Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

“After all,” she said, “you do rate something for your money. I just wish the story was more original.”

It was a little shopworn. Husband trouble and work trouble ganged up on her. She started drinking to keep going. When she had no husband and no work, she had more time to devote to it. Her money didn’t last forever. She’d put everything in hock. Now that was gone, too.

“I wish I could be cavalier about it,” she said, helping herself to another drink, “and say it had been fun and I had no regrets, but it stunk and I’m lousy with regrets.”

She killed her drink in one pass. She looked at me and smiled. “You’re having a hell of a time, aren’t you?” She patted the back of my hand. “Thanks anyway for not trying to save me with kind words.”

She excused herself and left the room. I marvelled at her control. I was beginning to feel slightly boiled, just keeping up with her the last couple of hours.

She was only gone a minute. When she dropped down beside me again, she tossed a leather-bound book in my lap. She was smiling. “Now you’ll know I’m drunk. I don’t know why I should want to inflict it on a decent guy like you, but that’s my diary. I want you to have it.”

I tried to give it back to her, but she insisted: “Please. Please keep it. I always wondered why I bothered to write all that stuff. Now I guess it was because I wanted somebody to understand me.”

She made a drink while I kicked it around. It whipped me. What was I supposed to say? I don’t think it mattered.

It might have been the cold, or maybe it was just the best thing I could think of right then. I took Maxine in my arms. I brushed her hair and cheek with my lips — her eyes. Then she looked up at me and kissed me like she meant it.

The next morning I wondered about it. I’m inclined to think of myself as an independent operator. In this business, ladies in distress are a dime a dozen, but I try to keep my interest in that type of woman strictly professional. And now I had this Maxine on the brain.

I’d heard about cures for the booze habit. But even if it worked, that wasn’t the whole answer to Maxine’s problem. I’d kept my nose out of her diary up to now. I didn’t need it to tell me she wasn’t on the lush just because she liked the taste of hooch. Maybe a psychiatrist was the answer. I meant to call Iggy and ask him what he thought. As I said, I was worried — about Martin Fowler.

The morning papers made quite a thing out of Maxine’s bout with the law. They published the scolding the judge had handed down almost verbatim, with a few dim-witted comments of their own. All around I had one hell of a morning.

Then about one o’clock, Maxine called me. For a wonder, she sounded sober: “Surprise,” she said, “they haven’t cut off my phone.”

I laughed. “How do you feel?”

“Wonderful,” she replied. “Are you sitting down?”

“Naturally.”

“Well, hold on, darling. This will be a shock.” She announced happily: “Maxine Keyes has a job — believe it or not!”

“On the level, that’s terrific!” I told her. “Tell me more.”

She was, she explained, getting the lead in a roadshow company. It wasn’t a lot of money, and she fully expected to have her creditors put the grab on most of it, but at least it was a start.

I congratulated her and told her we ought to have dinner and celebrate.

Could we make it the following night? She had to see some people about the play tonight. It was a date.

I wished her more luck and told her to be good. I felt a little better when I hung up.

By the following afternoon, I was as nervous as a madam at confession. I went rushing up there about four o’clock. I gave the doorbell a play to no returns.

That should have satisfied me Maxine was out. I wasn’t due there for at least a couple of hours. For some reason it didn’t.

I scrambled down the side of the hill to get around to Maxine’s back yard. The whole joint clung to the slope by its fingernails, so this yard wasn’t much more than a sodded patio built up behind a retaining wall. The grass, the trees, and the ragged ornamental shrubbery were burnt brown, the few pieces of garden furniture weatherbeaten to the same indefinite color.

On the table was an empty gin bottle, and across the back of the chair, Maxine’s coat. My first thought was that she had been out there having a drink, heard me ring, and had gone to the front door while I was coming around the house.

I went to the door to sing out and let her know I was there. It was locked.

I picked up her coat and fumbled through the pockets. I found a handkerchief soiled with lip rouge, and her keys. There was nothing else to do. I forced myself to look over the retaining wall.

Jackpot!

She was lying about sixty feet below me, crumpled against the yellow clay. Beyond the wall, I found a place where I could get down to her.

I could’ve spared myself the trouble. She was dead — her neck frozen at a crazy angle, her face scratched by the crumbled granite.