Jader was in a good mood. The drawer was almost full of packages and the first pickup was due in an hour. Arthur Allison had gone to the races. It was the first time Jader had been alone in the place in many months. He liked the feeling of being trusted. The sun was hot on Dorrity Street. It slanted through the smeared front window, lighting the dim interior. One old man was asleep, his head on the booth table. Jader planned to wake him up and get him out soon.
He glanced across the street and his cheerful smile faded. He saw Frank Bard coming diagonally across the street in the sun, looking down at a spot six inches from his right shoulder. Jader could see his lips moving. Jader’s lip curled as he saw Bard’s gray, shapeless shoes, the tired scuff of his walk, the stained, baggy trousers.
He stepped over into the doorway as Bard opened the door. Jader didn’t move. Bard said, “Hey! Let us in!” He took a dollar out of his side pocket and held it up.
“I don’t want no screwballs in here,” Jader said sullenly.
“Where’s Arthur? Arthur lets us come in. Get out of Jeanie’s way, Jader.”
“You’re not coming in.”
Bard stared at him for a few seconds. “Arthur won’t like to hear about this. You got a public place here.”
“You stand up to the bar and talk to the other customers. The hell with that noise. You drive away business.”
Frank Bard considered that statement solemnly. “Okay. So Jeanie and me, we’ll take the back booth in the end and we won’t talk to anybody, will we, Jeanie?”
Jader glanced down the street, saw a familiar sedan coming. It would be best not to delay pickup. He moved aside. “Okay, come on in and take the end booth. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Bard stood aside as though to let someone come in, and then followed. Jader waited until Bard was out of sight in the booth before slipping the package across to the slim, dark man who had ordered the beer. The man drank up and left.
Jader poured two ryes and walked back to the booth with them. Frank Bard smiled up at him. “No, she’s sitting right there across from me, Jader. Maybe we should take a booth oftener. It’s nice and private back here in the end. Jeanie says it’s nice and clean. Clean ashtray and everything. She don’t mind being in the booth where she got hit. Do you, Jeanie?”
Jader scowled. “The place is good and clean because I clean it. Stop the chatter and give me the buck.”
He went behind the bar, rang up the dollar and stood with his fat arms on the bar, looking gloomily across at the old man sleeping. Some of the flavor had gone out of the day with Frank Bard’s arrival. He seldom showed up in the afternoon. It was just damn bad luck that he had to pick that afternoon, Jader thought.
He scowled as he heard the low sound of Bard’s voice. Jader couldn’t imagine why Arthur permitted Bard to come around—in fact, why he seemed amused to have Bard around. It was the type of wry joke that Jader couldn’t savor.
When he heard Bard call hoarsely for another round, he pushed away from the bar, drew two more ryes and walked slowly back to the booth.
He stood in front of the booth and reached out to set one rye down across from Bard. The big white hand stopped in midair and Jader stared at the ashtray. There were two butts in the ashtray. The tip of one was crimsoned with lipstick. For a moment he thought wildly that he hadn’t cleaned it. And he suddenly remembered Bard’s saying it was clean. The shot glass slipped out of his white fingers and dropped, overturning on the table.
“Where’d that come from?” he said in a thin voice.
“The cigarette butt? Jeanie smoked it.”
“Don’t say that!” Jader said wildly.
“Don’t you like women smoking? That’s old-fashioned,” Bard said severely.
“Where’d it come from?” Jader demanded again.
“I told you, from Jeanie.” Bard suddenly leaned his dark head over and looked at his shoulder. He chuckled mildly. “She was sitting right beside me here with her head on my shoulder when she smoked it. Look here.” From the surface of the dark blue coat he plucked two long strands of shining gold—held them up.
Jader’s mouth worked and the other glass dropped at his feet.
Bard said, “You see, Jader, you only thought you killed her.” His tone was quiet, as though explaining to a child.
Jader made a strangled sound. His wet eyes widened. “I killed her. She couldn’t … She couldn’t …”
He turned then and looked into Frank Bard’s eyes. His underlip hung away from his teeth and he took a slow step away from the booth. Somehow Bard was in front of him. Jader clenched his white fists and struck blindly. He missed and went off balance as Frank Bard’s thin, dirty fist smashed his mouth. He fell heavily to his hands and knees, going over onto his side as one of the gray, broken shoes landed against the side of his head. One of the white hands lay, as still as lard, against the floor. Frank Bard set his heel on the fingers and swiveled his entire weight, slowly.
He walked quickly to the front door and locked it. The old man still slept. He went behind the bar and carefully opened the drawer. Allison and Jader were cautious, watchful men—but who suspicions or fears a mad alcoholic? He set six neat packages on the top of the bar, opened the cash register and took a dime for the pay phone.
“Sergeant Sullivan, Police Headquarters.”
“Sully, this is Frank Bard … Don’t interrupt me … I’m at Allison’s Grill on Dorrity Street. I’ve just taken over the joint. Jader confessed to killing Jean Palmray. The angle is that she was trying to do some independent spying to help me along and they got wise and Jader killed her; I think he only meant to stun her. I’ve got a bunch of junk here. Six small packages. Send the boys. And have Arthur Allison picked up out at the track. Yeah.”
He hung up, walked back and looked at Jader. The man was beginning to stir. Bard kicked him in the head again and walked back to the bar. He was suddenly enormously tired. He still held the small golden tube of lipstick in his fist. He slipped it into his pocket.
They wouldn’t take a lush back on the force, even if he had done what he set out to do one year before.
Too late.
He took a bottle off the back bar and pulled the patent gimmick out of the top of it and tilted it up to his lips. Drunk or sober, he had remembered to pretend that Jeanie had been with him. That was what had counted. The buildup. And after a year of buildup, Jader had cracked wide open. It had been tough, pretending that she was always beside him, looking at him.
He tilted the bottle, and as the sharp liquor filled his mouth, he felt a soft touch on his arm. He spun quickly, spraying liquor onto the bar.
The old man was still asleep in the booth and Jader was still silent on the floor. The door was locked. In the distance an approaching siren moaned softly. The bottle slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.
About the Author
John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980 he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.
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