Charles Williams - Hell Hath No Fury

When I thought he could hear me, I squatted down beside him. “Now get this,” I said. “You can’t make trouble for her. But even if you could, there’s nothing you can do to me. I’ll still be here. And hell won’t be big enough to hold you. So if you want to go around the rest of your life singing to yourself and slobbering down the front of your shirt, go ahead and try it.”

I went out and got in the car and drove back to town. Maybe I’d sold him, and maybe I hadn’t. The only thing I knew for sure was that next time I’d never get a chance to unload the shotgun.

16

That next week was wonderful. We didn’t see anything of Sutton, and we were together nearly all the time. We had lunch together every day, and I spent a lot of time in the loan office under the pretext of familiarizing myself with the setup. When the other girl was gone we’d turn on to the phony notes, trying to get them organized and establish some sort of pattern for paying them off. She didn’t want to be married until the last one was paid.

“It isn’t just stubbornness, Harry,” she explained earnestly. “It has to be that way. You want me to quit work when we’re married, and we both know I can’t quit till all these are paid. They’re my debt, and I have to pay them.”

I had to admit she was right, in spite of my impatience.

We couldn’t let somebody else take charge of the books until they were in order. I thought of the twelve thousand dollars buried in that old barn, just sitting there, and wanted to go right out and dig it up and pay off the whole fifteen hundred dollars at once. It didn’t take much thought, however, to throw that out. It wouldn’t do. And it might be very dangerous. In the first place, how could I explain to her where I’d suddenly got hold of that much money? And worse than that, I couldn’t be absolutely sure the Sheriff had been lying when he’d said the bank had the serial numbers of it. It would be suicide to try to run the stuff right back through the same bank it’d come out of, and this soon afterwards. I’d just be asking for it. That money was going to stay there a long time, maybe for years, and when it went back into circulation it would be a long way from here. I’d have to think of something. But I didn’t worry about it; I had plenty of time.

At odd moments I did some digging back into sales records on the lot, and I could see that even if I couldn’t build it up I’d still clear five or six hundred dollars a month with the commissions and the salary he was paying me. And I was working on a number of ideas for whooping sales up if we could get the cars. There wasn’t too much live competition around here, even in the county seat, and with some advertising and good promotion to stir it up there was no reason we couldn’t nearly double the business.

The hardest part, of course, was going to be the waiting. We added it all up, and by pooling every nickel we’d make and could spare it would still take until sometime in November to get it all paid off. We wouldn’t have anything left to start with, but I’d have a good job and somehow we’d scrape up enough for at least a week’s honeymoon in Galveston.

Once or twice she got scared and despondent again, thinking of Sutton, but I was able to talk her out of it. She asked me what I’d done and I was as evasive about it as I could be without making her suspicious. I told her I’d had a talk with him and warned him, which was true as far as it went.

It wasn’t always so easy at night though, after I’d left her and was lying there in my room. We hadn’t seen anything of him, but how did I know we wouldn’t? Everything we had planned was based on the assumption that I’d scared him off and there wouldn’t be any more demands. So what if I was wrong? And there was always Dolores Harshaw. I didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

I think it was Tuesday night when it hit me. I was lying there in the dark going around with it for the thousandth time, trying to guess whether she’d meant it or not and what my chances would be if she pulled her alibi out from under me and dropped me back into that hellhole of questions, when suddenly I sat up in bed with the whole answer perfectly clear in my mind. She didn’t have me. I had her. She couldn’t do a thing.

I thought about it for a while, and then turned over and dropped off into an untroubled sleep for the first time in weeks. If she tried anything she was going to get the surprise of her life.

* * *

I went out to see Harshaw Friday night to give him a short rundown on how we’d been doing. He looked a little better. He was still weak and shaky, but the dirty gray color had cleared up and he appeared to be becoming reconciled to inactivity. He was sitting in the living-room reading “Lee’s Lieutenants” while she listened to some quiz show on the radio.

I made the business talk as brief as possible, not playing up the advertising ideas too much because I didn’t want to run the risk of starting an argument and getting him heated up. He grunted more or less approvingly at most of the details, and nodded once or twice. “Sounds all right,” he said. “I guess you’ll make out.”

“I think so,” I said. She had turned off the radio and was wandering restlessly around the room. I could see she was bored, and I wondered what she’d try next. But I wasn’t afraid of her any more.

“How are you getting along with Miss Harper?” he asked.

I grinned. “I remembered what you told me. We’re going to be married in November, so I’ll be able to mistreat her all I want.”

He gave me that probing look, and then his face softened a little. I thought he was going to smile. “Marry her, huh? You’re beginning to show signs of intelligence. When you get that girl it’ll be the best day’s work you ever did.”

“I know it,” I said. I happened to look up at her just then. She was behind him, adjusting the Venetian blinds. She turned and looked at me with that malicious smile on her face.

“I think that’s wonderful,” she said. “She’s such a sweet girl.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I know you’ll both be very happy.” The smile slipped a little and you could see past it. She was raging. I wondered how long it’d be before I heard from her.

It wasn’t very long. It was that same night.

It was around midnight. I was coming back from taking Gloria home and as I pulled up in front of the rooming house another car came up behind me. I stepped out, and it came up alongside and stopped. A voice said softly, “Get in,” and I knew who it was. I got in. It would be, the last time.

She went on around the block and over to Main, turning north and gunning it fast along the highway. “How’s the happy bridegroom?” she asked.

“Not bad,” I said.

“But I’m rushing it a little, aren’t I? You’re not a bridegroom yet; you’re just engaged. You’re lovely, and you’re engaged. Isn’t that sweet?”

“Yes,” I said. “And what’s on your mind?”

“You’d never guess, would you?”

“I thought I told you the last time. We’re through.”

“We are like hell. Remember?”

She pulled off on to a side road and stopped.

“Well,” she said, “so I’m just going to sit around on my hands and let you and that angel-faced candy kid get away with it, am I? The two of you’re just too cute for anything. You make me sick.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Tell me all about it. And when you get through I’ll tell you.”

“You’re not going to marry her. In November, or any other time. I thought we’d straightened that out already.”

“You’ve got some other plan in mind?”

“You’re damned right I have. You’re going to marry me.”

“I thought the bag limit was one husband at a time.”