The Kill-Off

could buy her dinner some place and we could have a nice visit, since she was alone, too, and maybe I could help her buy a new dress because a drunk had spilt some beer on this one, and-

She was really a nice girl. She told me so herself. She was just doing this (temporarily, of course!) because her mother was awfully sick-a sick mother, no less!-and she had a couple of younger brothers to support, and her father was dead and crops had been awfully bad on this farm she came from. And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. The only thing she spared me was the fine-old-Southern-family routine. If she'd pulled that I think I would have killed her.

I took a couple of twenties out of my wallet and riffled them.

She simpered around a little more, and then she went back to my hotel with me.

I looked at her, and suddenly I turned and ducked into the bathroom. I hunched over, hugging my stomach, feeling my guts twist and knot themselves, wanting to scream with the pain. I puked, and wept silently. And it was better, then. I washed my face, and went back into the bedroom.

I told her to get her clothes on. I told her what I could and would do for her.

All the clothes she'd need; good clothes. A year's contract at two hundred dollars a week. Yes, two hundred dollars a week. And a chance to make something of herself, a chance eventually to make two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand. More than a chance, an absolute certainty. Because I would make something of her; I would not let her fail.

She believed me. People usually do believe me if I care to make the effort. Still, she hung back, apparently too shocked by the break I was offering her to immediately accept it. I gave her twenty dollars, promised her another twenty to meet me at the club in the morning. She did so- we had the place to ourselves except for the cleaning people-and I gave her a sample of what I could do for her.

A good sample, because I wanted her firmly hooked. With what I had in mind, the two hundred a week might not be enough to hold her. That invalid mother and two brothers et cetera, notwithstanding. I wanted to give her a glimpse of the mint, boost her high enough up the wall so that even a whoring moron such as she could see it.

And I did.

I worked with her a couple hours. At the end of that time, she was no longer terrible, but merely bad. Which to her, of course, seemed nothing less than wonderful.

She was beaming and bubbling, and the sun seemed to have risen behind her eyes.

'I can hardly believe it!' she said. 'It seems kind of like magic-like a beautiful dream!'

'The dream will get better,' I said. 'It will come true. Assuming, that is, that you want to accept my offer.'

'Oh, I do! You know I do,' she said. 'I don't know how to thank you, Mr. McGuire.'

I told her not to bother; she didn't owe me any thanks. We went back to my room, and I closed and locked the door.

She seemed to crumple a little, grow smaller, and the sun went out of her eyes. She stammered, that she wouldn't do it, then that she didn't want to. Finally, as I waited, she asked if she had to.

'I've never done anything like that before. Honestly, I haven't, Mr. McGuire! Only once, anyway, and it wasn't for money. I was in love with him, this boy back in my home town, and we were supposed to be married. And then he went away, and I thought I was pregnant so I left, and-'

'Never mind,' I said. 'If you don't want to…'

'And it'll be all right?' She looked at me anxiously. 'You'll still-s-still-?'

I didn't say anything.

'W-Will it? Will it, Mr. McGuire? Please, please! If you only knew…'

If I only knew, believed, that she was really a good girl. If I only knew how much she wanted to sing, how much this meant to her. You know.

I shrugged, remained silent. But inside I was praying. And what I was praying was that she would tell me to go to hell. I could have got down and kissed her feet for that, if she had insisted on being what the good Lord had meant her to be or being nothing; keeping the music undefiled or keeping it silent where it was. If only it had meant that much to her, as much as it meant to me-

And it didn't. It never means as much, even a fraction as much, as it means to me. Not to Janie. Not to anyone.

No one cares about the music.

Except for me it would vanish, and there would be no more.

Slowly, she unbuttoned her dress. Slowly, she pulled it down off one shoulder. I stared at her grinning-wanting to yell and wanting to weep. And blackness swam up on me from the floor, dropped down over me from above.

I came out of it.

She was kneeling in front of me. My head was against her, and she was wet with my tears. And she was crying, and holding me.

'Mister McGuire… W-what's the matter, M-Mist- Oh, darling, baby, honey-lamb! What can I-'

She brushed her lips against my forehead, stroked my hair, whispering:

'Better now, sweetheart? Is Danny's dearest honey-pie bet-'

'You rotten, low-down little whore,' I said.

Pete Pavlov was waiting at the station when we came in late Thursday night. The boys and Danny went on down to their cottages, and I went to his office with him.

I like Pete. I like his bluntness, his going straight to the point of a matter. There is no compromise about him. He knows what he wants and he will take nothing else, and whether it suits anyone else makes not the damnedest bit of difference to him.

He did not ask about Janie, nor the why of the new band. That was my business, and Pete minds his own business. He simply poured us a couple whopping drinks, tossed me a cigar and asked me if I knew where he could lay his hands on a fast ten or twenty thousand.

I said I wished I did. He shrugged and said he didn't really suppose I would, and just to forget he'd said anything. Then he said, 'Excuse me, Mac'-Pete has always called me Mac-'Know I didn't need to tell you to keep quiet.'

'That's okay,' I said. 'Things pretty bad, Pete?'

He said they were goddamned bad. So bad that he'd fire his hotels if he could collect on them. 'Those goddamned insurance companies,' he said. 'Y'know, I figure that's why so many people get burned to death. Because the companies won't pay off on empty buildings. Guess I should have fired mine while they were open, but I kind of hated to take a chance on roasting someone.'

I laughed, and shook my head. I hardly knew what to say. I knew what I should say, but I wasn't quite up to saying it, hard-pressed as I was.

He went on to explain his situation. He'd never borrowed any money locally. He'd always done business on a cash basis. Then, when things began to tighten up, he'd gone to some New York factors; and now the interest was murdering him.

'No usury laws when it comes to business loans, y'know. Did you know that? Well, that's the way she stands. I don't get up ten, twenty thousand, I'm just about going to be wiped out.' He took a chew of tobacco, grunted sardonically. 'Own damned fault, I guess. Too goddamned stubborn. Should have unloaded when things first started slipping.'

'You couldn't have done it, Pete,' I said. 'If you knew how to give up, you'd never have got to where you are.'

He said he guessed that was so. Guessed he didn't know how to lay down, and didn't want to learn.

'Pete,' I said. 'Look. Your contract is with the agency, and I can't cut the price. But I can rebate on it.'

'Hell with you,' he said. 'You ugly, ornery over-grown, bastard.'