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

“And you wasn’t scared of them elephants?”

“It was dark, I tell you, and I could hear them eating the hay, but I thought they was horses. I was tired, and I wanted someplace to sleep.”

“Then what?”

“Then when it got light, and I seen they was elephants, I run out of there, and beat it.”

“Couldn’t you tell them elephants by the smell?”

“I never noticed no smell.”

“How many elephants was there?”

“Three.”

He brushed wisps of hay off his denims. They had been fairly new, but now they were black with the grime of the coal gond. Suddenly his heart stopped, a suffocating feeling swept over him. The questions started again, hammered at him, beat into his brain.

“Where that coal dust come from?”

“I don’t know. The freights, I guess.”

“Don’t you know it ain’t no coal ever shipped into this part of the state? Don’t you know that here all they burn is gas? Don’t you know it ain’t only been but one coal car shipped in here in six months, and that come in by a misread train order? Don’t you know that car was part of that train this here detective was riding that got killed? Don’t you know that? Come on, out with it. WHERE THAT COAL DUST COME FROM?”

Getting rid of the denims instantly became an obsession. He felt that people were looking at him on the street, spying the coal dust, waiting till he got by, then running into drugstores to phone the police that he had just passed by. It was like those dreams he sometimes had, where he was walking through crowds naked, except that this was no dream, and he wasn’t naked, he was wearing these denims, these telltale denims with coal dust all over them. He clenched his hands, had a moment of terrible concentration, headed into a filling station.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“What’s the chances on a job?”

“No chances.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t need anybody.”

“That’s not the only reason.”

“There’s about forty-two other reasons, one of them is I can’t even make a living myself, but it’s all the reason that concerns you. Here’s a dime, kid. Better luck somewhere else.”

“I don’t want your dime. I want a job. If the clothes were better, that might help, mightn’t it?”

“If the clothes were good enough for Clark Gable in the swell gambling-house scene, that wouldn’t help a bit. Not a bit. I just don’t need anybody, that’s all.”

“Suppose I got better clothes. Would you talk to me?”

“Talk to you any time, but I don’t need anybody.”

“I’ll be back when I get the clothes.”

“Just taking a walk for nothing.”

“What’s your name?”

“Hook’s my name. Oscar Hook.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hook. But I’m coming back. I just got a idea I can talk myself into a job. I’m some talker.”

“You’re all that, kid. But don’t waste your time. I don’t need anybody.”

“Okay. Just the same, I’ll be back.”

He headed for the center of town, asked the way to the cheap clothing stores. At Los Angeles and Temple, after an hour’s trudge, he came to a succession of small stores in a Mexican quarter that were what he wanted. He went into one. The storekeeper was a Mexican, and two or three other Mexicans were standing around smoking.

“Mister, will you trust me for a pair of white pants and a shirt?”

“No trust. Hey, scram.”

“Look. I can have a job Monday morning if I can show up in that outfit. White pants and a white shirt. That’s all.”

“No trust. What you think this is, anyway?”

“Well, I got to get that outfit somewhere. If I get that, they’ll let me go to work Monday. I’ll pay you soon as I get paid off Saturday night.”

“No trust. Sell for cash.”

He stood there. The Mexicans stood there, smoked, looked out at the street. Presently one of them looked at him. “What kind of job, hey? What you mean, got to have white pants a white shirt a hold a job?”

“Filling station. They got a rule you got to have white clothes before you can work there.”

“Oh. Sure. Filling station.”

After a while the storekeeper spoke. “Ha! Is a joke. Job in filling station, must have a white pants, white shirt. Ha! Is a joke,”

“What else would I want them for? Holy smoke, these are better for the road, ain’t they? Say, a guy don’t want white pants to ride freights, does he?”

“What filling station? Tell me that.”

“Guy name of Hook, Oscar Hook, got a Acme station. Main near Twentieth. You don’t believe me, call him up.”

“You go to work there, hey?”

“I’m supposed to go to work. I told him I’d get the white pants and white shirt, somehow. Well — if I don’t get them, I don’t go to work.”

“Why you come to me, hey?”

“Where else would I go? If it’s not you, it’s another guy down the street. No place else I can dig up the stuff over Sunday, is there?”

“Oh.”

He stood around. They all stood around. Then once again the storekeeper looked up. “What size you wear, hey?”

He had a wash at a tap in the backyard, then changed there, between piled-up boxes and crates. The storekeeper gave him a white shirt, white pants, necktie, a suit of thick underwear, and a pair of shoes to replace his badly worn brogans. “Is pretty cold, nighttime, now. A thick underwear feel better.”

“Okay. Much obliged.”

“Can roll this other stuff up.”

“I don’t want it. Can you throw it away for me?”

“Is pretty dirty.”

“Plenty dirty.”

“You no want?”

“No.”

His heart leaped as the storekeeper dropped the whole pile into a rubbish brazier and touched a match to some papers at the bottom of it. In a few minutes, the denims and everything else he had worn were ashes.

He followed the storekeeper inside. “Okay, here is a bill, I put all a stuff on a bill, no charge you more than anybody else. Is six dollar ninety-eight cents, then is a service charge one dollar.”

All of them laughed. He took the “service charge” to be a gyp overcharge to cover the trust. He nodded. “Okay on the service charge.”

The storekeeper hesitated. “Well, six ninety-eight. We no make a service charge.”

“Thanks.”

“See you keep a white pants clean till Monday morning.”

“I’ll do that. See you Saturday night.”

“Adios.”

Out in the street, he stuck his hand in his pocket, felt something, pulled it out. It was a $1 bill. Then he understood about the “service charge,” and why the Mexicans had laughed. He went back, kissed the $1 bill, waved a cheery salute into the store. They all waved back.

He rode a streetcar down to Mr. Hook’s, got turned down for the job, rode a streetcar back. In his mind, he tried to check over everything. He had an alibi, fantastic and plausible. So far as he could recall, nobody on the train had seen him, not even the other hoboes, for he had stood apart from them in the yards, and had done nothing to attract the attention of any of them. The denims were burned, and he had a story to account for the whites. It even looked pretty good, this thing with Mr. Hook, for anybody who had committed a murder would be most unlikely to make a serious effort to land a job.

But the questions lurked there, ready to spring at him, check and recheck as he would. He saw a sign, 5-COURSE DINNER, 35 CENTS. He still had ninety cents, and went in, ordered steak and fried potatoes, the hungry man’s dream of heaven. He ate, put a ten-cent tip under the plate. He ordered cigarettes, lit one, inhaled. He got up to go. A newspaper was lying on the table.

He froze as he saw the headline: