The Criminal Read online

  “I wanted to ask you, madam,” I said. “Were you out around the job any while the house was being built? Well, did you notice whether any of the plasterers were chewing tobacco?”

  “Why…well, yes,” she said. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Tile is highly absorbent,” I explained. “It has a suction action on anything it comes into contact with. If you happen to have one left over from the job you can prove it to yourself. Put the back of it down in some coffee grounds, say. Before long a brown stain will show through the glaze. Now, I imagine one of the plasterers must have spit into his mortar and…”

  The majority—well, at least a lot—of plasterers do chew tobacco. It’s hard for them to smoke in their line of work, so they chew instead. And the way most women feel about chewing tobacco, and the men who chew it, it was easy for this one to believe that her gripe was against the plastering contractor rather than us.

  She wouldn’t get any satisfaction out of him, of course. No plasterer in his right mind would spit tobacco juice into his mortar, and they aren’t paying crazy men thirty dollars a day. But I’d got her off our backs.

  I hung up the receiver, turning around to look at Henley as he hung up his.

  He grinned and waved his hand at me.

  Early that afternoon, as soon as I got the routine stuff out of the way, I unlocked the private file and took out the drawings—the blueprints—on the new city stadium. We weren’t supposed to have detail drawings, naturally, until the job was put up for bid. But one of the draftsmen in the architect’s office had sneaked us out a set for a hundred and fifty dollars.

  I went over them carefully, like I’d been going over them for the past ten days, trying to figure out a way of using the edge they gave us. Finally, along around quitting time, I found it.

  I carried the drawings in to Henley’s office and spread them out in front of him.

  “I’ve been studying these tunnels,” I said, tracing them out with a pencil. “They’re going to be subjected to unusually heavy wear. I think they ought to have something unusually durable in the way of tile.”

  “Yeah?” He shrugged irritably. “The architect don’t think so. Wouldn’t cut much ice for us if he did.”

  “Unusually durable,” I repeated, giving him a slow wink. “An extra-heavy imported Italian.”

  “Yeah, but…” His eyes widened suddenly, and he let out a grunt. Then he leaned back in his chair, pursing out his lips, “Uh-huh,” he said. “Were you thinking about a certain tile that a certain contractor named Henley got stuck with, that he’s got almost a warehouse full of? Stuff that the government cancelled out on because a lighter tile does the job just as good?”

  “That’s it,” I said. “I was thinking that outside of our supply there probably isn’t a hundred square feet of it in the country.”

  “By George!” He slapped his hand down on the desk. “I doubt like hell that you can get it anywhere. They just don’t make it any more. If we could get that written into the specifications…”

  “I don’t think we can,” I said. “We’d have to work through the building department. Get them to write a proviso into the code to fit the situation. No one could kick about it. It’s an unusual type of building and the code could logically be amended to take care of it.”

  “Yeah, I guess we could get away with it all right. But that building department! It really costs when you buy something from those boys.”

  “What’s the difference?” I said. “If no one else can bid on the job, we can set our own price.”

  “Well, by God!” he said. “We can. Al, this calls for a drink!”

  He made me sit down, and got a bottle out of his desk. We sat there drinking and talking until quitting time.

  “You know, Al,” he said. “You know what I’m going to do if this goes over all right? I’m going to re-tile the bathroom for that woman who called this morning.”

  “I’ll bet she’d appreciate it,” I said.

  “Here’s the way I see it,” he went on. “There’s no percentage in this penny ante stuff, keeping people locked out of the restroom or chiseling someone on a two-by-four residential job. You’re worried and you figure everyone’s out to do you so you do them first. But it does something to you, know what I mean? You lose more than you make.”

  “I guess you’re right about that,” I said.

  “Unlock that damned restroom tomorrow, will you? Throw the key away. Why, good God, Al, what are we coming to when a man has to get permission to go to the toilet? It’s cheap, degrading. A man who would put up with it long isn’t worth having. I don’t know why in the world I ever…”

  He shook his head, pausing to pour us a drink. He looked up at me, and shook his head again.

  “You know what I always liked about you, Al? Character. A man may not have too much of it himself, but he likes to see it in other people. Yes, sir, that was it, Al. Character. The guts to stand up and speak out. I liked that.”

  “Well, thanks very much,” I said. “I guess none of us is everything we should be, but I do the best I can. By the way, I was going to ask if—uh—about that raise…”

  “Character. It’s something you don’t find very often, Al, and when you lose it it’s gone for good. You’re just one more animal in the herd.…Raise?”

  “We were talking about it a while back,” I said. “Putting me up to three-fifty. I don’t want any credit for doing what I’m paid to do—doing my job—but I did think of the angle on this city stadium deal and—”

  “I’m giving you credit for it, Al. Full credit,” he said. “We’ll keep thinking about the raise.”

  It was after five, and everyone but us had left. I let him out of the office, and then I locked up and started home.

  All and all, it had been a good day.

  Pretty good, that is.

  3

  Martha Talbert

  Well, actually! I honestly thought I was going to fly to pieces. The one morning when I simply couldn’t let myself get unnerved.

  I was hoping I could get Al out of the house before Bob came down, and I did everything but shove him out the door. But, no, it was no use. He had to choose that morning to take his time, and Bob had to choose that one to hurry. So they were both at the breakfast table at the same time, and goodness! I can’t tell you what it did to my nerves. It’s bad enough at other meals, but breakfast—honestly! I thought I was going to go crazy. And me in my change of life.

  They seemed to be getting along all right, but I knew it couldn’t last. I knew that, sooner or later, Al would say something sharp to Bob and Bob would say something back, or he wouldn’t say anything which always makes Al worse than when Bob does say something. So I waited for it to happen. I hovered around them, smiling and trying to talk, and generally acting like a Gonmolian idiot or whatever you call them. I wished it would happen so they could just get it over with and I wouldn’t have to wait any more. I actually think sometimes that the waiting is worse than the other.

  Well, they finally finished breakfast, thank goodness, and if they’d taken another five minutes I’d have been in hysterics. Al asked me if I was feeling well when he kissed me good-bye, and Bob said, “Gee, Mom, why don’t you lie down a while.” And I don’t remember what I said, but it was probably something silly. I felt like a balloon, all swelled up and getting bigger and bigger every moment. I thought I was going to explode.

  They went off down the street together, talking just as pleasantly as you please, and I could feel the blood rushing into my face and I felt like I was choking. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. I’ll tell you, if I could have got my hands on those two right then I’d’ve shook ’em until their teeth rattled. I mean, well, here they’d put me through all that strain and then they hadn’t done anything! They’d—they’d—oh, well! What’s the use talking about it?

  I peeked out through the living room drapes, watching them until they were out of sight, and then I just fell down on
the lounge and started bawling. Actually. You’d have thought I’d been killed the way I was bawling. So finally I looked up into the hall mirror and my eyes were all red and my nose looked like a tomato or something, and I stopped crying and began to laugh. And then I felt a lot better.

  I went out into the kitchen and had a cup of coffee. I started to fix myself a bite of breakfast, because I was feeling a little hungry now, and right away I broke a whole dozen eggs.

  I don’t know why Al does things like that. For a man who’s supposed to be smart, and of course he is smart, he can do some of the foolishest things. Now, he knows that I always put the egg carton right on the edge of the top refrigerator shelf. That way, you know, I know it won’t take much for them to fall out, so I watch them to see that they won’t fall out. But what does he do but come along and stick them way back to the rear on the bottom shelf; and naturally I can’t imagine what in the world. I can’t see them anywhere. So I began pulling shelves out, right and left, and oops! there went the eggs. All over the floor.

  I don’t know why Al does those things.

  Fortunately, I’d mopped late the night before, so I scraped the eggs up into a bowl and got the shells out of them. I felt quite well by the time I’d finished. It always makes me feel better to break something, and this solved the dinner problem. We’d just have a nice dish of scrambled eggs.

  I had a piece of toast and some more coffee, and got dressed. I took another look at the letter from Miss Brundage, and then I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. Miss Brundage was Bob’s homeroom teacher, and it seemed to me that if she did her job and minded her own business she wouldn’t have so much time to write letters to parents. Naturally, I didn’t tell Al about the letter. He fusses at Bob enough as it is. And I didn’t say anything to Bob about it. It wasn’t necessary. If a mother doesn’t know her own son, who does? Some teacher, a miss? Someone that’s never had a child in her life?

  Well, of course, she may have had some for all I know. She probably should have had some. These women that go on year after year, staying single and dodging their responsibilities and putting almost everything they make on their backs, well, I’ve got some ideas about them. They may think they’re fooling people, but they don’t fool me.

  I’m not saying she is that way, mind you. I don’t believe in making judgments on people until I know all the facts. But it certainly seems strange.

  Anyway, people that are always so anxious to criticize someone else shouldn’t complain when people criticize them.

  Judge not lest you be judged, I always say.

  Well, I wore my black and green plaid and that yellow short coat and I guess it does make me look like a checker-board inside of a banana skin, but I just couldn’t help it. I imagine I look quite as well as most women my age. As long as you’re clean and neat and respectable, that’s what counts.

  I don’t know why in the world I ever bought the darned things.

  So, finally, I left the house, and I don’t know yet how I made it after everything that had happened to me. But I did though—what a morning!—and of course the first thing I saw was Fay Eddleman out on the walk in front of their place.

  Honestly. I don’t know why she just doesn’t set up a tent out there and live in it. I don’t know how she ever gets her housework done. Why, I’ve watched her all morning or all afternoon sometimes, just to see if she ever did go in. And she never did. She’d just go in to eat or something, and then she’d rush right back out again. I’ve watched her, and I know.

  First the milkman comes by, and he has to stop and talk. And then it’s the bakeryman and the mailman and the garbage man, and, oh, I don’t know what all. Anything that wears pants. And they can’t get away from her. She’ll stand there and she’ll talk and she’ll talk, and I wouldn’t want to say anything definite but I just wish I could read lips sometimes. Anyone that acts like she does, there’s something funny going on.

  If the weather isn’t forty below zero or something, she’ll wear some kind of shorts or slacks, just as tight as she can get ’em. And those sweaters she wears: I think she must have to grease herself to get them on. But whatever she’s wearing, it doesn’t make much difference. She still doesn’t look like she had anything on.

  She knows it, too, and don’t you think she doesn’t! It’s deliberate.

  She’ll stand out there with that reddish brown hair blowing all over her face (naturally, it’s hennaed, the hair I mean) and she’ll look up at someone—a man, of course—with those reddish brown eyes, and she’ll say something and then she’ll wiggle. Giggle and wiggle all over. She’ll pull her chin down into her bosom (and she doesn’t have to pull it very far, believe me) and she’ll roll her eyes up at this man and say something. And then he’ll say something, and she’ll wiggle. Wiggle and giggle. And it actually makes you blush to watch her.

  Well, she waited until I was almost on top of her, and then she acted like she’d just then seen me.

  “Why, Martha!” she said. “Of all things, darling! Where in the world have you been keeping yourself?”

  I pretended like I’d just seen her, too.

  “Goodness!” I said. “Is that really you, Fay? Oh, I’ve just been busy around the house. You know how it is when you have to take care of a family.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Don’t I though!”

  “It doesn’t leave you much time for yourself,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve been out of the house in weeks.”

  “You should get out more, Martha,” she said. “I think it ages a woman to stick in the house all the time.”

  “I suppose it does,” I said, “but if a woman is a woman, why shouldn’t she look like one? I think there’s nothing more ridiculous than to see some middle-aged woman trying to get herself up like a teen-ager.”

  I smiled at her, staring right at the front of that overstuffed sweater and then taking a slow look down at those skintight slacks.

  “That reminds me,” I said, “I’ve simply got to get some new washing powder. The one I’m using just shrinks everything I have.”

  “But, darling!” she said. “You don’t mean you’ve been washing that perfectly adorable dress! And here I thought you’d just put on a little weight.”

  She smiled at me, staring at my dress as though she’d never seen one before.

  I could understand that, naturally. It’d been so long since she wore a dress that she’d forgotten what they looked like.

  “Were you going up to the school?” she said. “I do hope Bob isn’t in trouble again.”

  “Trouble?” I said. “No, that’s the advantage of having a boy. You never have any trouble with them. I’m just walking up to the shopping center for a while.”

  “I’ll bet you’re going to get a permanent,” she said. “Why don’t you wait until it gets cold, Martha? Perhaps your hair will thicken up, then, and it’ll take better.”

  “No, I don’t think I’ll get any more permanents,” I said. “You go in those places and you get the same operators who’ve been dyeing some old bag’s hair, and then they go right to work on you. Like the last time, remember? No, I guess we didn’t go together; you were leaving the shop just as I came in. Anyway, they’d just finished dyeing this woman’s hair, whoever she was, and I got the same operator. And my goodness, Fay! Stink! It took me days to get that awful smell out of my hair.”

  “I suppose it’s all in what you’re used to,” she said. “I remember we had an old Negro woman working for us years ago, so naturally she used a black dye. And do you know, Martha? She couldn’t stand the smell of red—of any other color.”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess I’d better be getting along. It was certainly nice to see you again, Fay.”

  “You haven’t seen anything of Josie, have you?” she said. “She had a sore throat so I let her stay home from school today, and the minute I turn my back she chases off somewhere.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible,” I said. “She’s liable to get pneumonia running
around without any clothes on.”

  “She’s got clothes on”—Fay got a little red in the face. “A kid doesn’t need to be bundled up like an Eskimo on a nice fall day.”

  “Well, I’d be awfully careful with her,” I said. “A person with a large—uh—chest like that, they catch pneumonia very easily.”

  “Why didn’t Bob go to school today?” she said. “I wonder if he could have seen anything of Josie.”

  “Bob did go to school today,” I said. “And I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have seen anything of Josie if he hadn’t gone.”

  “Well, he didn’t pass by here,” she said. “I’m sure I couldn’t have missed him.”

  “He went the other way,” I said, “like he used to. He wanted to walk part way to the train with his father.”

  “Well, I kind of wondered,” she said. “I caught a glimpse of someone down in the canyon a while ago in a blue and white jacket.”

  “There’s lots of blue and white jackets,” I said.

  She shook her head, absently, peering up and down the street.

  “That girl,” she said. “Now, where could she have gone to?”

  I started to give her some ideas on the subject, but, oh, well. When someone’s worried about a child, you just don’t do those things.

  “Maybe she decided to go on to school after all,” I said. “Do you suppose she’d’ve done that, just gone on without saying anything?”

  “Well, now, I’ll bet that’s just what she did,” Fay said, “She must have. And here I’ve been worrying my head off about her.”

  “Why don’t you call the school and make sure?” I said.

  “Oh, I guess I won’t,” she said. “I’m sure she went, the darned crazy kid! She’d be mad if I called there and had them check on her. She’d say, Why, mother, you ought to’ve known, and so on. And she probably wouldn’t speak to me for the next week.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I know exactly what you mean, Fay. You do or say some little thing around Bob—just doing what a parent should do, you know—and he acts like you’re public enemy number one or something.”