He Who Hesitates

1

When he awoke, the windows were rimmed with frost and the air in the room was bitter cold. He could not remember where he was for a moment. His bedroom back home was always cold on a winter's morning, but this was not his bedroom, and for a moment he grappled with its alien look and then remembered he was in the city. He got out of bed in his underwear and walked swiftly across the wooden floor to where he had put his clothing on a chair the night before.

The room was sparsely furnished. A bed was against one wall, a dresser on the wall opposite. There were two chairs in the room: the wooden one over which his clothes were hanging, and a stuffed easy chair near the curtained window. There was a sink in the comer, but the bathroom was in the hallway. He sat on the wooden chair as he tied his shoes, and then walked quickly to the sink, where he began washing. He was a huge man, six feet five inches tall and weighing two hundred and ten pounds. His hands were immense, brown and calloused like a farmer's. He soaped his face, and then scooped up water from the sink, splashing it onto his massive nose and high, chiseled cheekbones, his full mouth and roughhewn chin. He rinsed the soap away from his eyes and then opened them and stared at himself in the mirror for just a moment. He reached for the towel and dried himself.

He supposed he should go to the police.

God it was cold in this room.

He wondered what time it was.

He walked swiftly to the chair and pulled on his shirt and buttoned it, and then slipped his tie under the frayed collar without tying it, just letting the ends hang loose on his shirt front, putting his heavy tweed jacket over it, and then crossing his long arms in front of him and slapping his sides to generate a little warmth in his body. He went to the window and pulled back the yellowed lace curtain and looked down past the FURNISHED ROOMS sign to the street two stories below, trying to determine the time by the number of people awake and moving around.

The street was empty.

He knew he should go to the police, but he didn't want to go barging in there at six o'clock in the morning — well, it was probably later than that. If it was only six, it'd be dark out there, wouldn't it? The street was empty only because it was so damn cold, that was all. He wouldn't be surprised if it was nine, maybe ten o'clock already. He let the curtain fall and then walked to the closet and opened it. A small and very old suitcase rested on the floor of the closet. The suitcase belonged to his mother and there was a single sticker on it, a yellow and green one with the words NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK in a semicircle and a painting of the falls in white and blue in the middle of the sticker. She had gone there on her honeymoon. This was the only piece of luggage she had ever owned, and she gave it to him each time he came into the city to sell the woodenware. He usually came maybe three, four times a year. This was the first time he'd come in February.

He remembered all at once that tomorrow was Valentine's Day.

He would have to send his mother a card.

He took his heavy green overcoat out of the closet, the one he always wore to the city during the winter months, and carried it over to the bed, dropping it there. He went to the dresser and picked up his small change, which he put into the right-hand pocket of his trousers, and then picked up his wallet, looked into it, and then removed the money he had got yesterday for the woodenware. He counted the money again — it was exactly a hundred and twenty-two dollars — and then put it back into the wallet and went to the bed again, and picked up his coat, and put it on, his massive shoulders shrugging into the air as he performed the operation.

He buttoned the coat, then walked back to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror again. He looked all right. He didn't want the police to think no bum was walking in there.

He wondered where the police station was.

He would have to ask the landlady, what was her name?

If she was awake.

He was hungry too. He'd have to get him some breakfast before he went to the police.

He wondered if he should pack the few things he'd put in the dresser or wait until later. He supposed it would be all right to pack them later. Maybe he ought to mail the money to his mother, though. That represented a lot of work, that hundred and twenty-two dollars, a lot of work. And it had to last until maybe April or May when he'd be coming to the city again — well, when his brother would be coming, anyway. Yes, he'd pack later.

He went out of the room, locking the door behind him, and went down the steps to the first floor. The linoleum on the stair treads was old and worn; he had noticed that when he'd taken the room two nights ago. But the reason he'd come all the way uptown here for a room was because he knew it'd be a lot cheaper than a hotel. So he wasn't about to start complaining about the worn linoleum, hell with that. So long as the bed was all right and didn't have anything crawling in it, why that was good enough for him. He was only paying four dollars a night for the room, you couldn't do much better than that unless you wanted to go down to Skid Row, he wasn't about to go sleeping with a bunch of drunken bums.

The landlady's apartment was on the ground floor at the end of the hall. The hall smelled nice and clean, she'd been scrubbing it on her hands and knees the day he'd taken the room, that was Tuesday. He'd known right off it was going to be a clean place without any bugs in the bed, that was the important thing, the bugs. Don't take no bed with bugs in it, his mother had said. He didn't know how you could tell if a bed had bugs in it until you got into the bed with them, and then it was probably too late to do anything about it, they'd eat you alive. But he figured the smell of that disinfectant in the hallway was a sure sign this lady was clean. She probably used something on the coils of the bedspring too, that was where the bugs hid. His mother always washed out the bedspring coils back home with a toothbrush and ammonia, he didn't know why ammonia, but he supposed it killed anything that was in there. Sometimes she sprayed them, too, with some kind of bug killer. She was very clean.

He wished he knew what time it was because he didn't want to get the landlady out of bed if it was too early in the morning. Well, he had to tell her he was leaving today, anyway, settle up with her. He lifted his hand and tentatively knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" she said.

Good. She was awake.

"It's me," he answered. "Mr. Broome."

"Just a minute, Mr. Broome," the landlady answered. He waited while she came to the door. Somewhere in the building, upstairs, he heard a toilet flush. The door opened.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning, Mr. Broome," the landlady said. Dougherty, that was her name. Agnes Dougherty, he remembered now.

"I hope I didn't wake you up, Mrs. Dougherty," he said.

"Nope, I was just having my breakfast," she answered. She was a small, thin woman wearing a faded wrapper imprinted with primroses. Her hair was in curlers. She reminded him of his mother, small like that. Don't ask me how I ever give birth to a young horse like you, his mother always said. It was kind of funny, when you thought of it, her so small.

"What was it you wanted, Mr. Broome?"

"Well, I'll be leaving today, and I thought—"

"Oh, so soon?"

"Well, I finished what I had to do here, you know, so—"

"What was that, Mr. Broome? Come in, won't you, have some coffee with me."

"Well, ma'am—"

"Come in, come in," she said in a perky sort of bright cheerful voice; she was really a very nice little lady.

"Okay," he said, "but only 'cause I have to come in anyway to settle up with you."

He went into the apartment and she closed the door behind him. The apartment smelled as clean as the hallway did, with the same strong disinfectant smell. The kitchen linoleum had been scrubbed bare in spots, so that the wooden floor beneath it showed through, and even the wood in those spots had been scrubbed almost white. A clean oilcloth with a seashell pattern covered the kitchen table.

"Sit down," Mrs. Dougherty said. "How do you like your coffee?"

"Well, ma'am, I usually have it black with three sugars." He chuckled and said, "My mother says I get my sweet tooth from my father. He died in a train accident when I was only seven."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Mrs. Dougherty said, bringing a clean cup to the table and then pouring it full to the brim with coffee.

"Well, 1 hardly remember him."

"Here's the sugar," she said, and moved the bowl toward him. She sat at the table opposite him, picking up a piece of toast she had bitten into before answering the door. Remembering her guest, she said, "Would you like some toast?"

"No, thank you, ma'am."

"Are you sure?"

"Well . . ."

"I'll make you some," she said, and rose and went to the counter near the sink where she took a slice of bread from its waxed wrapper and put it into the toaster. "Or would you like two slices?" she said.

He shrugged and smiled and said, "I guess I could eat two, ma'am."

"A healthy appetite's nothing to be ashamed of," she said, and put another slice of bread into the toaster. "Now," she said, and came back to the table. "You were telling me why you were here in the city."

"Oh, to sell our wares, ma'am."

"What wares?"

"We've got a woodworking shop, just a small one, you know."

"Who's we?"

"Oh, me and my brother."

"Where's that?"

"Up in Carey, do you know it?"

"I don't think so."

"It's just a small town. Huddleston is the nearest big town, I suppose.

"Oh, yes, Huddleston," Mrs. Dougherty said.

"There's skiing up there, if you ski."

Mrs. Dougherty laughed. "No, no, I don't ski," she said, and sipped at her coffee and then put down the cup and jumped up when she heard the toaster click. She brought the two slices of bread to the table, and moved the butter dish and the marmalade pot toward him. She sat again. As he buttered his toast, she said, "What do you make in your shop, Mr. Broome?"

"All sorts of woodenware."

"Furniture?"

"Well, not really, We make benches and end tables, stuff like that, but nothing really big. Mostly, we do salad bowls and cutting boards and wooden utensils, you know, small things. Also, my brother does some carving."

"That sounds very nice," Mrs. Dougherty said. "And you bring it into the city to sell, is that it?"

"We sell it up there, too," he said, "but not really enough to keep us going, you know. During the summer, it's not so bad because there're a lot of people up that way looking for antiques, and we get some of them stop by the shop, you know. But in the winter, it's mostly skiers up that way, and only time they'll stop in is if it's a rainy day and they can't ski. So I try to get in the city three, four times a year, mostly during the winter months." He paused. "First time I ever been here in February."

"Is that right?" she said.

"That's a fact, ma'am," he said.

"How do you like it?"

"Well, it's sure cold enough," he said, and laughed. He bit into the toast, completely relaxed, and then lifted his coffee cup and said, "Say, what time is it anyway?"

"A little bit past eight," she said.

"I guess I overslept," he said, and laughed.

He wondered if he should ask her about the police station.

"What time do you usually get up?"

"Back home? In Carey, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"Well, my mother's up and bustling around the kitchen pretty early, you know. My father used to be a railroad man, and he had an early run, so she's used to getting up early, I guess she's puttering around out there at five, five-thirty every morning. My kid brother's a light sleeper and we share a bedroom, you know, we've just got this small little house there, not much more than a shack really, so when she starts puttering around and he starts stirring, well you just might as well get up yourself, that's all," he said, and began laughing again.

"You've got a good hearty laugh," Mrs. Dougherty said. "Most big men have that kind of laugh."

"That a fact?"

"That's been my observation," she said.

He thought this might be a good time to ask her about the police station, but he didn't want to get her upset or anything, so he lifted his coffee cup and sipped at it, and smacked his lips, and then bit into the second slice of toast.

"I want to pay you for last night." he said, "I only paid you for one night in advance, you know."

"That's right," Mrs. Dougherty said. He began reaching into his pocket for his wallet, and she quickly said, "well, finish your coffee first, Mr. Broome. There's nobody chasing you for the money."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and smiled and took another bite of the toast.

"How old are you, Mr. Broome?" she said. "Do you mind my asking?"

"Not at all, ma'am. I'll be twenty-seven in May. May the twelfth."

"I figured about that. How old is your brother?"

"Twenty-two." He paused. "Tomorrow's Valentine's Day, you know," he said.

"Isn't anyone going to send me a valentine."

"You never can tell, Mrs. Dougherty," he said. "I'm going out to buy my mother one right this minute, soon as I leave here."

"That's very nice," Mrs. Dougherty said. She paused, and then smiled weakly, and then said, "We never had any children."

"I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am."

She nodded. He finished his coffee and then reached into his wallet and handed her a five-dollar bill. "I'll get you your change," she said.

He stood alongside the table while she went into the other room for her handbag. He decided not to ask her where the police station was. He didn't want to upset her, especially now that she seemed to be upset already about not having any children who could send her a valentine the way he was going to send his mother one. He wondered if his mother would get it in time. He supposed she would. If he bought it first thing, even before he went to the police station, and mailed it right away, he was sure she'd get it by tomorrow morning.

"Here you are, Mr. Broome," she said, and came back into the kitchen. He took the dollar bill, tucked it into his wallet, and then put on his overcoat. "When you come to the city again, I hope you'll be back for a room," she said.

"Oh, yes, ma'am, I will," he said.

"You're a fine gentleman," she said.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, embarrassed.

"In this neighborhood..." she started, and then closed her mouth and shook her head.

"I'll be back later to pack," he said.

"Take your time," she said.

"Well, I have a few errands to do, actually."

'Take your time," she said again, and walked him to the door.

The drugstore was on the comer of Ainsley Avenue and North Eleventh Street. A lunch counter ran along the left-hand side of the store. The remainder of the place was given over to drugs and sundries. A rack of paperback books, their titles and covers screaming for attention, stood before a row of hot-water bottles. Beyond that, and somewhat apart from the heap of combs and syringes behind it, was a rack of greeting cards. He walked past the books — something called HOW TO DO IT ON AIRPLANES caught his eye — and directly to the greeting cards. An assorted array of birthday cards was spread out on the rack — Birthday Son, Birthday Daughter, Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Grandfather, Grandmother, and Miscellaneous Relatives. He scanned them quickly, glanced briefly at Condolences, Anniversary, and Birth and finally came to the section devoted exclusively to valentines. More and more of the cards each year were comical. He didn't care much for that kind of card. Most of them, matter of fact, he didn't get the humor of. He looked down the row of labels at the top of the rack, and saw that these cards were classified, too, almost the way the birthday cards had been. There were cards for Sweetheart, Wife, Husband, Mother, Father; he didn't bother going down the rest of the row because what he was interested in was a card for his mother. He looked at two or three of them, and then found a nice card with a real satin heart on the front of it, and pink ribbons trailing from the heart, and the word Mother in delicate gold script across the top of the card. He opened it and started to read the little poem inside. Sometimes, you found a nice-looking card but the words were all wrong. You had to be careful.

He read the verse over again, and then read it a third time, pleased with the sentiment, appreciative of the way the lines scanned. He wondered how much the card cost. He liked it, but he didn't want to go spending too much for a card. He walked over to the cash register. A colored girl was sitting behind it, reading a magazine.

"How much is this card?" he asked.

"Let's see it," she said. She took the card from him, turned it over, and looked at the price on the back. "It's seventy-five cents," she said. She saw his expression, and smiled. "There are cheaper ones there, if you look."

"Well, I like this one," he said. "It is a nice one."

My Mother The. joy you Bring to me each day Cannot in mere words be. e^ressed. The. mittion things you do and say Confirm, you are the very Best. And even when the day is done, And weary waCf^ I up the stair, 'Who Waits for me? The only one To smite, to greet, to Cove, to care — mother.

"Yeah, I like the poem. Most of them have terrible poems."

"It's a nice poem," the girl said, glancing at it.

"Seventy-five, huh?"

"Yes, that's what it says on the back. See?" She turned the card over and held it out to him. She had very long nails. She pointed to some letters and numerals printed on the bottom of the card. "See where it says XM-75? that means seventy-five cents."

"Why don't they just mark it seventy-five cents?" he asked.

The girl giggled. "I don't know. They want to be mysterious, I guess."

"Yes, well, XM-75 is sure mysterious," he said, and smiled, and the girl smiled back. "Well, I guess I'll take it," he said.

"Your mother'll like it," the girl said.

"I think so. I need some stamps; do you sell stamps?"

"In the machine," the girl said.

"And, oh, wait a minute . . ."

"Yes?"

"I want to get another card."

"All right," she said.

"Don't ring that up yet."

"I won't."

He went back to the rack and bypassed the Mother and Wife and Sweetheart section, searching for a section labeled Friend or Acquaintance, and finding one marked General, and then looking over the cards there until he found one that said simply, To Someone Very Nice on Valentine's Day. There wasn't any poem inside the card. All it said was Have a Happy. He took the card back to the cash register and showed it to the colored girl.

"Do you like this one?" he asked.

"Who's it for? Your girl?"

"No, I don't have a girl," he answered.

"Oh, sure, come on," she said, "big handsome fellow like you."

"Really," he said, "I don't have a girl," and realized all at once she was flirting with him.

"Who's it for?" she asked archly.

"My landlady."

The girl laughed. "You must be the only man in this entire city who's sending a card to his landlady."

"Well, I am," he said, and laughed with her.

"She must be something, your landlady."

"She's very nice."

"A blonde, I'll bet."

"Well, no."

"What then? A readhead?"

"No, no, she's—"

"Or maybe you like darker girls," she said, and looked him square in the eye.

He looked back at her and said nothing.

"Do you like dark girls?" she said.

"I like dark girls," he said.

"I'll just bet you do," she said, very softly.

They were both silent for a moment.

"How much do I owe you?" he asked.

"Well, let me take a look at the one for your landlady," she said, and turned the card over. "Seventy-five and . . . twenty-five is a dollar."

He reached into his wallet and handed her a bill.

"Didn't you say you wanted stamps?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have change for the machine?"

"Yes, I think so," he said.

"Machine's right over there," she said, gesturing toward it with her head. She rang up his dollar bill, and then reached for a paper bag below the counter. "Are you from the neighborhood?"

"No."

She watched him as he put his money in the machine and then pulled the lever for the stamps.

"Out of town?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Carey, do you know it?"

"I don't think so."

"It's near Huddleston. Do you ski?"

"Me?" the girl said, and laughed.

He licked the stamps and put one in the corner of each envelope. "Do you have a pen?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, and handed him one from alongside the cash register. "Did you ever see a colored person skiing?"

"Tell you the truth," he said, "I've never been skiing, so I wouldn't know."

"Oh, I'm sure there's one or two," she said. "There must be one or two in the whole United States, don't you think?"

"I guess there must be."

"Yeah, but I don't know any of them," she said.

"Neither do I."

She glanced at the envelope he was addressing. "Who's Dorothy Broome?" she asked.

"My mother."

"What's your name?"

"Roger Broome."

"I'm Amelia," she said.

"Hello, Amelia."

"Amelia Perez." She paused. "My father's Spanish."

"All right, Amelia," he said, and looked up at her and smiled, and then began addressing the other envelope.

"This is the one to your landlady, huh, Roger?"

"That's right."

"Mrs . . . Agnes . . . Dougherty." Amelia grinned. "Some landlady."

"She really is," Roger said.

"Mmm."

"Well," he said, and looked up and smiled. "That's that."

"Mailbox right outside," Amelia said.

"Thank you," he said. They stared at each other for a moment. "Well." He shrugged. "Well, so long."

"So long, Roger," she said behind him.

He stopped at the phone booth on the way out and opened the directory, first looking up POLICE, and then turning to the CITY OF section and finding a listing there for POLICE DEPT. His finger skipped over the various headings, Alcoholic Unit, Bomb Squad, Central Motors Repr Shop, Hrbr Precinct, Homicide Squads, Narcotic, Safety, Traffic, Youth — where were all the individual precincts? What did a man do if he simply wanted a cop? He closed the directory and walked back to the cash register. Amelia looked up.

"Hi," she said. "Did you forget something?" "I'm supposed to meet a friend of mine outside the police station," he said, and shrugged. "Trouble is, I don't know where it is."

"Go across to the park," she said, "and start walking uptown on Graver Avenue. You can't miss it. It's got these big green globes out front."

2

The big green globes were each marked with the numerals "87." They flanked the closed brown entrance doors of the building, the building a soot-covered monotonous gray against the gray early-morning sky behind it. Roger stood across the street near the low stone wall marking the park's northern boundary on Grover Avenue, and looked at the building and wondered if anyone was inside; the doors were closed. Well, he thought, you can't expect them to leave the doors open in the middle of winter. Anyway, the police are always there, that's their job. They don't close on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

He looked at the building again.

It wasn't a very cheerful place sitting there across the street covered with the dirt of maybe half a century, its windows protected by wire-mesh grilles on the outside, the interior hidden by partially drawn and faded shades within. The only friendly thing about the place was the wisp of smoke that trailed up from a chimney hidden by the roofs parapets. He wondered how many policemen were inside there, and then he wondered if he should go in. Maybe it was too early to be bothering them. He walked up some fifty feet to where there was an entrance break in the low stone wall, and then walked into the park and onto the gravel path paralleling the stone wall. He looked across to the police station again, and then sat on a bench with his head partially turned so that he could watch the building.

As he watched, the front door opened, and a stream of uniformed policemen came down the steps chatting and laughing; it looked for a minute like all the cops in the city were pouring out of that door. They came down the low flat steps to the sidewalk and began walking off in different directions, some of them heading downtown and others heading uptown, some of them turning at the corner and heading north toward the river, and half a dozen of the rest crossing the street and coming directly to the wall entrance he himself had used not three, four minutes ago. Inside the park, two of them turned left and started heading up the gravel path in the opposite direction, and two of them cut across the grass and what looked like a bridle path and waved at the last two cops, who were coming right past the bench where Roger was sitting. He looked up at them as they went by, and he nodded at them briefly. One of the cops, as though he recognized Roger as somebody he greeted every morning (which was impossible since Roger had never been on this bench across from the police station in his life), sort of waved at him, and smiled, and said, "Hi, there," and then turned back to the other cop and picked up his conversation as both of them continued on the path heading downtown.

Roger watched them until they were out of sight.

He turned on the bench again and busied himself with looking at the police station across the street.

He supposed he would have to talk to a detective. That was probably the thing. You probably went in and said you wanted to talk to a detective, and they probably asked you what it was in reference to, something like a bank or a business office, he supposed.

He didn't like the idea of talking it over with somebody before they let him see a detective. That bothered him a little. He wanted to see a detective right out and clean, get it over with, instead of a lot of talk with a uniformed cop.

"That's what they are in there, all right," the voice said.

He turned, startled. He had been so absorbed with watching the building that he hadn't heard footsteps on the gravel path, and was surprised now to see a man sitting on the bench opposite him. It was still maybe quarter of nine in the morning, maybe a little earlier, and the temperature was, oh, he would guess somewhere in the twenties or even the upper teens, and the two of them were the only ones sitting in the park, facing each other on opposite benches.

"What?"he said.

"That's what they are in there, all right," the other man said.

"That's what who is in where?" he asked.

"Cops," the other man said. He was a small dapper man of about fifty, wearing a black overcoat with black velveteen collar and cuffs and wearing a gray fedora pulled rakishly over one eye. He had a small pencil-line black mustache and a black bow tie with yellow polka dots, the tie showing in the opening of his coat like the gaily painted propeller of an airplane. He gave a small meaningful contemptuous jerk of his head toward the police station across the street. "Cops," he repeated.

"That's right," Roger said.

"Yeah, sure that's right," the man said.

Roger looked at him, and nodded, and then dismissed him with a brief shrug and turned back to study the police station again.

"Have they got somebody in there?" the man asked.

"What?" Roger said, and turned again.

"In there."

"What do you mean?"

"Are they holding somebody?"

"I don't think I know what you mean."

"Of yours," the man said.

"Of mine?"

"In there."

"What?"

"Are they holding somebody of yours in there?" the man said, impatiently.

"Oh. No. No, they're not."

"Then why are you watching the building?"

Roger shrugged.

"Look, you don't have to put on airs with me," the man said. "I've been in and out of that place more times than you can count on your fingers and toes."

"Mm?" Roger said, and was about to get up and move out of the park, when the man rose and crossed the gravel path and sat on the bench alongside him.

"They've had me in there on a lot of little things," the man said. "My name's Clyde."

"How do you do?" Roger said.

"Clyde Warren, what's yours?"

"Roger. Broome."

"Roger Broome, well, a new broom sweeps clean, eh?" Clyde said, and burst out laughing. His teeth were very white. His breath plumed vigorously from his mouth as he laughed. He lifted one hand to brush away a frozen laughter tear from the corner of his eye. His fingers were stained with nicotine. "Yessir," he said, still laughing, "a new broom sweeps clean, they've had me in there on a lot of little things, Roger, oh yes, a lot of little things."

"Well, I guess I'd better be getting along," Roger said, and again made a move to rise, but Clyde put his hand gently on his shoulder, and then removed it immediately, as though suddenly aware of Roger's size and potential power and not wishing to provoke him in any way. The sudden retreat was not wasted on Roger, who felt himself subtly flattered and hesitated on the bench a moment longer. After all, he thought, this man's been inside there, he knows what it's like inside there.

"What do they do?" he asked. "When you go in?"

"When you go in?" Clyde said. "When you go in? You mean when they take you in, don't you?"

"Well, I suppose so."

"They book you, if they've got anything to book you on, and then they take you back to the detention cells on the first floor there and keep you locked up until it's time to go downtown for lineup and arraignment, that's if your offense was a felony."

"What's a felony?" Roger asked.

"Death or a state prison," Clyde answered.

"What do you mean?"

"The punishment."

"Oh."

"Sure."

"Well, what sort of crimes would that be?"

"Burglary is a felony, murder is a felony, armed robbery is a felony, you get the idea?"

"Yes," Roger said, nodding.

"Indecent exposure," Clyde said, "is only a misdemeanor."

"I see."

"Yes sir, only a misdemeanor," Clyde said, and grinned. His teeth were dazzlingly white. "They're false," he said, following Roger's gaze, and clicked the teeth in his mouth to prove it. Roger nodded. "Sodomy, on the other hand, is a felony," Clyde said. "You can get twenty years for sodomy."

"Is that right?" Roger said.

"Absolutely. They've never had me in there on sodomy," Clyde said.

"Well, that's good," Roger said, not knowing what sodomy was, and really not terribly interested in what they had had Clyde in there on, but only interested in what it was like once they got you inside there.

"For them to have a case of sodomy," Clyde said, "it's got to be against the other person's will, or by force, or under age, you know what I mean? They've never had me in there on that."

"Do they take your fingerprints?"

"I just told you I've never been in there on sodomy."

"I meant for anything."

"Well, sure they take your fingerprints, that's their job. Their job is to take your fingerprints and get your hands dirty and make life miserable for you whatever chance they can get. That's what being a cop means."

"Mm," Roger said, and both men fell silent. Roger glanced over his shoulder at the police station again.

"I've got a place near here," Clyde said.

"Mm," Roger said.

"Few blocks east."

"Mm."

"Nice apartment," Clyde said.

"Do they let you make a phone call?" Roger said.

"What?"

"The police."

"Oh, sure. Listen, would you like to come up?"

"Up where?" Roger said.

"My place."

"What for?"

Clyde shrugged. "I thought you might like to."

"Well, thanks a lot," Roger said, "but I've got some things to do."

"Maybe you could come up later."

"Thanks, but—"

"It's a nice place," Clyde said, and shrugged.

"Well, the thing is—"

"They've never had me in there on anything big, if that's what's bothering you."

"That's not—"

"I'd have told you if it was anything worse than a misdemeanor."

"I know, but—"

"They just think it's fun to pick me up every now and then, that's all." He made a contemptuous face, and then said, "Cops."

"Well, thank you very much," Roger said, standing, "but—"

"Will you come up later?"

"No, I don't think so."

"I have a poodle," Clyde said.

"That's—"

"His name is Shatzie, he's a nice dog, you'd like him."

"I'm sorry," Roger said.

"Please," Clyde said, and looked up at him.

Roger shook his head.

"No," he said.

He kept shaking his head.

"No," he said again, and then walked away from the bench and out of the park.

He found the post office on Culver Avenue and he went in and made out a postal money order for one hundred dollars, made payable to Dorothy Broome. The money order cost him thirty-five cents, and he spent another six cents for a stamped envelope, which he addressed to his mother on Terminal Street in Carey. He put the money order in the envelope, sealed it and then took it directly to the window and handed it to the clerk.

"Will that get there by tomorrow?" he asked.

The clerk looked at the address. "Supposed to," he said. "If you bring it in before five, it's supposed to get there by tomorrow. I can't vouch for the post office up there, though. They may let it lay around two, three days."

"No, they're very good," Roger said.

"Then it should get there tomorrow."

"Thank you." he said.

He came out of the post office and looked up at the sky, and figured there was just one more thing he had to do before going to the police station, and that was call his mother in Carey to tell her not to worry, that he wouldn't be home tonight the way he'd promised. A clock in a jeweler's window told him it still wasn't nine o'clock, but that was all right, his mother would have been up a long time already, just like he'd told Mrs. Dougherty. He wondered what Mrs. Dougherty would think when she got his valentine, he wished he could be around to see the look on her face when she opened it. Smiling he continued down the side street, looking for a phone booth. A bunch of teen-age boys and girls were standing on one of the front stoops, talking and laughing and smoking, all of them carrying schoolbooks, the girls clutching the books to their small high perfect breasts, the boys carrying them at arm's length or on straps. They'll be going to school any minute now, Roger thought, and remembered when he'd been going to school in Carey, and put the memory out of his mind, and saw the candy store some fifteen feet beyond where the kids were laughing and talking. He went into the store, saw the phone booth at the rear, and stopped at the counter to get change for a dollar bill. He waited until a fat Spanish woman came out of the booth. She smiled up at him as she went by. He sat in the booth smelling of her perfume and her sweat, and dialed the area code for Carey and then the number, Carey 7—3341, and waited while the phone rang on the other end.

"Hello?" his mother's voice said.

"Mom?"

"Roger? Is that you?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Where are you?"

"The city."

"Did you sell the stuff?"

"Yes, Mom."

"How much did you get?"

"A hundred and twenty-two dollars."

"That's more'n we figured, ain't it?" his mother said.

"It's forty-seven dollars more, Mom."

"That's right, it is," his mother said. "That's very good, son."

"It's because I went to that new place I was telling you about. The one I noticed in December, when I was in just before Christmas, do you remember?"

"Downtown there? In the Quarter?"

"That's the place. You know what he gave me for the salad bowls, Mom?"

"Which ones? The big ones?"

"Well, both."

"How much did he give you, Rog?"

"I sold him a dozen of the big ones for a dollar and a half each, Mom. That's more'n we get for them in the shop."

"I know it is. Is the man in his right mind?"

"Sure, he's going to mark them up quite a bit, Mom. I wouldn't be surprised he gets three, maybe even four dollars for those big ones."

"What about the little ones? How much did he pay for those?"

"He only took half a dozen of them."

"How much?"

"A dollar each." Roger paused. "We sell them for seventy-five at the shop, Mom."

"I know," his mother said, and laughed. "Makes me wonder if we're not selling ourselves cheap."

"Well, we don't get the crowd, you know."

"That's right," his mother said. "When are you coming home, son?"

"I sent you a money order for a hundred dollars, Mom, you look for it tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, when are you coming home?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's—"

"What do you mean, you're not sure yet?"

"When I'll be home," Roger said, and the line went silent. He waited. "Mom?" he said.

"I'm here."

"How's ... uh ... how's Buddy?"

"He's fine."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"About ... uh ... coming home."

"Yes?"

"I don't know when."

"Yes, I heard you say that the first time."

"Well, there's something I've got to do, you see."

"What is it you have to do?" his mother asked.

"Well..." he said, and allowed his voice to trail into silence.

"Yes?"

"Actually," he said, "Buddy's there."

"Buddy's only a boy."

"Mom, he's twenty-two."

"That's a boy."

"I'm not much older than that myself, Mom." He paused. "I'm only twenty-seven, Mom. Not even."

"That's a man," she said.

"So I don't see—"

"That's a man," she said again.

"Anyway, I'm not sure what'll be. That's why I sent you the money order."

"Thank you," she said coldly.

"Mom?"

"What?"

"Are you sore?"

"No."

"You sound like you are."

"I'm not. My oldest son wants to leave me alone up here in the dead of winter—"

"Mom, you've got Buddy up there."

"Buddy is just a boy! Who's going to run the shop while you're gone? You know I haven't been feeling well, you know I—"

"Mom, this just can't be helped, that's all."

"What can't be helped?"

"This . . . thing I have to do."

"Which is what?"

"Mom, I guess if I wanted to tell you about it, I'd have done that already."

"Don't get fresh with me," she said. "You're still not too big to take down your pants and give you a good whipping."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Now, what is it that's happened?"

"Nothing."

"Roger—"

"Nothing!" he said sharply. "I'm sorry, Mom, but it's nothing."

The line was silent again.

"You'll hear from me," he said, and before she could answer, he hung up.

3

The man huddled in the doorway of the building next to the candy store seemed to be about Roger's age, a tall thin man with a slight reddish-brown beard stubble. He was wearing a gray overcoat, the collar of which was turned up against his neck and held closed around his throat with one hand. He wore no hat and no gloves. His hand holding the coat collar was a deadly white. The other hand was in his pocket. He was watching the high school girls going up the street when Roger came out of the candy store. As Roger went past the building, he shifted his attention to him and came out of the doorway and down the steps.

"Hey!" he said.

Roger stopped and waited for the man, who walked up to him leisurely and without threat, smiling pleasantly.

"You looking for something?" the man said.

"No," Roger answered.

"I mean, you're not from the neighborhood, are you?"

"No."

"I thought maybe somebody sent you up here."

"For what?" Roger said.

"Anything you want," the man answered, falling into step as Roger began walking again. "You name it, we got it."

"There's nothing I want."

"You want a woman?"

"No, I—"

"What color? White, black, brown? Tan? Yellow even, you name it. We've got a whole streetful of women up here."

"No, I don't want a woman," Roger said.

"You prefer little girls maybe? How old? Nine, ten, eleven? Name it"

"No," Roger said.

"What then? Junk?"

"Junk?"

"Heroin, cocaine, morphine, opium, codeine, demerol, benzedrine, marijuana, phenobarb, goofballs, speedballs, you name it."

"Thanks, no," Roger said.

"What do you need then? A gun? A pad? An alibi? A fence? Name it."

"I'd like a cup of coffee," Roger said, and smiled.

"That's easy," the man said, and shrugged. "Here you meet a genie ready to give you three wishes, and all you want's a cup of coffee." He shrugged again. "Right around the corner there on the avenue," he said. "Coffee and. Best in the neighborhood."

"Good," Roger said.

"I'll join you," the man offered.

"How come everybody's so eager to join me this morning?" Roger asked.

"Who knows?" the man said, and shrugged. "Maybe it's national brotherhood week, huh? Who knows? What's your name?"

"Roger Broome."

"Pleased to know you, Roger," he said and relaxed his grip on the coat collar just long enough to extend his hand, take Roger's, and shake it briefly. The hand returned immediately to the open collar, pulling it tight around the throat. "I'm Ralph Stafford, pleased to know you."

"How are you, Ralph?" Roger said.

They turned the corner now, and were walking toward a small luncheonette in the middle of the block. A vent blew condensing vapor out onto the sidewalk in an enormous white billow. There was the smell of frying food on the air, heavy and greasy. Roger hesitated outside the door, and Ralph said, "Come on, it's good."

"Well, all right," Roger said, and they went in.

The place was small and warm, with eight or nine stools covered in red leatherette and ranged before a plastic-topped counter. A fat man with hardly any hair was behind the counter, his sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms.

"Yeah?" he said as they sat down.

"Coffee for my friend," Ralph said. "Hot chocolate for me." He turned to Roger and lowered his voice confidentially. "Chocolate makes my back break out in pimples," he said, "but who gives a damn, huh? What is it you're up here for? You're not a bull, are you?"

"What's that?" Roger asked.

"A cop."

"No."

"What then? A T-man?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"We had a guy around here two, three months ago — wait a minute, it must've been just before Christmas, that's right — he was a T-man, trying to smell out some junk. He had some case." Ralph paused. "You don't look like a fed to me, I guess I can take a chance."

"What kind of chance?"

"I mean, man, suppose you're a fed, what then?"

"What then?"

"Suppose I'm holding?"

"Holding what?"

"Some junk."

"Oh."

"It could be bad for me, you know."

"Sure," Roger said.

"I'm taking a big chance just being nice to you."

"Yes, I know." Roger said, and smiled.

"You're not, are you?"

"No."

"The Law, I mean."

"That's right."

"Good."

There was a pause as the man behind the counter brought their beverages and put them down. Ralph picked up his hot chocolate, sipped at it, and then turned to Roger again.

"What are you?" he said. "If not The Law?"

"Just a person. Ordinary person, that's all."

"What are you doing around here?"

"I took a room up here a few nights ago." ' "What for?"

"I came to the city to take care of some business."

"What kind of business?"

"Some stuff I had to sell."

"Hot bills?"

"No."

"You're not pushing, are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"No, I guess you're not." Ralph shrugged. "What did you come to sell?"

"Bowls. And spoons. And benches. Things like that."

"Yeah?" Ralph said skeptically.

"That's right. We've got a little woodworking shop upstate, my brother and me."

"Oh," Ralph said. He seemed disappointed.

"So I brought the stuff in to try to sell it."

"How'd you get here?"

"In the truck. We've got a little pickup truck, my brother and me."

"What kind of truck?"

"A '59 Chevy."

"Can you carry a lot in it?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"Well, I mean how big a load can it carry?"

"I don't know exactly. It's not too big, but I suppose—"

"Could a piano fit in it?"

"I guess so. Why? Do you want to move a piano?"

"No, I'm just trying to get an idea. There are times when guys I know could use a truck, you follow?"

"For what?"

"To move stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Stolen," Ralph said conversationally, and took another sip at the chocolate.

"Oh," Roger said.

"What do you think?"

"I don't think I could let you have the truck to move stolen goods."

"Mmm," Ralph said, and studied him for a moment, and then sipped at the chocolate again.

The door to the luncheonette opened. A tall heavy man wearing a brown overcoat came into the room, closed the door noisily, took off his coat, hung it on a wall hook, rubbed his hands together briskly, and came over to the counter.

"Coffee and a French cruller," he said to the counterman, and then turned to glance at Roger, and noticed Ralph sitting at the end of the counter. "Well, well," the man said, "look what crawled out from under the rocks."

Ralph looked up from his chocolate, nodded briefly, and said, "Good morning."

"I thought you hibernated from Christmas to Easter, Ralphie."

"No, only bears hibernate," Ralph said.

"I thought what you did was hole up in that apartment of yours with enough heroin to last you through the whole winter, that's what I thought you did."

"I don't know what you mean by heroin," Ralph said.

"Who's your friend here?" the man asked. "One of your junkie playmates?"

"Neither one of us are junkies," Ralph said. "You know I kicked the habit, what are you making a big fuss about?"

"Yeah, sure," the man said. He turned to the counterman. "You see this guy, Chip?" he said. "This guy is the biggest junkie in the neighborhood. He'd steal his grandmother's glass eye to hock it for a fix. Am I right, Ralphie?"

"Wrong," Ralph said. "Wrong as usual."

"Sure. How many crooked deals do you get involved in every day, I mean besides the normal criminal act of possessing narcotics."

"I'm not involved in any criminal activity," Ralph said, with dignity. "And if you care to shake me down right now, I'd be happy to have you do so. Voluntarily. If you think I'm holding."

"You hear that, Chip?" the man said to the counterman. "He wants me to shake him down. I've got half a mind to do it. When they're so eager for a shakedown, it usually means they've got something to hide."

"Argh, leave him alone, Andy," the counterman said.

"Sure, leave him alone, Andy," Ralph said.

"To you, pal, it's Detective Parker. And don't forget it."

"Excuse me, Detective Parker. Pardon me for living."

"Yeah," Parker said. "Thanks," he said to the counterman as he put down the coffee and cruller. He took a huge bite of the cruller, almost demolishing it with the single bite, and then picked up his coffee cup and took a quick noisy gulp and put the cup down on the saucer again, sloshing coffee over the sides. He belched and then turned to look at Ralph briefly, and then said to Roger, "Is he a friend of yours?"

"We just met," Ralph answered.

"Who asked you?" Parker said.

"We're friends," Roger said.

"What's your name?" Parker asked. He picked up the coffee and sipped at it without looking at Roger. When Roger did not answer, he turned toward him and said again, "What's your name?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"You're consorting with a known criminal. I have a right to ask you questions."

"Are you a policeman?"

"I'm a detective, and I work out of the 87th Squad, and here's my identification," Parker said. He threw his shield, pinned to a leather tab, on to the counter. "Now what's your name?"

Roger looked at the shield. "Roger Broome," he said.

"Where do you live, Roger?"

"Upstate. In Carey."

"Where's that?"

"Near Huddleston."

"Where the hell is Huddleston? I never heard of it."

Roger shrugged. "About a hundred and eighty miles from here."

"You got an address in the city?"

"Yes, I'm staying in a place about four or five blocks from—"

"The address."

"I don't know the address offhand. A woman named—"

"What street is it on?"

"Twelfth."

"And where?"

"Off Culver."

"You staying in Mrs. Dougherty's place?"

"That's right," Roger said. "Agnes Dougherty."

"What are you doing here in the city?"

"I came in to sell the woodenware my brother and I make in our shop."

"And did you sell it?"

"Yes "

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"When are you leaving the city?"

"I'm not sure."

"What are you doing with this junkie here?"

"Come on, Parker," Ralph said. "I told you we just—"

"Detective Parker."

"All right, Detective Parker, Detective Parker, all right? We just met. Why don't you leave the guy alone?"

"What is it you think I've done?" Roger asked suddenly.

"Done?" Parker said. He picked up his shield and put it back into his coat pocket, turning on the stool and looking at Roger as though seeing him for the first time. "Who said you did anything?"

"I mean, all these questions."

"Your friend here has been in jail, how many times, Ralphie? Three, four? For possession once, I remember that, and weren't you in for burglary, and—"

"Twice is all," Ralph said.

"Twice is enough," Parker said. "That's why I'm asking you questions, Roger." Parker smiled. "Why? Did you do something?"

"No."

"You're sure now?"

"I'm sure."

"You didn't kill anybody with a hatchet, did you?" Parker said, and laughed. "We had a guy got killed with a hatchet only last month."

"An ax," the counterman said.

"What's the difference?" Parker asked.

"There's a difference," the counterman said, and shrugged.

"To who? To the guy who got hit with it? What does he care? He's already singing with the choir up there." He laughed again, rose, walked to where he had hung his coat, and put it on. He turned to the counterman. "What do I owe you, Chip?" he asked.

"Forget it," the counterman said. "Mark it on the ice."

"Uh-uh," Parker said, shaking his head. "You think I'm a coffee-and-cruller cop? You want to buy me, you got to come higher. What do I owe you?"

The counterman shrugged. "Twenty-five," he said.

"How much higher?" Ralph said. "I know guys who bought you for a fin, Parker."

"Ha ha, very funny," Parker said. He put a quarter on the counter and then turned to face Ralph. "Why don't you try to buy me sometime, pal? Sometime when I catch you red-handed with a pile of shit in your pockets, you try to buy your way out of it, okay?"

"You can't fix narcotics, Parker, you know that."

"Yeah, worse luck for you, pal." He waved at the counterman. "So long, Chip," he said. "I'll see you."

"Take it easy, Andy."

At the door, Parker turned. He looked at Roger without a trace of a smile and said, "If I see you hanging around too long with our friend here, I may have to ask you some more questions, Roger."

"All right," Roger said.

"I just thought you might like to know."

"Thanks for telling me."

"Not at all," Parker said, and smiled. "Part of the service, all part of the service." He opened the door, went out into the street, and closed the door noisily behind him.

"The son of a bitch," Ralph whispered.

4

It was just the idea of going in there that he didn't like. He stood across the street from the police station, looking at the cold gray front of the building and thinking he wouldn't mind telling them all about it if only it didn't mean going in there. He supposed he could have told that detective in the luncheonette, but he hadn't liked the fellow and he had the feeling that telling this could be easy or hard depending on whether he liked the fellow he was telling it to. It seemed to him that Ralph, who was a convicted burglar and a narcotics user (according to the detective, anyway), was a much nicer person than the detective had been. If he was sure he could find somebody like Ralph inside there, he'd have no qualms at all about just crossing the street and marching right in and saying he was Roger Broome, and then telling them about it.

He supposed he would have to begin it with the girl, and end it with the girl, that would be difficult, too. Telling them about how he had met the girl. He couldn't see himself sitting opposite a stranger at a desk someplace inside there and telling them how he had met the girl, Molly was her name. Suppose they gave him a detective like that fellow Parker in the luncheonette, how could he possibly tell him about the girl, or about how they'd met or what they'd done. The more he thought about it the harder it all seemed. Walking across the street there and climbing those steps seemed very hard, and telling a detective about the girl seemed even harder, although the real thing, the important thing didn't seem too hard at all, if only he could get past the other parts that were so very difficult.

He would have to tell them first, he supposed, that he hadn't been looking for a girl at all last night, although he didn't know why that would be important to them. Still, it seemed important and he thought he should explain that first. I wasn't looking for a girl, he could say. I had just finished my supper, it was around seven o'clock at night, and I had gone back to the room and was just sitting there watching the street and thinking how lucky I'd been to have sold the salad bowls so high and to have made a new contact here in the city, that store in the Quarter.

Yes, he supposed he could tell them. He supposed he could walk in there and tell them all about it.

Last night, he had thought he should call his mother back home in Carey and tell her the good news, but then it seemed to him the happiness he was feeling was a very private sort of thing that shouldn't be shared with anybody, even if it was someone as close as his own mother, that was the trouble with Carey. That small house in Carey, and his mother's bedroom right next door, and Buddy sleeping in the same room with him, all sort of cramped together, there was hardly any time to be alone, to feel something special of your own, something private. And the room in Mrs. Dougherty's house, it was pretty much the same as being home, having to go down the hall for the toilet, and always meeting somebody or other in the hall, the room itself so small and full of noises from the street and noises from all the pipes. What Carey missed, and what the room here in the city missed, was a secret place where a person could be happy by himself, or cry by himself, or just be by himself.

He left the room feeling pretty good, this must have been about seven-thirty, maybe eight o'clock, but not looking for any company, instead really trying to get out of that small room and into the streets, into the larger city, so that the happiness he was feeling could have a little space to expand in, a little space to grow. He wasn't looking for a girl. He just came out of the room and down the steps and into the street — it was very cold last night, colder than today — and he pulled up his coat collar and stuck his hands in his pockets and just started walking south, not knowing where he was going, but just breathing the air into his lungs, cold and sharp and even hurting a little bit, it was that cold.

He must have gone six or seven blocks, maybe it was more, when he really began to feel the cold. It hit his feet all at once, and he felt his toes were going to fall right off if he didn't get inside someplace quick. He was not a drinking man, he didn't usually drink more than a beer or two, and he didn't much like bars, but he saw a bar up ahead and he knew if he didn't get inside someplace real quick he was going to have frostbite, well, he didn't know if he was really going to have frostbite, but it sure felt like it.

He couldn't remember the name of the bar, he supposed they would want to know its name and exactly what street it was on.

He must have come six or seven blocks,^ was all, walking straight south on Twelfth Street, from the rooming house. But he didn't know what avenue that would have been. He thought the bar had a green neon sign in the window. Anyway, he went in, and took a table near the radiator because his feet were so cold. That was how he happened to meet Molly. He wasn't really No, he thought.

No, it doesn't sound right, that's the difficult part about telling it.

He could visualize it all in his head, just the way it had happened, but he knew that going into that police station and telling it to a detective it would come out all wrong, he just knew it. Sitting face to face with somebody he didn't know and telling him about how the girl had come to the table after he'd been sitting there a couple of minutes, no, he knew it wouldn't come out right, even though he could see it plain as day inside his head, just the way it had happened, her coming to the table and stopping there and looking down at him with a very peculiar annoyed look on her face, her hands on her hips.

"What's the matter?" he said.

"You've got a lot of nerve, mister," she said. "You know that, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"You see that pocketbook there in the corner, what do you think that pocketbook is doing there?"

"What pocket — Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"I'm sorry. I didn't see it when I sat down."

"Yeah, well now you see it."

"And there wasn't a glass or anything on the table, so I—"

"That's 'cause I didn't order yet. I was in the powder room."

"Oh," Roger said.

She had red hair, and the red hair was the only attractive thing about her, and he suspected even that was fake. She was wearing fake eyelashes, and she had penciled fake eyebrows onto her forehead and had made her mouth more generous by running a fake line of lipstick up beyond its natural boundaries. She was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt, but her breasts under the silk blouse were very high and pointed, with that same fake look the eyelashes and the lipstick and the eyebrows had. Her hair was a bright red, almost an orange, straight from a bottle, he supposed. She was altogether a pretty sad specimen. Even her legs weren't too hot; he supposed there was nothing she could do to fake them up a little.

"Well, I'm sorry," he said, "I'll just take my beer and move to another booth."

"Thanks," she said, "I'd appreciate it."

She kept standing by the booth with her hands on her hips, waiting for him to pick up his bottle of beer, and his half-full glass of beer and move to another booth. The trouble was he had taken off his shoes in order to warm his feet against the radiator, which was on the wall under the table, and he had to put his shoes on now before he could move. He swung his stockinged feet out from under the table and then searched for his right shoe. He put that on while she watched him silently with her hands on her hips. Then he reached under the table for the second shoe and couldn't find it, and got down on his hands and knees and went searching for it that way. She just kept watching with her hands on her hips all the while, not saying a word until finally she said, "Oh, for Pete's sake, never mind! I'll move! Would you please hand me my bag?"

"I'm sorry, but—"

"Don't be so sorry, for Pete's sake, just givejne my bag!"

"I took off my shoes because—"

"What are you, a farmer or something? What do you think this is, your own living room? Taking off your shoes? In a public place like this? Boy, you've really got some nerve, mister, I'm telling you!"

"It's just that my feet—"

"Never mind!"

"Here's your bag."

"Thank you. Thank you a whole hell of a lot," she said, and swiveled off angrily to a booth across the room and at an angle to the one he occupied. He watched her backside as she crossed the room, and thought some women just didn't have anything, some women were just the unlucky ones in this world, they didn't have pretty faces, nor good legs nor breasts, and even their backsides looked like a truckdriver's.

It seemed to him he always got the ugly girls.

As far back as he could remember, even when he was in the second grade at Carey Elementary, when his father was still alive, all he ever got was the ugly girls. There was Eunice McGregor, who was possibly the ugliest kid ever born to anyone in the United States, well, her mother was no prize either, that was for sure. But she had a crush on him, and she told everybody she loved him, and she warned him she would break his nose — she was a very big girl — if he didn't give her a kiss whenever she demanded one, God she was ugly. That was in the second grade. After his father died, it seemed he got the ugly girls more and more often. He couldn't understand why they were all so attracted to him. His mother had ben pretty as a picture when she was younger, and she still had a fine handsome look about her, it was the bones, you couldn't rob a pretty woman of her facial bones, they were always there, fifty, sixty, even into the seventies. His mother was only forty-six, and she still had those fine bones; sometimes she would actually laugh at some of the girls who were attracted to him. She told him once that she thought he was purposely looking for all the ugly ducklings he could find. He sure as hell couldn't understand what she'd meant by that. He hadn't said anything to her, he didn't like to contradict her when she said something, she'd only think he was being sassy. But he'd thought about it a lot. It made him wonder, what she'd said.

Looking across to where the redheaded girl was adjusting herself in the booth opposite, doing so with all the fuss and annoyance of somebody who is just about fit to bust, he felt the same happiness he had felt before leaving the room at Mrs. Dougherty's. He watched the girl with an odd, rising feeling of tenderness toward her, pleased by the very fussy little annoyed female things she was doing in the booth opposite, pulling the skirt down over her knees, and smoothing the front of her blouse, and tucking back a stray wisp of hair, and then glancing around for the waiter and signaling to him in a prissy, annoyed, very dignified, feminine way, he almost burst out laughing. She made him feel real good. Now that his feet were warm again (his mother had told him never to take off his shoes when his feet were cold, just leave them on until the feet warmed up inside, and they wouldn't never get cold again that whole day, but he never listened to her about his feet, they were his feet and he by God knew how to make them warm) — now that his feet were warm, and now that he had a good glass of beer inside him and was in a nice warm place with a juke box going at the other end with a soft dreamy song, now he began thinking about how much money he had got for the stuff he'd brought to the city, and he began feeling very good about it again, and he thought somehow the redheaded girl, well, the fake redhead, had something to do with the way he was feeling.

He watched her as she ordered, and then he watched as she got up and walked to the juke box and made a selection, and then went back to the booth. Nobody in the place was paying the smallest bit of attention to her. There were maybe a dozen or so men in the bar, and only four girls besides the redhead, but nobody was making a rush to her booth, in spite of the shortage. He sat and watched her. She knew he was watching her, but she very carefully made sure she didn't look once in his direction, pretending she was still very angry because he had taken her booth.

He knew he would go to bed with her.

He wasn't at all excited by the idea because she wasn't pretty or even attractive. He just knew he would go to bed with her, that was all. He just knew that before the night ended, he would be in bed with her.

Sitting on the bench opposite the police station now, he wondered how he could explain to the police that he had known he would be going to bed with the redheaded girl. How could he explain to them that he had known he would go to bed with her but hadn't been excited by the idea, how could he explain that?

How could he go in there and tell them all about this? What would his mother think when she — well, it didn't matter, that part of it certainly didn't matter. It was just sitting across from somebody and talking about taking a girl to bed that would be very difficult. There wasn't anybody in the world he talked to about things like that, not even his mother, certainly not his mother, nor even his brother Buddy. How could he tell about Molly to a strange detective?

The idea came to him like a bolt of lightning, just like that, pow, out of the blue.

He would telephone.

He would go to a telephone booth, but wait, there were no separate listings for the precincts, how could he possibly Parker, that was his name. The detective in the luncheonette. Parker, of the 87th Squad, and the globes across the street were each marked with an 87, which meant this was Parker's precinct. Okay, he would call police headquarters and say that he was supposed to call a detective named Parker of the 87th Squad, but he had lost the number Parker had given him, and would they please give him the number. Maybe they would connect him direct, maybe they had a big switchboard down there that connected to all the precincts in the city. Or maybe they would simply give him the number of the 87th Precinct and then he would call it himself and ask to talk to a detective — not Parker, absolutely not Parker — it would be as easy as that.

Pleased, he got off the bench.

He took a last look at the police station, smiled, and walked out of the park, looking for the drugstore he had been in earlier that morning.

5

The sergeant who answered the phone at police headquarters listened patiently while Roger told his invented story about Detective Parker, and then said, "Hold on, please." Roger waited. He assumed the sergeant was checking to see if there really was a Detective Parker in the 87th Squad. Or maybe the sergeant didn't give a damn one way or the other. Maybe he received similar calls a hundred times, a thousand times each day. Maybe he'd been bored stiff listening to Roger's story, and maybe he was bored stiff now as he looked up the number of the precinct.

"Hello," the sergeant said.

"Yes?"

"That number is Frederick 7—8024."

"Frederick 7-8024, thank you," Roger said.

"Welcome," the sergeant answered, and hung up. Roger felt in his pocket for another dime, found one, put it in the slot, waited for a dial tone, and began dialing.

FR7

Quickly, he put the receiver back onto the hook.

What would he say when they answered? Hello, my name is Roger Broome, I want to tell you about this girl Molly, you see we met in a bar and What? they would say.

What they would say.

What the hell is this all about, mister?

He sat motionless and silent for perhaps three minutes, staring at the face of the telephone. Then he felt in the return chute for his coin, leadenly lifted his hand, and deposited the dime once again. The dial tone erupted against his ear. Slowly, carefully, he began dialing.

FR7, 8,0, 2,4.

He waited. The phone was ringing on the other end. He listened to it ring. The rings sounded very far away instead of just a few blocks from where he was. He began counting the rings, they must have been having a busy time over at that station house, seven, eight, nine "87th Precinct, Sergeant Murchison."

"Uh ... is this the police?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I'd like to talk to a detective, please."

"What is this in reference to, sir?"

"I'd ... uh ... like to report ... uh ..."

"Are you reporting a crime, sir?"

He hesitated a moment, and then pulled the receiver from his ear and looked at it as though trying to make a decision. He was replacing it on the hook just as the sergeant's voice, sounding small and drowning "in the black plastic, began saying again, "Are you reporting a—" click, he hung up.

No, he thought.

I am not reporting anything.

I am getting out of this city and away from all telephones because I don't want to talk to the police. Now how about that? I do not wish to discuss this matter with anyone, least of all the police, so how about that? Damn right, he thought, and opened the door of the phone booth and walked out of the booth and across the length of the drugstore. The colored girl, Amelia, was still behind the cash register. She smiled at him as he approached.

"You back again?" she asked. "I didn't see you come in."

"Yep," he said. "Bad penny."

"You mail your cards off?"

"Yep."

"Did you find your friend at the police station?"

"Nope."

"How come?"

"I figured there couldn't be no friends of mine at the police station."

"You can say that again," Amelia said, and laughed.

"What time do you quit?" he said.

"What?"

"I said what time do you quit?"

"Why?"

"I want to get out of the city."

"What do you mean, out of the city?"

"Out. Away."

"Home, you mean?"

"No, no. Not home. That's the same thing, ain't it? That's the same old box. The city's a great big box, and Carey's a tiny small box, but they're both the same thing, right?"

Amelia smiled and looked at him curiously. "I don't know," she said.

"Go take off your apron," he said slowly, "and hang it on that hook right there, you see that hook?"

"I see it."

"Hang it on that hook right there, and tell your boss you have an awful headache—"

"I don't have a headache—"

"Yes, you do have a headache, and you can't work any more today."

Amelia looked at him steadily. "Why?" she said.

"We're going to get out of the city."

"Where?"

"I don't know yet."

"And when we get out?"

"We'll see then. The big thing now is to do what we have to do, right? And what we have to do is get away from this city real quick."

"Are the cops after you?" she asked suddenly.

"No." Roger grinned. "Cross my heart and hope to die, the cops are definitely not after me. Now how about that? Are you going to get that headache and hang up that apron and come with me?"

Amelia shrugged. "I don't know."

"When will you know?"

"The minute you tell me what you want from me."

"From you? Who wants anything from you?"

"When you're colored, everybody"

"Not me," Roger said.

"No, huh?"

"No."

Amelia kept looking at him steadily. "I don't know what to make of you," she said.

"The apron," he whispered.

"Mmm."

"The hook," he said.

"Mmm."

"Headache."

"Mmm."

"Can't work."

"Mmm."

"I'll meet you outside. Five minutes. On the comer."

"Why?" she said again.

"We're gonna have fun," he said, and turned and walked away from the cash register.

She didn't come outside in five minutes, and she didn't come outside in ten minutes, and by the end of fifteen minutes he realized she wasn't going to come out at all. So he peeked over the stuff piled in the front window of the drugstore and saw Amelia at the cash register making no sign of taking off the apron or of telling the boss she had a headache, so that was that. He walked away from the drugstore, thinking it was a shame because she really was sort of pretty and also he'd never been out with a colored girl before and he thought it might be fun. Now that he had decided not to go to the police with his story, it never once entered his mind that he should go home to Carey. He had tried to explain to Amelia that Carey, and the city, and the police station sitting on the edge of the park were all one and the same thing, that it was just a matter of degree as to how you classed them one against the other. The police station was a small box, and Carey was a slightly larger box, and the city was the biggest box of all, but all of them were trying their hardest to keep a man all closed up, when all a man wanted to do every now and then was relax and enjoy himself. Which is what he thought he and Molly were going to talk about last night, when they were discussing loneliness and all. But then, of course, she had begun to talk about that man in Sacramento, instead.

He had never really had a pretty girl in his life, and Molly was plain as hell until about two o'clock in the morning, he supposed that was when it was, well, never mind that. This colored girl behind the counter was pretty to begin with, which was why she hadn't come out to meet him, he could have told her beforehand she wouldn't, none of the real pretty girls ever did. It was probably just as well. Anybody from back home spied him in the city with a colored girl on his arm, even though she was part Spanish, hell, he didn't want his mother getting wind of nothing like that. Not that he cared much about what his mother thought. If he cared about that, he'd be running right back home to Carey instead of staying here and planning to have a little fun with his time.

He wondered where he should go now that the colored girl had spoiled his plans. Actually, he hadn't had any plans even when he was hoping she'd come out to meet him. But she'd have been somebody to laugh with and talk to and show off for, and, well, he'd have come up with something, he just knew he would have. Maybe he'd have taken her to a movie with a stage show, he'd been to one the last time he'd come to the city, it was pretty good.

"Hey," the voice behind him said, "wait up!"

He recognized the voice with surprise and turned to see Amelia running to catch up with him. She was wearing a pale-blue coat with the collar pulled up high against her chin, her head covered with a vibrant-blue kerchief. She came up to him panting, vapor pluming from her mouth. Catching her breath, she said, "You sure are a fast walker."

"I didn't think you were coming."

"The boss had to arrange for relief. It took a few minutes."

"Well, I'm glad you're here," Roger said.

"I'm not sure / am," Amelia said, and laughed. Her complexion was smooth and unmarked, her color a warm brown, her eyes a shade darker, her hair beneath the electric-blue kerchief a black as deep as night. When she laughed, a crooked tooth showed in the front of her mouth, and sometimes she lifted her hand self-consciously to cover the tooth, but only when she remembered. She had good legs, and she was wearing dark-blue, low-heeled pumps. She was still out of breath, but she kept up with him as he began crossing the street, and them impulsively took his arm.

"There," she said, "what the hell! If we're doing this, we might as well do it, huh?"

"What?"

"I mean, if I'm with you, I'm with you. So I'm with you, so I'll take your arm the same way I'd take the arm of a colored fellow I was with, right?"

"Right," Roger said.

"I've never been out with a white man before."

"Neither have I," Roger said, and burst out laughing. "With a colored girl, I mean."

"That's good," Amelia said.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't like to think you were one of those guys who just dug, you know, all colored girls. That would make it a drag."

"There isn't a single colored girl in all Carey," Roger said.

"They're all married?" Amelia asked seriously, and he burst out laughing again. "What's the matter?"

"I mean there aren't any," Roger said. "Not a one."

"That's too bad," Amelia said. "What do you do for race riots?"

"We pick on Jews," Roger said, and realized he had made a pretty good joke, and was pleased when Amelia laughed at what he'd said. He didn't really know why there was any humor in his comment, except that the people in Carey didn't pick on Jews. In fact there was one Jew in all of Carey, a man named Samuel Silverstein, who ran the hardware store and who had arthritis, poor man, why would anyone want to go picking on him? He knew he never would have said anything like that to his mother or to Buddy, but somehow being with Amelia made him seem witty and daring, which was why he had made the joke. He was suddenly very glad she'd come after him.

"You always go chasing strange men in the streets?" he asked.

"Sure. You always go telling strange girls to hang up their aprons and pretend to be sick and—"

"A headache isn't sick," Roger said.

" — and meet you on street corners, and then disappear?"

"Right into thin air!" he said. "Mandrake the Magician!"

"That's what you do, huh?"

"Yeah, I'm a magician," Roger said, beaming.

"You go into drugstores and work your charms on poor little colored girls."

"Are you poor?" he said.

"I'm very poor."

"Really?"

"Hey, mister, you think I'd joke about being poor?" Amelia said. "What the hell is that to joke about? I'm very poor. I mean it. I, am, very, poor."

"I am very rich," Roger said.

"Good. I knew one day I'd meet a white millionaire who'd take me away from it all," Amelia said.

"That's me."

"Mandrake."

"Yeah," he said. "Yesterday, I made one hundred and twenty-two dollars. How about that?"

"That's a lot of money."

"Today, I've only got, oh, maybe fifteen dollars of it left."

"Easy come, easy go," Amelia said, and shrugged.

"What I did was mail a hundred to my mother."

"Up in Gulchwater, right?"

"Up in Carey."

"Oh, I thought it was called Gulchwater Basin."

"No, it's called Carey."

"I thought you said it was Gulchwater Depot."

"No, Carey."

"Alongside Huddlesworth, right?"

"Huddleston."

"Where they toboggan." , "Where they ski." f "Right, I knew I had it," Amelia said.

"Anyway," Roger said, laughing, "I sent her — my mother — I sent her a hundred, and I paid four dollars for my room, and I bought the cards and some stamps and had some coffee and paid for Ralph's hot chocolate and—"

"Ralph?"

"A fellow I met." Roger paused. "He's a drug addict."

"You meet nice people," Amelia said.

"He was," Roger said. "A nice person, I mean."

"My mother has told each and every one of us in our house," Amelia said, "that if we ever touch any of that stuff, she will personally cripple us. She means it. | My mother is a very skinny woman made of iron. She ' would rather see us dead than on junk."

"Is it that easy to get?" Roger asked.

"If you have the money, you can get it. In this city, if you have the money, you can get anything you want."

"That's what Ralph said." [

"Ralph knows. Ralph is a very wise man."

"Anyway, here's what I've got left," Roger said, and I reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded packet of bills and transferred those to his left hand, and then reached into his pocket again for his loose change. The change totaled seventy-two cents, and the bills were two fives and four singles. "Fourteen dollars and seventy-two cents," he said.

"A millionaire. Just like you said."

"Right."

"Right," she said.

"What would you like to do?"

"I don't know," she said. "Show me the city. Show me your city."

"My city? This ain't my city, Amelia."

"I mean the white man's city."

"I wouldn't know his city from your city. I'm a stranger here."

"Looking for a friend outside the police station," she said suddenly.

"Yes," he said, and watched her.

"Who you never found."

"Who I never bothered looking for."

"Bad place to look," Amelia said. "Where are you going to take me, mister? Uptown, downtown, crosstown? Where?"

"I know where," he said.

"Where?"

"There's a place I've always wanted to go. My mother brought me to the city for the first time when I was ten years old, and we were suppposed to go then, but it rained that day. Come on," he said, and took her hand.

"Where?" she said.

"Come on."

The Ferris wheels were motionless, the roller-coaster tracks hung on wooden stilts against a forbidding February sky, devoid of hurtling cars or screaming youngsters. The boardwalk stands were sealed tight, shuttered against the wind that howled in over the ocean and raised whirling eddies of sand on the beach, leaping the iron-pipe railing and hurling itself hopelessly against the weathered boards. Last summer's newspapers fluttered into the air, yellowed and torn, flapping wildly like alien birds and then soaring over the minarets of an amusement called The Arabian Nights. The rides huddled beneath their canvas covers in seemingly expectant watchfulness, waiting for a sparrow, silent, motionless, the wind ripping at the covers and making a faint whistling sound as it caught in metal studs and struts. There were no barkers touting games of chance or skill, no vendors selling hot dogs or slices of pizza, no sound but the sound of the wind and the ocean.

The boardwalk benches were a flaking green.

An old man stood at the far end of the boardwalk, looking out over the ocean, unmoving.

"You've never been here before?" Amelia asked.

"No," Roger said.

"You picked the right time to come."

"It's kind of spooky, isn't it?" he said, and thought of Molly the night before.

"It's like standing on the edge of the world," Amelia said, and he turned to look at her curiously. "What is it?" she asked.

"I don't know. What you said. I felt that a minute ago. As if there was just the two of us standing on the edge of the world."

"The three of us."

"What? Oh, yes, the old man down there."

"He's really my duena," Amelia said.

"What's that?"

"A duena? That's Spanish for chaperone. In Spain, when a young girl goes out with a boy, she has to take along a duena, usually an aunt or some other relative. My father told me about that. He's Spanish, you know, did I tell you?"

"Yes."

"I mean, he's not Puerto Rican," Amelia said.

"What's the difference?"

"Oh, in this city, there's a big difference. In this city it's pretty bad to be colored, but the worst thing you can possibly be is Puerto Rican."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know,' Amelia said, and shrugged. "I guess it's more fashionable to hate Puerto Ricans now." She laughed, and Roger laughed with her. "My father's name is Juan. Juan Perez. We always kid around with him, we ask him how his Colombian coffee beans are coming along. You know, have you ever seen that television commercial? It's Juan Valdez, actually, but it's close enough. My father loves when we kid around with him that way. He always says his coffee beans are doing fine because he's got them under the tree that is his Spanish sun hat. He really is from Spain, you know, from a little town outside Madrid. Brihuega. Did you ever hear of it?"

"Brihuega Basin, do you mean?"

"No, Brihuega."

"Oh yes, Brihuega Depot."

"No, Brihuega."

"Near Huddlesworth, right?"

"Near Madrid."

"Where they fight camels."

"No, bulls."

"I knew I had it," Roger said, and Amelia laughed. "Well, now that we're here," he said, "what are we supposed to do?"

Amelia shrugged. "We could neck, I suppose."

"Is that what you want to do?"

"No, not really. It's a little too early in the day. I got to admit, though . . ."

"Yes?"

"I'm very curious about what it's like to kiss a white man."

"Me, too."

"A colored girl, you mean."

"Yes."

"Yes."

They were both silent. The wind caught at their overcoats, flattening the material against their bodies as they looked out over the water. At the far end of the boardwalk, the old man was still motionless, like a salt-sodden statue frozen into position by a sudden winter.

"Do you think the old man would mind?" Amelia asked.

"I don't think so."

"Well . . ." she said.

"Well . . ."

"Well, let's."

She turned her face up to his, and he put his arms around her and then bent and kissed her mouth. He kissed her very gently. He thought of Molly the night before and then he moved away from her and stared down at her face and she caught her breath with a short sharp sigh and then smiled mysteriously and shrugged and said, "I like it."

"Yes."

"You think the old man would mind if we did it again?"

"I don't think so," Roger said.

They kissed again. Her lips were very wet. He moved slightly away from her and looked down at her. She was staring up at him with her dark brown eyes serious and questioning.

"This is sort of crazy," she whispered.

"Yes."

"Standing here on a boardwalk with that wind howling in."

"Yes."

"Kissing," she said. Her voice was very low.

"Yes."

"And that old man watching."

"He isn't watching," Roger said.

"On the edge of the world," Amelia said. And suddenly, "I don't even know who you are."

"My name is Roger Broome."

"Yes, but who?"

"What would you like to know?"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

"I'm twenty-two." She paused. "How do I know . . ." She stopped, and shook her head.

"What?"

"How do I know you're not ... a ..." She shrugged. "A... Well, you wanted to know where the police station was."

"That's right."

"To meet a friend, you said. But then you came back to the drugstore and you hadn't met this friend of yours at all, so how do I know . . . Well, how do I know you're not in some kind of trouble?"

"Do I look like somebody who's in trouble?"

"I don't know what a white man in trouble looks like. I've seen lots of colored people in trouble. If you're colored, you're always in trouble, from the day you're born. But I don't know the look of a white man in trouble. I don't know what his eyes look like."

"Look at my eyes."

"Yes?"

"What do you see?"

"Green. No, amber. I don't know, what color are they? Hazel?"

"Yes, hazel, like my mother's. What else do you see?"

"Flecks. Yellow, I guess."

"What else?"

"Myself. I see myself reflected, like in tiny funhouse mirrors."

"Do you see trouble?"

"Not unless I'm trouble," Amelia said. She paused. "Am I trouble?"

He thought again of Molly and immediately said, "No."

"You said that too fast."

"Don't look at me that way," he said.

"What way?"

"As if ... you're afraid of me all at once."

"Don't be silly. Why should I be afraid of you?"

"You have no reason to—"

"I'm five feet four inches tall, and I weigh a hundred and seventeen pounds. All you are is six feet nine—"

"Six-five," Roger corrected.

"Sure, and you weigh two hundred pounds and you could break me in half just by—"

"Two hundred and ten."

" — snapping your fingers, and here we are all alone on a godforsaken boardwalk—"

"There's an old man down there."

" — in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the ocean in front of us, and those deserted buildings behind us, so why should I be afraid? Who's afraid?"

"Right," he said, and smiled.

"Right," she agreed. "You could strangle me or drown me or beat me to death, and nobody'd know about it for the next ten years."

"If ever," Roger said.

"Mmm."

"Of course, there's always the old man down there."

"Yeah, he's some protection," Amelia said. "He's probably half-blind. I'm beginning to wonder if he's real, as a matter of fact. He hasn't moved since we got here."

"Do you want to go?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. And then, quickly, "But not because I'm afraid of you. Only because I'm cold."

"Where would you like to go?"

"Back to the city."

"Where?"

"Do you have a room?" she asked.

"Yes."

Amelia shrugged. "We could go there, I guess. Get out of the cold."

"Maybe," Roger said.

They turned their backs to the ocean and began walking up the boardwalk, out of the amusement park. She looped her hand through his arm, and then rested her head on his shoulder, and he thought how pretty she was, and he felt the pressure of her fingers on his arm, and he remembered again the way he had never got any of the pretty girls in his life, and here was one now, very pretty, but of course she was colored. It bothered him that she was colored. He told himself that it was a shame she was colored because she was really the first pretty girl he had ever known in his life, well, Molly had been pretty last night, but only after a while. That was the funny part of it; she hadn't started out to be pretty. This girl, this colored girl holding his arm, her head on his shoulder, this girl was pretty. She had pretty eyes and a pretty smile and good breasts and clean legs, it was too bad she was colored. It was really too bad she was colored, though her color was a very pleasant warm brown. Listen, you can't go losing your head over a colored girl, he told himself.

"Listen," he said.

"Yes."

"I think we'd better get back and maybe ... uh ... maybe you ought to go back to the drugstore."

"What?" she said.

"I think you ought to go back to work. For the afternoon, anyway."

"What?" she said again.

"And then I can ... uh ... pick you up later, maybe, after work, and ... uh ... maybe we can have supper together, all right?"

She stopped dead on the boardwalk with the wind tearing at the blue kerchief wrapped around her head and tied tightly under her chin. Her eyes were serious and defiant. She kept both hands gripped over the brass clasp at the top of her handbag. Her hands were motionless. She stared up at him with her brown eyes flashing and the blue kerchief flapping in the wind, her body rigid and motionless.

"What are you talking about?" she said. "I told my boss I had a headache. I can't just walk back in now and tell him—"

"We could meet later," Roger said. "For supper."

"Are you—" She stopped the words and let out her breath in exasperation, and then stared at him solemnly and angrily for several moments, and then said, "What the hell is it?"

"Nothing."

"Two minutes ago, you were kissing me as if—"

"It's just that I promised somebody—"

"Well, what scared you off, that's all I want to know. Don't you like the way I kiss?"

"I like the way you kiss."

"Well, then what? I mean, if you're afraid of being seen with a colored girl, I mean taking a colored girl up to your room—"

"It's not that."

"I mean, we can always go back to my house, where we'll be surrounded by colored people and also by rats running out of the walls, and leaky pipes, and exposed wiring, and—"

"There are rats where I'm staying, too."

"Of course, my mother might not like the idea of my bringing home a white man. She might actually begin singing the same old tune she's been singing ever since I was a darling little pickaninny, 'Honeychile stay away from de white man, he is only out to get in yo sweet little pants and rob you of yo maiden.'"

"Look, Amelia—"

"The only thing my mother doesn't know, made of iron though she is, is that her darling little Amelia was robbed of her 'maiden' on a rooftop the summer she was twelve years old, and it wasn't a white man who did it, or even a white boy. It was six members of a street gang called the Persian Lords, the biggest blackest niggers you ever saw in your life." Amelia paused. Bitterly, she said, "My duena was away on vacation that summer, I guess. At the beach, don't you know? Sand Harbor, where all the society ladies spend their time, naturally. What the hell is it, Roger?"

"Nothing."

"You're not a faggot, are you?"

"A what?"

"A fairy, a pansy."

"No."

"Then why—"

"I'll meet you later, that's all," Roger said. "It's just that my friend — the one I told you about?"

"Yes?"

"I have to see him, that's all."

"He's a very convenient friend."

"I have to see him," Roger said.

Amelia sighed.

"I have to."

Amelia sighed again.

"Come on, let's go back," he said.

"I'll give you my home number," she said. "I won't go back to the drugstore, not after I told him I had a headache."

"All right."

"Will you call me?"

"Yes. Yes, I think so."

"Why do you only think so?"

"Because I ... Amelia, please don't . . . don't push me, huh? Just don't push me."

"I'm sorry."

"I'll try to call you. We'll have supper together."

"Sure."

They barely spoke on the subway ride back. They sat side by side, and occasionally Amelia would turn to look at him, but he was busy thinking about Molly and about what he had to do. It was foolish to even imagine any other way.

He had to go to the police, that was all there was to it.

He left her off on the corner of her block. It was almost twelve noon. The wind swept through the narrow street, and she clutched her collar to her throat and ducked her head.

"Call me," she said.

"I'll try."

"I'll be waiting." She paused. In a whisper, she said, "I like the way you kiss, white man," and then she turned and went up the street and into one of the tenements.

He watched her until she was out of sight, and then began walking toward Grover Avenue and the police station.

6

It was beginning to snow.

The flakes were large and wet and they melted the moment they touched the asphalt streets, melted on the tops of parked automobiles, and on the lids of garbage cans standing alongside shining wet tenement stoops. In the park, on the stone wall bordering the edge of the park, and on the rolling ground and jutting boulders of the park itself, the snow was beginning to stick, covering only lightly and in patches, but sticking nonetheless. He walked alongside the stone wall with its pale-white, almost transparent covering of snow, and looked across at the police station and then took a deep breath and sucked in his belly and crossed the street.

He went up the steps. There were seven of them.

There were two doors. He tried the knob of the one on the left, but the door did not open. He reached for the knob directly to the right of the first one. The door opened on a very large room with grilled windows running its entire length on the left-hand side and with a large raised wooden counter that looked something like a judge's bench in front of the windows. A hand-lettered sign on top of the counter, bold black on white, read ALL VISITORS MUST STOP AT DESK. There were two uniformed policemen behind the muster desk. One of them was wearing sergeant's stripes. The other was sitting behind a switchboard and was wearing earphones. A railing had been constructed some four feet in front of the desk, with lead-pipe stanchions bolted to the floor, and with a horizontal piece of pipe forming the crossbar. An electric clock was on the wall opposite the desk. The time was twelve-fifteen. Two wooden benches flanked a hissing radiator on that same wall, and a small white sign, smudged, and lettered in black with the words DETECTIVE DIVISION, pointed to an iron-runged staircase that led to the upper story. The walls were painted a pale green and looked dirty.

Two men were standing in front of the muster desk, both of them handcuffed to the pipe railing. A patrolman stood to the side of the two men as the desk sergeant asked them questions. Roger walked to one of the benches opposite the muster desk, and sat.

"When did you pick them up?" the sergeant asked the patrolman.

"As they were coming out, Sarge."

"Where was that?"

"1120 Ainsley."

"What's that? Near Twelfth? Thirteenth?"

"Thirteenth."

"What's the name of the place?"

"Abigail Frocks," the patrolman said.

"She does?" the sergeant asked, and all the men — including the two in handcuffs — burst out laughing. Roger didn't see what was so funny.

"It's a dress loft up there on Ainsley," the patrolman said. "I think they use it for storing stuff. Anyway, there's hardly ever anybody up there, except when they're making deliveries or pickups."

"Just a loft, huh?"

"Yeah."

"They got a store, too?"

"Yeah."

"In this precinct?"

"Yeah, it's just a little place on Culver."

"Abigail Frocks, huh?" the sergeant said, and all the men giggled again. "Okay, boys, what were you doing coming out of Abigail Frocks?" the sergeant said, and again everyone giggled.

"We was after the pigeons," one of the men said, suppressing his laughter and becoming serious all at once. He seemed to be about twenty-five years old, badly in need of a haircut, and wearing a gray suede jacket with gray ribbing at the cuffs and at the waist.

"What's your name, fella?" the sergeant asked.

"Mancuso. Edward Mancuso."

"All right, now what's this about the pigeons, Eddie?"

"We don't have to tell him nothing," the second man said. He was about the same age as Mancuso, with the same shaggy haircut, and wearing a dark-brown overcoat. His trousers seemed too long for him. "They got us in here for no reason at all. We can sue them for false arrest, in fact."

"What's your name?" the sergeant asked.

"Frank Di Paolo, you know what false arrest is?"

"Yeah, we know what false arrest is. What were you doing coming down the steps from that dress loft?"

"I want a lawyer," Di Paolo said.

"For what? We haven't even booked you yet."

"You got nothing to book us on"

"I found jimmy marks on the loft door," the patrolman said drily.

"That must've been from some other time it got knocked over," Di Paolo said. "You find any burglar's tools on us?"

"He knows all about burglar's tools," the sergeant said, and then turned to Di Paolo and said, "You know all about burglar's tools, don't you?"

"If you live in this crumby neighborhood, you learn all about everything," Di Paolo said.

"Also about how to break and enter a dress loft and steal some clothes? Do you learn all about that?"

"We was after the pigeons," Mancuso said.

"What pigeons?"

"Our pigeons."

"In the dress loft, huh?"

"No, on the roof."

"You keep pigeons on the roof of that building?"

"No, we keep pigeons on the roof of 2335 Twelfth Street, that's where."

"What's that got to do with the dress loft?"

"Nothing," Mancuso said.

"We ain't got nothing to do with the loft, either," Di Paolo said. "We were only in that building because our pigeons were on the roof."

"We only went up to get them," Mancuso said.

"What's the matter?" the sergeant asked. "Don't your pigeons know how to fly?"

The patrolman laughed.

"They've got pigeons that don't know how to fly," the sergeant said, encouraged, and the patrolman laughed again.

"They know how to fly, but sometimes they don't come back when you call them. So from where we were on our roof, we could see these two birds sitting on the roof of the building where the dress loft was in—"

"Oh, you knew there was a dress loft in that building, huh?"

"No, we didn't know until we got over there. When we was climbing to the roof, we saw the sign for the dress loft."

"And decided to jimmy open the door while you were at it."

"What jimmy? We were going up the roof for our pigeons."

"Where are they?"

"Where's what?"

"The birds."

"They flew away when we got up there."

"I thought they didn't know how to fly."

"Who said that? You said that, not us."

A man came down the iron-runged steps leading into the muster room, and the men at the desk turned momentarily to look at him. He was well-dressed, clean-shaven, with eyes that slanted to give his face an almost Oriental look. He wore no hat, and his hair was a sandy brown, cut close to his head, but not in a crew cut. He was reading something, some form or other, as he crossed the room, and then he folded the form and put it in his inside jacket pocket and stopped at the desk. The sergeant looked up.

"Dave, I'm going out to lunch," the man said. "Anybody calls for me, I'll be back around one-thirty, two o'clock."

"Right, Steve," the sergeant said. "You recognize these two?" he asked.

The man called Steve looked at Mancuso and Di Paolo and then shook his head. "No," he said. "Who are they?"

"A couple of pigeon fanciers." The sergeant looked at the patrolman, and the patrolman laughed. "You don't make them, huh?"

"No."

The sergeant looked at Di Paolo and said, "You see this fellow here? He's one of the meanest cops in this precinct. Am I right, Steve?"

The man, who was obviously a plainclothes detective, smiled and said, "Sure, sure."

"I'm only telling you this because if you're smart you'll give your story to me, and not wait until he gets you upstairs. He's got a rubber hose up there, right, Steve?"

"Two rubber hoses," the detective answered. "And a lead pipe."

"There ain't no story to give," Mancuso said.

"We was going up after the pigeons, and—"

"See you, Dave," the detective said.

"—that's the truth. We spotted them on the roof from where we was flying the pigeons—"

"So long, Steve. In February?"

"What do you mean?"

"Flying your pigeons on a day you could freeze your ass off?"

"What's that got to do with . . ."

Roger stood up suddenly. The detective had gone through the door, and was heading down the front steps of the building. The desk sergeant looked up as Roger reached the door, and then — as though noticing him for the first time — asked, "Did you want something, mister?"

"No, that's all right," Roger said. He opened the door quickly. Behind him, he could hear Di Paolo patiently explaining about the pigeons again. He closed the door. He came down the front steps and looked first to his left and then to his right, and then saw the detective walking down Grover Avenue, his hands in the pockets of his gray tweed overcoat, his head ducked against the wind. Swiftly, he began following.

He could not have said what it was that had forced him to rise suddenly from that bench. Perhaps it was the way they had those two fellows trapped, the way they were trying to make out those fellows had tried to rob the dress loft when it was plain to see that all they'd really been after was their pigeons up on the roof. Perhaps it was that, or perhaps it was the way the detective had smiled when the sergeant said he was one of the meanest cops in the precinct. He had smiled and said, "Sure, sure," as if he wasn't really a mean cop at all, but simply a guy who had a job to do and the job only accidentally happened to deal with men who maybe were or maybe weren't trying to break into dress lofts.

There was something good about that detective's face, Roger couldn't say what. He only knew that there were bums in this world and there were nice guys, and this detective struck him as being a nice guy, the same way Parker in the luncheonette had struck him immediately as being a bum.

He sure walks fast, though, Roger thought.

He quickened his pace, keeping sight of the gray overcoat. The detective was tall, not as tall as Roger himself, but at least six-one or six-two, and he had very broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and he walked with the quick surefootedness of a natural athelete, even on pavements that were getting very sloppy with fallen snow. The snow was still wet and heavy, large flakes filling the air like a Christmas card, everything gray and white and sharp, with the buildings standing out in rust-red warmth. Everyone always thought of the city as being black and white, but during a snowstorm you suddenly saw the colors of the buildings, the red bricks and the green window frames and the yellows and the blues of rooms only glimpsed behind partially . Tcvece \ias co\ot Vn. X\\e, Following the detective, he began to feel pretty good again. He had always liked snow, and it was beginning to snow pretty heavy now, with the streets and sidewalks turning white, and with the snow making a funny squeaking sound under his shoes as he walked into the large swirling flakes. In Dick Tracy, whenever it snowed, the guy who drew the cartoon always made these big round white circles, they filled the whole page almost, he sure knew how to make it snow. It snowed in Dick Tracy sometimes three, four times every winter.

The detective had turned the corner into a side street, and Roger quickened his step, slipping on the sidewalk, regaining his balance, and then turning the corner and seeing the detective stop in front of a restaurant just short of the middle of the block. The detective stood with his hands in his pockets, his head bent, hatless, his brown hair covered with snowflakes and looking white from a distance. He was probably waiting for someone, Roger thought, and then looked around for a place where he could stop without attracting attention. That man up there is a detective, he reminded himself. He knows all about following people and about being followed, so make up your mind quick, do something. Either walk past him, or turn back, or find a place where you can hide, or pretend to be waiting, no, I'll go right up to him, Roger thought. I'll just go right up to him and tell him what I have to tell him, what's the sense of kidding around?

He was walking toward the detective when the taxi-cab pulled up, and the woman got out.

The woman was beautiful.

Roger was perhaps eight or ten feet away from her when she got out of the cab, her skirt pulling back over her knees momentarily as she slid over on the seat her hand moving swiftly to lower the skirt as she paid the driver. The detective extended his hand to her and she took it and raised her face and her eyes to his, a rare and lovely smile coming onto her face, God she was beautiful. Her hair was black, and her eyes were a very deep brown, and she smiled up at the detective with her eyes and her mouth and her entire face, and then stood beside him on the sidewalk and kissed him briefly on the mouth, not on the cheek or the jaw, but a swift sudden kiss on the mouth. She moved away from him and took his hand, her fingers lacing into his, and they began walking toward the door of the restaurant. The snow caught in her hair at once, and she shook her head and tilted her face, grinning, and he thought at first she was one of those girls who get the cutes whenever they're around a man. But no, it was something else, he couldn't quite place what it was at first. And then, as they opened the door and walked into the restaurant, he realized that the woman was simply very very happy to be with this man.

Roger had never been loved that way.

He opened the restaurant door, and followed them inside.

Abruptly, he thought of the girl Molly.

7

He had walked over to her table across the bar, and she had looked up at him briefly and then gone back to her drink. She was drinking something in a small stemmed glass, a whiskey sour or something, he figured. She looked up at him with disinterest, and then turned back to her drink with disinterest, as if she were equally bored with everything and everyone in the world.

"I'm sorry I stole your table," Roger said, and smiled.

"Forget it," she told him.

He stood by the table, waiting for her to ask him to have a seat, but the girl just kept looking at the open top of her glass, where some white foam was clinging to the inside, a kind of empty despair on her face, a sadness that made her look even more plain than she actually was.

"Well," he said, "I just wanted to apologize," and he started to move away from the table, thinking she wasn't interested after all, didn't want him to sit with her. And then, all at once he realized that the girl probably wasn't used to approaches from men, didn't know how to handle ' a man coming to her table and flirting with her. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to the table again, and said, "Mind if I sit down?"

"Suit yourself," the girl said.

"Thanks."

He sat.

The table was silent again.

"I don't know why you bothered asking," the girl said, looking up briefly from her drink.

"I thought you just sat wherever you pleased."

She lowered her eyes. Her hand came out, her fingers began toying with the stem of the cherry in her glass.

"That was really a mistake," he said. "I really didn't know if anyone was sitting there."

"Mmm, yeah, well," the girl said.

"Would you like another drink?"

"Are you having one?"

"Just a beer. I don't care much for hard liquor."

"I don't, either," the girl said. "Unless it's something sweet. Like this."

"What is that, anyway?" Roger asked.

"A whiskey sour."

"That's what I thought it was." He paused. "How come a whiskey sour is sweet?"

"I ask them to go easy on the lemon."

"Oh."

"Yeah," the girl said.

"Well, would you like another one?"

The girl shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

Roger signaled the waiter. When he came to the table, Roger said, "I'll have a glass of beer, and the lady would like another whiskey sour."

"Easy on the lemon," the girl said to Roger, not the waiter.

"Easy on the lemon," Roger said to the waiter.

"Right," the waiter said, and walked away.

"My name's Roger Broome," Roger said to her. "What's yours?"

"Molly Nolan."

"Irish," he said, almost to himself.

"Yes. What's Broom?"

"English, I think. Or Scotch. Or maybe both mixed," Roger said.

"B-R-O-O-M?"

"No, with an E"

"Oh," she said, as though the "E" made a difference. The table was still again.

"You come here often?" Roger asked.

"First time," Molly said.

"Me, too."

"You live in the neighborhood?"

"No," Roger said. "I'm from upstate."

"I'm from Sacramento," Molly said. "California."

"No kidding?"

"That's right," she said, and smiled. She isn't even pretty when she smiles, Roger thought. Her teeth are too long for her mouth and her lower lip has marks on it from her bite.

"You're a long way from home," he said.

"Don't I know it," she answered.

The waiter came to the table with their drinks. They were silent while he put them down. When he walked away, Roger lifted his glass and extended it toward her.

"Well," he said, "here's to strangers in the city."

"Well, I'm not really a stranger," she said. "I've been here a week already." But she drank to his toast anyway.

"What brought you here?" he asked.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "Opportunity."

"Is there?"

"Not so far. I haven't been able to get a job yet."

"What kind of work are you looking for?"

"Secretarial. I went to a business school on the Coast. I take very good shorthand, and I type sixty words a minute."

"You ought to be able to get a job easy," Roger said.

"You think so?" she asked.

"Sure."

"I'm not very pretty," she said flatly.

"What?"

"I'm not very pretty," she said again. She was staring at the fresh whiskey sour, her fingers toying again with the cherry. "Men want their secretaries to be pretty." She shrugged. "That's what I've found, anyway."

"I don't see what difference it makes," Roger said.

"It makes a lot of difference."

"Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it. I don't have a secretary, but I certainly wouldn't mind hiring someone who looked like you. There's nothing wrong with your looks, Molly."

"Well, thanks," she said, and laughed in embarrassment, without really believing him.

"How'd your folks feel about you coming all the way East?" he asked.

"I don't have any folks."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," he said.

"They both died when I was nineteen. My father died of cancer, and then my mother died six months afterwards. Everybody says it was of a broken heart. Do you think people can die of a broken heart?"

"I don't know," Roger said. "I suppose it's possible."

"Maybe," Molly said, and shrugged. "Anyway, I'm all alone in the world."

"You must have relatives," Roger said.

"I think my mother had a brother in Arizona, but he doesn't even know I exist."

"How come?"

"Oh, my father had an argument with him long before I was born, about a deed or something he said belonged to my mother, I don't know, something to do with land in Arizona. Anyway, my uncle hauled my father into court, and it was a big mess, and my father lost, and everybody stopped speaking to each other right then and there. I don't even know his name. My uncle's, I mean. He doesn't know mine, either."

"That's a shame," Roger said.

"Who cares? I mean, who needs relatives?"

"Well, it's nice to have a family."

"Mmm, yeah, well," Molly said.

They were silent. Roger sipped at his beer.

"Yep, I've been all alone since I was nineteen," Molly said.

"How old are you now?" he asked.

"Thirty-three," she answered unflinchingly. "Decided it was time for a change, figured I'd come East and look around for a better job. So far, I haven't found a goddamn thing."

"You'll find something," Roger assured her.

"I hope so. I'm running out of money. I was staying downtown when I got here last week, but it was costing me twenty dollars a day, so I moved a little further uptown last Friday, and even that was costing me twelve dollars a day. So yesterday I moved to a real dive, but at least I'll be able to hold out a little longer, you know? This city can kill you if you don't watch out. I mean, I left California with two hundred and fifty dollars and a suitcase full of clothes, and that was it. I figured I'd be able to land something pretty quick, but so far . . ." She shrugged. "Well, maybe tomorrow."

"Where'd you say you were staying?" Roger asked.

"The Orquidea, that's a hotel on Ainsley. There's a lot of Spanish people there, but who the hell cares, it's very inexpensive."

"How much are you paying?" Roger asked.

"Seven dollars a night. That's very inexpensive."

"It certainly is."

"It's a nice room, too. I always judge a hotel by how fast they are on room service, and whether or not they get your phone messages right. Not that I've gotten any phone messages since I checked in — after all, it was only yesterday — but I did order a sandwich and a glass of milk from room service last night, and they brought it right up. The service was really very good."

"That's important," Roger said. "Good service."

"Oh, sure it is," Molly said. She paused and then asked, "Where are you staying?"

"Oh, in a furnished room on ... uh ... South Twelfth, I guess it is."

"Is it nice?"

"No, no, it's pretty crumby. But it's only for a few nights. And I didn't want to spend too much money."

"When are you leaving?" she asked.

"Tomorrow, I guess. Tomorrow morning."

"Mmm," she said, and smiled weakly.

"Yep, tomorrow morning," he repeated.

"Mmm."

"How's your drink?" he asked.

"Fine, thank you."

"Not too sour, is it?"

"No, it's just right." She smiled again, lifted her glass, and sipped at it. A little foam clung to her lip, and she licked it away. "Do you like this city?" she asked.

"I don't know it too good," he said.

"Neither do I." She paused. "I don't know a soul here."

"Neither do I," he said.

"Neither do I," she said, and then realized she was repeating herself, and laughed. "I must sound like a poor little orphan child, huh? No parents, no relatives, no friends. Wow."

"Well, I'm sure you have friends back in ... what was it ... Sacramento?"