by Gil Brewer
“Baby, huh?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“That’s great, pal.”
“I got to get right over there.”
“Sure, pal. Sure. Here’s a place, down here. Let’s have that drink.” He nudged me and we walked along toward Jake’s Place. I could use a drink. Maybe that was his way of saying thanks, or something. The hell with it. Anyway, it would give me a chance to sell the gun, if Jake still wanted it. I was pretty sure he did. Then I’d get on over there to the hospital with our twenty-five or thirty bucks. It was like a thick black cloud inside me, empty and sick and black. Lost, that was it; lost and lost and lost. Like being way up there in the sky in a goldfish bowl with Ruby down here calling for me and no way to get to her with any good. Like when you need a drink of water, or you’ll die, and all the taps run dry. You crazy bastard, I thought, go sell the gun and get a drink and eat a hamburg and get the hell over to the hospital and shut your face.
The world hasn’t changed, or ended, I thought. It’s just you’re hungry and broke and you need a job and things are a little tough right now, so quit knocking yourself just because you’re out of gas. So your wife’s going to have a baby, so what? That’s what women are made for, having babies. Almost every one of them has a baby sometime or other. You’ve got the house, haven’t you? Well, all right, so the bank’s got the house, but you’re living in it, aren’t you? You’ll pay off the bank and everything will be fine. What’s this about not letting them leave the hospital until the bill’s paid? Now, that’s a great one, isn’t it? Well, we’ll pay the bill, somehow. There’s a way. There’s always a way.
“Something bothering you, pal?”
I had forgotten about him. He was still with me. We were in front of Jake’s now.
“No,” I said. “I’m all right. I got to go in here.”
“Good a place as any.”
I started inside. He took hold of my arm and held me back. He looked at me levelly.
“Thanks, for that back there,” he said.
“What?”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m just telling you thanks. You saved my life. We’re buddies now, pal.”
“Forget it,” I said. “You didn’t see the bus, is all.”
“No.”
“Anybody’d do the same thing.”
“No,” he said. “Not anybody.”
“What do you mean?”
“You,” he said. “We’re buddies.” He banged me on the shoulder. “See? Like that. You’re my pal.”
“All right.”
“You saved my life. I’ll never forget that. Never.”
“All right,” I said. “But-” Then I got a look at his eyes and changed it, and said, “O.K.”
“Let’s have a drink on it.”
“Sure, but I got to get right over to the hospital.”
He said nothing. We went on inside. I had got a look at his eyes and there hadn’t been anything there. That’s what was the matter. There was not a damned thing there, nothing. Just eyes, like a blind man. Nothing registered, you could tell. Just plain eyes. They were gray eyes and they were open and that’s all you could say about them.
Otherwise he seemed a very energetic young guy who had maybe done considerable farm work, lots of energy, talking soft and fast and moving around a lot, even when he stood in one spot.
It was cool and shady in Jake’s Place. I liked it because it was one of the last of the real bars you find anyplace. There was no red plastic and no chromium and the bar was wood, all the way. There was sawdust on the floor, good clean, fresh sawdust, and you drank wine, beer, or whisky just the way they were. If you asked for a Whisky Sour, you got a glass of whisky. You asked for a Martini, you got a glass of gin. And that’s the way it was, because Jake didn’t believe in cocktails or in mixing “the grape,” as he called it, with anything but water. Everything was “the grape,” and “water ain’t good for the grape, either, but you want water, you get water. Now why not catch hold of yourself, man? Drink the grape the way it’s naturally got to be drunk. You want ice, I got ice, sure. You want ice water, drink ice water. You want the grape, for your own sake, drink the grape. God wants it that way.” And his name was Jake Halloran. Big and black-eyed and black-haired and loud-laughing, and there was always a plate of cheese and crackers on the bar, and it never went empty for long.
If you asked for gin, Jake would pour and say nothing, then lean on the bar with the bottle in his big hairy fist and stare at you until you’d drunk it. “You like that?” he’d ask. “Sure, I like it,” you’d say. “Have another, then,” Jake would say. And he’d pour you another. “You like that one, too?” he’d ask gently, leaning there with the bottle, watching you drink it, and by now you feel like ha-ha … well. “You still like it?” Jake would say. “Then get the hell across the street to the Tangerine Bar and Grille and drink up. They got better stuff.” Then he would stand there with the bottle and watch you soberly and pretty soon you’d grin because you for cripes sake had to do something and you saw that’s what it was. That he was waiting for you to do something, so he’d bust out laughing and you’d say, “Give me a whisky,” and he’d slap the bottle of gin on the bar in front of you and have a whisky with you, on the house. “The grape,” he would say. “Good, hey?” And all the time you were there, the bottle of gin would stand in front of you, and every time Jake passed by, he’d lift the bottle and rap it on the wood. Well, if you didn’t like it, that was too damned bad, and you could get out. Because he owned the place and that’s the way it was. He didn’t like gin. And by this time you didn’t either. You’d never take another drink of gin without looking over your shoulder first, either.
There was a man and a woman at one of the booths, a couple of men drinking beer at the far end of the bar, and one tall fellow brooding in his whisky in the center of the bar. He was pretty well shot, too.
“Well, Steve,” Jake said, balling up the bar rag. “No time long see.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You know how it is. Ruby—”
“Gosh,” Jake said, “that’s right. Not five minutes ago. Steve, your wife’s at the hospital, an’ you gotta get right over there. Mrs. Graham was in here.”
“I saw her.”
“You did?”
I nodded, and all the time the man in the suit, my pal, kept staring at Jake. Then he nudged me and straddled a bar stool. I went over and stood beside him. “Give me a beer, Jake,” I said, and then to my pal, “What’re you going to have?”
And he said, “Gin.”
Jake looked at him, then turned to me. “Figure you got time?”
I was thinking about Ruby and I didn’t answer. Then my beer came up and Jake reached back and got a bottle of gin and poured my friend a shot and stood there.
“Is that all right?” Jake said to the guy.
The guy ignored Jake and turned to me. “Drink up, pal.”
I took a swallow of beer, thinking about Ruby, and he tossed off his shot, shoved the glass toward Jake. Jake watched him a moment. “You want another?” Jake said.
The guy just looked at him.
Jake poured another.
“Listen, Jake,” I said. “You know that Luger of mine?”
“Sure, Steve.”
“Still want to buy it?”
“Well,” Jake said, watching the guy, “I dunno, Steve.”
I’d been wrestling with it, trying to get it out of my pocket. Finally I got it out and held it in my hand, looking at it. It looked fine, all right. Anybody with the barest interest in any guns at all would like the looks of this Luger.
“I got it right here with me,” I said. “Listen, Jake,” I said. “I’ll level with you. I need the dough and you want a good gun. This is a good gun. It’s been worked over by Benny Stock, the gunsmith over on Sixth Street. All you do is hold it in your hand and it does the rest.”
“You want another now?” Jake said to the guy who had tossed off his second shot.
The guy just looked
at him. Then he turned to me. “Say, pal,” he said, “what’s the matter with your friend?”
I looked at him and then at Jake and said, “Here, Jake, have a look. Wait, it’s loaded.”
“Out for bear?” Jake said.
“Just a second.” I dropped the clip and ejected the shell in the chamber. I handed the gun to Jake. All the time, my pal was watching.
“That’s a nice-looking gun,” my pal said.
“It’s a beaut.”
“Why you selling it, pal?”
“Broke.”
“Me too, pal.”
I looked at him, but he was watching the gun as Jake took it from my hand. Jake held the gun and looked at the guy beside me there at the bar and said, “You want another of that?”
The guy reached out and poured himself one, all the time watching Jake and never spilling a drop. Then he drank it.
“It’s a nice gun,” Jake said to me. “How much?”
“Thirty bucks.”
Jake hesitated.
“I’ll throw in some extra shells, too. Here.” I fished the box out of my pocket and plopped it on the bar beside the filled clip and the one extra.
“Wonder if she’ll fit in the cash drawer,” Jake said. He turned around and rang the register and began fumbling around with the drawer.
I looked at the guy beside me and he was watching the back of Jake’s head. His face was dead white and there was a pale film of perspiration covering it. His face looked as if it had been molded from white marble. It was a wax face. It was dead. Even his lips had no color at all. His hair was India-ink black and he wore it in a crew cut and the planed features of his face down to the slightly jutting jaw, with the cleft in it, looked as if it had been sliced clean of any roughness with a keen knife blade. It was smooth and hard and waxy-looking, just like death.
“I’ll give you twenty-five,” Jake said.
“All right.”
“Let’s see it,” the guy said.
Jake looked at him. Then he handed him the gun and turned back to the cash register. He turned and handed me two tens and a five.
“Take out for the drinks,” I said.
Jake took the five and gave me the change.
“Now,” Jake said, “do you want another?” He stood there, facing the guy. He tapped the bottle on the bar.
The guy just looked at him.
“What’s the matter?” Jake said. “Can’t you speak?”
“It’s a nice gun, pal,” the guy said, turning to me. He reached over in front of me and picked up the clip and jammed it into the gun.
“Give me the gun,” Jake said.
The guy just sat there looking at him.
The drunk down the bar leaned over our way and said, “That sure is a nice pretty nice where pretty nice see find out how play the game now where.” Then he turned back to his drink and laid his head down, then he lifted his head and said, “I’m alcoholic, will somebody buy me a beer?”
“Is Ruby all right?” Jake asked.
“I hope so.”
“You better get over there.”
“I am,” I said. “Right now.” I put the money in my pocket.
“Give me my gun,” Jake said to the guy.
The guy sat there. Then he grabbed the slide and whipped a shell into the chamber—smack—and sat there.
“I’m alcoholic,” the drunk down the bar said.
“That’s loaded now,” I said. “Be careful.”
The guy sat there and looked at Jake. Then he just tilted the barrel of the Luger on the edge of the bar and shot Jake Halloran in the head. The slug took Jake in the forehead, between the eyes, and went right on through and smashed the bar mirror.
Jake stood there a moment with both hands on the bar, holding a bar rag in his left hand. The two guys at the end of the bar ran for the back door fast. The woman in the booth with the man began screaming and scrabbling, trying to get out of the booth. Jake dropped like a rock. His chin hit the edge of the sink a hell of a crack and he tipped backward against the rear shelf where he kept the cigars. A box of cigars spilled out over his head and tumbled into his lap.
The woman ran past me, screaming, but the man who’d been in the booth with her stayed there, scrunched down. I was out on the floor, standing there, looking at the guy with the gun. He turned and stepped away from the bar stool, holding the gun on me, and walked toward me. His face was white and he wasn’t smiling. Then he grinned a little without really grinning and said, “Pal. My name’s Ralph Angers. What’s yours?”
Nothing came out, nothing. I wanted to run but I couldn’t move. I knew he would kill me or anybody just as easily as he had killed Jake Halloran. I was really scared. Out there someplace the woman was still screaming and you could tell she was running and it seemed as if the roar of the gun was still going on. Then it was silent.
“I’m alcoholic,” the drunk said.
“What’s your name, pal? We’re buddies now.”
“Steve Logan,” I heard myself say from way back there where nothing mattered, where this was not true, where all of this had never happened.
“You saved my life, pal. I must try hard never to forget that. I must try very hard never to forget that.”
A loose piece dropped out of the smashed bar mirror and tinkled down among the rows of bottles and finally shattered on the floor back there where Jake was.
Poor Jake….
Chapter Four
RALPH ANGERS turned and walked back bar. He picked up the green box of Czech cartridges and the one extra cartridge and put them in his coat pocket.
“Come on, pal,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We stood there looking at each other. His eyes were still the same. They showed nothing. There was no excitement, no fear, no regret, no friendship. Nothing. Sure, I thought of jumping him, trying to, anyway. But the thought vanished the instant it was born. I would die, that’s all. There would be no waiting.
“Did you know Jake?” I said.
He just looked at me. He said, “No. Come on, let’s go.”
There was a desperate edge to my voice. I tried to sound calm, but that taint of fear wouldn’t leave my voice.
I said, “My wife. I’ve got to get on over to the hospital.”
“She’ll keep, pal. We have important things to do.” He reached out and banged me on the shoulder with the gun. Then he seemed to notice for the first time that he was holding it. He glanced at it for a moment, then started to put it into his hip pocket, up under his coat.
Now, Logan, I thought. Now….
But he said, “No,” and brought it out again. He held it down along his leg.
“A gun is a wonderful thing,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We went out onto the street. There was nothing else to do. Back there the drunk still sat at the bar over his empty glass and the other man was down under the booth on the floor.
True realization of what had happened was slow in coming. It was all there. I knew what had happened, all right. But the true feeling of it inched up on me a little at a time.
“Here,” Angers said. “We’ll go down here.” He poked me with his elbow, toward an alley entrance. I glanced up the street. A cop was coming down the street with three or four pedestrians tagging along, but he didn’t seem to notice us, and then we were walking down the alley.
“I’ve got to get over to the hospital,” I said.
“Why?”
He had forgotten. It was an innocent question, spoken and as quickly erased from his mind.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
A small-winged horror came drifting down through the alley and brushed me lightly and vanished. My heart rocked. Just once, hard, my heart rocked, then it went on beating like always. Only after that I was never quite the same.
We walked on along the alley, through the cool garbage-smelling shadows, across the iron grates above the sewers. When we came out into the bright white glare of sunlight at the opposite end of the alley, w
e turned right.
“Where we going?” I said.
“Pal, I’m not sure.”
It was still noon as far as the city was concerned and few people were on the streets. It was quiet and unhurried over here, a block beyond death.
You could run, I thought. Run fast and hard. Who is he? What does he want? I’ve got to get over to Ruby. Somebody will see him with the gun, they’ll do something. There’ll be a cop who’ll see him with the gun. Where are they? When you want one, they’re never around. Go ahead and run, I thought. Find the answer to everything.
We passed doorways to stores, restaurants, where people talked and laughed in there beside the cool rush of fans. An occasional somebody walked by and one woman looked straight at the gun hanging at the end of his arm. She smiled at us, walking along, and he never looked at her. He made no move to hide the gun.
“Down here,” he said.
You’ve got to run, I thought. You’ve got to do something.
“Over across the street,” he said. “Come on, pal.” We crossed the street. He walked fast and it was very hot. We came across by a hardware store and started down another alley.
“Look,” I said. “I’ve really got to get over to the hospital.”
“Sure, pal.”
“My wife’s probably worrying herself sick because I haven’t shown up.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I could meet you later. Anyplace you say. Say in an hour or so? You name the place. It doesn’t matter.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“I mean, you could wait for me someplace.”
“We’ll see, pal.”
About halfway down the alley, he stopped and knocked my arm with the gun. “I don’t like to say this,” he said.
I nodded with the bright pale yellow-blue sky up there in a strip interlaced with fire escapes.
“But I’ve got to say it,” he went on.
“I’ve got to get to my wife,” I said. “I’ve got to see her. She’s worried. You see, she’s having a baby. It’s our first child and she’s expecting me at the hospital. You see,” I said, trying to reach him, talking with the words running out of my mouth just fine, “I wasn’t home when Ruby had to go. So it’s only natural she— I’m worried, too, Mr. Angers.”