Корнелл Вулрич - Manhattan Love Song

“Do you think it has anything to do with this?” I asked him. “With the case?”

“Do I think!” he said bitterly.

“But she was Westman’s witness — what would they want to bawl up the prosecution for like that, if I’m supposed to be taking the rap for some one?”

“Listen, you knew her when she was Pascal’s maid — did she ever strike you as being anything intelligent? Well, whatever she knew, I could’ve gotten out of her. And she knew, all right! And they knew she knew. They weren’t taking unnecessary chances—”

“Gee, that was a lousy thing to do,” I commented.

“Feel sorry for yourself, Wade,” he advised me knowingly. “If it wasn’t for that very wench there, Pascal would be alive right now in California with you. She was the one sent them the tip-off that night — I know what I’m talking about!” He lit a cigarette and shook it at me when it was lit. “She got Pascal hers that night. And now, indirectly, she’s getting you yours. Don’t look at me like that,” he said fiercely. “Do you think I’m talking through my hat or something! I had a damn good chance of getting you out of it if Westman had put her on the stand. And now — you may as well hear it from me as from any one else — I think it’s too late for me to pull you through. You’re in the soup.”

“And what about it?” I said. “I could’ve been in Montreal or Winnipeg the day after it happened, if I’d wanted to. And still be there today, if I’d wanted to badly enough. Only I didn’t want to. I wanted to be where I am. And I wanted to get just what I’m going to get, nothing less and nothing more.”

“The case is closing,” he warned me, “and there’s not much time left! There’s only one thing that might still do some good — how much I don’t know. I can let you take the stand yourself — in your own defense.”

“Do that,” I said, “and hear all about how I choked Bernice Pascal to death.”

“You’re insane,” he spat at me. “I should have pleaded that for you in the first place.”

“Sane or insane,” I told him grimly, “cook I must — in the big, high chair.”

“Don’t bother wishing for it,” he said. “It’ll come quickly enough. And once this case closes, Mr. Know-it-all, an appeal isn’t going to help any!” He flung his cigarette down, reached over, and caught me by the wrist. “Get up there, will you, Wade, if I call on you tomorrow, and tell them the truth — for the love of Christ, tell them the truth! Tell them how you loved her — tell them what she meant to you — talk to them just like you have to me at times — they’re not morons, they’ll understand how it is you couldn’t have possibly done it. My God, there’s something sincere about you when you start talking about her — that would get anyone! Any one who was ever young, who was ever in love himself—” With his hand glued to my wrist, he kept shaking me by the arm. “What can I say to you, fellow, to make you understand? Tell them how she auctioned herself off for a hundred dollars that night — tell them, don’t be ashamed! Tell them how you went out hunting it up. Tell them how you robbed this actor. It’s not going to hurt you; it’s going to help you, if anything! You did it for her. You’ll have that jury in the hollow of your hand. The average man is more of a sentimentalist deep down in himself than any woman alive. Why, the very fact that you signed that confession may be all to the good in the end! You loved her so — that you didn’t want to live; that stands to reason. I still have the taxi driver, to tell them how you were all the way down to Grand Central, could have gotten away beautifully! How’re they going to get around the fact that you didn’t even know how she had been killed when you first told your story to the police? I’ll take care of that, I’ll bring it all out when I sum up — but you — you’ve got to get up there and help me! We’ve still got this one chance, Wade, slim as it is — don’t be a quitter, you owe me something; do this much for me at least. Other clients plead with their lawyers to get them out; here’s a lawyer pleading with his client—”

“If you want me to take the stand,” I said wearily, “I’ll take the stand. But when Westman asks me if I killed her, and he will, I’m going to say yes. That’s all I’ve got left now, the determination to die. I’m going to hang on to it.”

I heard him swearing at me then; making all kinds of noise. I almost thought he was going to hit me in the jaw, he was so furious. I’m positive he would have liked to. I simply didn’t listen, shut all the crannies of my mind and didn’t hear him. Then, after a while, he was gone, and I was by myself again. Glad of it, too. I did what I did every other night — ate my meal when it was brought in to me, and then took a cigarette out of the flattened, crumpled pack I kept in my back pocket, that the turnkey used to buy for me two or three times a week. I gave him a quarter each time — fifteen cents for the thirteen-cent package and ten cents for himself for doing me the favor of getting it. When I was through smoking it, I took off my coat and vest and shoes and pants and went to sleep on the cot in my shirt, tie, socks, and underwear. I didn’t bother taking my tie off ever, because I had a good, even knot in it (from the time I’d first come in here) and I didn’t imagine there was much chance of getting it that accurate a second time without a mirror or anything. Not that it would have mattered, but I was tired of tying neckties around myself all my life long, like I was of everything else.

The next day in court. Berenson had me take the stand — maybe to call my bluff, or maybe because there was nothing else left for him to do any more. He gave me a long, long look, and then he said in a low voice, “Tell your story, Wade,” and then he didn’t look at me any more but just sat there looking down at the floor. I couldn’t even tell if he was listening or not.

I told it briefly, I wanted to get it over with; began abruptly at what had been practically the end of it.

“We were going to California. She wanted to go to California because it was far from New York, and she didn’t like New York any more. I bought the tickets and went home and packed my valise—” At this point, I saw Maxine sitting at the back of the room, the very end seat, on the aisle. “Poor kid,” I thought remorsefully, “just today she had to come here! I told him to tell her to stay away.” Her face was just like a little round white golf-ball at that distance. “So small an area,” I thought, “to suffer so much.”

“When I got there, the doorman insisted he hadn’t called me up and given me any message. I went upstairs anyway, and found her there—”

I stopped a minute, with stage fright or something. If Berenson had shut up, maybe I would have told it the way he wanted me to, the way it had — I suppose — really been.

“Alive or dead?” he said, without looking up from the floor.

“Alive,” I said.

He didn’t bat an eyelash, although for him it probably meant five or ten thousand a year income from now on instead of fifty or seventy-five or a hundred.

Maxine didn’t move, either. I could still see her way over there in the corner, but there was something whiter than her face now in front of it — a handkerchief, I suppose.

“She told me she wasn’t going with me after all. I asked her why. She said I didn’t have enough money. I caught hold of her by the neck, and after awhile we both fell to the floor and she was dead. I went downstairs without any one seeing me and got into a taxi. Then I came back again—”