Nothing More than Murder by Jim Thompson Page B

staying to help Carol. I went upstairs and had a few more drinks and tried not to think. It was raining to beat hell now, and the wind was coming up. I heard Rufe and Web pulling out for town, and pretty soon another car left behind theirs. The insurance man’s.
    There seemed to be a draft coming from somewhere. I thought maybe someone had left a window open. I took another stiff drink and looked through the upstairs room by room. There wasn’t any window open. I went downstairs again.
    All the ladies had left except Mrs. Reverend Whitcomb. She was staying that night to keep the proprieties. She fussed around me for almost an hour, trying to do things for me that I didn’t want done. When she’d worn us both out she hobbled into the downstairs bedroom and closed the door. I’d think she weighed around two-eighty. And she wasn’t much taller than a quart of beer. She’d been going through doors sideways for so long that she kind of waltzed when she walked.
    When she got into bed one of the slats popped like a gun going off. Then, there was a rasping, grating sound, like a bale of wire being dragged across a tin roof, and the whole house shook.
    “Are you all right, Mrs. Whitcomb?” I called.
    She was silent, or not exactly silent, either; I could hear her panting for breath.
    “Quite all right, Brother Wilmot,” she said finally.
    I hesitated. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”
    I knew damned well the bed had broken down.
    “Oh, no, Brother Wilmot. I’m just dandy. Now you run along.”
    Carol was still busy in the kitchen. I went upstairs, took another drink and went to bed.
    I didn’t hear her when she came up the stairs. She opened the door and came in without turning the light on; and in one of the dim flashes of lightning from the storm I saw her pulling her dress off over her head.
    “You shouldn’t do that, Carol,” I whispered.
    “It’s all right,” she whispered back. “I peeked in at Mrs. Reverend Whitcomb. She’s sleeping down inside the bedstead. The mattress and springs fell through with her.”
    I grinned. I even laughed a little, quietly. It’s funny how you still laugh.
    “You’d better go on, anyway, Carol,” I said. “I’ve got a chill, a pretty bad cold. You’re liable to catch it.”
    “I won’t face you,” she said.
    I was lying with my knees drawn up, my hands under the pillow; taking up most of the bed.
    She got in with her back to me; pushed back gently until my knees came down. She pulled one of my arms under her and the other over her, and folded them over her breasts; and she held them there with her own arms.
    “Now, you’ll be warm,” she said. And pretty soon: “You were just afraid, that’s what made you cold. You don’t need to be afraid, Joe.”
    I didn’t say anything, thinking, and she spoke again.
    “Do you love me?”
    “Sure I love you.”
    “You’ve got to, Joe. You just got to. Maybe you don’t want to now, but it’s too late to change. You got to love me.”
    “Hell,” I said, “what are you talking about? I love you or I wouldn’t have done it, would I?”
    She didn’t answer right away, but I could feel her getting ready. I knew, almost to a word, what she was going to say. Because we weren’t the same people anymore. If you won’t stop at murder you won’t stop at lying or cheating or anything else.
    “I don’t know, Joe. Maybe—maybe you were afraid of me, of what I might do. You and Elizabeth. Maybe your business wasn’t so good, and you thought—well—”
    “Carol! For God’s sake—”
    “I’m not saying it was that way. I’m—don’t be mad at me, Joe! I’ve had to—most everything I’ve had to do and I’ve got to talk! I want to talk so you can tell me I’m wrong!”
    “Well, you’re wrong,” I said.
    And I thought, Jesus, what a break, what if I’d told her about Hap and Panzer and the show being washed up? And I thought, I’ll have to get things straightened out. She’s just dumb