Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“No,” he flared. “You got it, ain’t what matters. You went in there, is what matters.”

“Joe, you don’t think—”

“I don’t think. What don’t I think? You got it the easy way? Is that what I don’t think? Well, you bet your life I don’t!”

“I didn’t get it the easy way, Joe. I got it the hard way. Please listen to me—”

His answer was a swift, silent blow. She went staggering back against the wall like a drunk. She didn’t even cry out, it was so sudden.

He went in after her and pulled her back toward him, away from the wall, so that he would have enough clearance to swing in a second time. Then he hit her on the other side of the face, with his left.

The terrible thing about women being beaten by their men is not the fact that they are women so much as the invariable lack of resistance. Even the weakest, the meekest, the most cowardly of men will offer at least a token resistance when another man strikes at him. A woman never, always provided the man belongs to her. It is as though something deep down inside her feminity were subconsciously saying to her, it’s a part of being loved, so I must submit.

“The hard way! The hard way!” he kept panting. “Only it wasn’t hard for you. It came naturally.”

“Joe,” she whimpered through bruised lips. “Don’t, Joe. I love you.”

“Love! Your idea of love is my idea of garbage!”

With that, he spat square into her face, and then he let her alone. She crumpled to her knees, and then sagged over against the arm of a chair, her head down as if in an attitude of mournful penance. She was crying, but you could only tell it by the way the back of her head was quivering. The dress had split open across her back in a long diagonal gash, from one shoulder almost across to the opposite hip.

“Now I’m going in there and take care of that bastard!” he promised her savagely. “And what you got isn’t anything compared to what I’m gonna give him! He won’t be in shape to fool around with other men’s wives for a long time to come, when I get finished with him!”

Without giving her another look he threw the door open and stormed out into the hall. She stretched out one arm after him in a vain attempt to dissuade him, but it was too late, he didn’t see it and it wouldn’t have stopped him even if he had.

She’d lifted herself up and was standing over a basinful of cold water, gently touching a wet towel to her hurt face, when he came bolting back again minutes later.

His face was almost gray with basic fear. “Why didn’t you tell me you killed him?” he said in a choked-up whisper.

“Did you give me the chance?” was all she said to that.

He backed a hand against his forehead. “No wonder you got the check back.”

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it. If I’d’ve known it was going to happen, I would never have gone near there in the first place.” She held the wet towel against her lips for a moment, and it came away with two tiny scarlet scars on it. “I figured I could distract him in some way, if he had the coat already off and over the back of a chair, like, and slip it out of his pocket without him noticing. Or if he still had it on, sweet-talk him into giving it back; you know, promise everything, come across with nothing. But I didn’t realize what I was in for. He’d been drinking all through the card-game, you saw that. And he must’ve gone ahead drinking after he was back in his own room. And you can never count on drunks, they’re unpredictable. I was no sooner inside the door than he fastened a bear-hug around me that I couldn’t break out of. We staggered back against the edge of a dresser or table together, I didn’t see what it was. I managed to partly free one arm and I reached around in back of me to grab hold of something, anything. I didn’t care what. I fastened onto the handle of this icepick that was tilting up out of a bowl of ice, and I swung it around in front of me, to ward him off. I didn’t even lunge at him with it, just held it there. He stepped back in the clear, all right, but then he stumbled over his own feet or something and fell face-first against me, and the thing went through him as if he was made of lard. He even dragged me down with him in the fall, and I had to work one leg free out from under him before I could stand up again.”

She drew a deep, shuddering breath.

“That’s the story, Joe, and it’s a true one, not fake, not doctored.”

His eyes were black as shotgun-pellets with tension and anxiety. “Leave off of doing that,” he said, pulling at her urgently. “We’ve got to light out of here, we’ve got to get a move on fast. Maybe we can still make it by the stairs, so they don’t nab us coming down on the elevator. Somebody’s liable to go in there any minute and spot him. The door isn’t even locked.”

“No, Joe, no!” she insisted, putting her hand on his arm, as a brake. “That’s not the way to play it. We’ve got to stand up to it. If we run out on it, then we never stop running, until they finally catch up with us. And you know they’re going to catch up with us, they always catch up with you; whether it’s minutes from now or whether it’s months. Do you want that to be our life from now on? Always running, then hiding, then breaking out and running some more. And running where? Running from no place to no place, until finally we run straight into their waiting arms.”

“Stay here and wait for them to come? Own up to it?” he said bewilderedly.

She nodded rapidly. “Listen to me, Joe, and listen to me real good. I know you’ve got a quick, keen mind, or you wouldn’t be able to play cards the way you do. This is the difference it makes: by running out, we’re turning it into murder. And making it very hard to beat. By sitting pat and facing up to it, it stays just what it was: an accidental killing in self-defense. I can beat that. It won’t be any trouble at all. A woman defending herself against a man, protecting her honor. That may sound like a lot of bunk, but it still holds good. I don’t know what it will be like in the future, but this is 1910 and women are still pretty much up on a pedestal. I have the bruises to show them, the ones I got from you. There isn’t a man’s court in this country will bring in a conviction against me. Isn’t that the better way of the two, Joe? They’ll hold me for a few weeks until the trial comes up, and then it’ll be all over. We’ll be free for the rest of our lives, not have to fear any more, not have to run any more, not have to hide any more.”

“If it’s got to be that way,” he said at last, unwillingly, “then I’ll take it on. Not you. It’s up to me.”

“You wouldn’t stand a chance, Joe. A grudge between two men over a gambling-debt doesn’t create any sympathy. The check has to stay out of it. It only fouls up the issue. Here, let me have one of your matches, hurry up.”

She touched the flame to the edge of it, carried it into the bathroom, and flushed the bowl.

When she came back she said, breathing fast, but with satisfaction, not with fear, “Now it’s clear sailing all the way. Now, once past this point, every word I speak is the truth. I can’t be tripped and I can’t be tangled. That’s the beauty of it. As I’m telling it to you, my Joe, I’ll be telling it to them, the jury and the judge.”

There was a commanding knock on the door.

“There they are now,” she whispered.

“Open up. Police,” a gruff voice said.

She turned and looked at him, and smiled. There was no trepidation in the smile, none at all. Side by side, his arm tightly around her waist, they went over to the door together.

“Gee, Betts,” he murmured contritely at the last moment, “I didn’t think you had it in you. I didn’t think you had the moxie. Always so quiet, so mild. Sitting there knitting, all through the long games.”