“Not very well. I’ll pick up after Thanksgiving,” said Cal.
2
After school the next day Abra hurried and caught up with Cal.
“Hello, Abra,” he said. “You make good fudge.”
“That last was dry. It should be creamy.”
“Lee is just crazy about you. What have you done to him?”
“I like Lee,” she said and then, “I want to ask you something, Cal.”
“Yes?”
“What’s the matter with Aron?”
“What do you mean?”
“He just seems to think only about himself.”
“I don’t think that’s very new. Have you had a fight with him?”
“No. When he had all that about going into the church and not getting married, I tried to fight with him, but he wouldn’t.”
“Not get married to you? I can’t imagine that.”
“Cal, he writes me love letters now—only they aren’t to me.”
“Then who are they to?”
“It’s like they were to—himself.”
Cal said, “I know about the willow tree.”
She didn’t seem surprised. “Do you?” she asked.
“Are you mad at Aron?”
“No, not mad. I just can’t find him. I don’t know him.”
“Wait around,” said Cal. “Maybe he’s going through something.”
“I wonder if I’ll be all right. Do you think I could have been wrong all the time?”
“How do I know?”
“Cal,” she said, “is it true that you go out late at night and even go—to—bad houses?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s true. Did Aron tell you?”
“No, not Aron. Well, why do you go there?”
He walked beside her and did not answer.
“Tell me,” she said.
“What’s it to you?”
“Is it because you’re bad?”
“What’s it sound like to you?”
“I’m not good either,” she said.
“You’re crazy,” said Cal. “Aron will knock that out of you.”
“Do you think he will?”
“Why, sure,” said Cal. “He’s got to.”
Chapter 45
1
Joe Valery got along by watching and listening and, as he said himself, not sticking his neck out. He had built his hatreds little by little—beginning with a mother who neglected him, a father who alternately whipped and slobbered over him. It had been easy to transfer his developing hatred to the teacher who disciplined him and the policeman who chased him and the priest who lectured him. Even before the first magistrate looked down on him, Joe had developed a fine stable of hates toward the whole world he knew.
Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant. Joe early developed a gentle protective love for Joe. He comforted and flattered and cherished Joe. He set up walls to save Joe from a hostile world. And gradually Joe became proof against wrong. If Joe got into trouble, it was because the world was in angry conspiracy against him. And if Joe attacked the world, it was revenge and they damn well deserved it—the sons of bitches. Joe lavished every care on his love, and he perfected a lonely set of rules which might have gone like this:
1. Don’t believe nobody. The bastards are after you.
2. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t stick your neck out.
3. Keep your ears open. When they make a slip, grab on to it and wait.
4. Everybody’s a son of a bitch and whatever you do they got it coming.
5. Go at everything roundabout.
6. Don’t never trust no dame about nothing.
7. Put your faith in dough. Everybody wants it. Everybody will sell out for it.
There were other rules, but they were refinements. His system worked, and since he knew no other, Joe had no basis of comparison with other systems. He knew it was necessary to be smart and he considered himself smart. If he pulled something off, that was smart; if he failed, that was bad luck. Joe was not very successful but he got by and with a minimum of effort. Kate kept him because she knew he would do anything in the world if he were paid to do it or was afraid not to do it. She had no illusions about him. In her business Joes were necessary.
When he first got the job with Kate, Joe looked for the weaknesses on which he lived—vanity, voluptuousness, anxiety or conscience, greed, hysteria. He knew they were there because she was a woman. It was a matter of considerable shock to him to learn that, if they were there, he couldn’t find them. This dame thought and acted like a man—only tougher, quicker, and more clever. Joe made a few mistakes and Kate rubbed his nose in them. He developed an admiration for her based on fear.
When he found that he couldn’t get away with some things, he began to believe he couldn’t get away with anything. Kate made a slave of him just as he had always made slaves of women. She fed him, clothed him, gave him orders, punished him.
Once Joe recognized her as more clever than himself, it was a short step to the belief that she was more clever than anybody. He thought that she possessed the two great gifts: she was smart and she got the breaks—and you couldn’t want no better than that. He was glad to do her hatchet work—and afraid not to. Kate don’t make no mistakes, Joe said. And if you played along with her, Kate took care of you. This went beyond thought and became a habit pattern. When he got Ethel floated over the county line, it was all in the day’s work. It was Kate’s business and she was smart.
2
Kate did not sleep well when the arthritic pains were bad. She could almost feel her joints thicken and knot. Sometimes she tried to think of other things, even unpleasant ones, to drive the pain and the distorted fingers from her mind. Sometimes she tried to remember every detail in a room she had not seen for a long time. Sometimes she looked at the ceiling and projected columns of figures and added them. Sometimes she used memories. She built Mr. Edwards’ face and his clothes and the word that was stamped on the metal clasp of his suspenders. She had never noticed it, but she knew the word was “Excelsior.”
Often in the night she thought of Faye, remembered her eyes and hair and the tone of her voice and how her hands fluttered and the little lump of flesh beside her left thumbnail, a scar from an ancient cut. Kate went into her feeling about Faye. Did she hate or love her? Did she pity her? Was she sorry she had killed her? Kate inched over her own thoughts like a measuring worm. She found she had no feeling about Faye. She neither liked nor disliked her or her memory. There had been a time during her dying when the noise and the smell of her had made anger rise in Kate so that she considered killing her quickly to get it over.
Kate remembered how Faye had looked the last time she saw her, lying in her purple casket, dressed in white, with the undertaker’s smile on her lips and enough powder and rouge to cover her sallow skin.
A voice behind Kate had said, “She looks better than she has in years.” And another voice had answered, “Maybe the same thing would do me some good,” and there was a double snicker. The first voice would be Ethel, and the second Trixie. Kate remembered her own half-humorous reaction. Why, she had thought, a dead whore looks like anybody else.
Yes, the first voice must have been Ethel. Ethel always got into the night thinking, and Ethel always brought a shrinking fear with her, the stupid, clumsy, nosy bitch—the lousy old bag. And it happened very often that Kate’s mind would tell her, “Now wait a moment. Why is she a lousy old bag? Isn’t it because you made a mistake? Why did you float her? If you’d used your head and kept her here—”
Kate wondered where Ethel was. How about one of those agencies to find Ethel—at least to find where she went? Yes, and then Ethel would tell about that night and show the glass. Then there’d be two noses sniffing instead of one. Yes, but what difference would that make? Every time Ethel got a beer in her she would be telling somebody. Oh, sure, but they would think she was just a buzzed old hustler. Now an agency man—no—no agencies.
Kate spent many hours with Ethel. Did the judge have any idea it was a frame—too simple? It shouldn’t have been an even hundred dollars. That was obvious. And how about the sheriff? Joe said they dropped her over the line into Santa Cruz County. What did Ethel tell the deputy who drove her out? Ethel was a lazy old bat. Maybe she had stayed in Watsonville. There was Pajaro, and that was a railroad section, and then the Pajaro River and the bridge into Watsonville. Lots of section hands went back and forth, Mexicans, some Hindus. That puddlehead Ethel might have thought she could turn enough tricks with the track workers. Wouldn’t it be funny if she had never left Watsonville, thirty miles away? She could even slip in over the line and see her friends if she wanted to. Maybe she came to Salinas sometimes. She might be in Salinas right now. The cops weren’t likely to keep too much on the look for her. Maybe it would be a good idea to send Joe over to Watsonville to see if Ethel was there. She might have gone on to Santa Cruz. Joe could look there too. It wouldn’t take him long. Joe could find any hooker in any town in a few hours. If he found her they could get her back somehow. Ethel was a fool. But maybe when he found her it would be better if Kate went to her. Lock the door. Leave a “Do not disturb” sign. She could get to Watsonville, do her business, and get back. No taxis. Take a bus. Nobody saw anybody on the night buses. People sleeping with their shoes off and coats rolled up behind their heads. Suddenly she knew she would be afraid to go to Watsonville. Well, she could make herself go. It would stop all this wondering. Strange she hadn’t thought of sending Joe before. That was perfect. Joe was good at some things, and the dumb bastard thought he was clever. That was the kind easiest to handle. Ethel was stupid. That made her hard to handle.