Big city girl

The reporter withdrew his head, he stood still, listening and could hear the news.

“—no late developments in this sensational man hunt. Police officers at the scene are now almost unanimous in their opinion that Neely is dead, either drowned or killed by a rifle bullet at the time he was swimming down the river. However, the search is being pushed relentlessly and will not be written off as closed until the body is, recovered.”

The reporter looked in again. “There’s nothing new in that,” he said. “I filed it myself less than an hour ago.”

Cass looked at him blankly. “It’s the news,” he said. “Can’t talk to you now.”

“But I tell you,” the reporter said impatiently, “there’s nothing new in it. I wrote it.”

Cass shook his head. “Don’t make no difference.”

The young man withdrew his head from the window and looked helplessly at Lambeth, who was leaning against the wall and wishing he had brought the bottle in from the car.

“Nobody ever believes anything until he hears it on the radio or sees it in the paper,” Lambeth said wearily. “God help the human race.”

“There must be somebody else around here we can talk to,” the reporter said. He started toward the door to look down the hall.

Joy had been in the bedroom engaged in changing into another dress when she heard the car drive up. But instead of going on down into the bottom as the others had done, these men had come up onto the porch. It’s about time somebody remembered he had a wife, she thought angrily. All this fuss and hullabaloo and that old cluck running around like a chicken with its head chopped off, and you’d think there wasn’t anybody else on the place or that had anything to do with Sewell at all. Slipping into a dressing gown, she gave her hair a shake back over her shoulders and went down the hall.

She emerged onto the porch just as the reporter was coming toward the door. He was quite attractive, she thought, and at the same time there was something vaguely familiar about him. She put on her best and warmest smile and started to say something.

Just then Lambeth heard her and turned.

“Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t Narcissus.”

Twenty-two

“Oh, hello,” the reporter said. “You’re Mrs. Neely, aren’t you? You remember us, I guess. At the trial? We didn’t expect to see you out here, but I’m glad we ran into you.”

Joy smiled at them. “Why, yes,” she said. “I remember you, Mr.—er—”

“Shaw,” the younger man said. “And this is Byron Lambeth.”

“Oh, I know Mr. Lambeth. We’re old friends, aren’t we?”

“Mrs. Neely and I have seen a lot of each other,” Lambeth said gravely.

“Now, what would you like to say, Mrs. Neely?” Shaw asked with professional briskness. “Do you have any idea where your husband was headed when he—uh—”

“Well, I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “I hadn’t heard—”

“Don’t you think he might have been trying to come here?”

“Why, yes. I’ve thought of that. He was coming this way, wasn’t he? I mean, when he— Oh, it’s so awful! You don’t know what it’s been like all day, not knowing.” The idea of Sewell’s coming back to her began to blossom and take shape, and she knew. She just knew. Why hadn’t she realized it before? Why, of course. It really couldn’t have been anything else. He had been headed right this way, hadn’t he?

Forgetting the two men for a moment, she let her mind run unhampered along this delightful and beckoning pathway, seeing herself as the irresistible beauty for whom men would take incalculable risks. It happened all the time in the movies. And then, even as she was beginning to believe in herself as this fatal beauty, all the terrible tragedy of it came rushing in upon her and she fought to hold back the tears as she thought of how near he had been and she had not known. Sewell had been killed while risking everything just to be at her side for one final, beautiful hour, and she hadn’t known it until too late.

“Yes,” she said tragically, her face slightly raised like the pictures of Joan of Arc and a mist of tears in her eyes. “He was coming to see me. I can feel it. It’s something you know deep down inside of you. Oh, poor Sewell! To think how near he was and I didn’t know.”

Shaw broke in eagerly. “That’s it! That’s the way I see it. He must have been coming here. What else would lie have been doing up there on that bridge? We’ll cover it from that angle. And we’ll want some pictures. You won’t mind posing, will you, Mrs. Neely?”

“Mrs. Neely won’t mind posing at all, I’m sure,” Lambeth said with the same deferential and still half-drunken gravity. “Mrs. Neely takes a very good picture.”

“I—I’ll be glad to,” Joy said graciously. She began dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, and looked down appraisingly at the dowdy old kimono. They would catch me in this crummy old rag, she thought. “Oh, but I’ll have to change and fix up a little. I look such a fright. I haven’t even bothered to— I mean, it’s all been so horrible. It won’t take a minute. You won’t mind, will you?” She gave them a wan little smile, and before either of them could answer she had turned and run back down the hall.

Now, where’s that confounded kid? she thought frantically, rushing into the bedroom and over to the suitcase on the old trunk. What’ll I wear? Any other time she’d be underfoot like some idiotic puppy, mooning at me while I brush my hair, and now when I could use her she’s nowhere around. Not a goddamned thing that’s fit to be seen in, and the picture’ll be in all the papers. Not that cheap, lousy print—it’s wrinkled, anyway. A whore wouldn’t be found dead in it. Just think, he was coming to see me. Wasn’t that sweet? He just had to see me: he couldn’t stay away. She threw the kimono on the bed.

She began to grab dresses up wildly until she had them all in her arms, and then threw them back into the suitcase in jumbled confusion. Oh, where the hell is that kid? I’ve got to have the mirror. And my lipstick. And I’ve got to comb my hair. She ran into the center of the room and stared wildly around in a sort of frenzied and helpless indecision. Where could she start? And what could she wear?

She ran out onto the back porch to get the mirror, in her frantic rush forgetting until after she was already out there, in the open, that she had taken off the kimono and had on nothing except her wisps of underthings. Oh, my God, she thought, I’m losing my mind. Snatching the mirror off its nail, she fled headlong back into the room. Suppose they’d seen me, she thought. Not Lambeth, that stew bum. He’s seen me in less than this. But the other one. Shaw, isn’t it? He’s cute. He’d have thought I was an awful hussy.

I hope that crazy Lambeth doesn’t get the pictures mixed up and turn that other one in to the paper. Wouldn’t that be a mess, when the editor saw it? And I wonder what Harve ever did with the one I gave him. I hope he didn’t have it with him when he was—uh—when Sewell—er— Think of them finding it and a lot of strange people passing it around. Suppose Sewell had found it when he— God, that would have been terrible. But he didn’t even know about it.

“Jessie! Jessie! Where are you, dear?” Oh, where is that lousy kid? If she thinks she’s going to Houston with me, she’ll have to be more help than this. What do I want with her, anyway? She’d just be a nuisance. I won’t take her.

What am I talking about? Of course I’ll take her. I don’t care what she does afterward, but I’m going to take her. Didn’t I see his face there this morning, on the porch? That got him, all right. The lousy bastard. That’ll teach him who he can shove like that.

She propped the mirror up against a pillow and sat down on the bed to comb her hair. The mirror fell over, and she put her head in her arms, wanting to cry. Stop it, she thought. Stop it! Stop it! Stop itl I’ve got to get fixed lip. They’re going to take my picture, and it’ll be in all the papers. I’ve just got to look my best. I’ve just got to. I don’t want to look like some old bag. Please! The story will say how he was coming back to see me, and people will