Paul Cain - The Paul Cain Omnibus

Then everything happened at once. The blond man swung his gun towards the window and Gay aimed a blow at his jaw. The man slumped, his pistol dropping; the lights went out and the world was full of flailing arms and legs and blue flares and roar — and darkness.

He yelled, “Pamela!” and then something banged against his head and for a moment his mind seemed blank. He heard her calling him and fought his way free, staggered towards the sound of her voice. His outstretched hands touched her hair suddenly and he put his arm around her, they went together swiftly along the wall.

She whispered: “Darling! — are you hurt?”

He shook his head in the darkness and he could feel blood streaming down his forehead, into his eyes. He fell forward and the darkness closed in again.

Nagel was talking. “Johnnie wanted me to wait at Drovna’s,” he said, “an’ trace his call. I figured that was too long a chance — too many things can go wrong when you’re trying to trace calls. So I borrowed a bakery wagon — Gosh! that reminds me; the driver don’t know I borrowed it yet! — an’ followed him...”

Gay opened his eyes. They were in a cab and he could feel Pamela’s arm around his shoulders.

Nagel’s voice went on: “I played hide an’ seek with those guys all the way to the place; I saw ‘em take Johnnie in an’ I got to a phone an’ called the strongarm squad. By the time they got there I’d located that window...”

Gay lifted one hand slowly and touched his head, it was covered with bandages.

Pamela’s arm tightened around his shoulder. “Is it better, Johnnie?” she whispered.

He said: “Sure — I’m all right...” He sat up groggily, turned and took her hand. “How’re you?”

“I’ve never been so happy.”

The cab drew up at the side entrance of the Shepphard. They went up.

Mulhearn was practically jumping up and down with excitement and joy. Nagel looked around, asked, “Where’s his Highness?”

Mulhearn glanced at his watch. “David should be passing Ambrose Light about now,” he said. He cleared his throat, smiled slightly. “He remembered he had a very important appointment in Paris...”

The phone rang and Nagel answered it, turned to Gay. “Decker says Beresford’s fired and you’re back — with a raise. Well, I got to get over to the plant an’ see how my pictures are.”

He took Mulhearn’s arm on the way to the door, steered him gently out.

Pamela’s head was on Gay’s shoulder. He kissed her hair, said softly: “I’ve something awfully important to ask you, darling...”

She held him tightly, whispered: “What, Johnnie?” He did not answer. “What is it, Johnnie?” She turned gently — and looked up at him. He was asleep. She smiled and carefully disengaged herself, got up and fixed the cushions around his bandaged head. She went into the bedroom and came back with a blanket, spread it over him and tucked him in tenderly. Then she knelt and kissed his lips and whispered: “Good night...”

The cab swerved crazily to the curb, stopped. The driver jumped out and crossed the sidewalk in three steps, swept into the little cigar store like a great chocolate-colored cyclone.

The squat Negro behind the counter regarded him sleepily. “Whassa mattah wif you, Lonny?” he drawled. “You got ants?” Lonny was tall, raw-boned. His eyes were shiny with excitement, his dark, good-natured face split to a wide grin.

“Ants Ah got,” he chanted, “ol’ lucky ants!” He leaned across the counter, went on in a hoarse stage whisper, “Willie, Ah jus’ had the sweetes’ dream. They was three bears runnin’ aroun’ in a circle, an’ suddenly they stopped an’ got in line an’ looked at me — an’ they all had big white fives painted on theah foahheads! Then the bigges’ one said, “Get goin’, Lonny...”

He whipped five crumpled dollar bills out of his pocket and slapped them down on the counter, smoothed them carefully.

“An’ heah Ah is! Get them five skins down on five-five-five — an’ get all ready to pay off. Nothin’ can stop me today. Ah’m right!”

Willie Armstrong picked up the bills and dropped them into a drawer.

His store was one of the hundred or more Harlem branches of the Numbers Game where one could bet any amount from a penny to five dollars on a three-number combination determined by the odds posted on the first race at Aqueduct, and Willie was accustomed to black boys with “unbeatable” hunches. He scribbled three fives and $5.00 on a slip of paper, added a mystic hieroglyphic that meant okay and pushed it across the counter. Lonny picked it up, folded it devoutly and tucked it into his watch pocket. “Len’ me your pencil, Willie,” he said. “Ah want to figure out how rich Ah is.” Willie handed him the stub of pencil and he was lost for a minute or so in a maze of scribbled figures on the edge of a newspaper. “Hot dawg!” he finally gurgled. “Twenty-seven-fifty foah a nickel makes two thousan’ seven hunnerd an’ fifty smackers foah Lonny!” Willie bobbed his head up and down wearily. “’At’s right. All you gotta do is win.”

“Don’ worry about me winnin’.” Lonny emphasized his assurance with a long finger against Willie’s chest. “Ah know mah stuff... Ain’t this the fifth of the month?” Willie nodded. “Ain’t this nineteen thutty-five?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ain’t Ah layin’ five dollahs on the line?”

Willie’s woolly head jiggled up and down rhythmically.

Lonny drew himself up to his full height, boomed conclusively, “Man! Ah cain’t miss! Everythin’ is jus’ lousy wif fives!”

He waited a moment for that pronouncement to sink in, then strode majestically to the door, turned.

“Ah’ll be back aroun’ one,” he said, “wif a wheel-barra to cart away mah money.”

He grinned expansively and went out into the bright morning.

Morning business was unusually good; by twelve-thirty Lonny had made four trips, two of them “buck hauls” which in the language of cab drivers means a fare of a dollar or more.

Then, driving back up Amsterdam Avenue from downtown, he stopped for the traffic light at a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and just before the light changed, a beefy, red-faced man came out of the corner drugstore, hurried across and climbed into the cab.

Lonny turned with a wide smile. “Yas, suh. Wheah to?” This was his fifth fare of the day; that “Ol’ Lucky Five,” he reflected.

The man snapped, “Fifty-five East Hundred an’ Fiftieth — an’ make it fast!”

Lonny’s eyes goggled. His fifth haul, and the man wanted to go to...

The screech of horns and the man’s sharply repeated, “I said make it fast!” bumped Lonny out of his ajar-jawed amazement. The light had changed. He shifted swiftly and they rattled across the intersection, on up Amsterdam Avenue.

Lonny clicked down his meter flag in a daze; he was far too lost in stunned contemplation of this supernatural repetition of fives to notice that his passenger was scowling through the rear window, nervously fingering something that bulged under his left armpit.

After several blocks the man leaned forward suddenly. “Turn off right at the next corner,” he snapped.

Lonny was feverishly calculating the distance to the address on a Hundred and Fiftieth Street. He glanced at the meter; if he could only make it tick to fifty-five cents the cycle of fives would be complete. He nodded mechanically and turned left.

The man pounded on the glass, shouted, “Hey, you dumb mug! I said turn right!”

Lonny grinned apologetically over his shoulder, stepped on the brake. “Ah’m sorry, Mistah,” he mumbled. “Ah guess Ah didn’ heah you.”

He swung the cab around and headed east.