“I… don’t know. Get the superintendent to let me in, probably.”
“But we know you didn’t do that. And I’m not sure you would have tried. Remember your aversion to waking him just a few minutes ago? You were ashamed to let him know you were so drunk you didn’t remember. In your condition at midnight some part of your mind realized that you were damned tight, and you didn’t want him to see you like that. So, what?”
Aline’s face brightened and she caught Ralph’s wrist in a tight grasp. “I know! The cocktail lounge just down the street. It stays open until four, and I often drop in for a drink after work. The night bartender knows me, and I wouldn’t have minded at all going in and telling him I’d mislaid my bag and needed a dime for the telephone. I’ve left enough in tips, goodness knows. He wouldn’t think anything of it. I must have gone there.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Ralph agreed. He smiled genially and put a big hand over hers.
“But whom did I call… if I did telephone?”
“First thing to find out is whether you made any call at all. It’s possible he might have seen you dialing… or helped you look up a number. He’d remember an incident like that.” Ralph swung to his feet and glanced at his watch. “It’s not quite four. What’s the name of the joint?”
“Gosh, I… I don’t know. I’ve been in dozens of times, but I guess I just never noticed.”
“We can go down and ask him, if you really want to try and clear this up.”
“You go, Ralph,” she said impulsively. “Please. His name is Joe. Just ask him if Miss Ferris was in to use the telephone. Please, Ralph. I just don’t feel up to it.”
“Sure. You must be shot. Why don’t you slip into something more comfortable, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
She said, “You’re sweet,” and was suddenly listless. She stood up and let him kiss her, then drew away when he tried to become more ardent. “Ring my bell and I’ll let you in.”
“Not jealous of Doris, are you?” he asked, smiling.
“No. I don’t think so. I’m just not at my best tonight.” She watched him go out, then sank down on the couch and buried her throbbing head in her hands.
“Dear God,” she moaned softly, “let me get out of this. Just this one time, please help me. I’ve learned my lesson tonight. I swear I have. I’ll never, never, take another drink as long as I live.”
Once more, tears of self-pity wet her face. She was stretched out on the couch, still sobbing, fifteen minutes later when her buzzer sounded. She dragged herself up and pressed the button that released the catch on the door to the building downstairs.
She was standing in the open doorway of her apartment, dabbing at reddened eyes with a cool, damp washcloth, when Ralph stepped from the elevator. He frowned unhappily when he saw that she had not changed into a negligee in his absence, but nodded as he approached, saying, “We hit it on the head, darling. I caught Joe just as he was closing the joint, and he said that’s exactly what you did.”
Aline stepped back to let him enter, her breathing tremulous and irregular. “Then I did go there to telephone?”
“That’s right. Joe remembered right away. Said you sort of acted strange when you came in just after midnight. Said you walked straight enough, but your eyes had a glassy look he’d seen often enough when people were passed out.” Ralph took her hand and led her to the couch where they sat down and he linked his arm in hers as he continued:
“Joe said you walked right up to him and told him you had lost your purse and needed a dime to telephone. He didn’t care about the dime, but he was a little worried. Thought you ought to go home in your condition, and told you so. But you blazed away at him and said you could take care of yourself, and what you needed was a man. You told him to give you the dime and stop his yapping.” He paused, squeezed her arm, and looked down at her for approval.
Aline’s face was pale and her voice was sick with shame as she breathed, “How awful! I’ll never be able to look him in the face again. I can’t believe I’d say such things.” She drew her arm from his and leaned away from him.
Ralph poured himself another drink, crossed his legs, and settled back against the cushions. “You toss off a lot of inhibitions when you get that way, my sweet. Like the other time with me. God, if you could just remember…”
“Don’t… please,” Aline pleaded, her cheeks scarlet. “Maybe I’m just a two-dollar whore at heart, but don’t rub it in. Tell me what else Joe said.”
“Well, he gave you the dime and you went to the telephone book and looked up a number. When you found it, you asked him if he had a pencil and would he write it down for you. You know, the phone booth is across the room and I guess you were afraid you’d forget it before you could dial it.”
“Did he write it down?” She asked fearfully.
“Yes. On one of the business cards advertising the place. You called it out to him, went over and took the card, then went back to the booth and closed the door.”
Aline nerved herself to ask, “Does Joe remember the number?”
“No. He thought it was a Butterfield number, but wasn’t positive. He says you stayed in the booth awhile, then came out and marched out without saying a word or even looking at him. And that’s all Joe knows.”
Aline was quiet for a moment, racking her tortured mind for a glimpse of remembrance that would not come. “If I only knew who I called,” she moaned.
“At least we know you didn’t call me,” Ralph said ruefully. “Even though you wanted a man, you had given me to understand quite clearly that I wasn’t the one you wanted. Try to think of someone else,” he went on calmly, glancing aside at her with lowered lids, “whom you felt a yen for when you were sober, but didn’t quite have the nerve to approach.”
“I can’t think,” she murmured, and then her voice rose angrily as she declared, “The hell of it is that I’m not the bitch I seem to become when I’m drunk. So how do I know what man I had a yen for? If Joe had only remembered that number!”
“Well,” said Ralph smugly, “it just happens that I’m not so bad when it comes to playing detective. I bought Joe a drink for his trouble, and over-tipped him, so you needn’t bother to give him back his dime. Then I went over to the phone booth and looked around inside. I found this lying on the floor.”
Ralph dramatically handed her a crumpled business card which he had taken from his pocket. Scrawled on the back, in pencil, were the letters BU, followed by five digits.
“I can’t swear that’s the number you called,” he pointed out judicially, “but I think it is. You didn’t have a handbag to put it in, and no pockets in your dress. You probably just crumpled it up and threw it on the floor after you’d reached your party.”
Aline took the card. Her eyes were round and frightened as she repeated the numbers aloud, and her head moved slowly from side to side. “It doesn’t sound even remotely familiar,” she told him. “Does it to you?”
“No. But I don’t know all your men friends. Sure you can’t remember?”
“I haven’t even the ghost of an idea,” she acknowledged, absently turning the card over and over with her fingers. “But isn’t there some way to get a person’s name from a number? Doesn’t the Telephone Company have a cross index… or something?”
“Of course. But I don’t think they give out information like that, as a rule, unless it’s requested by the police.” He finished his drink, put an arm around her and nuzzled his lips against her ear. “How about forgetting the whole thing for tonight? Let’s go to bed and get a couple of hours sleep. Everything will be bright and rosy tomorrow.”
“Ralph… don’t!” Her voice lashed out at him She struggled against his embrace, broke free and pushed him away. Then, seeing the strange expression on his face she managed a wan smile and said, “You’ve been sweet to try and help me, Ralph, and you have helped a lot. Now I know, at least, that I didn’t just pick up some complete stranger on the street at midnight. I feel more decent knowing that I looked up a number and telephoned.”