Deadlier Than The Male Read online

  Deadlier Than The Male

  by James Gunn

  One

  Helen Brent had the best-looking legs at the inquest. She had a white sharkskin suit that had cost $145. She had an air of impeccable good breeding that had cost a great deal more.

  From the looks of things, she was no usual divorcee. Obviously, she was a woman of great wealth, of travel, of culture, of charm; she was a gorgeous blonde; she had been around. Perfectly poised, she crossed her legs with stunning and careless showmanship.

  Her name was Helen Brent, she said, and she was thirty-one; her home was in San Francisco; she was in Reno to get a divorce from her husband, Mr. Charles Brent.

  She had been in Reno—how long?

  Six weeks; during that time she had stayed at a boarding house on the edge of town, run by a Mrs. Krantz and her daughter, Miss Rachel Krantz; Miss Rachel Krantz was in the courtroom.

  On the previous Thursday, she had left the Krantzes' and gone to the Hotel Riverside?

  Yes.

  She had gone back to the Krantzes' at eleven that night to pick up a handbag?

  Yes.

  And about what time had she left the Krantzes' to go to the hotel?

  About five.

  She left at five. By four o'clock she was through packing; since it was a ferociously hot day, she lay down and sweated. This annoyed her. She was not exactly athletic, but she was active, and she had a long and elegant body to which she was much attached; she liked showers, and hated baths because they left her feeling sticky. She had taken two bedrooms at the Krantzes', so she would have a place to put her clothes, but there were no showers, and Helen was faced with a fairly unpleasant alternative: she could take a bath and go over to the Riverside feeling sticky, or she could do nothing and go over to the Riverside feeling smelly.

  At four o'clock Mrs. Krantz, who owned the place, was downstairs in the back part of the house, where she lived with her daughter, and she was expecting a visit from her great friend and neighbor, Mrs. Pollicker. Mrs. Pollicker, as usual, was God knows where. And Rachel Krantz, who had to manage everything, was walking up and down outside Helen's room, trying to think of a way to persuade Mrs. Brent to stay.

  For the Krantzes' was certainly not the place for Helen, and certainly not fashionable at all. There were two houses that had been built as boarding houses, in Reno, the city of boarding houses; they had both seen better days, but not for long. The tide of the town had flowed away from them, and left them like driftwood on the plain that surrounds Reno.

  This was convenient for Mrs. Pollicker, who lived in one of the houses alone, and used only a bedroom and the kitchen. Mrs. Pollicker's flesh was not only weak but eager, and her life was shriekingly immoral. She also had two badly trained poodles, and between the dogs and the Devil she would have had trouble in a respectable district. Her ribald friend Mrs. Krantz was more tolerant.

  It was not so convenient for the Krantzes, who still took boarders, though they gave no meals, and just managed to be unsuccessful. The neat and meager upstairs rooms usually had one or two permanent residents, and perhaps one or two women who were trying to get a divorce as cheaply as possible. There was never anyone like Helen Brent.

  So here was Miss Krantz walking up and down the hall, a little reluctantly, because of course she did not actually like Mrs. Brent. It seemed to Rachel that Mrs. Brent must be destined for a bad end, not necessarily because the Devil would have such a lure for Helen, but because Helen, Rachel had to admit, would have quite a lure for the Devil. And suddenly the door opened, and there was Helen herself, looking, as always, perfectly heavenly.

  She did not look her age; that privilege she regarded as reserved for the very young and the very foolish, and she had given it up at twenty-two. Her hazel eyes were beautiful, and her features were handsome and pure. But, most striking of all things about Helen, there was an elusive aura like white gold, an aura which came partly from her hair and partly from her complexion, and partly from the clothes in which she had the money and taste to dress herself.

  Just now her hard and willowy body moved frankly under a housecoat. “Miss Krantz?”

  “Yes?” said Miss Krantz.

  “Were you looking for me?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, then,” said Helen, and smiled charmingly, “well, then, come in.”

  “Of course,” said Helen, “it's your own fault,” and was at once rather sorry she had said it. She had handled servants in her own home and in her friends' homes, and she had dealt quite competently with managers and waiters and assorted help in more places than she could remember. And she had always found it best, for reasons of convenience and of good breeding, not to go into postmortems.

  Besides, she was almost good-natured, and she did not particularly want to hurt Miss Krantz's feelings. On the contrary, she was rather sorry for her. Rachel was twenty-seven, four years younger than Helen, with black hair and blue eyes and a face that would have been strikingly barbaric if she had known anything about makeup. She had a full-breasted figure in the Biblical style, the kind that suggests camels and water-jars, which she covered up with the ugliest clothes she could find. Helen had often had the impulse to tell her she was hiding something other women couldn't get out of bottles.

  Right now she was standing on the other side of the room, running a very clean fingernail over the dresser-cloth. Her voice, not at all gentle, was almost inaudible to Helen, who was ten feet away. “My mother and I are very sorry to see you go.”

  Helen smiled politely and noncommittally into the mirror and kept on brushing her hair. But Rachel was not to be put off: “If there's anything about the service—”

  “No thanks.”

  “Well, the lady in the front has moved now, Mrs. Brent—”

  Helen did not lose patience, but she did not care to stay at the Krantzes' any longer than was necessary. She turned around very courteously, in the great tradition of great ladies, who are always intimidating everyone they meet, always completely unaware that they are intimidating anyone at all. Her voice was a mixture of graciousness and briskness, a tone of absolute dismissal. “Miss Krantz,” she said. “I think I told you that I've been in Reno a good many times before. And I've never stayed here with you before. This time I had a reason to stay here, a good reason, Miss Krantz, and I told you the reason. Specifically, I told you that if anyone but my sister called, Mrs. Brent was not living here. But someone did call—in fact, my husband called—and your mother, unfortunately, didn't see fit to do as I asked.”

  She stood up and smiled, and let the graciousness overbalance the briskness in her voice. “Well, I'm very sorry things didn't work out, Miss Krantz.” She let the briskness back in: “But I would like my bill as soon as you can make it.” She turned back to the mirror.

  “Yes, Mrs. Brent.”

  “And I'd appreciate it if you'd send the maid up to take some of my things down. I'd better be getting along.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Brent.”

  By this time it was four-thirty.

  Helen left one of her handbags in a dresser drawer, though she had not meant to. When she came out of the room with a couple of hatboxes she heard the jarring click of Mrs. Pollicker's heels in the hall below, and then the skittering of the two poodles as they ran in after her. Helen did not like Mrs. Pollicker. Her own life was fairly immoral, but sensibly so, and she did not like people with abnormal sex lives. In particular, she did not like women who would not grow old, and Mrs. Pollicker had obviously taken her change of life as a hint that could be acted on later.

  Mrs. Pollicker was a small woman, fluttery, with very white skin and very dark teeth, with improbable red eyebrows and impossibl
e red hair. She always wore a multitude of ruffles to conceal the fact that she had no chest. Today there was a mass of fine black lace under her coat. “Looks like a Greek without his shirt on,” thought Helen, and started downstairs, while Mrs. Pollicker and dogs disappeared in the back of the house.

  But, when Helen was fixing one of the boxes at the foot of the stairs, the dogs suddenly ran out of the back of the house and, true to form, jumped all over her and managed to dirty her very fine white suit before Miss Krantz ran out and interfered.

  “I'm so sorry,” she said.

  “Forget it,” said Helen, and smiled.

  “If there's anything I can do,” said Miss Krantz; “if there's anything you've forgotten—”

  Helen picked up the boxes. “Thanks, I can look after myself.” She did not say it unpleasantly. “And goodbye, Miss Krantz.” She had forgotten the bag, of course, but she did not remember it now, and she went down the walk with the long and generous stride that was characteristic of her.

  It was five o'clock. Miss Krantz turned toward the back of the house, and as she did so she heard the scratchy high notes of Mrs. Pollicker's laugh.

  Mrs. Krantz was a short woman, with coarse, fatty features and quivering skin. She brought her dark hair up in a greasy roll around her head, and wore gold earrings; when she lowered her head and roared she could look very much like a buffalo.

  “Laura!” she roared now. “Bring it back, Laura!” Mrs. Pollicker, perched on the arm of a couch across the room, holding Mrs. Krantz's glass in her hand, jiggled it gently and smiled. “I'm broiling, Laura.” Mrs. Krantz was not going to hoist herself out of her chair; sweet womanly reserve kept her from drinking from the bottle beside her.

  Suddenly Mrs. Pollicker, still smiling, emptied Mrs. Krantz's glass herself. “Laura!” roared the outraged Mrs. Krantz, and banged the table beside her so hard that the bottle shook. In terror, Mrs. Krantz grabbed up the bottle and walloped the table with her other hand. “Laura! My, ain't that mean of you!”

  “They'll hear us upstairs,” said Mrs. Pollicker complacently, for she rather thought the boarders would be lucky to be disturbed by a woman of the world.

  “You are mean,” cried Mrs. Krantz, “my, ain't you mean!” She shrunk down in her chair and said piteously, “Make me another, Laura?”

  Mrs. Pollicker pursed her lips and looked coyly at the ceiling.

  “Then give me back the glass, please, Laura?” Mrs. Pollicker did not answer, and Mrs. Krantz looked longingly at the bottle. She smiled at it winningly for a minute, as if she half expected it to come to her of its own accord.

  “'Fraid?” twittered Mrs. Pollicker. “'Fraidycat? Go ahead and drink it.”

  Mrs. Krantz lifted the bottle.

  And just then Rachel came in. “Mother, are you drinking again?”

  “Do I look like I'm doing a Morris dance?” cried her mother belligerently.

  Miss Krantz crossed the room without speaking. After a moment she spoke to both of them. “You've been making a great deal of noise.”

  “So sorry,” said Mrs. Pollicker.

  “Mrs. Pollicker, your dogs spotted the dress of a woman who was just leaving. I can't have that sort of thing. I put them out in the yard.”

  “So sorry, my dear,” said Mrs. Pollicker.

  “And now I find my mother drinking again. I admit it is certainly no surprise—”

  “Don't listen to her, Laura,” said Mrs. Krantz, waving a regal hand. “Think of the beautiful things in life.”

  Miss Krantz said harshly, “I don't know why I stand for you, Mother. I've looked after you since I was seventeen. If I hadn't, this place would have been a complete failure—”

  “What is it now, my dear?” asked Mrs. Pollicker reasonably.

  “Mrs. Pollicker, please keep out of our family affairs. I know you are a very good friend of my mother's, but I think you encourage her in her faults. Mother, you were drinking when you answered the phone for Mrs. Brent. That's why she left.”

  “Liked his voice,” said Mrs. Krantz, and smirked. “Reminded me of a man I used to know. Good fellow, too. Wasn't your father, though, Rachel”—Mrs. Krantz thought this one over, and decided to play safe—“I don't think.”

  “Mother!” Rachel stood up, revolted. “Mrs. Pollicker, this is your doing. You're a sinful, evil, licentious woman.” Mrs. Pollicker waved her hand modestly. “What you do in your own house I don't care, even if it's scandalous enough. But when you come over here and corrupt my mother—”

  “Rachel!” roared Mrs. Krantz in a voice of thunder. There was silence. Mrs. Krantz took a deep breath and leaned forward judicially. “Rachel, you are now twenty-seven. What you need is a good—”

  “Don't be too hard on the child,” said Mrs. Pollicker.

  “But she don't even drink!” cried Mrs. Krantz, and flung herself back in her chair.

  This time the silence was complete. It was a long time before Mrs. Krantz moved; then she moistened emotionally. “Rachel,” she said, and Rachel turned to her; “Rachel, daughter, you have maligned a great woman.” Mrs. Pollicker's lace moved modestly. “There is things,” said Mrs. Krantz, “you wouldn't know about. Being what you are, you wouldn't know. Being what you are.” Having thus touched on her daughter's virginity with the utmost delicacy, she announced, “There is passions in the human breast!”

  Mrs. Pollicker smirked, and stopped smirking when Rachel shot a venomous glance at her ruffles.

  Mrs. Krantz went on lyrically, “What she is, it's what I was, Rachel, daughter, when I was young. What she is—well, she's passionate, but that's not it. She's warm, but that's it. She's big, but that's not it.” Mrs. Krantz's eyes sparkled as an idea came to her. “What she's got, it makes the world go round. It's beautiful. It's— humanity.” The sparkle grew, and Mrs. Krantz cried out, crescendo, “Rachel, daughter, ain't she human?”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Pollicker through the silence. She was awed. “That was beautiful, perfectly beautiful.” She came over with Mrs. Krantz's glass, and put it down, and put her arm around Mrs. Krantz's shoulders. “Beautiful. And I'm going to tell you something dear, something I'll never tell another soul.”

  Mrs. Krantz perked up. “About the new one?” she asked avidly.

  Mrs. Pollicker nodded. “He smells,” she said. “All the time. Like an animal.”

  Mrs. Krantz opened her mouth with a wet smack of ecstasy. “Oh, my, ain't you human!”

  Mrs. Pollicker stood up straight. “I rather think it is primitive,” she said, pleased. She went toward the door. “But I'm not going out with him tonight. He gets so jealous, I'm going to chastise him. I'm going out with Danny.”

  “Don't like him,” said Mrs. Krantz, positively, “ain't got the figger.”

  “How would you know, dear?” cried Mrs. Pollicker, and they both shrieked. “Well, my dear,” she said on tiptoe, “good-bye!” She leaned forward in the doorway and wiggled her fingers at Rachel. “You too. Good-bye, anyway.

  When she had gone, both of the Krantzes were quiet. Rachel started to leave, and then she turned. “What can I do with you?” she said bitterly. “I don't suppose there's anything. I suppose I'll have to bear with you till you die.”

  Mrs. Krantz raised her head ponderously. “And what about me? Is it any picnic for me to be left alone with a cold daughter that has no love of life, or any understanding of what her mother is or wants? Is it any picnic for me to be left alone with you?” She sneered. “Oh, it's a lot I have to celebrate, I'm sure.”

  “Then at least perhaps you won't get into a disgusting state.”

  “You mean,” said Mrs. Krantz, “when I celebrate I take a little drink, and so forth I get into a disgusting state?”

  “And therefore.”

  “'But that's what you meant?”

  “Of course.”

  Mrs. Krantz pondered this. She picked up her glass and half filled it. “Then let us celebrate,” she said magnificently, “let us celebrate the fact that I am an old woman and have
nothing to celebrate, and that so forth I will not get into a disgusting state.” She lifted her glass. “Mud in your eye!”

  Rachel turned away. It was five-thirty by now. Both of them waited for the darkening night.

  Two

  By ten o'clock Mrs. Pollicker had come back to her own house with Danny Jadden, and she lay spread-eagled on the bed, a tangle of ruffles and red fox. She was only a little drunk, but her girdle pinched and she was tired. She pulled the comforter up to her chin. “I'se tired, Mose,” she said drowsily. “I'se awful fired.” She pulled the comforter all the way over her face, and then put her fingers out and wiggled them.

  Danny Jadden did not answer her. He was very tired and more than a little drunk, and he was almost asleep in an armchair across the room. He was broad-shouldered and thick-waisted; he wore a white fuzzy sweater like a college boy's, but he was over thirty. He had dark slick hair and dark, dry skin, and unless he stood rather too close to a bright light he was very good-looking. His looks had supported him fairly well for quite a while now. He opened his mouth as if he were going to snore.

  “You go home now, Danny,” said Mrs. Pollicker from under the comforter. He did not answer her. “You go right home,” she said, “I'm going to bed.”

  “All right,” said Danny.

  “Just like a good little boy—” said Mrs. Pollicker, and then she sat up in bed suddenly and spat the fox fur out of her mouth. “What was that?”

  “Good night,” said Danny sleepily, and started to get up.

  Mrs. Pollicker snarled at him levelly. “Listen. If there's one thing I have, it's vitality. If there's one thing I am, I'm insatiable, if you get what I mean.” She lay down again.

  Danny put his hands on the arms of the chair, to see if he could get up. “You're a beautiful fairy queen,” he said wearily.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Pollicker more amiably, “that's getting down to brass facts.” But when he lurched out of the chair and came toward her, she put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. “Go get me a drink,” she said demurely, “my gut's dry.” Then she turned over and went to sleep.