13 French Street by Gil Brewer Read Free Book Online Page A

she was a bold, beautiful woman.
    “I’ll have to leave,” I said. “I’m trying to be honest.”
    “You don’t have to try, darling.”
    “Don’t call me that. I mean it. I’d better leave now, tonight.” I really meant it. Just holding the letter from Madge was enough, and with Verne, too. “Verne is my friend,” I said. “I know you don’t understand. I don’t ask you to. I wouldn’t have understood myself once. But I do now. Maybe it’s wrong, but it’s how I feel.”
    “You have the most peculiar way of admitting things.”
    “I told you I wasn’t admitting anything.”
    “Well, for the very reason that Verne is your friend—for the very reason that you two went through a war together, and saved each other’s lives, and all that—that’s why you can’t leave, Alex.”
    “Can’t I?”
    “No. Don’t be thick as well as honest, damn you!” She wiped her palms on her hips, then pushed her hair back. When she released her hair, it flowed around her shoulders like black smoke. Something was happening inside me; something I couldn’t control.
    “What do you mean, ‘thick’?”
    “What would Verne think if you left now? What would that old witch tell him? He’s suspicious, Alex, as it is. He’s kept me cooped up here. I’ve never been able to go anyplace. If you left now, he’d know. How would you feel then? Your bloody conscience would knock you dead.”
    She kept jamming that knife home. But all the time, I knew it wasn’t that alone. I knew there was something else. But she was right about Verne—what he might think about us.
    I said, “I told Verne I should go back home.”
    “But he said not to, didn’t he?”
    “You’re crazy to try something like this.”
    “I’m not trying anything. It’s there, that’s all.”
    “What’s the matter with Verne?”
    “His business has got him down. He’s knocked himself out. Listen, you don’t know what I’ve been through. I’m watched by that old woman. Watched all the time. I never see anybody. I’m all alone in this lousy house with that crawling old woman!”
    “Take it easy. Why don’t you go out?”
    “Because Verne says I have to be with her.” She placed both palms against the sides of her face and sucked in her cheeks. Her voice was very low; she was obviously keeping it under control with effort. “Wherever I go, whatever I do, have done, for years, she’s with me. I’ll go mad, Alex. Oh, God, I’ll go mad!”
    “You must have done something to—”
    Petra turned. The old woman was slowly climbing the stairs. Just the top of her head showed, ascending into our line of vision with an almost awesome slowness.
    “Quick,” Petra said. “Close the door. And for God’s sake, forget about leaving!” She went off down the hall. I closed the door on her perfume, but some of it oozed in with me. A funny thing. She wore so little of it that if you tried to smell it, you couldn’t Yet it was always there, faint, elusive.
    So now we were both hiding from the old woman.
    I ripped open Madge’s letter. There were two blank sheets of paper. No. At the bottom of the second sheet in very small handwriting she had written:
    Dearest Alex,
    Fill these pages in with all the things you’d like to have me say and write often. I will, too.
    All my love,          
    M ADGE      
    Great. The one time I needed every word she could possibly send and she played jokes. But I knew the letter had been mailed probably at the same time I left Chicago. It was just her way of saying, “Have a good time.”
    And she would write every day. So if I left now, letters would start arriving and keep arriving for three days after I reached Chicago. Probably. And Petra would read them. And Petra might reply to Madge. Yes, the return address was on the envelope. So there I was figuring myself into a mess, as usual.
    I went over to the desk and wrote a two-page lie to Madge about how wonderful everything was and how grand she was,