James M. Cain Jealous Woman

Part One: The Playboy’s Second Wife

1

At the desk, when they said she was in 819, I knew hubby or pappy or somebody was doing all right by their Jane, because 19 is the deluxe tier at the Washoe-Truckee, one of our best hotels here in Reno, and you don’t get space there for buttons. They’re bright, big rooms on the southwest corner, facing the Sierras and overlooking the river, and they cost dough. I didn’t state my business, or mention insurance in any way when I rang her. No smart agent would. I just said I was Ed Horner of Edgar Gordon Horner, Inc., and that her husband had asked me to talk to her in connection with a certain matter, so she said come up. And waiting for me, at the door of her suite, a cigarette in one hand and the knob in the other, so she could step inside if she didn’t like my looks, was the Jane Delavan you read about in the papers.

Maybe you saw her pictures, but she was better-looking than they were, because it wasn’t Hollywood cheesecake that she had, but strictly class, like you see on the society pages, and sometimes it’s a little camera-shy. She was medium-size, and a little on the slim side, though there was plenty of shape of a nice, refined kind. But she didn’t dress to show it. Her clothes cost plenty, you could see that, but they hung on her loose and careless, so your eye went up one fold and down the other. Her face was long, with plenty of sunburn, and her hair dark, but with red in it. Her eyes were hazel brown, but they had something in them that was going to cost me some sleep before I got done with them. I mean they were beat up. Nobody had blacked them, but life had. She looked you straight enough in the eye, but not for long. Pretty soon she’d be looking at nothing at all, in a set, squinty way, and then she’d catch herself and come back to you, but with a little smile that was more to cover up than make like friendly. It was enough, pretty soon, to start me wondering about her, and unfortunately you don’t wonder about one part of a woman and let the rest go. When that starts, you wonder up the line and down the line, and across and between.

But I couldn’t honestly say I saw all of that at the time, even if I felt a little of it. What I saw mainly was a pretty girl that remembered my name from my giving it over the house phone, something an insurance man notices, because he’s got to fix names himself. I didn’t get to my business right away. I took a walk around the room, admired the view, said how lucky she was to get one of these suites. She said yes, it had taken some wangling. I asked if I could smoke, took out my cigarette case, got out a cigarette, felt for matches, didn’t find any, put the cigarette back, snapped the case fairly loud. I never carry matches. If you can make the prospect light you, you’re one up on him. He’s generally glad to do it, but what he doesn’t know is: it’s a little personal thing, and once he does it he can’t take it back. The time for a brush-off is past.

She lit me, and of course I jumped up very snappy and bowed to thank her and had a look at the lighter. “That’s an interesting thing, Mrs. Delavan. May I ask where you got it?”

“At the gift shop in the lobby.”

“Well — just the same, it’s nice.”

“I left my good one, that a soldier made out of a shell and that always lights in New York, and so I went down and got this. It cost $7.50 and I don’t think it’s a bit interesting and it hardly ever works, but if it has an admirer who am I to argue about it?”

“Anyhow, it’s some of that A-l local Reno stuff.”

“If that be a point in its favor.”

“...Somebody been gypping you?”

“Those blue chips. A bit expensive, I’d say.”

“Oh, them.”

“I was warned about the gambling, but—”

“Hey, hey, hey! It’s straight! Why, if they so much as thought one of their dealers had turned a crooked card they’d not only fire him, Mrs. Delavan, they’d put him in jail.”

“Well, it’s simply wonderful to know that instead of loaded dice it was Honesty Boys and their simple, barefoot, galloping percentage that took my money. I’m broke, just the same — or almost. It’s going to be two weeks before I can do anything at all. I’m furious at myself.”

“Oh, we got plenty to do here — practically free.”

“What, for instance?”

“You like to fish?”

“No.”

“Shoot?”

“No.”

“Ride?”

“Now there’s a nice cheap sport.”

“Not so fast, not so fast. We got a little number here called the Scout. It’s a dude ranch, but I keep a horse there and he’s yours any time you ring Jackie and tell her to get him ready.”

Well, not quite, if you know what I mean. I keep a horse there, and his name is Count Ten, which will give you some idea of the blood that’s in him. But anybody that would let a perfect stranger, and a girl at that, ride a thoroughbred horse, is plain crazy, and maybe I am, but not that crazy. But how would she know? For a pretty girl and a $100,000 sale, I could ring Jackie and have her saddle Bingo, who would put her back with his teeth, if she happened to fall off. “If you do like to ride, there needn’t be anything very expensive about it.”

“You seem most anxious to please me.”

“Why not? Your husband sure pleased me.”

“Do you mind giving me a rough idea of your business?”

“Insurance.”

Her face went hard. “I’m not interested in insurance, and I don’t believe my husband sent you here to talk about it.”

“You ought to be interested, and he did send me.”

I gave it to her, what he had told me, and I was casual, friendly and not too long-drawn-out. But the more I talked the more she burned, and pretty soon there was nothing for me to do but cut. Something was here I didn’t understand, and until I knew what it was I couldn’t go on. When I shut up she began to talk. “In the first place, everything my husband seems to have said to you is true. He has told you nothing that isn’t true, and yet he has not told you the slightest part of his real reason for taking out this insurance.”

“Which is?”

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to talk to him.”

She went in the bedroom, and in a minute I heard her voice on the phone. I could hear a little of it, and mainly it seemed to be: “Tom, you simply cannot do this thing to me. I can’t face it, and believe me it will have consequences you don’t even suspect” — stuff like that. So of course that made it perfectly ducky, because whatever it was that she meant I’d have to report what she said and that’s when the trouble would start.

It was quite some time before she came out, and when she did she had on riding clothes. They weren’t Western, like girls wear in Nevada, with tight dungarees, stitched boots, and cowboy hats. They were whipcord breeches, high boots, tailored coat, and derby hat, and crop, like they wear to the Eastern horse shows. She stood there a minute, pulling on her gloves, and then: “Mr. Delavan will speak to you about the insurance. Apparently I have no voice in the matter, one way or the other, except to protest, so I’d rather not be bothered about it any more, if you don’t mind.”

“There’s just one thing.”

“I’d rather you spoke to him.”

“I’m trying to tell you: Hara-kiri’s out.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We don’t pay off on suicide.”

“That’s not what he’s up to.”

“I heard some of your call, and it sounded like it.”

“Then you don’t pay off on suicide.”

“I just want you to know. And him to know.”

“I rang Jackie, by the way, and she’s getting me a horse. Do you mind if I go? It’s getting late, and I shouldn’t like to get caught in this country with night coming on.”

“Do you have a car?”

“I’m taking a cab.”

“I’ll ride you out.”

I rode her out and arranged to bring her back, and took Jackie aside and said if she showed any signs of being able to ride she should have a run on the Count. But where I went then, as fast as I could scoot into town, was the Sierra Manor, to see Delavan, her husband, and find out what it was all about. I preferred talking to him there than at my office, where he had come earlier in the day. I told him what she’d said and told him to put it on the line and put all of it on the line. “Just a minute, Mr. Horner. There’s something in your manner I don’t wholly like. You act as though I’ve concealed things from you.”

“Well, she says you have.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Horner, but I’ll decide what’s relevant.”

“No. I will. What’s back of this?”

“An action for annulment.”

“That’s she’s bringing?”

“That I am.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

“She came here for the usual six-weeks period of residence, expecting to get a divorce. With my knowledge, of course. But my situation changed. I couldn’t let her.”

“How did it change?”

“The lady I expect to marry objected.”

“What did she have to do with it?”

“Though American, she’s the granddaughter of an Anglican bishop. These people have strong, almost unshakable convictions on the remarriage of divorced persons. So long as there was no help for it, she was willing to give up the church wedding, performed by her own rector, a thing that means a great deal to her. But when a chance remark of mine, made a couple of weeks ago, just after Jane left for the West, showed that grounds for annulment existed, the whole picture changed and she demanded that I take advantage of my opportunity. I’ve run into a pretty thick situation with her, I can tell you, and not only with her but the family. If I can get an annulment I have to do it.”

“...Annulment? You mean — you and your wife have been married in name only?”

“No, I mean her first divorce may have been defective. You’ve heard about correspondent unknown?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Except she wasn’t unknown.”

“Oh, that was bad judgment.”

“They let Jane’s maid make the $500.”

“Is the maid here?”

“I’m serving her papers today.”

“As a material witness?”

“Yes. Compelling her to give bond.”

“But what does she know?”

“That the alleged infidelity, on the part of Jane’s former husband, was a complete phony, cooked up by Jane, the husband, and the maid. That the whole divorce was collusive, based on manufactured evidence.”

“Well, no wonder she’s sore.”

“She has no reason.”

“Except she’ll still be married to No. 1.”

“Don’t be silly. He’s married again.”

“Then he’ll be a bigamist.”

“Nowhere but in Nevada and on the basis of a Nevada decision.”

“But you still feel guilty?”

“It upsets me, yes.”

“And you want this insurance so you can begin taking the curse off it? So you can feel like a hero instead of a heel?”

“In case of eventuality, yes.”

He began to falter and stammer, and then to talk fast and jerky, but straight to the point, as well as I could see. I mean, he got to it at last, the reason for this $100,000 straight life policy he had come in to see me about this morning. He had very little money, he said, in spite of his name, which he seemed to think had made me drop in a faint when I heard it, on account of the dough his family was supposed to have. It meant nothing to me, which may prove how ignorant I am, or on the other hand how big the country is. Anyhow, in West Virginia was an old coal mine he owned, that had been closed down, but that opened up again when some kind of a machine was invented that made operation profitable where they’d been in the red before. And he’d got a dividend check of two or three thousand dollars that he didn’t expect. And what he wanted to do was sock this dough into the first premium of the life policy, so his wife would be protected the first year after the annulment, and he would feel easier in his mind about it. I said: “What about the second year?”

“...I may have to let it lapse.”

“So I judge. But I mean about her?”

“Mr. Horner, do I have to go on with this marriage for the rest of my life? Jane and I made a mistake, but in marriage a mistake takes two to make. Once it’s erased from the ledger, why not be honest about it? Jane is a well-bred, good-looking girl, who’s going to get married again and make some guy a swell wife. That’s fine with me, and I wish her, and him when he comes, everything that life can give them. But I see no need for overlap. All I think is necessary is to see that she’s protected in the near future — as I said, in case of eventuality. In the case of an annulment, no alimony, property settlement, or anything of the kind is possible, since of course it is merely the legal declaration that no marriage existed. But if I should die in the near future, if for some reason I did come into money and a large estate were settled, I don’t want her left out completely in the cold. Does that answer all your questions?”

It did, or I thought it did, even if it struck me he was more interested in going through the motions of protecting her than actually doing it. I mean, it seemed to me he was going to kid himself he was actually making her a present of $100,000, and square it up with himself for the way he figured to leave her, neither married or not married, just dangling in mid-air, with no court to take her side, because mixing it up that way is what most of the courts, including our 100 % wonderful Supreme Court, seem to be fondest of. But I didn’t see, on my end of it, why I was called on to step in and block the insurance in any way, whether she was squawking or not. Because in the first place, it’s practically impossible to convince an agent he’s doing anybody an injury, or in fact anything but a favor, in helping them become beneficiary of any kind of policy at all. And in the second place, there was kind of a personal reason I’d better be on the level about, as later the subject came up. My company, the General Pan-Pacific of California, General Pan for short, gives an annual cup to the agent making the best score for the year, all averaged up so the fellow in a small city has just as good a chance as a big city general agent, and my first few years, when I was just a kid, I collected four of those, one right after the other. But when Washington upped the high Army brass from four stars to five, the home office upped General Pan, because until then the cup had four stars on it, for his rank. And that new one, with five stars all in a cluster, I hadn’t been able to get, and I wanted it, and specially before my thirtieth birthday, so bad I could cry. With this $100,000 policy, I’d grab it in a walk. And it was none of my business if next year he let it lapse or not. Plenty of policies lapse, and the contest had no rule covering that. If I wrote the business, and he paid the first premium due, that was that, and that was all. So when he finished, and I thought it over, and said O.K. I’d shoot his application through, I could feel my heart doing flip-flops inside. General Five-Star Cup, come to baby.

2

When I got back to the stable, my friend Mrs. Delavan had the Count on the track, and Jackie was out there watching it. I mean it was something to see. He was under an English saddle, with curb bit and martingales, and my own Western saddle was nowhere around. Believe it or not, she was walking him. It was the first time I knew he could walk. He’s a gray, with dark mane and tail, and a comical forelock that makes him look a little like Whirly, if you remember him, and he’s a clown, but strictly a dancing clown, not a walking clown. And it took me a minute or two to figure it out. There was 105 pounds of will power on his back that said walk and he walked. In a minute her feet shifted and he went into a canter, then into a dead run. It was beautiful, the way he obeyed. I mean, he loved it the way she handled him, and he was letting her know it, every move that he made, how he liked to go when there was somebody up there that knew how to make him go. She pulled him down to a trot, and then, so sudden you wondered why she didn’t go over his head, to a walk, and came on over. “What on earth, Mr. Horner, have you been doing with this horse?”

“Riding him. Why?”

“He has no more manners than a baboon.”

“He been eating with his knife?”

“I don’t think you even know what I’m talking about.”

“We get there, he and I, and we get back.”

“But it’s a crime! What he came into this world with, his looks, his action, are beautiful. But what you’ve taught him, if anything, is simply embarrassing.”

Jackie began sticking her finger at me, because she’d been telling me for some time that now that I had a horse it might be a good idea to learn something about him. I gave her the old so’s-your-old-man and we went in the ring, where the jumps are. He went into one of those whirling movie starts I had impressed the girls with. I thought it was pretty nifty, but she pulled him down stockstill before his front feet were halfway up in the air. “This is really dreadful.”

“I like it, that stunt.”

“There ought to be a horse court that would take him away from you and establish guardianship.”

Jackie had told her he’d never been jumped, so she walked him off about fifty feet, turned him, let him look at the jump, then brought him up to it at a slow canter. When he got the idea she raised her hands and leaned forward, and he went over like a cat. She turned him and let him look at it again. He got the comicalest look on his face I ever saw, Then she took him over it again. “Put another bar on.”

I did and he took it so easy I started to put on another. “Wait a minute. That we’ll have to think about.” She got down, lit a cigarette, studied him, and he did the same for her. She patted him and he nuzzled her. Then she stamped out the cigarette. “O.K.”

I put the bar on and she rode him off and turned him. She let him look at it, then started him for it, and for the first time I felt a prickle of nervousness shoot up my spine. They came on, he hooked it up, she let off the reins and leaned forward, and he went up. It was a frightening thing to be under because all of a sudden you felt it, the power in those muscles, when it was delivered, all in a bunch, right where it was wanted, and when. And you felt it, how high that jump was.

They were over, and down with such a rush you could hardly believe one slim leg could take the whole shock and hold for the others to take over. It did though, and they were in stride again. Just then I saw the puppy, and she did, and he did. She swerved him, but he braided his legs. I was there as soon as she hit the ground, but she had had just enough warning to be able to fall clear. I knelt beside her, and she seemed to like it that my arm was around her. Then she sat up and opened her eyes, and a look of horror came into them. I looked, and the Count was still lying there, with Jackie racing toward him. Jane jumped up, and just then he did. She went over and put her arms around him. “Baby! Did he knock himself out?”

She went over him, inch by inch, feeling his withers and hocks and every part of him, and he did the same by her with the tip of his nose. But he was all right, and pretty soon we started home. About halfway, she said: “In his fifth year, I make him.”

“That’s right.”

“Then he’s young enough, thank heaven.”

“For what?”

“To learn. I’m here, and I’m going to teach him.”

“He’s all yours. Stable suit you?”

“Stable’s fine.”

When we got to the hotel, a girl in maid’s uniform came running across the lobby from where she had been sitting, keeping company with the elevator girl, and waving a paper with a blue cover on it. She was one of those girls you don’t hear about in England, but when you go there you see them all over. She was red-haired, and black-eyed, and pretty, and had a Cockney way of talking and kept going on about the “bloody garnishee,” as she called it. I pretty well knew from my talk with Delavan what it was, and that it wasn’t a garnishee, but I kept to myself what I knew.

Jane stood there, reading the paper, and her face got the beat-up look I’ve mentioned before, and pretty soon she looked up and held out her hand. “I think — I’ll go upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll ring you.”

“Please do.”

She and the maid went on up and I went over to my office. I tried to have fun thinking about my cup that was coming. It didn’t give me much. I could see Linda, my secretary, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I told her I was going over to Carson to close a deal, and wouldn’t be back. Where I did go was out and walk around.


That night I was still restless, and stepped out a little to get my mind off her and the rest of it. I generally play roulette, but never when I’m feeling good. When I don’t give a hoot I fool around with a stack of quarters. If I lose my stack, I go home. If I get ahead, so I’m gambling on their money, I make scientific mayhem out of it, and feel better. Before I saw her, I had shifted tables, and even joints, three or four times. At roulette, if you’re winning, you pick up a mob that follows your lead, and right there is where I don’t exactly trust Mr. Croupier. He may be honest, as they say he is, and as I firmly believe and tell everybody he is, and yet, I feel you ought not to put irresistible temptation in his way. If the bets are scattered, he has no reason to roll his ball any particular way. But if they’re all aboard one number, or a small flock of numbers, every square on the board except those numbers is a winner for the house, and it would be unfortunate if that was the particular moment in his life he picked out to have a slight change of character. Just to be safe, I move. I even move up the street, to really shake them, and I’d done that a few times before I saw her. She seemed sulky and I thought she meant me. I went over to the bar, ordered a couple of the free drinks, and went over and handed her one.

“Thanks, Mr. Horner, but don’t let me keep you.”

“From what, like?”

“Well, you seem to be avoiding me.”

I explained about the powder I’d been taking, and she seemed set back on her heels. “I... never even thought about that. You see, I’ve never had a winning streak.”

“Never too late to learn.”

“I’ve lost too much.”

“Let me stake you.”

I fished up a couple of pounds of what I’d been winning and chinked them around a little. In Reno, of course, they always pay you in silver. “I shouldn’t, you know, Mr. Horner. It’s a weakness of mine. If you keep rattling all that money around, I’m going to say yes, but — it’ll all be gone, I assure you.”

“I’ll take a chance.”

She started to play, and it was the craziest playing I ever saw. She just shut her eyes and plunked it down anywhere. “Hey, hey, that’s no way to do it!”

“What’s the difference? It’s all luck.”

“Yeah, but it’s got to make sense!”

An insurance man, he thinks percentage, first, last and all the time, because what he’s running is not charity for the widows, orphans, and aunts, like maybe you thought, but a great big wheel, with every chance figured by the actuaries, so that a bet is distinctly a matter of age, weight and occupation, and he hates to have anything running wild. So I took the young lady in hand and showed her a few things, like how to cut corners on a losing streak by running a small limit and fishing for small fish, like the 2–1 odds on one of the 12s, which some chance of two or three wins that would cause the switch from a losing streak to a winning streak. Once that happened, I showed her how to bunch her bets so as not to be on the hook for too much dough on any single roll, but at the same time to crack a pot if she really got a break. I showed her how, if she had $1 riding the first twelve, she should lay 50¢ on the first four and 25¢ on No. 1. Then, if the pill fell anywhere from No. 13 up, she had lost, but was only $1.75 out, and as she would be playing on their money, she could afford it. But if the ball fell in any number of the first 12, she cashed $2, and was 25¢ ahead. But if it fell in 2, 3 or 4, she cashed $2 on the first 12 and $4.50 on the first 4, and was $6.50 ahead. But if the ball rolled in 1, she not only cashed her $2 and $4.50, but $9, the pay-off on 25¢ at the odds of 36-1, and really did something for herself. “In other words, if you’ve got Lady Luck sitting there beside you, act like you knew how to treat her so she don’t have to be a contortionist to help you out. Besides, the way you do it, how would you know her? She doesn’t like it when you don’t place her face, any more than anybody else does.”

So she got hot, and I gave her her head. She caught a gang pretty soon, and we moved. She upped her bets and I said O.K. I picked up her money, and got so heavy with silver I felt like a pack donkey, but when she dropped three $5 combos I walked off and out. “But please. Give me some money! I’m winning! I—”

“Then quit!”

“You’re hateful! Now, to deny me—”

“I’m the best friend you’ve got.”

On the street, when I put handful after handful of money in her handbag, so it felt like a suitcase full of bricks, she laughed. “It’s the one silly streak I’ve got. On a horse, I’m a woman of ice. At other things I’m not stupid, I assure you. But when I get into one of these places I go crazy.”

“That $227 will calm you down.”

“Is that what I won?”

“About.”

“Want to walk?”

On the bridge near her hotel we stopped and watched the water rushing along under the moon, and when I looked I saw somebody I hadn’t known was there. I mean, up to now, allowing for stuff you might see in any woman that was jangled up over what her husband was pulling, she had been just what Delavan had said, a well-born dame that might meet somebody before long, but didn’t live where I lived. Now, though, she was just a nice girl, nothing snooty, nothing horsey, just a girl with a guy on a bridge. “Do you realize, Mr. Horner, that you did something peculiar today?”

“And specially tonight, when I let you do the winning.”

“Today you came to me, not to your beautiful horse.”

“I should have, shouldn’t I?”

“Just doing your duty?”

“Why, sure.”

“Anyway, thanks.”

She looked away quick, and I felt like a heel, because she didn’t mean anything but a little flirting under the moon, but just to be sociable I could have played up to it. I wanted to, don’t get me wrong about that. Just the same, I’ve got a policy on that stuff. Until that application was signed, sealed and forwarded with report of medical examination to the home office, no romance on the bridge for Ed Horner. I took her home and said good night. Couple of nights later I bumped into her again and helped her win some more. Moving from one place to another, she’d put her hand on my arm and I’d catch her looking at me, like maybe I was dumb on horses, but I had a few other things she liked. In the meantime, I had Delavan examined by the doctor, got his check, and sent his papers through to Los Angeles. Then I felt free to call her. “How do you feel about dinner tonight, Mrs. Delavan?”

“Well, let me see, how do I feel?”

“Just inquiring.”

“My maid is summoned to court. Oh, that’s right, you were there when she told me about it. Her case comes up at four, and I’ll have to be there, as it’s a question of bail.”

“That oughtn’t to take all day.”

“Then I’ll be free.”

“Around seven?”

“I’ll expect you.”

I went to the hearing, just to keep the record straight, and sat in the back of the room. Delavan was there, and the maid, and Jane, and a couple of lawyers. It took about ten minutes. The maid was held, in $250 bail, and Jane took cash out of her handbag to put it up. I felt kind of proud I had a little something to do with that cash. She wasn’t broke any more.


That night I expected her to be upset, but she didn’t show any ill effects, and we went to the Bonanza for dinner. Then I drove her to Virginia City, the old mining town, for a brandy at a bar there, and after that we took a walk on the boardwalk to look at the pioneer stuff. Then we came back to Reno for a little more circular golf, and she won a little, but not much. Then we strolled over to my office to look up the Count’s pedigree, so she could see where those gaits came from. When I put on the desk lights she spotted the cups and brought one over to read the engraving on it. Then she said: “You’re such a funny thing.”

“How?”

“Such a — go-getter.”

“Is that funny?”

“But I mean it as a compliment!”

“Then O.K.”

“My world is oh, so veddy well-bred. In plain English, well-heeled. Well-heeled heels that would regard go-getting as a distinct social solecism.”

“As — what?

“I just said that to see your face. As a distinct breach of form. But you, you really like to bring home that cup, don’t you?”

“And I do it, don’t make any mistake about that.”

“I like you for it.” She took my head in her hands and put a little soft kiss on my mouth. I put my arm around her and pulled her to me, to mean it. “No, please.”

“If not, why not?”

“I’m still married. It would be messy.”

On the doorknob, when we came in, had been a notice of a wire. So when she began looking up the pedigree I rang to find out what it was. They read it to me, and it was from Los Angeles, and I saved it:

DELAVAN POLICY MAILED YOU TODAY BUT HOLD DELIVERY PENDING FURTHER ORDERS. MR. KEYES ARRIVING YELLAND FIELD TEN TOMORROW WEDNESDAY A.M. REGARDS

NORTON

When I finally got her home, and said good night at the elevators, and went around to the Fremont, where I lived, and got to my apartment, I hit the roof. I cussed, I raved, I stomped around, till the desk rang up to know if there was something wrong. Then I tried liquor and that didn’t work. Finally I went to bed, but don’t get the idea I went to sleep. Norton is president of the company and Keyes is head of the claim department, a bird we got not long ago from another of the Norton group of companies, and there was no claim on the Delavan policy yet but he gets called in on all kinds of stuff that the underwriters don’t know what to do about, and without hearing any more about it this meant trouble. With Keyes in it it would be just plain agony, because if there was any twisted, cock-eyed, queer angle that could be found on it, he’d turn it up, and about two dozen of his own that nobody else could find in it, but that he had to see just to show what a genius he was at it.

3

I hadn’t seen him since two or three cases he’d had that had got a lot of space in the newspapers, and while I had heard about the way he was playing up to it, and the reporters at the airport should have tipped me off, I wasn’t quite ready for what came off the plane. In the first place, he had lost about fifty pounds, because while he wasn’t exactly a slim, slanky cowboy type even now, he was rightdown beautiful compared with the Berkshire hog type he had been before. In the second place, the clothes he wore, from the down-on-one-side hat to the tailormade suit, were just like what a picture actor wears on a personal appearance tour. And in the third place, he had that look in his eye that says camera. He saw me and waved, and then looked surprised as anything at the reporters at the gate, though how they would be there if somebody hadn’t tipped them off, I couldn’t quite figure out. He stood twenty minutes being interviewed, on the political situation, the business outlook, and the crime wave, which all hands seemed to know about, though it was the first I’d heard there was one. Then I drove him to the Washoe-Truckee, where I had tried to get him a deluxe suite, but there weren’t any, so they gave him a nice single on the east side of the hotel and we walked over to my office. I sat him behind my desk, put the Delavan folder in front of him, went out to see some prospects, and told Linda I’d ring in from time to time to see if he was ready to talk. So when I got back around five it turned out his idea of when to talk was that night after dinner. I had to call Mrs. Delavan and break my date. “I’m sorry, but there’s a shot here from the home office and there’s nothing much I can do.”

“Well, Mr. Horner, does it really matter?”

“It does to me.”

“Then maybe you’ve forgotten something.”

“Which is?”

“The gambling houses never close — why not — why not, Ed?

“Say, say, say.”

“Put him bidey-bye and ring Jingle-Janey.”

After dinner I took him to a picture, and around eleven there didn’t seem to be any place he could go but bed. So I took him to the hotel. I waved as he went up in the car, and he was hardly out of sight when I dived for the house phone.


“But, Ed, who’s the shot?”

“Just head of the claim department.”

“Anything wrong?”

“No. Why?”

“You seem greatly preoccupied.”

“Preoccupied with color.”

She had on slacks and a mink coat, with red bag, red shoes, and a red ribbon around her hair, and the way I told it, it had given me the idea for a whole new system based on betting the red. It cost me $18 before we switched to something that made sense, but she thought it was hot stuff and forgot about everything else. But then, as we took a drift over to some new place to change our luck, my heart stood still because there at a chuck-a-luck game stood Keyes. I pulled her back on the street. “But what—?”

“The shot from the home office.”

“Well?”

“Jane, I’d rather he didn’t see me.”

“Doing exactly what he’s doing?”

“He’s on a trip, and if he makes it a toot, well — they all do. But me, I’m home, and if it looks like I did it every night, that’s different.”

We started down the street, her hand on my arm, as it generally was now, but her head was down, like she was thinking. And pretty soon she said: “I have the queerest feeling.”

“About the red? It’s no good.”

“About the shot from the home office. I keep thinking it’s not the roulette you don’t want him to see, but me.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It would certainly seem so, and yet—”

After awhile she stopped and faced me. “Now I’ve got it... The insurance deal is still on, isn’t it?”

“Listen, I bring home cups.”

“And this man’s investigating, isn’t he?”

“He might be.”

“Will you send him to me?”

“What for?”

“I might block this insurance.”

“This is not a guy I can send places, to you or anybody. This is Mr. Keyes, that regards himself as a national celebrity, and maybe he takes my advice, and maybe he doesn’t. And anyway, I’ve got enough trouble with him already without fixing it up for you to make me a little more.”

“To you this is just insurance, isn’t it?”

“That’s all.”

“And human questions, they don’t matter?”

“Yeah, Jane, but what’s insurance got to do with it?”

“Everything.”

“That’s no answer. Give.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’d involve other people.”

“Like who?”

“I can’t discuss it with you.”

“Then the deal’s on.”

We went on a little way, then she stopped and right under the bright lights on Virginia Street she took my two coat lapels in her hands. “Ed, can’t you take what I say on faith?”

“Afraid not.”

“Would I be one to imagine things?”

“I wouldn’t say so.”

“Then why won’t you believe me?”

“You really want to know?”

“You know I do.”

“The No. 5 cup.”

I told her about the five-star cluster, and all the rest of it. Her eyes got wet, so they glittered. “But that’s so childish.”

“So’s everything.”

“But terrible things are at stake.”

“What are they?”

“If this wasn’t so serious it would be funny.”

She put her arms around me, there in front of the hotel, and kissed me, warm and full, the first time she ever had. “You like me a lot, Ed, or so you said.”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

“I think you are too.”

“Jane, are you in love with me?

“I’m suffering from a badly bruised heart, and you can’t forget everything and be in love at the drop of a hat. But I’m happy when I’m with you, so I guess it’s not far off. Now, because you love me, will you drop this whole thing simply because I ask it and tell Tom he can’t have his insurance? There’s a reason for that. When he finds he can’t get insurance he’ll be so frightened he’ll drop this whole thing he intends to do to me. You see, Tom’s whole trouble is he can never take anything seriously. Whether it’s marriage, polo, or work, such little work as he does, it’s always the same. He makes a game of it. He even has to make a game out of ending his marriage. But if he’s a child about such things, he’s also a child in his unusual capacity to feel fear. This will scare him to death, and end the whole farce. Promise me, and then we’ll go up to my nice little suite and make coffee and you can work on the $64 question: What have you got that makes me want to run my fingers through your hair?”

I didn’t promise, but I kissed her, and I can kid myself all I please, but I know now, and I knew then, that she took it as a promise. Well, why did I go up with her, have coffee, spend one of those romantic hours, and not bring the thing up any more, to make it all clear, how I stood? I think I’ve told you, an agent thinks he’s doing anybody a swell turn to get a policy written for them, whether it’s for one year or twenty. And by that time, I had come to the conclusion that whatever it was she meant by all the fuss she was kicking up, it didn’t amount to much, or wouldn’t, once she combed Delavan out of her hair. On top of that, I’ll admit it, I wanted the cup, but I could see no reason, no reason that made any sense at all, why I couldn’t have the cup and her too, or at least have a wonderful time with her, and the works later, with orange blossoms, if that’s how it turned out. Then O.K., O.K., I’ll say it again: I wanted that cup.


And, believe it or not, I told Keyes what had been said, when he came to the office next morning after talking with Delavan. So far, I had told him nothing about her. But the way I did it, like leaving out her asking me to promise, was proof that down deep in me I wasn’t really telling all I knew, I was just going through the motions. I kept saying to myself it was “personal,” whatever that meant, and nobody’s business but my own. He hardly heard me. “I don’t see anything to this but a playboy that’s come into an unexpected piece of change and has figured a way to pretend to himself he’s going to do something pretty nice for her to square up for giving her a dirty deal on the annulment.”

“That’s how I see it.”

“And there might be a blow-hard angle.”

“In what way, Mr. Keyes?”

“In his clubs, or wherever he hangs out. It’s around, don’t worry, how little she’s getting, because he even admits it isn’t enough. But if he can toss it off about the ‘six-figure insurance deal’ that was put on top of it, that’ll get around too. Once it’s around, what does he care? He’s taken care of his name, and at the end of a year he can quit worrying. As he says, she’ll probably be married anyway. He’s probably patting himself on the back, what a noble guy he is. And there may be a tax angle we don’t know about.”

“You don’t seem to believe much in nobility.”

“In a word, no.”

“What do you make of her, Mr. Keyes?”

“Well, who would want this annulment?”

“Yeah, but what’s blocking the insurance got to do with it?”

“It’s not so dumb, once you meet the guy. She probably figures that if you take away his chance to look noble, the rest of it’ll be so raw that even he won’t have the gall to go through with it. Ed, he’s a silly guy. She knows him. She’s got her reasons. Of course, if there was somebody around that would plug him for what he’s doing, that would be different. Fortunately, we can eliminate that.”

“Oh, can we?”

“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”

“What have I got to do with it?”

“Well, you’re going around with her.”

“On business, a little.”

“Like a little necking in front of the hotel?”

“Says who?”

“I saw you... She was such a pretty girl I stopped at the desk and asked who she was. I think it can be assumed if she’s having hot smackeroos with you, she’s not having them with somebody else. He won’t get shot, in my humble opinion.”

“This all came after his application was in.”

“It’s O.K. with me.”

“I’m kind of stuck on her.”

“I don’t fall for them as a rule. I’ve got a superstition about it. Somehow, I feel that’s all it would need, for me to fall for one, and here it would come, all ready-made from up yonder, a chapter at a time. Stories are wonderful things — but from the outside looking in, Ed, every time. From the inside looking out, not so good.”

It crossed my mind, driving out to see one of the Count’s lessons in manners, could I be on the inside of something, looking out, and not know it?


Keyes had got the company to make it a rule that anything in six figures gets a special check, whether there’s anything questionable or not, so that meant he had to sit around till he got his report from New York. That meant I’d have to entertain him, but there was no help for it, so I rang her and said I’d meet her later. Around five o’clock he rang me at the office, and from the way he stuttered I began to wonder what he wanted. “Listen, Mr. Keyes, is there something else you’d rather do?”

“Oh, not at all, but—”

“Spill it.”

“There’s somebody I’d like to invite.”

“Hey, hey, hey. And ho, ho, ho. And ha, ha, ha.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that. She’s married and rich and wants nothing from me. Just the same, she’s a pretty good looker, and I thought—”

“Who is she?”

“Nobody you know. She’s from Bermuda.”

“If she’s getting it melted, watch out.”

“No. She’s here on business — cashing chips.”

“She won’t be rich long.”

“She can afford it.”

“She’s all yours.”

“Couldn’t we invite — your little friend, Ed?”

“I don’t think she’d go for it.”

“Ed, can I say something?”

“Shoot!”

“Personal?”

“O.K.”

“Watch out.”

“Well, the same to you and many of them.”

“Don’t worry about me, my young friend. But you, you could be starting something you can’t stop.”


That night I took Jane over to Carson, and she loved it, because it’s the tiniest state capital in the world, and she said it was like tiptoeing around in some doll’s house. After we had dinner at the Arlington we started up the Bridgeport Road, because over the California line, in the high country where there’s real forest, you often see deer and other big game, and she thought she would like that. She was feeling good, and before long I found out why. “I think my difficulty’s near an end. I think my problem is going to be solved, and soon. I think it’ll all get straightened out before I, or Tom, complete our six weeks’ period of residence.”

“Gee, that’s swell.”

“In town has arrived a lady.”

“You interest me strangely.”

“The present wife of my former husband.”

“To get Tom to lay off the annulment?”

“I can imagine no other reason.”

“Who is your former husband, by the way?”

“Richard Sperry.”

“I never heard of him.”

“He was well enough known when I married him. His scientific standing as a petroleum expert is good and solid. Backed up by her money, though, he’s become internationally eminent. And I imagine her money will tell the story here.”

“You mean — she’ll offer Tom?”

“I think so.”

“And Tom will take it?”

She talked along about society people, and what they will do for money, or even free booze, like indorse this, that, or the other brand of whiskey, and I got the idea friend Tom could be had, and maybe cheap. We saw a deer and a pair of eyes we decided was a puma, though if you ask me, most of those pumas along the road would yip like coyotes if you coaxed them with a rock. She took my hand and patted it. “Yes, I think we can assume that little Connie didn’t come all the way from Bermuda, as much money as she has, just to say please.”

“...Your husband lives in Bermuda?”

“Didn’t I say? He’s a geologist for the oil companies.”

“Didn’t know Bermuda had any oil.”

“Bermuda’s his base. You can’t live in Venezuela. It’s too hot, and they’ve got malaria.”

“How’d she find out about this annulment?”

“Through the frizzle-haired simpleton.”

“His fiancée?”

“Who’s reached the bragging stage now.”

“Would her bragging reach Bermuda?”

“It’s practically a suburb of New York.”

“She certainly got here quick.”

“What’s the matter, Ed?”

“Nothing.”

“Have I upset you, talking about Dick?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, something’s eating on you.”

“I said nothing’s the matter.”

We drove to the hotel, but Bermuda, the policy, and the pass at Keyes certainly seemed more than coincidence.

4

They say a zebra, as long as he can see the lion, goes on grazing without getting too much excited about it. But when he can’t see him, and can only hear him, and has no idea where the sound is coming from, he gets so nervous he can’t eat, can’t run, and can’t stand still. I was that way about Keyes. When he didn’t come in next day and he didn’t call, I stood it until noon, but by that time I had to find out what he was doing. I drove over to the hotel, and he was in the barber shop. The barber was working on his head, the shine boy on his feet, and the manicure girl on his paws. When I went bug-eyed he acted like nothing had happened, though you could tell from the way Marguerite had to cue him that he’d never had a manicure in his life, and I wouldn’t bet much he’d ever had a shine.

In the lobby, when the production job was done, so he shone and squeaked and smelled, he propositioned me about my car. “As there’s absolutely nothing I can do until I hear from New York, I’d kind of like to drive Mrs. Sperry around, and if you could accommodate me—”

“It’s yours. Here’s the key.”

“But if you need it I can rent one.”

“You? In a U-Drive jalopy?”

“Oh, I drive.”

“But you’re so valuable to the company.”

“I guess that’s right.”

He was pretty solemn about it, and I dead-panned, though I kind of liked the gag, and I filed it away so in case I had to make a speech at a company banquet I’d have something to tell the boys. Pretty soon he said: “She knows the country and is going to show me a lot of things, like the old mines in Goldfield and Tonopah and Virginia City — those are ghost towns, aren’t they?”

“They were, till fires burned the ghostly garments up.”

“Extraordinary woman, Ed. Wonderful mind. I was telling her about this problem of ours.”

“Yeah? I’m a little surprised.”

“Oh, I mentioned no names.”

“Then of course that makes it different.”

“She thinks, as I do, that on big things, you instinctively know what you think, with no evidential substantiation. Beautiful phrase, Ed.”

“Here we call it playing a hunch.”

“Her mind constantly parallels mine.”

“Or yesses it.”

“...What did you say?”

“I said what does she think of our problem?”

“Just what we think. She was wondering if she had any capacity for this clairvoyance of mine, as she calls it, and I laid it all out for her. She said, ‘Well, it would be terribly exciting if I could feel something steal up and touch me on the shoulder, but I don’t. All I see is a somewhat pathetic boy trying to make himself look big in a cheap, silly way.’”

“That makes three of us.”

“Got to run, Ed. Mrs. Sperry is waiting.”

“To say nothing of the former Mrs. Sperry.”

“Who?”

“Jane, waiting for me.”

“Mrs. Delavan was the former Mrs. Sperry?”

“Now you got it.”

He sat there a long time, sometimes asking me questions about who these people were, and I could see his mind racing up one part of it and down the other, putting everything together, checking what he had said to La Sperry, what she had said to him, and so on. Then he said: “It’s none of my business what she’s here for, is it, Ed?”

“That I couldn’t say.”

“And none of hers, what I’m here for.”

“That I couldn’t say either.”

“You know how I dope it out?”

“No, but I’d like to.”

“She had no idea what I was telling her.”

“What do you mean, telling her?”

“About Delavan’s policy.”

“Had no idea who you were talking about?”

“I never reject a simple explanation. Ed.”

“That explanation, I’d say, verges on the simple-minded. If you think, after what you told her, she had no idea who you were talking about — that is, if you told her all about the coal company, the—”

“Ouch, I forgot that.”

“It’s not possible she didn’t guess... Mr. Keyes, if you told her about it, as you say, it wasn’t up to her to tip it she knew who you were talking about if she didn’t want to. Maybe she’s a well-mannered dame that doesn’t tip things because she was brought up not to. But that’s not all. You didn’t only tell her. She pumped it out of you. She—”

“No, no, Ed. Nobody could. Not out of me.”

“O.K. You’re a clam.”

He sat another ten minutes thinking. “But what interest could she have? What could it mean to her whether Delavan gets his insurance or didn’t? She hasn’t tried to influence me in any way.”

“She’s here to block that annulment.”

“O.K., now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Just where?”

“If she’s here to block the annulment, by whatever suasion she cares to use—”

“On checks.”

“You mean she’ll bribe Delavan?”

“Why, Mr. Keyes, such language!”

“It’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“You think he’s too refined to accept?”

I took him out to where the car was parked, and he stood beside it, thinking some more. “I think we’ve got it, Ed. Mrs. Delavan got that thing they use all over the British Empire, one of those cut-and-dried, found-him-with-an-unknown-woman, in-and-out-in-ten-minutes divorces, and they’re perfectly good — so long as everybody plays ball. But God help you if somebody kicks the beans in the fire. An English court will reopen the case sure as God made little apples, and remember, if they wanted to call it on them, this would involve perjury, contempt of court, manufacture of evidence, collusion, everything that mocks the dignity of the court, and that it can’t have publicly proved. Delavan thinks he’ll kick over the beans. Mrs. Sperry has other ideas, because she doesn’t propose to have her marriage ruined by a playboy’s caprice. So far as I’m concerned, that accounts for everything, her trip here, all of it.”

I made sure he knew where the starter was and went off and left him. Why I had talked so tough I don’t know, as the hand as it was dealt said I ought to have talked the other way. But somehow, even if it is against your own interest, you can blow your top a little when you see a guy kidding himself and shutting his eyes to what he ought to be seeing. Because, tough talk or not, ramming the probe in, pretending to go into it from the company angle or however I played it, there was stuff going on here I didn’t understand, and my stomach was telling me it was no good.


Going into the week-end it was high, wide and handsome, with Jane and me out with the horses most of the time, and he running the roads with Mrs. Sperry. But when he brought her in Saturday morning, to pick up tickets for the football game over at the University, I didn’t exactly like her, but I could see what he’d fallen for. She was a little older than Jane, maybe a little under thirty, small and stocky, but not fat. But in the blue dress with white spots on it that she was wearing, with tan shoes, hat and bag and fur coat, you could hardly miss that trim, pretty shape, with nice legs that reminded you somehow of a cat. Or maybe it was her eyes that did that. Her face was round, with puffy, dimpled cheeks, rosebud mouth and small, perky nose and light hair; but her eyes were the diamond shape you see in a leopard, and light gray.

But she didn’t look like anybody else, you had to say that for her, and when she smiled at me and clucked over the cups and made herself friendly with Linda, you couldn’t exactly kick her in the teeth. She made my skin prickle a little, and yet I’m human and it wasn’t just to be nice to Keyes that I put myself out for her. After some talk about the football game she said: “I hear you see little Jane Delavan.”

“Yes, we ride a little.”

“Lovely girl.”

“...You know her?”

“Well — that would be a little complicated. But I’ve seen her and heard a lot about her — and I know a lot of people that she knows.”

“Shall I remember you to her?”

“I think it would please her that I spoke pleasantly of her. But if you mention it, don’t say anything as coming from me.”

“O.K.”

But how I was going to do it at all was what worried me, because to mention it would mean I would have to mention what Keyes had to do with it, and what was he doing here all this time? But I could have saved myself the trouble of thinking about it, because by dinner Jane already had it. “Ed, I ask you once more what that man is doing here.”

“He has business.”

“And what’s he doing with her?”

“Maybe he likes her.”

“What’s she doing with him?”

“Vice versa, maybe.”

“With her, that’s not enough.”

“Then maybe she wants a good time.”

“Ed, have you kept your promise to me?”

I said I never broke my promises, which sounded a little better than it was.


I’m a member of Unity, and next morning, when service was over at the Masonic Temple, I stepped over to the hotel to see how she felt on the subject of lunch. But Keyes was in the lobby, slumped down in his chair, and when he saw me he jumped up and came over almost at a trot. “Ed, I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve been trying to reach you all morning, and — I’ve got to talk.”

“O.K. — talk.”

“Not here. I’m not myself.”

We went up to his room and first he sat on the bed, then he lay on it. Then he got an envelope out of his pocket, opened it, took out a paper and said: “Read that.”

It was one of our operative’s reports, and from the first page, where “subject” went to a football game, it was easy to see that who was under surveillance was Mrs. Sperry. “So you got pretty stuck on her, but not so stuck you didn’t have her shadowed.”

“No, Ed, that’s not how it was at all.”

“Looks like it.”

“The whole thing was routine. I put the case in charge of our Department of Investigation, down in Los Angeles. I told them to take the whole thing over. How did I know they’d decide to include her in their check-up? I’d never even heard of her when I left to come up here. But — and the worst of it is the operative doesn’t even know who I am.”

I read it, and right near the end it went something like this:

11:05 P.M. Subject returned to hotel, entered Suite 642 with Robert Keyes.

11:08 P.M. Keyes left subject’s suite.

11:14 P.M. Phone rang in subject’s suite, subject answered, conversation inaudible.

11:15 P.M. Subject admitted man to her room. Identity undiscovered so far. Description:

Age: 30–35.

Height: About six feet.

Weight: Around 160.

Hair: Black, slightly gray.

Good build, well-dressed.

At 12:00 P.M. this man had not come out. I put wedges cut from three paper matches in crack between door and frame, using point of penknife to work them into place in such way they would fall unnoticed if door was opened. Went off duty. Sunday: 9:30 A.M. Wedges still in place.

“Well, Mr. Keyes, she crossed you.”

“But why?”

“Maybe she likes him.”

“I thought she liked me. I... worshipped her.”

“Being married to one guy, playing around with another, carrying on with still another — it’s done every day, except mostly they don’t have a private eye down the hall wearing a porter’s blouse.”

“And I thought she was a lady — a thoroughbred.”

“Oh, ladies play, but they don’t get caught.”

“It’s a horrible shock to me.”

“Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

“Warned? By whom? Who dared warn me?”

“Me. Remember my saying — watch out?”

“That was a gag.”

“Or so you thought.”

“All right, Ed, you warned me.”


When I went to Jane’s suite, she was in a worse state, if that was possible, than Keyes was. “Ed, something horrible has happened.”

“O.K., let’s have it.”

“Dick’s in town.”

“Sperry?”

“He’s here to kill Tom.”

“...You mean bump him off? Like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Nice guy.”

“Oh, yes. Once he tried to kill me.”

“Kind of a Bluebeard type, I’d say.”

“Don’t talk like that... Dick has spent too many years of his life in places where human life is very cheap, and where assassination is one of the regular ways to accomplish an end, and the cheapest. I... I tell you, we went swimming, and suddenly I knew I was not coming back.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well—!”

“Oh, later on it was proved. He knew I knew.”

“So?”

“I screamed.”

“Loud?”

“I said my foot had touched something.”

“And?”

“I said it was rough, like sandpaper.”

“Oh, like a shark maybe.”

“And that was something even Mr. Sperry couldn’t face. He tried to pooh-pooh it, but I screamed again, and he cut for shore.”

“Well, there’s no ocean here, or sharks.”

“Ed, please listen to me. I’ve tried to tell Tom if he persisted in this thing, this annulment, that Dick would have to do something about it. I told him what I’ve just told you. I told him Dick was like that, that rather than have this thing happen he would kill him. His answer was to go to you about insurance. To prove he thought it simply silly he looked up an agent in the phone book and went over to your office. Well, thank heaven I warned you in time, and that part is out. That silly gesture he made, to prove I was just dreaming things up, and that even seemed silly to him, when I told him his application would be disapproved. You’re protected, but he’s not. We’ve got to think of some way to block this off.”

“And with him gone I could marry you.”

I guess it was a gag, but before she could answer the phone rang in the bedroom. She dived in there, and when she came back her eyes were shining. “Thank the all-merciful God! That was Tom. He’s given up the annulment action.”

“Well, that just about fixes everything.”

“I hadn’t counted on Dick going to see him.”

“Turned on the heat, hey?”

“At last Tom knew what I had been trying to tell him. Oh, I know how Dick looked when he came for that little chat. You wouldn’t think those quiet, scientific eyes could get that killer look in them, but they can, all right.”

“Then let’s celebrate.”

“Oh, yes!”

“Little trip to Tahoe?”

“I’d love it.”

So we had the hotel fix us some lunch and drove up to Tahoe and ate it in the woods, sitting on a rock beside the lake. But before we went I called on Keyes in his room. “News, chum.”

“...What is it, Ed?”

“That guy, last night, was her husband.”

He had flopped back on the bed as soon as he let me in, but now he jumped up and grabbed the phone. When the operator told him that yes, Mr. Richard Sperry was registered, I thought his grin would come together at the back of his neck and take off the top of his head. “Ed, you can’t know what you’ve done for me.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“That thoroughbred, and I suspected her!”

“And the annulment suit’s out.”

“I bet you’re pleased.”

“Somewhat.”

“Pretty day, isn’t it, Ed?”

“That old Nevada air.”

Загрузка...