101 Mystery Stories

88 Never Trust a Woman Helen Nielsen

A man who is foolish enough to marry a woman named Prudence should know what to expect. A name like that is to a woman what certain names are to a man: she has to live it down. Now a man named Joseph Buckram, Sales Representative, Anderson Electronics, didn’t have to live down a thing except a wife named Prudence, whom he’s been careless enough to acquire on a trip to the coast — that could double as a honeymoon, if the head office never found out.

It was nearly eleven o’clock when they checked into the hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Joe, who’d made the trip enough times to know his way around, took charge of the registration.

“We have a nice double with twin beds, Mr. Buckram.”

“Are you crazy?” Joe said.

After he got that straightened out, he looked around for Prudence, who was shoulder high, built like a tomboy with a few, to be expected, differences, and had large brown eyes that hadn’t missed a thing since she’d first hoisted herself eye-level with the play-pen about nineteen years earlier.

“The Fandango Room — gathering place of the stars,” she said, quoting the wishful thinking from a sign directing guests to the bar and grill. “Joe, do you suppose—?”

Back in Kingman, Arizona, where Joe had found Prudence on the working side of a counter that served coconut cream pies like mother used to make before she got a television set, girls were apt to make a ta-do about celebrities. Joe was an understanding guy, but this was their wedding night.

“Propaganda,” he said. “Movie stars couldn’t eat in this hotel. It’s too expensive.”

“Is it too expensive for us?”

She gave Joe those big eyes and his hat shrank at the temples.

“Tonight nothing is too expensive for us,” he said with expression, “absolutely nothing!”

Which was the kind of reckless talk that got them joined in holy matrimony, in the first place.

They could have had room service, though Joe wasn’t hungry. They’d already had dinner in a cozy little place on the highway, where nobody tortured jazz out of an organ as it was now being done in the Fandango Room. And the smoke hadn’t been so thick that he had to squint, as he was not doing to make sure it really was Prudence across the table in that upholstered booth. But it had to be Prudence; only the petite ones ate so much. When she tore into her steak, it occurred to him that if he ever married again it would be to some diet-conscious matron who never ate anything more expensive than water-cress. Then he found Prudence’s hand through the smoke — the one that didn’t have a fork in it — and was glad she wasn’t matronly, even if he’d have to ask the boss for a raise.

Prudence peered at the shadowy figures around the bar.

“I wonder if Errol Flynn is bald on top,” she mused.

“It’s getting late,” Joe said. “I’ve got a nine-o’clock appointment with Aero-Dynamics.”

“No, that isn’t him after all. Or is it he? I never remember.”

“It’s a hot night,” Joe said. “Nobody important goes any place on a hot night. They stay home in their swimming pools.”

But Prudence went on peering.

“There’s a woman in that booth across the aisle who looks a little like— No, she’s too old and too fat. Now, that’s strange. Why do you suppose she’s crying?”

“She’s probably wants to go upstairs and turn in for the night,” Joe said.

“Joe, be serious!.. It’s that man with her. He’s making her cry. I don’t like him at all. He’s wearing a flashy suit, and he’s got a sneaky face and a moustache.”

“Men have hung for less,” Joe said.

It was impolite to stare at people, especially at bars, but nothing would do but that he look where Prudence was looking. He finally located what held her attention — a woman, not old and fat, but thirtyish and well developed — and a glutton for punishment to be wearing a fur coat on such a warm night. With her, a man in a flashy suit who had a sneaky face and a moustache. The woman dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief while the man pleaded with her across the table. It was impossible to hear what he was saying, for the organ had just broken into what sounded like a rock and roll arrangement of The Old Rugged Cross.

“Don’t worry about it,” Joe said. “It’s their anniversary and he’s asked the organist to play their song.”

“It’s not that kind of crying,” Prudence argued. “I think she’s afraid of him.”

Joe looked again.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s not that kind of crying. It’s the ‘one drink too many,’ or ‘I’ve had such a hard life’ kind of crying, and she’s too far gone to be afraid of anything.”

“Maybe that’s his scheme. Maybe that’s why he’s forcing drinks on her.”

It was like forcing taxes on the government. The woman clutched her glass as if it were lifeboat in a stormy sea. For a moment, it required her complete and undivided attention.

“Look,” Prudence cried. “Look at him now!”

The organ struck an exuberant passage that covered her outburst, but not before Joe involuntarily obeyed. What the man was doing was taking a quick, furtive peek at the contents of the purse his thirsty companion had left open on the table.

“That only proves it’s their anniversary,” Joe said. “When we’ve been married that long I’ll probably have to hit you for enough to pay the check.”

He said it tenderly, hoping to remind her of the vows they’d exchanged before a Justice of Peace a little after dawn.

“He’s a thief!” Prudence insisted. “And they can’t be married. They don’t match.”

It was as stupid an observation as Joe had heard, but he hadn’t married Prudence for her brains. He tried to signal the waiter to get his check before she took such an interest in any of the other customers, and that was just when the lady with the big thirst suddenly took affront at what was being confided to her across the table.

“You called me a tramp!” she shrieked. “How dare you call me a tramp?”

The organist had run out of music. So this lady’s outburst had an instant audience of every ear in the room.

“I won’t sit with you when you talk to me that way!.. And you can take your lousy coat back!”

“That’s an awfully careless way to treat mink,” Prudence observed.

It was rather careless, the way she peeled off the coat and draped it over the man’s head, but that wasn’t what made Joe uneasy. In the smoky darkness, he couldn’t tell a mink from a French poodle. Maybe Kingman, Arizona, wasn’t as remote as he’d imagined. That thought and all its # disturbing implications upset him so much he almost missed the next round. Obviously, the man with the coat on his head wouldn’t take it lying down. He was already on his way to the bar where his lady friend was beginning to free-lance.

“You called me a tramp—” she whined.

He wrapped the coat around her shoulders and whispered in her ear. It must have been mink. She didn’t whine long. A few minutes later, she was staggering off to the powder room to replace her face, and the man, looking pleased with the world, was calling for his check.

Joe also looked pleased with the world.

“So you’ve seen a real night-life drama,” he remarked, “complete with happy ending. Now we can go—”

Joe watched Prudence march off to the powder room, and now he wasn’t pleased with the world at all. She’d never been so difficult before. Maybe it was the city that upset her — the lights and the noise and that lobby swarming with strangers. Prudence had never spent a night in a hotel before. And then Joe saw the light. She was nervous — the poor kid was nervous! The thought pleased him. He began to feel very proud and tolerant. No wonder she was making such a fuss over nothing. No girl wants to admit she’s nervous when she’s married a man of the world. Smiling over the thought, Joe lit a cigarette. After all, how did he want her to be — brazen, like on those ladies of the evening hovering around the bar?

The waiter brought the check and Joe signed with a flourish. Still smiling, he lit a cigarette. The waiter looked at him strangely and went away. Then the lady with the reclaimed mink emerged from the powder room and went out with her sneaky faced friend. She wasn’t in condition to see much of anything, but he looked at Joe strangely they passed. Seconds later, Prudence returned, she looked at him strangely, too.

“Joe, why are you smoking two cigarettes?”

Joe coughed out both cigarettes and ground them into the ash tray.

“Have they gone?” Prudence asked. “She was awfully sick in there.”

“And you nursed her, I suppose.”

“I didn’t go near her, but I could hear. She’s still careless, too. She dropped her mink coat on the floor and left her purse lying open on the make-up table. Her name is Leona Muller.”

“I thought you didn’t go near her.” And then Joe had a horrible thought. “You didn’t—”

“It was just lying there open. The catch wasn’t caught.”

“But ransacking another woman’s purse!”

“I didn’t ransack anything. I just found the identification card and wrote it down for the police.” Prudence had a small piece of pink paper in her hand. She held it under the table lamp and began to read: “Leona Muller, 1221—”

“The police?” Joe echoed.

“In case something terrible happens. I have a feeling, Joe. There’s something wrong. That expensive mink coat and a shabby old purse— They don’t match.”

“So she likes to economize!”

“And I don’t think she should go off with that man tonight. I don’t trust him.”

“Look, honey,” Joe said. “I’m an understanding guy, but this has gone far enough. I’m your husband and I order you to forget Leona Muller, her mink coat, and all of this silly business once and for all. We’re getting out of here right now!”

Gently, but masterfully, he grabbed her wrist. It was the wrist of the hand that clutched the small slip of pink paper. He looked closely at the slip of pink paper. It had perforated edges.

“Prudence—”

Joe tried to hide the tremor in his voice.

“Just one question. Where did you get this paper to write the name and address on?”

Prudence looked at him unblinkingly.

“I looked in my purse, but I didn’t have anything to write on. Only a pen—”

“So you took this slip of paper from Leona Muller’s purse?”

“It’s just a little piece.”

It was just a little piece, until Joe took it from her hand and unfolded it. Pink, perforated edges— Yes, it had to be. Joe sat down again and buried his face in his hands. The little piece of pink paper was a check made out to Leona Muller for the sum of $28,000.

When a man has married a woman who steals $28,000 on her wedding night, he must take drastic action. Joe sat with his head in his hands for fifteen seconds. Then he stood up.

“Come on,” he ordered.

“Are you going to call the police?” Prudence asked.

“Not unless you want to postpose our honeymoon for about ten years. Those two went out of the street door. They must have a car in the parking lot.”

“But Joe—”

“And when we catch them, I do the talking understand? You found that check on the powder room floor — understand?”

“But Joe—”

Joe wasn’t the top west coast representative of Anderson Electronics just so he could argue with a five foot brunette who couldn’t keep her hands out of another woman’s purse. He was practically dragging her behind him when they reached the street. The man and the woman had a start of several minutes on them, but with the woman in such a fluid state, they couldn’t move very fast. The hotel parking lot was just around the corner of the building. The lights were burning brightly. About halfway down the center row of cars, a man in a plaid suit was trying to pour his female companion into the front seat of a light green midget sedan. At first Joe wasn’t sure—

“You called me a tramp! I haven’t forgotten you called me at tramp!”

Joe was sure then. He ran forward.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Hey — you!”

“Joe, be careful!” Prudence cried.

This was the one time she lived up to her name. The man had his mind on what he was doing — and both hands, until Joe came on the scene. He didn’t seem to appreciate interference.

“Who asked you to butt in?” he demanded. “Can’t a man have a fight with his wife, without a buttinsky butts in?”

“I’m not butting in,” Joe said. “I’ve got something for you—”

“And I’ve got something for you!”

Joe didn’t even have time to duck — much less explain. Sneaky face was in a terrible hurry. A fist had shot out of nowhere, a car door slammed, and above the plaintive wail — “You called me a tramp—” the midget motor sputtered alive, when Prudence reached him, Joe was seated in the middle of the asphalt drive and the little sedan was nosing its way toward the exit of the parking lot.

Joe muttered in an ancient tongue, native to boot camps and locker rooms.

“I told you not to trust that man,” Prudence said.

Joe looked up at Prudence and, for one ghastly instant, he had a wild desire to slug her.

Never could Joe have done what he did then, if he hadn’t been so angry. Nobody, but an exceedingly angry man, could pull a car out of a lot that fast, miss tearing off anybody’s fenders, ignore the protests of a bewildered brunette clinging to the edge of the seat, and make it to the street just as the little sedan was pulling away from the boulevard stop at the corner.

“Keep your eye on him!” Joe ordered. “Don’t let him out your sight!”

“Joe, are you hurt?”

“A guy tries to do a guy a favor! A maniac like that shouldn’t run loose!”

“Joe, the light—”

Joe didn’t have times for lights. The only red he could see was in his own eyes, and the boulevard was nearly empty at this hour anyway. Up ahead, the tail-lights of the little sedan were bobbing over the pavement like a pair of skipping fireflies. Joe ground his foot against the gas pedal and the fireflies were a lot nearer.

“That motorized kiddy-car! I’ll run it clear up on the sidewalk! I’ll put it in the trash can!”

“Joe, there’s another light — I mean, there was another light!”

It was a fine time for Prudence to be getting cautious. This was all her fault anyway. Joe hadn’t forgotten that for a minute.

“Damn the lights!” he said. “I’ve got to get that idiot before he reaches the Freeway.”

“But the police—”

“I told you, I don’t want the police. I’m going to give Leona her $28,000 if I have to stuff it down her husband’s throat!”

“I still say they aren’t married,” Prudence said.

Prudence didn’t say any more. She never had a chance. By this time they had come alongside the little sedan, and Joe wasn’t kidding about running it up the curb. He veered his car toward the midget; the midget veered toward the sidewalk. The man with the sneaky face yelled something out of the window and Joe yelled something back; and then, as Joe swung toward the little car again, it leaped the curbing, shuddered, and came to a stop in the doorway of a florist’s shop.

The driver’s door was open by the time Joe reached the sidewalk.

“You stay away from me!” the man yelled. “Stay away or I’ll let you have it!”

Joe heard the words, but they didn’t register. As far as he was concerned, he’d already had it. He had to slug somebody, and Prudence was too small. The man backed toward the shop window, one hand stuck out in front of him. The lights from the little car glinted off the object in his hand, but Joe was too far gone for caution. His fists began to whirl in front of him like a pair of crazy propellers. The gun clattered to the sidewalk as useless as a toy. Somebody screamed. There was a loud thudding sound, and the window shattered as if it had been struck by a heavy body — because it had been.

When the glass stopped tinkling, there was a moment of awful silence; then brakes screeched and a blinding light stabbed through the darkness. Joe whirled about, blinking.

“The police—” he gasped.

Prudence picked her way toward him across the broken glass.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you in the car,” she said, “when you ran the lights—”

Joe didn’t say anything. He groaned.

It was nearly two o’clock when they got back to the hotel. The police were very understanding after Prudence explained everything. That was after they’d pulled the sneaky faced man out of the potted Camelias and throttled Leona Muller’s wails when they took away her mink coat.

“Tha’s my wedding present! We’re goin’ to Las Vegas to get married, an’ tha’s my wedding present!”

“You see!” Prudence said. “I knew they weren’t married.”

And then the policeman who was in charge of the sneaky faced man turned his flashlight on his sneaky face and said, “Well, if it isn’t Duke McGinnis! Getting married again, Duke? Where did you steal the bait this time? And how much is the lady’s dowry?”

“$28,000,” Prudence said. “My husband has the check which I found in the powder room and we were only trying to return—”

“My house money!” Leona Muller exclaimed. “Tha’s my house money!”

It was very confusing for awhile, especially after Leona finally realized that McGinnis had given her a hot mink and was only trying to marry her for the $28,000 check she’d just received for the sale of her old, run-down bungalow at the edge of Beverly Hills. It all had to be straightened out at the police station with the owner of the florist shop bawling about his broken window and uprooted Camelias, and the police looking at Joe and shaking their heads.

“Your husband is an excitable man, Mrs. Buckram,” the desk sergeant said.

“He’s really very sweet, but tonight he’s a little nervous. You see, we were only married this morning.”

After that the police were very understanding.

Back in the hotel — in their own room at last — Joe had a few words to say.

“I’m not angry any more,” he said. “I’m willing to forget the whole thing and never mention it again. I won’t even ask if you knew that piece of pink paper was a check when you lifted it from the purse.”

“No woman should carry anything that valuable around with her when she’s out with a man who’s deliberately trying to get her drunk,” Prudence said.

“I won’t,” Joe added, “even ask if you knew that mink was stolen—”

“It didn’t have any labels in it,” Prudence explained. “I looked when I was in the powder room. If I had a real mink coat I’d have the furrier’s label and my name embroidered in gold.”

“—stolen,” Joe repeated, “and given to Leona to lure her into a phoney marriage long enough for McGinnis to get her check cashed—”

“Imagine a flashy looking man like Mr. McGinnis going for a fat old woman like Leona Muller. They don’t match!”

“Like the mink coat and the cheap handbag?”

“Exactly the handbag McGinnis couldn’t keep his hands off because all he was really interested in the check tucked away inside. Joe—”

Prudence didn’t have $28,000, but Joe had her in his arms. And he didn’t want to hear any more explanations, or to be told how brave he was for knocking an armed man into the Camelias even if he had been too angry to recognize that it was a gun McGinnis had stuck in front of him, or to engage in any kind of conversation at all — because it was two o’clock in the morning, and he had an early appointment at Aero-Dynamics, and some people did match — perfectly.

Joe, finally, made this all clear to Prudence. And they were just getting cozy when a shrill, female voice drifted up from the parking lot below.

“You called me a bar-fly! You take your hands off me! You called me a bar-fly!”

Prudence raised up.

“Joe... listen!”

Joe was on his feet in an instant. He made it to the window in one leap and slammed down the sash.

“But, Joe, it’ll get warm in here—”

Joe came back toward Prudence with a determined glint in his eye.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said.