“Isn’t it pretty risky?”
“There’s very little risk in public, and I’m far too elusive to be tricked into privacy. How are you, Pearl?”
“I’m all right, now that you are here. I must say that Lester was becoming insufferable.”
“Lester is often insufferable. You must simply learn to tolerate it.”
“It was all brought on, I’m beginning to understand, by King Louie Oliver.”
“I thought that was King Louie sitting here. What did he want?”
“It seems that Lester owes him some money, and he wants to be paid. I can’t say that I blame him, to be honest. I didn’t quite get the point of things at the time, but I think now that he was threatening to break Lester’s nose and jaw and arms and legs. I’ll have to give him credit for being a gentleman about it. He was very polite.”
“Does King Louie do that kind of work? Surely not. It’s too much like common labor. I imagine that he hires someone to do it for him.”
“Probably. Does he, Lester? Would King Louie hire someone to break your nose and jaw and arms and legs?”
“Whatever he does,” Lester said, “I want to say how much I appreciate your concern. It’s most touching.”
“Naturally, I’m concerned,” said Pearl. “Do you think I could go on caring for someone who was all broken bones and splints? It would be difficult, to say the least.”
“Oh, well,” Hester said, “it may be for the best, after all. It may stimulate Lester to do something constructive about Senorita Fogarty while the doing is still good.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Junior. “Lester, I hope you will do something without delay.”
“Junior,” Hester said, “you’ve behaved very well so far. You’ve been perfectly silent. Please don’t spoil things.”
“As for me,” Lester said, “things are already spoiled. I want to get out of here, that’s what I want to do. Are you coming, Pearl?”
“I may as well,” said Pearl. “It has been a dull evening altogether, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.”
8
However strong his incentive, Lester’s will was considerably weaker. Daily during the next week, he arose resolved to tackle Mrs. Crump without further delay, but the resolution, faced with practical problems, always diminished and was sooner or later appeased with a promise of action tomorrow. In the meantime, however, he was developing psychosomatic pains in his arms and legs, as well as in his nose and jaw, and at last he forced himself into the neighborhood of Grandfather’s house. Irresolute, filled with the most dreadful forebodings, he idled along the iron picket fence, staring moodily at the ugly old shack, and once he lowered himself to his haunches and peered this way and that through the pickets. It had occurred to him that he might surprise Senorita Fogarty at play on the lawn. If so, and if she could be lured within reach, it would be possible to simplify matters by direct action, thus circumventing Mrs. Crump herself. But this was, of course, no more than wishful thinking. In the first place, Senorita Fogarty, as the world’s richest Chihuahua, would surely not be permitted to gambol unrestrained on the grass like any common mutt. In the second place, even if she were, she detested Lester too thoroughly to be suckered by any deceit he might conjure up. Finally compelled to face these realities squarely, Lester breathed deeply and stiffened his spine and approached the gate. Admitting himself, he went up the front walk between the cast-iron deer to the front door.
He put a thumb against the bell button and leaned upon it. After a minute, in response to the imperious bell, there was the sound of a heavy tread, and the door swung open, following a brief business with the lock, to reveal Mrs. Crump standing spraddle-legged in the aperture like an embattlement.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”
“Yes, it is,” Lester said. “How are you, Mrs. Crump?”
“What do you want?”
This repeated emphasis of the second person pronoun, coupled with her pointed refusal to be decoyed into amiability, did nothing whatever to increase his optimism, which was hardly existent anyhow. Having come this far, however, he was determined now to try the issue, however disastrous the consequences.
“I want to come in, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“What for?”
“My dear lady, I’ve come here in the best of spirits and with the most innocent of intentions. I am reconciled to things as they are, and I wish to be friends.”
“Come off!”
“I assure you that it’s true. May I come in and convince you?”
“Fat chance!” Mrs. Crump defied him with her expression to convince her of anything, including the law of gravity. “I guess you can come in, though, if you want to. I won’t say I don’t mind, but I guess it won’t do any harm.”
“Thank you. You’re exceedingly gracious.”
His irony was injudicious, at least, but Mrs. Crump was apparently impervious. He slipped past her into the hall and felt, hearing her lock the door after him, as if he had committed the gravest tactical error since Custer.
“I’m making a cake in the kitchen,” Mrs. Crump said. “If you want to talk to me, you’ll have to come in there.”
“A pleasure,” said Lester. “The best room in the house, I always say.”
He followed her to the kitchen at the rear of the house and perched himself on the observation point of a long-’ legged stool, which had, in addition to its strategic advantage, the comfortable familiarity of being somewhat similar to those usually lined up along one side of a bar. He watched her bitterly as she resumed stirring a batter in a bowl. It was no more than he should have expected, of course. Give underprivileged folk like the Crumps an inch, he thought, and they immediately take a mile. Elevate them suddenly to a position of affluence, and they at once begin eating cake and in general living like rich pigs. What made it worse, they were squandering the substance that properly belonged to others.
“Well,” said Mrs. Crump, “if you’ve got any funny business in your mind, you might as well get it off.”
“I have no business on my mind, funny or otherwise,” Lester said. “My call is purely social. Where, by the way, is Crump?”
“Crump’s out.”
“Really? What good luck! It’s apparent that I’ve come at just the right time.”
“Is it? Why?” Mrs. Crump glared at him with dour suspicion. “I warn you you’d better not try any fancy work on me, young feller. I can take care of myself. Crump, wouldn’t be any advantage at all.”
As if to support her claim, she waved the heavy wooden mixing spoon larded with yellow batter, and Lester’s pessimism was for a moment superseded by terror.
“I don’t see why you persist in thinking the worst of me,” he said hurriedly. “Am I so bad as all that?”
“You’re too pretty and too sneaky by far, if you want to know the truth.”
“Surely you don’t mean that”
“Don’t I just!”
“Do you know what I think? I think you’re actually a warm and affectionate woman, that’s what. You are, besides, quite charming in a buxom style.”
“And you’re a liar in any style you care to mention.”
“Well, you’re determined to repel me, I can see. I won’t be discouraged though. I’m convinced that you only need to be released. Crump has done you no good.”
“Crump’s no prize, that’s sure, but he’s my husband, and I’m stuck with him, and I know my duty to him.”
“Duty? Onerous word! More than one fair person has wasted away under its curse. Come, Mrs. Crump, you must abandon yourself to life before it’s too late.”
“I’ll abandon myself to violence, that’s what I’ll do. I got a notion you’re leading up to something dirty.”