James Cain - The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction

The detective didn’t grapple this time. He let go with a barrage of kicks.

“Hide out on me, will you? Treat you right, give you a break, and you hide out on me. I’ll learn you to hide out on me.”

Lucky tried to get up, couldn’t. He was jerked to his feet, rushed up the track on the run. He pulled back, but couldn’t get set. He sat down, dug in with his sliding heels. The detective kicked and jerked, in fury. Lucky clawed for something to hold on to, his hand caught the rail. The detective stamped on it. He pulled it back in pain, clawed again. This time his fingers closed on a spike, sticking an inch or two out of the tie. The detective jerked, the spike pulled out of the hole, and Lucky resumed his unwilling run.

“Lemme go! Why don’t you lemme go?”

“Come on! Hide out on me, will you? I’ll learn you to hide out on Larry Nott!”

“Lemme go! Lemme—”

Lucky pulled back, braced with his heels, got himself stopped. Then his whole body coiled like a spring and let go in one convulsive, passionate lunge. The spike, still in his hand, came down on the detective’s head, and he felt it crush. He stood there, looking down at something dark and formless, lying across the rails.

Hurrying down the track, he became aware of the spike, gave it a toss, heard it splash in the ditch. Soon he realized that his steps on the ties were being telegraphed by the listening rail, and he plunged across the ditch to the highway. There he resumed his rapid walk, trying not to run. But every time a car overtook him his heels lifted queerly, and his breath first stopped, then came in gasps as he listened for the car to stop. He came to a crossroads, turned quickly to his right. He let himself run here, for the road wasn’t lighted as the main highway was, and there weren’t many cars. The running tired him, but it eased the sick feeling in his stomach. He came to a sign that told him Los Angeles was seventeen miles, and to his left. He turned, walked, ran, stooped down sometimes, panting, to rest. After a while it came to him why he had to get to Los Angeles, and so soon. The soup kitchen opened at seven o’clock. He had to be there, in that same soup kitchen where he had had supper, so it would look as though he had never been away.

When the lights went off, and it came broad daylight with the suddenness of Southern California, he was in the city, and a clock told him it was ten minutes after five. He thought he had time. He pressed on, exhausted, but never relaxing his rapid, half-shuffling walk.

It was ten minutes to seven when he got to the soup kitchen, and he quickly walked past it. He wanted to be clear at the end of the line, so he could have a word with Shorty, the man who dished out the soup, without impatient shoves from behind, and growls to keep moving.

Shorty remembered him. “Still here, hey?”

“Still here.”

“Three in a row for you. Holy smoke, they ought to be collecting for you by the month.”

“Thought you’d be off.”

“Who, me?”

“Sunday, ain’t it?”

“Sunday? Wake up. This is Saturday.”

“Saturday? You’re kidding.”

“Kidding my eye, this is Saturday, and a big day in this town, too.”

“One day looks like another to me.”

“Not this one. Parade.”

“Yeah?”

“Shriners. You get that free.”

“Well, that’s my name, Lucky.”

“My name’s Shorty, but I’m over six feet.”

“Nothing like that with me. I really got luck.”

“You sure?”

“Like, for instance, getting a hunk of meat.”

“I didn’t give you no meat.”

“Ain’t you going to?”

“Shove your plate over quick. Don’t let nobody see you.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, Lucky. Don’t miss the parade.”

“I won’t.”

He sat at the rough table with the others, dipped his bread in the soup, tried to eat, but his throat kept contracting from excitement and he made slow work of it. He had what he wanted from Shorty. He had fixed the day, and not only the day but the date, for it would be the same date as the big Shriners’ parade. He had fixed his name, with a little gag. Shorty wouldn’t forget him. His throat relaxed, and he wolfed the piece of meat.

Near the soup kitchen he saw signs: LINCOLN PARK PHARMACY, LINCOLN PARK CAFETERIA.

“Which way is the park, buddy?” If it was a big park, he might find a thicket where he could lie down, rest his aching legs.

“Straight down, you’ll see it.”

There was a fence around it, but he found a gate, opened it, slipped in. Ahead of him was a thicket, but the ground was wet from a stream that ran through it. He crossed a small bridge, followed a path. He came to a stable, peeped in. It was empty, but the floor was thickly covered with new hay. He went in, made for a dark corner, burrowed under the hay, closed his eyes. For a few moments everything slipped away, except warmth, relaxation, ease. But then something began to drill into the back of his mind: Where did he spend last night? Where would he tell them he spent last night? He tried to think, but nothing would come to him. He would have said that he spent it where he spent the night before, but he hadn’t spent it in Los Angeles. He had spent it in Santa Barbara, and come down in the morning on a truck. He had never spent a night in Los Angeles. He didn’t know the places. He had no answers to the questions that were now pounding at him like sledge hammers:

“What’s that? Where you say you was?”

“In a flophouse.”

“Which flophouse?”

“I didn’t pay no attention which flophouse. It was just a flophouse.”

“Where was this flophouse at?”

“I don’t know where it was at. I never been to Los Angeles before. I don’t know the names of no streets.”

“What this flophouse look like?”

“Looked like a flophouse.”

“Come on, don’t give us no gags. What this flophouse look like? Ain’t you got eyes, can’t you say what this here place looked like? What’s the matter, can’t you talk?”

Something gripped his arm, and he felt himself being lifted. Something of terrible strength had hold of him, and he was going straight up in the air. He squirmed to get loose, then was plopped on his feet and released. He turned, terrified.

An elephant was standing there, exploring his clothes with its trunk. He knew then that he had been asleep. But when he backed away, he bumped into another elephant. He slipped between the two elephants, slithered past a third to the door, which was open about a foot. Out in the sunlight, he made his way back across the little bridge, saw what he hadn’t noticed before: pens with deer in them, and ostriches, and mountain sheep, that told him he had stumbled into a zoo. It was after four o’clock, so he must have slept a long time in the hay. Back on the street, he felt a sobbing laugh rise in his throat. That was where he had spent the night. “In the elephant house at Lincoln Park.”

“What?”

“That’s right. In the elephant house.”

“What you giving us? A stall?”

“It ain’t no stall. I was in the elephant house.”

“With them elephants?”

“That’s right.”

“How you get in there?”

“Just went in. The door was open.”

“Just went in there, seen the elephants, and bedded down with them?”

“I thought they was horses.”

“You thought them elephants was horses?”

“It was dark. I dug in under the hay. I never knowed they was elephants till morning.”

“How come you went in this place?”

“I left the soup kitchen, and in a couple of minutes I came to the park. I went in there, looking for some grass to lie down on. Then I come to this here place, looked to me like a stable. I peeped in, seen the hay, and hit it.”