"I thought you'd never remember," Mitch laughed. "Thanks, Frank, but I can't make it tonight. Just here between planes."
Downing sighed. He said he had a little poem for Mitch. "It goes like this, pal. 'Here I sit all brokenhearted.'"
"Yeah?" Mitch smiled expectantly. "What do you mean, Frank?"
"I mean I reversed the habits of a lifetime and tried to do you a favor. And the way it turned out-well, you better brace yourself before I tell you…"
Mitch braced himself.
It didn't help a bit.
25
Mitch took the receiver from his ear. He stared at it, and then he put it back again; stood speechless, choked-up for a moment by the surging tide of his emotions, shaking his head over and over and over.
"Frank…" He found his voice at last. "You're supposed to rattle before you fang a guy."
"I'm sorry as hell, keed. I was just trying to help."
"Help?" Mitch could have slugged him. "Help how? By kicking a woman around? Doing something that the first hairy-assed caveman could have done ten times better? What the hell are you, a man or a mule, and don't tell me!"
"Gee," Downing said humbly. "A promotion already. I used to be a snake."
"Goddammit, Frank…!" Mitch was almost shouting. Where do you get off at pulling this on me? You knew I didn't want this muscle bit! You know I've always steered clear of it! I've got a head, by God, and I believe in using it, and if you'd just left me the hell alone, let me handle my own problems in my own way instead of acting like a goddam public nurse-!"
"Mitch," Downing pleaded, "come over and shoot me, huh? Anytime. You don't need an appointment."
"I think I'll wait for a spear," Mitch said bitterly. "With a guy like you around, we should be back using them in another week."
He slammed up the phone.
He banged out of the booth, took a few angry strides away from it, and then, of course, he went right back to it again, and got the gambler back on the wire. Because Downing had tried to help, he had apologized, and after that, well, what could you do but accept it? Then, too, there was just a chance that-
"Sorry I blew my top, Frank. Now about Frankie and Johnnie-do you suppose there's a chance that they didn't make the send stick with Teddy?"
"No," Downing said, regretfully but firmly. "Those kids do a job like di wah didy. She'd have sprouted a trolly and made like a streetcar if they'd told her to."
"Goddam," Mitch sighed. "Why couldn't they just have kept the dough for themselves?"
"Well, that would have been stealing," Downing pointed out reasonably. "Anyway, they knew I'd find out about it."
"Yeah. Yeah, sure."
"It ain't all bad, is it, keed? You'll get your divorce, and you'll never see that broad again. That's a little something, anyway."
Mitch admitted that it was, and it didn't make a damned bit of difference because he'd lost Red. He was as sure of that as he was that yesterday wasn't today. Downing said that maybe he was low-rating Red a little; she was yar about him, so maybe she'd forget and forgive like the sweet kid she was. Mitch said maybe, and maybe yesterday was today after all. And on that unhappy note the conversation ended.
The plane seemed hardly out of the Dallas airport before it was in the Houston landing pattern. Mitch fastened his seat belt, probing the hopeless darkness of his problem.
Red was apparently not quite through with him yet. Otherwise she would have told him off over the phone. She meant to get through with him in person, which meant that…?
Her voice came to him out of the past, back from the beginning and up through the years. "Don't you lie to me. Don't you ever, ever lie to me!" He remembered her attitude about the money, when she thought he had lied about the deposit-box cache; her dead coldness, her refusal to be swayed or persuaded. He remembered her fury over nominal trifles, because he had spoken to her sharply or thoughtlessly; frightening fits of anger which might hang on for a day or more and in which she was hardly responsible for what she did.
He had told her a thousand lies, one piling on top of the other as he sought to cover them up. He had made her a thousand promises, knowing quite well that there was hardly a chance in the world that he'd be able to keep them. He.
"Well, all right, then. As long as you're not married, why, then it's just the same as if we were. I don't need to feel ashamed and-But it better be the truth, you hear? If you lied to me-!"
He got off the plane and went up the ramp. As he came out into the waiting room, he heard himself being paged over the public address system. He stopped dead still, then moved toward the information desk, a sick dread welling in his heart.
The message was from Red. A perfectly innocent one. Miss Corley was waiting for him in the parking area.
Mitch collected his baggage and went out to her.
She was standing at the side of the car. She was wearing a black semi-formal gown, short and low cut. Her gloves were long and white, and a white mink stole draped her shoulders, and she carried a small mesh evening bag.
He stopped a couple of steps short of her. Not knowing quite what to say, noting her strained taut expression. Then, he made a tentative motion of taking her in his arms.
"Don't!" She stepped back quickly. "I-I mean you'll muss me up!"
"Red," he said. "Let me explain, will you? I-"
"No." Her head jerked nervously. "There's nothing to- We don't have time to talk now."
"Because of Zearsdale, you mean? But we can't go to a party with things like this!"
"Well, we are going! We promised to go, and we will. If a person doesn't keep his promises, he-he-" She broke off, turning away from him. "Let's get this over with, Mitch."
She opened the door of the car and climbed in, the dress riding high on her legs. Mitch put his baggage in the trunk, and slid behind the wheel. He didn't know what the right way of handling this was-if there was a right way-but he knew that what he was doing was all wrong. He should be leading, instead of following her lead. He should not, for God's sake, be taking her to a party at a time when she was about to cloud up and rain all over him.
He saw the small mesh bag in her lap, and started to reach for it. She snatched it away.
"Don't! Don't you touch that!"
"But-But I was just going to put it in my pocket for you."
"I don't want you to! I want to carry it myself!"
"I see," he said. And he did see. That much anyway.
He knew why she wanted to keep possession of the bag.
He started the car. He guided it out of the parking lot and drove swiftly toward Zearsdale's house. Neither of them spoke. Red seemed on the point of it, a time or two; he could sense the occasional glances which she stole in his direction, hear the hesitancy in breathing which precedes speech. But he couldn't and wouldn't help her out any, now that he knew what he did. So she also remained silent.