James Cain - The Magician's Wife

Grace fed him and loved him and held his head to her breast, all the while murmuring encouragement: “What difference does it make who got clobbered today or how much? All that matters is Buster and getting her off. Once she’s in the clear, we’ll forget this dreadful mess, as we forget a dream. We’ve both done our share — and I’d like to remind you, Clay, twelve and a half thousand dollars aren’t peanuts in anyone’s court. We’ve done plenty already — I as well as you. And we’ll continue that way — we’ll do what has to be done to get this girl off. Once that’s out of the way, the sun comes up once more!”

He was comforted and replied in amiable growls, suggesting around nine that “we call it off and go to bed.” She agreed, and they got up from her modernist sofa, where they had been lying close, and started toward her bedroom. But before they reached it the buzzer sounded, and she went to open the door. Sally was in the hall, still in her black wool suit, her face twisted with rage. Coming in, she advanced on Clay and snarled at him: “You did that to me! You’re in cahoots with that guy! I’ve seen you with him — don’t pretend you had nothing to do with it! Well, let me tell you something. You—”

“Let me tell you something!”

Grace stepped in between and for a few moments told Sally off, for her “rotten, vindictive nature,” which left your father aghast, frightened Mr. El, froze poor Alec so he walked out on you, and finally brought you to this, the shadow of the electric chair! You—!”

With surprising dexterity for one so gracefully slim, she jerked Sally to her knees and began slapping her face. Sally screamed and cursed at her. At that, she really hooked things up. Holding Sally by the head, her hand clutching the soft felt hat, she slapped and slapped hard, so one of Sally’s cheeks was suddenly red. Then: “Get up!” she snapped, stepping back. And when Sally rose: “Get out!”

“Go to hell, you poor mope. I’ll go when I—”

Another slap cut that off, and then she grabbed Sally and hustled her to the door. Opening it, she pushed her out. But Sally, turning to Clay, snarled: “Not so fast. I still haven’t told him what I came here to say! That shadow she’s talking about, it’s big enough for two. Try some more tricks, why don’t you! I’ll not go alone! Did you hear what I said?”

“We got ’em on the run. We must have or she wouldn’t have come. If she’s sweating blood, let her!”

But next morning Mr. Pender took a setback when the stuttering boy took the stand, the parking-lot attendant who had heard the brawl that night and told in exact detail how Buster had said: “I’ll k-k-k-kill you!” He was not cross-examined, for the reason, as Mr. Pender explained at lunch: “I couldn’t risk getting into the position of deriding a physical infirmity. Taking him over the jumps could easily have looked like that and only have made things worse. And, Clay, it’s bad. That damned K-K-K-Katy stuff, I’ll k-k-k-kill you,’ is the kind of thing that stays in your ear when other stuff is forgotten — and it worries me. If it wasn’t for that, this jury would vote an acquittal without even leaving the box — I could feel it yesterday that I had ’em. If only someone would come, would sit down at the table with us and whisper he heard that row, that he was out there parked in his car and could testify under oath that it didn’t happen at all the way that clown said! A fat chance. All kinds of people have come — like that guy I’ll put on the stand, the one who was run off the road, the one who’ll shoot holes in the cops’ report, and others, friends of Buster, offering to speak for her, be her character witness, believe it or not. But this one guy that I need won’t show.”

“Nat, he has showed,” said Clay.

Startled, Nat stared, and Clay stared too, at his fingertips, as though a bit startled himself. “May surprise you, but I was parked out there myself, alongside the lot, and heard the whole thing. She was furious, but she didn’t say she would kill him.”

“Lean back, Clay, quick! I might kiss you!”

“Nevertheless, it’s a fact.”

“ But what were you doing there? ”

“Calling on Mike Dominick — I sell him meat, don’t forget. After the row I decided it wasn’t the night and drove home. Just the same, I was there.”

“Brother! It’s in the bag, we can’t lose!”

And so it seemed, not only to Mr. Pender but also to Grace, when Clay called for a quick confab, from a courthouse pay station, just before court convened. “Oh, certainly! ” she exclaimed. “If there’s anything, anything at all, that you can truthfully say, to offset it, what that crazy boy said, by all means do it! Clay, the time is now, and the point of it is, get her off! Get her off, get her off, get her off! You’re going to testify anyhow, and there’s no sense at all in withholding the one thing that’s going to count.” So in midafternoon, when the state had finished its case, with a thick-faced electrician who told of the ladder incident, with Buster “bugging the guy, keeping at him to climb up and look” — so the threats on the parking lot was ominously prereinforced, redoubled in depth, so to speak — Clay took the stand to lead off for the defense, following a brief, solemn statement by Mr. Pender as to what his case would involve. Clay gave his name in his best big-shot manner: brisk, crisp, and importantly amiable. At once he hit a nice note of disbelief, of amused contempt, even, for the accusation against Buster, quickly disposing of the ladder incident. “For that I guess I’m responsible,” he admitted in an easy, offhand way. Then, after telling of the visit from Mr. Alexis and Buster, the greetings from Mike, and so on, he said: “I warned Mr. Alexis — as he called himself to me — of the importance of getting his rails level, else his cradle, with Miss Conlon dangling from it, might go rolling off somewhere and land her behind the eight ball.” He repeated the Mexico City anecdote, and Mr. Pender interrupted: “Did they test the rails at all?”

“They did. He, and later she.”

“How did she test, Mr. Lockwood?”

“I lifted her, and she swung on them.”

“How did he react to this?”

“He got sore that I should be touching her — he certainly didn’t act like a guy that would ever desert her and—”

“Object,” said Mr. Kuhn.

“Sustained,” said the judge. And then to Clay: “Tell what he said or did, not what you think it meant.”

“Yes, your honor,” said Clay.

“The reporter will strike, the jury disregard, this last remark of the witness. Mr. Pender, please—?”

“What did he say when you lifted her?”

“That she should get down by herself — or something like that. I told him, not in my place — she might fall and break her leg, and Grant’s, Inc., could be sued.”

“And then?”

“I lifted her down.”

“His manner, then, was jealous?”

“Object.”

“Sustained.”

So far Mr. Kuhn had shown no surprise, and he seemed aware already of what Clay related. But from the way he looked up, the next question obviously caught him off balance. “This visit,” asked Mr. Pender, “did it have an aftermath?”

“It did, in a way,” said Clay.

“Will you tell what it led to, then?”

“Well, there was Mike, who had sent his best regards by Alexis, and who I’d done nothing about all summer. But he buys my meat, after all, and I thought it was just about time for me to show some interest — in his reconditioned club and his plans for ten-ounce steaks.”

“By interest, you mean you decided to call?”