Free Madball by Fredric Brown

If everything had been all right why would he have sent for her? Or he could have seen something in his crystal he thought he should tell her about. Or maybe he'd used numerology with her name, but she hoped not because it wasn't her real name, of course, and that would make it wrong. Or would it, since it was the name she used all the time? It was her stage name, kind of, and she'd read that movie stars consulted numerologists before they picked out the names they used in the movies, so it must be that a stage name counted. Her right name was Elsie Grabow, or it had been until she'd married that Dick Potter when she was seventeen but that had lasted less than a year before they'd broken up and she didn't know now if he was alive or dead or had maybe divorced her. But she hadn't thought much of either Elsie Grabow or Elsie Potter as a name so when she'd first got into show business, a pony in a burlesque road show, she'd picked a better one. She'd seen the name Mabel Seeley on a book and had liked it but had made it even better by changing it to Maybelle.
    And she was still worried about Monday night and maybe the cops still finding out she'd been with Mack and making trouble for her. She hoped he didn't have any bad news about that. But it couldn't be that. The cops would have picked her up before this if they hadn't believed her.
    She'd been drying her feet when Sammy had found her, having just come in out of the rain and having been foolish enough to wear ordinary shoes that were now coated with mud an inch thick. This time she put on what she should have worn before, rubber boots, and put on her slicker again. Out into the mud that was getting almost ankle deep in places now. But the rain had almost stopped.
    She thought about what a surprise Doc had been Monday night. She supposed that at his age - he must be in his fifties - he didn't want a woman too often but when he did, wow. And yet how gentle and considerate he'd been, h ow different from Charlie and Mack and Dick and almost all of the other men she'd known. They all thought only about their own fun and didn't give a damn about the woman's part of it. Well, she'd tried to give him value for the alibi he was giving her and she knew she had, but the surprising thing was how much she herself had enjoyed it, even after those couple hours with Mack. Or maybe, by contrast, because of them.
    Outside the mitt camp she called out, "Doc, you decent?" and he called back, "Not very. But come in, Maybelle." He'd been kidding, though; he was fully dressed, although he hadn't rolled up his bedding yet and was lying on it. But he sat up as she came in.
    "Hi, Doc," she said. "Sammy said you wanted to see me."
    "At least to see you, my dear."
    Maybelle took off her slicker and hung it on the center-pole, stepped barefoot out of the boots. "Will you have time to give me that reading today, Doc? Or was that what you sent for me for?"
    "It wasn't, but I'll gladly do it after we compare notes on our interviews with the police. That was what I had in mind. But before either, the amenities."
    "The what?" And then Maybelle saw he was holding out a bottle of whisky to her. "Well, it's pretty early in the afternoon but all right, a short one."
    She tilted the bottle briefly and handed it back. "Maybelle, was it a Lieutenant Showalter who talked to you?"
    "I didn't get his name, Doc. Big guy, plain clothes, dark gray suit, and he had a mole on his cheek."
    "That's the one. When did he talk to you?"
    "A little before ten o'clock, I think it was."
    "Just before he came here. And he hasn't returned, hasn't talked to you again a second time?"
    Maybelle shook her head.
    "Good. Then I'm sure you've got nothing to worry about. I think I sold him on the idea that Mack could have been alone in that sleeping top after all. At any rate, if he suspected you he'd have been back for a second round of questioning after he talked to me. If he hasn't by now, I think you're safe. If he does, just stick to what