East of Eden

Kate wondered where Ethel was. How about one of those agencies to find Ethel—at least to find where she went? Yes, and then Ethel would tell about that night and show the glass. Then there’d be two noses sniffing instead of one. Yes, but what difference would that make? Every time Ethel got a beer in her she would be telling somebody. Oh, sure, but they would think she was just a buzzed old hustler. Now an agency man—no—no agencies.

Kate spent many hours with Ethel. Did the judge have any idea it was a frame—too simple? It shouldn’t have been an even hundred dollars. That was obvious. And how about the sheriff? Joe said they dropped her over the line into Santa Cruz County. What did Ethel tell the deputy who drove her out? Ethel was a lazy old bat. Maybe she had stayed in Watsonville. There was Pajaro, and that was a railroad section, and then the Pajaro River and the bridge into Watsonville. Lots of section hands went back and forth, Mexicans, some Hindus. That puddlehead Ethel might have thought she could turn enough tricks with the track workers. Wouldn’t it be funny if she had never left Watsonville, thirty miles away? She could even slip in over the line and see her friends if she wanted to. Maybe she came to Salinas sometimes. She might be in Salinas right now. The cops weren’t likely to keep too much on the look for her. Maybe it would be a good idea to send Joe over to Watsonville to see if Ethel was there. She might have gone on to Santa Cruz. Joe could look there too. It wouldn’t take him long. Joe could find any hooker in any town in a few hours. If he found her they could get her back somehow. Ethel was a fool. But maybe when he found her it would be better if Kate went to her. Lock the door. Leave a “Do not disturb” sign. She could get to Watsonville, do her business, and get back. No taxis. Take a bus. Nobody saw anybody on the night buses. People sleeping with their shoes off and coats rolled up behind their heads. Suddenly she knew she would be afraid to go to Watsonville. Well, she could make herself go. It would stop all this wondering. Strange she hadn’t thought of sending Joe before. That was perfect. Joe was good at some things, and the dumb bastard thought he was clever. That was the kind easiest to handle. Ethel was stupid. That made her hard to handle.

As her hands and her mind grew more crooked, Kate began to rely more and more on Joe Valery as her assistant in chief, as her go-between, and as her executioner. She had a basic fear of the girls in the house—not that they were more untrustworthy than Joe but that the hysteria which lay very close to the surface might at any time crack through their caution and shatter their sense of self-preservation and tear down not only themselves but their surroundings. Kate had always been able to handle this ever-present danger, but now the slow-depositing calcium and the slow growth of apprehension caused her to need help and to look for it from Joe. Men, she knew, had a little stronger wall against self-destruction than the kind of women she knew.

She felt that she could trust Joe, because she had in her files a notation relating to one Joseph Venuta who had walked away from a San Quentin road gang in the fourth year of a five-year sentence for robbery. Kate had never mentioned this to Joe Valery , but she thought it might have a soothing influence on him if he got out of hand.

Joe brought the breakfast tray every morning—green China tea and cream and toast. When he had set it on her bedside table he made his report and got his orders for the day. He knew that she was depending on him more and more. And Joe was very slowly and quietly exploring the possibility of taking over entirely. If she got sick enough there might be a chance. But very profoundly Joe was afraid of her.

“Morning,” he said.

“I’m not going to sit up for it, Joe. Just give me the tea. You’ll have to hold it.”

“Hands bad?”

“Yes. They get better after a flare up.”

“Looks like you had a bad night.”

“No,” said Kate. “I had a good night. I’ve got some new medicine.”

Joe held the cup to her lips, and she drank the tea in little sips, breathing in over it to cool it. “That’s enough,” she said when the cup was only half empty. “How was the night?”

“I almost came to tell you last night,” said Joe. “Hick came in from King City. Just sold his crop. Bought out the house. Dropped seven hundred not counting what he give the girls.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. But I hope he comes in again.”

“You should get the name, Joe. I’ve told you that.”

“He was cagey.”

“All the more reason to get his name. Didn’t any of the girls frisk him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, find out.”

Joe sensed a mild geniality in her and it made him feel good. “I’ll find out,” he assured her. “I got enough to go on.”

Her eyes went over him, testing and searching, and he knew something was coming. “You like it here?” she asked softly.

“Sure. I got it good here.”

“You could have it better—or worse,” she said.

“I like it good here,’’ he said uneasily, and his mind cast about for a fault in himself. “I got it real nice here.”

She moistened her lips with her arrow-shaped tongue. “You and I can work together,” she said.

“Any way you want it,” he said ingratiatingly, and a surge of pleasant expectation grew in him. He waited patiently. She took a good long time to begin.

At last she said, “Joe, I don’t like to have anything stolen.”

“I didn’t take nothing.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Who?”

“I’ll get to it, Joe. Do you remember that old buzzard we had to move?”

“You mean Ethel what’s-her-name?”

“Yes. That’s the one. She got away with something. I didn’t know it then.”

“What?”

A coldness crept into her voice. “Not your business, Joe. Listen to me! You’re a smart fellow. Where would you go to look for her?”

Joe’s mind worked quickly, not with reason but with experience and instinct. “She was pretty beat up. She wouldn’t go far. An old hustler don’t go far.”

“You’re smart. You think she might be in Watsonville?”

“There or maybe Santa Cruz. Anyways, I’ll give odds she ain’t farther away than San Jose.”

She caressed her fingers tenderly. “Would you like to make five hundred, Joe?”