A. Fair: Owls Don't Blink

“This is the place. I was standing right here when she opened—”

Cutler interrupted hastily: “I appreciate, of course, that it’s a forlorn chance, but I couldn’t locate the landlady tonight, and I was thinking that perhaps you might have been here for some time, might have known something of the previous tenants, and would be willing to help me.”

Bertha said, “I’ve been here about five hours—”

I laughed and said, “ I’m the one that’s been here for some time. Wouldn’t you gentlemen care to come in and sit down for a moment?”

“Thank you,” Cutler said. “I was hoping you’d suggest that.”

Bertha Cool hesitated a moment, then stood to one side of the door. The two men came in, glanced quickly at the bedroom, walked across to the room which looked out on the balcony over the street.

Goldring said, “That’s Jack O’Leary’s Bar over there.”

Cutler laughed. “I recognized it, but I was trying to reconstruct in my mind the roundabout method by which we arrived. The street seems to be running about ninety degrees off.”

Goldring said, “You’ll get used to it,” appropriated the comfortable chair in which Bertha had been sitting, raised his feet to the ottoman, and said, “Don’t mind if we smoke, do you, lady?”

He scratched a match on the sole of his shoe before Bertha had a chance to reply. She said, rather shortly, “No.”

Cutler said, “Won’t you be seated. Miss — or is it Mrs.?”

I interrupted hurriedly before Bertha could give her name, “It’s Mrs. Won’t you gentlemen be seated?”

Goldring shifted his eyes and looked at me through cigarette smoke as though I’d been a fly crawling along the top of a piece of pie he had intended to eat.

Cutler said, “I’m going to be frank with you — very frank. My wife left me some three years ago. Our domestic life hadn’t been entirely happy. She came here to New Orleans. It was only after some difficulty that I found her.”

“Dat’s right,” Goldring said. “I sure had to work on dat dame.”

Cutler went on, in that velvet-smooth voice, “The’ reason that I was so anxious to find her is that I’d come to the conclusion our marriage would never again be a happy one. Much as I regretted to do so, I decided to divorce her. When love ceases to exist, marriage becomes—”

Bertha sat down uncomfortably on the studio couch, interrupted to say, “Forget it! You don’t need to palaver around with me. She left you, and you decided to change the lock on the door so she couldn’t come back. I don’t blame you. What’s that got to do with me?”

He smiled. “You’ll pardon me if I comment upon your refreshing individuality. Yes, I won’t bother about mincing words, Mrs. — er—”

I said, “Okay then, let’s get to the point, because we were just going out to dinner. You decided to file suit for divorce. I take it Goldring here found her and after he found her, served the papers.”

“Dat’s right,” Goldring said, looking at me with puzzled respect as though trying to find out how I knew.

“And now,” Cutler said with a subtle note of indignation creeping into his voice, “years after the matter has been entirely disposed of, I understand my wife is intending to claim the papers were not actually served upon her.”

“Indeed,” I said.

“Exactly! It is, of course, preposterous. Fortunately, Mr. Goldring remembers the occasion very vividly.”

“Dat’s right,” Goldring said. “It was about three in the afternoon on the thirteenth of March, 1940. She came to the door, an’ I asked her was her name Cutler an’ did she live here. She said she did. I’d found out before de apartment was rented to Edna Cutler. Then I asked her was her name Edna Cutler, an’ she said, ‘Yes,’ an’ then I took the original summons, the copy of the summons, an’ a copy of the complaint, an’ I soived the papers on her right while she was standing in that door.”

Goldring motioned toward the door which led to the hall.

Cutler said, “My wife now claims that she wasn’t even in New Orleans at the time. However, Mr. Gold-ring has identified a picture of her.”

Bertha started to say something, but I nudged her leg with my knee, cleared my throat, frowned at the carpet as though trying to recall something, and said, “I take it, Mr. Cutler, what you want to do is to prove definitely that it was your wife who was living in this apartment?”

“Yes.”

“And was soived with papers,” Goldring said.

I said, “I have been here only a short time, on this trip; but I’m quite well acquainted around New Orleans, and I’ve been here several times. I think I was here two years ago. Yes, I think it was exactly two years ago. I was living in an apartment across the street. Perhaps I could identify Mrs. Cutler’s picture.”

His face lit up. “That’s exactly what we want. People who can prove that she was living here at the time.”

He flashed a slender, smooth-skinned hand to the inside of his coat, emerged with a small envelope. From this he took three photographs.

I studied the photographs a long time. I wanted to be certain I’d know this woman when I saw her again.

“Well?” Cutler asked.

I said, “I’m just trying to place her. I’ve seen her somewhere, but I don’t think I have ever met her. I’ve seen her before. That’s certain. I can’t remember whether she had this apartment. It may come to me later.”

I nudged Bertha to get a good look at the pictures. I needn’t have bothered. Cutler reached out his hand for the photographs. Bertha snatched them from me and said, “Let’s take a good look at her.”

We studied the pictures, looking at them together. I have a habit of trying to reconstruct character from photographs. This girl was about the same build as Roberta. The faces were only vaguely similar. Roberta had a straight nose, eyes that could be quizzical or thoughtful. This girl looked more of the light-headed, light-hearted type. She would laugh or smile or cry just as the mood happened to strike her, but she wouldn’t have thought about what was coming next. Roberta might laugh, but she’d be thinking while she was laughing. Roberta wouldn’t let herself go — not all the way. She’d always have a hand on the emergency brake somewhere. This girl in the picture was a reckless gambler. She’d risk everything on the turn of a card, would take it for granted if she won, and would have stared in stupefied disbelief if she’d lost. She’d never consider the possibility of losing while she was gambling. Roberta was the type who would never risk anything on a gamble that she couldn’t afford to lose.

So far as build and figure and complexion were concerned, it looked as if they were sufficiently similar to wear each other’s clothes.

Bertha handed the pictures back to Cutler.

“Seems rather young,” I said.

Cutler nodded. “She’s ten years younger than I am. I suppose that may have had something to do with it. However, I don’t want to bore you with my troubles. I came here to see if I could get some proof that she was living here. I should be able to find someone who knows.”

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help,” I told him. “Perhaps it will come to me later on. Where can I reach you?”

He gave me his card, Marco Cutler, Stocks and Bonds, Hollywood . I put it in my pocket and promised I’d communicate with him if I found myself able to remember anything more about the tenant that had been in the apartment three years ago.

Goldring said, “I’m in the telephone book. Give me a ring if you get any dope before Mr. Cutler goes back. An’ if you’ve got any papers you want solved, give me a chance at ‘em.”