Howson, fighting terror, said huskily. “This man in brown—he said he bought the sergeant, whichever that one is.”
“He would. You didn’t know either of these men, did you?” the Snake added, struck by the thought.
“No, I — uh — never saw them before.”
“Mm-hm. All right, Lots, take him in the blue room and keep him there till Dingus gets back.”
Lots wasn’t unfriendly, Howson found; he dropped enough hints to make it clear that if the news he’d brought was true, it would plug a gap in the Snake’s monopoly of some illegal goods or other — exactly what, Howson didn’t ask. He fancied it might be drugs. His reaction of disgust against alcohol carried over to drugs, and he preferred not to pursue that line of thought. All he cared about was being momentarily of importance.
He sat with Lots in the blue room — decorated with a midnight-sky ceiling and a heavy blue carpet — and told himself that it was only sense on the part of the Snake to make sure before he acted. Desultorily, he answered questions.
“What’s your trouble from, crooky?” Lots inquired. “Hurt in an accident?’
“Born like it,” Howson said. Then the idea occurred to him that Lots was trying to be sympathetic, and he added in a tone of apology, “I don’t talk about it much.”
“Mm-hah.” Lots yawned and stretched his legs straight out. ‘Drink? Or that meal the Snake said you were to have?’
“I don’t drink,” Howson said. Again he felt the rare impulse to explain. “It isn’t easy to walk when I’m sober, if you see what I mean.”
Lots stared at him. After a moment he laughed harshly. “I don’t guess I could make a crack like that, with your problem. Okay, take a cola or something. I’m wiring for gin.”
There were crawling hours. Talk ceased after the food was brought. Lots proposed a game of stud, offered to teach the rules to him, changed his mind on seeing that Howson’s awkward fingers couldn’t cope with the task of dealing one card at a time. Embarrassed, Howson suggested chess or checkers, but Lots wasn’t interested in either.
Eventually the door swung open and Dingus put his head in.
“Move it, Lots!” he exclaimed. “The guy checks out clean so far as we can tell. We’re going to Black Wharf now.”
Automatically Howson made to pull himself to his feet. With a sharp gesture Dingus stopped him.
“You still wait, crooky!” he snapped. “Mr Hampton’s a hard man to satisfy, and there’s a while yet till two a.m.”
It felt more like an age, dragging by when he was alone. At last, some time after midnight, he dozed off in his chair. He had no idea how long he had slept when he was jolted awake by the door opening again. His bleary eyes focused on the Snake, on Lots and Dingus and Collar following him into the room. But the instant he saw them he knew his gamble had succeeded.
“You earned your pay, crooky,” the Snake said softly. “You surely did. Which leaves only one question.”
Howson’s mind, still sleep-fogged, groped for it. Would it be: how much he wanted? The guess was wrong. The Snake continued, “And that is — are you an honest politician?’
Howson made a noncommittal noise. His mouth was dry with excitement again. The Snake looked him over thoughtfully for long seconds, and reached his decision. He snapped his fingers at Collar.
“Make it five hundred!” he instructed. “And — listening, crooky? — remember that half of that is for the next time, if there is one. Lots, book out a car and take him home.”
The shock of being given more money than he had ever held in his hand at one time before broke the barrier separating Howson’s fantasies from reality; he barely absorbed the impressions of the next half-hour — the car, the journey to his lodging-house — because of the swarming visions that filled his mind. Not just next time: a time after that, and another and another, piecing gossip together into news, being paid, being (which was infinitely more important) praised and eventually regarded as invaluable. That was what he wanted most in all the world. He had achieved what to almost anyone else would be a minor ambition; he had done something for someone which was not made work, offered out of sympathy, but original with himself. It was a milepost in memory because he had regarded it as impossible, like walking down the street without a limp.
That was the early morning of a Tuesday. His delirium and hope were fed for a few days by scraps of news and gossip: it was reported that there had been some kind of battle, and the police had cleared up the traces but were mystified by the details. It was as though he drew courage like oxygen from the atmosphere of rumor and tension; he went down Grand Avenue in full day, in the middle of the sidewalk instead of skulking to the wall, and could ignore the usual pitying stares because he knew inside himself what he was worth. With what seemed to him great cunning, he had changed his five hundred a long bus-ride distant from his home and taken small bills which would not excite comment; then he had hidden the bulk of them in his room and spent only as much as would get him a new pair of shoes with the unequal heels, a new jacket with the uneven shoulder-pads.
Even so, on the Saturday night his glorious new world fell apart in shards.
6
Early in the evening he had taken five singles from the concealed hoard in his room. He had never thought of spending so much on one spree before; often, after paying room-rent, he would have no more than five left to carry him through a week. Then he was driven to his least-preferred resource: washing cutlery at a nearby diner against plates of unwanted scraps. Cutlery didn’t break when he dropped it; cups and glasses did, so the owner no longer let him wash those. And the knowledge that this was given to him as a favor hurt badly.
Tonight, though, he was going the limit. A movie he hadn’t seen; cokes, candy, ices, all the childish treats he still preferred to anything else. Mostly he was self-conscious about really liking them, but in his present mood he could achieve defiance. The hell with what people might think about a twenty-year-old who craved candy and ices!
He wished that the new jacket and shoes could have been ready by now, but he had been told they would take at least ten days. So nothing for it but to get a shine for the dulled leather, brush awkwardly at the dirty marks on the cloth.
And then out: a Saturday night and a good time, something to make him feel half-way normal, an action ordinary people took.
Down the narrow street where folks knew him, looked at him without the shock of surprise, maybe called a hello — and tonight not, strangely enough. But his mind was preoccupied, and he didn’t spare the energy to wonder why there were no spoken greetings. He had the distinct impression that people were thinking about him, but that was absurd, a by-product of his elation.
Yet the impression wouldn’t leave him. Even when he had braved the lights of Grand Avenue and was moving among crowds of strangers, his mind kept presenting it afresh, like a poker dealer demonstrating his ability to deal complete suits one after another.
At first it had been amusing. After a while it began to irritate him. He changed his mind about taking in the early evening show at the movie theatre of his choice — not his regular one, which was still playing the programme he had seen, but one he had to get to by bus. The public’s mood was good tonight, and somebody had helped him board the bus, making other people stand back, but even that didn’t improve his state of mind. More, it was an annoying emphasis on his state of body.
And at last, an hour and a half after setting out, he was so disturbed that he had to abandon his plan. Instead, he turned homeward, furious with himself, thinking it was lack of guts that spoiled his enjoyment, and determined to convince himself it was an illusion which plagued him.