“Josef didn't mind. He'd usually come around at about two in the morning, to sip his wine, and take me home when I'd finished. This was strictly a small time joint, no names out front or anything. I didn't have a police work permit for New York, but the owner didn't care. Only me and a kid who played a good organ. Josef even gave me money to buy a couple of dresses, never asked for a dime of what I made. This went on for a few months. He was writing all the time, or going to the library.
“I guess it was in May—I know it was getting warm— when I came home from shopping one afternoon and there was this little man with a completely bald head and an evil face—part of his nose had been eaten away at one time—having tea with Josef. I gathered this was Willie Sour. I also knew Josef was upset that I'd returned so soon. Sauerkraut looked like the original creep and he gave me the once-over, made some laughing crack. I didn't have to understand the language to know what he was saying. He left a few minutes later. Josef seemed on edge. He was packing his gun again and strapped an ugly knife up his sleeve. I didn't ask what it was about but he told me, 'Liebling, soon I have much money. We travel far. There is nothing to worry over.'
“When I finished my midnight number I found him waiting in my dressing room—which was a part of the greasy kitchen screened off from the wino cook. Josef seemed gay but when he put his arms around me I felt the sleeve knife. He stayed in the kitchen while I went on, yakking with the cook in Italian, or something. When he took me home that night in a cab—usually he liked to walk—he asked what I was doing the next day. I told him I was going to have my hair done.” Rose paused. “I'm going into details because this is the important part.”
“Go ahead,” I said, wondering how much of what she was telling me was the truth.
“Josef asked what time I had to be at the hairdresser's. I told him at one. You see, I think even then he was trying to make sure I'd be out of it. In the morning, he...”
“Out of what?”
“I'm coming to it—listen. He was up early the next morning. Everything seemed okay except I noticed he had packed his carving tools. He was very fond of them. He told me to leave the flat by eleven and wait at the beauty parlor for him. No matter how long it took, I was to wait there. I didn't ask any questions. I used an hour window-shopping and having a bite. I was in the hairdresser's by noon and read the magazines. They were done with my hair at about two and I sat around. I was bored. I'd already finished the magazines. At three-thirty I phoned the super. He had an office on the ground floor since he rented flats by the week. When I asked him to see if Josef was home, he wanted to know where I was. I told him, not realizing what a queer question it was. He said to hold the phone while he went up to look. I waited a few minutes and this radio car sirened to a stop in front of the beauty parlor and two cops came in—for me. They rushed me to a police station. Josef had been stabbed to death. I...”
“They hung it on you?” I'd always figured she was running from a murder rap.
“No! Why are you always accusing me of something?” “I just thought... it would add that way.” “The police knew exactly when Josef died—at twenty-two minutes after one in the afternoon. The super had seen a man with a deformed nose go up to our flat at a few minutes after noon when he was polishing the door brass. Then at twenty after one, as the super was talking to the mailman, they heard this brawl going on in the flat and two minutes later Josef opened the door and fell down the stairs, practically landed at their feet. He was bleeding like a pig and died as they were bending over him. A cop came a few seconds later, but the guy who did it had left by the fire-escape. Naturally the first thing they checked on was me. I could prove I was in the beauty parlor between twelve-thirty and three-thirty; a half a dozen women saw me...”
I sat up. “Then you're in the clear! What are you running from?”
“I told you I hadn't done anything,” Rose said coldly. “But I'm on the run. From the law. The law wants to kill me.”
“What do you mean the law wants to kill you?” “Exactly what I said. I don't know why, but they've tried to murder me several times. By 'they' I mean the police, Johns with badges.”
“But you said they checked your alibi, knew you couldn't have done it?”
“I keep telling you, they're not after me for the killing. I don't know what they want of me. You asked what I'm running from. Let me finish telling you. The cops didn't get rough with me—at first. They not only had my alibi, but they also knew a man had done the knifing; the super hadn't seen this guy leave our flat. The police started asking me about boyfriends, thought jealousy might be the motive. I told them how I'd met Josef, why I'd married him. Everything. All this took a couple of hours. When I thought they were finished with me, there was a good deal of whispered conversations among them, as if something entirely new had turned up. I was left alone in a dusty little room, merely a chair and me. Soon some new detectives came in, younger and better dressed than the police. They said they were from Washington. They...”
“Washington? Were they FBI?”
Rose shook her head. “I don't know. They were just from Washington. They didn't ask a single question about the killing, but where we'd lived, who Josef's friends had been, even the restaurants we ate in, and what we did all day. I told them all I could, which was about what I've told you. When I mentioned his writing these letters the past few months they wanted to know what was in the letters and where did he keep them? Did he have much money? I gave it to them straight; that most of the time I had no idea what he was reading, saying, or writing, because it was all in this foreign tongue. I tried to help, told them about hearing Sauerkraut's name, and this Oriental babe Josef yelled in his sleep. But these fellows kept grilling me. I became frightened. I had a headache. I knew they thought I was holding out on them. But I was telling them all I knew —or almost.”
“What do you mean, almost?” I asked.
“Well, one thing I didn't tell anybody was about my working. Since I didn't have a permit, why get the bar owner and myself in a jam? The job had nothing to do with Josef's dying and once an entertainer is on the wrong police list—she's had it. These Washington men kept hammering away at me to remember names, places. They simply refused to believe I didn't know a thing. They drove me back to the flat and it was a bloody mess. Everything was ransacked. Then they started searching; going through the torn mattresses, pillows, even tore up the lousy flower wallpaper. The weird bit was, they never told me what they were hunting for. Finally they hauled me downtown—not to a police station but to a regular office, a big office. Without names on the doors. By this time it was night and I was so hungry I was sick. And I was mad. They started questioning me all over again about money, his friends. When I said I was starved they told me to talk and I could eat. Some of the men were tough with me, calling me a dumb blonde, a whore. Others tried to be friendly, letting me have a smoke, saying I was in a jam and to tell them everything I knew. I did, but I didn't know whatever it was they wanted. Again, I told them the addresses we'd lived at in other cities, tried to convince them I didn't have any friends, never saw any of Josef's except that Sauerkraut character.