The Rip-Off (14 page)

Kay performed her nurse's duties with a vengeance, taking my pulse and temperature every hour on the hour or so it seemed to me, and generally interrupting me so often in doing her job that doing my own was virtually impossible.

Sunday night, after dinner, there was a respite in the turmoil. Kay had retired to her room for a time, and Mrs. Olmstead was apparently doing something that could not be done noisily. At any rate, it seemed to be a good time to do some writing, and I dragged a chair up to my typewriter and went to work. Or, rather, I tried to. The weekend's incessant clatter and interruptions had gotten me so keyed up that I couldn't write a word.

I got up and paced around my office, then went back to my typewriter. I squirmed and fidgeted, and stared helplessly at the paper. And, finally, I went out into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

I shook the pot, discovering that there was still some in it. I put it on the stove to warm, and got a cup and saucer from the cupboard. Moving very quietly, to be sure. Keeping an eye on the door to Mrs. Olmstead's quarters, and listening for any sounds that might signal a resumption of her racket.

I poured my coffee and sipped it standing by the stove, then quietly washed and dried the cup and saucer and returned them to the cupboard. And suddenly I found myself grimacing with irritation at the preposterousness of my situation.

This was
my
house. Kay and Mrs. Olmstead were working for
me
. Yet they had made nothing but trouble for me throughout the weekend, and they had certainly not refrained from throwing their weight around before then-forcing
me
to cater to
them
. And just why the hell should things be this way?

Why had most of my life been like this, a constant giving-in and knuckling-under to people who didn't give a damn about my welfare, regardless of what they professed or pretended?

I was brooding over the matter, silently swearing that there were going to be some changes made, when I became aware of a very muted buzzing. So muted that I almost failed to hear it.

I looked around, listening, trying to locate the source of the sound. I looked down at the floor, saw the faint outline of the telephone cord extending along the baseboard of the cabinetwork. And I yanked open the door of the lower cupboard and snatched out the telephone.

Just as Manny was about to give up and hang up.

She asked me where in the world I'd been, and I said I'd been right there, and I'd explain the delay in answering when I saw her. "But I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I wasn't expecting any calls tonight."

"I know, but I just had to call you, Britt. I've been reading the manuscript you gave me on erosion, and I think it's wonderful, darling! Absolutely beautiful! The parallel you draw between the decline of the soil and the deterioration of the people-the lowering of life expectancy and the incidence of serious disease. Britt, I can't tell you when I've been so excited about something!"

"Well, thank you," I said, grinning from ear to ear. "I'm very pleased that you like it."

"Oh, I do! In its own way, I think it's every bit as good as
Deserts on the March
."

I mumbled, pleased, saying nothing that made any sense, I'm sure. Even to be mentioned in the same breath with Dr. Paul Sears' classic work was overwhelming. And I knew that Manny wasn't simply buttering me up to make me feel good.

"There's only one thing wrong with what you've done," she went on. "It's far too good for us. You've got to make it into a full-length book that will reach the kind of audience it deserves."

"But PXA is paying for it. Paying very well, too."

"I know. But I'm sure something can be worked out with Pat. I'll talk to him after I talk to you, let's see, the day after tomorrow, is it?"

"That's right," I said.

"Well, I haven't read all you've done, and I want to read back through the whole manuscript before our meeting. So…" She hesitated. "I'm not sure I can make it on Tuesday. Suppose I call you Wednesday, and see what we can set up?"

I said that was fine with me; I was glad to have the additional time to work. We talked a few minutes more, largely about the work and how well she liked it. Then we hung up, and I started to leave the kitchen. And Mrs. Olmstead's surly voice brought me to a halt.

"What's going on here, anyways? Wakin' folks up at this time o'night!"

Her face was sleep-puffed, her eyes streaked with threads of yellowish matter. She rubbed them with a grayish-looking fist, meanwhile surveying me sourly.

"Well," she grunted, "I ask you a question, Mis-ter Rainstar."

"Hold out your hands," I said.

"Huh?" She blinked stupidly. "What for?"

"Hold them out!
Now!
"

She held them out. I put the phone in them, took her by the elbow and hustled her out to the hallway writing desk. I took the phone out of her hands and placed it on the desk.

"Now that is where it belongs," I said, "and that is where I want it. Can you remember that, Mrs. Olmstead?"

She said surlily that she could. She could remember things a heck of a lot better than people who couldn't even remember to mail a letter.

"I tell you one thing, though. That phone's out here an' I'm back in the kitchen, I ain't sure I'm gonna hear it."

"All right," I said. "When you're actually in the kitchen working, you can keep the phone with you. But never put it away in a cupboard where I found it just now."

She shrugged, started to turn away without answering.

"One thing more," I said. "I've noticed that we're always running out of shopping money. No matter how much I leave for you, you use it. It's going to have to stop, Mrs. Olmstead!"

"Now you listen to me," she said, shaking a belligerent finger at me. "I can't help it that groceries is high! I don't spend a nickel more for 'em than I have to."

I said I knew groceries were high. I also knew that Jack Daniel's was high, and I'd noticed several bottles of it stowed in the bottom cupboard.

"You'll have to start drinking something cheaper," I said. "You apparently do a great deal of drinking in bars when you're supposedly out shopping, so I can't supply you with Jack Daniel's for your home consumption."

She looked pretty woebegone at that, so I told her not to worry about it, for God's sake, and to go to bed and get a good night's sleep. And watching her trudge away, shoulders slumped, in her dirty old robe, I felt like nine kinds of a heel. Because, really, why fuss about a little booze if it made her feel good? At her age, with all passion spent and the capacity for all other good things gone, she surely was entitled to good booze. Drinking was probably all that made life-become-existence tolerable for her as it probably is for all who drink.

I went to bed and to sleep. Thinking that the reason I hated getting tough with people was that it was too tough on me.

The next day went fairly well for me. There was practically no trouble from Mrs. Olmstead. I avoided any with Kay by simply submitting to her ministrations.

I got in a good day's work, and continued to work until after nine that night.

Around ten, while I was toweling myself off after a shower, Kay came into the bathroom bearing a thermometer.

I took her by the shoulders, pushed her outside and locked the door.

When I had finished drying myself, I put on my pajamas, came out of the bathroom and climbed into bed. Nodding at Kay who stood waiting for me, prim-faced.

"Does that mean," she said icily, "that I now have your permission to take your temperature?"

"If you like," I said.

"Well, thank you so much!" she said.

She took my temperature. I held up my wrist, and she took my pulse, almost hurling my hand away from her when she had finished.

She left then, turning the light off and closing the door very gently. Some twenty minutes later, she tapped on the door with her fingernails, pushed it open and came in. Through slitted eyes I watched her approach my bed. A soft, sweet-smelling shadow in the dim glow of the hall light.

She stood looking down at me. Then her hands came out from behind her, and went up over her head. And they were holding a long sharp knife.

I let out a wild yell, but the knife was already plunging downward.

It stabbed against my chest, then folded over as cardboard will. And Kay fell across me, shaking with laughter.

After a time, she crawled over into bed next to me, shedding her shorty nightgown en route. She nuzzled me and whispered naughtily in my ear. I told her she wasn't funny, dammit; she'd damned near scared me to death. She said she was terribly sorry, but she'd just had to snap me out of my stiffishness some way. And I said, Oh, well.

We were about to take it from there when I remembered something, and sat up abruptly.

"My God!" I said. "You've got to get out of here! This place is going to be full of cops in about a minute!"

"
What?
What the heck are you talking about?"

"The walls are bugged! Any loud cry for help will bring the police."

"Britt, darling," she said soothingly, "you just lie right back down here by mama. You just shut your mouth so mama can kiss it."

"But you don't understand, dammit! Jeff Claggett couldn't stake the place out, but I was afraid to come back here without plenty of protection. So-"

"So he told you that story," said Kay, and determinedly pulled me back down at her side. "And he gave you me. It's all the protection he could give you, and it's all you need. Take it from Officer Nolton, Britt. Soon-to-be-resigned Officer Nolton, thanks to your dear friend, the sergeant."

"Knock it off," I said crossly. "I had an idea all along that I was being kidded."

"Why, of course, you did," Kay said smoothly. "And, now, you're sure."

And now, of course, I was, since my yell for help had brought no response. Jeff had deceived me about the house being bugged, just as he had about Kay's status. He had done it in my own best interests, and I was hardly inclined to chide or reproach him.

Still, I couldn't help feeling that uneasiness which comes to one whose welfare is almost totally dependent upon another person, no matter how well-intentioned that person may be. Nor could I help wondering whether there were other deceptions I didn't yet know about. Or whether something meant for my own good might turn out just the opposite.

"Everything about you is getting to me," I said. "That blushing trick, the prudish-sweet manner, the cute-kiddy way you talk, like you wouldn't say crap if you were up to your collar in it, the-Oh, crud to it!" I said. "You've got me so bollixed up I don't know what I'm saying anymore."

We were in my bedroom at the time-where else-and I was fully prepared to go to bed-by
myself
.

Kay said she was sorry she got on my nerves, but I'd feel a lot better after I had something she had for me. She started to climb into bed with me. I put a leg up in the air, warding her off. She tried to come by the other way, and I stuck up an arm.

She frowned at me, hands on her hips. "Now, you see here, I have as much right to that bed as you have."

"Right to it?" I said. "You talk like a girl in a wooden hat, baby."

"You said you didn't think I was awful. Because I did it, I mean. You said you'd marry me if you weren't already married."

"Which I am," I said. "Don't forget that."

Kay said that part didn't matter. What was important was that I wanted to marry her, and that kind of made her my wife, and this was a community property state so half of the bed was hers. And while I was unraveling that one she hopped over me and into the bed.

I let her stay. For one thing, it is very hard to push a beautiful, well-built girl out of your bed. For another, while I knew she had skunked me again, that I had fallen for her act, it
was
a very good act. And what did one more fall matter to an incurable fall guy?

By the following day, Wednesday, my feelings of uneasiness had blossomed into a sense of foreboding. The feeling grew in me that things had gotten completely out of hand and were about to become worse, and that there was nothing I could do about it.

It wasn't helped much by the bitter look Mrs. Olmstead gave me, as she departed to do her shopping or drinking or whatever she did with my money. Nor was I cheered by a brief bit of sharpness which I had with Manny when she called to make an appointment with me. We finally made one for that afternoon, but I was still feeling quite down and a little irritated when Kay showed her into my office around four o'clock.

As it turned out, she also was not feeling her best, a fact she admitted as soon as our opening pleasantries were over.

"I don't want to argue with you, Britt," she said. "But you look quite well. I think you're probably in a lot better condition than I am. And as long as you've been going out anyway-it isn't as if you were bedridden-I don't see why you couldn't have come to the office."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Hold it right there. Regardless of how well I look or don't look, I'm under strict orders not to leave the house."

"But I called here several times when you were out. At last Mrs. Olmstead told me you were. Of course…" Manny paused, frowning. "Of course, that could have

been her way of saying that you just didn't want to talk to me…"

"There'd never be a time when I didn't want to talk to you. You should know that."

"I know. But…" she hesitated again. "Perhaps it wasn't Mrs. Olmstead. I thought it was, and she said it was but- Do you suppose it could have been what's-her-name, your nurse?"

"I'll find out," I said. "I know they've been feuding, and they just might have-one of them might have-tried to drag me into the quarrel." I pondered the matter a moment, then sighed and threw up my hands. "Hell, I'll never find out. Both of them are entirely capable of lying."

"Poor Britt." Manny laughed softly. "Well, it doesn't matter, dear. It doesn't bother me now that I know you haven't been going out at all."

"I haven't been. That's the truth, Manny."

"I believe you."

"The only time I've left the house was when I walked to your car with you last Friday."

"Well…" She smiled at me, her golden head tilted to one side. "Since it's been so long, maybe you should walk to my car with me again today."

"Well…"

"Well?" Her smiled faded, began to draw in around the edges. "You're afraid to, is that it? You still don't trust me."

"I haven't said that," I said. "You gave me your word that I had nothing more to fear from you, and I'm more than anxious to believe you. I could probably say something more positive if I wasn't a little bewildered."

"Yes? About what?"

"About your visit here this afternoon. I thought you were here to discuss my manuscript. But we've talked about practically nothing except my mishandled telephone calls and my walking to your car with you."

Manny's expression cleared, and she apologized hastily. "I'm sorry, dear. You have every right to be puzzled. But I like the manuscript better than ever, and Pat thinks it's a fine job, too. He agrees that you should make a book out of it, and there won't be any problem about the money. We'll call it square for the right to do a digest."

"That's very generous of you," I said, "and I'm very grateful."

"We consider it a privilege to be associated with the project. I just wish I could be here to see it through to the end-not that you need my help, of course. But I can't be. Th-that's w-why?"-she averted her head suddenly. "That's why I made such a big thing of being outside the house with you. Even for a little while."

"I don't understand," I said. "What do you mean you can't be here until the work is finished?"

"I mean, this is the last time I'll see you. I'm leaving the company, and going back east."

"B-but-" I stared at her, stunned. "But, why?"

"I'm getting married."

I continued to stare at her. I shook my head incredulously, unable to believe what I had heard.

"You're the only person I've told, so please keep it to yourself. I don't want anyone else to know just yet."

Married! My Manny getting married?

"But you can't!" I suddenly exploded. "I won't let you!"

"Oh?" She smiled at me sadly. "Why not, Britt?"

"Well, all right," I said doggedly. "I can't marry you. Not now, anyway. Maybe never. But why the big hurry? We'd got everything straightened out between us, and I thought that-that-"

"That we could pick up where we left off? I'd've been willing to settle for that, at least until something better could be worked out. But it just isn't possible." She stood up and held out her hand. "Good-bye and good luck, Britt."

"Wait a minute." I also stood up, and I took her hand and held onto it. "Who is this guy anyway?"

"You wouldn't know him. I knew him in the east a long time ago."

"But why are you suddenly rushing into marriage with him?"

"Why do you think I'm rushing? But never mind. It's settled, Britt, so please let go of my hand."

I let go of it.

She turned toward the door, and I started to accompany her. But she gestured for me to remain where I was.

"I'm afraid I'm pretty stupid darling. It's the police who've ordered you to stay in the house, isn't it? And your nurse is one of them?"

"Yes," I said. "To both questions."

"That's what Pat figured. He remembered her from somewhere, and it finally dawned on him that he'd seen her in uniform."

"All right," I said. "She's a cop, and I'm under orders not to leave the house. But I did it once, and since this is a pretty special occasion-the last time we'll see each other-"

"No!" she said sharply. "You'll stay inside as you've been told to!"

I said I'd at least walk to the front door with her, and I did. She held out her hand to me again, a firm little smile on her face, and I took it and pulled her into my arms. There was the briefest moment of resistance, then she came to me almost violently, as though swept on a wave of emotion. She embraced me, kissed me over and over, ran her soft, small hands through my hair.

And Kay Nolton cleared her throat noisily, and said, "Well, excuse me!"

Manny drew away from me, giving Kay an icy look. "How long were you watching us?" she demanded. "Or did you lose track of the time?"

"Never you mind, toots. I'm paid to watch people!"

"You should be paying," said Manny. "You get so much fun out of it."

And before Kay could come up with a retort, she was out of the house and slamming the door of the car. Kay said something obscene, then turned angrily on me. She said it was a darned good thing that Manny wasn't coming back to the house, and that she, Kay, would snatch her bald-headed if she ever did.

I accused her of snooping, listening outside the door while Manny and I were talking. She said I was doggone right she'd been listening, and if I didn't like it I could do the next best thing. I went into my office and closed the door, and at dinnertime she brought a tray to me, also bringing a cup of coffee for herself.

She sat down across from me, sipping from it, as I ate. I complimented her on the dinner, and made other small talk. In the midst of it, she broke in with a curt question.

"Why isn't Miss Aloe coming here to the house any more, Britt? I know she isn't, but I don't know why."

"You mean you missed part of our conversation?" I said.

"Answer me! I've got a right to know."

I lifted the tray from my lap, and set it on a chair. I shook out my napkin, and dropped it on top of the tray. Then I leaned back in my chair, and looked thoughtfully out the window.

"Well?" she said sullenly.

"I was just mulling over your remark," I said, "about your having a right to know. I don't feel that you have a right to know anything about my personal affairs. But I can see how you might, and I suppose it's my fault that you do. So, to answer your question: Miss Aloe is giving up her position here, and going back east. That's why I won't be seeing her again."

Kay said, Oh, in a rather timid tone. She said that she was sorry if she'd said or done anything that she shouldn't have.

I shook my head, brushing off her statement. Not trusting myself to speak. I was suddenly overwhelmed by my sense of loss, the knowledge of how much Manny had meant to me. And I jumped up and went over to the window. Stood there staring out into the gathering dusk.

Behind me, I heard Kay getting up quietly. I heard her pick up the dinner tray and leave the room, softly clicking the door shut behind her.

Several minutes passed. Then, she knocked and came in again, carrying the phone on its long extension cord. She handed it to me and started to leave, but I motioned for her to remain. She did so, taking the chair she had occupied before.

"Britt?" It was Jeff Claggett. "How was your visit with Miss Aloe?"

"All right," I said. "At least partly all right. She's leaving town, and going back east. Yes, within the next day or so, I believe."

"The hell!" He grunted with surprise. "Just like that, huh? She give you any reason?"

"Well"-I hesitated. "I don't need to consult with her anymore. I'm going ahead with the work on my own."

"Yes? Nothing else?"

"I couldn't say," I said carefully. "What else could there be, and what does it matter, anyway? I am sure that I have nothing more to fear from her. I'm positive of it, Jeff. And that's all I'm concerned about."

"So who said no?" He sounded amused. "Why so emphatic?"

"Let it go," I said. "The point is that there's no longer any reason to continue our present arrangement. If you'd like to make it official, Miss Nolton is right here and-"

"Hold it! Hold it, Britt!" Claggett snapped. "I think we can close things out there very soon. But you leave it to me to say when, okay?"

"Well, all right," I said. "I think it would be better to-"

"Why guess about something when you can be sure? Why not wait until Miss Aloe actually leaves town?" He paused, then lowered his voice. "Nolton throwing her weight around? Is that it, Britt?"

"Well"-I sidled a glance at Kay. "I imagine it would be difficult to make a change, wouldn't it?"

"It would."

"All right, then," I said. "I'll manage."

We hung up, and I passed the phone back to Kay. She took it silently, but at the door she turned and gave me a stricken look.

I faced around to my typewriter, and began pounding on the keys. And I kept at it until I was sure she had gone.

I had had about enough of Kay Nolton. What had started out as a pleasant giving, something that we could both enjoy, had wound up as an attempt to take me over.

I wasn't ready to be taken over, and I never would be. Nor would I ever want to take anyone else over. Love isn't tantamount to ownership. Love is being part of someone else, while still remaining yourself.

That was the way it had been with me and Manny. And now that she was gone from my life…

Well. Kay could not fill the space Manny had left. It was too great for any other to fill.

Kay left me alone that night. Which was just as well for her. I had discovered that confronting people when they insisted on it was not nearly so fearful as I had thought, and I was all ready to do it again.