about her that always made him think of an Indian, perhaps the quietness and the tall, straight way she stood. She was almost five feet nine and very slender, but she never slouched the way some tall girls did. Her hair was black and very straight, like an Indian’s, and she wore it in a long turned-under bob down on her shoulders. She had very dark brown eyes that looked black at night. He had slept with her a lot of times, mostly when he was hiding out from the police, and always afterward, for a little while, he would remember the funny way she had of lying very close to him, her face near his on the pillow and her eyes wide open, watching him and not saying anything. Her eyes would be very big then, and still, while she lay there just touching him somewhere and looking at him. She was a funny one, all right.
“Hello, Dorothy,” he said. He put his left arm across her shoulders and moved to kiss her, but she drew back slightly.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Ain’t you glad to see me?”
“Let me have your coat,” she said. “I’ll hang it up.
He took it off and the handcuff swung, the polished steel shining in the light. She looked at it once, and then quickly away. She took the coat and went into the bathroom with it to let it drip in the tub.
He sat down on the sofa. There was a package of cigarettes on the little coffee table in front of it, and he picked it up, the handcuff dragging across the wood. “Does it bother you?’” he asked.
She sat down on the bed across from him, with her hands in her lap.
“Don’t pay no attention to it,” he said indifferently, lighting the cigarette. “He was dead anyway, and a hand more or less one way or the other didn’t make no difference to him.”
“I just don’t want to look at it,” she said, her face white. “Do you have to talk about it? What are you going to do now, with the whole state looking for you?”
“Stay here, till some of the heat cools down and I get shut of this thing and get some new clothes. Then I’ll try to get out of the state.” It ain’t going to be easy, he thought.
She saw the long jagged tear in his coat sleeve and the pink-stained tatters of the shirt showing through. “You’ve been hurt.”
“Just cut it on some glass,” he said indifferently. “No use to do anything about it now.”
“But it might get infected,” she said anxiously. “We ought to fix it up.”
“I never get infected.”
“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked.
“Not since yesterday. Day before yesterday now.”
“There’s some ham in the icebox. I’ll fix you something.” She started to get up.
He looked at her. “It can wait. We can have breakfast in the morning. We better go to bed. It’s late.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Yes.” He grinned. “But not that hungry.”
“I’d better fix you something.”
He saw she was determined, and got up and followed her into the kitchen. There was a sink, a small icebox and a two-burner gas stove. He sat down at the table while she got the sliced ham out of the box and made two sandwiches and put them on a plate in front of him. She poured a glass of milk and sat down across from him.
“Who lives in there now?” he asked, nodding his head toward the next apartment. They had to be careful about making too much noise talking.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s vacant. There was a girl there, by herself. I think she was a hustler, because she brought a lot of different men in. About a week ago she brought in some drunk and made a lot of noise and the manager called the police and they took her away.”
After he had finished the sandwiches and milk they went back in the other room. He sat down on the sofa and she went back to the bed and sat there, watching him while he smoked another cigarette. Her eyes still avoided the handcuff.
She was even more silent than usual. The other times she would talk more, and smile now and then, and when she looked at him her eyes would be soft and happy, but now they were dead.
She had taken off her dress and stockings when she came home from work, and had on a blue cotton kimono or dressing gown or something of the sort that came open at the knees when she crossed her legs. She had nice legs, long and very smooth, and he looked at them, remembering the long time he had been in jail. She saw the glance and pulled the kimono together across them, looking, away from him and blushing.
“The first thing I’ll need in the morning is a hack saw,” he said. “And a little vise. I can work on this handcuff during the day while they’re tuning up them damn motorcycles down there. Nobody’ll hear the sawing.” He wasn’t thinking about the handcuff now, though. He was thinking about being in bed with her, remembering the smooth, warm feel of her in the dark and all the eager, responsive passion.
“You remember how the motorcycles used to wake us” up in the mornings?” he went on. “When we slept late and how we would lie there in bed not having to worry about anybody hearing us because they made so much noise?”
She made no reply to that. In a minute she asked, “Where do you get hack saws?”
“In hardware stores. But you can get little ones at the dime store, in the tool department. They break, but you can get spare blades. They ain’t as good as the regular ones, but it’ll be safer that way. Nobody’ll see you carrying it in.”
“And you want a little vise, too?”
“Yes. You may have to get that in a hardware store. Just a small one. The cheapest one they have. One you can clamp onto a table.”
“All right. I’ll get them in the morning.”
“We’d better go to bed now,” he said. To hell with all this stalling around, he thought. All that can wait till tomorrow.
She got up. “You can sleep here on the bed,” she said, as if she had been waiting for and dreading this moment. “I’ll take the sofa.”
He ground out the cigarette in the ash tray and stared at her. “What the hell, sleep on the couch?” he demanded. “Since when? We’ll sleep in the bed. Both of us.”
“No,” she said.
“What do you mean, no? What’s the matter with you?”
She stood and stared back at him as if he were a long way off. “Nothing.”
“Well, where do you get this couch stuff?”
“Do you have to ask so many questions? Can’t you be reasonable about it?”
“Well, of all the silly damn— Oh, it’s that? Just my rotten luck. Of all the times to get here. But, Christ, why didn’t you just say so?”
“No. That’s not it.”
“Well, for God’s sake, what is it?” She had a perfect out, he thought, but she wouldn’t lie about anything. She’s a funny duck, all right. “Have you caught something?
”No,” she said coldly.
“Well, what’s the trouble?”
“I just don’t want to do it.” Her eyes were miserable, but she looked straight at him.
He went around the table and moved to put his arm around her. She backed away from him, the way she had before.
“Come on now, baby.”
“No,” she said. “I mean it, Sewell. No.”
He began to grow angry. “If there’s anything on earth crazier than a damned woman— I ought to clout you one.”
“I suppose you could beat me up. But it would make a lot of noise.”
“Oh, don’t be a damn fool. I’m not going to beat you up.” He sat down on the sofa again. “Pitch me one of those pillows. I’ll sleep here if you’re going to be that pigheaded about it.”
“You’re so big. You ought to take the bed.”
“To hell with the bed.’”
He punched the pillow angrily and stuffed it under his head. His legs stuck out over the armrest on the other end of the sofa.
