Уильям Макгиверн - Odds Against Tomorrow

“It sounds all right,” Earl said slowly. He was silent for a moment or so, drawing deeply on his cigarette. Then he looked curiously at Ingram. “How did you get into this deal anyway?”

“I was a fool, that’s all,” Ingram said with a weary shrug. “I was in trouble. So I went to Novak. He said he’d help me out, sure — if I came in on this job.” He sighed. “It seems like a million years ago.”

“What kind of trouble were you in?”

“I owed money to a man who wouldn’t wait for it.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“Six thousand dollars.”

Earl whistled softly. “How’d you get into that kind of debt?”

“Gambling. Just plain foolishness.” Ingram coughed and put the palms of his hands against the pain and pressure in his chest. “I got shooting craps with a friend of mine named Billy Turk. I was reckless. I didn’t give a damn. You know how that is. Something goes wrong, and you just don’t care what else happens.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Earl said. He was watching Ingram with interest, seeing him in a sense for the first time. “So this friend of yours wouldn’t wait for the dough. Is that it?”

“No, Billy Turk was all right. But he did a thing that jammed me up. He sold my paper at a discount to some boys who worked for a big shot named Tenzell. You ever hear of him?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, Tenzell wouldn’t wait. He wanted the cash. And what Mr. Tenzell wants he gets.”

Earl waved a hand irritably at the smoke drifting between them; he wanted to see Ingram’s face more clearly. Until just now he couldn’t have described Ingram beyond saying he was colored; he hadn’t seen much else. This struck him as odd. He inspected Ingram carefully, puzzled by his own interest. The man was small and slender, he saw, with silky black hair and funny eyes — kind of childish, almost, as if he were watching for something that might make him smile. “I don’t get it,” he said. “What do you mean, this guy sold your paper at a discount?”

Ingram smiled. “Just that. I gave Billy Turk an undated IOU for six thousand dollars. I lost that much in twenty minutes, like a fool. Usually I don’t gamble foolish. But that night I just didn’t care, like I told you. My mother wasn’t dead long, and I felt — I don’t know — just foolish, I guess. I told Turk I’d pay him in a month. He knew I was good for it. But he got drunk that same night and sold the IOU to Tenzell’s men. Next thing I knew Tenzell wanted to see me.”

“Tenzell’s a tough guy, eh?”

“More than that, man. He runs two wards in the south end of the city. On the side he owns a fight club, a trucking company, handles all the horse rooms and numbers. He’s got cops working for him — there’s guys like him in every city.” Ingram shook his head slowly, his skin prickling with shame as he remembered his session in Tenzell’s office. Tenzell, flanked by two of his men, his bald head gleaming under a cold electric light, had said gently, “You got forty-eight hours, black boy. Use ’em.” Ingram had begged for a break, but it hadn’t helped; Tenzell could stand anything in people but self-respect, and when Ingram’s had diminished to a satisfactory nothingness, Tenzell had said, “I told you, forty-eight hours. Get out.”

Earl frowned at the sick look in Ingram’s eyes. “Why the hell wouldn’t he give you some time?” he said. “What kind of a crud is he?”

“He just wouldn’t. Sometimes he does things to remind everybody who’s boss. And he didn’t like colored people much. That was part of it.”

“You should have caught him alone and put your foot through his stomach,” Earl said bitterly. “Bastards like that aren’t tough unless they’re running in packs. Well, Novak fixed you up fine, didn’t he?” Earl stared through the windows at the black trees swaying in layers of drifting fog. “He fixed us both up fine. Country hotel, all the conveniences.”

“We’re going to get out, don’t worry.”

“How about a drink? We might as well enjoy something.”

“You want some water with it?”

“Yeah, just a little.” As Ingram stood up Earl realized that he looked taller than he was because he moved so easily and lightly, his body always in balance. Everything he did looked as if he’d rehearsed it to music, he thought.

“Aren’t you drinking?” he said, when Ingram handed him a glass.

“I don’t like whisky much.”

“You look like you could use a slug. You’re coming down with something.”

“It’s just a cold.”

Earl sipped the whisky gratefully and lighted another cigarette.

“How is working in a gambling joint? Is that a pretty good deal?” Both men were speaking softly, in almost conspiratorial deference to the sleeping woman.

“Good enough; I usually made around two hundred a week.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Some weeks I did better.” Ingram was pleased, but curiously embarrassed by the look of respect in Earl’s face. “I usually dealt and cut the pot for the house, you know. But sometimes the house would back me against the heavy betters — if I won I kept twenty-five per cent.”

“You must play damned good poker.”

“It was my job.”

“What did your mother think about you working in a gambling joint?”

“It was a respectable place. The boss paid off the cops, and he didn’t allow any drinking or loud talk.” Ingram grinned a little. “But she never did like it. My brothers had nice jobs, she thought. One drove a streetcar, the other drove a truck, and the baby of the family was working in a market. I made as much in a week as all three of them put together.”

“Women are dumb that way,” Earl said, shaking his head. “Just plain dumb. A guy has to take his chances.” For some reason talking about these things with Ingram made him feel troubled and restless. He stood and began to pace the floor, rubbing his good hand slowly up and down the side of his leg. He’d had chances too; had his share of breaks. The thought gave him confidence. “You know I damned near stumbled into something good once,” he said. He limped back to the sofa, caught up in a kind of anxious excitement. “It was quite a while back, seven or eight years ago.” He sat down and picked up his glass, watching Ingram with a frown. “I was working at a lodge in Wisconsin then, a place that had a gas station and a bar along with the hotel. A handyman, you could say. Well, there were two guys who dropped in most afternoons for a few beers. They were brothers, Ed and Bill Corley. They were builders, but they had a loan outfit and a big real-estate company, too. You ever met guys like that? With their fingers in everything?”

“They sound smart, all right.”

“I’m telling you,” Earl said irritably. “They were big guys. They were building thirty-two homes for a housing development. Does that give you an idea of how big they were?”

“That’s quite an investment.”

Earl finished his drink and put the glass on the floor. “Well, they liked me. I used to ice-up the bar in the afternoon, and I talked with them a lot. Later on I figured they must have thought I was pretty smart. Why would they talk to me if they didn’t think I was smart?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Ingram said. “Unless they were just kind of making conversation.”

“It wasn’t that way. They liked me, I tell you. But I let the chance slip right through my fingers.” Earl shifted to the edge of the sofa, tense and excited by the memory of this strange defeat. “I let it slip right through my fingers,” he said. He could see Ed and Bill Corley clearly in his mind and smell the sweet-sour smell of the beer in the pine-paneled barroom. The whole area had been booming, but he’d missed the chance to cash in on it.