Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

I jumped, shook loose and dived for the deposit box. I flipped the envelopes in, spun the cylinder, and turned around. If it was a bandit, I was going to scream. If it was Mr. Holden, I didn’t know what I was going to do. It wasn’t a bandit, and it wasn’t Mr. Holden. It was Grant standing there and looking very sheepish. “I had an idea that money would be deposited.”

“My, you frightened me.”

“Feel like a walk?”

“It’s terribly late.”

“It’s two o’clock — about the only time you can walk in this God-awful town. But that isn’t the real reason.”

“And what is the real reason?”

“You.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

We began to walk over toward the East River, but I wasn’t any too friendly because while I was really glad he was there, I couldn’t forget the way he had let me be dragged off from the hall without doing anything about it. So he began asking questions about the union, which I answered as well as I could. It was rather hard to explain it to him, however, as he apparently thought there had been a lot of preliminary phases, as he called them, all occurring in some extremely complicated way, although all that had happened was that some of the girls had become dissatisfied with conditions, and when they found out about the big op deal that had been made, had themselves gone to the union for help. Then the word was passed around, and one thing led to another, and it all happened very quickly with hardly any of the elaborate preliminaries that he seemed to think were involved. He kept asking me if I had read this or that book on the labor movement, but I hadn’t, and didn’t even know what he was talking about. So he died away pretty soon, and then he said: “I guess that about covers it. It’s what I’ve been trying to find out.”

“Then I’m very glad to be of help, if that’s what you wanted because if it was really me you were interested in you took a strange way to show it.”

“Well — here I am.”

“Rather late, don’t you think?”

“I told you. I like it this time of night.”

“Between this time of night and that time of night three very fateful hours have elapsed. A lot can happen in that time.”

“Happen? How?”

“There are other men in the world besides yourself.”

“They don’t start anything at Lindy’s.”

“I haven’t been to Lindy’s.”

“You—?”

“Some people are more enterprising than you.”

He stopped, jerked me by the arm and spun me around. “Where have you been?”

“Never mind.”

“I asked you where you’ve been.”

“With a gentleman at his hotel, if you have to know.”

“So.”

We went along, he about a half step in front of me, his head hunched down in his shoulders. Then he whirled around in front of me. “And what did happen?”

“None of your business.”

We had reached Second Avenue by that time. He looked at me hard and I could see his mouth twitching. Then he turned around with his back to me and stood at the curb. I waited and still he stood there. “I thought we were taking a walk.”

“We were. Now we’re waiting for a cab.”

“For what purpose, may I ask?”

“To send you home. Or to a gentleman at his hotel. Or wherever you want.”

“Very well.”

We stood there a long time, and still no cab came by, for it must have been getting on toward three o’clock. He lit a cigarette and something about the fierce way he blew the smoke out made me want to laugh. But I merely remarked: “If anything had happened I hardly think I’d be out here at this hour and under these circumstances — at least not this night.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t do things by halves.”

I couldn’t help saying it, he looked so silly. He sucked at his cigarette and the light came up very bright. Down the street a cab appeared and when it got near us it cut in quickly and slowed down. He threw away his cigarette and waved the cab on. “We were taking a walk, did you say?”

We got over to Sutton Place and stood at the rail watching the sign come on and off, across the river. A fish flopped and we waited a long time hoping to see another. It was so still you could hear the water lapping out there. But no other fish appeared, and we started back. He hooked his little finger in mine and we swung hands, and it wasn’t at all expert, but it was sweet and there was something about it that was exactly what hadn’t been there on the sofa with Mr. Holden. A cop came around a corner, and we broke hands, but he said: “Don’t mind me, chilluns,” and we laughed and hooked fingers again. We came to a place where the sidewalk was barricaded over a water pipe or something, with two red lanterns on each end. Grant let go my hand, put both feet together and jumped over, then turned around to see what I was going to do. I pulled my handbags up over my wrist, took hold of my dress and held it away from me so it wouldn’t fly up over my head, and then did a kind of one-hand cartwheel over the barricade. I came up right in front of Grant and made a little bow. He stared at me, then took me by the arms and pulled me toward him, and I thought he was going to kiss me but he didn’t. He just kept looking down at me and his voice was shaky when he spoke. “Gee, you’re swell.”

“Am I? Why?”

“I don’t know. Nobody else could have done that. Coming up cool as a cucumber that way with no foolish squealing or anything. And you’ve got no idea how pretty you looked — going over, I mean.”

“That was nothing. I can turn back flips.”

“I believe it.”

We got to the Hutton and there was no doorman out there or anything, at that hour, and we stood there under the marquee for a minute. He took my arms again and seemed to be thinking about something. “Are you going to be down there today — for lunch, I mean?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Can I come in?”

“It’s a public restaurant.”

“There’s something that bothers me.”

“What is it?”

“I want a certain half dollar back.”

“Why?”

“I want it back. I... don’t want to feel that we started with me giving you a half dollar.”

“Have we started?”

“I don’t know what we’ve done. But I want it back.”

Now that half dollar was much on my mind up there in the room with Mr. Holden. Because when I made out the slips for the union money I also made out the slip for my own regular deposit, and ordinarily that half dollar would have gone right in the pile with the rest of it. But for some reason I had kept it in the coin purse of my handbag. “How do you know I still have it?”

“Well, then — if you still have it.”

“All right, then, I kept it. But I want it.”

“Is that why you kept it?”

“It might be.”

“All right, then, we’ll make an agreement. I’ll keep it. But I want it back.”

“Very well, but I want something.”

He looked a little funny, but fumbled around and then handed over his gold tie clip. “It... it seems to be about the only thing I have.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that won’t do.”

I then held up my face in a very fresh way. He caught me in his arms and kissed me, and was very clumsy about it, but I kissed him back and held him there a long time. Then I drew back, and just before I skipped into the hotel I held out my hand and left the half dollar on his fingers.

I had to walk up, and when I went in our suite I didn’t turn on the light and went carefully on tiptoe so as not to wake up Lula. But then I jumped because I could see her there, her eyes big and terrible-looking. I snapped on the light. She was sitting in her kimono facing the door and staring at me without saying a word. I spoke to her, and she began using dreadful language at me in a kind of whisper. “But, Lula, what on earth is the matter?”