The Accused Part 10

Jimmy said easily, "Why sure, Louise. Anything you want."

She had put Morlock's payday a week ahead in case--it was then Thursday--he tried to buy her off with three dollars again. She had indicated to Jimmy when she would pay; she would not have to worry about money, outside of change for cigarettes, for more than a week.

Since she had credit she might as well use it. After a time she approached Frank, the bookmaker. "I'm short for a while, Frank. Can you cuff me?" she asked.

Frank glanced from her to Jimmy. Jimmy said, "She's all right, Frank. I'll be good for it," and the bookie nodded.

"Let me have the Armstrong," she demanded. In the race that would later be broadcast, she picked an overwhelming favorite. "Give me five to win on Blue Glitter," she said. Frank shrugged and wrote up the bet. Blue Glitter finished a poor third.

When Morlock came home on Friday, he made no mention of money. He was going in to the college on Sat.u.r.day to conduct a make-up examination, he said.

When Louise arose on Sat.u.r.day, he had already gone but he had left a ten-dollar bill on the kitchen table.

Since he was now buying the food, this money was obviously intended for her use as she saw fit. Just as obviously Morlock did not intend to give her any more.

She could, she knew, pay her tab as well as Frank the bookmaker's five dollars with the ten and have a dollar or two left. But since she had credit for a week, why should she? Also, her luck was bound to turn.

Sat.u.r.day afternoon she lost ten more on favorites. In desperation she picked an eight to one shot on Monday and lost another ten. When on Tuesday she walked toward Frank, he silently shook his head, indicating that he would take no more bets until her bill was paid.

She was drinking less now and sticking to beer. On Thursday she asked Jimmy, keeping her expression light, "What's my tab, Jimmy? I've got to take care of you tomorrow."

He took a slip of paper from the cash register and studied it. "Forty-two bucks, Louise, counting what you owe Frank." He added anxiously, "Don't be late with it, Louise. I've got to square up with f.a.gin."

She had not the remotest chance of getting that much money from Morlock. He probably thought he was doing her a big favor by giving her ten dollars for a week. On Friday she did not go to f.a.gin's directly after lunch. Instead she dressed carefully in the black taffeta and caught a bus going toward the college.

She had been to the college once or twice with Morlock. Once when their marriage was new and they were pretending that it was something that it was not, she had met him on a Friday afternoon after going to a movie. They had gone into a stucco office building set aside from the campus. There were a dozen girls inside the place. Morlock had gone to the counter that crossed in front of the door and one of the girls had come up to meet him. She was an ugly thing with mousy hair and no more b.r.e.a.s.t.s than a mackerel. Morlock had said, "h.e.l.lo, Grace. This is my wife. Louise, this is Grace. She's our best friend."

Grace had simpered and handed Morlock an envelope containing his pay check.

Louise was aware of the danger involved in what she was about to do. She carefully balanced that risk against Morlock's dislike of scenes and decided that the risk was slight--unless he had already called for his check. Actually, she decided, she had no choice. Against what might happen, what Morlock might do, was the certain knowledge of what Jimmy and Frank would do if they didn't get their money.

Walking with great dignity and no hesitation, she entered the little stucco building and felt a tremendous surge of relief when the same girl came to the counter. She smiled. "h.e.l.lo, Grace," she said. "Remember me? Mrs. Morlock? I'm supposed to meet Alvin on the campus. He asked me to stop in and pick up his check."

And all the worrying had been for nothing. Grace smiled and said, "Oh, sure, Mrs. Morlock. I'll get it for you."

With the check in her purse, Louise walked away from the office building. There was one more danger; she might run into Alvin. She didn't. Off the campus again she caught a downtown bus. She cashed the check at a drugstore with no difficulty: the druggist merely read the face of it and scarcely glanced at her own scrawled endors.e.m.e.nt--in Morlock's name--on the reverse side. There was a bus station close to the drugstore. She walked in and bought a ticket for Providence. To h.e.l.l with Morlock. To h.e.l.l with Jimmy and Frank the bookmaker. While she waited for the bus, she went into a c.o.c.ktail lounge and had two highb.a.l.l.s.

Two hours after Louise left the office building, Morlock entered. He stood at the counter waiting for Grace, drumming with his fingers in nervous preoccupation, looking up at length to find Grace looking at him.

"Mr. Morlock," she said. "Your wife picked up your check right after lunch."

He could not believe it. He stammered, "What?" and even in his disbelief he sought wildly for some means of diverting this final shame.

Grace saved him. "She said she was supposed to meet you on the campus."

Morlock struck his own brow in mock dismay and grinned at Grace. "So she was," he said. "She'll make me take her to dinner for this." He strode away from the counter, as if in a hurry to keep his forgotten appointment, and headed for the campus in case Grace might still be watching. When he was out of sight of the office, he turned and hurried to catch a bus for Kosciusko Street.

She would not be there. He was certain of that; and yet he was dismayed when he found the tenement empty. He ransacked her closet. She had not taken her clothes. She could not, with seventy dollars, afford to replace them, and therefore she must have gone back to Federal Hill where she had dresses and other things. Morlock made a cup of coffee and sat back to think about it. He would be out of it cheaply if he never saw her again. He had no money. He would have to borrow from Dodson or someone else to keep going and he would have to stall the loan company and the other creditors. But little by little, given time, he would work his way out of debt.

On the following evening he was stopped in front of the tenement by a man who introduced himself as Jimmy.

"Jimmy Murphy, Mister Morlock. I'm the bartender at f.a.gin's there. I hate to mention this but your wife owes quite a bill. We've got to have the money."

"How much?"

"Forty-two bucks. I know it sounds like a lot but she was betting with the book on top of running a tab. We really got to have that money."

"I'm not able to pay you right now," Morlock said. "She took everything I had too, but I'll get it for you just as soon as I can. I can give you some of it next Friday." He started to say, "But don't ever let her have credit again," but remembered that she was gone now. More to himself in rea.s.surance than to Jimmy, he said instead, "She won't be around any more."

Chapter 11.

Gurney: You are a second grade detective on the Providence, Rhode Island, police force, Officer Jacobs. Did you have occasion to arrest the deceased, Louise Morlock, on the night of April 29th?

Jacobs: I did.

Gurney: On what grounds?

Jacobs: I could have run her in for any one of several things: making a disturbance, common drunk. I was as easy as I could be. I charged her with loitering.

Gurney: And you say that that was on Sunday, the 29th of April?

Jacobs: It was. I rechecked the blotter when this investigation was brought up.

Gurney: And what is the usual disposition in such cases?

Jacobs: It's up to the judge. Depending on circ.u.mstances, anything from ten to thirty days.

Gurney: Was Louise Morlock sentenced?

Jacobs: No. We let her go with her husband. We've known Louise for years--we were glad to get-- Liebman: Objection.

Cameron: Sustained. You know better than that, Detective Jacobs.

Jacobs: I'm sorry, Your Honor. We let her call her husband Monday morning. I wasn't around when she called, but I was there when he came in to get her. I took him aside and sort of warned him a little bit; told him we didn't want to see it happen again or we'd have to send her over the road.

Gurney: What was his reaction?

Jacobs: He was sore, of course. Most husbands are on a thing like that. Most of the time they choke all up and tell us what they are going to do when they get their old woman home; what will happen to her if it ever happens again.

Gurney: Did Morlock make any such threats?

Jacobs: No. He seemed more concerned about whether the arrest was going to be in the papers.

The Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Direct testimony of Detective 2nd Grade Melvin Jacobs.

Louise got off the bus at the downtown terminal and immediately caught a local bus for Federal Hill, again getting off in front of the old three-decker where her father lived.

She had decided to say that Alvin had gone to a teachers' convention for a week and that she was visiting only for that length of time. Once re-established in the house she could fall back into the old routine. She did not plan to return to Morlock, but she did have the a.s.surance of a husband in reserve--and if he tried anything silly like divorcing her, she would make him pay.

Dominick and the old man were sitting at the kitchen table, eating supper, when she entered the room. She said lightly, "Hi. Got anything left to eat?"

The old man rose immediately, his face beaming. "Louise," he said, coming forward to hug her and kiss her. "My girl. Dominick, you get you up and get some thing for your sister. Go down the block and get steak, chicken, anything."

Dominick went on eating, his face bent toward his plate. She could, she knew, use her power over the old man to make an immediate issue of her return. Not wanting a scene so soon she said, "I'm not that hungry, Pa. Whatever you've got will do for me."

He bustled happily to the stove. "I fix you something nice. You sit down now, Louise. You see."

She said casually, "All right, Pa. I'm going to be here for a week. Al had to go to a convention and I didn't want to be left alone."

Dominick asked harshly, "Where is the convention?"

"New York," she answered him.

"Right in the middle of the term he goes off to a convention?"

She flared at him. "What do you know about teachers? Why don't you mind your own business?" He said nothing more until they had finished eating. He left the kitchen and she hoped that he had gone out.

She was not to do the dishes. The old man winked and nudged. "I guess you tired of cook and wash for your old man, eh? I clean up. You go play phonograph."

Dominick was sitting in the parlor, his big hands folded on his knees. He got up when she came into the room. "Where's your bags?" he demanded.

"What bags?"

"You came to spend a week, but you didn't bring no clothes. Sure, I believe this. You got clothes here. Why should you bother, eh?" He advanced until his body vas almost touching hers. His eyes were hot, his face twisted in the anger he could not express by raising his voice. "Listen to me, you wh.o.r.e, you. You left your husband, the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and you think you can come back here to s.l.u.t around and live off the old man and me. That's what you think. Now you listen to me. You don't stay even tonight. You get out. Get out and I'll tell the old man that you had to go back home. If I ever see you again in this house I get you away somewhere and beat you until you are nearly dead. And if I see you after that, I beat you until you are dead. Get out now, right now, before he comes in here."

"I haven't got any place to go, Dom," she pleaded, backing away from him.

"Go back to your husband."

"I can't," she wailed.

"Then go to h.e.l.l." He pushed her toward the door. At his touch, she whirled and tried to run toward the kitchen. Dom's hand closed on her neck with such violence that his fingers nearly met at her throat. She could not scream, she could not breathe. He opened the door and pushed her so violently that she nearly fell down the steps. On the sidewalk she turned to scream at him but when he came toward her, she turned and hurried up the street.

Within a few minutes the initial shock of Dominick's violent expulsion wore off. She still had most of Morlock's paycheck, nearly seventy dollars. She would get a room, buy the few cosmetics she needed. She would think about it later. Meanwhile, she wanted a drink.

The bars and clubs were the same as they had always been. Only the people seemed different. She stopped in several, intending each time to stay only briefly and then to see about getting a room. And then she was given a warm welcome in one of the smaller bars. She had walked in to see a fat little man waving a handful of bills. She smiled and said, "h.e.l.lo, Porky. You buying?" She remembered him from the old days.

He was half drunk, she saw. He turned and said, "Hey, Louise! Where have you been keeping yourself?"

"Here and there."

He rushed over to put his arm across her shoulders. "Give Louise a drink," he demanded, waving the bills. "Hey, Louise, what about a game of gin? Let me win back some of the dough you won off me."

The bartender--she remembered him too--said, "Watch out for him, Louise. He won forty bucks this afternoon. He can't lose."

"Come on, Louise," Porky insisted. "For a buck." She could make money from this little drunk, Louise thought. A mark. See that he kept drinking--and she would be careful about how much she drank herself. "You'll never get even with me playing for a buck," she said. "How about five?"

She began to play conservatively, getting down as soon as possible on each hand in order to avoid a schneider which would cost double. Porky was a nervous, noisy player: laughing happily when he went down for a good score and cursing when he lost points. Not a good player but tonight a lucky one. He won two games in which she barely got on the board and she became angry with herself. She would win, she was confident that she would win; but each game that he won meant just that much more ground that she would have to make up before she began making money from him.

Porky's luck, good to begin with, became fantastic. Twice he ginned before she even made a run in her and. He schneidered her on the third game and crowed happily.

"Hey--what I tell you! You want to get even, we play ten."

She finished her drink and said angrily, "All right. Ten."

She won the ten-dollar game and felt better. Now if she could schneider Porky she would begin to get into his money. As winner she bought drinks.

She did not win another game; she lost six consecutive times. Porky was quite drunk by now and she would have been able to cheat him--she did manage to cheat a little on the point count--but the game had attracted attention by this time and there were too many people standing near the table. One man, a wise guy, she thought, several times corrected her when she counted in her own favor.

She was in a bad jam. She had less than two dollars left. Until now they had put the money on the side of the table before each game. It was her deal as loser of the last game. Without putting her money up, hoping that Porky would not notice, she began to deal the cards.

The wise guy said, "What about getting the dough up, Louise?"

He was staring at her coldly.

"Why don't you mind your own d.a.m.n business? Come on, Porky. Discard."

Wise guy said, "You've got your money up, Porky. Where's hers."

Porky looked troubled. "You're supposed to put it up, Louise. You know that."

"I was going to," she said, "until this nosy b.a.s.t.a.r.d b.u.t.ted in. I got the money right here in my purse." She appealed to Porky's drunken sense of gallantry. "You want me to show you?"

Wise guy b.u.t.ted in again. "She hasn't got more than a couple of bucks in her purse, Porky. She's been trying to cheat you all night. Make her get the dough up or don't play with her."

Porky was unhappy. He had been playing and winning and having a fine time and now these people wanted to fight. "I know you got the money, Louise. Why don't you put it on the table and we'll play. You're due to win one."

"There was nothing she could do now; nothing she could say. Wise guy had spoiled it. She did not consider what the consequences might have been if she had played and lost and been unable to pay. She had taken such chances before and relied on her s.e.x and looks to get her out of it.

She got up defiantly. "If that's the way you feel, the h.e.l.l with you," she said, and walked from the room with the laughter following her.

She no longer had enough money for a room. She entered a cafe and tried to call Rosie, the friend of that first date with Morlock. She was not home. Louise sat at the bar and ordered beer, trying to make herself think what she should do. It was much easier to drink beer and not think. She began a round of bars, insinuating herself between groups of men so that she was offered drinks often enough but received no more substantial bids.

Louise, who had allowed herself to be picked up on hundred occasions in the old days, had never solicited.

Her contempt for the slatterns who did was the more powerful because of her fear that she might some day sink to the same level--though she never really admitted this fear to herself. At one-thirty in the morning, lurching a little, her stockings awry and her lipstick smeared; at one-thirty, half drunk and loose mouthed, Louise Morlock approached a tall man on a street corner. "Say, Jack," she began.