Fletcher Flora - The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™ - 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

What day was it? Was it Saturday or was it Friday? She thought about this question for a moment, frowning with concentrated effort into her cup of coffee, and finally she was certain, although previously she had somehow felt that it was Saturday, that the day was in fact Friday. She had, for some reason or other, the impression that this was enormously important, making a vast difference to something significant, and she began now to try to think of whatever it was that was significant and different because it was Friday instead of Saturday. Then it came to her suddenly, accompanied by such an agony of relief and resurgent hope that she was forced to clutch her throat to choke back a burst of frantic laughter.

Friday was a school day, that was what was important, and Roger was a school teacher, and school teachers on school days are at school and not at home. If one wanted to call a school teacher, then, one could wait until school was out and the teacher was home, or one could, if the matter was urgent, call the office of the school and have the teacher summoned to the phone there, which was, she understood, a procedure generally frowned upon by the administration. Well, her need was urgent, desperately urgent, but she was reluctant, nevertheless, to resort to the emergency procedure of calling Roger at school. Having injured him cruelly already, she could not now impose upon him the slightest inconvenience. Besides, if she called him at school, it would be difficult for her to say what needed saying, and for him, in return, to say what she wanted to hear.

What, precisely, did she want to hear him say? What, if anything, did she want him to do? Save her from Clay, somehow give her sanctuary from death, yes, but most of all, she realized with a searing flash of insight, whatever was said and if nothing was done at all, she wanted him to recognize the truth.

He must believe , she thought. If only he believes !

Looking at her watch, she saw that it was almost noon. Did school let out at three-thirty or four? She tried to remember from her own years there as a student, and she thought that it was four, but she wasn’t positive, and schedules, besides, are sometimes changed. No matter. She would call Roger again at four-thirty, after he had had time to get home, and she would keep calling him at intervals, if necessary, until he answered. In this resolution she was supported at last by the blind, unreasoned faith that he was her last good hope.

There at this instant was the remote, shrill sound of the noon whistle in the railroad yards. There were four hours and a half that must be spent somewhere, and it was impossible to return to the house of Clay Moran. She could never, after today, go there again. Neither could she sit indefinitely at a lunch counter in a drugstore.

Wondering where to go and what to do, she remembered seeing her checkbook when digging in her purse for a dime for her coffee. She opened her purse again and looked in the checkbook and saw that her account showed a balance of slightly more than a thousand dollars. Well, there was one more place to go and one more thing to do, one place and one thing at a time and in turn.

She went to the bank and cashed a check for an even thousand dollars. After leaving the bank, she went to a restaurant and ordered lunch. She wasn’t hungry and couldn’t eat, but over food and coffee, growing cold, she was able to spend almost an interminable hour. Then, walking down the street from the restaurant, she saw the unlighted neon sign of a cocktail lounge and turned in, although it was something she would not ordinarily have done, and spent a second hour over two martinis, only the first of which she drank. It was then almost two o’clock. Spent piecemeal, a fragment here and a fragment there, time crept. It was an unconscionable drag from one hour to the next. She must somehow find a way to hurry the hour she wanted it to be, or to make less laggard the hours between then and now. Outside the cocktail lounge she saw, across the street and down a block, the marquee of a movie theater. She walked to the theater, hurrying as she wished time to hurry, bought a ticket and went in.

She never knew what the movie was. She did not read the posters outside, and inside she did not watch the screen. Sitting in cool and blessed darkness in the back row of seats, she closed her eyes and tried not to think, but this was impossible, she discovered, and so she began deliberately to think of the days and years before Clay, the tender time of sweet sadness when she had loved Roger and Roger had loved her. In the end she had rejected his enduring love with cruel contempt when Clay, much older and immensely richer, had seen her and wanted her. That was before the smell of death crept in. She had sold herself for wealth and security and enviable status. Good-bye, Roger. Forget me if you can. Here’s stone for bread and vinegar for wine.

Time passed in darkness before the silver screen, and it was four-thirty. She read her watch and left the theater and walked down the street until she came to a sidewalk telephone booth. She deposited her dime and dialed Roger’s number, but again there was no answer. She dialed three times more, waiting outside the booth for ten minutes between each attempted call, and then, on the fourth attempt, he answered at last. His voice, speaking after two years with the sound of yesterday, brought into her throat a hard knot around which she forced her response with a sensation of physical pain.

“Hello, Roger,” she said. “Do you know who this is?”

There was a silence so long that she had a bad moment of incipient panic, thinking that he had simply put down the phone and walked away, but then his voice came back, interrogative and listless, as if he were asking a question with an answer he did not really wish to hear.

“Ellen? Is it Ellen?”

“I’ve been trying and trying to call you, Roger.”

“I was at school. I just got home.”

“I know. I remembered. Listen to me, Roger. I want to see you again. Will you meet me somewhere?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Please, Roger. Please do.”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right, then. There’s no use. No one will help me, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“If you don’t help me, I’m going to die.”

“What? What did you just say?”

“Nothing. It’s no use. Good-bye, Roger.”

“Wait a minute. Did you say you were doing to die? Is that what you said?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you over the phone. What does it matter? No one else will help me, and neither will you.”

“How can I help you?”

“I don’t know. I only know there’s no one else.”

“I see. When there’s no one else, ask Roger.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Never mind. Where are you?”

“Downtown. In a phone booth.”

“Do you have a car?”

“Yes. It’s parked in a lot.”

“Come out here. I’ll wait for you.”

“To your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure it would be wise. Maybe we had better meet somewhere else.”

“Come or not. I’ll wait here.”

“You don’t understand. It might be dangerous for you.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“All right. I’ll come. Oh, Roger, it will be good to see you and talk with you again.”

“Yes,” he said, “it will be good.” She hung up. She had now, after a long time of terror, a blessed feeling of security and peace. Roger would believe. Roger would help. He would be her refuge and her strength, and it was time, past time, for her to go to him. First, before going, she leaned her head against the telephone in the little booth and began silently to cry.