An Independent Woman by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

the media gets hold of it.”
    Barbara shook her head. “No, Abner, I can’t do that. I will not be witness to sending a man to prison. I’ve been in prison”—remembering the six months she had served in a federal prison in Long Beach. That was long ago, in the forties, but the memory of what had happened was vivid and ugly. She had been one of the organizing members of a committee that had purchased an old convent in Toulouse and fitted it out as a hospital to help the surviving soldiers of Republican Spain and their families. She had given a great deal of money to that cause, and when she was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and told to give the names of people who had supported their work, she refused. The result was a citation for contempt of Congress, and then a trial and a sentence to six months in prison. Those six months were burned in her memory.
    â€œI can’t,” she said to Abner. “I have to live with myself—for whatever time I have left. I’m an old woman. I can’t wipe out the life that I lived. I can’t bear witness against this man, Jones. I made an agreement with him. I gave him the jewels and he gave me my father’s ring. I told him I would not bear witness against him.”
    â€œHe gave you the ring!” Abner snorted. “Barbara, the ring was yours. He stole your jewelry. How much? A hundred thousand dollars’ worth? God almighty—‘he gave you the ring’!”
    â€œDon’t argue with me, Abner. Just tell me what I must do and what will happen to me. I’m not brave. I’m more frightened than you can imagine.”
    â€œWell, to begin, you’ll be aiding and abetting a felon—which makes you equally guilty.”
    â€œIf I gave him the jewelry? Why is that a crime? Can’t I give away anything that is mine? How can they prove otherwise?”
    â€œHow did he get in the house?”
    â€œHe picked the lock,” Barbara said. “It’s an old lock, the same lock that Sam Goldberg had on the door. When I rebuilt the house after the fire, I kept as much of the old house as I could. The lock isn’t hard to pick.”
    â€œIt’s still breaking and entering. Even if the door was open, it’s breaking and entering with intent to steal.”
    â€œBut if I insist that I gave him the jewels?”
    â€œThat’s perjury. For heaven’s sake, Barbara, can you toss away a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry like that? Are you that rich?”
    â€œThe jewels meant nothing to me. I kept them in a drawer. There was a linked gold chain I wore, but nothing else. Yes, I wore the pearls once or twice, but nothing else. I wore the brooch only once. If I have to trade it for a man’s freedom, fine. Don’t try to understand me, Abner. Just be my good friend and my lawyer, and help me get through this.”
    â€œYou’re serious, aren’t you?” Abner said softly, a touch of awe in his voice.
    â€œDeadly serious.”
    â€œAnd I’m compounding a felony. Reda walks out on me, and her last words are, ‘You ain’t worth shit.’ That’s a hell of a thing to tell a man who can’t get it up and who stops trying, and who’s too fat for anyone else to look at twice.”
    â€œAbner, Abner,” she said gently, “you’re one of the best men I know. Reda was probably in a rage, and she didn’t care what she was saying. We’ll talk about that another time. Right now you’re my lawyer, and I’m your client.”
    He nodded.
    â€œDo you want another cup of coffee?”
    â€œYes.”
    She poured coffee, sat across the corner of the table, so that she could reach out and put her hand on his; and he was thinking what a fine figure of a woman she still was, seventy and all, tall and slender, her gray eyes clear and bright; and he wondered why he had never found someone like