vy iss it necessary for me to be dere?”

  “Why?” I said. And for a minute I couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Why, dammit, I don’t need to explain that to you, do I?”

  “If you vould not mind, pleass. So mixed up I am, I cannot—”

  “Why, it’s because she’s liable to hang back, know what I mean? She’s liable to think I’m trying to pull a fast one on her. So I step to the door and say, well, here you are now. I want that statement. I want it right then or the deal don’t go no further. I’ll tip you off and tell the cops it’s a frame, and she’ll be in heap big trouble.”

  He nodded, his face clearing. He hesitated.

  “Vould you—You do not t’ink perhaps you could go to the police now and—?”

  “I thought of that,” I said, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. They’d probably lock you up while they were trying to get to the bottom of things; and maybe they wouldn’t stick you on a rape rap but you’d still be in for a long jolt. It’s a pretty messy deal, you know, anyway you look at it. Even if it wasn’t rape—”

  “It vas not! I svear it, Dillon!”

  “—it still looks bad. You can’t make it look any other way. There are at least a couple of charges they could stick you on, and they’d damned well give you the maximum on each.”

  He sighed; nodded again.

  “You are right, my good friend. So, if you are villing to do me dis great favor…”

  “I owe it to you,” I said. “I got you fired, and now I’m trying to square things. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to put a crimp in that old bitch’s tail.”

  He told me I was a nice man and a “chentleman,” again. He looked at the bottle, set it down on the end table, and stood up. “So much you haf done, I am ashamed to ask—”

  “Sit down,” I said. “You’re going to stay here. Stay right here until this is all over with.”

  “B-but”—he sat down again; he didn’t need any urging at all—“It iss too much.”

  “Nuts,” I said. “I’m glad to have some company. Now how about some bacon and eggs?”

  His eyes filled up; I thought, by God, he was going to start blubbering. “My good friend,” he said. “My fine friend.” And he brushed his nose on his sleeve.

  “There’s just one thing,” I said. “You’ll have to stay under cover, understand? Keep inside the house and don’t let anyone know you’re around here. It wouldn’t look good, know what I mean, if the old gal decided to get tough and we had to go to the police. They�
�d figure that we were buddies, see? Get the idea that one of us was lying and the other was swearing to it.”

  “So,” he said. “I vill do as you say.”

  I fixed him some grub.

  I went out and got more whiskey.

  I made him go to bed in the bedroom, and I took the lounge.

  I fell asleep fast, but along about three in the morning I woke up, feeling kind of cramped and like something was hugging me.

  Something was. The bedclothes. I was all tucked in like a two-year-old.

  I started to lug the stuff back in to him; and then I remembered Mona, that sweet child, and the way he’d taken advantage of her. So I just took what blankets I wanted, and dropped the rest on the floor.

  Let the son-of-a-bitch freeze. He’d be plenty hot in the place he was going to.

  11

  The next day was Sunday, and it was just about the damnedest longest day I ever spent in my life.

  Pete was pretty well leveled off of his binge. His mind was about as clear as it ever got to be, and he was over his first scare. So he starts to worrying, wondering, firing the questions at me. And frankly my mind wasn’t very clear. Everything was kind of mashed together inside, like I’d been crawling through a rat hole.

  I started feeding him whiskey right away. I got out my collection cards and pretended like I was working. But I couldn’t hedge him off. They kept coming, the “vys” and the “vots” and the “hows” until, man, I was almost ready to murder him right there.

  “I told you” (I told him). “Goddammit, Pete, how many times do I have to explain it? I get this business in writing from her, and then she’s screwed. You could whip her with a wet rope and she wouldn’t dare let out a peep.”

  “But”—he kept shaking his head—“but so strange, it seems. Like a movie almost. It iss hard to believe that she vill—”

  “Well, she will! Wait and see if she doesn’t.”

  “Still”—he kept on shaking his goddamned head—“it iss hard to…it iss so strange. For her to be so angry with me over somet’ing dat—For her to tell you of her plans, and for you to—”

  “All right,” I said. “I’m lying. I made it all up. Why the hell would I lie to you, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Pleass! My good friend, my dear friend. I did not mean—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Vel. I vas chust wondering. I merely wished to ask vy…”

  No, I don’t think he was actually suspicious; he was too well sold on me and him being swell friends. It was more as though he was afraid I was going off half-cocked: like maybe the old woman had been tossing some bull and I’d got the wind up over nothing. Or maybe I was setting a bear trap to catch a skunk: making such a big deal out of it that we were liable to get screwed up in the machinery.

  Anyway, he kept on and on, fussing and quizzing and worrying out loud, until by God! I had just all I could take and I couldn’t take any more. It was about an hour or so after dinner when it happened. I’d gone out to the delicatessen and bought enough damned grub to feed a horse, thinking, you know, that a good scoff would keep him quiet for a while. But all through the meal he was making with the talk—talking with his goddamned big mouth full—and afterwards he had to help with the dishes; I mean he insisted on it. And the talk kept on, on and on and on until…

  The words began to dance through my mind. Vy, vot, vy-vot—faster and faster and yet somehow slow—vy-vot, VY-VOT. VYVOTVY VYVOT…Why, what, why-what, whywhat. Why? WHY? WHY?…

  All of a sudden something seemed to snap inside of my head. It was just like I wasn’t any more, like I’d just shriveled up and disappeared. And in my place there was nothing but a deep hole, a deep black hole, with a light shining down from the top.

  The light began to move downward. It rushed downward with a swishing, screaming sound. It reached the bottom of the pit, and shot back upward again. And then I came back from wherever I had been; and Pete and I were standing in the front room. And I was talking to him.

  Very quietly.

  “You’re right,” I said. “The whole thing’s a damned lie. She isn’t out to get you; I’m out to get her. She’s got a pile of dough, see, a hundred thousand dollars, and no one else knows about it. I figured on bumping her off and grabbing it, and making it look like you—”

  “Please”—he patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Ogscuse, my good friend. I am vorried and I talk too much, but now I vill say no more.”

  “I’m telling you,” I said. “I’m laying it on the line for you. Now get the hell on out of here, and forget the whole deal.”

  He put both hands on my shoulders and pushed me down into a chair. He gave me another little pat, looking sad and apologetic. “Soch a bum, I am. So much you do for me, and not’ing I do but chatter like a skvirell. Vell! No more. Now you vill rest, and the dishes I vill finish.”

  “I don’t want you to,” I said. “All I want you to do is—”

  “And I vill not do it,” he said firmly. “Only the dishes I vill do, and keep my so-big mouth shut.”

  Well I’d told him. And even if I’d been able to go on telling him—and I couldn’t—he wouldn’t have listened. He finished the dishes. He mopped up the kitchen, and scrubbed the oil cloth on the table. He came back into the living room, and he poured a very small drink for himself and a big one for me.

  He kept his word. There were no more questions. But I could see he was busting with them, that he was itching inside like he’d swallowed a poison ivy bush. And seeing him that way, it was ten times worse than if he’d actually talked.

  I poured him a big drink. I made him take three or four big slugs, but it didn’t seem to help much. I tried to get his mind off of what he was thinking about—what I was thinking about.

  I got out a deck of cards and a box of matches, for chips, and we played a few hands of draw. We switched from poker to cooncan, and then on to monte and faro, and then on to a lot of wild games like baseball and spit-in-the-ocean.

  The cards seemed to help some. They were a long time in doing it, but finally they did. He began to hum, to kind of mumble-sing. The first thing I knew I was doing it with him. We grinned and came in on the chorus together; it was Pie in the Sky, as I recollect. And by the time we got to the end we’d dropped the cards, and were laughing like fools.

  “Dillon”—he wiped his eyes—“soch a pleasure. Good friends, good viskey, a good song. I do not belieff I haf heard that song since—”

  “I’ll bet I can tell you,” I said. “Up in the northwest, wasn’t it? Were you ever up around Washington and Oregon?”

  “Vas I! Vy in 1945—”

  “Nineteen forty-five!” I said. “Why, hell, I was there myself that year. Running a pots and pans crew…”

  Well, I guess it wasn’t so strange, because guys like us would just naturally get around a lot; we wouldn’t do the same kind of work but we’d land in a lot of the same places. It seemed funny, though; strange, I mean. And when I could make myself forget—the other—it seemed kind of good.

  We sang one song after another. Keeping our voices down, of course. We sang and drank and talked, and I guess we got pretty tight before the evening was over. I guess I got even tighter than he did. The day had been endless, you know; it had taken everything I had out of me. So now I filled up on the music and the talk and the drink, and I got tight as a fiddle.

  “What’s it all about, Pete?” I said. “What the hell are we looking for, anyway?”

  “Looking, Dillon?”

  “Yeah. Chasing from one place to another, when we know they’re all alike. Moving from job to job, when we know they’re all alike. That there isn’t a goddamned one of ’em that doesn’t stink.”

  “Vell”—he scratched his head. “I do not t’ink ve are looking, Dillon. I t’ink radder ve are trying not to look.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yess. At somet’ing ve alvays find whereffer ve go…No, no more. And no more for you, my friend. Vork you must do tomorrow, so
now you shall haf coffee.”

  “Don’t want any coffee,” I said. “Want another drink. Wanta talk. Wanta—”

  “Coffee,” he said, firmly, getting up. “And then bed.”

  He went out into the kitchen. I heard the water tap go on, and then there was a lot of sloshing. Sloshing and sloshing and sloshing. I listened to it. My head began to ache again, and all the good feeling went out of me.

  I got up and staggered to the kitchen door. I stood staring at him, and the blood pounded through my brain.

  “Why?” I said. “What the hell kind of slop-gut are you?”

  “Vot?” He whirled around startled. “I do not under—”

  “Why didn’t you do it in the first place?” I said. “You knew it had to be done. Everything was swell and you had to screw it up. Why? An-answer me, you dirty son-of-a-bitch! Why…w-why didn’t you wash out that coffee pot…?”

  I began to bawl.

  I started to slide down the door jamb, and he picked me up in his arms and carried me into the bedroom…

  …That Monday, the next day, was a toughie. I wasn’t bothered about him any more, except for worrying that he might show himself outside the house, because after the way he’d acted he had it coming to him. But there were plenty of other things on my mind. I couldn’t concentrate on my work, and this was one day I had to concentrate. Staples had his eye on me. If I sloughed off very much I’d be out of a job, and that job I had to have. For a while.

  So I had the job to think about, to make a good showing on. And I had all this other stuff, the hundred grand and Mona, and what I was going to have to do to get ’em. And the whole shidderee was all jumbled up inside me. And I couldn’t make any headway on any of it.

  I couldn’t collect; I couldn’t sell. I mean, sure, I collected and sold some but nothing like I should have. As for the other, well, the more I thought about that—and I couldn’t stop thinking about it—the more mixed up I got.

  You see? You’ve probably seen it. If there was ever a bastard that was going off half-cocked, I was it. I didn’t know the layout of the house. I didn’t know how long it would take Mona to get that dough out of the basement, or which room was her aunt’s, or whether she’d let me into the place at night, or—or a goddamned thing. Worst of all, I hadn’t laid the deal out for Mona. I hadn’t rehearsed her in how she was supposed to act afterwards; what she was suppose to say and the story she was supposed to tell the cops and so on. I hadn’t done it because I hadn’t really planned on going through with the deal. I’d figured that Pete had skipped town, and I couldn’t go through with it. So there it was. There I was. I hadn’t asked Mona half the questions that I should have, and I’d told her practically nothing that she needed to know. And now it was too late. I didn’t dare call her. There was no way I could see her. Maybe I could catch her outside the house if I hung around that neighborhood long enough. But that wouldn’t look good: people might remember seeing me later. And anyway I didn’t have the time.