Give Up the Body Read Online Free

her nice voice. It was well modulated except when she forgot herself and let it go. Then it sounded as it had when she first came in. A refined screech owl would have made the same sound. I had heard her talk that way when she was drunk; she was drunk quite a lot. Now, though, she was acting very restrained. As if she had never burst in on us, shouting.
    “Then,” I said, “you have all the news.” I smiled pleasantly at her.
    Whatever reaction I expected of her, it was not the one I got. I saw the same fear come into her eyes as I had seen displayed by Titus Willow. It lasted only a brief second, but long enough for me to make sure I had seen it. I was reminded of Willow and his unconcealed shock back there by the bridge when I had stumbled into the scene on the river bank. And I wondered if it enveloped everyone concerned with Carson Delhart. I could feel it myself, thinking back to the firm hard way in which he had manipulated me from the river to my car. His cold manner began to take on a new meaning to me.
    Glory Martin was acting strangely, not at all the usual arrogant woman we had come to know. When she put her cigaret to her lips her hand shook a little. But her features hardened until I thought her make-up might crack. When she spoke, her voice was raspy; she was getting control of herself.
    “Jud,” I said, glancing his way, “don’t you think you might make sure of the drugstore’s ad copy? And I promised Bosco an ice cream cone.”
    Jud glared at me, but he got up and went out, taking Bosco and going through the shop at the back. When I heard the alley door close I looked again at Glory Martin. “Now,” I said, “we can take down our hair.”
    She stared at me and she began to cry! All at once. “Goddam,” she sobbed. “Goddam.” Louder. She dropped the cigaret on the floor and put her head down on her knees and let her shoulders shake.
    I didn’t know her very well, but even our slight contact had given me little use for her. However, I’m like a man when it comes to a woman crying. I go all soft. I got up and put her cigaret in an ashtray and then touched her shoulder.
    “Want a drink?”
    She raised her head and her mascara was a mess. She would never have let a man see her this way. Not even Jud. But we were alone and she had her back to the street. I got a whiff of her breath. The last thing she needed was a drink.
    “Yes,” she sobbed. “Goddam.”
    She put her head down again. I went to Jud’s desk and opened the left-hand-side top drawer. There was a half-filled pint of cheap bourbon there. Jud’s smelling liquor was old bonded bourbon. This cheaper stuff he kept for visitors. He never even touched the bottle except to pour out a shot to further his advertising sales or help get a good story. I hoped it would do the same for me.
    I poured a good stiff drink in a paper cup, filled another with water from the cooler in the rear corner, and took the cups to Glory Martin.
    She was singing the same refrain: “Goddam.” Sob. “Goddam.” Sob. She stopped, raised her head, and took the whiskey. She drained it neat and pushed away the water I offered her. I drank it myself. Then I pulled my armchair closer and sat down.
    When she had finished shuddering at the liquor she started on her face with a mirror and a handkerchief. She said, “That little bitch! I’m a mess.” She jerked her head at me. Her eyes were wet with liquorous self-pity. “It’s that damned Titwillow’s fault.”
    She ran down and went back to work on her face. She had stopped crying as if she controlled that emotion with a button. She even acted as if she had forgotten her fear. She was simply half tight and speaking irrelevancies.
    I prompted her. “Titwillow?”
    “Titus J. Titwillow,” she said in her normal voice. She snapped her compact shut and stowed it in her bag. She kept the mascara-smeared handkerchief in her hand. “Bringing his tub of a wife and that—that bitch.”
    Evidently Glory Martin had