Crowley loafed around Broadway for a couple of hours, and then dropped by a photographic agency to see if there were any calls for muscle models. When he found there weren’t, he turned up Jacobs Beach and went to Stillman’s Gym. He didn’t like to spend the half a buck they charged to watch the sparring, but he went in anyway. Boxers were men, rough guys like himself. They had hairy chests and hairy hands and they knew how to hit and cut and hurt.
He watched the sparring in several rings, watched heavy-shouldered men with broken faces pound their gloved fists into weighty bags. That’s what I want, he thought. I want to smash. I take care of myself. I lead a good, clean life. My body’s made for smashing.
He remained in the gym for several hours, breathing in the mingled odors of stale sweat and stale smoke and rubbing alcohol and liniment, hearing the steady thud of cushioned fists that plummeted into leather bags and human flesh with the peculiarly rhythmic and insistent sound of dark hands beating jungle drums.
It was late afternoon when he reached the street. He decided to have an early dinner. He went to a Riker’s Restaurant and sat at a counter and paid a dollar sixty-five for a T-bone steak, potatoes, salad and milk. His money was rapidly disappearing, but he thought he needed the steak. Steak gave you strength. Fighters always had a steak a few hours before they went into the ring, he’d heard.
He was restless as he left the restaurant. He was quivering inside with a kind of excited anticipation. It was almost evening now. Soon he would go down to the Village and find the woman who would supply the money to pay the rent. But he hardly thought about the money or the rent he owed. He thought about what he was going to do to the woman.
He was breathing heavily when he went into his stuffy little room. He raised the window that the maid had lowered. He paced the floor, hearing the animal sound of his own breathing and the screech and hum of the city outside the window.
He picked up one of the paperback books and lay down on the bed. He skipped a good deal of it because he’d read it before, but he read the part about a guy branding a girl with a red-hot poker. He branded her with a double-cross because she’d framed a pal of his for murder. The story excited Crowley. He read the part again, his lips moving. There was a picture of the girl on the jacket of the book. She was young and red-mouthed and full-bosomed. But Crowley thought of her as being middle-aged, an old bag trying to find a strong young man. I could do that, he kept telling himself. That stuff with the hot poker. I could do that.
The room was cool but he was sweating. There’s something inside me, he thought. It’s got to break. He caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror. His big fists were clenched tight. He was biting his lower lip. His body was rigid.
Jesus, he thought, I’ve got to smash.
He began to tremble with excitement. When he’d started out this afternoon it had been strictly business, solely a matter of dollars and cents. But now it was something different. I’ve got to get one tonight, he told himself. It’s not just the money. I’ve got to pound one with my fists. He kept thinking about the guy branding the woman. It would be a hell of a kick, he thought. I could brand my initials on one of ’em. I could do it easy.
4.
It was after eight o’clock when Crowley finally walked out into the night to start his prowl. He started downtown on foot. It took him nearly an hour to reach the Village, walking fast. The first bar he went into was on Sheridan Square. There was nothing there for him. Collegiate-looking kids, laughing too loudly, a few characters in beards and berets to give atmosphere to the place.
He stopped in two bars on West Fourth Street. Each was crowded and filled with raucous sound and swirling smoke. Their patrons were the self-conscious bohemians, the men in corduroy jackets and baggy pants, the girls in smocks or blue jeans, chattering about matters Crowley did not understand.
He tried a bar on Sixth Avenue, and then another. He hardly paused in either place. They were filled with working-class men.
His eagerness was mounting unbearably now. It had never been like this before, he thought.
He passed a brownstone walk-up, saw the girl a few steps back in the dimly-lighted foyer, and almost passed on before he realized what she was doing. She was standing with her back to the door, leaning over, adjusting her stockings. A small purse lay on the floor beside her feet.
Crowley moved almost without conscious thought. He looked both ways, saw that no one was watching him, glanced again into the foyer to make certain the girl was alone, and then opened the door silently and crossed the floor to her in three noiseless steps. Just as he reached her, she dropped her skirt and straightened up and started to turn. His fist caught her just beneath the ear.
The girl went down without a sound and lay there, jerking a little. Crowley studied her for a second, and then, certain she was out, dumped the contents of her purse on the floor and picked up the man’s billfold. He flipped it open. It contained two one-dollar bills. He shoved the bills in his pocket and threw the billfold at the girl’s face as hard as he could. “Two lousy bucks,” he said aloud. “For Christ’s sake.”
Thirty seconds after he had first spotted the girl, he was on the street again, walking rapidly, but not rapidly enough to interest anyone. The girl he’d robbed was almost forgotten. Even the vague regret he’d felt because there hadn’t been time to do a job on her was nothing more than a memory now. It could have been last night that he d slugged the girl in the foyer, or last week. His last thought of her was that she had been just an appetizer. Hell, he’d hardly slugged her at all. What he needed was somebody like Moira, and a place where he could really take his time. He began to think about how it would be to brand one of them, and now he had forgotten the girl in the foyer completely.
Finally he headed through the Minetta for Macdougal Street. He walked toward Bleecker and went into Ernesto’s. This was the place. This was where he had met Moira and many of the others. This was where the wealthy uptown ladies of uncertain age came to pick up their “protégés.”
But there was no Moira at the bar, no one who resembled her even slightly. He felt wildly angry. He’d been cheated. But this was the last chance. He had to stay here. There was no place else to look.
He pushed his way to the crowded bar and ordered a beer he did not want.
The bartender said, “Weekends we serve only bottle beer, fifty cents a copy. You can get a shot for the same price. We gotta keep the sippers out. The place gets crowded weekends.”
“Beer,” said Crowley righteously. “I never drink hard liquor.”
There was a mixed crowd of Villagers and “tourists” from uptown in Ernesto’s. The Villagers, who were elaborately casual in their attire to mark them as artistic souls, seemed mainly occupied in cadging drinks from the well-dressed visitors. Tourists were fair game every weekend for the regulars of such taverns.
Crowley sipped his beer slowly and urgent restlessness grew inside him. The crowd shifted every few minutes. A party would leave and another would come through the door to replace it at the long bar. But the one Crowley was looking for did not arrive. He became sullen and angry. He was in a crowd, but he was alone again.