Free Cabot Wright Begins: A Novel by James Purdy Page A

studied indifference. He did not care how she obtained her story and, borrowing the attitude of his former analyst, he expressed neither approval nor disapproval of her action, and seemed unimpressed that she had decided to live in dirt, vermin and danger.
    Bernie Gladhart had likewise cooled somewhat toward Mrs. Bickle after his first cordial reception in his weakened condition. His early Chicago impressions of her as a double-dealer made him uneasy once more, and every time he thought of her he was reminded that because of her remark to Carrie he had come to Brooklyn in the first place, and through her he had actually lost everything he cared about. And her sudden election by Keith to write the book for him—this was a final confirmation of his vision of her as the force which spun his destiny. He began to drink heavily, and was now seldom seen by her, for he decided she had sinister designs against him, when she rented a room in the Manor on the same floor with him.
    Zoe no longer stopped to ask herself why she had accepted Keith’s assignment. She felt somehow that the large sum of money (so large that it would have to be paid to her over a period of years) was no more important than the nature of the assignment itself. By reason of its intractable difficulty and ambiguous fascination, it had held her from the first.
    Once established in her tenement work-room or, as she called it, her detection center, she was assailed neither by fear of rats or physical violence so much as by an uneasiness of more practical consideration. How was she to get herself introduced to the rapist in the first place? Even were this accomplished, how was she, considering her own personality, ever to be able to obtain information from him which would be usable? Thinking this over, she went into so black a despair that she was tempted to call off her agreement and go back home to Curt in Chicago.
    She was saved by a fire that started in the building next to hers and that she mistook for a conflagration in the Manor itself. Frightened by the piercing clangor and nearness of the Brooklyn fire engines, Mrs. Bickle had hurried out into the hallway looking for an exit and quick access to the fire-escapes. In her haste, she inadvertently opened a door marked Keep Closed, tripped on the uneven stairs leading from the door, and before she could regain her balance had fallen into a glassed-in aperture, which gave under her weight and propelled her into the room below.
    Most women in such circumstances would claim to have missed death by a narrow margin, but Mrs. Bickle knew that she had not fallen far, a few feet at most. Fortunately she landed on a Queen Anne sofa, which broke her fall. She was shaken up a bit, and she had several nasty scratches, but she stood up at once. When she was sure she had broken no bones, she sat down just in time to see entering from the adjoining room the once famous still good-looking face that had dominated the pages of the newspapers for such a long time.
    Cabot Wright, as if to show that nothing remains the same, was wearing a hearing-aid in his right ear, Zoe observed to her disappointment. Somehow it was the last thing she expected. Deafness in the young is at first not without charm, and Cabot lost nothing of that because of the “aid.” However, as Zoe was to find out on longer acquaintance, deafness, no matter in whom, is sad and annoying.
    Like many deaf people, Cabot did not pay constant heed to what was said, and spoke in a rather loud voice, inquiring whether she was hurt, then not listening to her answer.
    “Some bandage and a bottle of antiseptic,” he said, as if to the wallpaper, and went out of the room. He did not seem surprised at her arrival, but showed no interest either.
    When he had returned with gauze, bandages, and the antiseptic, she told him she didn’t think her injuries warranted this attention, and then again realized he had not heard her. Aware that she must be speaking, he touched