Chapter 9
Dr. Fanny, a thin elderly man with grey hair and a smooth face, finished applying bandages on Alice's battered face and body. It was nearly 10 p.m. now. The little doctor turned to Thomas McShane and Duke Wayne who stood just outside the bedroom door conversing with Gladys Hernden who had given them all the facts as best she could from what she had heard and seen. Immediately after Eddie LaRose had hurried from the building, Gladys had entered to find Alice all bloody and badly mauled lying on the floor. She managed to lift Alice upon the bed and had been washing blood from her face with a wet towel when the two detectives, along with another prowl car of uniformed officers, had arrived. McShane had issued a pick-up order for Eddie LaRose the moment Gladys informed him who Alice's assailant had been.
Dr. Fanny confronted the two detectives. "She's gonna be all right," he said. "No broken bones, only a few bad bruises along her cheeks and bottom Hp. She lost one tooth, and one eye has closed. Other than that she'll be all right in a few days. I've given her enough sedatives to keep her quiet for a while, so don't become uneasy if she doesn't wake for some while. I'm drop by tomorrow morning."
The detectives stepped aside for the doctor to pass, and they watched him silently as he went over to Gladys and Frieta who were seated on the divan. He repeated to them what he had said to the others. Frieta was sobbing, holding a white handkerchief over her face. She knew she was to blame for it all, and her conscience was hurting her more than anything else.
Dr. Fanny gathered up his black grip and picked up his hat and coat and left the apartment. Gladys followed him to the door and went out the door with him and closed it.
McShane went over to Frieta and sat down beside her. He had always been fond of the girl. He was more blind as to the facts concerning the situation, since Frieta had told him that she didn't know what it started over.
"Duke tells me that Eddie took Alice to a hotel room and forced whisky on her?" McShane asked.
Frieta removed the handkerchief from her face and studied his odd features.
"I guess he did that," Frieta said.
"Alice was of the opinion that the guy wanted her to drink herself to death?"
"I don't know....I don't know. She's the one engaged to him, not me!"
"Frieta, I don't know what's goin' on between you and your mother. I don't know who's to blame. Since nobody's been hurt, yet, there's nothin' we can do here. We'll find Eddie LaRose and hold him for battery assault. Meanwhile, you be sure and keep the dirty bastard away from here. He's had over eleven arrests. Served ten years at a Federal Institution at Indianapolis."
"What for?" Frieta wanted to know. This was her first time knowing that. She was beginning to hate the sight of Eddie LaRose, despite her irresistible desire for him.
"Murder!" said McShane. "He was only fifteen when he started his crime wave. If you love your mother, try to help her. Somehow she needs you very badly. Alice is a good girl, she's just had some hard breaks with her boy friends. Some decent chap could easily make her life happier."
Duke was in the bedroom with Alice. He swore that he'd kill the dirty hoodlum if he ever caught him outside the law. He stooped and kissed Alice's puffed lips, then left the room.
McShane was at the front door holding his felt hat when Duke entered the front room. Duke smiled at Frieta.
"From now on, I'm your daddy, baby," Duke informed her. "I like Alice. I like her more than she realizes. I'll be around, Frieta. And don't forget, I'm gonna be your step papa. Savvy?" He winked at her. Frieta smiled uncomfortably, and waved at the two detectives as they left the room and closed the door on her.
A few days later Eddie LaRose was picked up at a pool hall between Eighth and Ninth streets on Central Avenue. He was booked and held without bond for his ruthless assault on Alice Ingram. By now he had spent most of his money which he had won gambling, and therefore, was unable to make bond. So he was held in jail. Neither Alice nor Frieta went to see him, nor did either of them care to. Frieta was just as disgusted and sickened from the looks of the man as Alice was. However, when his trial was held a week later, Alice did not appear. She actually felt that she didn't wish to persecute Eddie, so the man was released, after paying a hundred dollar fine for disturbing the peace.
A week had hardly passed before Alice was stirring round the apartment. She did not have much to say to Frieta, and Frieta thought the reason might have been that she half suspected that Eddie LaRose and her daughter had been having an affair behind her back.
Alice spent a great deal of her time doctoring her bruised complexion. Thus she stayed shut-up in the bedroom more so than ever. She hated her looks. Frieta still possessed five-hundred dollars of money which Eddie LaRose had given her on that horrible, yet heavenly, day when she had first submitted to him. She did not intend to let Alice know that she possessed the money. She feared her mother's reproach on the matter.
And so the days passed slowly. It stopped raining near the first of July. The sun came out and it was very hot again. The furnace was shut off, and the windows to the apartment were raised to let in cooler air.
On the sixth of July, Mike Hernden passed away. Gladys's grievous screams rocked the old apartment building. It happened early in the morning, at four. Alice and Frieta both climbed out of bed and went across to the kitchenette to comfort Gladys, and to help her out in her distress.
The funeral for Mike Hernden was held three days later at a church in the Armourdale district. Gladys's grief was shared by many of her husband's relatives as well as her own. Frieta and Alice attended the funeral, and accompanied the family to the cemetery for the burial.
The following morning after Mike Hernden's funeral, Frieta awakened with a nauseating sick spell. She climbed from the bed and staggered through the front room and dining room towards the bathroom, but was unable to hold it back and spewed up between the living room and the bathroom floor.
Her retchings brought Alice from her bedroom, and she stood at the door looking at Frieta down on her knees emptying her stomach on the carpet.
"What ails yuh, honey?" Alice asked in a sympathetic voice.
Unable to reply, Frieta heaved again, and was finally so exhausted by her constant strains until she fell over on the floor just to the right of the stinking filth.
Alice was naked. She still had a few bandages on her cheeks and her arms. Her eyes were blackened, but the swelling had gone. She staggered back in her bedroom and found a thin wrap. Pulling the wrap round her naked body, she hurried to the girl and lifted her up as much as she could and half carried and pulled her back into her own bedroom, where she put her to bed.
The cramping pains became worst, and Frieta moaned and cried in her misery. Alice hurried to summon Gladys before she began the task of cleaning up the girl's filth.
When Gladys opened the door to Alice's nervous knocks, Alice said, "Frieta's very sick. Think I should summon Dr. Fanny?"
Gladys still had on her nightgown. It wasn't seven in the morning yet.
"What's ailin' her, Alice?" Gladys asked nervously. "First one thing and then another."
"She's got stomach cramps. Can't you hear her groanin'?"
Indeed Frieta's retching groans sounded quite distinctly throughout the upstairs hallway and the lower part of the old apartment building.
"Let me have a look at her," said Gladys. "Maybe I can tell whether it's only a stomach ache or somethin' else more serious."
"Come on, then," Alice said.
They returned to the bedside, and Gladys pulled down Frieta's sleeping shorties and examined her stomach, and looked into her eyes. Frieta grunted and moaned, staring helplessly up at the two older women.
"Do you have quick pains, baby?" Gladys asked her.
Frieta nodded miserably.
Gladys suspected more than diagnosed the case. But she certainly hit the nail on the head.
After she had studied the matter over, she turned back to Alice and said very softly, somewhat upset herself over what she suspected it to be.
"My sister had eleven kids, honey," Gladys said seriously. "She lived with me in Lexington, Missouri. Every time she got down sick like this, I knew right away, without any doctor's word that she was pregnant. Course, I ain't sayin' your girl's pregnant. It could be just a slight stomach ache, or some other ailment. It sure ain't appendicitis. The pain would be on her lower right side if that was the case. But it sure seems to me she's got what a man gives a woman."
"You really think she's....?" Alice's lips parted, and she looked shamefully down at Frieta. It was no doubt that she imagined Frieta was pregnant. She half suspected the girl had her flings. She could tell as sure as daylight that Frieta hadn't been a virgin for many weeks.
Silently, Alice motioned Gladys out of the room, and as they went through the door, Alice reached the doorknob and closed the door on Frieta.
"I'll phone Doc," Alice told her, "and see what he says about her. Why don't you go make some coffee while I clean up this stink she made on my carpet."
Gladys nodded and ambled off into the kitchen to stir up some breakfast for them.
By noon Dr. Fanny had been there and gone. Gladys had left the apartment also, stating she had to go down to the insurance office to see about some business matters on Mike's policies.
Alice was seated in the bedroom with Frieta. Her pains had ceased momentarily, and Frieta was sitting up in bed drinking a glass of orange juice and munching some crispy bacon which Alice had served to her on a tray.
"You feelin' better, now?" Alice asked.
"Much better," Frieta replied. She eyed her mother with a sullen look of suspiciousness, and shame. She, too, guessed what her trouble was. She had definitely witnessed enough pregnant school chums. There had been onehundred cases of pregnancy the past year during the school term. Quite a number of girl students had dropped from school because of their conditions.
"Did Doc tell yuh what yuh trouble was?" Alice asked her.
Frieta sipped the orange juice, then looked up at Alice. Her answer was a quick shake of her head. But she knew she had lied. Doc had told her.
"If he never told you," said Alice rather crossly, "he sure told me."
Frieta tensed, turned her face towards the window. It was very pleasant outside. The sun was shining and she could hear birds flitting about in a cherry tree next door. Their sweet twitters seemed to instigate her urge to get up.
"Doc said you were knocked up," Alice went on, very harshly. "How many months since your period stopped?"
Frieta turned her face back towards her mother. She had flushed and her eyes were frightened and nervous. "Just one month, Alice," she said.
"Whose baby is it?"
"Do I have to tell you that?"
"Of course you do. Whose ever it is he's gonna marry you, that's why. Now whose is it?"
Frieta dropped her head. Tears formed in her eyes. She bit her lips as all the damnable sense of whose child it was pounced into her memory. She definitely couldn't bring it upon herself to tell Alice the truth. How horrible could he get. How disgraceful. Her own mother's lover. She carried his baby!
"I'm waitin', Frieta," Alice said to her.
Frieta rifted her head and tears were seeping down her pale cheeks.
"I can't tell you....I can't ... I can't!" she cried. She looked quickly away.
"Why? You ashamed of the guy? You wasn't ashamed of him when he thrilled you. T'was good, wasn't it? What's to be ashamed of? He had you. You had him. Maybe he don't know you're this way? Don't you reckon he ought to provide for his own baby?"
"Please, Alice ... please!" Frieta moaned. She was in a mental purgatory. "I don't want to talk about it ... please!"
"You may as well tell me, you'll have to anyway before it's done. Why be ashamed of a man who yuh think 'nough of to have a baby for him?"
She looked hard at Alice. Her eyes were nearly blinded with tears.
"It isn't him who I'm ashamed of, Mama. It's myself. I'm so ashamed of myself until I feel like taking my own life!"
Alice studied her very carefully. Then she stood and stepped over to the dresser. She picked up a cigarette and put a growing match to it. Smoking casually, she turned and looked thoughtfully back at Frieta. Her mind was centered on the dirty trick which Eddie LaRose had played on her. Frieta had all the money. Eddie had won a pot. Frieta had lied to her about that money. As yet she never had found out where Frieta had gotten it. Somehow, things were beginning to make sense to her now. Had Eddie seduced Frieta with the money? He was dirt enough for such a cursed act.
Alice turned towards the window. Sunshine greeted her harried face. For years she had tried to keep her daughter safe from all the hoodlums who had often kept company with her. One thing was certain. The baby did not belong to her music teacher. That was sure. It wasn't Charley's. Only one other person that she knew of had been with Frieta; a kid who had dated her at school. That had been nearly a year ago. For some reason she avoided men. Frieta hadn't seen the boy since he'd carried her to the College Fraternity dance. Anyway, Alice thought she was just crazy for thinking all that when she knew for certain that she half suspected it was Eddie LaRose who was responsible. A long shot would tell.
Turning from the window, she saw Frieta lift her head and their eyes met.
Alice's voice was frantic, full of threat and her own hurtful feelings.
"It's Eddie's isn't it?" she said. "It's his'n, isn't it, Frieta? It's his....it's Eddie's! isn't it? ... Tell me th' truth ... it's Eddie's!"
She had caught Frieta by surprise. Before the girl knew it she had blurted out, "Oh, Alice....Alice ... he made me! He made me!"
Alice staggered over to the bed and dropped down before her. Teary-eyed, she gripped the girl's shoulders.
"You're lyin'. He never made you. You wanted him. You've always wanted all the dirty sonsofbitches I brought home. How did he make you? How, Frieta? How, I ask. How!"
"The money....all that money!"
"How much did the dirty bastard entice you with? You certainly wouldn't have done it."
"A thousand dollars," Frieta bawled.
"I'll kill 'im. I'll kill that dirty sonofabitch if it's th' last thing I ever do!"
Frieta felt free to talk about herself now. The cat was out of the bag, and it was no longer a matter of secrecy. Frieta must acknowledge all.
"It's in me, Alice," she said. "I'm unable to stop myself. I'm sick. I'm a nymphomaniac!"
Alice looked at her hard and terrible.
"That time when I was drunk at that damned hotel, was Eddie with you all that time?"
Frieta nodded shamefaced, then dropped her head.
Alice could say no more. The terrible thoughts which possessed her tore into her soul. What a brute Eddie LaRose was. What a terrible beast she had taken up with. She had been warned, but she had merely disregarded McShane.
Mentally disturbed she turned away, covered her face and broke into sobs. Frieta watched her stagger out of the room. In the front room, Alice flung herself upon the divan and cried very distressfully. The room echoed with her hard sobs.
Frieta flung herself face-downwards upon the bed and sobbed along with her mother. Never before had she ever realized just how much Alice loved her.