Nothing More than Murder Read Free Page B

ago, and I was on the freight, and I was looking at the city for the first time. And I thought, Hell, if you had to be blue why not then instead of now?
    When I saw it was getting really dark I pulled myself together and changed my socks and shirt. I took the stairs down a couple of floors, and knocked on Carol’s door. The ventilator was open, and I could hear her splashing around in the tub.
    “House dick,” I said. “Open up.”
    She came to the door holding a big bath towel in front of her. When she saw it was really me—I—she dropped the towel and stood back for me to come in. She locked the door and walked over to the bed and lay down.
    “That’s all right,” I said, sitting down by her. “You can put something on if you want to.”
    “Do you want me to?”
    “I don’t want you to catch cold,” I said.
    She said she wouldn’t.
    I gave her a drink out of the part of a pint, and lighted a cigarette for both of us. She sat up on one elbow and coughed and choked until I had to slap her on the back. I remembered then that I’d never seen her smoke before and that that was the first drink I’d ever given her.
    “Is that the first time you smoked a cigarette?” I asked.
    “Yes, Joe.”
    “And that’s your first drink of liquor? What’d you take it for?”
    “You gave it to me.”
    “Hell,” I said, “you didn’t have to take it.”
    There was a little finger of hair hanging down the middle of her forehead. She looked at it, turning her eyes in to be more cockeyed, and blew upward over her nose. The wisp of hair rose and settled down on her forehead again. I laughed and patted her on the bottom. I put my head down against her breast and squeezed. She freed one of her hands…
    We had supper in her room—club sandwiches, waffle potatoes, apple pie with cheese, and coffee. I stood in the closet when the waiter delivered it. She’d never seen waffle potatoes before. She kept turning them around in her fingers, and nibbling the squares off a little at a time.
    “Did everything go all right today?” she said finally.
    “Pretty good.”
    “Why are you worried, then? Did something happen at the newspaper office?”
    “Nothing much,” I said; and I told her about it. “It’s a good joke on Elizabeth. She’s always acted like we didn’t have good sense, and—”
    “Maybe we don’t have.”
    “Huh?” I said. “What do you mean, Carol?”
    She’d never spoken up much before, and it surprised me; and I guess I sounded pretty abrupt. She dropped her eyes.
    “I’m afraid, Joe. I’m afraid Elizabeth’s trying to get us into trouble.”
    “Why, that’s crazy!” I said. “We’re all in this together. She couldn’t make trouble for us without making it for herself.”
    “Yes, she—I mean, I think she could,” said Carol. “You and me have to do everything. We run all the risks.”
    “Well, but look,” I said. “I admit I got pretty much up in the air at the time. But what’s actually the worst that could have happened there at the newspaper office? All they could have done was to refuse to take the ad, isn’t that right?”
    She shook her head as though she hadn’t heard me. “Anyway, she’s trying to get me in trouble. Why did she have to have me register here as Mrs. J.J. Williamson?”
    “Why not? We had to agree on some name so we could reach you in case of emergency. You had to have some name to receive answers to the ad.”
    “But not that one, Joe. I got to thinking about it today; it’s the same initials as yours. It kind of sounds like yours.”
    “Well—well,” I said. I laughed, not very hard. “It’s just a coincidence. What harm could it do, anyhow?”
    She didn’t answer me. She just shook her head again.
    “If anyone made any boners it was me,” I said, and I started telling her about Hap Chance. “It looked suspicious, see? With all the product I’ve got, why should I want sixteen reels of junk from him?”
    Carol shrugged. “You explained it to