Stone lit a cigar, his hands trembling. He felt a quick bitter stab of anger. He didn’t like remembering that she had seen him hightail out of that bar like a scalded cat. Bannion would pay for that, by God. “I had to leave you there,” he said, ignoring the questioning glances of the other players. “That guy is nuts. Come on, come on, somebody deal.”
“He’s not nuts,” Debby said, enjoying his irritation. “And, in case this is news, he’s pretty sore at you.”
“Yeah? Who’s been talking to you?” Stone didn’t pick up his cards. He stared at his big, limp hands. “Who’s been talking to you, I said.”
“Why, Bannion, himself,” Debby said, airily.
Stone stood so quickly that his chair over-turned with a crash. “You been talking with him?” he said.
“Sure, I’ve been talking to him,” she said.
“Where did you see him?”
“I... I just bumped into him,” Debby said. She knew she’d been foolish to needle him. “You’re right, he’s a nut, all right.”
Stone was shaking with anger. He caught hold of her wrist and twisted it sharply, forcing her half-way to her knees. “Where’d you bump into him?” he yelled.
Debby cried out in pain. “Max, stop it!”
“Where’d you see him?”
“Let me go! Max, please!”
“You talk first.”
“I just met him on the street,” Debby said, her voice high and tight with pain. “Damn you, Max!” she said, starting to sob. “You walked out on me, didn’t you?”
“Where did you go with him?”
“Max, you’ll break my arm,” Debby said, pushing futilely at him with her free hand.
Judge McGraw cleared his throat, his lean handsome face pale and anxious. “I suggest we all relax a bit,” he said.
“I suggest you shut your mouth,” Stone snapped.
“You’re real tough with women,” Debby said, crying. “But you weren’t so tough with Bannion.”
“Where’d you go with him?”
“I went to his hotel room, that’s where.”
Stone dropped her arm. He opened and closed his big hands, feeling the hate pumping sluggishly through his veins. “Damn you, damn you,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice. She’d probably crawled into his bed, too, laughed with him about how old and weak Stone was becoming, and how he’d run out of the bar at the look in Bannion’s face. “You bitch,” he said, shouting the words into her pale, frightened face.
“Max, you act like you’re out of your head,” Debby said, still weeping. “You’re the one who’s nuts, not him.”
“You bitch,” Stone shouted again. He glared around wildly, and saw the steaming coffee pot on the table. Without thinking, without willing the action, his hand moved; he scooped it up and hurled the scalding coffee into her face.
Debby screamed and staggered backwards, clawing at her face with both hands. She collided with a chair and fell to the floor, her body jack-knifing spasmodically, and her gold-sandalled feet churning and kicking wildly. She stopped screaming almost immediately; the only sound that came from her was a ghastly choking noise, like that of a child who has sobbed itself to a point beyond exhaustion.
Judge McGraw was on his feet, rubbing his well-kept hands together in a gesture of entreaty. He glanced around, as if looking for some place to hide, and then said, “The girl is hurt, Stone. We — we must do something for her.”
Stone rubbed his face. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he said, in a low, confused voice. He seemed unable to move or think; he stared down at Debby’s slim, twitching body and rubbed his face with a hand that had begun to shake.
One of the gamblers from Jersey, a big man with black hair, said, “Well, let’s don’t just stand here,” and knelt beside her and shook her shoulder. He tried to pull her hands away from her face but she began to whimper like an animal in a trap. She lay doubled up on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chin, her gold-sandalled feet still at last. The coffee had soaked her dress and darkened her blonde hair in dirty, ugly patches.
Judge McGraw glanced at his wrist watch, and the magistrate, a small soft man with cautious eyes, started to get into his coat. They all watched Stone, except the man who was on the floor beside Debby.
Stone shook his shoulders, and the numb, glazed look cleared from his face. “Yeah, we got to take care of her,” he said. He glanced at the magistrate. “Ben, you and Joeie get her to a doctor. Right now, fast.”
“Hey, Max, this ain’t my baby,” the magistrate said. Joeie, the gambler still at the table, swallowed hard, and said, “I got to beat it, Stone. Damn, I got—”
“Shut up,” Stone said. “Get your coats on and get her to a doctor. He can fix her up.”
“Where can I find a doctor now?” the magistrate said, rubbing his hands together nervously.
“You’d better find one,” Stone said. “Maybe you can find the one who kept your son out of the army. Fast, I said. Goddamnit, move. I want her fixed up, understand.”
The man moved quickly, guiltily, under the prod of his voice. They lifted Debby between them and carried her into the living room. Stone went ahead of them and picked up her mink from the chair she’d dropped it in. He wrapped it around her shoulders, and said, “Go on, go on! Get moving.” Debby’s hands were still locked over her face. Stone swallowed the fear in his throat, and said, “Let me know what the doc says. Stick right with her till you find out. Got that?”
“Sure, Max.” They went out, both gamblers and the magistrate.
When the door closed behind them Stone walked heavily back to the dining room. Judge McGraw was getting into his overcoat.
“Where you going?” he said, pouring himself a drink.
“Well, the game seems to be over,” Judge McGraw said smiling.
“I thought I’d—”
“Sit down, sit down,” Stone said. He shuddered slightly after finishing the drink. He didn’t want to be alone. The room seemed to be echoing with Debby’s screams. Why had he done that to her? “I said, sit down,” he said. He poured himself another drink, a stronger one, and sat down with his big forearms on the table. “Come on, we can bump heads, judge. A little action is what we need.”
“You know my weaknesses too well,” the judge said, removing his overcoat.
“You know I didn’t mean to do that,” Stone said. “You know that, don’t you? I’m not that kind of a bum. It’s just that damn temper of mine.”
“Sure, sure, Max,” the judge said. He wet his lips. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” He couldn’t afford a break with Stone. Not now. There was his boy in the Carmelites, and his three daughters, almost grown women now, looking up to him, comparing their friends to him, thinking of him as an ideal of honor and integrity. They had all enjoyed good schools, interesting vacations abroad, and the prospects of a secure future through his relationship with Stone. He couldn’t risk breaking it off now. Not yet. Sometime, when they were all settled down, when they wouldn’t be so badly hurt, then he’d break it off and risk the consequences. Sometime — the judge knew in his weak, worried, lonely heart that such a time would never come.
“Shall we make it stud?” he said pleasantly.
“Yeah, deal for God’s sake,” Stone said.
Chapter 12
Larry Smith pulled up in front of the Parkway Building the next morning at ten o’clock. The day was bright and sunny, with a clean bracing wind blowing, and it suited Larry’s mood perfectly. He.had left the brunette from the nightclub several hours before, after a very gay night. She was good, all right, he thought, smiling as he left his car. That wise little look on her face wasn’t misleading; she’d been around. He had stopped at a Turkish bath on the way home, a place where he kept a change of clothes, and had got the works; steam bath, rubdown, facial massage, shave. There was a ruddy color in his cheeks and his body was limber and relaxed, ready for a day of work, plans and excitement.