“Put a drop of iodine on it, Stan,” she said crisply. “And don’t try drinking the bottle. There’s not enough in it to do more than make you sick.”
He let the cold water roar past his face and then tore at his hair with the rich, soft towel. His forehead wasn’t bleeding any more.
“Stan, darling-”
“Yeah. Coming.”
“You never do anything by halves, do you, lover? So few men have the courage to do what they really want to do. If you’ll come in here and fuss over me a little more-I love to be fussed over, darling-I’ll tell you a bedtime story, strictly for adults.”
He was putting on his clothes. When he was dressed he pulled up a hassock and said, “Give me your foot.”
Smiling, Lilith put the gems away and leaned back, stretching her arms luxuriously, watching him with the sweetest of proprietary smiles.
“That’s lovely, darling. Much more accurately than I could do it. Now about the bedtime story-for I’ve decided to risk it and ask you to stay over with me. You can, darling. Just this once. Well, I know a man-don’t be silly, darling, he’s a patient. Well, he started as a patient and later became a friend-but not like you, darling. He’s a very shrewd, capable man and he might do us both a lot of good. He’s interested in psychic phenomena.”
Stan looked up at her, holding her foot in both his hands. “How’s he fixed for dough?”
“Very well-heeled as you would put it, darling. He lost a sweetheart when he was in college and he has been weighed down with guilt from it ever since. She died from an abortion. Well, at first I thought I’d have to pass him along to one of my tame Freudians-he seemed likely to get out of hand with me. But then he became interested in the psychic. His company makes electric motors. You’ll recognize the name-Ezra Grindle.”
CARD XIII
GRINDLE, EZRA, industrialist, b. Bright’s Falls, N. Y. Jan. 3, 1878, s. Matthias Z. and Charlotte (Banks). Brewster Academy and Columbia U. grad. 1900 engineering. m. Eileen Ernst 1918, d. 1927. Joined sales staff, Hobbes Chem. and Dye, 1901, head of Chi. office 1905; installed plants Rio de Janeiro, Manila, Melbourne 1908- 10; export mgr. 1912. Dollar-a-year man, Washington, D. C. 1917-18. Amer. Utilities, gen. mgr. 1919, v.p. 1921. Founded Grindle Refrigeration 1924, Manitou Casting and Die 1926 (subsidiary), in 1928 merged five companies to form Grindle Sheet Metal and Stamping. Founded Grindle Electric Motor Corp. 1929, pres. and chairman of board. Author: The Challenge of Organized Labor, 1921; Expediting Production: a Scientific Guide, 1928; Psychology in Factory Management (with R. W. Gilchrist) 1934. Clubs: Iroquois, Gotham Athletic, Engineering Club of Westchester County. Hobbies: billiards, fishing.
From
EZRA GRINDLE (“Spunk”) Major: Math. Activities: chess club, math club, manager of baseball 3 years, business manager of
When the red-haired kid looked up he saw a man standing by the counter. The clerical collar, the dead-black suit, the panama with a black band, snapped him to life.
“My son, I wonder if you would be so kind as to help me on a little matter?” He slipped a breviary back into his pocket.
“Sure, Father. What can I do for you, Father?”
“My son, I am preparing a sermon on the sin of destroying life before birth. I wonder if you could find me some of the clippings which have appeared in your newspaper, recounting the deaths of unfortunate young women who have been led to take the lives of their unborn infants. Not the most recent accounts, you understand-of these there are so many. I want to see some of the older accounts. Proving that this sin was rampant even in our parents’ time.”
The kid’s forehead was pulled up with the pain of thought. “Gee, Father, I’m afraid I don’t getcha.”
The smooth voice lowered a little. “Abortions, my son. Look under A-B.”
The kid blushed and pounded away importantly. He came back with an old envelope. ABORTION, DEATHS- 1900-10.
The man in the clerical collar riffled through them quickly. 1900: MOTHER OF TWO DIES FROM ILLEGAL OPERATION. SOCIETY GIRL… HUSBAND ADMITS… DEATH PACT…
DEATH OF A WORKING GIRL
BY ELIZABETH McCORD
Last night in Morningside Hospital a slender young girl with raven tresses covering her pillow turned her face to the wall when a youth fought his way into the ward where she lay on the brink of death. She would not look upon him, would not speak to him although he begged and implored her forgiveness. And in the end he slunk away, eluding Officer Mulcahy who had been stationed in the hospital to watch for just such an appearance of the man responsible for the girl’s condition and untimely death. He did not escape, however, before a keen-eyed little probationer nurse had noted the initials E.G. on his watch fob.
Somewhere in our great city tonight a coward crouches and trembles, expecting at any moment the heavy hand of the law to descend on his shoulder, his soul seared (let us hope) by the unforgiving gesture of the innocent girl whose life he destroyed by his callous self-interest and criminal insistence.
This girl-tall, brunette and lovely in the first bloom of youth-is but one of many…
The man in black clucked his tongue. “Yes-even in our parents’ time. Just as I thought. The sin of destroying a little life before it has been born or received Holy Baptism.”
He stuffed the clippings back into the envelope and beamed his thanks on the kid with red hair.
In Grand Central the good father picked up a suitcase from the check room. In a dressing cubicle he changed into a linen suit, a white shirt, and a striped blue tie.
Out on Madison Avenue he stopped, grinning, as he turned the pages of a worn breviary. The edges were crinkled from rain; and on the fly leaf was written in faded, Spencerian script, “Fr. Nikola Tosti” and a date. The blond man tossed it into a trash can. In his pocket was a clipping, the work of a sob sister thirty years ago.
The morgue office of Morningside Hospital was a room in the basement inhabited by Jerry, the night attendant, a shelf of ancient ledgers, and a scarred wreck of a desk. There were two kitchen chairs for visitors, a radio, an electric fan for hot nights and an electric heater for cold ones. The fan was going now.
A visitor in soiled gray slacks and a sport shirt looked up as Jerry came back into the room.
“I borrowed a couple of shot glasses from the night nurse on West One-the little number with the gams. These glasses got markings on ’em but don’t let that stop us. Fill ’em up. Say, brother, it’s a break we got together over in Julio’s and you had this bottle. I hadn’t had a chance to wet the whistle all evening. I was dying for a few shots.”
His new friend pushed a straw skimmer further back on his head and filled the medicine glasses with applejack.
“Here’s lead in the old pencil, huh?” Jerry killed his drink and held out the glass.
Blondy filled it again and sipped his brandy. “Gets kind of dull, nights, eh?”
“Not so bad. I listen to the platter programs. You get some good records on them programs. And I do lots of crossword puzzles. Say, some nights they don’t give you a minute’s peace around here-stiffs coming down every ten minutes. That’s mostly in the winter and in the very hot spells-old folks. We try not to get ’em in here when they’re ready to put their checks back in the rack but you can’t keep ’em out when a doctor says ‘In she goes.’
