“Will you call me a cab, Jack?”
“Cab? I’m taking you.”
He stepped near me and whispered: “Mr. Cameron, I’m sorry, this little lady has to leave, for—”
“I know about that.”
“She’s in danger—”
“I’ve also caught on to that.”
“From a no-good imitation goon that’s been trying to get to her here, which is why I’m shipping her out. I hate to break this up, but if you’ll ride with us, Mr. Cameron—”
“I’ll follow you down.”
“That’s right, you have your car. It’s Friendship Airport, just down the road.”
He told her to get ready, while he was having his car brought up, and the boy who would take her place on the desk was changing his clothes. Step on it, he said, but wait until he came back. He went out on the floor and marched past the drunk without even turning his head. But she sat watching me. She said: “You’re not coming, are you?”
“Friendship’s a little cold.”
“But not mine, Bill, no.”
She got off her stool, stood near me and touched my hair. She said: “Ships that pass in the night pass so close, so close.” And then: “I’m ashamed, Bill, I’d have to go for this reason. I wonder, for the first time, if gamblings’s really much good.” She pulled the chain of the light, so we were half in the dark. Then she kissed me. She said: “God bless and keep you, Bill.”
“And you, Lydia.”
I felt her tears on my cheek, and then she pulled away and stepped to the little office, where she began putting a coat on and tying a scarf on her head. She looked so pretty it came to me I still hadn’t given her the one little bouquet I’d been saving for the last. I picked up the guitar and started Nevada.
She wheeled, but what stared at me were eyes as hard as glass. I was so startled I stopped, but she kept right on staring. Outside a car door slammed, and she listened at the window beside her. Then a last she looked away, to peep through the Venetian blind. Jack popped in, wearing his coat and hat, and motioned her to hurry. But he caught something and said, low yet so I could hear him: “Lydia! What’s the matter?”
She stalked over to me, with him following along, pointed her finger, and then didn’t say it, but spat it: “He’s the finger—that’s what’s the matter, that’s all. He played Nevada, as though we hadn’t had enough trouble wit it already. And Vanny heard it. He hopped out of his car and he’s under the window right now.”
“Then O.K., let’s go.”
I was a little too burned to make with the explanations, and took my time, parking the guitar, sliding off, and climbing down, to give them a chance to blow. But she still had something to say, and to me, not to him. She pushed her face up to mine, and mocking how I had spoken, yipped: “Oh! … Oh! OH!” Then she went, with Jack. Then I went, clumping after.
Then it broke wide open.
The drunk, who was supposed to sit there, conveniently boxed in, while she went slipping out, turned out more of a hog-calling type, and instead of playing his part, jumped up and yelled: “Vanny! Vanny! Here she comes! She’s leaving! VANNY”
He kept I up, while women creamed all over, then pulled a gun from his pocket, and let go at the ceiling, so it sounded like the field artillery, as shots always do when fired inside a room. Jack jumped for him and hit the deck, as his feet shot from under him on the slippery wood of the dance floor. Joe swung, missed, swung again, and landed, so Mr. Drunk went down. But when Joe scrambled for the gun, there came this voice through the smoke: “Hold it! As you were—and leave that gun alone.”
Then hulking in came this short-necked, thick-shouldered thing, in Homburg hat, double-breasted coat, and white muffler, one hand in his pocket, the other giving an imitation of a movie gangster. He said keep still and nobody would get hurt, but “I won’t stand for tricks.” He helped Jack up, asked how he’d been. Jack said: “Young man, let me tell you something—”
“How you been? I asked.”
“Fine, Mr. Rocco.”
“Any telling, Jack—I’ll do it.”
Then, to her: “Lydia, how’ve you been?”
“That doesn’t concern you.”
Then she burst out about what he had done to his mother, the gyp he’d handed his father, and his propositions to her, and I got it, at last, who this idiot was. He listened, but right in the middle of it, he waved his hand toward me and asked: “Who’s this guy?”
“Vanny, I think you know.”
“Guy, are you the boy friend?”
“If so I don’t tell you.”
I sounded tough, but my belly didn’t feel that way. They had it some more, and he connected me with the tune, and seemed to enjoy it a lot, that it had told him where to find her, on the broadcast as here now tonight. But he kept creeping closer, to where we were all lined up, with the drunk stretched on the floor, the gun under his hand, and I suddenly felt the prickle, that Vanny was really nuts, and in a minute meant to kill her. It also crossed my mind, that a guy who plays the guitar has a left hand made of steel, from squeezing down on the strings, and is a dead sure judge of distance, to the last eighth of an inch. I prayed I could forget it, told myself I owed her nothing at all, that she’d turned on me cold, with no good reason. I concentrated, to dismiss the thought entirely.
No soap.
I grabbed for my chord and got it.
I choked down on his hand, the one he held in his pocket, while hell broke loose in the place, with women screaming, men running, and fists trying to help, I had the gun hand all right, but when I reached for the other he twisted, butted, and bit, and for that long I thought he’d get loose, and that I was a gone pigeon. The gun barked, and a piledriver hit my leg. I went down. Another gun spoke and he went down beside me. Then here was Jack, the drunk’s gun in his hand, stepping in close, and firing again to make sure.
I blacked out.
I came to, and then she was there, a knife in her hand, ripping the cloth away from the outside of my leg, grabbing napkins, stanching blood, while somewhere ten miles off I could hear Jack’s voice, as he yelled into a phone. On the floor right beside me was something under a tablecloth.
That went on for some time, with Joe calming things down and some people sliding out. The band came in, and I heard a boy ask for his guitar. Somebody brought it to him. And then, at last, came the screech of sirens, and she whispered some thanks to God.
Then, while the cops were catching up, with me, with Jack, and what was under the cloth, we both went kind of haywire, me laughing, she crying, and both in each others’ arms. I said: “Lydia, Lydia, you’re not taking that plane. They legalize things in Maryland, one thing specially, except that instead of wheels, they generally use a ring.”
Still holding my leg with one hand she pulled me close with the other, kissed me and kept on kissing me, and couldn’t speak at all. All legalized now, is what I started to tell about—with Jack as best man, naturally.
The Robbery
“Good evening.”
“Good evening.”
“I guess we’ve seen each other a couple of times before, haven’t we? Me and my wife, we live downstairs.”
“Yeah, I know who you are. What do you want?”
“Just want to talk to you about something.”
“Well—come in.”
“No. Just close that door behind you and we’ll sit on the steps.”
“All right. That suits me. Now what’s the big idea?”
“Today we was robbed. Somebody come in the apartment, turned the whole place inside out, and got away with some money, and my wife’s jewelry. Three rings and a couple of wrist watches. It’s got her broke up pretty bad. I got her in bed now, but she’s crying and carrying on all the time. I feel right down sorry for her.”
“Well, that’s tough. But what you coming to me
about it for?”
“Nothing special. But of course I’m trying to find out who done it, so I thought I would come around and see you. Just to see if you got any idea about it.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s it:”
“Well, I haven’t got no idea.”
“You haven’t? That’s funny.”
“What’s funny about it?”
“Seems like most everybody on the block has an idea about it. I ain’t got in the house yet before about seven people stopped me and told me about it, and all of them had an idea about who done it. Of course, some of them ideas wasn’t much good, but still they was ideas. So you haven’t got no idea?”
“No. I haven’t got no idea. And what’s more, you’re too late.”
“How you mean, too late?”
“I mean them detectives has been up here already. I mean that fine wife of yours sent them up here, and what I had to say about this I told them, and I ain’t got time to say it over again for you. And let me tell you something: You tell any more detectives I was the one robbed your place, and that’s right where the trouble starts. They got laws in this country. They got laws against people that goes around telling lies about their neighbors, and don’t you think for a minute you’re going to get by with that stuff no more. You get me?”
“I’ll be doggone. Them cops been up here already? Them boys sure do work fast, don’t they?”
“Yeah, they work fast when some fool woman that has lost a couple of rings calls up the station house and fills them full of lies. They work fast, but they don’t always work so good. They ain’t got nothing on me at all, see? So you’re wasting your time, just like they did!”
“What did you tell them, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I told them just what I’m telling you: that I don’t know a thing about you or your wife, or your flat, or who robbed you, or what goes on down there, ’cepting I wish to hell you would turn off that radio at night once, so I can get some sleep. That’s what I told them, and if you don’t like it you know what you can do.”
“Well, now, old man, I tell you. Fact of the matter, my wife didn’t send them cops up here at all. When she come home, and found out we was robbed, why it got her all excited. So she rung up the station house, and told the cops what she found, and then she went to bed. And that’s where she’s at now. She ain’t seen no detectives. She’s to see them tomorrow. So it looks like them detectives thought up that little visit all by theirself, don’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean maybe even them detectives could figure out that this here job was done by somebody that knowed all about me and my wife, when we was home, when we was out, and all like of that. And ’specially, that it was done by somebody that knowed we had the money in the house to pay the last installment on the furniture.”
“How would I know that?”
“Well, you might know by remembering what time the man came around to get the money last month and figuring he would come around the same day this month, and that we would have the money here waiting for him. That would be one way, wouldn’t it?”
“Let me tell you something, fellow: I don’t know a thing about this, or your furniture, or the collector, or nothing. And there ain’t nothing to show what I know. So you ain’t got nothing on me, see? So shag on. Go on down where you come from. So shut up. So that’s all. So good-bye.”
“Now, not so fast,”
“What now? I ain’t going to stay but here all night.”
“I’m just thinking about something. First off, we ain’t got nothing on you. That sure is a fact. We ain’t got nothing on you at all. Next off, them detectives ain’t got nothing on you. They called me up a little while ago and told me so. Said they couldn’t prove nothing.”
“It’s about time you was getting wise to yourself.”
“Just the same, you are the one that done it.”
“Huh?”
“I say you are the one that done it.”
“All right. All right. I’m the one that done it. Now go ahead and prove it.”
“Ain’t going to try to prove it. That’s a funny thing, ain’t it? Them detectives, when they start out on a thing like this, they always got to prove something, haven’t they? But me, I don’t have to prove nothing.”
“Come on. What you getting at?”
“Just this: Come on with that money, and come on with them jewels, or I sock you. And make it quick.”
“Now wait a minute. … Wait a minute.”
“Sure. I ain’t in no hurry.”
“Maybe if I was to go in and look around. … Maybe some of my kids done that, just for a joke—”
“Just what I told my wife, old man, now you mention it. I says to her, I says, ‘Them detectives is all wrong on that idea. Them kids upstairs done it,’ I says, ‘just for a joke.’”
“I’ll go in and take a look—”
“No. You and me, we set out here till I get them things in my hand. You just holler inside and tell the kids to bring them.”
“I’ll ring the bell and get one of them to the door—”
“That sure is nice of you, old man. I bet there’s a whole slew of them robberies done by kids just for a joke, don’t you? I always did think so.”
Money and the Woman (The Embezzler)
I
I first met her when she came over to the house one night, after calling me on the telephone and asking if she could see me on a matter of business. I had no idea what she wanted, but supposed it was something about the bank. At the time, I was acting cashier of our little Anita Avenue branch, the smallest of the three we’ve got in Glendale, and the smallest branch we’ve got, for that matter. In the home office, in Los Angeles, I rate as vice president, but I’d been sent out there to check up on the branch, not on what was wrong with it, but what was right with it. Their ratio of savings deposits to commercial deposits was over twice what we had in any other branch, and the Old Man figured it was time somebody went out there and found out what the trick was, in case they’d invented something the rest of the banking world hadn’t heard of.
I found out what the trick was soon enough. It was her husband, a guy named Brent that rated head teller and had charge of the savings department. He’d elected himself little White Father to all those workmen that banked in the branch, and kept after them and made them save until half of them were buying their homes and there wasn’t one of them that didn’t have a good pile of dough in the bank. It was good for us, and still better for those workmen, but in spite of that I didn’t like Brent and I didn’t like his way of doing business. I asked him to lunch one day, but he was too busy, and couldn’t come. I had to wait till we closed, and then we went to a drugstore while he had a glass of milk, and I tried to get out of him something about how he got those deposits every week, and whether he thought any of his methods could be used by the whole organization. But we got off on the wrong foot, because he thought I really meant to criticize, and it took me half an hour to smooth him down. He was a funny guy, so touchy you could hardly talk to him at all, and with a hymn-book-salesman look to him that made you understand why he regarded his work as a kind of a missionary job among these people that carried their accounts with him. I would say he was around thirty, but he looked older. He was tall and thin, and beginning to get bald, but he walked with a stoop and his face had a gray color that you don’t see on a well man. After he drank his milk and ate the two crackers that came with it, he took a little tablet out of an envelope he carried in his pocket, dissolved it in his water, and drank it.
But even when he got it through his head I wasn’t sharpening an axe for him, he wasn’t much help. He kept saying that savings deposits have to be worked up on a personal basis, that the man at the window has to make the depositor feel that he takes an interest in seeing the figures mount up, and mor
e of the same. Once he got a holy look in his eyes, when he said that you can’t make the depositor feel that way unless you really feel that way yourself, and for a few seconds he was a little excited, but that died off. It looks all right, as I write it, but it didn’t sound good. Of course, a big corporation doesn’t like to put things on a personal basis, if it can help it. Institutionalize the bank, but not the man, for the good reason that the man may get an offer somewhere else, and then when he quits he takes all his trade with him. But that wasn’t the only reason it didn’t sound good. There was something about the guy himself that I just didn’t like, and what it was I didn’t know, and didn’t even have enough interest to find out.
So when his wife called up a couple of weeks later, and asked if she could see me that night, at my home, not at the bank, I guess I wasn’t any sweeter about it than I had to be. In the first place, it looked funny she would want to come to my house, instead of the bank, and in the second place, it didn’t sound like good news, and in the third place, if she stayed late, it was going to cut me out of the fights down at the Legion Stadium, and I kind of look forward to them. Still, there wasn’t much I could say except I would see her, so I did. Sam, my Filipino houseboy, was going out, so I fixed a highball tray for myself, and figured if she was as pious as he was, that would shock her enough that she would leave early.
It didn’t shock her a bit. She was quite a lot younger than he was, I would say around twenty-five, with blue eyes, brown hair, and a shape you couldn’t take your eyes off of. She was about medium size, but put together so pretty she looked small. Whether she was really good-looking in the face I don’t know, but if she wasn’t good-looking, there was something about the way she looked at you that had that thing. Her teeth were big and white, and her lips were just the least little bit thick. They gave her a kind of a heavy, sullen look, but one eyebrow had a kind of twitch to it, so she’d say something and no part of her face would move but that, and yet it meant more than most women could put across with everything they had.