“A girl comes hustling along the sidewalk. I didn’t see her come out of no house, but she did come from that direction...”
A girl. I thought: don’t let him say he got a good look at her.
“A cripple, like. You know, game-legged. Went down lower on one side than the other, every step she took...”
The heel. He didn’t know what caused the unevenness, attributed it to deformity.
“She was in a hurry, came hustling along, hobbling like that, and looking back behind her every minute...”
“Would you know her again if you saw her?” I asked, afraid to hear his answer. “Now answer me truthfully. Here, have a cigarette.” Stalling, fighting for a minute more of grace for myself. I passed him a package I kept on the desk for visitors. My hand shook so, in offering it, that I had to pivot my elbow on the desktop to steady it. My other hand was gripping the cloth of my trouser-leg tight, in a bunched-up knot.
“I couldn’t see her face,” he said. “It was dark, y’know, under them trees along there.”
The papers in front of me rippled a little, so I must have blown out my breath without knowing it.
“It was the way she was hustling along on that game leg attracted me attention, and the way she kep’ looking behind her. She didn’t see the truck until she nearly run into it; we were blocking the sidewalk, y’know. But imagine anyone not seeing a truck in front of ’em! I said, ‘Watch it, lady,’ so she cut across to the other side of the street.”
“Was she young or old?”
“Just a chicken. Not more than eighteen. I couldn’t see her face, but her shape was young, if y’know what I mean.”
I pulled the knife out of my heart, to make room for him to stick in a few more. “Could you gimme an idea of what she was wearing?”
“On her head one of them round skating-caps, like boys wear.” I could see it so well, back there on our hall-table, carelessly thrown down. “And then a leather coat, like a — whaddye-call them things, lumber-jacket, only fancier, for a girl.” I could feel the cool crispness of it against me again, like when she bent over me to kiss me...
“Damn,” I said, deep inside of me.
“Then a minute later” — his voice went on, somewhere outside my private hell — “a guy in a car came cruising along, slow and easy. I guess he was trying to pick her up or follow her home or something. He just stayed back behind her, though, about half a block behind her. Funny to be out on the make after a girl with a game leg. I guess that’s why she was in such a hurry and kep’ looking back...”
He was dead wrong about that, but I grabbed at it like a drowning man does a straw. It didn’t do me any good, but it eased him and his damnable testimony out of the picture — for the present anyway.
I said slowly, “I guess that lets her out. I guess that’s not what we’re after. She the only one you saw?”
“Only one.”
“Okay, that’ll be all.” But then as he moved toward the door, “Did you tell the guy that brought you in about this girl? What she was wearing, and all like that?” I felt lower than the boards on the floor.
“Not about what she was wearing, no, they didn’t ask me. I just told them about seeing her go by.”
“Well, keep what you just told me to yourself, you understand? Don’t talk about it to anyone, you understand?”
“Yes sir,” he said, feeling he’d gotten in wrong in some way.
“Now, see that you don’t forget that,” I added belligerently. “Gimme your name and address. All right, you can go now. And don’t forget what I told you.”
“Anything?” Jordan wanted to know when I sent for him again.
“No, false alarm. He saw some flapper trying to dodge a pick-up artist, that’s all it was.” I passed a hand limply across my brow. “I’m going home now. I feel rotten.”
“You look kind of worn out,” he admitted.
“Not so young as the rest of you guys. Check up on the neighbors first thing in the morning, find out what kind of a reputation he had, who his callers were. We can’t really get under way until I have a chance to question Mrs. Trinker, and hear what she can tell us. Holmes, give her movements a going-over, find out if she really was at Mapledale all day yesterday and today. G’night. Call me if anything pops between now and morning.”
I trudged wearily out into the street, calling myself a liar, a hypocrite, and a traitor.
I was shivering standing there in the pool of light waiting by the bus-stop. Just a man with his life and hopes all smashed. I let the one for my own street go by, I took the one behind it, that went past Starrett Avenue.
Jogging along on it, on the top deck in the dark. I kept thinking: I’ve got to shield her, got to cover her. It’s not the murder-rap, the trial. It’s the implication of her being mixed-up with him. Acquitted or guilty, either way she’s finished, she’ll never live it down. I m not going to let her be dragged through the sewer. I’d rather put a bullet through her with my own hand. I’ve got to protect. got to cover her.
And it wasn’t as easy to decide as it sounds. Do you think duty, loyalty to the men over you, the trust of the men under you, don’t mean anything after twenty years?
I staggered off the bus at Starrett Avenue and went back to the Trinker house. The cop was lurking there in the shadows under the trees, keeping an eye on it.
“It’s me,” I said. “I forgot something,” when he flashed his torch at my face.
“Yes sir, Captain Endicott,” he said, and quickly cut it off again.
I went up the walk to the porch, took out the key, unlocked and put the lights on. He stayed out on the sidewalk, since I hadn’t told him to come in with me. I went through into the kitchen, lit that, eased the door shut after me.
I picked up the glass, the one with the rouge-smear on its rim, and looked at it. They’d missed it. They hadn’t dusted it. It was one of those flukes. If it stayed here they’d be bound to discover the oversight. Nothing could be done about the prints they had already, and they had plenty, but something could be done about this. I tilted it slowly, hypnotizedly, emptied the stale contents down the sink. Then I stuffed it in my pocket, not caring whether it bulged or not. Then I put out the lights, locked up, and came out again.
“Did you get it, Cap?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I got it.”
He called after me, “G’night, Cap,” as I moved down the street.
“Good night, officer,” I said.
I took out the glass and smashed it against the curb, on a quiet corner near my own place. Shoveled the fragments down into the mouth of a sewer with the edge of my foot.
They’d both gone to bed long ago. I spent a long time in the kitchen with a piece of rag, scouring my gun. The ashes still glowed red underneath the white linen when I lifted the stove-lid. The handkerchief went right away, with a flare of yellow; the heel, leather-covered wood, more slowly, burning down to a char. A heel, a handkerchief, a highball glass.
Maggie had left a bottle of beer and two slices of rye on the table for me, like other nights. But I couldn’t touch it.
I eased open the door of their room, peered in. There was no light behind me but enough in there coming through the window to see them by. Maggie was asleep with her mouth open. She wasn’t. She was lying perfectly still, but I could tell she was awake. She had her face turned toward the wall, and her two hands were up hiding it, and she was crying into them without making a sound. I could tell by the way her shoulders kept shaking a little. It had been going on so long, it was mostly reflex by now.
When daylight came I was still sitting on the edge of my bed holding onto the back of my neck with both hands, staring... staring at nothing that anyone else could have seen.