The room gets very quiet and some of the quieter characters slip out the door and go home, the characters who don’t like the sight of blood.
Buster edges up to the stranger and jiggles the guy’s arm, spilling a little of the beer. The big man glares, but says nothing. Buster says to me, “Johnny, my friend here is buying me a rye and water.” Still, the big guy says nothing.
I wish I was a million miles away. I pour the drink and set it in front of Buster. I hesitate a little and Buster says softly, “You heard me, Johnny. This guy is buying.”
I reach for the change in front of the stranger, but he knocks my hand aside and asks, “What the hell are you doing?”
“You’re buying me a drink,” Buster said with a smile.
Then the big guy made the mistake of shoving Buster away. It was a shove that would have sent me back six feet and would have sent Angelo into the bar across the street. It moved Buster back a half step. Buster swung a hook into the big man’s middle. It doubled him over. Buster hooked a right up into his mouth. It sounded like somebody whaling a concrete post with a bag of wet sand. The guy flipped over onto his back. But he was game. He rolled over onto his knees and turned around, so he could come up at Buster. He waited too long. Buster kicked him flush in the mouth. It wasn’t pretty. Somebody near the door gagged. The big guy fumbled his way over to the wall, and Buster stood waiting for him. The big guy got smart. He felt his way along the wall and then broke for the door in a stumbling run. Buster laughed and a few dutiful souls joined in. I poured out what was left of the big boy’s drink, and Buster scooped up his change and shoved it in his pocket. I didn’t ask who was going to pay for the rye and water.
In ten minutes the big boy was back with Ray Haggerty, the cop on the beat. They came through the door with the big boy holding on to Ray’s arm. He pointed a shaking finger at Pasternak and said through bleeding lips and broken teeth, “That’s the guy! That’s the one beat me up!”
When Ray saw who he was pointing at, he spun the big boy around and shoved him toward the door, saying, “Get along with you, you stew bum. If Mr. Pasternak beat you up, he had a good reason.”
The big guy looked stupidly around the room, and then the door slammed behind him. Ray said, “Hey, Buster, take it easy on those guys. I kind of thought it was you.”
Buster laughed again and bought Ray a drink out of the change he had picked off the bar.
On Thursday, the next day, at about three, the slim guy from upstairs comes in. I give him a big smile and say, “I guess you’re the fellow who moved in upstairs. I’m Johnny Pepper.”
“Yeah,” the guy says without a smile. “Straight rye. Water chaser.”
I set it down in front of him. His hand was shaking a little when he grabbed it, and he put his mouth down close to it so he wouldn’t spill it. He knocked it off with one gulp and I give him another. The second one went the same way as the first. He let the third one sit for a while. He relaxed and his hand stopped shaking. He got a little color in his pale face and said, “The pause that refreshes. I’m Bob Simmonds.”
I had him cased. There’s only one kind of drinker that drinks like that. I began right then to feel sorry for the wife.
At three-thirty, Simmonds is reciting poetry to me. He talks like a very educated guy and he tells me he is writing a book of poetry. He also tells me that his wife is secretary for a guy who runs a big laundry and that she is working until he can get his book finished, at which time they will be rich.
At four o’clock, he is talking more than ever, telling me all about life and art and culture, only it is getting hard to understand him and he has gone right through a whole bottle. He is beginning to get noisy and having himself a time clinging to the bar when in comes Buster.
I have hopes that Buster will leave the kid alone, and maybe he would have, because you got to say for Buster, he only picks on the littler guys when he’s pretty well loaded. But the kid tears it. There is half a dozen guys in the bar, and when the kid sees Buster, he yells, “And here comes an example of the Neanderthal man. The primitive type.”
Buster swaggers over, smiling, and says, “You talking to me, kid?”
“Take it easy, please,” I say.
“Shut up, you,” Buster tells me. “I think junior here needs a little workout.”
The kid doubles up a thin fist and slams Buster in the jaw. To Buster it is like a kiss from a mosquito. The kid’s eyes bug a little and he tries again. Same answer. Buster doesn’t lose his smile. Buster grabs the kid’s clothes in the front in his left hand so he can hold the kid up and maybe have the fun of hitting him more than once.
Just then, the door busts open and in comes Mrs. Simmonds. She shoves in between the two of them, her big eyes flashing. I can see little red glints in her hair. She says, very low and deadly, “Keep your paws off him, ape man.”
There is a clatter behind her as junior passes out. She turns to me and gives me one of those smiles you wish for and said, “Could you please get him upstairs for me?”
She turns and walks out, her hips moving nicely under her skirt. Buster looks a bit dazed. He whistles softly and says, “That’s for me. Boy! That’s for me.”
“That’s her husband on the floor,” I mention. But he doesn’t seem to hear me. Which is bad. Buster Pasternak has some very violent and elemental ideas about womenfolk. The worst rap his brothers had to fix for him was the time he put the college girl in the hospital for three weeks. They even kept it out of the papers. Somehow, I didn’t want to see him on the trail of Mrs. Simmonds.
Anyway, I got Angelo out from in back and he took care of the bar while I carried the kid upstairs.
She let me in and I dumped him on the sofa. She looked tense and worried. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “You see, Bob doesn’t seem to—”
I held up my hand. “Don’t say another word. I saw a movie about a guy like him. Only, that guy you stopped would have killed him.”
“It would have been better than watching him drink himself to death,” she snapped.
“You don’t want to think like that, lady. Maybe he’ll snap out of it.”
“In three years he’s had a thousand chances to snap out. He’s getting worse instead of better. Don’t serve him anymore.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If he hasn’t any dough, I won’t trust him. If he has the dough, I’ll sell him drinks. If I don’t, there’s nine gin mills in the block that will.”
She sagged into a chair. “I suppose you’re right. I wish I had the money to take him away where he couldn’t buy a drink.”
“Look,” I say to her, “there’s something else. I want you should buy a chain for your door and let me put it on. You know, those kind that let you open it a little to see who wants in.”
She stared at me. “Why, for goodness’ sake?”
I had to tell her all about Buster. I really laid it on. When she asked me where the law was, I told her that in this town the Pasternaks are the law. I finally got it through her head that she was in actual, physical danger. She was crying when I left, not from fear, but just from having too many problems all at once.
Angelo glared at me for taking so long, and hurried back to his game in the back room.
The next evening I put the chain on the door for her. Simmonds was sitting on the couch. He glanced up at me, but he didn’t speak.
I didn’t see any of them for nearly a week, except once in a while a glimpse of her on her way home from work.
On a rainy Wednesday, shortly after one o’clock, Simmonds comes in, shaking the rain off his collar. I wait until I see him take a ten out of his pocket before I pour the rye. The performance is the same as before, with him relaxing a little as soon as he downs two shots.