He watched her as she ordered, and then he watched as she got up and walked to the juke box and made a selection, and then went back to the booth. Nobody in the place was paying the smallest bit of attention to her. There were maybe a dozen or so men in the bar, and only four girls besides the redhead, but nobody was making a rush to her booth, in spite of the shortage. He sat and watched her. She knew he was watching her, but she very carefully made sure she didn't look once in his direction, pretending she was still very angry because he had taken her booth.
He knew he would go to bed with her.
He wasn't at all excited by the idea because she wasn't pretty or even attractive. He just knew he would go to bed with her, that was all. He just knew that before the night ended, he would be in bed with her.
Sitting on the bench opposite the police station now, he wondered how he could explain to the police that he had known he would be going to bed with the redheaded girl. How could he explain to them that he had known he would go to bed with her but hadn't been excited by the idea, how could he explain that?
How could he go in there and tell them all about this? What would his mother think when she well, it didn't matter, that part of it certainly didn't matter. It was just sitting across from somebody and talking about taking a girl to bed that would be very difficult. There wasn't anybody in the world he talked to about things like that, not even his mother, certainly not his mother, nor even his brother Buddy. How could he tell about Molly to a strange detective?
The idea came to him like a bolt of lightning, just like that, pow, out of the blue.
He would telephone.
He would go to a telephone booth, but wait, there were no separate listings for the precincts, how could he possibly Parker, that was his name. The detective in the luncheonette. Parker, of the 87th Squad, and the globes across the street were each marked with an 87, which meant this was Parker's precinct. Okay, he would call police headquarters and say that he was supposed to call a detective named Parker of the 87th Squad, but he had lost the number Parker had given him, and would they please give him the number. Maybe they would connect him direct, maybe they had a big switchboard down there that connected to all the precincts in the city. Or maybe they would simply give him the number of the 87th Precinct and then he would call it himself and ask to talk to a detective not Parker, absolutely not Parker it would be as easy as that.
Pleased, he got off the bench.
He took a last look at the police station, smiled, and walked out of the park, looking for the drugstore he had been in earlier that morning.
5
The sergeant who answered the phone at police headquarters listened patiently while Roger told his invented story about Detective Parker, and then said, "Hold on, please." Roger waited. He assumed the sergeant was checking to see if there really was a Detective Parker in the 87th Squad. Or maybe the sergeant didn't give a damn one way or the other. Maybe he received similar calls a hundred times, a thousand times each day. Maybe he'd been bored stiff listening to Roger's story, and maybe he was bored stiff now as he looked up the number of the precinct.
"Hello," the sergeant said.
"Yes?"
"That number is Frederick 78024."
"Frederick 7-8024, thank you," Roger said.
"Welcome," the sergeant answered, and hung up. Roger felt in his pocket for another dime, found one, put it in the slot, waited for a dial tone, and began dialing.
FR7
Quickly, he put the receiver back onto the hook.
What would he say when they answered? Hello, my name is Roger Broome, I want to tell you about this girl Molly, you see we met in a bar and What? they would say.
What they would say.
What the hell is this all about, mister?
He sat motionless and silent for perhaps three minutes, staring at the face of the telephone. Then he felt in the return chute for his coin, leadenly lifted his hand, and deposited the dime once again. The dial tone erupted against his ear. Slowly, carefully, he began dialing.
FR7, 8,0, 2,4.
He waited. The phone was ringing on the other end. He listened to it ring. The rings sounded very far away instead of just a few blocks from where he was. He began counting the rings, they must have been having a busy time over at that station house, seven, eight, nine "87th Precinct, Sergeant Murchison."
"Uh ... is this the police?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"I'd like to talk to a detective, please."
"What is this in reference to, sir?"
"I'd ... uh ... like to report ... uh ..."
"Are you reporting a crime, sir?"
He hesitated a moment, and then pulled the receiver from his ear and looked at it as though trying to make a decision. He was replacing it on the hook just as the sergeant's voice, sounding small and drowning "in the black plastic, began saying again, "Are you reporting a" click, he hung up.
No, he thought.
I am not reporting anything.
I am getting out of this city and away from all telephones because I don't want to talk to the police. Now how about that? I do not wish to discuss this matter with anyone, least of all the police, so how about that? Damn right, he thought, and opened the door of the phone booth and walked out of the booth and across the length of the drugstore. The colored girl, Amelia, was still behind the cash register. She smiled at him as he approached.
"You back again?" she asked. "I didn't see you come in."
"Yep," he said. "Bad penny."
"You mail your cards off?"
"Yep."
"Did you find your friend at the police station?"
"Nope."
"How come?"
"I figured there couldn't be no friends of mine at the police station."
"You can say that again," Amelia said, and laughed.
"What time do you quit?" he said.
"What?"
"I said what time do you quit?"
"Why?"
"I want to get out of the city."
"What do you mean, out of the city?"
"Out. Away."
"Home, you mean?"
"No, no. Not home. That's the same thing, ain't it? That's the same old box. The city's a great big box, and Carey's a tiny small box, but they're both the same thing, right?"
Amelia smiled and looked at him curiously. "I don't know," she said.
"Go take off your apron," he said slowly, "and hang it on that hook right there, you see that hook?"
"I see it."
"Hang it on that hook right there, and tell your boss you have an awful headache"
"I don't have a headache"
"Yes, you do have a headache, and you can't work any more today."
Amelia looked at him steadily. "Why?" she said.
"We're going to get out of the city."
"Where?"
"I don't know yet."
"And when we get out?"
"We'll see then. The big thing now is to do what we have to do, right? And what we have to do is get away from this city real quick."
"Are the cops after you?" she asked suddenly.
"No." Roger grinned. "Cross my heart and hope to die, the cops are definitely not after me. Now how about that? Are you going to get that headache and hang up that apron and come with me?"