you, I mean. You don’t have any objections?”
“Not a one, pal.”
“Well, that’s nice,” I said. “Isn’t it?” But I knew it wasn’t any use. Crowding him like that was just a waste of time. He was too much of the pro. He was pushing her around for what he could get out of it, and being jockeyed into a useless fight was only for suckers.
“Anything I could help with?” I asked.
“No-o, I don’t think so,” he said. Then he looked across at her and asked, with bland innocence, “Do you think there’s anything he could help with, honey?”
Her face was pale and you could see her fighting to keep from going all to pieces. I began to wonder if I was being very smart. I was blundering around in something I didn’t know anything about, and I began to have a feeling it was too deep to be cleared up by a kid stunt like slapping Sutton around, even if I could do it. She could only shake her head.
“Well, I’m sorry, pal,” he said with mock regret. “You see how it is. Maybe some other time, huh? We’ll give you a ring.”
“Please, Harry,” she said miserably, “it’s all right. It’s just a personal matter I have to talk over with Mr. Sutton.”
“O.K.,” I said. I shook my head and got up. There wasn’t anything else to do. I looked down at Sutton. “Sorry we couldn’t do any business.”
“Well, cheer up, pal. There’s days like that,” he said easily. “I’d cry, but it makes my mascara run.”
I went back to the lot. If she wouldn’t tell me what it was and didn’t want me mixed up in it, there was nothing I could do. I groused around the lot the rest of the afternoon. I already had an idea what it would be like when I picked her up at five o’clock, and it was. It was ruined. She was completely different when she had seen Sutton, or even when I mentioned him. She was tightened up and silent, and you could sense the desperate unhappiness tearing her up inside. We stopped on a little country road and I kissed her, but it wasn’t anything. She was somewhere else.
“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I hate to be such a wet blanket, Harry. And I was looking forward so to seeing you.”
I took her face in my hands as I had that night. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s have it.”
She just shook her head with an infinite weariness,
“Don’t you see?” I said. “You’ve got to tell me. How can I help you if I don’t know what it is?”
“There’s nothing you can do, Harry.”
“The hell there’s not. It’s Sutton, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer for a moment, and then she nodded slowly.
“Well, Sutton puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like everybody else. All he needs is for somebody to have a talk with him.”
“No,” she said desperately. “Don’t do it, Harry! Promise me you’ll stay away from him.”
“Why?”
“Because. You have to. You just have to,” she said pleadingly. “Just give me a little time. Don’t you see? It isn’t that I don’t want to tell you. I just can’t—not yet. It’s all so mixed up. I almost go crazy trying to decide what to do. It was bad enough before, but now—“
“But now what?” I asked, turning her face so she had to look at me.
“Now there’s you,” she said simply.
I kissed her and sat there holding her with the top of the blonde head just under my chin. Her face was pressed into my shirt and she was crying, quite silently. I thought of Sutton. If we had much more of this, something was going to happen to him.
We went to the movies Wednesday night, and she began to snap out of it a little. Neither of us had seen anything more of Sutton. She was very quiet, but she didn’t break down any more, and I just gave her time as she had asked me. I knew she was fighting it out with herself, and once or twice I had the feeling she was very near to telling me about it. She never did quite make it, but I left her alone. I knew that was what she wanted, and it was wonderful just being with her.
Gulick and I were busy at the lot, with the cars moving pretty well, and I was starting to work up another ad. I thought about the buried money a