on her face. I tried to think of something to say, some small words of comfort. I couldn’t.
She sat on the bed again, her legs spread beneath the slip, her shoulders rounded. “He hated prison,” she said, as if remembering every thing about him was important. “He nearly went crazy those eight months in the reformatory. He said he’d never go back. Never. He used to talk when he was staying with me. He’d sit and talk about what he was going to do. He wasn’t full of crap any more about being a big man, about the jobs he would pull. He was almost humble, wanting to find a good job and stick with it, become useful. He used to get that scared look every time he thought about the reformatory. Not just ordinary scared. When Mr. Smithell heard about him from the parole board, I thought that—well, that it would be okay.”
She got up and went to the dresser and picked up her comb. She pulled it through the thick mane of hair, combing it down over her eyes.
“Maybe what happened was best,” I said. “His lawyer was working for him, Stella. But he couldn’t have done much better for Jimmy than a life term.”
She whipped the comb from her hair and flung it at me. I was startled by the cold fury in her eyes. She stood spraddle-legged with her breasts outthrust, fists hard near her thighs.
“No!” she yelled. “It wasn’t for the best because Jimmy didn’t do it! He wasn’t any more guilty than I am and he’d be free right now instead of dead if it wasn’t for that dirty Gulliver!”
I took her by the shoulders. “Stella, Jimmy confessed. He confessed because he was guilty and he knew it and you know it.”
“Confession,” she said, as if she were going to spit. Her voice trembled. “I know all about confessions like that. The last time I visited Jimmy he could hardly move or talk to me. He kept getting his words mixed up. You think I’m simple? I know what goes on in the basement uptown. I’ve seen others who came out of there. Jimmy confessed because he didn’t have any choice. Gulliver beat him to a pulp.”
“Shut up,” I said, my teeth together. “Shut up, unless you can prove it!” I could feel the deep pressure of unreasoning anger rising against her and I knew I was hurting her as she twisted under my hands.
“Why don’t you tell me it’s not true?”
I glared at her.
“Because you can’t,” she almost yelled. “Because Gulliver did beat him. Jimmy was just a kid who couldn’t fight back. Gulliver needed a sucker and he picked on Jimmy and now Jimmy’s dead!”
I released her, turned up the radio, then kicked the door shut, trying to control my rage. “Jimmy cleaned out Smithell’s jewelry box, stripped his wallet and took his watch,” I said monotonously. “Then he ran for it. That doesn’t sound very innocent to me.”
“You know why he ran,” she cried, fresh tears in her eyes. “He came home from the picture show and Smithell was dead on the floor and he knew you lousy cops would try to pin it on him.”
I stood very close to her. “Now you said it. Why don’t you finish? I’m one of those lousy cops. I suppose you think I hit the kid too. I suppose you think I beat on him when Gulliver was tired. Is that what you think?”
“Maybe you did! If he was so guilty you didn’t have to beat him to find out!” she sobbed. She stepped back and hit me hard in the face with her open palm. It really rocked me. Her eyes brimmed. She hit me again, almost swinging from the heels, then staggered to the bed, fell across it.
“Ah, Bill,” she said. “Ah, Bill, he was such a sweet little kid. If you knew him like I did . . .”
I rubbed my face gently where she had hit me. I went to her and sat beside her and put my arm across her shoulders.
After a while she sat up on the bed, put her arms around her knees. She looked at me uncertainly. “Are you angry?”
“Little idiot,” I said.
“I was so hurt,” she said. “It’s always been like that, when I’m hurt.”
“I know. You had to hit something.”
“Bill, you wouldn’t lie to me.”
“About what?”
“Did Gulliver hit him?”
“Is it important now?”
“Yes,” she said, “it is. I know Jimmy’s dead, and nothing can change that. But I want to know why he died.”
I seized one of her hands and held it. “You’ve got to remember how it must have been with him, Stella. You believed in him. He knew how disappointed you were. Maybe he couldn’t take that.”
“Yes, I guess so,” she said remotely. I wondered how much Jimmy had talked to her. A silence gathered between us, a silence I didn’t like. Then she said softly, “Did he? Gulliver?”
“For Christ’s sake,” I said. Then I said, “Yes, I suppose he did. Gulliver is a tough violent man, Stella. He’s been a cop all his life. Sometimes he gets fed up with all the dirty people. Sometimes he loses his temper and hits a man in custody.”
“Were you with him when he was questioning Jimmy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him hit Jimmy?”
I didn’t like the calm way she was speaking, and I didn’t like being forced into a lie, into an expression of loyalty for Gulliver I didn’t feel.
“No,” I said, thinking of the movement of Gulliver’s stocky body, the hands going out, the hard splatting sounds as his palms rocked Jimmy’s head.
Come on, Jimmy, I got enough right now to turn you over to the county attorney, but I want to make good and sure. Tell me you killed him.
No. No. No. No. No.
Where did you get that thirty bucks, Jimmy?
He gave it to me—to buy a suit.
I guess you wanted more. I guess that’s it, isn’t it Jimmy?
“No,” I said. “I didn’t see him hit Jimmy.”
She propped herself on one elbow and looked at me. “Bill,” she said earnestly, “do you honestly believe Jimmy was guilty?”
I looked at her for a long time. “Yes,” I said quietly. “Yes, Stella. I think Jimmy killed him.”
Her eyes closed and she settled back against the pillow. “Bill,” she said, “I’d like to be alone now.”
I touched her leg but she didn’t respond. I got off the bed and lit a cigarette. She didn’t move or look at me.
“When will I see you again?”
“I don’t know, Bill,” she said, as if it didn’t matter at all, had never mattered. “I don’t know.”
I left her then, beginning to feel
