Cut Thin to Win

Chapter 4

I again parked the agency car two blocks from the home of Mrs. Chester, walked back around the big house to the little bungalow in the rear, and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” she called, dispiritedly.

I opened the door and went in.

Mrs. Chester was sitting up in bed with big, dark circles under her eyes.

“I’ve had a terrible night,” she said.

“Don’t you have anyone staying with you?”

“Can’t afford it. I wish I could go to my daughter’s place; but she can’t come here, and I don’t have the money to go there.”

“Where does she live?”

“Denver.”

“You’re feeling pretty bad?”

“I think some of those nerves must have got bruised,” she said. “The nerve sheaths, or whatever it is, got injured and they just ache, ache, ache all the time... You ever have a toothache?”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is just like a thousand toothaches all up and down your leg; and every time I take a deep breath, I hurt.”

“The doctors didn’t find any broken bones?”

“No, that’s what they said, but I don’t know how you’re going to depend on a doctor.”

“You have to depend on somebody.”

“Yes, I suppose you do.”

“Don’t they give you anything to make you sleep?”

She said, “I’ve got some sleeping medicine but it doesn’t do me much good.”

I said, “I’ve been in touch with the man who sometimes makes settlements in advance. He’s willing to take a chance on being able to collect.”

She looked at me and her eyes narrowed in speculation. “I’ve been thinking over the proposition you made,” she said. “I’d want twelve thousand five hundred dollars in cold, hard cash.”

I shook my head.

“Well, that’s what I want.”

I took out the hundred-dollar bills and spread them on a table. “I’m prepared to give you this much,” I said. “Ten thousand dollars. In return for that, you’ll guarantee that if at any time we want you to sign papers assigning the claim, you’ll sign those papers. If we want you to sign a complaint, you’ll sign a complaint; and any money that is recovered as the result of that litigation will go to us. We will, of course, pay all the expenses.”

“I can’t do it,” she said. “It just isn’t in the cards. I’ve been suffering a lot since you left here. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll make it eleven thousand.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “eleven won’t do. I have ten and that’s it.”

She shook her head obstinately. “Well, you can tell your friend to go jump in the lake. I’m not going to settle for any ten thousand.”

“Okay,” I said. I gathered up the money.

She sat there watching me.

Her face looked like death.

I put the money in a neat stack, slapped a rubber band around it, put it in my pocket and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Chester.”

“Who is this man you’re working for?” she asked.

“I told you,” I said, “he’s a sharpshooter. He’s a big-shot gambler on cases of this sort. Sometimes he’ll make a killing; sometimes he won’t.”

“The pain is terrible,” she said. “I need someone to take care of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How would it be if we made some kind of a time deal? If you gave me a thousand dollars down and then we could go fifty-fifty, or something like that, on what I collected. What I need is money enough to go to my daughter’s in Denver.”

I shook my head. “I’m only an agent, myself,” I said, “and I did this just to accommodate you.”

“What do you do for a living?” she asked.

“Suppose we say that I sell magazines?”

“Phooey,” she said, and started laughing, a harsh, metallic laugh.

“Well,” I told her, “we’re not getting anywhere here.” And I started for the door.

She waited until I had the door half closed, then she said, “Wait!”

The word was like the crack of a whip.

I kept on closing the door.

I heard her get out of bed.

She came to the door, a pathetic sight, holding herself against the doorknob with one hand and against the jamb with the other.

“Help me!” she said, “I’m going to faint. I got out of bed.”

I turned and retraced my steps.

She collapsed as I reached the door.

“Oh, help me!” she said. “Help me! I’m so weak and frail and helpless.”

I eased her back toward the bed.

She was moaning and groaning. “Oh, I shouldn’t have done it! I shouldn’t have done it! The doctor told me not to get up— Oh, my poor nerves.”

I eased her down onto the bed.

“That better?” I asked.

She pointed a wan, wobbly finger to a white, round pillbox. “Get me two of those pills with water. Quick!”

I took the cover off the box, got her a glass of water, said, “Take the pills if you want.”

She picked out two of the pills, swallowed them with water, lay back, gasping. “Don’t go,” she said. “Don’t leave me.”

I drew up a chair and sat down by the head of the bed.

She lay there with her eyes closed for a couple of minutes. “Are you feeling better now?” I asked.

She gave a wan smile.

“Well,” I told her, “I’m going.”

“Don’t go.”

She opened her eyes and spoke with an apparent effort. She said, “You’re a good boy. You are only trying to help me, I know that. I need the money — on, how I need the money! I need attention. I need to have loving friends around me. I want to get to my daughter in Denver — I’ll take it.”

“Take what?”

“The ten thousand.”

I said, “You’d better wait until you’re feeling better.”

“No, no, I want to leave. I want to leave right now. I’ll get an ambulance to take me to the airplane and they can put me aboard the airplane and I’ll be in Denver in the shake of a cat’s whisker.”

I said, “You’ll have to sign a release.”

“Of course,” she said, “a man isn’t going to give a body ten thousand dollars for nothing. Do you have the paper?”

“I have a paper,” I said, “showing that for ten thousand dollars you sell, transfer, set over and assign to the Reserve National Bank, as trustee, all of your claims of any sort, nature and description against any person or persons, known or unknown, who have inflicted any injuries on you during the past year; and, in particular, any persons who may have caused an automobile to collide with you in any way. But generally, and specifically, you include any and all damages you may have for any reason or reasons whatsoever, because of any torts against any person or persons.”

“What’s a tort?” she asked.

“A civil wrong,” I said, “usually accompanied by an act of violence or infringing a person’s rights.”

“You give me ten thousand dollars and a fountain pen,” she said. “I’ll sign it. Lift me up in bed a minute, Donald.”

I handed her the document and she started to sign it.

“Read it,” I said.

“I don’t feel quite up to reading just yet.”

“All right, then,” I said, “I’ll come back in the evening when you do feel up to reading.”

“No, no, I can read it if I have to. I’m going to be in Denver this evening.”

She read through the document laboriously, moving her finger along each line as she read, and moving her lips, formulating each word.

When she had finished, she said, “Hand me the ten thousand.”

I handed her the ten thousand dollars and she counted it carefully. Then she signed her name.

“All right,” she said, “that does it... Young man, you move that telephone over by my bed. I’m going to get an ambulance and get to the airport. I’m going to make reservations for a ticket.”

“Do you think you could sit up on a trip to Denver?”

“I’m certainly going to try it,” she said. “They have nice soft, seats and I know the stewardess will let me stretch out on that curved seat at the back, particularly if the plane isn’t crowded. I’ll take care of myself all right. You’d be surprised how considerate people are of a person who’s fragile and has been hurt... You let me have the phone.”

“Do you want me to telephone for the ambulance?”

“No, I’ll telephone for it when those pills have taken their full effect. After I’ve taken those pills, I don’t feel really bad pain for three or four hours. The doctor told me not to take them any oftener than I had to because they might be habit-forming, but believe you me, young man, I’m going to take them all the way to Denver.”

I pulled the telephone over to the bed and said, “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Nothing,” she said.

I went out to the agency car, got an envelope, put the assignment in it, addressed it to myself at the office, stamped it, dropped it in a mailbox.

Then I sent a wire to our client in Denver: “BELT IS BUCKLED” and signed it Donald Lam.