“No it's not. It's the hash house.”

“I'm not talking about the hash house. I'm talking about the road. It's fun, Cora. And nobody knows it better than I do. Isn't that what we want? Just to be a pair of tramps, like we really are?”

“You were a fine tramp. You didn't even have socks.”

“You liked me.”

“I loved you. I would love you without even a shirt. I would love you specially without a shirt, so I could feel how nice and hard your shoulders are.”

“Fighting railroad detectives developed the muscles.”

“And you're hard all over. Big and tall and hard. And your hair is light. You're not a little soft greasy guy with black hair that he puts bay rum^[35] on every night.”

“That must be a nice smell.”

“But it won't do, Frank^[36]. That road, it don't lead anywhere but to the hash house. The hash house for me, and some job like it for you. A lousy parking lot job, where you wear a smock. I'd cry if I saw you in a smock, Frank.”

“Well?”

She sat there a long time, holding my hand in both of hers. “Frank, do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you love me so much that not anything matters?”

“Yes.”

“There's one way.”

“Did you say you weren't really a hell cat?”

“I said it, and I mean it. I'm not what you think I am, Frank. I want to work and be something, that's all. But you can't do it without love. Do you know that, Frank? Well, I've made one mistake. And I've got to be a hell cat, just once, to fix it.^[37] But I'm not really a hell cat, Frank.”

“They hang you for that.”

“Not if you do it right. You're smart, Frank. You'll think of a way. Don't worry. I'm not the first woman that had to turn hell cat to get out of a mess^[38].”

“He never did anything to me. He's all right.”

“The hell he's all right. He stinks, I tell you. He's greasy and he stinks. And do you think I'm going to let you wear a smock, with Service Auto Parts^[39] printed on the back, Thank-U Call Again^[40], while he has four suits and a dozen silk shirts? Isn't that business half mine? Don't I cook? Don't I cook good? Don't you do your part?”

“You talk like it was all right^[41].”

“Who's going to know if it's all right or not, but you and me?”

“You and me.”

“That's it, Frank. That's all that matters^[42], isn't it? Not you and me and the road, or anything else but you and me.”

“You must be a hell cat, though.”

“That's what we're going to do. Kiss me, Frank. On the mouth.”

I kissed her. Her eyes were shining up at me like two blue stars.

Chapter 4

“Got any hot water?”

“What's the matter with the bathroom?”^[43]

“Nick's in there.”

“Oh. I'll give you some out of the kettle.”

It was about ten o'clock at night, and we had closed up, and the Greek was in the bathroom, doing his Saturday night wash. I was to take the water up to my room, get ready to shave, and then remember I had left the car out. I was to go outside, and give her one on the horn^[44] if somebody came. She was to wait till she heard him in the tub, go in for a towel, and hit him from behind with a blackjack I had made for her out of a sugar bag filled with ball bearings. At first, I was to do it, but we figured he wouldn't pay any attention to her^[45] if she went in there, where if I said I was after my razor, he might get out of the tub or something and help me look. Then she was to hold him under until he drowned. Then she was to leave the water running a little bit, and step out the window to the porch roof, and come down the stepladder I had put there, to the ground. She was to hand me the blackjack, and go back to the kitchen. I was to put the ball bearings back in the box, throw the bag away, put the car in, and go up to my room and start to shave. She would wait till the water began dripping down in the kitchen, and call me. We would break the door down, find him, and call the doctor.

In the end, we figured it would look like he had slipped in the tub, knocked himself out, and then drowned. I got the idea from a piece in the paper where a guy had said that most accidents happen right in people's own bathtubs.

“Be careful of it. It's hot.”

“Thanks.”

It was in a saucepan, and I took it up in my room, set it on the bureau, and laid my shaving stuff out^[46]. I went down and out to the car, and took a seat in it so I could see the road and the bathroom window, both. The Greek was singing. I looked in the kitchen. She was still there.

A truck and a trailer swung around the bend. I fingered the horn. Sometimes those truckmen stopped for something to eat, and they were the kind that would beat on the door till you opened up. But they went on. A couple more cars went by. They didn't stop. I looked in the kitchen again, and she wasn't there. A light went on in the bedroom.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw something move by the porch. I almost hit the horn, but then I saw it was a cat. It was just a gray cat, but it shook me up. A cat was the last thing I wanted to see then. I couldn't see it for a minute, and then there it was again, smelling around the stepladder. I didn't want to blow the horn^[47], because it wasn't anything but a cat, but I didn't want it around that stepladder. I got out of the car, went back there, and shooed it away.

I got halfway back to the car, when it came back, and started up the ladder. I shooed it away again, and then stood there for a little bit, looking to see if it was coming back.

A state cop^[48] came around the bend. He saw me standing there, cut his motor, and came wheeling in, before I could move. When he stopped he was between me and the car. I couldn't blow the horn.

“Taking it easy?”^[49]

“Just came out to put the car away.”

“That your car?”

“Belongs to this guy I work for.”

“O.K. Just checking up.”

He looked around, and then he saw something. “I'll be damned. Look at that.”

“Look at what?”

“Goddam cat, going up that stepladder.”

“Ha.”

“I love a cat.”

He pulled on his gloves and went. Soon as he was out of sight^[50] I reached for the horn. I was too late. There was a flash of fire from the porch, and every light in the place went out. Inside, Cora was screaming with an awful sound in her voice. “Frank! Frank! Something has happened!”

I ran in the kitchen, but it was black dark in there and I didn't have any matches in my pocket, and I had to feel my way. We met on the stairs, she going down, and me going up. She screamed again.

“Keep quiet, for God's sake keep quiet! Did you do it?”

“Yes, but the lights went out, and I haven't held him under yet!”

“We got to bring him to!^[51] There was a state cop out there, and he saw that stepladder!”

“Phone for the doctor!”

“You phone, and I'll get him out of there!”

I went in the bathroom, and over to the tub. He was laying there in the water, but his head wasn't under. I tried to lift him. I had a hell of a time. He was slippery with soap, and I had to stand in the water before I could raise him at all. All the time I could hear her down there, talking to the operator. They didn't give her a doctor. They gave her the police.

I got him up, and laid him over the edge of the tub, and then got out myself, and dragged him in the bedroom and laid him on the bed. She came up, then, and we found matches, and got a candle lit. Then we went to work on him. I packed his head in wet towels, while she rubbed his hands and feet.

“They're sending an ambulance.”

“All right. Did he see you do it?”

“I don't know.”

“Were you behind him?”

“I think so. But then the lights went out, and I don't know what happened. What did you do to the lights?”

“Nothing. The fuse popped^[52].”

“Frank. He'd better not come to^[53].”

“He's got to come to. If he dies, we're sunk.^[54] I tell you, that cop saw the stepladder. If he dies, then they'll know.”

“But suppose he saw me? What's he going to say when he comes to?”

“Maybe he didn't. We just got to tell him a story, that's all. You were in here, and the lights popped, and you heard him slip and fall, and he didn't answer when you spoke to him. Then you called me, that's all. No matter^[55] what he says, you got to stick to it. If he saw anything, it was just his imagination, that's all.”

“Why don't they hurry with that ambulance?”

“It'll be here.”

Soon as the ambulance came, they put him on a stretcher and shoved him in. She rode with him. I followed along in the car. Halfway to Glendale, a state cop met us and rode on ahead. They went seventy miles an hour, and I couldn't keep up. They were lifting him out when I got to the hospital, and the state cop was giving orders. When he saw me he gave a start^[56] and stared at me. It was the same cop.

They took him in, put him on a table, and wheeled him in an operating room. Cora and myself sat out in the hall. Pretty soon a nurse came and sat down with us. Then the cop came, and he had a sergeant with him. They kept looking at me. Cora was telling the nurse how it happened. “I was in there, in the bathroom I mean, getting a towel, and then the lights went out just like somebody had shot a gun off. Oh my, they made a terrible noise. I heard him fall. He had been standing up, getting ready to turn on the shower. I spoke to him, and he didn't say anything, and it was all dark, and I couldn't see anything, and I didn't know what had happened. I mean I thought he had been electrocuted or something. So then Frank heard me screaming, and he came, and got him out, and then I called up for the ambulance, and I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't come quick like they did.”

“They always hurry on a late call.”

“I'm so afraid he's hurt bad.”

“I don't think so. They're taking X-Rays^[57] in there now.

But I don't think he's hurt bad.”

“Oh my, I hope not.”

The cops never said a word. They just sat there and looked at us.

They wheeled him out, and his head was covered with bandages. They took him up and put him in a room. We all went in there and sat down. Somebody said something, and the nurse made them keep quiet. A doctor came and took a look, and went out. We sat there a hell of a while. Then the nurse went over and looked at him.

“I think he's coming to now.”

Cora looked at me, and I looked away quick. The cops leaned forward, to hear what he said. He opened his eyes.

“You feel better now?”

He didn't say anything and neither did anybody else. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. “Don't you know your wife? Here she is. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, falling in the bathtub like a little boy, just because the lights went out. Your wife is mad at you. Aren't you going to speak to her?”

He strained to say something, but couldn't say it. The nurse went over and fanned him. Cora took hold of his hand and patted it. He lay back for a few minutes, with his eyes closed, and then his mouth began to move again and he looked at the nurse.

“Was a all go dark.”

When the nurse said he had to be quiet, I took Cora down, and put her in the car. We no sooner started out than the cop was back there^[58], following us on his motorcycle.

“He suspicions us, Frank.”

“It's the same one. He knew there was something wrong, soon as he saw me standing there, keeping watch^[59]. He still thinks so.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don't know. It all depends on that stepladder, whether he guesses what it's there for. What did you do with that slung-shot?”

“I still got it here, in the pocket of my dress.”

“God Almighty, if they had arrested you back there, and searched you, we'd have been sunk.”

I gave her my knife to cut the string off the bag, and take the bearings out. Then I told her to raise the back seat, and put the bag under it. It would look like a rag.

“You stay back there, now, and keep an eye on that cop. I'm going to throw these bearings into the bushes one at a time, and you've got to watch if he notices anything.”

She watched, and I drove with my left hand, throwing the ball bearings one every couple of minutes out the window.

“Did he turn his head?”

“No.”

I let the rest go^[60]. He never noticed it.

We got out to the place, and it was still dark. When I pulled in, the cop went past, and was there ahead of me. “I'm taking a look at that fuse box, buddy.”

“Sure. I'm taking a look myself.”

We all three went there, and he turned on a flashlight. Right away, he gave a funny grunt^[61] and stooped down. There was the cat, laying on its back with all four feet in the air.

“Ain't that a shame? Killed her deader than hell.”^[62]

He shot the flashlight up under the porch roof, and along the stepladder. “That's it, all right. Remember? We were looking at her. She stepped off the ladder on to your fuse box, and it killed her deader than hell. Well, I'll be going along^[63]. I guess that straightens us out. Had to check up, you know.”

“That's right.”

“So long. So long, Miss.”

“So long.”