He took me down to a small room on the first floor, and there was Sid. The walls and floor of the room were bare, and there was a long table in the middle of the room with three straight chairs along each side. Overhead, slowly revolving, was an old-fashioned ceiling fan that slapped and stirred the hot air into sluggish motion. Sid was standing with her back to a north window, and out in the yard beyond her were the pair of kids in jeans playing mumblety-peg. She was wearing a white sleeveless dress and white ballerina slippers, and she looked brown and sad and somehow younger than she had ever looked to me before. I went over and put my arms around her, and she hung on for a few seconds, and I could hear a little choking sound in her throat, followed by a sniff in her nose.
“God-damn son of a bitch,” she said.
“Who?” I said.
“Nobody. It’s just an old trick. When I want to cry, I curse instead, and it’s very effective. The stronger the cursing, the more effective it is.”
“I’ll have to remember that. I may be able to use it.” I sat down in a chair by the table, and she sat down in one beside me. We held hands.
“What have you been doing?” I said.
“I’ve been trying to run down that bastard Cotton McBride, that’s what I’ve been doing, but he’s never anywhere I go, or at least someone says he isn’t, and it’s perfectly apparent by this time that he’s trying to avoid me.”
“Perhaps it’s just as well.”
“Do you think so? Well, I don’t, not by a damn sight, and he surely can’t avoid me forever, no matter how much he may want to.”
“Have you talked with anyone at all?”
“Only Hector Caldwell. I went to his office after I had temporarily given up finding Cotton McBride. He was so damn full of noble regrets and windy pretensions that I was nearly sick on his carpet, but at least he called here to the jail and said that I was to be allowed to see you and was to be shown every courtesy and consideration, all that, and so here I am, and I have a few things for you in this sack.”
“Thanks very much for bringing them.”
“They’re just a few little things, sugar. A safety razor and some soap and a few paperbacks. Just a few things like that. Harley Murchison looked at them and said it was all right for you to have them.”
“Thanks most of all for bringing yourself.”
“You musn’t thank me for that. It implies that I have done something out of kindness, which isn’t true. It’s only natural, since I love you, for me to come wherever you may be.”
“If you love me, will you do something for me?”
“I’m not sure. Possibly I’ll refuse to do it because I love you. I’m forced to recognize that you’re not always the best judge of what is for your own good. However, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to go home and be good. Let me get out of this the best I can alone.”
“Excuse me, sugar, but I have no confidence whatever that you could get out of it at all without my help.”
“I’ll get out of it, all right. It’s merely a matter of a little time.”
“I simply can’t understand what gives you such assurance. To this point, in spite of my telling you exactly what to do and say in certain situations, you have shown almost no ability for getting out of it. On the contrary, you keep getting deeper and deeper into it. Please tell me why you think things will be any different hereafter.”
“Because this anonymous note isn’t sufficient evidence to base an indictment on, and Hec Caldwell knows it. My arrest on suspicion is just a kind of gesture, that’s all. Maybe Hec and Cotton think they can get more evidence that will support a charge, but they can’t because there isn’t any. Pretty soon, they’ll have to let me go.”
“There. That’s exactly what I mean. What you have just said only confirms my conviction of how irresponsible and reckless you are. It makes my blood run cold to hear you talk. First you exaggerate your own ability to handle matters, which is not supported by events, and now you assume without any earthly reason that Hec Caldwell will suddenly begin to think and behave intelligently. This is clearly impossible, for he doesn’t have the necessary brains, and he is, moreover, under the influence of Cotton McBride in this case, who has even less. No, no, sugar, I’ll not stay out of it, and what I want you to do now, without any further delay, is tell me exactly what was said in the telephone conversation between you and Beth while I was away talking about Zoroaster with Rose Pogue.”
“I’ve already told you what was said.”
“Only generally, however. Not exactly.”
“I can’t remember exactly. As I’ve reported, I’d been drinking gimlets, and my mind wasn’t as sharp as usual.”
“You can remember if you try. It’s well known that almost anything can be remembered, even from early childhood, if one makes proper associations and really concentrates.”
“It sounds like hard work. Why do you want to know what was said exactly?”
“You never know, sugar. Maybe something significant was said to which, because of gin or dullness, you didn’t attach sufficient importance.”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll associate and concentrate if you insist.”
“I do insist. It wasn’t long ago, actually, and shouldn’t be extremely difficult.”
“Well, there I was in the living room. You had gone off in your pale yellow dress to Rose Pogue’s, and I was feeling lonely and scorned. I was drinking a gimlet and wanted to listen to some music, and I considered Haydn, as always, but I decided against him because he seemed a little too damn gay for the occasion,
