The Moth by James M. Cain

go. I put over a fast one on a wholesale house today, and then won ten bucks on a football game, so—”
    “Which game did you see?”
    “Yale-Maryland. Felt like a ride and went up there.”
    “You go to college?”
    “I—? Well now, that if sweet of you. But you’d better take another look. I’m an old widow with two children—that’s where the money goes.” She held up the letters, one addressed “Master,” the other “Mlle.” The last name on each letter was Lucas. “Then you’re Mrs. Lucas?”
    “That is correct.”
    “My mistake.”
    “But I’m not in the least offended. Is it really possible, even under these soft lights, that I look like somebody going to college?”
    “I took you for a co-ed.”
    “But you— you go to college?”
    “Yes.”
    “Don’t you have a name?”
    “Don’t you know it?”
    “Why—I never saw you before. Or have I?”
    I picked up the picture that I’d cut out for Miss Eleanor, and handed it over. She gave a gasp, put it down, stared at me. “But of course! ... The wallop you gave me today—I’m still not over it—I And you’re just a baby.”
    “Well—thanks.”
    “Don’t you like being a baby?”
    “Would you?”
    “I did.”
    “That’s right, I—sort of said the same, didn’t I?”
    “And I loved it.”
    “Then thanks again. This time, real thanks.”
    “I think I owe you something.”
    “You certainly do.”
    “I’m not talking about the ten dollars you helped win for me—I bet Maryland would score—though that I can use. Something else. What I felt looking at you out there, with that taffy hair shining in the sun, and the heavy determined look on your face. Did anybody ever tell you how your head cocks to one side?”
    “Hadn’t heard of it.”
    “And when the other team is up to something you stand there for all the world like a cat watching a mouse hole. Then your shoulders go forward. Then something happens to your jaw. Then you spring. Then the cat’s no longer a cat. He’s a tiger... Let’s go to some club.”
    “All right, but I’m taking you.”
    “It’s I who owe you. And besides, I’m a very successful widow, as I’ll probably tell you all evening, now we’ve discussed you a little bit. Quite a high-pressure girl, and today I put something over, as I think I said.”
    “I’m not exactly a failure, myself.”
    “Well, listen to him!”
    “I too can pick up a check.”
    “Can’t we match for it?”
    She was standing beside me and we both laughed. Then her eyes crinkled up in a way that made me like her even better than I had liked her, and we both got out quarters and cupped our hands and rattled them around. “You’re matching me, Mrs. Lucas, and if you win the drinks are on me.” So she won, and I got up and bowed, and she picked up her letters and I put the clipping in mine and stamped it and sealed it. Then we went out and across the lobby to the mail chute. Then she headed for the elevators. “I’ll have to put something on.”
    “I have no evening clothes with me.”
    “All right, but I can’t go in a suit.”
    “Then I’ll wait here.”
    “Why? Come on up.”
    It was my first contact with a suite, because while my father always took one, it was on account of the gang he always had with him, his sisters, me, and like as not some friends, and I hadn’t known that one person, if they just take that sitting room extra, can have anybody up there they please. She was on the ninth or tenth deck, her windows overlooking the Hudson, and as soon as she turned on the radio she excused herself and went in the bedroom. I sat and listened and looked out at the lights, but it seemed to me my heart was a little high in my throat, and why I didn’t exactly know. Everything was straight down the middle, exactly according to Hoyle. And yet here we were, the two of us alone together in a strange city, and I was excited. The buzzer rang and the bedroom door opened a little bit. “Will you see if that’s the