A. Fair - Spill the Jackpot

“I will. Where do you suppose Louie is?”

“Darned if I know. Did you give him any money?”

“Yes.”

She said, “There’s something wrong with Louie.”

“What?”

“He’s slap-happy.”

“I knew that a long time ago.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Something else wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. It comes out of that condition of being slap-happy. They all get it sooner or later. I think Pug had some of it. It keeps them from seeing things the way you’d see them or the way I’d see them. Look, Donald, do you think that after a while, if you keep hanging around and I get nuts over you, I’ll spill everything I know?”

“I just hadn’t thought much about it.”

“Well, think about it now then.”

“All right, I will.”

“If you ever try to pump me about that, I’ll kill you. I — l’d not only hate you, but — but — but it would do something to me, Donald. It would jerk something out from under me. Please, Donald, give me a break on that. If that’s the play, let’s just call this little party off right now, and I can get over it — maybe. If I wait a few more days, I’ll never get over it.”

“Got any friends here?” I asked her.

“No.”

“Where would you go and what would you do?”

Her eyes grew hard. “Say, don’t you think you can frighten me with that line. Any time I need a man to live on, I’ll take an overdose of sleep medicine. I can walk out of here right now with nothing but my bare hands, and — well, I’ll get by, and I won’t sell myself, either.”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know. I’d find something. How about it? Do I start?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned.”

She said, “I suppose you won’t open up.”

I said, “If you don’t want to tell me anything you know about what happened to Pug, I hope you never do.”

She came over to stand in front of me. “All right,” she said, “I’ll give it to you in words of one syllable. You can have anything you want out of me. You can ask me anything, and I’ll do it. And if you ask me what about Pug, and what do I know about the night he was bumped off, I — well, I’d probably rat, but the minute you asked me that question, I’d know why you’d been doing all this,” and she swept her hand in a gesture which included the auto camp. “And when I knew that you’d been doing it just to get me so, that I couldn’t say no to anything you’d ask — I’d be so sick inside, I could never feel clean or decent again, or think there was anything clean left in the world — ever. You got that straight?”

“Yes.”

“All right then. What do we do next?”

I said, “I guess we go uptown and see if we can locate Louie in any of the bars.”

She studied me a second or two, then burst out laughing, but there was a note of bitterness in her laughter.

I walked over to stand close to her. “Don’t you see,” I told her, “I don’t want anything I’m not entitled to.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Go on from there.”

“You’re right about one thing. I’m a detective. I’m working. It isn’t that I’m working for the B. Cool Agency. It’s that I’m working on a case. I’m trying to see that some other people get a fair deal. They’re depending on me, whether they know it or not. If I don’t do the job, I don’t think anyone else will.”

“And so you want me to tell you what I know about—”

“I don’t want you to tell me a damn thing,” I said. “I’m strong for you. I think you’re one of the nicest girls I’ve ever met. But I’d never have asked you to leave Las Vegas and come out with me if it hadn’t been a matter of business. I’m enjoying it. I’m happy. I like to be near you. I like the way you do things. I like everything about you. But I’m working on a job, and the reason I’m here with you is because it’s along the line I’m following to make a success of that job.”

“And when the job’s over?”

I’d been dreading that question. I said, “I’ll probably have something else tossed into my lap.”

“And you’re not going to ask me what I know about Pug?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t plan this so I’d spill what I knew?”

“No.”

“And it’s because you didn’t want to take something under false pretenses that you’ve told—”

I nodded.

“And has it occurred to you that you’ve never even kissed me?”

“Naturally,” I said.

Her eyes were on mine now, and there was a steady, shining light I hadn’t seen in them before. She said, “I guess this is where we hit the jackpot, Donald.”

About two o’clock in the afternoon I found Louie. He was sitting at a table in the back room of one of the cheaper side street places. A bottle half full of bar whisky was on the table in front of him. The knuckles of the hand which held the glass were skinned and bleeding. His eyes were heavily glazed and staring with fixed intensity. He was mumbling as I came up to the table.

He looked up at me. “Oh, there you are,” he said thickly.

I pushed the bottle of whisky to one side. “How about coming home, Louie?”

He frowned. “Say, thash right. I got a home, ain’t I? I— Oh, my God.” He stood up and plunged his hand into his trousers pocket, brought out two one-dollar bills and some chicken feed.

“You know what I done, buddy?” he asked, his glazed eyes surveying me with that fixed glassy stare. “I shpent that money you gave me — all that was left from the groceries ’cept this — booze. That’s my failin’. I feel the cravin’ comin’ on every so often, and when it hits me, I can’t—”

“Who was it you socked, Louie?” I asked.

He looked down at his knuckles and scowled. “Now thash funny. I thought I hit somebody, and then I thought it was jusht sort of an idea a man’ll get when he’s been drinkin’. It might ‘a’ been the last time. Wait a minute. Let me think.

“I’ll tell you who it was. It was Sid Jannix. Was in line for a title once. A good boy — plenty good, but I give him the old one-two. Lemme show you how it goes, the old Hazen shift. I won the championship in the Navy — it must have been the championship — sure, it was in Honolulu inlet me see now. Was it—”

“Come on, Louie, we’re going home.”

“You ain’t sore about that money, kid?”

“No.”

“You understand how it is?”

“Sure.”

“You’re the besh pal a guy ever had. The first time I socked you, I knew I liked you, jush like shakin’ hands with a guy, shock him on the jaw an — awrigh’, let’s go home.”

I got him out to the sidewalk, steadied him down the street, and into the jalopy. Halfway out to the cabin, the enormity of his embezzlement struck him. He wanted to get out of the car. “Lemme out, buddy. I ain’t fit to ride in the same car with you. I can’t face Miss Helen. Know what I did? I stole your money. I knew you didn’t have much, too — just some money you’d saved up — an’ I stole it. I wanna get out — serves me right if I hit my head and die. I ain’t no good. I been hit too much anyway. I ain’t got no — ain’ got no self-control.”

I put my hand on the arm that was over on the side nearest the door. His hand was fumbling with the catch. “Forget it, Louie,” I said, driving the rattling car with one hand. “We aren’t any of us perfect. I’ve got my faults, too.”

“You mean you forgive me?”

“Sure.”

“No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.”

He started to cry, then, and was immersed in lachrymose repentance when I got him to the cabin. Helen and I put him to bed. “Well,” she said, after we’d tucked him in and put a big pitcher of water beside the bed, “now what?”