Some Came Running (31 page)

Driven by something. To the very
brink
of collapse. If ’Bama had achieved some obscure satisfaction, and he evidently had, he himself had not. He himself felt about the same as he had when he came, except tireder. It was worse than sad. It was frightening. A person could actually kill themselves that way. ’Bama looked even worse than he did. He offered to drive for him awhile. ’Bama looked at him cheerily and declined. No, he was doing all right.

’Bama had not done nearly so well the fourth and fifth days at the bookmaker’s as he had on the third. He won some races, but he also lost on some. When he went to the counter to cash in his chits, instead of receiving bills in return, he wound up signing checks—though small ones—for his losses. He did not mind, though. Like he said, this was his hobby, not his profession. Before they left, he introduced Dave to the ticker tape man who shook hands warmly and smiled while looking completely through him and said, Yes, he’d be glad to send him a card since Mr Dillert here recommended him. Mr Dillert was one of our best members, but we usually liked to keep the membership of the club pretty small and exclusive.

Dave thanked him. He had already placed a few bets anyway. Three, to be exact. All of which he won. Unable to resist the second time he came, he had thought to follow ’Bama’s lead with a five-dollar bet just for fun. But then the smallness of the bet embarrassed him, and he had no idea what the others including ’Bama were betting because they all whispered and he was embarrassed to ask, so he upped it to twenty. The young man accepted it; and he discovered suddenly he was involved. He could not afford to lose twenty dollars. Not with all the money he’d spent on clothes. And luggage. But that was one of the times ’Bama’s horse won. It paid three to two. Thirty bucks. He quit. But the next day, the last, he asked ’Bama again and bet the thirty on another horse that paid even money and won again and then he played a hunch. There was a horse in the last race named Haggard and the name caught his attention because he was feeling exactly that way and because ’Bama looked that way. He bet fifty dollars on it, and he leaned over and told ’Bama, who sneered at him disdainfully. However, Haggard won. He was a six-to-one shot. That was three hundred dollars. He noticed it was even more exciting to listen to that dull monotone, when you had some money bet. But it was also ticklish business, he knew, for him. Because he was dabbling in something he knew absolutely nothing about. What if he had made all the same three bets and had lost them all? It made him feel as if he were walking out on thin ice over a cold, dark running river. Well, it had been the last race anyway, and now he was going home with almost as much money as the four hundred he had brought with him.

Then suddenly he recognized what it was that felt so familiar. Since he had committed the fifty-five hundred dollars to Frank, he was back in the position of having to count pennies, with that feeling that if you didn’t count right there was nobody to turn to. Nobody to make up the deficit.

In the car, ’Bama looked over at him and grinned and started talking. Probably to keep himself awake. ’Bama had been to the bookie’s every day they were there; that was where he had gone when he left Dave to shop for clothes at Strauss’s; “I should have stayed with you, I guess,” he said, “from the look of those clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Dave demanded. “Nothin,” he said, looking at the Hollywood cut distastefully, “nothin at all, if I could just remember to wear my sunglasses when I’m looking at you.” But he had gone anyway. Making a total of five afternoons with the horses from which he had netted some four hundred dollars. He was counting the net, he told Dave, not the gross. The gross would have been something over twelve hundred dollars, but he only counted what he took home he said, not what he lost back. A wise policy, Dave told him grinning. ’Bama did not see the joke and went on talking. The point was: This was his hobby, not his profession. He didn’t expect to make money at it. His profession was gambling in Parkman. Cards and dice and the pool. That was where he made his money. He sounded almost defensive. They were riding out through Indianapolis west, on their way home, the streets virtually deserted now at five in the morning, almost no traffic present to heed the changing traffic lights. The girls were sound asleep in the back. ’Bama did not know exactly how he had gotten onto this particular bookmaker. He had been coming over here for some time and had heard a lot about it, before he ran into someone who could take him up there. Meanwhile he had patronized another place, a dinky little one-man joint, but this place here was the best and the ritziest bookmaker in the city. The investment office and loan business made a wonderful front for it. Actually, he was pretty sure, it was a syndicated place.
The
Syndicate? No, he didn’t think so. He didn’t mean that. Private owner. He grinned: Actually, he didn’t know a damn thing about the Syndicate. He had heard about it, sure, everybody had. But he’d never seen it. And didn’t especially want to. He didn’t even know if there even was such a damned thing. He grinned again. Then shrugged.

Dave looked over at the cheerful ’Bama and noticed for the first time that ’Bama was wearing a gun. Had been wearing it since they got in town, Dave realized belatedly, but he had been so matter of fact and unobtrusive and casually careful about keeping it out of sight that Dave realized now he’d been noticing it for several days without being aware of it. The Southerner’s coat was unbuttoned, and even in the dim light of the dash the black pistol butt was clearly discernible under his left arm.

’Bama noticed him looking and grinned. It was just for protection. He wore it whenever he came to the city. A lot of times, he carried so much cash that he had gotten a sheriff’s permit in Parkman to wear it. Here, if he’d take the wheel a minute, he’d get it off. Wouldn’t need it now. And the damned thing was uncomfortable. While Dave held the wheel, he shrugged out of his coat sleeves and got his arms out of the double loop of leather that went across his back and handed it to him to put in the dash compartment and put his coat back on. Matter of fact, the sheriff’s permit wasn’t really valid any more. He’d not got it renewed, but he still carried the old card.

Dave took it and held it. It was a little .32 six-shot Smith & Wesson with a W2 inch barrel, in a beautifully made little spring-clip holster made with the front side open so the gun could be swept out instead of having to be drawn. The leather showed good care.

“Only cost me fifty bucks,” ’Bama said. “Had the holster made up special at S D Myers in El Paso.”

Dave wrapped the straps around it and put it in the dash.

’Bama wriggled his shoulders against the seat back as if glad to be free of the weight. “What’s the matter?” he said grinning. “Were you afraid you’d fallen in with a member of the Syndicate?”

“No,” Dave said.

It was funny.
Gun.
It was another word that had developed its own meaning apart from the object it was used to designate. In the Army, you took a rifle or pistol for granted and cursed it because you had to clean it all the time and in combat you fired it when you got the chance and the object beyond the sights you took for granted too.
Concealed weapon.
That was the phrase.
Carrying a concealed weapon.

“Did you ever draw it on anybody?” he said.

“No,” ’Bama said cheerfully, “never had to yet.”

It was in Terre Haute that they bought the car. They arrived there just as the businesses were opening. ’Bama drove to a place he knew on Ohio Street. They had had no sleep at all and had been drinking all night long. ’Bama tramped around the frozen lot with the dealer looking at the cars that had just been rolled out, kicking tires, disappearing under hoods, even getting down to look underneath some of them. Finally he selected a 1942 Plymouth of light green and said, “We’ll drive it around the block.” When they came back he said to Dave, “Take it. You got a good buy.” The dealer wanted $950. But by deriding the car itself, complaining about the tires, the motor, and even the windshield wipers, which he insisted would have to be replaced, ’Bama jewed him down to eight hundred, then refused to take it and got another fifty knocked off. The dealer flatly refused to go any lower. With energetic disgust, ’Bama told Dave he might as well take it, he had to have a car, and the guy had them by the throat. Dave paid him with $250 cash and a $500 check that, because the dealer did not know Dave, ’Bama had to countersign.

“You got a good buy,” ’Bama grinned at him after they got the keys. “It’s worth eight fifty easy. You’ll probly need a valve job after six or eight thousand miles, but otherwise it’s in real good shape.”

The two girls were still in the back of the Packard fast asleep. They decided to leave them there.

“Now don’t go to sleep and smash it up,” ’Bama admonished him. “If you get sleepy, open the window. You follow me in. If you have to stop for anything, flash your headlights at me.”

Dave did not get sleepy. It was the first time in his life he had ever owned his own car. The thoughtful ’Bama drove slow enough he did not have any trouble keeping up. He enjoyed the whole fifteen-mile trip immensely.

He had been gone five days, and during it had spent something over a thousand dollars. Five hundred of it had come out of his fifty-five-hundred-dollar capital. But Frank could either take or leave it. He had enough good clothes to last him a long time, some luggage, and a pretty good car. And he felt he had made perhaps the best friend he had ever made in his life, although he did not know what he had done to deserve it, or what ’Bama’s motive had been.

Back in Parkman, whose winter business day was already well under way, ’Bama pulled up in the street in front of the hotel and waited for him. When Dave pulled up along side, he rolled down his window and stuck his head out.

“I’ll take these two on home,” he called. “Don’t worry about Mildred Pierce losin her job.” (It had become a private joke to them to always call her by her full name). “She won’t. They need people too bad at the brassiere factory. I’ll call you in a couple days.” He pulled his head in, the purple circled eyes looking like two blue-covered wartime flashlights, then stuck it back out. “Or else you can look me up at the Ath Club poolroom.”

The heavy Packard slid away and took the hotel corner expertly, still accelerating.

Dave parked his Plymouth in front of the hotel and made his way upstairs with his new luggage, his heart thumping from lack of rest. But before he undressed, he called the house and learned from Agnes that he needn’t have worried about Frank while he was gone, Frank was at a
very
important jewelers’ show in Chicago, he would be back today or tomorrow at the latest. Dave hung up; why the hell did he feel so relieved?

That Rosalie. All the time he’d spent with her, all the times he’d had her, and not a bit of it had helped him a damned bit.

Loneliness like another living presence inside his skin, he got undressed and lay down to sleep.

F
RANK HAD ALREADY KNOWN
Dave was out of town when Geneve Lowe called him at the store to tell him she was going to Chicago. So he did not have to worry about that conflicting.

But there were a couple of things he did have to worry about. One was getting the contract drawn for the taxi service, which was going to be a considerable problem on account of Judge Deacon; and it ought to be ready for Dave to sign when he got back. The other worry was the fact that Geneve hadn’t given him any advance notice this time.

Geneve, as usual, was leaving just before lunch and Dotty Callter was driving her to Terre Haute to catch the three o’clock train. Since it was in the neighborhood of two hundred miles to Chicago, she didn’t get in until around seven. Their usual procedure was for him to drive up some time during the day and meet her, either at the station or in the bar of the hotel. He and Geneve always stayed at the same hotel on Michigan Boulevard because no one from Parkman ever seemed to go there, they always stayed at the Palmer House or the Drake. But usually, she let him know a couple of days ahead of time.

“That’s pretty short notice,” he said, peering at the office door. Edith Barclay had found something to do outside—she always did when a certain unnamed party called for him—he was sure she recognized the voice because Geneve called for Al, too, a lot of times. She was a good girl.

“I know, darling,” the cool voice said. “But I didn’t find out about it till last night. And I didn’t want to call you at home.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it today or not,” Frank said, a little testily.

“Ahh, poor darling,” the cool voice said, “I know. But if you can’t, you can make it tomorrow, can’t you?”

“Oh, I’ll make it today,” he said, mollified. “Somehow. You go ahead and register. Because I may be late. But don’t worry, I’ll make it,” he said, putting power into his voice.

“I knew you would,” she said. “See you tonight.” She hung up.

Frank hung up, too, grinning. She knew how to handle him. Sometimes he almost felt she did things like this on purpose, just to see how far she could push him and still make him comply. But he liked that. She couldn’t do it on anything important, when he didn’t want her to. It even made him hot for her, sometimes. Frank could feel his breath coming slow and deep into his chest. Thin, yes; she was; but she had wide hips and plenty breasts—when you got those tight little brassieres off her that she wore to make them look tiny. And there were so many things they did together, too.

It was funny he thought suddenly, I was a senior in high school when she was born. Just imagine that.

His lips felt heavy and full of blood, and aware of his lungs moving and the muscles of his body, Frank suddenly felt like getting up on top his desk and beating his swelling chest with his fist and shouting at the top of his lungs I’m a
MAN!

Half the fun was in the secretiveness, he thought. The sneaking off to someplace like Chicago. The doing of something wrong—and putting it over. And yet at the same time, it hurt his pride and made him angry that he had to do it that way. He had had other women, plenty of them. Mostly waitresses, and office clerks, and factory workers, from Terre Haute and Indianapolis. He had even had a couple of Country Club affairs; but these were always so difficult to find safe trysting places for that they didn’t last long. But in Geneve, he had found the kind of mistress that he really wanted. She was sophisticated, she was good looking, she was young. And she wouldn’t clutch at you. That was the kind of mistress he had wanted all along. That was the kind of mistress a man in his position ought to have. That was the kind of mistress Wernz and Crowder and Paul Fredric, Wernz’s son-in-law, and the rest had. Judge Deacon had been sleeping with that secretary of his for twenty years, and he had done a lot for her husband. Now that he had his, he could do the same. For Al. Everybody in town envied him, he thought grinning. He thought of her again, seeing her in that same mental picture he had of her, which was his private symbol for her and which he always saw in his mind whenever he thought of her: thin, narrow-shouldered, with those tiny arms no bigger than his wrists, and that wide pelvis walking across a hotel room toward him. Everybody said she looked like a
Vogue
magazine model. Well, he had better cut this and get moving, on those things he had to do, he thought. If he got out of town by four o’clock, he could be in Chicago before eight tonight.