Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“Just a superstition of mine. About moths.”

“Do you have to twist my arm off?”

Next day she showed me her forearm, that had a big blue mark on it from my thumb. “Jack, what got into you? I was killing a bug, and you jerked me around — look at that! It looks like Hogan’s Alley on Saturday night.”

“I told you — I’m superstitious about them.”

“Yeah but — look at that bruise!”

When I couldn’t tell her what the real reason was, when I knew that all she would see in it was a bug, I didn’t kid myself any longer. This wasn’t it, no matter how much I had yenned for it there in the rain, on the outside looking in, while fat guys ate rare meat and their women watched them do it. And yet, from the way I tried to smooth her down, and the quick nervous way my spine prickled at her look, for fear she would tumble to what I really thought of her, I knew I’d hang on, to the bitter end, if I had to. I didn’t want her, but I did want the job, and I’d go pretty far to keep it.

One day, driving up Cherry Avenue, I got held by a light, and I heard somebody yell: “Hey, Jack!” There could be no mistake about that croaky voice. It was Hosey, and when I looked in the mirror there he was, not twenty feet away. As the light turned I started but here came a truck, and I had to stop or be hit. I looked again, and he was running after me. I got going at last and went zooming up the hill, but back of me I could see him, waving and running and yelling. And then I did one of the stupidest things I ever did in my life. If I’d gone on, just disappeared as I went over the hill, the chances are it was the last I’d ever have seen of him, because he never knew me by my right name, and he probably didn’t take the number of the car. But I had it in mind to shake him, so when I came to the refinery I turned in. Then it came over me, how stupid it was, and I knew I had to get away quick. They thought I was crazy, I guess, when I asked if there had been any calls, then ducked out again. But just as I jumped in the car, he reached the main gate and began arguing with the watchman. I zipped out the back way and drove on down to the Jergins Trust Building, where I’d opened a headquarters to handle sales. I went through the main room and on back to my private office and told Lida, my girl, if any calls came through to take the message, but I didn’t want to be disturbed.

Then I sat and cursed the day I’d ever seen Hosey, or called him a friend, or pulled anything with him, or had anything to do with him. Then I tried to think what I was going to do about him. I couldn’t think. Somehow, the idea of having to take that scavenger’s hand, and let him call me by my first name, and call him by his, and act like I was friendly with him, in front of everybody in the whole works, just turned me to jelly, and the thought of what he might tell on me turned me to soup. I’ve been scared in my life, but never worse than that morning, and never more ashamed of it. But after a while something began going through my head, and I grabbed it, and made myself turn into a man again, or something that at least could think. I said to myself: Dog it. You never saw Hosey. You never heard of him. You don’t know what he’s talking about, and while you’ve got all due sympathy for guys out of luck, your private opinion is, he’s crazy. And just on his looks, that will sound like a highly probable idea. I checked it over and over and over, for something that would louse it. Unless they took me back to Las Vegas, and somebody in the motel remembered me, I couldn’t think of anything.

In an hour or so, around noon I would say, Lida came back and asked me if we had anybody working for us by the name of Dixon. That was the name I’d signed on the registers of some of the hotels and flophouses and missions we had stayed at. But all I gave it was a dead pan, like I didn’t want to be bothered. “Not that I know of, unless Rohrer has put somebody on he hasn’t told me about.”

“There’s some bum over there asking.”

“Tell Rohrer to watch it. Maybe it’s a bum and maybe it’s our friend Uncle Sam trailing hot oil. Not that we’re buying any, but—”

I went over to the Hilton and had lunch, then went to the apartment. About two I rang Rohrer and asked could he drop over. He came around three and I started in on a road-tar deal, which was mostly imaginary, but I took an hour over it. I said nothing about Hosey, and he was almost out the door before he said anything, and I was getting nervous, as I had to know, but I dared not take any interest in it. Then he said: “Oh, by the way, Jack, what do I do about this bum that showed up this morning? Says we’ve got somebody working for us named Dixon, and won’t go away till he sees him.”

“I don’t know any Dixon.”

“Says he drove up in a black Packard car.”

“I’ve got the only Packard around the place.”

“So I told him. But he’s still there. On the curb outside.”

“Is he pulling anything?”

“No, but he’s sitting.”

“Then do nothing.”

“Just leave him sit?”

“Isn’t it a free country?”

“Why sure. And if the cops don’t like it—?”

“Then he’s their bum.”

That night, when I got to Rodeo Drive in Beverly, believe me, I listened to the jokes and laughed at them. Next morning, instead of going to the Jergins Trust Building, I went direct to the refinery, and sure enough, there he was, still sitting and still waiting. He yelled at me as I went in the back way and I paid no attention but went and parked. But as I started for my office, Mulligan, the watchman, caught me, looking pretty uncomfortable. “Would you come talk to this guy, Mr. Dillon? I’ve just got the idea that in some kind of a cockeyed way he means you, and if you could just convince him he’s got his signals mixed, maybe we can get rid of him. To tell you the truth, he’s getting on everybody’s nerves.”

I went over to the gate, and when Hosey saw me he began to yell like some kind of a movie. “Jack! Don’t you know me? It’s Hosey! That hoboed all over Louisiana and Texas and Nevada with you and Buck? Jack! I’m ready to go to work. Remember that job we was going to give each other, whichever one hit the jackpot first?”

He meant it so hard he sounded phony. Even Mulligan turned his back. I blinked and said: “Well, Mulligan, he thinks he knows me, that’s a cinch.”

“Why, sir, that’s ridiculous.”

“No, he thinks I’m a pal.”

“Pal my eye. It’s just a racket—”

He went roaring on, while Hosey stared and listened. Then I said: “Anyway, get rid of him.”

“You bet I’ll get rid of him.”

He started for the gate with his shoulders up, but I stopped the rough stuff. “Look, he’s human too.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, sir. But O.K. I let the cops do it.”

But I took out ten dollars, shoved it through the wire at Hosey, and said: “My friend, I don’t know who you think I am, but the times are bad, so buy yourself a meal and a bath and a flop, and keep the change. And if I ever run into somebody named Dixon, I’ll give him your—”

“But — Jack!”

“Listen, goddam it, you want this ten or not?”

“Why sure, but—”

“Then take it and stop calling me Jack.”

“... And what would I call you, then?”

“Try mister, for a change.”

“Mister what?”

“Just mister, pal.”

He took the ten, turned away, and walked off. I started inside. Then something hit me on the head. It was a stone. We turned, and Hosey was standing there, in the middle of the street. “You dirty son of a bitch! I mean you, Jack. You heel! You yellow-bellied rat, that would do this to a friend! But I’ll get you for it. I’ll—”