Roy Carroll - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 4, April, 1953

“Van, you can’t be serious. I— What’s the matter with you? What’s got into you, lately?”

“Nothing’s got into me,” I told her. “You’re the one in trouble. Remember? I’m telling you, that’s your out. Your only out. It’s simple. Easy.”

She came flying out of the chair, squalling and sobbing again and flung herself at me. I held her for a minute. “Van,” she said. “I thought you loved me. How can you do this to me? Van, I only want to marry you. I only love you. ”

For a minute I almost felt sorry for her. In spite of the fact that she was a good-looking kid, with a body that drove the guys in the office nuts, she was kind of shy and dumb. Maybe that was because she was all alone in the world, no folks or anything, lived by herself, didn’t even seem to have any girl friends. I was the first guy she’d ever gone out with steady. I was the first guy, period. But what good does it do you to feel sorry for someone? What does it buy?

“Look, Baby,” I said, softly. “It won’t be so bad. Harry Owen is stinking with dough. He’s a nice old guy. You’ll have the best of everything. And maybe after awhile, you and I can still get together.”

She thought about that and the weeps died down again. Finally, she murmured: “Suppose he doesn’t ask me to marry him, Van? What then?”

“He will,” I said. “If he doesn’t, you make him. You tell him he’s got to because you’re—”

She yanked away from me, and for a long minute she stared at me, a funny look in her eyes. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?” she said, finally. “You’re really asking me to do a thing like that!”

Then she turned and ran out of my flat, still crying, slamming the door behind her. For a minute I was going to go after her, try to talk her into it. But then I realized I didn’t have to. She had the idea, now. When she calmed down, she’d go through with it. What else was there for her to do? I knew she was scared stiff of any operation, even if she could get the dough.

The next day at the Owen Advertising Agency where Vera and I both worked in the mail room, she didn’t even speak to me. She acted sullen and pouty, all day. Other people in the office started noticing right away and soon they were kidding both of us about it. They stopped, though, when Vera burst out crying and ran out to the Ladies’ Room. That was good. I knew now that Harry Owen wouldn’t lose any time hearing about it.

The whole thing worked out smooth and fast after that. I called Vera in a couple of days and she told me she was dating him. She said it was being done on the QT, though, that Harry didn’t want the rest of the employees to know about it. Then she said: “You know something, Van, the joke’s on you. I’m already beginning to like Mr. Owen — Harry — a lot. He’s not so old, after all, and he’s not so fat, either. He’s kind to me, too, Van. Can you understand what that means to me after going with you? He isn’t cruel like you. He doesn’t do the — the things you used to do. I think this was a very smart idea of yours, Van. I’m not having any trouble forgetting you, at all.”

“Good for you,” I said and slammed the receiver in her ear. I don’t know what I got so damned sore about, but I did. Wasn’t everything working out the way I’d planned? But it bothered me, somehow. I got mean drunk that night, the kind of drunk 1 don’t like to get. The next day I was all right, though.

It was about a month or so later and I wasn’t sure whether Vera was beginning to look a little chubby already or if it was just my imagination, when she called me one night, told me she had to see me. I tried to shake her off but she insisted. She came up to my place.

She looked terrible, her hair not fixed right, kind of ratty looking and her eyes too dark underneath and with a kind of haunted look. She sat there, twisting her hands in her lap and told me how she and Harry Owen had gotten real cozy together and he’d told her he loved her, wanted to put her up in a swanky apartment and like that. But he never even came close to asking her to marry him. Well, today, one of the other girls in the office made a funny remark to Vera and she knew she couldn’t wait much longer. So tonight she gave Harry the business. She told him.

“Van, he went crazy,” she said. “He told me I’d have to get it taken care of, I’d have to. He’d pay for everything. I told him that was out. I told him I wouldn’t go for an operation, no matter what, and he couldn’t make me, and that my — condition was his responsibility and he had to marry me. Well, he really went wild, then. He cursed me and, all of a sudden, he grabbed me, and started choking me. Look.”

She undid a little silken scarf around her throat and showed me the imprint of his fingers. I didn’t know what to say, couldn’t figure it. Harry Owen was one of these Man Of Distinction types, gray temples, clipped mustache, a little paunchy, but always well groomed. Always quiet and polite, too. Every inch a gentleman. I couldn’t even picture him doing something like that. Something was wrong, somewhere. I’d never even heard him raise his voice in the office. I didn’t get it.

“What am I going to do, Van?” Vera said. “I... I’m afraid of him, now. No kidding. Van, he wasn’t fooling. His eyes were murderous. He would have killed me right then and there, but I managed to break away.”

I said: “You go home and get some rest. Try to forget about it. Maybe he’ll calm down and be sorry and change his mind after he thinks it all over. What else can you do? Forget this crap about being afraid of him. He was just trying to frighten you. Guys don’t kill girls for things like this, today. What have you been reading, American Tragedy or something?”

I talked to her some more, calmed her down, and got her out of my place. But the thing kept bothering me, all that night. I didn’t sleep much. I knew that these quiet, gentlemanly guys like Owen were the worst kind when they did finally flip about something. I wasn’t really so sure Vera had nothing to worry about. But it wasn’t my business any more. This was between the two of them.

The next day, I noticed that the boss was grouchy and irritable, the first time I’d ever seen him that way. He looked pale and drawn and about ten years older, too, as though he hadn’t slept very well. But late in the afternoon, I met Vera by the water cooler. Nobody else was around. She broke out in a big smile.

“It’s all right, Van,” she whispered. “He apologized today. And he said he’d be glad to marry me. He said it was just that the shock of finding out about my — you know — condition, was too much for him. But he was sweet as pie, today. Tonight he’s going to drive me up to show me his country place in Westchester. And next week we’ll announce the wedding. Isn’t that swell, Van?”

I said I guessed it was and then somebody came along and we couldn’t talk any more. At five o’clock, going down in the elevator with Joe Harvey, the office manager, it came to me that something was wrong. A guy doesn’t change just like that. Not from one complete extreme to the other. And this taking her up to see his country place sounded a sour note to me. Down in the lobby, I told Joe Harvey I had a big date tonight, and would he loan me his car? He said sure.

I drove right to the block where Vera had a room and parked there and waited and watched. About seven-thirty, Harry Owen’s big Lincoln swerved to the curb in front of the building and he went in and got Vera and the two of them drove off. I followed them.

They drove up deep into Westchester before the Lincoln turned off into a lonely dirt side road. I cut the lights on Joe’s car, eased in behind them, way behind, because Owen would have suspected something if he’d seen another car behind him on this lonely country lane. Then I saw him stop, about a quarter of a mile ahead. I slewed into the side of the road, cut the engine, quick. I got out and started to walk, keeping in the shadows, toward the red glow of the Lincoln’s taillight, up ahead.