Memory (Hard Case Crime)

by Donald E. Westlake

  He got lost for a while, because he’d never traveled the route in this direction before. He’d always gone to the tavern straight from work, and with one or more of the others from the crew. But after a while he saw the light ahead of him, and knew where he was again.

  There were a dozen or more people in the tavern, mostly at the bar, with only one booth occupied, and at first he didn’t see her, and he was afraid he’d taken too long and she’d gone home. But then her voice called his name, and he saw her in the dimness of the occupied booth, waving at him.

  The booth was already full. Buddy and Ralph were sitting on one side, and Ann Bellman was on the other side with Little Jack Flynn. Little Jack had his arm around her shoulders.

  He should have known. Of course she was already taken. He’d been thinking she would be alone, but that was foolish. This was her home town, she knew everyone here, she wouldn’t be alone. Only Cole was alone.

  He came over to the booth, and she said, “There you are. I figured you weren’t coming.”

  “I had to go home first,” he said.

  “Get a chair. Over there by the jukebox.”

  He went over and got a chair, and brought it back, and she’d left the booth, was standing at the bar. He put the chair down at the end of the booth and went over next to her at the bar, saying, “What are you doing?”

  “Buying you that beer.”

  He saw that George, the one-armed bartender, was already drawing two beers. He said, “You don’t have to buy me a beer. I’ll buy you one.”

  “Okay. Next round. This one’s mine.”

  “No it’s not.”

  But when George brought the beers, she said, “Don’t take his money, George,” and George took the bill she was holding out.

  Cole said, “I’ll buy the next round.”

  “Fine with me.”

  She got her change, and Cole carried the two glasses back to the booth. He felt depressed now, and the fantasies had all deserted his head. In just a few hours, he’d managed to idealize her somewhat; she didn’t look quite as good as the image of her he’d carried in here.

  Because he was depressed and disappointed, he didn’t have much to say. The others were talking about things that had happened in high school anyway, so there was nothing for him to do but listen. Most of the names they mentioned were strange to him. He drank his beer, pacing his own drinking to hers, so the two glasses were emptied at the same time, and then he bought a round. He thought he should buy a round for the whole table, but he didn’t think he could afford it, so he just bought two glasses, and came back to the table feeling somewhat embarrassed about it. But nobody else seemed to think he should have bought them a beer, so he forget about it and sank back into his depression.

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Little Jack’s arm around her shoulders, Little Jack’s hand squeezing her upper arm. Her arms were very thin, and her flesh was pale, as though she never got any sunlight. She looked as though she’d lived on nothing but Coke and white bread all her life. She was nothing for him to be depressed about, he told himself, but he was depressed about her anyway.

  He drank the second beer, and then got up to leave. She broke off the story she was telling—something that had happened at a high school football game, involving a teacher named Mister Bulmer—to look up at him and say, “You going already?”

  “I’m pretty tired,” he said.

  “You be around tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you,” she said.

  Little Jack and Buddy and Ralph said good night see you tomorrow, and he left. Walking home, he kept thinking about what she’d said at the end, and wondering about it. She hadn’t said a dozen words to him in particular all the time he’d been sitting there, and Little Jack’s arm had been around her always, and yet she’d acted at the end there as though she really did want to see him again, wanted him to come back tomorrow night.

  It would be a disappointment, he told himself. Another disappointment. She was just being friendly-polite, that was all. There was no point in going back again tomorrow night. Besides, he couldn’t afford it.

  But he went back anyway. He’d been thinking about it, off and on, all day watching television and all night at work, and at quitting time when Little Jack asked him if he was going up to the tavern he said yes, just for a little while. He’d have one beer, he told himself, just to see, and then he’d go on home.

  The tavern was more crowded than he’d ever seen it before, because it was Saturday night. The jukebox seemed louder than usual, and there were three or four couples trying to dance in the middle of the floor, and bumping into each other. They were doing the Twist or something.

  Ann was sitting in a booth with another girl, and Cole followed Little Jack over there. Little Jack said, “Sit down, I’ll take the first round,” and went away before Cole could tell him he was only going to have one beer, so he should buy his own. He shrugged, and decided he’d have two, buy Little Jack a round, and then go home.

  He sat down in the booth, facing the two girls, and Ann introduced the other one. Her first name was Edna, but he didn’t catch the last name because of the racket from the jukebox. Edna had the thinness and paleness of Ann, but her hair was a dry light brown, and her face was plain, neither ugly nor attractive. Her eyes were a light blue, and she seemed to stare a little bit, as though she should be wearing glasses. Cole, studying her, saw the telltale marks at the sides of her nose; she did wear glasses, but had left them off tonight in an attempt to look more beautiful.

  Little Jack came back with four beers, holding them all in a trembling bunch between his two thumbs. He set them down on the table, spilling a little, slid them to their four places like a rapid succession of checker moves, and grabbed Ann to come dance with him.

  Cole was left alone with Edna, but it didn’t bother him. He didn’t know her, so he didn’t have to feel as though it was necessary to talk with her. He sipped at his beer gloomily, thinking that he’d be expected to buy four beers when it was his round. It depressed him that he would spend sixty cents, and it depressed him more that sixty cents had to be such a large amount of money to him. He felt like a man grubbing in the dirt for roots to eat, when up on all the slopes happy families were sitting around picnics.

  Edna said, “You just moved to town, didn’t you?” It was said hesitantly, as though she hadn’t wanted to speak at all but had felt she ought to. And she’d had to shout, to be heard over the jukebox. Her voice was a little too high in pitch, so when she shouted it turned shrill.

  He said, “About two months ago.” Then he drank some more beer, to avoid having to say anything else.

  But now he was more aware of the silence, now that they’d both spoken, and he could see that the silence was embarrassing her, too, much more than him. He felt sorry for her embarrassment, and he managed a smile for her, to let her know the silence was all right.

  The smile encouraged her. Either that, or she’d taken all this long to think of something else to say. She said, “Do you like it here?”

  “It’s all right,” he said, but that sounded ungracious. “It’s nice,” he amended.

  “I’ve never been anyplace else. You’re from back East, aren’t you?”

  “Uh huh.” But now he too felt uncomfortable, and felt required to help with the conversation, so he added, “From Troy. That’s a town in upstate New York.”

  “Did you ever go to New York City?”

  “I lived there for a while,” he said, and was instantly sorry, because he knew that now she would ask him questions about New York City, and what could he say? That he couldn’t remember? How stupid that would sound. Grabbing quickly for something else to say, to change the subject before she could begin the questions, he asked, “Do you dance?” And that was no good, either, because he wasn’t even sure he danced. He thought he knew how, or maybe he’d known how but didn’t any more.

  But she said, “Not
the fast things,” and smiled apologetically. “I can dance to the slow songs,” she said. “Maybe they’ll play one later on.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you like New York?”

  “It was okay.”

  It started then, the questions about New York City, and he gave vague answers, peppered lightly with the few random facts he could find in his head. After a while Ann and Little Jack came back and sat down, and the conversation shifted to past history again, giving Cole a welcome break. He didn’t have to talk, and he didn’t have to listen.

  He bought his round when the time came, and then just sat and watched the faces. Little Jack’s face showed good-natured humorous competence. Ann’s face showed quick eagerness and confidence. Edna’s face showed apologetic appreciation and discomfort.

  After a while, a slow tune came on the jukebox, and Cole saw Edna looking at him with hopeful expectancy. He didn’t understand for a second, and then for a second longer he didn’t know what to do. Could he dance?

  He’d have to try, and hope for the best. He asked her, and she said yes, and they got up from the booth. The tavern was even more crowded now, and there were half a dozen couples moving slowly around the small open space in the middle of the room. Cole took the girl into his arms—the top of her head came about to his ear—and he discovered with relief that he could dance after all. It wasn’t a conscious movement; he danced the way he would light a cigarette or tie his shoelaces, with muscle memories rather than mental memories.

  She said, “You dance real good.”

  “You, too,” he said, though she wasn’t a very good dancer at all; sometimes he had to exert more pressure than was right, in order to get her to follow him. But it was still pleasant to do; pleasant to find himself capable of doing something from the earlier days, and pleasant to be this close to a girl.

  Her hair smelled medicinally of a dandruff shampoo, but her body felt amazingly fragile and delicate. She didn’t look beautiful, but she felt beautiful. He smiled softly to himself as they danced, with unaccustomed good humor.

  The record ended, and they waited expectantly during the interval of silence, standing close together without touching, but the next record was rock and roll, and Cole felt more irritated at it than he would have expected.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, and he saw she was embarrassed again.

  “Let’s do something about it,” he said. He took her hand, and led her around the periphery of the dancers to the jukebox. Her hand was damp, and cool. Feeling reckless—and feeling foolish to feel reckless over such a trifle—he put a quarter into the jukebox and punched the buttons for three slow tunes. “They’ll come on sooner or later,” he said, and they went back to the table, where Little Jack had bought another round.

  Time passed unnoticed. They sat at the table for a while, Cole silent again while the others talked about matters strange to him, and whenever a slow record played Cole danced with Edna, and from time to time either Cole or Little Jack bought more beer. Cole told himself to stop worrying about spending a couple of dollars on a good time; an occasional good time was as necessary as food and clothing.

  But then it was two o’clock, and George the bartender was telling them they had to go home. They went outside to the sidewalk and Little Jack said, “See you Monday.” His arm was around Ann’s waist. The two of them went walking off.

  Cole said, “Shall I walk you home?” He meant shall, not may; he wanted to know if it was expected of him.

  But she took it the other way. She smiled a little nervously, and said, “All right. I live this way.”

  They walked along in silence, Cole wondering if he should put his arm around her waist. But he decided he shouldn’t; he’d only met her tonight.

  After a block, she started talking about New York again, but this time not asking questions. She told him about movies she’d seen which had shown locations in New York, and articles in magazines about New York. She told him what she thought New York was, and it seemed that in her mind New York was an Emerald City for grownups. Cole answered with monosyllables, knowing her impressions were wrong but not remembering enough to be able to correct them, and not even sure that he should correct them if he could.

  “I live here,” she said finally, pointing to a house like all the other houses. It was like the Malloys’ house, except that the porch wasn’t enclosed.

  He walked her up to the stoop, and stopped there, saying, “It was nice to meet you, Edna. I guess I’ll see you there again.”

  “I guess so,” she said, and offered her nervous smile again. “I had a very nice time.”

  She wasn’t going up the stoop. She was just standing there in front of him, smiling up at him, and he knew she expected him to kiss her. He took her into his arms and kissed her, a longish kiss but with closed lips and no real passion. She put her arms around him, the two of them bulky together in their coats, and while he was kissing her he thought she was very frail and trusting and defenseless, and he felt protective toward her, tender toward her.

  He released her, and she whispered, “Good night, Paul.”

  “Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow night?” He said it simultaneously with the thought of it, without reflection; but didn’t regret it.

  “That’d be fine,” she said.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”

  “All right.”

  “Wait,” he said, and took out his pencil and the little notebook he carried these days, in which to jot anything he wanted particularly to remember. “You’d better give me the address here, so I won’t get lost.”

  “Three-twelve Lark Street.”

  He wrote it down, and then he asked her how to get to Charter Street from here, explaining that he was still new in town and didn’t know much of it. She told him, and then she went on up onto the porch and into the house and he headed off in the direction she’d pointed out.

  Worried thoughts about money were threatening to fill his head, but he held them at bay. “I’ve got to have some pleasure in life,” he told himself. “What am I, a prisoner?”

  He went on home, ignoring the worry, feeling relaxed and pleased. Edna was really a very nice girl. He’d been needing somebody anyway.

  He didn’t think of her in a sexual way at all, didn’t even debate his chances for getting anywhere with her sexually. It was simply companionship he was thinking of, somebody to sit next to.

  At home, he left himself a note on the bedroom door. PICK UP EDNA AT SEVEN O’CLOCK. ADDRESS IN WALLET. Then he went to bed.

  9

  He would only have till two o’clock with her, but he wanted to put his money away at home, and change his clothes, and wash his face and hands. Charter Street was only a couple of blocks out of the way, so he decided he could take the time; he went there from the tannery at a steady trot.

  It was Edna he was in a hurry to see. He had known her one day shy of two weeks, and in that time he had been with her four times. Twice he had taken her to movies, on two Sundays, and twice he had walked her home from the tavern, on two Saturdays. He kissed her as a matter of course now, and with pleasure. And when they walked together his arm was around her waist.

  People knew he had a girl, and they seemed pleased. Ann Bellman acted pleased for Edna’s sake, and Little Jack acted pleased for Cole’s sake. Mrs. Malloy knew he was going out on dates with a girl these Sunday nights, but she didn’t know who the girl was, and she was pleased for her own sake; it increased the slight area of resemblance between Cole and her older son.

  Tonight, he felt, was a new plateau in the relationship. Going to the tavern together on Saturday night, and the movies together on Sunday night, were all of a piece, a relationship hardly closer than that with Little Jack Flynn or Matt Malloy. But tonight would be different.

  Edna was babysitting. She had a regular job, days, at the five-and-dime on Western Avenue, at the stationery counter, but every once in a while she still babysat for her aunt and uncle, who had friend
s in a larger city across the state line, and liked to visit them from time to time. “They’re never back before two,” she’d told him. “They wouldn’t like it if you were there, but we don’t have to tell them. I’m just doing them a favor anyway, minding their old kids.”

  Trotting toward home, he wondered just how high this plateau was going to be. Would he go to bed with her tonight? The idea excited him more than he would have thought possible with this particular girl two weeks ago, but he had to admit to himself that it was unlikely. He’d never done more than kiss her goodnight, but that was at least partly because he’d never tried to do any more, and he’d never tried because his instinct had told him it would be a mistake. But tonight? They would be alone in a way they’d never been alone before. They’d never been alone indoors. In the movie or the tavern, there were other people around. They’d only been alone when he’d been walking her home.

  Tonight would be the first time he would kiss her without his coat on. And she without her coat on.

  It was very cold. His breath misted around his head as he ran. They day before yesterday there’d been slight snow flurries, and a strong wind. There hadn’t been enough snow for it to stick to the ground at all, but it was the first real warning of winter. It was the first week of December now; the television was full of commercials for Christmas presents. That was one thing he didn’t have to worry about. He’d be back in New York by Christmas.

  He got home and hurried up the stairs to his room, where the clock read ten minutes past twelve, so he’d cut five minutes from his usual homecoming time. The first thing he did was get his money out, and sort it on the bed. He had thirty-two dollars and seventeen cents, his usual pay, and he separated it into its three usual stacks; seventeen dollars in one pile, to be given Mrs. Malloy tomorrow, and ten dollars in the second pile, to go with the nine dollars already saved in the dresser drawer, and five dollars and seventeen cents in the third pile, his expense money for the following week.