Heaven Ran Last

Chapter III

The next morning I woke up late, around noon, and ordered breakfast sent up to my room. I had some work to do and I was up to getting at it, so I took a quick shower. By the time I finished shaving, the bell hop was setting up my breakfast on a table in front of the window.

I put on a robe and slippers and sat down. The bell hop stood around and grinned at me while I started eating. He was a young, blond kid with eyes like blue marbles and a clean-looking skin. He thought I was pretty hot stuff, I guess, because I knew a lot of sport writers and politicians and slept late in the morning and had my breakfast in my room.

I pointed a fork at the dresser where there was some change.

“Pick yourself out half a buck,” I told him, “but don’t buy one of them FHA homes with it. They’re a bum investment.”

He grinned at that and went over to the dresser. He came back tossing the half buck up and down in his hand and still grinning.

He said, “You got anything hot for today, Mr. Ford?”

“Don’t get in my hair, Junior,” I said. “If I knew which of them crazy horses was going to win I’d play ’em myself. Then after about a month, I pick up my million bucks and go live in Miami.”

“Aw, you know which ones are going to win.”

I buttered some toast and grinned. He was a pretty smart kid.

“All right, put that half I gave you on Blue Angel in the Fourth at Pimlico. He’s a cinch unless he breaks a leg. And even if he breaks a leg he’ll be in the money.”

“Gee, thanks, Mr. Ford.”

“All right, now let me finish this food in peace. Junior.”

He grinned and went out, looking happy. I ate the breakfast and looked through the race news. The food was right and I felt clean and comfortable.

Out of curiosity I looked up Blue Angel. He was ten to one, and I didn’t know anything about him, but he had a chance. He had four legs and none of the others had more. He might win and then Junior would think I was a hell of a sharp guy. If he didn’t, what difference would it make?

I finished a second cup of coffee and then lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into my lungs. I felt good and I knew it was because I was going to see Alice at six o’clock. I didn’t think what it would be like when she left me to go back to him, but I knew without thinking that the hell would start all over again. I just pushed that thought out of my head. She’d be here and that’s what counted.

I got up from the table and went over to the desk I used for my work. I had two phones there, one to the wire service that gave fast news from the track and the other to the syndicate’s exchange where I laid off bets that were too big for me to handle.

I was a phone bookie and I liked it a lot better than when I had my own joint out North. I had a book then in back of a cigar store and I had to be there all the time, keep up the scratch sheets and listen to a lot of mugs that stood around and blew cigar smoke in my face all day.

After I got a pretty good bunch of customers lined up I quit the joint, moved here to the hotel and handled all my business by phone. It was simple. A guy I knew would call up, give me his bets, and that’s all there was to it.

I was in with the syndicate, like everybody else, because, like everybody else, I had to be. Trying to run a book without being in with the syndicate would be like trying to swim with an anchor around your neck. You’d get just as far and wind up the same way in both cases.

They took a percentage of my bets but I used their exchange to lay off the big money I couldn’t handle, and they bought me the heavy protection, like judges, police captains, and the other big shots.

The hotel was in the Loop, a pretty nice joint, and it set me back a lot because I had to pay off the manager, the house detective and a few cops, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t have to see a lot of mugs, the hours were good and so was the money.

I went over my bets for the last few days, figured out who I owed money to and put the cash in envelopes with the names on the outside. I sealed the envelopes and put them in a little pile, and when I went out for dinner I’d leave them in my box so the lucky guys could pick them up.

I didn’t have much new stuff because I’d been out of circulation for the last few days and that wasn’t so good. A guy wants to bet on a horse when he feels like it and if one bookie isn’t around he’ll try another.

So I went over to the outside phone and called some of the customers I was sure had been trying to get me the last couple of days. I told them I’d been out of town and fixed things up as well as I could.

Those six calls gave me four bets. Three of them were on favorites, pretty good bets, but the last was big, five hundred bucks on a twenty to one shot.

That was the kind of bet I had to lay off to the syndicate. I couldn’t afford to hold all of it and risk getting clipped for a ten thousand dollar payoff. I just didn’t have that kind of money. I called the syndicate’s wire and gave them the whole bet. They’d lay it off around the country in small amounts, so that if the horse come in nobody would take a bad beating.

I worked the rest of the afternoon making up for the two days I’d been out, getting my figures straightened out and taking a few more bets on the phone.

Around five I laid off and took a long shower and shaved. I used plenty of after-shave-lotion and powder and then I put on a pair of gabardine slacks and a silk sport shirt. That was about five-thirty, so I sat down and looked through the papers. I couldn’t keep my mind on the print so I poured a double shot of bourbon, put in about an inch of ice and stretched out on the bed.

The liquor gave me a nice warm feeling. I laid there and thought about Alice. She’d be along in less than half an hour.

I felt swell right then. I’d worked all the day, I had a drink in my hand, there was money in the bank and Alice was coming.

At six o’clock I wondered what was keeping her and suddenly I knew that if she didn’t show I was going to be in bad shape. The money in the bank, the drink in my hand — neither meant a damn thing. Alice was all that mattered.

By the time I finished the drink I was starting to sweat. She would call if she couldn’t make it and I started praying the phone wouldn’t ring.

At six-fifteen there was a knock on the door. I crossed over and jerked it open fast. She was standing there in a white dress, looking hot and tired.

She came into the room and I closed the door and then we stood looking at each other for a minute without saying anything. She looked a little scared.

“Funny,” she said, with a crooked smile, “it seems sort of wrong now, doesn’t it?”

“Is that the way you feel?”

She came closer to me and she didn’t look scared any more. She put her hand on my shoulder and leaned against me. “No, Johnny, that’s not the way I feel. I feel like I’m coming home after being away a long time.”

I sat down in the big chair and pulled her onto my lap.

“That’s my baby. You look tired. Was it a tough day?”

“Not so bad. But hot.”

“How about a drink?”

“Not right now, Johnny.” She leaned back against me and I could feel the heat of her body through the silk shirt I was wearing. She closed her eyes and said, “I just want to sit here for a while Johnny. I don’t even want to think.”

“Suits me, baby,” I said. I pulled her head down closer to me and kissed her hair and her ear and the tip of her nose. Soft little kisses the way you’d kiss a baby. The room was almost dark and it seemed perfect just to sit there holding her and kissing her a little.

Finally she stirred and raised herself so she could look at me. She was smiling. “Hello, Johnny.”

“Hello, baby.”

She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips, softly at first and then she pressed closer to me and my arms went around her as tight as I could make them.

We didn’t talk any more. I picked her up and carried her to the bed.

She kept saying my name over and over, and then she began to cry a little and her head was rolling from side to side.

“Johnny, I’ve got to have you. I can’t stand things this way.”

“It’s going to be all right, baby.”

“Promise me, Johnny. Promise me.”

“I promise, baby.”

She stopped rolling her head and looked at me for a moment with her dark shiny eyes and then she began to laugh, a soft little laugh.

“You promised, didn’t you, Johnny?”

There was never anything in the world like that afternoon.

Afterward we just lay there and smoked cigarettes and watched the little glow they made in the darkness of the room.

She got up on her elbow after a while and put her cigarette out. Then she ran her hand slowly over my chest and shoulders.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“I’ll send down for some stuff,” I said.

“You’ve got such a nice skin, Johnny. Almost like a girl’s.” She laughed and lay down beside me again and began humming to herself, some song we’d listened to together on the radio.

“...When do you have to go?”

She stopped humming and was quiet for a long time it seemed. “He’s going to be furious anyway so it doesn’t make too much difference. I told him I had some work to do for Mr. Lesser this evening, but he didn’t like the idea. I’d better leave about nine.”

“Make it ten, baby.”

“All right.” She looked at me and smiled. “An hour won’t make any difference to him but it might to us. Funny thing, Mr. Lesser did want me to work tonight.” She laughed. “When I’m old and nobody wants me I think I’ll have to fall back on him.”

“Is that old goat still bothering you?”

“He’s not that old,” she said. “He never really bothers me, you know that. He just hangs around and lets me know that he’s willing to liven up my life any time I feel in the mood.”

“Does he know Frank is back?”

“I forgot to tell him, but I will tomorrow. I don’t want him calling me now. Frank is angry enough as it is without having Mr. Lesser carrying on an affair with me by phone.”

Lesser was Alice’s boss. He was about forty, a bachelor, one of those sharp dressing little guys who like to imagine they’re lady killers. He’d had a yen for Alice ever since she’d worked there, but it had never gotten him anything that took more than a pair of eyes to handle.

He used to call her every week or so and suggest that he come out for a drink. Probably he thought it was very romantic and glamorous just the way it was; if she’d said yes it might have scared him to death.

“I’d better get some food up here,” I said. I called room service and told them to send up the special dinner for two. Onion soup, shrimp cocktails, sirloins done rare and all the trimmings.

“That sounds wonderful,” she said. “How long will it take to get all that ready?” She turned her head and looked at me and her eyes were shining in the dark.

“About forty-five minutes. There’s lots of time.”

She turned on her side and stretched her legs slowly and then she made a funny little noise in her throat.

“I love you, Johnny,” she whispered.

We didn’t do any more talking. When I heard the knock on the door I got up and took a dollar from my wallet. I put my robe on and went to the door. A bell hop was standing in the hall behind one of those tables on wheels and there must have been a dozen dishes with silver lids on top of the tray.

I gave the boy the buck and pulled the thing into the room and closed the door. Alice sat up in bed and said, “I’m starved. Everything smells too good to be true.”

I pushed the thing over to the side of the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“Shall I turn the light on?” she asked.

I took the silver lids off the food and put them out of the way on the floor. “We don’t need any light,” I said.

“We might eat the steak first and the salad last,” she said.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“Okay, have some steak?”

I cut the steak and we started eating. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and everything tasted good. After we finished the steaks the soup was cool enough to drink out of the cups and we drank it without taking a breath.

The room was dark and there was a little breeze coming in the window. We didn’t talk much until we finished eating and then Alice stretched out on the bed and lit a cigarette.

“I wish I could go to sleep,” she said.

I put the silver lids back on the tray and shoved the things out of the way. I lit a cigarette and stretched out beside her.

We smoked in the darkness and didn’t talk. After a while I put my cigarette out and turned on my side and kissed her as soft as I could on the lips. She turned her head and looked at me and her eyes were big and shining.

“Johnny, what did you mean when you said everything was going to be all right?”

“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”

“What are we going to do about him, Johnny?”

We looked at each other for a long time without saying anything. Something was building between us, something that scared me and made me cold all over. We knew what we were thinking but we couldn’t put it into words.

“I don’t know what we’ll do,” I said.

“I’m scared, Johnny. I’m afraid of him and I’m afraid I won’t be able to be with you.”

“What are you scared of Frank about?”

Her voice was low, so low I had to lean closer to hear.

“He knows something is wrong. I didn’t tell you this, but Lesser called the night Frank got home. He asked to talk to me and it worried Frank. The next night you called and then hung up when he asked who it was. That made him furious. He came in and asked what was going on and who these men were that always were calling. I told him it was probably a wrong number but I knew he wasn’t fooled. He’s been watching me ever since with a sort of strange look. I’ll be reading the paper or something and when I look up I’ll find him watching me. It’s getting on my nerves.”

“It’s not easy, I can see that,” I said.

“And I don’t like to have him touch me,” she said. “That’s caused trouble. I’ve lied to him about not feeling well so far, but he is my husband and I can’t go on lying forever.”

“Would he give you a divorce?”

“No. It’s against his religion for one thing, and if I asked him he’d know then that I’d been seeing someone else while he was gone. I think that would drive him insane. I think he’s insane right now. Last night he took a gun out of his army bag and loaded it and when I asked him what the idea was he just said he liked to have a gun around the house.”

We didn’t talk any more for a long while. I was thinking about what she’d said and I knew we couldn’t go on this way. Things were heading for an explosion and I didn’t like it.

She looked at her watch but it was too dark to tell the time, so I lit a match and held it close to her wrist and we could see that it was almost ten o’clock.

“I’ve got to be going,” she said.

I held the burning match between us and looked at her and I could see her eyes shining in the light like a cat’s. We stared at each other and the silence built up and what we were thinking was ready to come out.

We knew what we wanted and we knew what we had to do to get it and that scared us. The thinking about it made us lie there staring at each other without saying a word while the match flickered and finally went out.

The darkness covered everything. But we still looked at each other; when my eyes got used to the dark again I could see her eyes, two shiny points in the blackness.

“We’ve got to get rid of him, Johnny,” she said.

I knew she was going to say that. If she hadn’t I would have had to myself. But when the words came out, and what we were thinking was in the open, I felt a chill go up my back.

“Yes, we’ve got to get rid of him,” I said.

It was out in the open and it took the pressure off us. We knew what we had to do, and we knew where we stood.

I kissed her then and she closed her eyes.

“I love you, Johnny.”

“You’ve got to be going,” I said. “Don’t even think about what we just said. Let me do the thinking. We’re going to get rid of him but we’ll do it so they’ll never connect us with it. We’ve got to make it fool-proof and air-tight, and when we do it we’ve got to stick together all the way.”

“How long will it take?” she said.

“That doesn’t matter. The thing is it’s got to be right. We can’t take even the slightest chance. We don’t see each other from now on, get that? When I’ve got it figured out I’ll get in touch with you at the office. If anything breaks and you have to talk to me call me here at noon. And call from a drug store. Have you got all that?”

“I’ve got it, Johnny.”

“All right, get dressed. We don’t want to make him any more suspicious than he is already.”

“It’s all right now, Johnny, but I’m going to be afraid again when I’m alone.”

That’s the way I felt. But I didn’t say anything more about it.

When she kissed me goodbye and cried a little, I was still all right. She went to the door and on out without looking back.

Then I was afraid. I knew what we were going to do and I knew what it was going to mean.

The room was quiet and warm now and I was twenty stories above the street in a comfortable bed. But I was cold and empty.