“You seem to have a gift for stirring up murderous notions in your boyfriends. There’s Albury waiting trial for killing Willsson. There’s Whisper who’s got you shivering in corners. Even I haven’t escaped your influence. Look at the way I’ve turned. And I’ve always had a private notion that Dan Rolff’s going to have a try at you some day.”
“Dan! You’re crazy. Why, I—”
“Yeah. He was a lunger and down and out, and you took him in. You gave him a home and all the laudanum he wants. You use him for errand boy, you slap his face in front of me, and slap him around in front of others. He’s in love with you. One of these mornings you’re going to wake up and find he’s whittled your neck away.”
She shivered, got up and laughed.
“I’m glad one of us knows what you’re talking about, if you do,” she said as she carried our empty glasses through the kitchen door.
I lit a cigarette and wondered why I felt the way I did, wondered if I were getting psychic, wondered whether there was anything in this presentiment business or whether my nerves were just ragged.
“The next best thing for you to do if you won’t go away,” the girl advised me when she returned with full glasses, “is to get plastered and forget everything for a few hours. I put a double slug of gin in yours. You need it.”
“It’s not me,” I said, wondering why I was saying it, but somehow enjoying it. “It’s you. Every time I mention killing, you jump on me. You’re a woman. You think if nothing’s said about it, maybe none of the God only knows how many people in town who might want to will kill you. That’s silly. Nothing we say or don’t say is going to make Whisper, for instance—”