"I'm not nuts."

So far, though their voices hadn't been loud, they had been bellowing over a chasm, so far as close communication was concerned. Now, however, she went over, lifted the white faille dress, knelt beside him, and took his head in her arms. "I had to know where we stand," she whispered, "or I couldn't make any sense. Now, Clay, I speak. I tell you: "I'm standing by you!... If you want me to!"

"You needn't. You don't have to stand by a rat."

"I see no rats in here."

"Look around. Maybe there is one."

"All I see is a wonderful guy that I love, that I'm married to, that's my husband. That comes first, before anyone else-daughter, grandchild, anyone. I love them, I can't pretend that I don't. But you come first, and I stand by if you want me. ... If you don't, say it, and I'll get on the plane and go home."

"Are you being funny, Grace?"

"Then, you do want me?"

"More than anything on this earth."

"Then, that's settled."

She pulled away, sitting on her heels, as though to go on, but he interrupted: "Do we have to keep talking about it? If you're with me, if you can find it in your heart not to despise me too much-then that's enough, for now. I'm kind of-!"

"Groggy?"

"Sick, Grace. Sick of it!"

"Darling, there's more to say, that will-"

"Then say it, get it said!"

"That will make you feel better, I think!"

She climbed in his lap, covered his face with tender little kisses, went on: "It might help a little bit, perhaps, if I stood on the edge and said kind things to you down there in the pit. It's not enough! I owe you more, not from duty, but because there is more! I'm down in the pit with you!"

"Hey! I'm in a pit, all right. But you-?"

"Darling! If I had listened to you that very first night, and not only to you but my heart, none of this would have happened! You made pa.s.ses at me, beautiful, insolent pa.s.ses, that made my heart go b.u.mp. I could have yielded to you and taken you from her right then! You wanted to be taken, because of what she intended, of what you knew she intended, of what I knew she intended! I burrowed my head in the sand, but I knew the truth in my heart. And so I made myself say no, made myself go on, with my slick, smart-aleck intrigue, using you as a cat's-paw, as I thought. So you can move over, if you think it's your private pit! I'm in it with you!"

She pushed, wriggled, and forced herself into his chair, her dress slipping up, her legs twined over his, her mouth on his.

21.

CHANNEL CITY LOOKED JUST the same when they got back, in mid-November, as it had when they had gone away except that the leaves had turned brown, yellow, and red. For the effect on his morale, she had insisted that Mr. Pender be paid the full $6,250 he asked and that she be permitted, as a lift on the money problem, to send her personal check, for deposit in his account, for $5,000. She also made him complete the trip, and they went to Memphis, St. Louis, and Denver, winding up at Mankato. Here they stayed with Pat at his estate on the Minnesota River, and he really did his stuff, bringing things to a climax with a big white-tie reception, followed by a dance, at the Ben-Pay Hotel. She was lovely in formal crimson, the labella of her orchids exactly matching her gown. She was vain of her affinity with these flowers, proclaiming that "they like you or they don't-and as mine last ten days, it just goes to show." Pat, impressed by such things, became her devoted pal, beauing her around, inspecting the picture with her, and inviting her to the unveiling-"which of course can't come just yet." When at last they got home and went to his apartment, he was almost himself again, giving a fine imitation of a brisk, masterful executive when he called on Mr. Pender to find out how things stood.

It seemed they stood very badly, "and for no good reason, Clay." The case against Buster, he said, "is wholly circ.u.mstantial, and circ.u.mstantial cases are weak. I might even have got it quashed except for one thing. This girl won't let me attack the case against her, this web of circ.u.mstance that's been put together mainly at the wife's instigation. She insists on a case of her own-that the wife did it, that she killed her husband, by driving up without lights, banging a horn in his ear, and causing him to swerve. She insists that she saw the car, that she got its number, and nothing that I can say, no amount of dope the police collected about it, can unlock her from that story. I've explained to her that to set up such a defense she'll have to take the stand-she can't stand on her rights and say nothing. In effect she'll have to start another case and prosecute it herself. She says she won't have a defense 'that says I'm guilty, only you can't prove it.' That, of course, is something I can't disregard-it has that strange, sweet smell of the truth. But, allowing for that, it's all wrong! It forgets something I can't quite say to her-not in so many words. Clay, you may be fond of this girl-I can't know how you feel-but her life's at stake and I'd better say what I mean. She's what she is: a chantoosie, a striptoosie, a-"

"Flip-floosie? Is that what you're getting at?"

"Well, you said it, Clay. I didn't."

"O.K. She's that-and looks it, Nat."

"And talks it-she sounds like one of those twerps that Jack Benny digs up to do a bit on his show. ... I'm sorry, Clay, if I-"

"It's O.K. Her life's at stake, after all!"

Mr. Pender was still obviously under the impression that Clay's interest in Buster was personal, and Clay wanted to set him right. He realized, however, that correction of one impression might very well lead to another, and so once more he let the misapprehension ride. Mr. Pender went on: "Well, since you don't mind discussing it freely, I can tell you that once she starts this line, John Kuhn will rip her apart. He's not a wolf at his job-just a good lawyer that's state's attorney. But, he's a d.a.m.ned good lawyer who takes his job very serious. And where she'll lead with her chin is from having this idea that the wife was just a b.i.t.c.h who came between two loving hearts and started causing them trouble, winding up with this murder. It may have been that-I can't say it wasn't. But as John Kuhn is going to develop it, she was the one who broke up Alexis' marriage, and also she had boy-friends on the side. Clay, you weren't the only one-you might just as well know it. Daytime, she ran a free-wheeling joint. And-well, you see what I'm up against?"

"When do you go to trial?"

"Monday."

"Then-I'll send you your check-"

"Clay, I told you, forget the check! Whenever-"

"You'll get it-before you go to court."

"Clay, there's one more thing."

"Yeah? Which is?"

"Something's going to be made of Buster's nagging Alexis to climb up on a ladder to check an installation of overhead rails. But she says it was your idea."

"That's right, I told him to do it."

Briefly he recounted the conversation in the cold room, including the Mexico City anecdote, and wound up: "I urged on him the importance of getting them level-any rails that might be put in."

"Would you take the stand and say that?"

After hesitating, Clay said: "All right, Nat."

"I know it's asking a lot," said Mr. Pender, "to speak for this tramp in public-but it'll help her in more ways than one. For one thing, it'll ventilate this charge that she spent the whole summer scheming to break his neck. For another, to have someone of substance up there, to say something on her behalf, will help most of all. In a criminal case it's not only what's said. Who says it is still more important. And Mike Dominick won't be much help."

"Oh, Mike's O.K.-except for the blue chin."

"Right! Except for that, he's fine."

Monday, though nearly a week off, seemed to fly in: too many things had to be done. Clay hated it, getting U.S. bonds from his box, taking them to his broker, and having them sold for cash, but Grace eased things by offering to go along. At the Channel City National Bank, as well as at Stone, Stone & Johns, she chatted with the clerks, managing to small the thing down and make it seem quite casual. When they left the bank, she handed him a deposit slip for $2,000, this representing another withdrawal from her personal checking account, almost all she had-she having managed to visit the teller without his seeing her do it. He was ashamed, and yet at the same time proud, that she would do such a thing with such offhand ease. At last, when they got home that day, he screwed up his courage to tell her of what he had promised Nat Pender, to take the stand for Buster. But instead of being upset she actually seemed glad. "The one thing that bothered me," she confessed, "was that we were trying to buy you out-buy ourselves out, as I'm in it as well as you. It sounds good, that we'd put up twelve and a half thousand bucks to help this girl in distress. But we have twelve and a half thousand bucks, or did have, and after all it's nothing but money. This, though, goes beyond that. It proves that we'll do what has to be done. Now! Perhaps that makes you feel better!"

There were other things too, but what frazzled his nerves most were the endless telephone calls, from friends, her friends and his friends, from people they hardly knew, from people they didn't know at all-requesting the pleasure of their company at lunch, at c.o.c.ktails, at dinner. At first she sidestepped these invitations, with innocuous little fibs: "Oh, how sweet of you to remember us-and of course we'd be delighted-except for the hectic time we're having, and will have for a week or two-all sorts of things have come up- we're here today and gone tomorrow-we're like bats, flitting hither, thither, and yon-but could you give us a raincheck? So when things do settle down, and we have some time for our friends, before we leave for the West-?" But things grew more and more complicated, her voice shriller and shriller, his mood worse and worse from the jitters. And so at last, after one particularly bad time on the phone, she marched herself back to the bedroom, remaining a while. When she reappeared she was hatted, coated, and gloved and had a packed bag in her hand. "Come on," she said grimly. "We're going to Rosemary Park." She still had her apartment, not having had time so far to store her things and sublet it. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and they moved to her little modernist place. There, for their few days remaining, they had peace. The phone did ring occasionally, but they grinned at each other and let it.

At last Monday came, and for a long time Clay stared incredulously around the courtroom in Channel City's austere courthouse. It was crowded, but with the help of a bailiff, one of Nat Pender's friends, Clay found a seat on a bench near the rail without any trouble. And what he found so hard to believe was that a place so warmly pleasant, its ceiling so aglow from soft indirect lighting, its acoustics so quiet that footfalls made no sound, could hold life or death in the balance, for anyone at all, especially someone as harmless as Buster. Even the two flags, the red, white, and blue of the United States to the right of the bench, the gold and black of Maryland to its left, were of such beautiful silk that they hardly implied this power, or anything, except poetic patriotism. Suddenly, as he pondered this paradox, Buster came in by a side door, escorted by a policewoman and met by Mr. Pender, who appeared from somewhere and brought her to a table inside the rail. She still had on her black dress, with a small black sh.e.l.l hat, and a beige coat on her arm. She was thinner than Clay remembered her, paler, and infinitely more dignified. She saw him, smiled, and gave him a little wave. He nodded and tried to smile back. Then he felt eyes upon him and turned to find Sally there, at the other end of the bench he was sitting on. At that moment a man appeared at her side, shaking hands, whom Clay identified, from his pictures in the paper, as John Kuhn, the prosecutor. He appeared to be in his forties, a medium-sized man, dark, with some distinction about him, a point Clay noted with relief. He had dreaded a bully, knowing only too well his own reaction to such men, which was to turn bully himself. Mr. Kuhn had scarcely gone through the rail and taken his place at a table across from Mr. Pender's than a bailiff appeared by the Maryland flag, banged three times with a gavel, and announced: "This honorable court is now in session," while simultaneously everybody stood up and a judge appeared from below, taking his seat on the bench. His name, Clay had learned, was Warfield, he being of the same family as one of the state's governors. He was perhaps in his sixties, with pink face, silver hair, and mild, humane expression. In his robes, he had his share of the good looks his family was noted for.

"State of Maryland versus Edith Conlon."

Told to rise, Buster did so, and was informed of the charge against her: First-degree murder, in that she "did willfully and with malice aforethought, compa.s.s, contrive, and cause the death of one Alexander Gorsuch."

Asked "How do you plead?" she let go with a hot, defiant blast, snarling: "Not guilty, that's how I plead!"

Her tone got a gasp of surprise from the crowd, of anger from the bailiff, who used his gavel again. "You stop banging that thing at me!" snapped Buster, advancing on him. "You asked how I plead and I told you! 'Not guilty!' as I'm ent.i.tled to say and expect to keep on saying!"

"The defendant will take her seat."

Judge Warfield was quite stern, and Mr. Pender, after leading Buster to her chair, said ingratiatingly: "May it please the court?" and then asked that allowance be made "for the state of my client's emotions: a six-week stay in jail plus the accusation she faces don't exactly produce a tranquil spirit."

"This court," said Judge Warfield, "is not insensible to such considerations, but I intend to have decorum. Miss Conlon, do you hear? You will show respect for this court."

"I have respect for this court," said Buster, rising again. "But I'd like some respect too, and he can stop banging at me.

"The court has respect for you."

The ghost of a smile played on Judge Warfield's handsome face, and as Buster sat down again he proceeded to the selection of a jury. Clay listened as the talesmen were examined, trying to make himself follow, but being distracted from within by the surge of pride that he felt in this cheap, baffling girl and the courage she had shown, standing up for her rights, or what she felt were her rights. The thing went on, and by lunchtime only five jurors were chosen, four men and a woman. "You'll notice," said Mr. Pender, over a tray in the courthouse cafeteria, "I'm leaning heavy on men-more broad-minded, Clay. Her danger is that she'll be convicted not of committing murder but of being-what was that word you used?-a flip-floosie. I got to remember that, it covers a lot of ground. Well, men aren't bothered by it so much. But men-only are bad too. Couple of girls in there, of a nice, sensible kind, will head off the smoking-car jokes while the ballots are being taken. So, as of now, we're doing all right."

The thing went on all afternoon, and it was after five when the twelve were accepted, ten men and two women, and Judge Warfield recessed until next morning. Home with Grace, Clay told everything: his eye clash with Sally, Buster's outbreak, the judge's amus.e.m.e.nt, Mr. Pender's approach to the jury, and the kind of panel they had. "O.K., I thought-they look like decent people that can take a reasonable view." She listened, preoccupied with dinner: a fragrant martini, which she made by a formula of her own, terrapin soup, duck, baked potato, peas, salad, and ice cream. With the duck she gave him Chambertin, in all ways coddling his inner man and making him feel loved. After washing up, she put him to bed early, then climbed in with him and cuddled his head on her breast. He inhaled her with deep content, saying: "Well, make a long story short: the main thing today, from my end, was that guy John Kuhn. I have no doubt he's tough-all prosecutors are and no use squawking on that. But toughness I don't mind-after ten years selling meat, what does it mean to me? Not a thing-I'm used to it. It's all in a day's work. But at least he's a gentleman! What I was dreading, Grace, was one of these louts. But this guy, to every one of those people, had manners. Even the roughnecks, the ones in the blue flannel shirts, he called 'Mr.,' and always remembered their names. Same with the women: it was 'Miss' or 'Mrs.,' and invariably with respect. If he acts that way with me, it's all that I ask. Maybe you think I'm c.o.c.keyed but-"

"I don't at all. I know how you feel. I glory in you for it-I wouldn't have you different. Now, if you're all talked out, hold onto your hat. Who do you think called?"

"I bite. Who?"

"Sally. Around lunchtime."

"Yeah? And what did she want?"

"As she said, to ask how I was and how I'd enjoyed my trip. As I think, to find out what I've been told."

"And what did you say, Grace?"

"Nothing. That Mankato was simply swell."

"Just-chitter-chatter?"

"That's it."

"Did she buy it, do you think?"

"With her you never know. But-she could have."

She subsided, and he held her close for a time, but then she started again. "Clay," she whispered, "I had to ask too. I couldn't do less, of course."

"You mean, how she's been getting along."

"Yes-and how someone else has."

"Oh? The little boy?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well? And how has he been getting along?"

"The way she tells it is famously." Clay started as she reproduced Sally's voice, but she went on, "He just loves everything: the suite she has on the twentieth floor of the Chinquapin-Plaza; the new nurse she got for him, an English girl named Lizette; his kindergarten school; his pony out at the stables; his teddy bear; his sleep suit-and of course his little friends, Bunny's kids. Clay, all the time she was talking something went through my mind. After we've moved, when we're equipped to take care of a child..."

"You'd like to ask him out? Is that it?"

"I'd give anything if we could!"

"We'll-take it under advis.e.m.e.nt."

"Clay, he's such a dear, sweet little boy! And until you came along he was my life. He was-"

"I thought we were going to have some of our own."

"You bet we are! Oh, I haven't forgotten them!"

"O.K.-then as soon as this is over..."

"We'll start working on them!"

She kissed him and then whispered for twenty minutes, with all an artist's exact.i.tude, about pregnant women, "their big bellies, the haunted look in their eyes, their craving for lollipops, for canned peaches, for everything under the sun. G.o.d's caricatures, aren't they? Clay, a woman big with child is the most beautiful thing in the world-and that's what I want to be: big with child again, your child."

"That'll be swell, won't it, having a child in the house that you can't look in the eye because you killed his father. That's one grand scheme that you can kid her out of."

22.

MR. KUHN WAS BRIEF in his opening statement, a bit regretful, and devastatingly to the point. The state, he said, would prove that the defendant "killed the deceased while riding beside him, by the simple trick of jerking the wheel of his car, jumping clear when it swerved, and leaving him to plunge, by a momentum he couldn't arrest, over a bank that collapsed under him, into eight feet of water." Her motives, he went on, were crude, "but wholly comprehensible, if also wholly wicked." First, she wanted revenge "on a man who had been her lover, but who on the death of his father had reconsidered his mode of life, and decided to patch up his marriage if he could. This man had a wife, as the defendant knew he had from her first meeting with him, as the wife introduced her to him." Second she wanted cash, "twenty-five thousand dollars in insurance she stood to collect, provided his death took place before the policy lapsed-and it still had two months to run." Then piece by piece he fitted his case together, stressing that "this was no caprice, no sudden fit of temper," and citing an episode in the nightclub, "where the defendant nagged and urged and goaded the deceased to climb a ladder, to observe, as she told him, if overhead rails were level, but actually in the hope he would fall-and break his neck." In a shocked, low voice, Mr. Kuhn added: "He did fall-he did not break his neck." And then, he went on, "she took her last desperate step-intruded herself into his car and flung him down to his death." He admitted that n.o.body saw this, that "our case is circ.u.mstantial." Nevertheless, he said, "there was a witness, silent, but eloquent, in the shape of a seat belt, which was fastened, but jammed back of the seat." But his best witness, he concluded, would be the defendant herself, who had scarcely reached the hospital "before she began making statements, copious statements, to the police-every one of which turned out false."

He elected to start with "background," and his first witness was Sally. A thready tremor of fear wriggled through Clay's heart as the bailiff called: "Mrs. Sally Gorsuch," and wriggled again as she whirled in front of him, where he sat in the same seat he had had the day before. She was in a black wool suit and soft black felt hat, and made a pale, ladylike picture as she climbed to the witness box, held up her hand to swear, and gave her name in a quiet voice, so quiet that Judge Warfield admonished her, "Louder, Mrs. Gorsuch-speak so the jury can hear." Under Mr. Kuhn's skillful questioning, she told the story of her marriage, how as a high-school student she had met a young magician, gone to work in his act, and married him. "Then, very soon," she went on, "I was expecting my child and couldn't work any more. He needed someone, and I remembered a girl who'd been in looking for work, who had a pretty figure, and was about the right size-a magician's a.s.sistant has to be small, so she can climb into baskets, slip out of cabinets, and so on, without having to squeeze. Her name was Edith Conlon-she's sitting right over there. I sent for her and introduced her to him."

After that Sally's manner changed. With eyes on the floor, face pinking up, she went on: "Then in just a few days I began to suspect my husband, and rumors began reaching me. I accused him then and made him admit the truth, that he was unfaithful to me, with Edith. I locked my door from then on, and we were married in name only. Then, after some time, at least two years, I would say, my husband's father died, and his att.i.tude seemed to change. He began hinting that we should 'make up,' as he called it. To that I said nothing, and don't know now how I felt. I had been horribly hurt, and whether I could forget, even though I forgave, I have no idea at all. But I thought I should listen to him and to give him the chance to talk. To get things started somehow, I told him one day that as I would be up that night much later than usual, entertaining my mother at dinner, with two friends I had also invited, we could talk after they left-if he could come home early. I meant, as he well understood, if he omitted his visit to Edith. And he said: 'It's a date.' It was the last time I saw him alive. He didn't come at all, and I supposed he had changed his mind. But next day came the horrible news that he was dead. And next night, Mr. Kuhn, came the still more horrible news that Edith had seen my car, or had told the police that she had, driving away from the accident. And the day after that I found, tucked away in my husband's desk, a bill for insurance premiums on a policy I knew nothing about!"

Sally's voice became strident, and her eyes took on a glitter not quite so ladylike. During her recital, as the words "suspect," "rumor," "admit," and "suppose" kept getting into it, the judge looked toward Mr. Pender, as Clay did, apparently a.s.suming he would object. However, he didn't. He said nothing until it was his turn to cross-examine, and then, after studying his notes as though baffled, he asked: "Mrs. Gorsuch, when you found this bill for insurance premiums, what did you do about it?"

"I-had it looked into at once."