Shabby Street

by Orrie Hitt

  “I said before that I knew your kind. You’re brutal. You don’t care. You’d do anything.”

  I let that one go and finished my drink. The place was beginning to fill up, the early evening crowd pushing up to the bar and having a fast one before going to the movies.

  “Where were we?” Cynthia Noxon asked.

  “You just finished telling me your life history. And I didn’t make a nickel out of it.”

  She laughed and it sort of frightened me, just as it had before.

  “You’re going to have your office here in town, Johnny?”

  “No,” I said. “Waymart. That’s only fifteen miles away.”

  “But it’s a smaller place.”

  “That’s my business, I think.”

  She shrugged.

  “It doesn’t make much difference, I guess.”

  “No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”

  It made a hell of a difference. I couldn’t set up an office in town, right near-by, and start hiring agents and throwing Connors’ money into something that didn’t belong to him. I could borrow twenty-five thousand or so from him — interest free and without his knowledge — and it wouldn’t bother anybody if they didn’t know about it.

  “There’s one thing you have to understand,” she said. “We don’t pay any more claims than we have to.”

  “You’re not telling me anything new; I read one of your policies.”

  “It’s a limited policy, you know.”

  I grinned.

  “Limited to damn few accidents and sicknesses.”

  “What do they want for twenty dollars a year?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If they don’t want to get hurt, or sick, the way the policy says, that’s their business.”

  “We’re going to get along,” she said. “We won’t have any trouble at all.”

  “Not if the commission scale is right. And the renewals.”

  An agent knocks himself out to make first year commissions, but that isn’t the most important part of the business. It’s the dough you get after the first anniversary, year in and year out and without doing any work for it, that counts.

  “Forty and twenty-five,” she said. “You can set up your own scale for your agents. In addition to that, there’s an additional charge to the policyholder the first year — three dollars, making the whole thing twenty-three — and that you can keep or pass on to the writing agent.”

  “That’s three bucks they’ll never see,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I will.”

  I dug out a mental tape and let the cash register in my head go to work. If I paid the agents twenty percent first year commission, that would leave me five bucks, plus the three, or a total of eight. If each agent could sell two a day — and a good talker ought to do five or six — I could make myself a fast dollar. Renewals were something else again but I should be able to give them ten and that would leave me fifteen.

  “They’ll never know what hit them,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The jerks up here in the sticks. They’ll go for this Provider policy like I was driving them out of the hills with a scatter gun.”

  “There’s other people in the business, too, you know.”

  “Not here,” I said. “Not with the kind of crap you’ve got. Not the kind of policy that promises you the world for peanuts and then slaps you flat on your face when you start grabbing. The Met and the Pru pound on their drums once in a while, but they have good stuff and they charge for it. Besides, a lot of these miners around here — they work in the lead mines and some other place where they dig lime — can’t qualify for regular protection. Then, we’ve got a lot of colored people around and they buy this stuff by the pound.”

  She nodded and gave me a big smile.

  “You’ve studied it out.”

  “Sure.”

  “All I say is God help them, Johnny!”

  We laughed about that and had another drink. I felt good. This was the road into the promised land and it was all green lights ahead. Connors was over in Europe poking around in the rubble of World War II and I had my hands in his money up to my wrists. This chick across from me had a plan of legalized robbery that would get me in the habit of running to the bank twice a day. She had the body of a goddess and the heart of a reptile and she wouldn’t give a damn what I did.

  “How much is this singer going to cost me?” I wanted to know.

  “One-fifty a week.”

  “Tell her to drop dead.”

  “Look, Johnny,” she began, leaning across the table. The top of her blouse flopped out, hanging open, and I didn’t bother looking at her face. “There’s something you’ve got to learn about this dodge — a lot you’ve got to learn. One of them is that you’ve got to advertise. Having somebody on the radio is one way of doing it — but that somebody has to be right. She is. She sings these knuckle-head songs that are liked by the kind of people you’ll have to do most of your business with. Myself, I don’t like ‘You, You, You,’ or any of that slop. But the public does, Johnny. And the public buys our policies. You’ve got to cater to them.”

  “I guess I see what you mean.”

  “You’d have to hire someone,” she insisted. “Up here you’d only get the kind of talent that ought to be lugging a broom. This girl is tops, Johnny. She’s had plenty of experience on the radio, played in a couple of movies and even did a stint in burlesque.”

  “What’s she want to come up here in the sticks for?”

  “Like a lot of girls, she took them off once too often.” Cynthia lit a cigarette and leaned back, studying me. “She thought she’d like to calve up here in the hills.”

  “How nice.”

  “But that’s six or seven months off. In the meantime, she can do you lots of good.”

  “She can’t do me any good,” I said.

  “Stop being filthy.”

  We talked some more about the singer and she told me how much the girl had helped their sales when she’d been slamming her tonsils against a mike for them. I finally told her I’d go along with it. What the hell, she only cost one-fifty a week and it wasn’t my money, anyway.

  The waiter returned with some more drinks. We’d been there long enough so that he knew our schedule and he didn’t bother asking any more. He just made regular stops, like a train, and we took on some more cargo. The steak had been good and I didn’t feel the whiskey very much, but this Noxon dame was rocking at the heels and her face was getting plenty wild.

  “You staying over tonight?” I wanted to know.

  She gave me a silly smile.

  “If I was, you’d be the last one I’d tell, Johnny.”

  I thought about my old man and what he’d said and how wrong he’d been. He’d said a guy ought to just lay ‘em and pay ‘em. I’d found out that he was only fifty percent right. Half the time you didn’t have to shell out a nickel.

  “Maybe we could do the town,” I said.

  “Un-uh. With me, it’s strictly business.”

  “Okay. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “I know what I’m missing.”

  The waiter made another stop, but she waved him off. We talked about the contract and when would be the best time to sign it. We decided on her office in New York because I’d have to drive down for supplies and stuff like that.

  We were just getting up when I saw Julie and this guy coming from the back on their way outside. I’d never seen this Dooder she’d been talking about but I guessed it to be him. He was a big guy with a workingman look and a red face beneath sandy-colored hair. He was staggering some and she pushed him off, saying something to him, and he laughed. They went outside without seeing us.

  “One for the road?” I asked, stopping at the bar.

  “Okay.”

  We had a quick one and she said her car was down the street, past the movies.

  “If you want to stay here,” she said, “that’s okay.”

&nbs
p; “I can always come back.”

  “I wouldn’t go so early, only I want to drive home yet tonight.” She stifled a yawn and patted her hair into place. “Frankly, I’m getting tired of working seven days a week.”

  “You must be crazy after money.”

  “Who isn’t?”

  We finished our drinks and wandered outside. The first show crowd was spilling out of the theatre up the street, scattering along the darkened store fronts lining the block.

  “Most places the shops stay open Friday nights,” she said, taking my arm.

  “Not this berg. They don’t know when it’s Friday.”

  We walked slowly, stumbling over kids with popcorn, pushing around groups of chattering women who were stacked together like bunches of sour grapes.

  “I thought they censored the pictures,” one old bag was saying. “But did you see the way that one girl walked? Disgraceful!”

  I looked at the sign over the theatre. The picture was Niagara. I gave the sidewalk critic another glance. She had the sex appeal of a totem pole set full length in concrete.

  We were almost past the alley when I heard someone cry out from the shadows. I stopped real quick, bringing Cynthia Noxon up short, and stood there listening. After I heard it again I went over to the mouth of the alley.

  There was a light down there, maybe fifty feet away, and I could see a couple of shadows moving around. One looked like a girl and the other like a man but I couldn’t be sure at that distance. Then one of the figures fell down, the other jumped on top of it and there was a muffled scream.

  “I’ll see you next week in New York,” Cynthia Noxon said as I pushed into the alley.

  “Okay.”

  I found the two bodies tangled up in a bunch of old lettuce leaves in back of a fruit store. They were deep in the gloom and I couldn’t see well enough to tell what was going on. The man was on top and he was swearing and breathing hard and the girl underneath was crying a little and praying a lot.

  I reached down and pulled the guy to his feet.

  “Hey, here, now — ”

  I recognized him right away and I hit him just as quick. It wasn’t a real solid punch, just a left alongside his molars, but it turned him around and put him on the other side of the alley.

  “For God’s sake, Julie!” I said, reaching down to pick her up. “You’re a big girl now.”

  And, then, I saw how her face was bloody and scratched and the way her dress was torn, letting one breast thrust up at me, naked and red, like it was growing out of the ground.

  “Oh, Johnny, don’t let him near me!” she begged. “Don’t let him near me!”

  I was helping her up when he came up behind me and hit me with the board. I knew it was a board because I could hear it break across the top of my head. My skull sunk in two inches and then jumped out four leaving nothing but pain and a lot of colors. He called me a four letter word and corked me one over the kidneys as I put her back down real easy, like she was going to break.

  He was a big guy and he was crazy mad but he didn’t know what he was up against. He didn’t figure on me thinking, all in one second almost, how I’d chased her, too, trying to make a home run and how lousy and cheap it looked right then. I thought of her and the kid and the decent way she tried to live. I thought of Clarke Street and a girl named Janet and how Julie was a symbol of what Janet wanted to be. I thought of a rich guy and his daughter and how good the girl felt she was simply because she was thoughtful enough to ask a man into her bed. And I thought of a fast talker named Cynthia Noxon, but I didn’t spend much time on her. I was busy thinking of something else. I was thinking about this in the alley and what the girl down there meant to me and how I’d have to do everything to make myself right for her.

  I ripped around, keeping low, and the red poured down over my eyes. He swung the board again and I took it out of his hand and threw it off into the blackness. He moved backwards, bent down like a crab, trying to get his hands onto something else.

  “You lousy bastard!”

  In the army I had prayed to kill men and now I prayed not to kill. I could hear her crying, low and soft and I could hear people shouting as they came running down the alley. But the only thing I could see was this guy’s white face and the way he kept low to the ground, backing up.

  “You can only go so far,” I said. “After that you’re finished.”

  I saw his hand go into his pocket and I saw it come out again. He put his hand down to the ground, moving it around, like he had a switch blade and he was testing it to see if it was open.

  I rushed him.

  The knife raced across my ribs, slicing the flesh, but I had his wrist before he could work it around and into my belly. He was strong and he held me for a second but I crotched him with my knee and he let out a groan. I took his wrist down and back and kept on going with it. He started to scream like a horse caught in a fire. He stopped screaming when his wrist snapped. He didn’t try to bother me any more after that.

  I pushed between the silent kids and the white faced men and women and went over to her. She stood off to one side and she’d pulled her dress together in some way. She came into my arms and held on tight.

  “Don’t cry, baby,” I said. “Don’t cry at all.”

  But she did and I had to wait until she was finished.

  “Why are men such brutes, Johnny?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She shuddered and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Thanks, Johnny.”

  A cop came along and pried us apart. He had a notebook and he asked me my name, a few other questions and then said we’d both have to appear in local court on Monday morning. We told him we’d be there and he started yelling at the people to clear out of the alley.

  They all went except five. The cop. The misfit lying in a stupor on the ground. Julie. Me. And a fireball named Beverly Connors.

  “How was the movie?” I asked her, stupidly.

  Her high heels kicked up about nine dollars worth of public property.

  “Busy!” she sneered. “You big clown!”

  The cop told her to shut up but she didn’t listen to him.

  “I hope you stay busy,” she said. She swung away, then turned quickly to face Julie. “Common slut!” she spat.

  I watched her go up the alley. I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “The girl’s in love with you,” Julie said.

  I thought about that.

  “Maybe.”

  “I know it,” she said. “That’s what makes a woman hate so much.”

  I thought about it some more. I also thought about my job and the deal I had cooking and a couple of other things. I hoped that Julie was right.

  She’d damn well better be right.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Stop Thief

  LESS THAN A WEEK later I broke ground in Waymart. I rented office space over a liquor store, threw in a truck-load of snappy new furniture and sat down to wait. Three hours after the local paper hit the streets I started signing up agents. They liked what they saw — but they didn’t know what they were getting.

  “You sure ask a lot of questions,” one guy said.

  He was right. In the first place I wouldn’t touch anybody who hadn’t previously been licensed to sell accident and sickness insurance with a nine foot contract. In New York state an agent has to have a slip of paper that says he knows what he’s doing. He has to pass an examination to get it. And I wasn’t running any educational program. I was out for blood.

  I nailed six of them that first day. They ate up that fifty-dollar-a-week drawing account and the “liberal” first year commissions. I gave them their first week’s pay, in advance, when they signed up and I handed them a bunch of applications to fill out on the way home. They were so damned stupid that they didn’t even, bother to read their contracts. They didn’t know that the drawing account was only an advance and if they didn’t write enough business to cover it they’d be finished at the
end of four weeks. They also didn’t bother to read the print where I took a chattel on everything they owned so that I could get back whatever might be due me. They were suckers. Like the jerks they were going out to sell. Like most people who want to get something for nothing.

  They could go to hell.

  I had supper in a fish joint down the street but the food was lousy and I didn’t feel like eating anyway.

  I stopped at the pay phone on the way out and called the Connors office. Julie answered.

  “Hi, baby!”

  I’d been giving her that baby stuff ever since that night in the alley but it hadn’t done me any good.

  “Hello, Johnny.”

  I still had a sore spot across my ribs, where the knife had dug in. I wondered if Dooder’s wrist felt as good. He’d blown town right after the fracas and he hadn’t shown in court. They hadn’t even told me not to do it again.

  “How’s it going, baby?”

  “Terrible!”

  “You’re working late.”

  “I can’t balance, Johnny. I’ve been over the agent’s stuff for the last couple of days and — ”

  She went on talking, almost crying, saying how there was something wrong and she couldn’t find it. I started to sweat, cursing myself because I’d stuck her on the books. I’d told her just to put down what she saw, not worry about balancing them, and now she was doing it all backwards. She was checking.

  “Look,” I said. “Wrap it up for tonight. I’ll get at it in the morning and fix it up.”

  “Well, if you say so, Johnny. I’ve got a woman with the baby and — ”

  “Great! I’ll pick you up at your house in a couple of hours and we’ll buzz out into the country.”

  She was silent for so long that I thought she’d hung up.

  “How about that, Julie?”

  “Thanks, no,” she said. “Not tonight, Johnny.”

  I tossed the receiver at the phone and walked out. I cut across the street, looking up at the sign in the office window. The Family Protective Insurance Company. A fortune at the end of a sure shot chance.

  I went up the stairs and kicked the door open. I went inside and stopped.

  “Well,” I said. “How do you like this?”