Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

The house man didn’t call. Janet pulled in the big pot. The dealer gave me a long look.

We walked slowly to the desk and converted the chips into cash. The usual bouncer stepped up to me and said, “Sir, there’s a call for you on the phone in the office.”

“Wait down in the lounge,” I told Janet, and followed the guy. He opened the door, stepped in right after me and leaned against it. An ex-cabby type sat behind the desk, picking his teeth with a split match.

They gave me the silent treatment. I smiled amiably.

“Wise guys we don’t go for around here,” he said, favoring me with a black scowl.

I thought there was more to come, so I was off guard. The bouncer’s fist, cased in brass, caught me on the mastoid bone, and the edge of the desk hit me across the bridge of the nose as I went down.

Through a swirling mist, I heard the man behind the desk say, “Clean him, Al, and roll him down the back stairs.”

Al rolled me over onto my face. He started to fumble at my pockets. His necktie hung free. I got it in my hand and yanked down hard as I brought my knee up. The middle of his face made a sound like a ripe apple being run over.

As he fell across me, I reached through the kneehole of the desk, got one of the ex-cabby’s ankles in my hand and dragged him under there with me. He didn’t seem eager to join me. But he stopped objecting when I got him by the throat and banged his head against the leg of the desk a few times.

When they began to stir, I was seated at the desk talking to Sid. Al held a large handkerchief to the middle of his face. I smiled at them.

I finished my conversation and hung up. I put my fingertips together, my elbows on the desk. “You two shouldn’t have any trouble finding a job,” I said. “In some other town. Mr. Marion has just advised me that he’s replacing you, as of tomorrow night. You can pick up your pay from him. The new man will clean out these thumb-handed mechanics you’ve got in here and put in some artists. This place could net twice as much, if you let the public win once in a while.”

As I came around the desk, they started to make their apologies. I pushed my way out, glad that the brass hadn’t broken the skin, and wondering how soon I’d have to cover my black eyes with dark glasses.

Janet stood up as I appeared in the doorway of the downstairs lounge. In her eyes was mirrored the surprise that I had seen in the eyes of the boys on the upstairs door.

“What on earth did—?”

“Not here, baby,” I said. I took her arm, and we went out the side door to the floodlighted parking lot.

She didn’t speak until we were a half mile away, and picking up speed. Then she said, “You’ve got to explain, Tom.”

I found a quiet spot near a country crossroad, and pulled over. I cut the lights and motor, and held a match for her cigarette. She moved around in the seat so she could face me. “What happened back there?”

“Why do you ask?”

“A horrible little man came up to me in the lounge and said that you’d fallen and hurt yourself and that in a little while you’d be out in the car. I told him I’d wait right where I was. He shrugged and went away. I was getting scared. I didn’t know what to think of that phone call.” She paused. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Tom.”

There was enough pale moonlight so I could see the lovely planes of her face, the delicate hollows at her temples.

“I did fall, but I wasn’t as badly hurt as they thought, Janet,” I said quietly.

“What happened at that dice table?” she asked. “What happened in the card game? Why did they act so funny? It was as though they knew something, and so did you, and they didn’t like your knowing it.”

I was right about those smart eyes of hers. She saw things, and her mind meshed very nicely. By trying to be Mr. Smooth, I had put myself neatly out on a limb.

There seemed to be a very good answer. I put my hands on her shoulders, pulled her toward me, slipped my arms around her. She ducked her lips away from me. But I caught her and kissed her. She went limp and dead, her lips firmly compressed. It’s as good a defense as any. I kissed her ummoving lips until I began to feel silly. Then I felt her stir in my arms, felt her arms creep up and circle my neck. And suddenly she was the most alive creature in the world. It lasted while the car seemed to spin like a crazy top, and then she tore herself away and planted a stinging slap, high on my face.

“Damn you!” she whispered. “Damn you!”

She moved over into the corner of the seat near the door and said in a small voice, “Take me home, please.”

No words were spoken on the trip back to her place. I let her out and walked up to the foyer door with her. She had been fumbling in her bag. In the darkness, after she had unlocked the door, she turned and thrust a wad of bills at me. As I bent to pick up the ones that fluttered to the porch, the front door shut firmly.

I shrugged, stuffed the money in my side pocket, parked the car in an all-night lot near the hotel and went up to my room.

While I was in the shower, the phone rang. I went to it, lifted it off the cradle and said cautiously, “Yes?”

Her voice. “Tom?”

“Yes?”

“Good night, darling.” She hung up.

Once again I found myself humming in the shower. I went to sleep thinking of her.

She must have changed her mind again. During the three days that followed, she gave me, in cool and precise tones, the answers to my questions. She refused to go out with me. I began to run out of questions. I had become an expert on James Fosting. I knew his shirt size, brand of toothpaste and next dental appointment.

On the fourth day, she broke down.

We were awkward with each other during dinner, with more things being said with our eyes than with our empty words.

Then we got in the car and, as I drove out of town, she leaned her head against the back of the seat. Her blond hair was tossed by the wind. We didn’t talk.

I found a secluded spot, and she came into my arms with a little sob that started deep in her throat. When I kissed her, I felt the tears on her cheeks. It wasn’t the sort of kiss I was used to. It was sort of a dedication. There’s no better word.

In my arms, she looked up at me and said, “Who are you and what do you want?”

I held her tight and smiled down at her. “I’m the guy who is writing a book. Remember me?”

She looked up at me, her eyes grave in the moonlight, and shook her head from side to side. “No, Tom. You’re not writing a book. Your publishers have never heard of you. No man named Al Justin has ever worked for them.”

I sat very still, and something inside of me turned to ice. I had guessed the reactions of Fosting, but I hadn’t taken into account the emotional reflexes of a woman.

Before I could answer, she said, “I don’t want anything to hurt him, Tom.”

“Who wants to hurt him?” I said.

“I think you do. You were at home in that gambling place, Tom. You were at home with those people. I–I don’t know what to think. There’s something fine and clean and decent about Jim Fosting. And there’s something about you as black as the grave.”

It jolted me. I tried to laugh it off. “You make me sound like a fiend!”

“Maybe you are, Tom,” she said softly.

“Then why are you here?” I asked her, tightening my arms to show her what I meant.

Her voice was broken. “I don’t know, Tom. I don’t know. I don’t trust you and I don’t love you and yet I can’t help...”

I tilted her chin up and kissed her again. She was eager in my arms, and a dull roaring obscured my hearing. I was conscious only of her, and then, as from a great distance, I could hear her saying, half moan, half sob, “No — no — no — no...”