“They say it’s safe enough, when everybody knows the food is tasted, they don’t try anything, see?”
“They’d have to draft me.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Me too. Because I’ll tell you what I think. I think, if a person really wanted to do it, he could. Know what I’d do? I’d pick out something that came in lumps. Shrimp, maybe. And I’d just put it in one, see. Chances are the taster wouldn’t get that one. Then old Mr. K., he’s talking away, arguing and all, and all of a sudden he bites into this one. And bingo! He’s had it!”
Harry nodded approvingly. “That would do it, all right.” He drifted down the bar to serve a young fellow and a girl who had just come in. It was cool and dim in Harry’s, lit only by the lights that glowed through the tiers of liquor bottles that lined the wall behind the bar. You could forget the ulcer-making lunch at home. You could forget that the August sun had made the asphalt street outside feel like hot sponge when you walked on it. The newspaper guys had fried an egg on that street yesterday. The annual egg fry.
What that pavement could do to your feet, right through shoe leather! My soles smarted and burned, even now, even in the air-conditioned cool. What it would do to bare feet! I thought of my mother-in-law’s feet, her ugly, dead-white swollen feet, the big toes turned sideways at an angle, the nails dry and yellow, nobbed with the yellow horn of old corns, the blue veins like contorted worms. I’d like to see her being marched down that street, slowly, bare-foot, two guys in uniforms like storm troopers holding her by the arms, seeing that she walked slow. I could just hear her, giving them a bad time at first, flaying them with that tongue of hers, saying things they wouldn’t forget for a long time, about how they looked and their personalities and all.
One of them would snatch out his Luger. “I’m going to let this old dame have it,” he would snarl. “She don’t deserve to live.”
The other one would grin, his lips curling wolfishly away from his teeth, his eyes dark and furious from her insults. “Put that thing away, pal,” he would say. “It’ll be better this way, remember?”
And then the pain would start getting at her, those feet would start swelling, sizzling maybe after a while, and she would be screaming, screaming, begging them to let her go, apologizing, screaming...
“Ready for another one, Mr. Adams?” Harry asked.
I started. “What? Oh, yes. Give me another one.”
“A person couldn’t be too careful, if somebody really wanted to poison them,” I said. “It wouldn’t have to be anything obvious, like special chocolates. It could be maybe something else in your vitamin capsule.” I watched him slicing lemons in the quick efficient way he did things.
“Maybe a lemon!” I exclaimed.
“Huh?”
“You could put it in a lemon! Inject it with a hypodermic needle, say. Then this person would make some ice tea. Pour it over ice cubes. All safe. Then she’d cut this fresh lemon in two Squeeze a big dollop of juice into the tea, drink it down...” I sat thinking about all that. What would happen then.
“Your mother-in-law been bugging you again?” Harry asked.
“Just being her usual sweet self,” I said, taking care with my speech. I’d had three, no, four drinks, since I dropped in here for something to settle my nerves after lunch. “Why do you ask about my mother-in-law, Harry?”
“Listen, Mr. Adams. I’d like to tell you something for your own good. OK?”
“OK. Shoot.”
“Mr. Adams, I wouldn’t go around talking like that. About poisoning people and all. Yesterday it was about how kitchen knives could slip. Last week it was about some dame getting caught in a wash wringer. Look, Mr. Adams. If the old lady was sitting right where you’re sitting, all by herself, and got drunk and fell off the bar stool and broke her neck, there’s a dozen people in this neighborhood would be willing to swear you got in here somehow and pushed her.”
I cackled with laughter at the idea. Her lying there, draped over the brass rail, her head at a funny angle, her mouth shut for good. I shook my head regretfully. “It wouldn’t happen that way, Harry. She wouldn’t do any more than break a leg. Then she’d swear you pushed her, Harry, and she’d sue you for all you’ve got, and she’d take this bar away from you. It wouldn’t be Harry’s Bar any more. You know what she’d call it? Mother’s!”
“Build me another drink, Harry. Want to watch you do it. Won’t come in here any more, once she has it.” As I pushed my glass towards him, somehow it fell over. He claimed I had enough, wouldn’t sell me any more. Got nasty about it.
I started down the street to my office, but the heat got me. It was like walking in a big bright furnace. I began to feel funny, like the sidewalk was going to come up and hit me. All of a sudden I was draped over the mailbox in front of Jack Pearson’s clothing store. The metal was hot, terribly hot. It burned me right through my suit, my arms, my belly, down my thighs. I let out a yell and pulled away. Jack came out and tried to steady me.
“You sick, Joe?” he asked anxiously. Then he said, “Oh. Been drinking your lunch. Here, I’ll help you, Joe. You better get to your office and lie down for a while.”
I tore away from him. “Hell with the office,” I said, “I’m going home. Just remembered. Got a little something to attend to.”
“You want I should call you a cab, Joe?” Jack asked, peering at me in a worried way. “You don’t look to be in very good shape.”
“Cab!” I joked. “You’re an old maid, Jack. That’s what you are. An old maid! I only live three blocks from here!”
I stepped out strong, knowing he was watching me. But after a while that heat got me again. I began to feel woozey. The block seemed to go on forever ahead of me, shimmering with heat, full of people who kept getting in my way. I kept wishing I was home already, flopped down on the sofa, Verna bringing me a nice long drink that tinkled with ice. Verna, looking at me with those beautiful dark eyes, talking to me in her nice low voice. Like heaven, like cool, quiet heaven, being with my lovely young wife, just the two of us.
While the old harpy was off getting the twenty dollar permanent wave in her dyed red hair. I could see her now, sitting there in the Bon Ton Beauty Shoppe, her hair all screwed up in those metal things, watching in the mirror with that sour, suspicious expression while the girls in white uniforms buzzed around, working on her. Then they’d start taking the metal stuff off, and they would all be squealing and hollering, and Mr. Cecil would come mincing in and maybe faint. And here as they take off the curlers, all her hair comes too! She’s bald as a billiard ball!
I was walking along snickering about that, when suddenly all hell broke loose. People screamed, some guy roared in my ear, grabbed me by the arm and shoulder, yanked me backward, right off my feet. I swung on the guy, started fighting him.
He held me at arm’s length, in some way so that I couldn’t connect with my fists. “Now, Mr. Adams. Take it easy now, Mr. Adams,” he kept saying. Ail of a sudden my eyes sort of focused. I could see it was only Dick Burgess, the traffic cop on Main Street.
I pulled away from him, panting, sweating, all mussed up. “What’s idea?” I snarled at him. “Grabbing a man that way. Want to get hurt?”
“You sure went off like a firecracker,” he said. “Mr. Adams, you all but got run over. You walked right out into the intersection against the traffic. If I hadn’t grabbed you, that lady would have run you down.”
I looked over my shoulder, vaguely remembering the squeal of brakes. A red Jaguar was stalled right in the middle of Main Street. The girl driving it had her head down over the wheel, like she was sick or something. Traffic was piling up, honking, and people were jamming in around Burgess and me, staring.