Beware the Curves

that gun, a gun you bought two days before in a sporting goods store in Santa Ana. Now do you want to talk or do you want me to get the police up here and have the newspaper reporters rip your life wide open?”
    Bertha stood over Helen Manning, glaring down at her, and Bertha was hard. There was no mistake about that. When Bertha got hard, she got hard.
    Helen Manning said, “I didn’t shoot him, Mrs. Cool. I honestly didn’t.”
    “Who did?”
    “Cooper Hale was the only one who could have done it.”
    “Now you’re talking,” Bertha Cool said. “Let’s get some facts in the case. What happened?”
    She said, “I told his wife. His wife told him »about what I had said. He was furious. He sent for me to come down to see him. I was frightened. I had bought that gun—
    “I don’t know what I intended to do, but... I had been very fond of Karl Endicott and... I had given him much more than he had given me. I had given him my heart. I had given him the best years of my life. I-”
    “Can that stuff!” Bertha said. “Give me the facts. We haven’t got much time!”
    She said, “When I arrived there at the house, he told me that Mr. Hale was coming at almost any minute. He took me to an upstairs room, a bedroom. He was nice to me. He said his wife had left him. He... he was awfully nice. He took me in his arms and... well, his hands... he found the gun.”
    “And then what?”
    “He laughed and took it away from me and put it on the dresser.
    “And then the doorbell rang. That was Hale.
    “He told me to wait. He said that he was coming back, that Hale wouldn’t be there very long.
    “I was so confused and upset I just didn’t know what to do. And then the doorbell rang again. That was John Ansel. I had thought John Ansel was dead. It startled me to hear his voice. Karl took Ansel upstairs and excused himself for a minute. He came in to the bedroom and said, in a whisper, “You’ll have to beat it, darling, the situation has become too complicated. Get back to town and I’ll call you later on.’ Then he gave me a little pat and a kiss and said, ‘Go on downstairs quietly and fade Out of the picture.’ ”
    “All right, what did you do?”
    “I went down the stairs. As I reached the sidewalk I heard a revolver shot from the upstairs bedroom.”
    “What did you do?” Bertha Cool asked.
    “I hesitated a moment, and then I ran. I ran to the corner and then walked and walked and walked until it seemed I couldn’t walk another step, and finally I caught a bus back to the city.
    “I knew... deep down in my heart... I knew what had happened. I knew he was dead.”
    Bertha looked at me.
    “Write it down,” I said.
    We moved her over to a table and gave her paper. She wrote it down.
    “Sign it!” I said.
    She signed it.
    “Date it!” I said.
    She dated it.
    Bertha Cool and I signed as witnesses.
    I said, “Did you realize you were sending an innocent man to the gas chamber?”
    “I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I tried to keep out of it. But you don’t understand what it means to me, Donald. My whole career... I have a good job. I’m a very competent secretary and in this job I’m working up. I’m getting a good salary. The faintest breath of scandal and I’d be out, and... and I’m not young any more. That is, I’m—”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” Bertha said. “Don’t tell me you’re not young. Why you’re only about thirty-five. That’s just the right age for a woman to begin living. You know what it’s all about. You know how men think and you know how they work, and if you’re any good at all you know how to drive ’em nuts.
    “You make me sick with that all-washed-up line. And don’t ever hand out any more of that best-years-of-your- life crap. That’s the thing that chases men away faster than a smallpox quarantine sign. Quit eating so goddam many sweets, and set your cap for some of these guys. You’re just entering on the best years of your life right now.”
    “I know,” Helen said dolefully, “but the men I know are already married, nearly all of them.”
    “Ain’t that too bad!” Bertha Cool said unsympathetically. “I don’t see any signs of frustration about you, dearie.” She walked over to a chair, picked up a girdle, looked at it a minute, threw it in a corner and said, “The way you’re built, it’s a goddam shame to strap yourself into one of those things. Cut out a few calories and get that fanny of yours