2
It was before the lean-to was built. Kate had collected the money Charles had left. The check was converted to large bills, and the bills in their bales were in the safe-deposit box at the Monterey County Bank.
It was about the time the first pains began to twist her hands. There was enough money now to go away. It was just a matter of getting the most she could out of the house. But also it was better to wait until she felt quite well again.
She never felt quite well again. New York seemed cold and very far away.
A letter came to her signed “Ethel.” Who in hell was Ethel? Whoever she was, she must be crazy to ask for money. Ethel—there were hundreds of Ethels. Ethels grew on every bush. And this one scrawled illegibly on a lined pad.
Not very long afterward Ethel came to see Kate, and Kate hardly recognized her.
Kate sat at her desk, watchful, suspicious, and confident. “It’s been a long time,” she said.
Ethel responded like a soldier who comes in his cushion age upon the sergeant who trained him. “I’ve been poorly,” she said. Her flesh had thickened and grown heavy all over her. Her clothes had the strained cleanliness that means poverty.
“Where are you—staying now?” Kate asked, and she wondered how soon the old bag would be able to come to the point.
“Southern Pacific Hotel. I got a room.”
“Oh, then you don’t work in a house now?”
“I couldn’t never get started again,” said Ethel. “You shouldn’t of run me off.” She wiped big tears from the corners of her eyes with the tip of a cotton glove. “Things are bad,” she said. “First I had trouble when we got that new judge. Ninety days, and I didn’t have no record—not here anyways. I come out of that and I got the old Joe. I didn’t know I had it. Give it to a regular—nice fella, worked on the section gang. He got sore an’ busted me up, hurt my nose, lost four teeth, an’ that new judge he give me a hundred and eighty. Hell, Kate, you lose all your contacts in a hundred and eighty days. They forget you’re alive. I just never could get started.”
Kate nodded her head in cold and shallow sympathy. She knew that Ethel was working up to the bite. Just before it came Kate made a move. She opened her desk drawer and took out some money and held it out to Ethel. “I never let a friend down,” she said. “Why don’t you go to a new town, start fresh? It might change your luck.”
Ethel tried to keep her fingers from grabbing at the money. She fanned the bills like a poker hand—four tens. Her mouth began to work with emotion.
Ethel said, “I kind of hoped you’d see your way to let me take more than forty bucks.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you get my letter?”
“What letter?”
“Oh’“ said Ethel. “Well, maybe it got lost in the mail. They don’t take no care of things. Anyways, I thought you might look after me. I don’t feel good hardly ever. Got a kind of weight dragging my guts down.” She sighed and then she spoke so rapidly that Kate knew it had been rehearsed.
“Well, maybe you remember how I’ve got like second sight,” Ethel began. “Always predicting things that come true. Always dreaming stuff and it come out. Fella says I should go in the business. Says I’m a natural medium. You remember that?”
“No,” said Kate, “I don’t.”
“Don’t? Well, maybe you never noticed. All the others did. I told ’em lots of things and they come true.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I had this-here dream. I remember when it was because it was the same night Faye died.” Her eves flicked up at Kate’s cold face. She continued doggedly, “It rained that night, and it was raining in my dream—anyways, it was wet. Well, in my dream I seen you come out the kitchen door. It wasn’t pitch-dark—moon was coming through a little. And the dream thing was you. You went out to the back of the lot and stooped over. I couldn’t see what you done. Then you come creeping back.
“Next thing I knew—why, Faye was dead.” She paused and waited for some comment from Kate, but Kate’s face was expressionless.
Ethel waited until she was sure Kate would not speak. “Well, like I said, I always believed in my dreams. It’s funny, there wasn’t nothing out there except some smashed medicine bottles and a little rubber tit from an eye-dropper.”
Kate said lazily, “So you took them to a doctor. What did he say had been in the bottles?”
“Oh, I didn’t do nothing like that.”
“You should have,” said Kate.
“I don’t want to see nobody get in trouble. I’ve had enough trouble myself. I put that broke glass in an envelope and stuck it away.”
Kate said softly, “And so you are coming to me for advice?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” said Kate. “I think you’re a worn-out old whore and you’ve been beaten over the head too many times.”
“Don’t you start saying I’m nuts—” Ethel began.
“No, maybe you’re not, but you’re tired and you’re sick. I told you I never let a friend down. You can come back here. You can’t work but you can help around, clean and give the cook a hand. You’ll have a bed and you’ll get your meals. How would that be? And a little spending money.”
Ethel stirred uneasily. “No, ma’am,” she said. “I don’t think I want to—sleep here. I don’t carry that envelope around. I left it with a friend.”
“What did you have in mind?” Kate asked.
“Well, I thought if you could see your way to let me have a hundred dollars a month, why, I could make out and maybe get my health back.”
“You said you lived at the Southern Pacific Hotel?”
“Yes, ma’am—and my room is right up the hall from the desk. The night clerk’s a friend of mine. He don’t never sleep when he’s on duty. Nice fella.”
Kate said, “Don’t wet your pants, Ethel. All you’ve got to worry about is how much does the ‘nice fella’ want. Now wait a minute.” She counted six more ten-dollar bills from the drawer in front of her and held them out.
“Will it come the first of the month or do I have to come here for it?”
“I’ll send it to you,” said Kate. “And, Ethel,” she continued quietly, “I still think you ought to have those bottles analyzed.”