“I quit,” I told him.
“Sure,” he said. “Of course. I’ll see you in a month. That’s what I bet it would be. Did I win?”
“That’s what he tried to nail me with,” I admitted. “But I wouldn’t take it. I tell you I quit.”
He swiveled around in his chair. “Johnny, don’t be a sap. There isn’t another paper in town’ll hire you. Cavanaugh’ll see to that.”
“Not even the Courier?”
“You wouldn’t work for them, Johnny. Nobody with any self-respect would work for them.”
I didn’t answer him. I went over to see if Sammy Berg was still in the office, but he wasn’t. I left, without saying anything to Foley, the city editor. He’d find out, soon enough.
I didn’t go home. I didn’t want Norah to find out I’d lost my job, not yet. I still had hopes. Foley would go to bat for me; the whole city room would go to bat for me. I hoped.
I went over to Mac’s and had a drink. A couple of the boys were in there, and we gabbed for a while, and then they had to go to work. Mac’s is a hell of a place when there aren’t any customers around. I went to a movie.
It was a lousy show. They’d spent a couple of million on it, and it was full of names, and it had been promoted right up to the budget limit. It was still a lousy show. I could produce a better one myself.
I left, in the middle of it. I walked along Fourth Street, dreaming about that, about the big names Norah and I would be entertaining in our beach home. Norah was just giving me hell, because she’d caught me kissing one of moviedom’s biggest stars, when I heard her voice.
I came back to this world, and there she stood. My Norah, my lovely, red-headed parcel of honey and fire. She stood there, on the sidewalk, with a copy of the Courier under her arm.
“John Badlwin Shea,” she said.
I looked at the Courier, and into her blue eyes. “You don’t believe any of that do you, honey?”
“Is it true, Johnny?”
I shook my head.
“Then I don’t believe it.”
I kissed her, right there on Fourth Street.
She said, “You’re so impulsive. Did you have to hit that reporter?”
I nodded.
She sighed. “As soon as I saw this paper, while I was out shopping, I went down to the Star. Tommy Alexander told me you’d quit. You didn’t have to quit, Johnny.”
“I guess I didn’t,” I admitted.
“And now you’re going back to see Mr Cavanaugh, aren’t you? You’re going to apologize for losing your temper.”
“Like hell,” I said.
“You’ve got seniority there, Johnny, and they pay better than the other papers. You’re not going to forget all that.”
“Honey,” I said, “you let me worry about that.”
Her lips set primly, and she said no more about it. “Well, we’d better be getting home. Mrs Orlow is with Junior, but I told her I’d be back in two hours. Let’s go home and talk this over.”
“There’s nothing to talk over,” I told her.
Neither of us said anything more as we walked to where the coupé was parked. Norah was beginning to get that look.
Silence, on the drive home. Silence, as we walked up the flagstones to the door, while Mrs Orlow explained that Junior had been just fine, and slept like a little lamb, and wasn’t he just that, a little lamb, though? While she looked at me curiously, probably wondering how much of the Courier account was true.
Things the public reads in the Courier, they forget the next day. But things your friends might read about you in the Courier they never forget. They might not believe them, but neither will they forget them.
When Mrs Orlow had gone, Norah said, “I’ve never known you to be this stubborn, Johnny.” She paused. “But I guess there are quite a few things about you I didn’t know.”
“If you’re talking about June Drexel,” I said, “that’s ten years old.”
“But you went with her then, didn’t you? And yet, you’ve never once mentioned her name.”
“I’ve gone with lots of girls,” I answered. “I’ve forgotten most of them. I don’t know all the boys you went with.”
“You’ve forgotten most of them,” she repeated. “But you didn’t forget her.”
“She’s about as easy to forget as a toothache,” I explained. “She’s a very unusual girl.”
“I’m sure she is.” She hesitated, about to say more. But at that moment, Junior awoke, and started to cry. She hurried into his room.
This, I thought, would be a good time to take the screens down. This would be a good time to get out of the house. I changed my clothes quickly, and went outside.
I was trying to pry the too-tight screen off the sun-room window when Norah came out with Junior. She put him in the carriage, and told me, “I have to finish my shopping. We’ll be back in a half-hour.”
That last sentence was just by way of letting me know that our discussion wasn’t over. “I’ll be waiting,” I said. “I’m not going any place.”
She sniffed.
She and Junior were just turning the corner, when this Caddy pulled up behind my car at the curb. It was a black sedan, long and low. I went around to the side of the house, to get the kitchen screens.
I could still see the Caddy, and I could see the smallish, thin gent who got out of it. He didn’t look like a banker to me. He came up the walk, and I came around to the front of the house, to wait for him.
He was wearing an expensive topcoat, and a fine hat. He was wearing a dead expression on his thin face. His eyes were brown stones.
“You John Shea?” he asked.
I admitted it with a nod.
“I’m from the Courier,” he said. “I’ve got some questions for you.”
“I haven’t got any answers,” I told him. “Does the Courier furnish all their reporters with Cadillacs?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’m no reporter. But if you think the Courier isn’t backing me, you could call ’em.”
I took a shot in the dark. “You’re from Peckham, aren’t you? He owns a piece of the Courier, huh?”
He studied me. I looked out to the Caddy, and saw there was another man there, behind the wheel. I looked back at him.
“All right,” he said, “I’m from Peckham. He’s wondering about you and Miss Drexel. The boss isn’t one to wonder long.”
A silence. I didn’t know what other instructions the little man had received from his boss, but I was sure he’d carry them out, no matter what they were. I said carefully, “I knew Miss Drexel when I was seventeen years old. I took her out, then. I haven’t taken her out at all, in the past ten years, and have seen her only a few times since, always in public places. You can tell your boss he needn’t worry about me.”
The little man considered me thoughtfully. “He’s not worried about you. But he’ll want to talk to you. He’ll make it worth your while.”
“I haven’t anything to tell him,” I said. “I haven’t anything he’d buy.”
“He’ll decide that,” the man said. “Let’s let him decide that.”
“OK,” I said, “but I can’t go now.”
“Sure. We’ll pick you up tonight. About eight all right?”
“Eight’s all right,” I agreed. “But don’t come here. My wife would worry. I’ll meet you somewhere.”
“You name it.”
“The filling station, two blocks down, the Gargoyle station on Burnham and Diversey. I’ll drive down there and park the car.”
He nodded. “At eight. We’ll be there.” He turned and went back to the Caddy and the car pulled away.