He kicked Chernow again and when the other man didn’t move, Smitty walked out of the office into the reception room, slamming the door behind him. I heard the old freight elevator wheezing and clanking as he went down.
I tried to get up, now. I got hold of a corner of the desk and tried to pull myself up. I didn’t make it. I got freezing cold and sweat poured from me. I shook like a bird dog. Knife-shoots of pain stabbed through my shoulder and the feel of the sticky, wet blood there turned my stomach.
I kept trying to pull myself to my feet and not making it. Finally, I got smart. I saw a telephone cord looped down from the desk. I grabbed it, yanked the instrument down clattering to the floor. I dialed the O and when the operator came on, I said: “Police!”
She didn’t seem to hear me. She kept repeating: “Operator! Operator!” I must have said “Police!” a dozen times before I realized that no sound was coming through my lips.
Then I tried to shout at the top of my lungs. The words came out in a hoarse, rasping whisper. But she heard me. She heard me give her the address and the floor number. But I didn’t hear what she said. I was suddenly swimming in a sea of inky blackness.
When the lights came on again, I was in a hospital bed. I started to sit up, but there was a mule-kick of pain through my shoulder that stopped me. I fell back on the pillow. One of the men was tall, spare-built. He had a bald head, except for a thin rim of iron-gray hair just around the ears.
“Take it easy, Morgan,” he said. “Everything’s all right. We caught Smitty Smithers and Vivian Engles at the airport. They were going to Florida. But if Chernow dies they’ll be going to a hotter place. And his chances aren’t good. All we want from you is a few statements, right now, Morgan. Can you talk for a while?”
I grinned up at him. “I could talk forever,” I said. “And probably will. Go ahead. Shoot.”
There were a lot of questions. They’d gotten most of the story from Smitty and Vivian and the dying Chernow. But I was able to fill in a lot for them, to explain how the embezzlement had been handled. When they were through, I found I was so weak I could hardly talk. And I felt sleepy again. They said they’d see me again in the morning. I smiled weakly, mumbled: “Somebody – call – my wife.”
They said that somebody already had and I dozed off. When I awakened again, Fran was there. She was sitting beside the bed, holding my hand. She smiled and said: “How do you feel, Kip?”
“Oh, boy!” I said. “Like a million. Let’s jump rope or climb trees or something.” I felt all scooped out. My shoulder was throbbing and my head was keeping time with it and every one of my nerve ends seemed to be jangling.
A middle-aged nurse came in, smiled at both of us and said: “I’m sorry. It’s time for his medicine.” She handed me two pills and a glass of water. I swallowed them and washed them down. The water tasted brackish. But in a few moments the throbbing in my shoulder and head eased. The nerves stopped jangling.
“Kip,” Fran said. “I’ve heard the whole story several times already, but I still can’t – can’t hardly believe it. You, Kip!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me! Were you worried about me, Fran?”
“No,” she said. “I was over at Haggards. Helene cheated as usual, but I ended up winning. I won—”
“Two dollars and eighty cents,” I finished. Fran always won or lost that amount, to within a few pennies. It was really phenomenal.
“Two sixty-seven,” she corrected.
I looked at her and grinned. She was wearing a plain, round little piece of blue felt that looked like a beany and had cost eight dollars. I remembered how I’d beefed about it. She needed a permanent but still her hair was pretty. It was just plain brown, with some strands of gray in it, but it was nice. She had her lipstick on a little crooked and there was a faint tracery of lines in her face and she looked very tired, but still cute. She was wearing her powder-blue suit and for a woman with two children, I had to admit she still had one helluva figure.
“You know, Kip,” she was saying, “in spite of what happened tonight, I think it would be a good idea for you to take a night off once in a while. I thought about it after you called the last time and said you were staying in town. I realized how awfully tiresome and monotonous it must be for you never to have a night off away from me and the kids.”
I started to protest vehemently until I saw the twinkle in her eyes.
“Kip,” she said, softly. “Those girls you got mixed up with, tonight. Were they very pretty – very young and pretty?”
“Good God, no!” I told her. “They were hags, both of them.” I knew that was what she wanted me to tell her. I grinned.
Another nurse came into the room and went around to the foot of the bed to look at my chart. She was a young bleached blonde, and beautiful, a little doll, with her big blue eyes and a shape that even the crisp white uniform couldn’t hide. She smiled over the chart at me and winked. I closed my eyes and rubbed the sight of her out of my brain.
“She was very attractive,” Fran said in a moment and I knew the blonde nurse was gone.
“Nah!” I whispered. I was getting terribly sleepy again. I could hardly keep my eyes open. “She was a mess, a horror! Besides, after tonight, I hate pretty women.”
“Is that so, Kip Morgan?” Fran said. “Where does that leave me? What am I, just a dowdy little housewife?”
I looked up at her. It was funny, the sleepier I got and the more I looked at Fran, the prettier she became. I mean really pretty. You know, from inside of her, like. I reached out and took her hand. I said. “They must’ve given me sump’n. Can’t – stay – awake . . . You goin’ – stay here – with me . . . Right here?”
“Yes, darling,” she said. “All right. Helene Haggard is staying over at the house.”
Her voice droned on and I wanted to tell her thanks for coming and for staying here with me and for being so pretty and being my wife and all, but I guess I went to sleep instead.
CIGARETTE GIRL
James M. Cain
I’d never so much as laid eyes on her before going in this place, the Here’s How, a nightclub on Route 1, a few miles north of Washington, on business that was 99 percent silly, but that I had to keep to myself. It was around 8 at night, with hardly anyone there, and I’d just taken a table, ordered a drink, and started to unwrap a cigar, when a whiff of perfume hit me, and she swept by with cigarettes. As to what she looked like, I had only a rear view, but the taffeta skirt, crepe blouse, and silver earrings were quiet, and the chassis was choice, call it fancy, a little smaller than medium. So far, a cigarette girl, nothing to rate any cheers, but not bad either, for a guy unattached who’d like an excuse to linger.
But then she made a pitch, or what I took for a pitch. Her middle-aged customer was trying to tell her some joke, and taking so long about it the proprietor got in on the act. He was a big, blond, guy, with kind of a decent face, but he went and whispered to her as though to hustle her up, for some reason apparently. I couldn’t quite figure it out. She didn’t much seem to like it, until her eye caught mine. She gave a little pout, a little shrug, a little wink, and then just stood there, smiling.
Now I know this pitch and it’s nice, because of course I smiled back, and with that I was on the hook. A smile is nature’s freeway: it has lanes, and you can go any speed you like, except you can’t go back. Not that I wanted to, as I suddenly changed my mind about the cigar I had in my hand, stuck it back in my pocket, and wigwagged for cigarettes. She nodded, and when she came over said: “You stop laughing at me.”