David Goodis - The Blonde on the Street Corner

“Now don’t do that,” George said. “This city’ll go to pieces without you.”

“I’m not kidding,” Ken said. “I’m through. Finished. All done. Tomorrow me and Dippy head South.”

“Straight down to Florida,” Dippy said.

“That’s right,” Ken said. He put one hand in the side pocket of his trousers. He pointed a finger at George and went on, “I’m not so dumb. I know what’s uptown. For six years now I been banging my head against a stone wall, trying to get a song published. You know some of my songs really have stuff. You said so yourself. A lot of people claim I turn out some really fine songs. So what do I do? There’s not a single big-time publisher in this city, and I can’t send them over to New York because I don’t have anybody over there who could push them for me. You see, I don’t have an in. I know enough to know that you gotta have somebody to grease things up so it’s easy for you to slide in. Listen, I know what it’s all about ”

“So what’s that got to do with Florida?” George said.

“That’s what I’m coming to,” Ken said. Now he had both hands in the side pockets of his trousers, and his unbuttoned overcoat was pushed back under his arms. “It’s this way. You go down to Florida and you get yourself a job in one of these smart hotels—”

“In Florida,” Dippy said.

“Yeah, in Florida. Shut up. A guy gets himself one of these jobs, see? Okay, that’s the first step. Then he works it smooth. He just takes his time and goes about his job and he’s just another bellhop, see. But now here’s where the real angle fits in. All this time he has his eyes open and he knows what’s going on. So he just takes his time. He just waits—”

Dippy started to laugh.

Ken was getting angry. “What are you laughing about, you maniac?” he said. He did not wait for Dippy’s explanation. He turned again to George and said, “So here’s what happens. You just take it easy and wait around. And all this time you’re figuring out what’s gonna be your best move. Do you see what I mean?”

“No, I don’t see what you mean,” George said.

“Aw, what’s the use of talking to you?” Ken whined disgustedly. “You’re ignorant, that’s all.”

“That’s a good one,” George said. “You’re telling me that I’m ignorant.”

Ken said, “Well, Dippy, you making some more phone calls tonight?”

“Sure,” Dippy said.

“How about for Saturday?” Ken said. “Is it fixed up for Saturday?”

“Sure,” Dippy said. “Eats and all.”

“One of these days you’ll get in trouble with those phone deals,” George said. “We’ll come up to the house and there’s gonna be a mob of cops there and we’ll end up in the station house.”

“You’re not kidding,” Ken said.

Dippy said, “What is this?”

George and Ken started to laugh. Dippy didn’t laugh. He never laughed when he said that. It was a sort of mystic phrase that came from the deepest well in his mind. When he murmured, “What is this?” he seemed to be expressing the sum total of all that he had learned through all the days of his existence. Whenever he said it, the fellows laughed. Dippy didn’t laugh. He never said it to amuse them. He never explained why he said it, nor what he meant by it. He just said it, and they laughed, and they never knew he was not talking to them when he said it.

George said, “Tell us about this Saturday night affair.”

Dippy said, “Last night about eleven o’clock I get home from the movies. My brother Clarence took me to the movies. We saw—”

“Never mind what you saw in the movies. What happened with this Saturday night thing?”

“It’s eleven o’clock,” Dippy said. “My brother Clarence and his wife and my mother all go to bed.”

“Together?” Ken said.

“Aw, shut up,” George whined. “Go on, Dippy.”

“I’m sitting downstairs alone,” Dippy said. “I get hold of the telephone book and I start to read it. I look through a lot of names and then I see something that looks nice.”

“What do you mean — it looks nice?” Ken said.

“You don’t understand,” Dippy said. “You’re ignorant.” He laughed. “I just look at this name and I know that it’s nice.”

“He’s a magician,” George said.

Dippy went on, “The name is Donahue — Agnes Donahue. I call her up. She gets on the phone. She asks me who I am. I say my name is Philip Wilkin. She says she never heard of anybody by that name. I tell her she must be crazy. I am an old friend of hers. I say that I used to live right near her. She asks me where. So then I look into the phone book again and I see that she lives on the 300 block of Lenner Street. So I make up an address right near there. And from there on it was simple.”

“So what happened?” Ken said.

“I tell her that I was looking through my diary tonight and I came across something that read like this: ‘Today I met a very fine young lady whose name is Agnes Donahue. She is pretty. She is charming. Some day I will want to see her again.’ Then I explain that the diary is torn and that the date on the page is missing. But it is not the calendar that is important. It is the idea that I must see Agnes Donahue again. She liked that. She started to ask me a lot of questions about myself. I told her that I was very handsome.”

George burst out laughing.

“What is this?” Dippy said.

Ken said, “So then what?”

“So then we made the date for Saturday,” Dippy said. “There will be eats and all. And four girls, for the three of us and Ralph.”

“I don’t think Ralph will want to go,” Ken said. “He told me that after what happened last week he wasn’t going to be in on any of these telephone parties.”

“Don’t worry,” George said. “Ralph will go. Saturday night comes along and he won’t have anything to do. He’ll go.”

“This Agnes is a very pretty girl,” Dippy said.

“How do you know?” George said.

“She told me.”

“Oh, she told him,” George said. “I can see already. This is gonna be good. The last one who told him she was pretty turned out like the cover of an amazing adventures magazine.”

Ralph walked up. He went over to the Indian Nut machine and put in a penny. Ken held out his hand and Ralph poured more nuts. Then he walked into the candy store. He came out, opening a pack of cigarettes. He gave one to Dippy and George and he offered one to Ken.

“Thanks,” Ken said. “I have my own.”

The four of them lit cigarettes.

Ralph said, “I was reading this morning about that new lightweight from Southwark, that guy Nucio. He’s supposed to be good.”

“Yeah,” George said. “Up the poolroom last night Allie Ferocco was telling me about the guy. Allie says that he’s got a good right hand.”

“That’s gonna help him a lot, I guess,” Ken said. “He’ll meet up with somebody that’s got not only a good right hand, but also a good left. And he’ll get his head knocked off and he’ll go back to Southwark, driving a truck.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ralph said. “He knocked out that colored guy Thimmons.”

“I could take any one of them,” Dippy said.

“You?” George said.

They all laughed. Dippy put up his fists and began to dance around George, who laughed and held his sides and then moved in close. Dippy backed away and collided with three empty ice cream cans and four milk bottles that were lined up along the curb. The cans and bottles and Dippy crashed to the street.

Old Silver came running out of the store, yelling, “Whattsa matta, whattsa matta, whattsa matta?”

Nobody could answer. They were all choking with laughter. Dippy got up slowly and brushed melted ice cream from his trousers and glared at Silver and said, “Is that a place to put cans and bottles?”