A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Pick Up the Pieces

The assistant manager, who had come up in person, opened the door and stood aside to let Mr. Smith see the room he had just bought. “This has two exposures, cross-ventilation, circulating ice-water; you can’t hear a pin drop this high up,” he babbled. “I think you’ll like it. You going to be with us long, Mr. Smith?” He ground his hands together expectantly.

Mr. Smith came in after him carrying a small satchel. He showed no interest whatever in the advantages just pointed out to him, in fact did not even look about him. He put the small satchel down.

“Just for tonight,” he said briefly. “It’ll do. My wife’ll be up in about half an hour.”

The assistant manager’s face fell a little.

“Oh, just overnight?” he said disappointedly. “In that case I’m afraid the rate will be a little higher—”

“That’s immaterial,” said Mr. Smith impatiently. “Put me down for whatever you think it’s worth.” He rested one hand on the door as though waiting for the man to go.

The manager’s face had brightened again. “Yes, Mr. Smith. Hope you’ll be comfortable, Mr. Smith.” He pointed toward an outlet in the wall with a cord dangling from it. “There’s a three-station radio there, to help you pass the time.”

“I’m not in the mood for music,” said Mr. Smith tartly.

The assistant manager left the room backwards and closed the door after him. Mr. Smith promptly went over to his satchel, unlatched it, and took out a pair of pajamas, a bathrobe, bedroom slippers, and a toothbrush in a holder. The satchel, empty, he kicked under the bed. He opened the door, glanced at the number on the outside of it, and closed it again. Then he went over to the phone and put through a call. While he was waiting, he opened a flat hammered-silver case and took out a cigarette. The initial on the case was not S, any more than was the monogram on the pajamas and robe. Mr. Smith evidently spelled his name different from most people.

“Hello, this the agency?” he asked. “This is Walters. You can send the young lady over whenever you’re ready. I’m in room fourteen-ten... What?... Oh, Smith, of course. I wasn’t in the mood to pick a fancy name.” He hung up.

Mr. Smith’s statement to the manager about his wife’s arrival proved accurate. Mr. Smith evidently had that rarest of all things, a wife who didn’t keep him waiting. Her knock sounded on the door half an hour after he had checked in, almost to the very minute. He had meanwhile discarded his coat, vest and necktie, unbuttoned his shirt at the throat, and put on the robe over it. The pajamas he left neatly folded on the bed beside a corner of the turned-down covers. Mr. Smith said “Come in” and the door opened. Mrs. Smith entered the room.

She was blonde, blue-eyed and almost twenty-two — a good five years younger than her husband. Her swagger black-and-white checked coat was tightly belted around the waist, and in one hand she carried the feminine counterpart to his own satchel, a patent-leather overnight-case. The Smiths traveled light, it seemed.

“Good evening,” she said formally, and closed the door behind her.

“How do you do?” her husband answered with equal formality. “Make yourself at home.”

She had gone ahead, however, without waiting for his permission. She placed the overnight-case on the opposite side of the bed from his pajamas and began to unpack it. From it she took a cobwebby negligee, frilly pajamas, mules with pompons, a nail file, and no less than five magazines of the motion-picture type, plentifully illustrated. She wasn’t, evidently, counting on his being very good company while they were in the room together.

“Those your own things?” he asked with a faint flicker of curiosity. “Or do they lend them to you?”

“Oh, we’re supposed to supply our own,” she answered matter-of-factly, slinging the lingerie over her arm. “But if you take care of them like I do mine, they last a long time. I don’t wear them at home; you see, that saves them.” She went toward the bathroom. “I’ll change in here,” she said, and closed the door after her.

When she came out again, she looked attractive enough to wreck anybody’s home. The bare room had become suddenly intimate, cozy, with this vision in peach-color chiffon shuffling across it, hanging up her dress and coat in the closet, sinking comfortably into a chair, and fluttering the pages of a magazine, one leg crossed over the other. She reached for a cigarette without taking her eyes off what she was looking at. Mr. Smith extended his case toward her, but she was already lighting one of her own.

“Thanks just the same,” she said. “I always bring a pack with me — some of ’em smoke cigars.” She looked up. “I would like to use the phone though. Do you mind?”

“Help yourself.” Mr. Smith waved his hand generously.

She got up, went over to it, and asked for a number with a Washington Heights exchange. “They sent me out in such a hurry,” she apologized. “I didn’t have time to make this call before I left. Trouble is they charge ten cents in a place like this—”

“Forget it,” Mr. Smith condoned.

Someone got on the line and she called eagerly: “Oh, hello, is that you, Mrs. Conway? Yeah, this is me... Listen: I’ll be working late again tonight; will you see that Mickey drinks his Ovaltine before he goes to bed?... I left it on the stove already mixed. Thanks, will you?” She hung up and found Mr. Smith’s eyes fastened upon her curiously. “My little boy,” she explained. He sat up a little in his chair. “Sure,” she insisted, smiling fondly but not at Mr. Smith. “Don’t you believe I have a little boy? Three years old. One of the neighbors looks after him when I’m out on a case.”

The bigamous Mr. Smith cleared his throat tactfully. “Your husband — er — living?”

She showed no emotion whatever. “He took a powder,” she said flatly. She returned to her chair and they sat facing one another from opposite sides of the room.

“Care for a drink?” he asked.

She shook her head firmly. “I never drink while I’m working.” She looked around thoughtfully. “But you ought to have a bottle in the room for atmosphere; most of them do. They might flash pictures or something.”

“Oh, Lord no!” he said. “Nothing like that. Everything’s under control.”

She shrugged. “It wouldn’t make any difference to me whether they did or not. They always give me time to cover my face with a handkerchief or something anyway. It wouldn’t be fair not to,” she explained.

“I’ll send down for a quart and two set-ups,” he said, getting up. “Have you had any supper? Would you like something to eat?”

“Oh, don’t bother,” she said politely. “I usually stop in at a cafeteria on my way home and get myself something—”

“May as well have it now while we’re waiting,” he urged. “There’s lots of time.”

“Just a ham on rye then,” she said, almost bashfully.

When the bellboy had brought the order, he glanced at the distance that separated the two chairs. He didn’t venture to grin outright, but it was easy to see there was a grin on his mind. He seemed to be under the mistaken impression that their aloofness had something to do with his presence, would thaw the minute his back was turned.

It didn’t. Mrs. Smith sat on the edge of one chair, nibbling her sandwich in a ladylike manner. Mr. Smith leaned back in the other, all the way across the room, slowly sampling a very little rye in a great deal of ginger ale. The desultory remarks they exchanged from time to time were purely of a professional nature, had nothing sentimental about them whatever.

“This Mrs. Conway that takes care of your little boy, does she know what you — uh — work at?”

“Of course!” She gave him a surprised look. “It’s an honest living — what’s wrong with it? My name’s never mentioned. I’m always ‘an unknown blonde.’ I don’t have to put up with half the familiarity a taxi-dancer does, and I don’t have to take off as much as I would on a burlesque runway—” He seemed to have hurt her feelings. “It’s not my fault if people can’t get along with each other. If they’d loosen up the laws of this state a little, there wouldn’t have to be any set-ups like this. But as long as there has to be, why should I turn down good money? It’s just a form of acting really, anyway, only instead of using a stage it’s done in a hotel room with detectives for an audience. I get a commission on each assignment.”

His mouth twitched a little at that, but he steadied it with his lower teeth.

“How can you be sure you’re not being gypped?” he wanted to know.

“They know better than to hold out on me,” she declared. “All I’d have to do would be to step up to the referee, whisper ‘collusion,’ and the client’s case would be thrown out and the lawyer disbarred maybe.” She brushed the crumbs of the late sandwich off her fingers. After a while she said: “You’re younger than most of the cases I get.”

“Yes,” he sighed, “I guess I’m not so old.” He looked down into his highball. “But young or old, I lost my drag it seems.” She studied him in silence for a while. Finally she asked: “Is she coming herself or just the detectives?”

“She’ll be here with them. Take a look at her; let’s see what you think of her.”

“You used to be awfully proud of her, didn’t you?” she said quietly.

“How do you know that?” He laughed wryly.

“I could tell by the way you said that just now. I bet you used to go around when you were first married saying ‘Take a look at her. Isn’t she swell?’ Maybe you didn’t say it, but you thought it just the same.”

He looked down at his glass again. “Doesn’t everybody feel about like that — at first?”

She studied him some more and again they fell silent. Presently she asked: “Is she in on it or will she really think—?”

“It was her own idea,” he said, “or at least a friend of hers.” He poured a thimbleful more rye into his glass, drowned it with ginger ale, stuck his tongue into it. Then he sat warming it between his two hands.

She narrowed her lids at him shrewdly. “You can shut me up if I’m out of order,” she murmured, “but you still love her, don’t you?” It was a statement, not a question. His own eyes narrowed back at her.

“Little one,” he said abruptly, “mind-reading isn’t what you’re here for tonight.”

“All right, it’s your party,” she agreed tonelessly, “and none of my business. But you’re not fooling me any; it’s written all over your face. I’ve been present at too many post mortems. How do I know? Because you’re the first one hasn’t tried to pass the buck and tell me how misunderstood you are.”

His color mounted a little and he set down his glass with an impact.

“Suppose we go back to talking about you or the weather or the World’s Series,” he suggested pointedly.

She kept smiling, though. “You’re the boss, Sir Walter Raleigh.”

“Why do you call me that?” he wanted to know.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe to show you I’m not as dumb as I seem to be.” Then she asked innocently: “Wasn’t he the one got down in the mud and let some dame walk all over him?”

He was getting more annoyed by the minute. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said curtly, “he’s just a cigarette!” Then, to get back at her possibly, he snapped: “And who doubled for you, by the way, when your own affair went boom? I forgot to ask you that.”

“I never got one for myself,” she said quite simply. “Oh, no. I don’t believe in divorce. You see, I’ve seen so much of it.”

He was still trying to recover from the shock of that when the long-awaited pounding on the outside of the door came at last. She was sitting there demurely shaping her nails with the file when it sounded; he was sitting in his own chair across the room, staring thoughtfully at her, thinking about what she had just said. He signaled warningly with one finger. “Here they are!” She tossed the file away, dragged the negligee invitingly down off one shoulder. He grabbed his highball-glass, jumped up, and went to perch intimately on the arm of the chair she was in. He bent over her lovingly, slipped his free hand behind her back. “Let’s give it some music,” she whispered, and plugged in the radio-outlet. Then she let her head fall caressingly against his shirt-front. The whole thing was done in a minute.

The thumping wasn’t repeated a second time. A pass-key turned in the lock, the door shot open, and two men and a woman came in. They stopped just over the threshold and stood there looking. The two in the chair didn’t stir. “Well?” said Mr. Smith quietly.

One of the men turned up his palm; the middle of it showed silver instead of pink; then he put it back in his pocket again.

“This your husband?” he said to the woman.

The second Mrs. Smith was a little older than the first, a good deal prettier, and unquestionably better dressed. A silver-fox piece was looped dashingly over her shoulder. She was not angry; in fact she even had a whimsical little smile for Mr. Smith, as though there was some understanding they shared between them.

“Unquestionably,” she said in a clear, cool voice. “But maybe you’d better ask him yourself, hear what he has to say about it.” The detective was too busy poking at the pajamas on the bed and taking in the peach negligee to notice the peculiar smile on her lips. He indicated her with his head.

“This lady your wife?” he asked.

“You heard what she said,” admitted Mr. Smith.

At this point his companion in the chair gave a phoney little peep, took her head off his chest, and struggled to her feet. She shrank back against the wall and tried to look guiltily embarrassed without being any too good at it. Even the best of actresses, however, need a minute or two to warm up.

“Well,” said the detective, making notes on the back of an envelope, “I guess that about covers everything. Pardon the intrusion. Shall we go now, Mrs. Walters?”

The second Mrs. Smith was still smiling at the corners of her mouth. “You can wait for me down in the lobby,” she said. “I’ll be right down.” The detective went out and closed the door after him. The minute he was gone, her smile broadened. “Let’s all have a drink together to show there are no hard feelings. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“And here,” spoke up the second of the two men who had come in with her, “is the wherewithal.” He held up the bottle of rye and sniffed it critically.

The second Mrs. Smith laughed indulgently.

“Just leave it to Fred,” she remarked knowingly to her husband, “to find out if there’s any liquor in a room.”

“You were the one suggested a drink, Peggy,” Fred reminded her with a grin.

“You’re using Fred for a witness, I suppose?” her husband asked.

“Yes, but he’s not writing any of it up in his paper, are you, Fred?”

“Good old Fred!” said the husband sardonically, throwing a cold look at him. The first Mrs. Smith glanced at him searchingly as he said it. Then abruptly she went to the closet, removed her dress and coat, and locked herself into the bathroom. Neither of the three paid any attention to her. When she came out, dressed, they each held a glass in their hands. Mr. Smith offered her one.

“Join us?” he invited. Mrs. Smith the second was smiling fatuously, her arm linked in Fred’s. The first Mrs. Smith took the glass that was handed to her and crossed the room toward him. “Don’t say hello or anything to me, Fred,” she complained bitterly. “That’s right, act like you never saw me before!” He stared at her open-mouthed in surprise. “I didn’t mind your not speaking to me while the detective was in the room, but now that he’s cleared out, I think the least you might do is say good evening, after what we’ve been to each other — and for so long!” The second Mrs. Smith had stopped smiling all at once. “Have you two met before?” she queried with a puzzled look.

“Have we! Have we!” The girl in the plaid coat was getting into her stride now, face flushing with excitement as she turned again to Fred. “What’s the matter, don’t you want them to know you know me? Ain’t I good enough to associate with any more? Maybe you think you’re going to get rid of me that easy!”

Fred’s face had gone from white to red and back to white again.

He finally managed to get his breath back.

“What do you mean?” he shouted angrily. “I never saw you before in my life! I never set eyes on you at all until I came into this room tonight! Either you’re crazy or — or—” He began to shake with excitement. “What’s your racket anyway? What is this, a frame-up?”

The second Mrs. Smith had slipped her arm from his, however.

“You should have told me, Fred,” she murmured in a low hurt voice.

“I tell you, Peggy, I never saw the girl before; I don’t even know her name!”

“Just listen to that! Just listen to that, will you?” cried his accuser shrilly, filling the room with her voice. “I wish I had a penny for every time he’d called me Janey!”

“You’re a damn liar!” exploded the man.

Mr. Smith rose from his chair. “Listen, Fred,” he said wearily, “would you and your girl-friend mind getting out of my room and doing your fighting someplace else? We’ve got our own troubles.” The second Mrs. Smith had turned her back to them and gone over by the window, holding her gay handkerchief to her chin.

“Yes, I think you’d better go, Fred,” she said in a muffled voice.

“I certainly don’t want to be dragged into that kind of a mess.” The deadly blonde in the checked coat delivered the coup de grace. “But don’t think you can come back to me!” she squalled violently. “Little Mickey and I can get along beautifully without you! We don’t want any part of you if that’s the way you feel about us.” She got the door open, slipped out, and raced headlong toward the elevators.

He caught up with her outside on the street, just as she crossed to the other side and looked back to stare up at the hotel windows. “Hey, wait a minute!” he said wrathfully. “You little four-flushing, double-dyed—!” He knotted his fist and held it under her nose. “If you were a man I’d—!”

“Don’t try any rough stuff,” she advised coolly. “There’s a cop just down the street; one well-placed scream and he’ll be on your neck.” She gazed across at the hotel entrance. “There goes your friend the detective,” she remarked contentedly, “on his way home alone. She must have phoned down and told him not to wait.”

“I want to know what your idea was, doing that!” he bellowed. “You know you never set eyes on me before tonight!”

“I know that and you know it,” she admitted calmly, “but you couldn’t get her to believe that, not now any more, for love or money.”

He took her by the arm and started to shake her back and forth. “You’re coming back up there with me and tell her the truth, d’you get me?”

She paid no attention to him; she was judiciously counting the hotel windows from the street up.

“—thirteen, fourteen. Those must be the windows of the room, up there.” As she spoke, two of the lighted squares suddenly went black. “Sure, those are them all right.” She turned to him then. “I wouldn’t disturb them now if I were you. I think they’d rather be alone. No use waiting around either, pal; she won’t be down any more tonight.”