City Hospital.
Visiting hours were in the afternoon, but by flourishing my Continental Detective Agency credentials and giving everybody to understand that an hour's delay might cause thousands of deaths, or words to that effect, I got to see Myrtle Jennison.
She was in a ward on the third floor, alone. The other four beds were empty. She could have been a girl of twenty-five or a woman of fifty-five. Her face was a bloated spotty mask. Lifeless yellow hair in two stringy braids lay on the pillow beside her.
I waited until the nurse who had brought me up left. Then I held my document out to the invalid and said:
"Will you sign this, please. Miss Jennison?"
She looked at me with ugly eyes that were shaded into no particular dark color by the pads of flesh around them, then at the document, and finally brought a shapeless fat hand from under the covers to take it.
She pretended it took her nearly five minutes to read the forty-two words I had written. She let the document fall down on the covers and asked:
"Where'd you get that?" Her voice was tinny, irritable.
"Dinah Brand sent me to you."
She asked eagerly:
"Has she broken off with Max?"
"Not that I know of," I lied. "I imagine she just wants to have this on hand in case it should come in handy."
"And get her fool throat slit. Give me a pencil."
I gave her my fountain pen and held my notebook under the document, to stiffen it while she scribbled her signature at the bottom, and to have it in my hands as soon as she had finished. While I fanned the paper dry she said:
"If that's what she wants it's all right with me. What do I care what anybody does now? I'm done. Hell with them all!" She sniggered and suddenly threw the bedclothes down to her knees, showing me a horrible swollen body in a coarse white nightgown. "How do you like me? See, I'm done."
I pulled the covers up over her again and said:
"Thanks for this, Miss Jennison."
"That's all right. It's nothing to me any more. Only"-her puffy chin quivered-"it's hell to die ugly as this."
XII.
A New Deal
I went out to hunt for MacSwain. Neither city directory nor telephone book told me anything. I did the pool rooms, cigar stores, speakeasies, looking around first, then asking cautious questions. That got me nothing. I walked the streets, looking for bowed legs. That got me nothing. I decided to go back to my hotel, grab a nap, and resume the hunting at night.
In a far corner of the lobby a man stopped hiding behind a newspaper and came out to meet me. He had bowed legs, a hog jaw, and was MacSwain.
I nodded carelessly at him and walked on toward the elevators. He followed me, mumbling:
"Hey, you got a minute?"
"Yeah, just about." I stopped, pretending indifference.
"Let's get out of sight," he said nervously.
I took him up to my room. He straddled a chair and put a match in his mouth. I sat on the side of the bed and waited for him to say something. He chewed his match a while and began:
"I'm going to come clean with you, brother. I'm-"
"You mean you're going to tell me you knew me when you braced me yesterday?" I asked. "And you're going to tell me Bush hadn't told you to bet on him? And you didn't until afterwards? And you knew about his record because you used to be a bull? And you thought if you could get me to put it to him you could clean up a little dough playing him?"
"I'll be damned if I was going to come through with that much," he said, "but since it's been said I'll put a yes to it."
"Did you clean up?"
"I win myself six hundred iron men." He pushed his hat back and scratched his forehead with the chewed end of his match. "And then I lose myself that and my own two hundred and some in a crap game. What do you think of that? I pick up six hundred berries like shooting fish, and have to bum four bits for breakfast."
I said it was a tough break but that was the kind of a world we lived in.
He said, "Uh-huh," put the match back in his mouth, ground it some more, and added: "That's why
Visiting hours were in the afternoon, but by flourishing my Continental Detective Agency credentials and giving everybody to understand that an hour's delay might cause thousands of deaths, or words to that effect, I got to see Myrtle Jennison.
She was in a ward on the third floor, alone. The other four beds were empty. She could have been a girl of twenty-five or a woman of fifty-five. Her face was a bloated spotty mask. Lifeless yellow hair in two stringy braids lay on the pillow beside her.
I waited until the nurse who had brought me up left. Then I held my document out to the invalid and said:
"Will you sign this, please. Miss Jennison?"
She looked at me with ugly eyes that were shaded into no particular dark color by the pads of flesh around them, then at the document, and finally brought a shapeless fat hand from under the covers to take it.
She pretended it took her nearly five minutes to read the forty-two words I had written. She let the document fall down on the covers and asked:
"Where'd you get that?" Her voice was tinny, irritable.
"Dinah Brand sent me to you."
She asked eagerly:
"Has she broken off with Max?"
"Not that I know of," I lied. "I imagine she just wants to have this on hand in case it should come in handy."
"And get her fool throat slit. Give me a pencil."
I gave her my fountain pen and held my notebook under the document, to stiffen it while she scribbled her signature at the bottom, and to have it in my hands as soon as she had finished. While I fanned the paper dry she said:
"If that's what she wants it's all right with me. What do I care what anybody does now? I'm done. Hell with them all!" She sniggered and suddenly threw the bedclothes down to her knees, showing me a horrible swollen body in a coarse white nightgown. "How do you like me? See, I'm done."
I pulled the covers up over her again and said:
"Thanks for this, Miss Jennison."
"That's all right. It's nothing to me any more. Only"-her puffy chin quivered-"it's hell to die ugly as this."
XII.
A New Deal
I went out to hunt for MacSwain. Neither city directory nor telephone book told me anything. I did the pool rooms, cigar stores, speakeasies, looking around first, then asking cautious questions. That got me nothing. I walked the streets, looking for bowed legs. That got me nothing. I decided to go back to my hotel, grab a nap, and resume the hunting at night.
In a far corner of the lobby a man stopped hiding behind a newspaper and came out to meet me. He had bowed legs, a hog jaw, and was MacSwain.
I nodded carelessly at him and walked on toward the elevators. He followed me, mumbling:
"Hey, you got a minute?"
"Yeah, just about." I stopped, pretending indifference.
"Let's get out of sight," he said nervously.
I took him up to my room. He straddled a chair and put a match in his mouth. I sat on the side of the bed and waited for him to say something. He chewed his match a while and began:
"I'm going to come clean with you, brother. I'm-"
"You mean you're going to tell me you knew me when you braced me yesterday?" I asked. "And you're going to tell me Bush hadn't told you to bet on him? And you didn't until afterwards? And you knew about his record because you used to be a bull? And you thought if you could get me to put it to him you could clean up a little dough playing him?"
"I'll be damned if I was going to come through with that much," he said, "but since it's been said I'll put a yes to it."
"Did you clean up?"
"I win myself six hundred iron men." He pushed his hat back and scratched his forehead with the chewed end of his match. "And then I lose myself that and my own two hundred and some in a crap game. What do you think of that? I pick up six hundred berries like shooting fish, and have to bum four bits for breakfast."
I said it was a tough break but that was the kind of a world we lived in.
He said, "Uh-huh," put the match back in his mouth, ground it some more, and added: "That's why
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