Борден Дил: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

“What’d you try?” Cliff asked. She didn’t seem to need much encouragement to talk, he realized. Still, it ought to make her feel better.

“The reason I came down here is there’s a joint marked Off Limits,” she said rapidly. “Cops were hanging around, and a lot of service men. I thought if I made enough trouble, there’d be a raid. Well, I made trouble.” She touched the scratch again. “There was a raid, all right, and I gave my right name and everything, good and loud. But—” She sighed and her thin shoulders collapsed a little. “They won’t pick me up any more. They told me to go home and sleep it off. They’re sorry for me. I get just so far and then it doesn’t work. It’s like having a guardian angel who hates me.” She folded her matchstick arms. “You’re sorry for me too, damn you. If you’re so sorry why don’t you help me get what I want?”

Cliff said uneasily, “What’s that?”

She said, “Do you know who I am?” It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t heard him, he thought, as that she didn’t want to answer.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t we drink up and take a walk on the pier. I want to see the sights. Come on.”

“I’m a sight,” she said bitterly. “Look at me. Take a good long look. I’m a mess, right? I’ve been a mess for two years. And you know who I am? I’m Mrs. William Howard Brewster, that’s who. How do you like that?”

Cliff said, “Brewster?” uncertainly. He thought he had heard the name before, but it didn’t mean anything to him now. He wondered if it should.

“That’s what I said. The rally’s tomorrow night. That’s why he’s in town. Here, I’ll show you.” She set her glass down with a bang. “I’ll have another,” she said loudly. “Bartender, one more beer for Mrs. William Howard Brewster. Me.” Heads turned briefly to look at her.

“Take it easy,” Cliff said. “My money’s about gone.”

She didn’t hear him. She was fumbling in the big handbag.

“I want to ask you a question,” she said, her voice insistent. “Look. Just look at this.” With unsteady fingers, she spread a newspaper clipping on the bar. A drop of water seeped through it from below and grayed the face of a large square-jawed young man who was looking up at them out of the clipping. In big capitals William Howard Brewster promised the State how much good he could accomplish for it if elected to the State Senate next week. So that’s where I noticed the name, Cliff thought.

Anne looked earnestly at him, tapping the paper. “You think he looks like God? He thinks he does. He thinks he is God.”

“Does he know where you are now?” Cliff asked with some relief. He was beginning to feel he didn’t know how to handle this situation exactly, but it might be all right to call the man up and tell him where his wife was. Somebody ought to be looking after her, he thought.

“He doesn’t know I’m alive,” she said wearily. “I wish I weren’t.”

“You don’t want to talk like that,” Cliff said. He stood up, pushing back the stool. “Look, Anne, I think we ought to get moving. Now why don’t you—”

She turned quickly, full of sudden animation, blinking her eyes fast. “But you didn’t answer my question. Just let me tell you what happened and see what you think. It won’t take but a minute. I really want your opinion. Would you ever know to look at this man he’s just a cheap crook? Well, that’s what he is. He certainly cheated me. I worked like a dog for three years for William Howard Brewster. Like a dog. I put him through law school. I paid the bills while he studied. That was my investment in the future. We were partners. Oh, sure.” She picked up her fresh glass and blew gently into the foam, making a little slanting tunnel in it down to the beer. “He even made Phi Beta Kappa,” she said in a marveling voice. “Oh, he’s smart. He used to say I ought to wear the key. I was the one who paid for it.”

“Well, now he’s in the money, isn’t he?” Cliff said. “What’s wrong with that?”

She laughed. “Not a thing,” she said, looking at him from the corners of her eyes this time, a sly look. She had such an odd way, he thought, of using the edges of her eyes for looking at him. “Only I never saw a penny of it. And I went along with everything he wanted, too. What else could I do? How could I stop him?” She put out a cold hand and seized his wrist with fingers hard and thin like bone. “Tell me,” she said, “what else I could have done?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t keep thinking about these things,” he said uncomfortably, wondering if it would hurt her feelings for him to pull his wrist away.

“Tell me!” she insisted. “I tried everything I knew. I even quit kicking when he brought other women home from bars. Can you imagine that? And I wasn’t even drinking a lot. Not then. Not nearly as much as he said I was. I am not,” and she fixed him with the large, bloodshot stare, “ —not an alcoholic, no matter what anyone says. I know perfectly well what I’m doing. It’s just that I feel so—” She let her voice die, not finishing. After a moment she said, “Listen to the ocean down there. I wonder if the water’s cold this time of year.”

Cliff said hastily, “You don’t want to think about that.” He was trying to figure how to end this and get away. “You’re just mad at your husband,” he continued lightly. “You never really meant to jump off the pier. If you’d been serious, you’d have gone down to the other end where the deep water is.”

She slapped the bar so loudly the bartender jumped and then looked at her. “I haven’t got a husband,” she said. “We aren’t married any more. He knew how to ditch me when he was ready for the next step up.” She made a harsh sound that resembled laughter. “That’s funny, isn’t it? Me putting him through law school so he’d learn how to frame me and get a divorce? Very funny. I’m laughing. I could die laughing.”

Cliff thought, She’s had too much to drink. She shouldn’t have any more. At least, this is the last beer I’ll pay for. He drained his own glass, telling himself profoundly that life can certainly be pretty tough for some people. Some people seem to get all the wrong breaks. He said, “That... that’s too bad, Anne. You sure had tough luck all down the line. Look, Anne, I think I’d better be shoving off now.”

She turned swiftly, her thin fingers pinching his sleeve, her eyes meeting his for the first time fully and in focus. “But you haven’t told me,” she said. Her gaze was anxious and searching. “What do you think I ought to do?”

He considered this, wondering what was the right thing to say. “I think you ought to pull yourself together, for one thing. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re still young and — I mean, you made money when he needed it, didn’t you? What’s wrong with making it for yourself? You aren’t the first girl who ever got a divorce. You could—”

Her eyes left his. She turned toward her glass again, shaking her head. “Not for myself. I’m too tired. I can’t do anything by myself. I couldn’t even jump off the pier.” She tilted the empty glass. “You know something?” She cast him one swift, sly glance from the far corners of her eyes. “I’ve often thought it would be nice if he killed me and got hanged for it. He has a fine motive. I’ve done everything I could to make a scandal and ruin him. It’s not my fault I couldn’t. I really tried, too.”

“Cut it out,” Cliff said.

She sighed and shrugged. “Oh well. I’ll think of something.” She shut her eyes briefly and sagged over the bar, sighing again with a deep, breathy sound from the bottom of her narrow lungs. Then she looked up and flashed a bright, determined smile. “Maybe we ought to talk about you now. Let’s drink up.” She thumped her glass on the bar. “Another beer for Mrs. William Howard Brewster.”