Savage Streets

by William P. McGivern

  Detweiller’s feet clattered on the stairs. Farrell stood in the open door gulping in the cold damp air, the wind whipping his flushed face. He looked down at Jerry’s sprawled body, and rubbed a hand over his forehead.

  Norton was still holding Cleo. She was no longer struggling.

  “I’ve got my car,” Norton whispered to Farrell. “You go on. We can’t leave together. Go on, beat it.”

  Farrell went slowly up the stairs, moving like an old man and tasting the salty bite of blood on his lips. At the top, with one hand on the iron railing, he almost stumbled and fell; the light below him had winked out, and in the sudden darkness he nearly lost his footing. For an instant he rested, breathing with care. The street was still empty, the wind battering noisily against garbage cans set out on the curbing. Farrell straightened himself with an effort and went slowly across the wet street to his car.

  Chapter Ten

  He received a call from Norton the following afternoon. “Is it okay to talk on this line?” Norton asked in a guarded voice. “You know what I mean?”

  Farrell was in his office. “Yes, it’s okay,” he said and lit a cigarette. He had lived with a cold feeling of guilt since last night and he suspected he wouldn’t shake it for a long time. Norton’s cautious tone, conspiring and anonymous, sharpened the feeling.

  “Are you okay?” Norton asked him.

  “Sure, I’m fine,” Farrell said. There was a strip of adhesive tape over his left eye covering a lumpy discoloration; it was the only evidence of the fight. “What’s on your mind?”

  “There wasn’t anything about it in the papers,” Norton said. “I went through all of them carefully. That means he didn’t go to the police, I guess. There would have been something in the papers if he’d reported it. Isn’t that right, John?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It’s all over then, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Farrell said wearily.

  “I mean, well, there won’t be any trouble about it — it’s over and done with.”

  “I just don’t know.” Farrell looked out at a slate-gray sky. Was it all over? Something was finished and done with, but Farrell didn’t know what it was. He had talked to Barbara at the hospital this morning and it had been like talking to a stranger.

  “John?” Norton recalled him to the present.

  “Yes?” Farrell said.

  “Look, here’s why I called,” Norton continued. “Janey’s mother is at our house and I told them to go ahead and have dinner without me. I told them not to wait. I said I had some work to catch up with.” He laughed nervously. “That’s true enough, but I don’t feel like working tonight. Do you have time for a drink? I... I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Yes, I guess so,” Farrell said. In his brief talk with Barbara there had been no mention of dinner; Jimmy was staying with the Wards and Barbara would probably eat at the hospital with Angey. Farrell was sick of his own thoughts. He was glad to talk to anyone. “Around five-thirty, okay? Do you know Ragoni’s? It’s on Forty-fifth around the comer from Third.”

  “I can find it. Thanks, John. I’ll see you at five-thirty.”

  Ragoni’s was a current favorite of the TV and advertising crowd, celebrated for its Martinis and pastas; with a canopied entrance, black and silver décor, and comfortable red leather banquettes it was indistinguishable from fifty similar restaurants in the East Forties. Farrell gave his hat and coat to a smiling hat-check girl, said hello to Max Ragoni and took a stool at the end of the bar. He ordered Scotch on the rocks.

  Norton came in a few minutes later and looked around the room, blinking his eyes. He removed his hat and coat with a certain reluctance, as if he weren’t sure of getting them back. Then he saw Farrell and smiled with quick relief. He took the stool beside him and said, “First time I’ve ever been here.” The smile was still on his lips, fixed and white. “The cab driver knew about it though. I started to tell him the address and he said, ‘Buddy, if I had a buck for every fare I delivered to Ragoni’s I could retire.’” He caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a Martini. “He was a character. The cab driver, I mean. He told me something pretty interesting. He said tips didn’t mean half as much as lots of people think. It’s getting people on short hauls, that’s where the money is. Because of the twenty-five cents that registers when he throws the flag down. That’s pretty much gravy if the fare is just going a few blocks.” Norton glanced around, and then took a long swallow from his Martini. “This is a nice place. Do you eat here all the time?”

  “Once or twice a week as a rule. The ravioli is good, and Max makes bouillabaisse on Fridays.”

  “That’s a fish stew, isn’t it? I’ll have to try it some time.”

  “It’s very good.”

  “How do you feel about last night?” Norton said abruptly. Without waiting for Farrell to answer he went on in a low, tense voice: “It’s nothing to be worried about, John. It’s over, of course. If he intended to report it to the police he would have done it by this time. They knew they had it coming. I was just wondering how you felt, that’s all.” He finished his drink and signaled the bartender. “How about you, John? Ready?”

  Farrell pushed his empty glass across the bar. “Why not? And since you ask, I feel like hell about last night.”

  Norton was silent then, staring at the backs of his well-cared-for hands. “That’s funny,” he said at last. “I mean I guess I should feel that too. But I don’t. That makes me pretty much of a heel, I suppose.”

  “People react differently,” Farrell said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worrying about it,” Norton said. “I’m not worried at all. That’s strange, isn’t it?” He lifted his second drink. “Well, here’s mud in your eye, or whatever they say in this place.”

  “Mud in your eye will do as well as anything else,” Farrell said.

  “God, I hate those corny toasts, don’t you? I lunch every now and then with one of our vice presidents, and he always says: ‘Here’s to all good Democrats — the dead ones.’ Then he laughs as if he’d just said it for the first time.” Norton shook his head. “I’m a Democrat but that wouldn’t occur to him, I suppose.”

  Norton seemed to be in a hurry to get tight, Farrell thought; he was taking his second Martini in deliberate swallows, grimacing a bit, but finishing it off as if he were in a drinking contest. It was an incongruous role for him to be playing. He looked a prototype of respectability in his dark suit and tightly knotted tie; his neatly handsome features, as a rule politely and gravely devoid of expression, scarcely suggested a potential of compulsive or reckless behavior. Farrell realized that he had never seen Norton behave with abandon. Until now, Farrell thought, amending his judgment as Norton called for a third drink.

  “Those aren’t salted peanuts,” he said. “Those are Martinis.”

  “I’m all right,” Norton said, smiling quickly at him. “I just want to relax, ease up a little. Don’t you ever feel like doing that?”

  “Sure,” Farrell said.

  “Don’t worry, I’m all right,” Norton said. He shifted closer to Farrell to make room for a group of men standing beside him. The place was filling up and the air was thick with laughter and smoke and the clatter of ice and glasses. It was a friendly hiatus for most of the drinkers, one that reduced the tensions of the day and prepared them for the train ride to the suburbs. Occasionally this relaxing interval ended in disaster; in the exegesis of office gossip the last quick one for the road could easily become two or three, and finally trains would be missed, dinners turn cold in far-away homes, and as alibis were constructed and phone calls made, the friendly atmosphere would curdle with the flavor of guilt and wifely disapproval. But everyone was betting that this wouldn’t happen to him, and this lent spice to the game; it wasn’t illicit drinking, but it might well turn into that, and at the instant of judicial equipoise it seemed a way of having the best of both worlds.

  “I’m not going to get loaded, don’
t worry about that,” Norton said, and Farrell saw that a nerve or muscle was twitching at the comer of his mouth. “You don’t know me very well, I guess,” Norton went on, watching Farrell with narrowing eyes, as if trying to guess his thoughts. “You don’t know me at all, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Isn’t that right?”

  “I guess no one ever knows all about another person,” Farrell said.

  “That’s what I mean,” Norton said quickly. “You may think you know a person pretty well, but actually you don’t. Do you understand what I mean? We all act the way we want people to think we are. Isn’t that it?” He finished his drink and moved the glass across the bar. “Look, John, I called you because I had to talk to somebody, and this may come as a surprise to you, but I respect you as much as any man I’ve ever known. As God is my judge, I respect you. And I respect your wife and children. Did you know that, John?”

  The Martinis were taking effect, Farrell saw, eating through the protective layers of reserve and circumspection. “Well, I appreciate that,” he said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “You’re an older man than I am, and I respect your judgment,” Norton said. “That’s not just being polite, John. That’s the absolute truth.”

  Farrell nodded and sipped his drink.

  “You don’t know anything about me, John,” Norton said insistently. “You as much as admitted that, didn’t you? So you’re going to be shocked as the devil at what I’m going to tell you.” He turned to face Farrell, and there was suddenly a look of pain about his eyes that lent significance to his prediction. He had already drunk half of his fourth Martini, but Farrell realized that he wasn’t drunk; his face was pale and a strand of dark hair hung over his forehead, but the liquor had not yet touched the core of his personality.

  “Well, I’ll try not to be shocked,” Farrell said.

  “I’ve never been sorry for anybody or anything in my life,” Norton said. “Doesn’t that shock you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, listen. I’ll tell you something about myself. Since last night I’ve been going through hell. Not because of what happened, not for a second. But about why I was never sorry for anybody or anything.” Norton took a deep breath. “It’s because I’m a heel, that’s why, John. I’m no good, no good at all.”

  “We all get to thinking that at times,” Farrell said. “It’s probably a healthy sign. Anyway, I feel rotten about last night too.”

  “Just listen, I want to tell you something about me,” Norton said, gripping Farrell’s arm. “First of all, you know Janey. She’s the most wonderful girl in the world, you’ve got to believe that. If you saw her with Junior, taking care of him, reading to him, molding him into — into...” He sighed and fumbled for a cigarette. “I can’t explain it very well. You’ve just got to take my word for it, John.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “I was certain you’d understand, John. That’s why I’m telling you this. I respect you more than anybody I’ve ever known. But I’m a bastard. You’ve got to realize that.”

  “You’re just in a bad mood,” Farrell said. “It will pass.”

  “No, listen: it’s nothing like that. Janey and I got married when we were pretty young. She was twenty-one, I was twenty-four. Well, she came from a different background than I did. I don’t mean she had money, but her family was different. Her father taught English in high school, and her mother was a lovely person, like Janey is. The way they talked to one another, the way they read books and listened to music, the whole way they lived was different. They always set the table as if it was for company. I mean, even when it was just themselves, they lived nicely. What I’m trying to explain,” Norton said, articulating with a painful effort, “is that it was natural to them, it wasn’t an act or anything like that. It was all peaceful and beautiful. That’s one side.” He frowned and stared at his glass. “What was the other? Oh, yes.” The frown faded and he smiled bitterly. “We were the other side. My family. We were decent, honest people, mind you, but we were different from the Schuylers — that was Janey’s family name. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Farrell said.

  “It’s funny, you live practically next door to people and you don’t know the wife’s family name. If you don’t mind my asking, John, what was Barbara’s family name?”

  “Walker.”

  Norton stared at the surface of the bar and Farrell saw the muscle twitching at the comer of his mouth. “I don’t know why I asked you that,” he said. “I don’t usually ask people personal questions.”

  “Maybe we could leave this for another time,” Farrell said. “We should be getting home.”

  “No, I want to finish,” Norton said. “Please let me finish, John.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “The trouble started after we were married,” Norton said. “I worked for a bank in Chicago, and we took an apartment on the South Side not far from where my family lived. That was the big mistake, I guess. My father had been dead a long time and there was just mother and my two older brothers. They were different from me. They didn’t finish high school, and they got kind of down-to-earth jobs, I guess you could call them. One was a clerk at Montgomery Ward’s, Monkey Ward, he called it, and the other found himself a place with a company that supplied automobile parts to retailers.”

  Norton rubbed his forehead. “They played softball at night in the street, grown-up men, mind you. They put on sweat shirts and caps after work and played baseball in the street. When it got dark they went to a tavern on Seventy-third Street and drank beer with their buddies. They never got married, they just drifted along like they were still kids, paying board and room to my mother and occasionally going off on a fishing trip for a week-end. Am I making this clear, John? Do you see what I mean?”

  “They had things under pretty good control, I’d say. What was the trouble?”

  “I was ashamed of them,” Norton said, meeting Farrell’s eyes with an obvious effort. “Now listen; after I got married they got in the habit of dropping in at night on Janey and me. Just dropping in, you understand. They’d never call and ask us if we were busy or having friends in or anything like that. The doorbell would ring and they’d walk in — well, like they belonged there. They’d talk about baseball and watch television and maybe have a beer or two, that’s all. My older brother used to always explain that wrestling matches were all fixed.” Norton shook his head. “Maybe he told us that a thousand times, I don’t know. Maybe it was more. They behaved all right, in their way, but they wouldn’t call before they came over, they just wouldn’t, John. It wasn’t their fault, they didn’t know any better, you see. Janey...” Norton gulped down his drink. “Well, Janey put up with it for a long time. She’s got the patience of an angel, I’ll say that any time. But finally she suggested — suggested, John, she didn’t tell me — she just suggested that I tactfully ask them to phone us before they stopped in. But I couldn’t do it.” Norton pounded his fist softly on the bar. “I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell my brothers that. They wouldn’t have understood. My oldest brother, that’s Ernie, was my hero when I was a little kid. How could I tell him? And my other brother, well if you knew him he was the sweetest guy in the world. He was so generous he never thought about himself. And I was ashamed of them, John, but I knew Janey was in the right. Can’t you see what hell it was?”

  “Yes, I understand,” Farrell said. Norton wasn’t exaggerating, he knew; it would be hell, all right; not the big, well-publicized sort of hell that writers made dramas of, but a quiet little hell, almost funny in its smallness, its insignificance. But just as unendurable as the bigger ones.

  “I counted on you, John,” Norton said, with a shy and ghastly smile. “You know I respect you — you must know that now. One evening Janey and I asked her father and mother for dinner. And two couples from the bank. It was like Janey’s mother’s home almost, the kind of thing I’d always wanted. You know what
I mean? The men kept their coats on during dinner, and we had coffee in the living room afterward. Well just then the doorbell rang and my brothers walked in. They’d been playing baseball and they just decided to drop in for a beer. They didn’t have the brains to see it was a special party. They made themselves at home and kidded me about having coffee in the living room — like I was trying to high-hat them or something. They meant it to be funny, I know, but that was the end. I was mad, and so was Janey. The next day I went to see them and I told them how things had to be from now on. About calling in advance, I mean.” Norton sighed wearily. “There was a fight. They laughed at me. Said I was stuck-up, said that Janey’s mother was a snob — she hadn’t been very friendly to my mother before the wedding, you see, and they raked that up, bringing up everything that was cheap and dirty...” Norton’s voice trailed away and he stared blankly at Farrell. “I never saw them after that. I haven’t seen them to this day. They don’t even know where I live. I never wrote to them after I moved to New York.”

  “Well, they’re probably as sorry about it as you are,” Farrell said.

  “Ernie was my hero,” Norton said. “He used to give me money. Even when I was too little to know the difference between coins. He’d give me a penny and a nickel and a dime, so I’d have one of each. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

  “Yes, it was,” Farrell said, and nodded to the bartender for a check.

  “I was never sorry about it,” Norton said, in a blurred, hopeless voice. “I was never sorry about anything until last night. Nobody can be that bad and hope to be forgiven. Isn’t that true, John? I respect you. Tell me the truth.”

  Farrell paid for their drinks. “We can talk it over on the train,” he said.

  “Will you tell me on the train, John? How I can be forgiven, I mean?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Why was I never sorry, John?”

  “Give me your hat check. We’ve got a nice long ride to talk things over.”