Рекс Стаут - How Like a God

“So he sat down and we talked about old times. I don’t think he’s changed a bit. He’s very handsome.”

“What did you tell him you were here for?”

She chuckled. “I told him I was having a hard time, and I happened to meet you and I thought you were going to help me out.”

“If you need some money, anything within reason, you can have it.”

“I don’t want any money.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Well, of course I’ve got to have a little money. I’ve got to have something to live on.” She paused. “We ought to have a long talk about it.”

“What about your alimony?”

“He’s quit paying it.”

“How much do you need?”

“We ought to have a talk,” she repeated. “Can you come uptown tonight?”

“No. Not tonight or any other night.”

She raised her shoulders and dropped them; deep in her eyes you saw a momentary flash like a point of white fire.

“You’d better come,” she said quietly. “You might as well come — you know you’re going to come.” She added in a tone of deadly finality that overwhelmed you: “What’s the use of fighting about it?”

What had she really told Dick? you asked yourself. If you did go up there... well, there was no way out of it. If you didn’t go, what would she do?

“I’ll be up after dinner,” you said. “Around nine.”

You had said you would be there around nine; it was a quarter to when you dismissed the taxi and started up the stoop. There was no plan in your head; you were floundering in a jelly of indecision.

In the blue chair, under the reading-lamp, she sat. It was your first view of the blazing purple cheap velvet negligee, with the white ostrich feathers around the neck and cuffs and down the front hems, the dark brown felt slippers.

“Why don’t you let me alone, Mil?”

She returned your look without replying, and you went on, “Having a man here was stupid and indecent, but it’s not only that. I was ready to quit anyway. We’ve never really cared for each other. So why don’t you let me alone? If it’s more money why don’t you be honest enough to say so—”

“I don’t want any money,” she said.

“You said you did at the office. You said you had to have something to live on.”

“Well, I was just trying to scare you.”

“Then what do you want?”

She chuckled. “You’re very funny, Will. I’m sorry about that man — truly it was the first time anyone was ever here and he said it was Christmas Day and he didn’t want to go home and Grace was out in Jersey to her aunt’s. He’s no good anyway. It was Mr. Martin — don’t you remember, he sells insurance, I told you about him one day.”

“I don’t care who he was. You haven’t answered my question: what do you want?”

In a new tone she said all at once, in a breath:

“I want my big brother.”

Startled, you looked at her, uncomprehending; then in a sudden swift flash you remembered that she had said to you one day, long ago in your room at college, “Most of the time we’re just like a brother and sister. You’re my big brother.”

You meant to say ironically, “So you’re in love with me,” but the words wouldn’t come, they seemed too absurd and incongruous. Instead you said, “So it’s me you want?”

She nodded. “And it’s me you want.” She said it not as a challenge or a claim; she just said it, calmly, a fact.

“Like hell I do!” you shouted. “Listen, Mil, we may as well be frank. I can’t stand you any more. Now I’m done. I was done before I found that man here; you were driving me crazy. I was getting so that when you touched me, it made my flesh creep.” You tried to keep your voice calm, but gradually it had raised until you ended with a shout, “I’m done, do you hear! I’m done!”

She gazed up at you, steadily, without saying anything, and again you shouted, shouted that you had never wanted her. You bellowed at her, pacing up and down the room. At last you stopped.

Her voice was quite steady, with all its usual thin dullness:

“You’ve said some awful things.”

“Well... I’ve felt some awful things.”

“It’s not me that’s awful.”

“Oh yes it is. It’s both of us.”

She shook her head. “You’re just afraid. I don’t mind what you say. I know you can’t ever really leave me, I know how you act, I know what you think.” The deep, veiled flash came and went in her eyes. “I know how you feel, too, when—” She chuckled, and added, “Big brother!”

Only two or three steps from the top, he could see, ill-defined in the dim light, his own door at the end of the hall.

There was a soft yellow glow through the shade which covered the small, single electric light. Standing quietly, he could hear from the kitchenette the recurrent faint plop of a single drop of water from the leaky faucet into the sink, a full two seconds’ interval between; and somewhere from outside came the yowl of a wandering cat.

Plop... plop...

In the morning, when you were ready to leave she was still sound asleep.

You were not long in suspense about Dick, for the afternoon of that same day he suddenly said:

“By the way, what about our old college friend? Did you see her yesterday?”

“Yes, she said she’d seen you,” you replied prepared.

“Did she tell you that cock and bull story about her husband?”

“Why... yes... she’s been married.”

“Married hell! Did you fall for it?”

“Sure.” You managed a grin. “I’d fall for anything.”

“Funny.” He turned back from the door. “I’d better be careful though, you smashed me over her. Remember? Battling Bill.” He laughed. “Funny woman — homely as hell and yet, she has a look in her eyes that makes you curious. You’d better look out, Bill. What does she want?”

“Money, of course.”

“Sure, but how much? You’d better be careful how you give it to her. Do you want me in on it?”

You could read Dick like an open book; it appeared certain that he suspected nothing beyond a compassionate gesture to a woman in trouble, for old times’ sake.

A year ago, almost; yes, actually nearly twelve months of hours and minutes since that night, each day confronted with the next, an ordeal not to be tolerated. “It wasn’t very nice of me to have Mr. Martin here,” she said that night, “I won’t do that any more.” So utterly weary that the force of gravity itself seemed overpowering and irritating, you were relaxed, a dead weight, in the leather chair. Whereas formerly you had shrunk only from her, only in her had felt an alienness and a threat, henceforth all was foreign, each thing there was an enemy.

Erma was too preoccupied with herself to take much notice of you, and when she suddenly decided to go to Florida, around the last of January, it was at first a great relief. But soon you were considering that the important thing was to get rid of time somehow, even disagreeably, and wishing her back again.

You moved to the club, and still you seldom went to Eighty-fifth Street. And you never went without phoning in advance, and you never phoned without a feeling of unreality, a feeling that you were doing something too implausible to be believed in. Put to the torture, you could not have answered the question, why do you do this? She was homely, vulgar, illiterate. She was false and treacherous. She was evil. That’s why! She is evil, and you get a kick out of it. No. You get revulsion, disgust, hatred. Bitter and burning hatred. But you have harbored her for twenty years.

She always seemed to be afraid of words; she wouldn’t even answer questions if she could help it. Like the day you asked her about Dick. That was in late spring, around the middle of May. Erma had returned from Florida and was talking of going to Scotland for the summer, and wanted you to go along. You and she had dined with friends and, allured by the mild May air, she had suggested a walk. As you were crossing the avenue at Fifty-seventh you got caught in the center and stood there at the edge of the solid slow-moving traffic, glancing carelessly at the cars as they crept past; and suddenly your careless glance became a stare as you saw Dick and Millicent side by side in a taxicab not ten feet away. They were looking the other way and obviously had not seen you, nor had Erma seen them.