"Who?"
"The receivers! On their federal income tax, the return due next March, for the year 1931, they've got to show losses. If they don't, they're sunk. That's why it's yours, for four thousand bucks."
"Wally, I'd still have to have money!"
"Who says you would? That's the beauty of it. Once you take title to a piece of property around this town, that's all they want to know—you can get all the credit you want, more than you can use. You think those supply houses aren't feeling this Depression too? They can't give the stuff away, and all they ask is: Do you own property or not? They'll deliver anything you want, and connect it up for you, too. You need a little cash, two, three hundred dollars, maybe, I can take care of that. All you've got to do is take over that property and get going, quick."
For the first time in her life, Mildred felt the quick, hot excitement of a conspiratorial deal. She comprehended the credit aspect of it, once Wally explained it, and she didn't need to be told how perfect the place was for her purposes. In her mind's eye she could already see the neon sign, a neat blue one, without red or green in it:
MILDRED PIERCE
Chicken Waffles Pies
Free Parking
But it all seemed too good to be true, and when she asked eager questions about it, Wally explained: "There's no catch to it. They're in one hell of a hole. On those other properties, even if they did get rid of one, the federal rulings leave them worse off than they were before. I mean, when we didn't build the houses, even if we had to recapture when the buyer defaulted, there's no way we can show losses. But on this, there's the twenty-five hundred the corporation paid Bert for the lot, that not even a government auditor can question. And there's the eleven thousand five hundred that Bert spent on the house, and the corporation's money, not his. Fourteen grand all together, and if we let you have it for four, there's a loss of ten thousand dollars that just about takes care of every little thing for 1931, and then some."
"But why me?"
"Why not? Who else wants it? Nobody can live in that dump, you know. All Bert was building was a real-estate office, but for some reason nobody seems to want a real-estate office right now. It's got to be somebody that can use it for something else, and that means you."
"I know, but before I get too excited about it, you'd better make sure. Because if they're just giving it away, it looks as though there'd be somebody, on the inside—"
"Oh—I 'see what you mean. As a matter of fact, a couple of them did have that bright idea. I put my foot down. They were original incorporators, and I've dealt with the government enough to - know that if some fast stuff like that was pulled, we'd all land in jail. On a thing like this, it's got to be bona fide, and that's where you come in. If the government agent don't like it, he can go up and see your place, and eat the chicken, and satisfy himself you're using it for the purposes you said you were going to use it for. And then he can take a look at our files and see that we took the best offer we could get. It'll be on the up-and-up. You're no insider. You're no original incorporator. You're-"
He broke off, sat down, and began cursing, first softly, then with rising vehemence. Sensing something wrong, she asked: "What is it, Wally?"
"Bert."
"What's he got to do with it?"
"Original incorporator."
"Well?"
"He's an original incorporator, and you're married to him, and there goes your restaurant, and the prettiest deal I've had a chance to put across since Pierce Homes folded."
It was ten minutes before Mildred could get through her head the ramifications of community property, and the fact that Bert, by merely being married to her, would be co-owner of the restaurant, and therefore subject to a ruling. Then she argued about it, indignantly and passionately, but she could see by Wally's face that the point was serious. He left presently, saying he would talk to his colleagues and look up the law, and she went to bed frantic lest this, her first big chance, would be lost on a legal technicality. She had a recurrence of her bitter fury against Bert, and -the way he seemed to thwart her at every turn. Next night Wally was back, looking more cheerful. "Well, it's O.K., but you'll have to get a divorce."
"Is that the only way?"
"Well? Bert left you, didn't he?"
"I wish there was some other way."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know how Bert's going to act about it. You never can count on Bert. If it was just his heart, that would be all right. But he's got some twist in his head, and you never know what he's going to do. He might make trouble."
"How?"
"He'd think of some way."
"There's no way. If he'll let you get a divorce on the ground of cruelty, do it nice and quiet, all well and good. If he gets tough, you spring that Biederhof woman on him, and he's got to give way, because on infidelity he can't block it. You don't ask him. You tell him."
"It takes a year, doesn't it?"
"You getting cold feet?"
"No, but if it's no - use, why do it?"
"It takes a year before your decree becomes final. But as soon as it's entered, that ends the community property, and that's all you've got to worry about."
"Well—I'll see him."
"Cut out that 'well' stuff. Look, Mildred, you might as well get this thing cleaned up. Because even if it wasn't for this federal thing, you'd hardly dare go into business, still married to Bert. You don't know where he gets his money. For all you can tell, you'd no sooner hang out a sign than you'd have more judgments and attachments and garnishees slapped on you than you could count. You'd be broke before you started. But, soon as you shake Bert, you're all right."
"I said I'd see him."
"If it's money that's worrying you, forget it. In court, I'll represent you myself, and the rest of it's nothing. But get going. The deal's hot, and you haven't got one day to lose."
Next Sunday, when the children were invited to dinner by. the Pierces, Mildred knew Bert was coming over. She had sent word to him that she wanted to see him, and this obviously was an arrangement that would insure his finding her alone. She started her pies early, in the hope she would be done before he got there, but she was up to her elbows in dough when he walked in the kitchen door. He asked how she had been, and she said just fine, and she asked how he had been, and he said he couldn't complain. Then he sat down quite sociably and watched her work. It was some time before she could bring herself to broach the subject, and when she did broach it, she did so after considerable beating around the bush. She told about the model home, and the legal points involved, and quoted Wally in places that became difficult. Then, gulping a little, she said: "So, it looks as though we've got to get a divorce, Bert."
He received this statement with a very grave face, and waited a long time before he spoke. Then he said: "That's something I'll have to think about."
"Have you any particular objections?"
". . . I've got plenty of objections. For one thing, I belong to a church that's got some pretty strict rules on this matter."
"Oh."
She couldn't keep the acid out of her voice as she spoke. That he should bring up his perfunctory connection with the Episcopal church struck her as pretty far-fetched, particularly as her understanding was that what his church objected to wasn't divorce itself, but remarriage of divorced persons. But before she could make the point, he went on: "And I'd have to know more about this deal of Wally Burgan's. A whole lot more."
"What have you got to do with that?"
"You're my wife, aren't you?"
She turned away quickly, thrust her hands into the dough, tried to remember that arguing with Bert was like arguing with a child. Presently she heard him saying: "I probably know ten times as much about federal taxes as Wally Burgan does, and all I can say is it sounds to me like a lot of hooey. It comes down to a straight question of collusion: Is there any, or isn't there? In all cases involving collusion, the burden of proof is on the government, and in this cas
e there can't be any proof, because I can testify, any time they call me, that there wasn't any."
"Bert, don't you see that it isn't a question of proving anything to a court, one way or another? It's whether they let me have the property or they don't. And if I don't get a divorce, they won't."
"No reason for them to act that way at all."
"And what am I going to tell Wally?"
"Just refer him to me."
Bert patted his thighs, stood up, and seemed to regard the discussion as closed. She worked furiously at the dough, tried to keep quiet, then wheeled on him. "Bert. I want a divorce."
"Mildred, I heard all you said."
"What's more, I'm going to get one."
"Not unless I say the word."
"How about Maggie Biederhof?"
"And how about Wally Burgan?"
In his palmiest days as a picture extra, Bert never did such a take'm as he did at that moment, with the dough doing service as a pie. It caught him square in the face, hung there a moment, then parted to reveal tragic, injured dignity. But by the time it had cascaded in big blobs to the floor, dignity had given way to hot anger, and he began to talk. He said he had friends, he knew what was going on. He said she ought to know by now she couldn't pull the wool over his eyes. Then he had to go to the sink to wash his face, and while he clawed the dough away, she talked. She taunted him with not making a living for his family, with standing in her way every time she tried to make the living. He tried to get back to the subject of Wally, and she shrilled him down. He said O.K., -but just let her try to bring Maggie Biederhof into it, and see what happened to her. He'd fix it so she'd never get a divorce, not in this state she wouldn't. As she screamed once more that she would have a divorce, she didn't care what he did, he said they'd see about that, and left.
Mrs. Gessler listened, sipped her tea, shook her head. "It's the funniest thing, baby. Here you lived with Bert—how long was it?—ten or twelve years, and still you don't understand him, do you?"
"He's got that contrary streak in him."
"No he hasn't. Once you understand Bert, he's not contrary at all. Bert's like Veda. Unless he can do things in a grand way, he's not living, that's all."
"What's grand about the way he acted?"
"Look at it, for once, the way he looks at it. He doesn't care about the church, or the law, or Wally. He just put all that in to sound big. What's griping him is that he can't do anything for the kids. If he has to stand up in court and admit he can't pay one cent for them, he'd rather die."
"Is he doing anything for them now?"
"Oh, but now is just a trifling detail, a temporary condition that he doesn't count. When he puts over a deal—"
"That'll be never."
"Will you just let me talk for a while? It's his fear of being a flat tire, I'm telling you, at one of those big dramatic moments of any man's life, that's making him dog it. But he can't hold out very long. For one thing, there's the Biederhof. She won't like it when she finds out you asked for a divorce and he wouldn't give it to you. She's going to wonder if he really loves her—though how anybody could love her is beyond me. And all the time, he's got it staring him in the face that the harder he makes it for you the harder he's making it for the kids. And Bert, he loves those kids, too. Baby, Bert's on the end of the plank, and there's nowhere for him to jump but off."
"Yes, but when?"
"When he gets the pie."
"What pie?"
"The pie you're going to send him. It's going to be a very special pie. It doesn't appeal to his stomach, except incidentally. It appeals to his higher nature, and in Bert, that means his vanity. It's a pie you've been fooling around with, and you want his opinion on its commercial possibilities."
"I don't really mind making Bert a pie."
"Then get at it."
So Mildred made him a pie, a deep-dish creation, filled with crabapples cunningly candied with sugar so as to bring out the tart of the apples as well as the crystal sweetness of the sugar. It was about as commercial as a hand-whittled clothespin, but she wrote a little note, asking his opinion, and a little P.S., saying she had put his initials on it to see if she could still do monograms. She sent it by Letty, and sure enough, around the middle of the week, there came another invitation to- the children, for Sunday dinner. That time she took care to have her pies out of the way early, and to make a cold lunch. It was Letty's Sunday on, and Mildred had her serve the lunch in the den, preceding it with a cocktail. These attentions Bert accepted gravely, and discussed the pie at length, saying he thought it would be a knockout. There was a great field, he said, in ready pastries, since people no longer kept the servants they used to, and were often stumped for a company dessert. All this was what Mildred had been thinking for some time, but that didn't occur to her particularly, and she was genuinely happy to hear such hopeful opinion. Then Bert said it all over again, and then a pause fell between them. Then he said: "Well Mildred, I told you I'd think that little matter over, and I have."
"Well?"
"Of course any way you look at it, it's unpleasant."
"It certainly is for me."
"It's just one of those things that two people hate to think about. But we really got nothing to do with it."
"I don't know what you mean, Bert."
"I mean, whether it's unpleasant for us, that's not it. It's what's best for those kids that counts, and that's what we got to think about. And talk about."
"Did I ever have any other reason? It's for them that I want to take advantage of this opportunity. If I can make a go of it, I can give them what I want them to have, and what you ought to want them to have, too."
"I want to do my share."
"Nobody's asking you to do anything. I know that when you're able, you'll be only too glad to do- anything you can. But now-did I say one word about it? Did I?"
"Mildred, there's one thing I can do, and if you're set on this, I want to do it. I can see that you have a place to sleep, and that the kids have, and that nobody can take it away from you. I want to give you the house."
Mildred, caught wholly by surprise, wanted to laugh and wanted to cry. The house had long - ceased to be a possession, so far as she was concerned. It was a place that she lived in, and that crushed her beneath interest, taxes, and upkeep. That Bert, with a straight face, should offer it to her at this time struck her as merely grotesque. And yet she remembered what Mrs. Gessler had said, and knew she was in the presence of a man and his pride. She got up suddenly, went over, and put her arms around him. "You don't have to do that."
"Mildred, I want to."
"If you want to, there's only one thing I can do, and that is, take it. But you don't have to. I want you to know that."
"All right, but you've got to take it."
"I'm sorry I said what I did about Mrs. Biederhof."
"I've been hating myself for what I said about Wally. Christ, I know there'd never be anything between you and that fat slob. But—"
"We keep saying things."
"That's it. That we don't mean."
"That we couldn't mean, Bert. Don't you think I hate this just as much as you do? But it's got to be. For their sake."
"Yeah, for their sake."
They talked low and close for a long time, and then got to laughing over the way he looked when she hit him with the dough. Then they got to laughing over the charges she would have to bring, and the cruelties he had been guilty of. "I guess you'll have to hit me, Bert. They all say the defendant hit her, and caused her great mental and physical anguish."
"You talk like Veda. She's always wanting to be hit."
"I'm glad there's a little of me in her."
He doubled his fist, brushed her chin with it. Then they both burst into shaking, uncontrollable sobs.
"The gams, the gams! Your face ain't news!"
It was a moment before Mildred quite knew what was meant, but then she gave her skirt a little hitch, and wasn't exactly displ
eased when a photographer whistled.
Mrs. Gessler, having no gams to speak of, stood behind her, and the bulbs went off. Next thing she knew, she was in court, raising her hand, swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her God, and giving her name, address, and occupation, which she described as "housewife." Then she was answering questions put to her by a Wally she had never seen before, a solenm, sympathetic, red-haired man who gently urged her to tell an elderly judge the story of Bert's unendurable cruelties: his silences, during which he wouldn't speak to her for days on end; his absences from home, his striking her, "in an argument over money." Then she was sitting beside Wally, and Mrs. Gessler was up there, corroborating everything she said, with just the right shade of repressed indignation. When Mrs. Gessler got to the blow, and Wally asked her sternly if she had actually seen it, she closed her eyes and whispered, "I did."
Then Mildred and Mrs. Gessler were out in the corridor where Wally presently joined them. "O.K. Decree's entered."
"My—so soon?"
"That's how it goes when you got a properly prepared case. No trouble about a divorce if it's handled right. The law says cruelty, and that's what you got to prove, but that's all you got to prove. That sock in the jaw was worth two hours of argument."
He drove them home, and Mildred made drinks, and Bert came in, to sign papers. She was glad, somehow, that since the real-estate deal started, Wally had been curiously silent about romance. It permitted her to sit beside Bert without any sense of deceit, and really feel friendly toward him. The first chance she got, she whispered in his ear: "I told them the property settlement had been reached out of court. The reporters, I mean. Was that all right?"
"Perfectly."
That this elegant announcement should come out in the papers, she knew, meant a great deal to him. She patted his hand, and he patted back. Wally left, and then Bert, after a wistful look at his glass, decided he had to go too. But something caught in Mildred's throat as he went down the walk, his hat at what was intended to be a jaunty angle, his shoulders thrown bravely back. Mrs. Gessler looked at her sharply. "Now what is it?"