force and we'd open a big-time agency on the strength of all the publicity I got. He slipped me the pitch the day after the case was over, when for the first time in my life I was cut and badly bruised, felt sort of beaten up. So I told him I was sticking to fixing cars and skip-tracing and if he ever pushed another criminal case my way, I'd break his neck, or maybe hurt him worse by ripping one of his fancy suits to pieces. The hell with this rough stuff.
P.S.
“Will we get married? I don't know. I don't think so. Now wait, don't stiffen up like that. Honey, you've lived too much by the so-called rules of life—but the phony rules, not the real ones. I mean, are you even sure you really want to marry me? Don't give me a quick answer—remember what you've been through. You got married; therefore according to the rules of soap operas, books, TV, and the movies, all your troubles were over, because people who get married are supposed to live happily ever after.
“Now that you're single again, the idea is to get married as quickly as possible, for deep down you still believe marriage must mean happiness. And I'm the first guy that came along, and also you feel sorry for me because I seem to be such a noble creature raising my little girl all by myself.
“No, Betsy, don't get me wrong. I'm trying to tell you this as calmly and clearly as I can, and that isn't easy. I don't want us to make a mistake, because the way I see it, a wrong marriage is about the biggest mistake two people can make. I know, I'm not an old man, but I am settled and not ready to go through growing up all over again. Baby, you're young and full of a lot of corny, and even younger ideas. Well—I can be dead wrong about all this, and I'd be eager to get a license tomorrow if I was sure it would bring us happiness. But this is marriage you want, not my bringing up another kid.
“Wait up, honey, let me finish. Maybe in time we'll know we're really meant for each other, trite as that sounds. Understand, I'm not running you down. I admire your courage in going through with this, insisting upon learning if Ed was a suicide and if you were responsible. In a way that was another of your phony rules, but most people would have taken the easy out, kept quiet, forced the suicide angle from their minds. Took guts to do what you did. No, 'guts' is one of the phony words. It took sincere courage and honesty to do what you did, and I admire that.
“And that's what I'm trying to do, be honest with you—and myself. As of now, I like you and you like me. Only 'like' isn't love. I don't even want to use the word love, because I don't exactly know what that is—maybe another of the phony labels we use. But at least you know—we know—that something was twisted in Ed's mind. That's another of your rules that don't work—a man and a woman don't hit it off just because they are a man and a woman. A ...”
Betsy was listening with her eyes closed and now sat up in bed and said almost sharply, “All right, Barney, but please, let's not argue about that now. May Weiss will be furious if you're not home by midnight.”
