Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

I went back and rang again and asked for Zeke and he came. When he saw me he acted sore and came out, the other guy right behind him. “Listen, you, I told you once and I’m telling you again—”

“Just a minute, just a minute.”

“Make it quick.”

“I didn’t come here for a drink and I didn’t come for trouble. But you’ve got a girl in there, twelve years old, and—”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Zeke, in a polite way, I’m asking you.”

“If I had, would I be telling you?”

“You’ll be telling it to a judge in just about ten minutes if you don’t let me in there, so I can get her out. Watch your step, baby. Liquor’s one thing, and as we all know, it’s drunk in the spirit of good clean fun. But children, minor children, daughters of important people, are something else My suggestion to you is, you ask me in, or you may be piling up more trouble for yourself than anybody you know can get you out of.”

“Who are you?”

“Just a friend.”

What the rest of it would have been I don’t know, because just then, from somewhere inside, was a scream, a girl’s scream, and then another. I dived for the door, but the two of them were there ahead of me. I got my foot inside, grabbed for Zeke, got his head out, and hooked a couple on his jaw, but then the other one came out and hit me with something, I don’t know what. I must have gone out for a second, because next thing I knew I was on the ground, the door closing in front of my face, the screaming still going on. But then the screaming stopped and a door opened somewhere and I could hear a scuffle going on. I jumped up and ran off to the side, where I could see her wrestling with somebody, maybe Dickie. She broke clear, and somebody pulled Dickie inside. Then she was in my arms and I carried her to the car. “God, what have they done to you?”

“Nothing, nothing!... Nothing, except try to keep me from going. I knew that was you out there. Oh, Jack, I knew it, I knew it.”

Next thing I knew we were going down the hill to the Severn. I pulled off to one side and parked on the shore, and we sat there, looking at the Naval Academy across the river. We didn’t talk, that I remember. What did we have to say?

Next morning, when I was supposed to check in at the Cartaret desk, I was somewhere on the road from Gettysburg to York, watching the sun come up over the hills, with no more idea what I was going to do next than a grasshopper. I’d been driving since midnight, when I set her down at the hotel, but where I went I don’t know, though I remember sliding around Washington, from Rhode Island Avenue to Wisconsin, so it looks as though I must have gone up through Rockville and Frederick. There had been no gay so-long-see-you-tomorrow when she got out. After an hour, maybe, sitting there looking at the Severn, we started back and she had another crying spell like she had had in the studio. I didn’t ask her what the trouble was, didn’t tell her what we were going to do about it, didn’t try to hide it that I was doing a little crying myself. We both knew what the trouble was, and we both knew there was nothing to do about it. A man of twenty-two can’t go around with a girl of twelve, or marry her, or have anything to do with her, once he begins to notice what she looks like in a bathing suit, or she does. As we drove up Charles Street she asked me to let her out before we got to the hotel, and by that I knew she was going to cook up some kind of an alibi and not mention me at all. When I stopped she jumped out, slammed the door, and ran on without looking back. I sat staring at her, partly to see that nobody bothered her, partly for one last look, as I felt I’d never see her again. When she turned into the hotel I kept on up Charles Street and turned west on North Avenue. But when I came to Mt. Royal Terrace I kept on going.

When I got home, some time in the morning, my father and Sheila were out but Nancy was home and called down to me as soon as I stepped in the house that the hotel had been calling and that I should ring them right away. I said thanks, went upstairs to my room, and locked the door. Then I took off my clothes, put on pajamas, and lay down. After a while I heard the phone ring and then Nancy was at the door. “It’s the hotel again, Jack.”

“I’ll call them.”

“But they’re on the line.”

“I’ll call, later.”

She went and then she was back. “They say you’re due to work and won’t you please get down there as quick as you can because they’re short-handed already on account of people away on vacation, and—”

“Can’t you understand English?”

She stood out there five minutes arguing about it before at last she went. I must have slept then because next thing I knew it was three or four o’clock in the afternoon and I had to have something to eat. I put on a robe and went down and while I was frying myself some eggs Nancy came in the kitchen. “Well, my goodness, Jack, it certainly seems you’re acting very peculiarly. You could at least call them. They’re entitled to some explanation.”

“I’ll get around to it.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Just taking a little rest.”

“From what, may I ask?”

“That desk — answering questions.”

She flounced out of there, but in a minute, when I was at the table, tucking away the first food I’d had since the night before, she was back. “Well, what do you suppose that child did yesterday?”

“What child?”

“The one you tutored. Helen.”

“... She been up to something?”

“She just up and ran herself away?”

“You don’t say.”

“Mrs. Brems was just telling me — she got on a train yesterday, went over to Washington, took in all sorts of picture shows and the good Lord only knows what else — and didn’t get back till twelve o’clock last night.”

“I’ll be doggoned.”

That meant Helen had put over a story, so she wouldn’t have to answer questions about me, and neither one of us would be mixed up in it, together anyway. I listened to Nancy, all about how the police had been called in, and cracked dumb. After a while she went out, shaking her head over what young people were coming to, and I went up and dressed. Then I slipped out, before my father and Sheila would get home. That night, at least, I remember where I ate. It was in the Princess Anne Hotel at Fredericksburg, Virginia.

It kept up three or four days. I’d come in late, slip upstairs, and be in bed with the light out and the door locked before anybody could say anything to me. In the morning, I’d wait till the Old Man went out, and then I’d get up, shave, dress, and go downstairs. If Nancy or Sheila had anything to say, I’d get interested in the paper, or stall somehow, and then I’d roll out my car and shove off. By the second day Margaret was calling every half hour and then she didn’t call and then nobody called. It seemed to me, as I’d told Nancy, that I meant to call her “later,” or some time, but later never seemed to come. Then her letters began coming in. She had a clammy way of writing, about three cap I’s to the line, with every other word in quotes and all sorts of stuff about how ideally we were suited to each other on account of both being so artistic. But clammy or no clammy it was easy to see she was suffering from the same old yen, that the family had the heat on, and that she was going through hell.

One night, when I got in around two, my father was waiting for me. He called me in his study, where he was stretched out on the couch, and there was a highball beside him and a tray on the table. He made me a drink before he started. “Jack, there are one or two things I’d like to ask you about.”