Chapter 10
Like everything else in life, I guess you have to have experience to be a crook. Although I had timed my intrusion into the Hammond office so that it would look like I was just staying late, I was upset and fumbling when I tried to get in. Somehow, the sight of Conrad P. Hammond, red-faced, and giving the whole office staff a lecture on honesty because of some missing stamps and pencils, swam before my eyes.
"I'll make a eunuch out of anybody I catch crooking something in this office," he had bellowed. And then, he proceeded to describe in detail just how he'd do it with the old-fashioned straight razor he kept in his desk snipping off the thief s balls. All the girls wondered what he'd do to a woman thief....
Trying to act nonchalant, I steadied my trembling hand and tired again to turn the stubbornly resisting key. This time it turned, and the door slid open into the gloom, heavily shadowed with outlines of desks, filing cabinets and chairs.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I mopped at my damp brow, then got a cigarette out of the pack into my mouth and ... finally ... got it lit.
Hell, what was I shaking about? I reached for the switch to my desk lamp ... better not to sit in the darkness. That would look strange.
Maybe it's because an office, generally, is a very noisy, bustling place, but this one seemed eerily quiet.
I waited a while, listening for sounds of anyone approaching, but there was only silence. This was an unfrequented part of town, so casual passersby were rare. It was way out of the residential district and there were no taverns. The few hamburger joints that catered to the business personnel hereabouts closed at seven.
Why then, was I so cotton-picking jittery? Nerves, I told myself. Take it easy, boy.
At last I was calm enough to enter Conrad Hammond's office. Even this presented no great risk. If I heard someone coming, I could always say I was looking for an important paper that I just figured might be on the old boy's desk. After all, I was his prospective son-in-law and the fair-hiared boy around here ... wasn't I?
Trying to think of nothing but the numbers at which I stared, I knelt before the safe and slowly turned the knob. Right three ... left six ... right two ... left four ... that ought to do it. Gently, I tugged, and the black mouth of the safe yawned in my face.
I got one break, at least. What I had come for was a cinch to spot. The book was right in front of me, and the word "Diary" was stamped in big, gold letters right on the cover.
What a sap, I thought. Keeping a record of his actions like a silly, damn teenager. You sure as hell wouldn't catch me doing that. Not in a million years. I wouldn't even blab my escapades, much less write them.
Clutching my prize, I shut the door fast and turned the knob once more to re-lock the safe. Then I rose, shaking my head as though to clear it, as though awakening to reality from a real crazy dream.
I shoved the book into my coat pocket, left Hammond's office, and quietly closed the door. Still no sound, other than my own quickened breathing.
I turned out the desk light and hurried for the door. Mission accomplished. I wanted out.
Sipping at a healthy helping of my grandfather's bourbon, I stared unbelievingly at the closely-written pages on my lap. I couldn't accept the evidence of my eyes. The lines at which I stared read like a cheap, lurid novel.
On pages that were yellowed with age, but on which the story, written in ink, was plainly visible, I read....
"Tonight I gave up trying to forget her. She's in my blood, my flesh, the marrow of my bones. I have to have her. I have to have Gretchen...."
Gretchen ... the name had jarred me, but I realized this had to be a different Gretchen ... my queenly fiancee's mother ... and a rowdy-dow strip tease dancer and prostitute.
It was true, then, what I had heard, what had been haunting me all along, ever since the rumor first reached my ears. My grandfather and Conrad Hammond had fought over a woman all right, and Conrad Hammond had won. Evidently, the victory had been brief. Maybe, even at that, it had been worth it.
Unable to so much as look up, I read such descriptions of wild hot frigging as ..
"No other man will ever get into that lush, lovely cunt of Gretchen's. It's mine. She's mine. ALL MINE!"
"If that miserable lecher, Cassius Overton, ever again comes near my property, I'll put a knife through his heart."
"But I'll see that he never finds her. I've persuaded her to leave with me, to go to a city far enough away so all can be lost to all the world, save each other. Now that she will be out of that damn prick-pusher's clutches, out of his reach, I know I can hold her.
"I'll fuck her with all my strength. I want to drown in the honey of her cunt...."
I looked up, dazed.
Man, and I thought I knew about pussy! Who would have thought it of stodge, gray Conrad Hammond? Much as I went for that wonderful stuff, I had never been hooked anywhere near that bad. Had Granddaddy Cass suffered over the fabulous prostitute the way Conrad Hammond must have suffered?
Enthralled, I read on. No author I ever had encounted ever had me in such a spell...." Gretchen is pregnant. She says I don't have to marry her, but I am going to. I want that baby ... child of our love."
Then ... so help me ... there were pages with the marks of tears that had dried on them long ago.
"Gretchen is dead. My precious love is gone, lost to me forever. But at least I have one thing, one treasure left to me out of all this world. Gretchen and I were married at last. The child ... the little girl that I will name after Gretchen ... is mine. Legally mine."
I looked up, dumbfounded. But what about the woman the world had known as Gretchen's mother, the socially acceptable young lady who had come with Conrad, not as his bride, but as his wife of a year, from a middlewestern town? What of the local excitement over their blonde, beautiful girl baby, only a few months old ... Gretchen? There had been no other children. Gretchen was heir to all her father possessed, which was plenty.
I couldn't believe it. Did Gretchen know the true nature of her background? Did she know that her real mother was a honky-tonk whore?
Other things became blindingly clear in the light of this new knowledge.
Vince Bodine must somehow have learned of Gretchen's real origin. That must be what the money-filled envelopes every month on the dot were all about. It must also be why he was blackmailing Gretchen.
I sat up straight. And it probably explained why Gretchen was so easy to blackmail in that very special fashion. Vince must have screwed her many, many more times than I had ... he must know, more thrillingly than I could possibly know ... how hot was the blood that Gretchen had inherited from her temptress mother, how wildly that blood flowed through her own supposedly lady-like veins.
I rose. What ought to be my next step? A thought occurred to me that I hadn't so far considered. What if Conrad Hammond had reason to go to his own safe for something tomorrow? He would surely see that his diary was missing.
Slipping the book into my coat pocket, I headed out the door and got into my car. Hoping I wouldn't disturb the neighbors, I gunned off toward the business district in a hurry to get the book back where it belonged, then once again to return home and determine my course of action.
This time I fet more confident. A car was approaching a couple of blocks away, so I hurried not wanting to be recognized. It was pretty late even now for authorized access to a business office.
Once again ... for the benefit of the night watchman ... I lit my desk lamp, then lost no time in getting to Mr. Hammond's office.
The numbers of the combination to the safe seemed to be burned into my brain, but I checked with the card just to be sure. Then, slowly enough to avoid any mistake, once more I turned the dial.
I was just thrusting the book back on the shelf where I had found it when I heard a noise behind me.
Startled, I jerked around, still in a crouching position, to stare into the blazing eyes of the present-day, very much alive, Gretchen, my fiancee.
Her face was a white oval disk in the dimness. The rich auburn hair was hidden by a black silk scarf, wound tightly about her head. In her snug-fitting black slacks and loose red shirt, she could have been mistaken for a man ... if you didn't look too closely at certain spots.
There had been a glint of flashing metal, and my bewildered eyes thought for a moment that I was cornered by Conrad P. Hammond, waving his razor. It really made me jittery. After all, what would be left for me to live for if the crazy old coot succeeded with a wild slice at my balls?
But I heaved a sigh of relief. Lucky for me it was Gretchen, my fiancee, whose lips were interested in giving my cock and balls as entirely different kind of treatment.