She pretended it took her nearly five minutes to read the forty-two words I had written. She let the document fall down on the covers and asked:
“Where’d you get that?” Her voice was tinny, irritable.
“Dinah Brand sent me to you.”
She asked eagerly:
“Has she broken off with Max?”
“Not that I know of,” I lied. “I imagine she just wants to have this on hand in case it should come in handy.”
“And get her fool throat slit. Give me a pencil.”
I gave her my fountain pen and held my notebook under the document, to stiffen it while she scribbled her signature at the bottom, and to have it in my hands as soon as she had finished. While I fanned the paper dry she said:
“If that’s what she wants it’s all right with me. What do I care what anybody does now? I’m done. Hell with them all!” She sniggered and suddenly threw the bedclothes down to her knees, showing me a horrible swollen body in a coarse white nightgown. “How do you like me? See, I’m done.”
I pulled the covers up over her again and said:
“Thanks for this, Miss Jennison.”
“That’s all right. It’s nothing to me any more. Only”—her puffy chin quivered—“it’s hell to die ugly as this.”