Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 1, January, 1957

Smart Sucker by Richard Wormser

Gwen’s fingers worked up and down Henry’s thigh ecstatically. “Let's bump Henry off,” she said. “We don’t need him any more.”

He went, a guy determined to make two more calls before the end of office hours, along the dark and dirty street. Torn newspapers and empty cigarette packages skittered along the gutter, and a lean black cat, not quite mangy, scuttled up a narrow alleyway.

When he raised his head to see if he was anywhere near number 1262, the Merser Printing Company, the damp wind caught the brim of his new hat and he slapped a quick hand on the crown to hold it down. The wind was strong enough to make the briefcase in his other hand a problem.

His name was Henry Croft, he sold office supplies, and he believed that hard work, a neat appearance and attention to his customers’ individual needs would some day make him rich. He had a wife, one and seven-ninths children, lived in the suburbs — though not in as good a house as he someday hoped to own — and was generally considered a pretty good guy.

He did not belong in a place like this Slack Street except to pass through, selling a few typewriter ribbons and maybe a filing case or two. Which was why he was here.

Now, raindrops began to fall, big, idle ones that rolled in the dust of Slack Street without breaking. A frugal guy, he thought first of the new hat, the newly-pressed suit. He stepped into a doorway.

Then the rain changed, became the kind in which the drops are small and driven hard; the lasting kind of rain. He shifted the briefcase to his other hand and looked around.

Through unwashed windows neon ads for a couple of breweries shone at him from across the street. A bar, but one so lowly that it didn’t have a name — just BAR & GRILL in letters that might have been born gilt on a once-black background.

Waiting for the wind to slacken for a second, he made the dash across the street toward the neon.

As he made it into the bar, the wind took the heavy door away from him and slammed it shut. He gave the apologetic smile of an intruder.

Nobody smiled back at him.

There were six people in the bar, counting the bartender; four men, two women. Or rather, four boys and two girls; all of them had the unlined faces of the early twenties, despite their late-forty eyes.

Bubbles chased themselves endlessly around the brightly-lit rim of the juke box, out of rhythm with the rock-and-roll number that was playing.

Henry Croft laid his briefcase on a stool, wiped it with his handkerchief and then carefully placed his hat on the dried surface. He told the bartender: “Scotch on the rocks.”

The bartender gave his dark hair an unnecessary slicking with both palms, and said: “I don’t read you, Mac.”

“Scotch whiskey and ice. No water, no soda.”

“Whyn’t you say so?”

Henry Croft perched himself on the stool next to his hat and case. The young man on his right smelled slightly sweaty and more than slightly pomaded. The girl beyond him languidly pulled up her skirt and scratched a dead white thigh. The bartender slapped an old-fashioned glass in front of Henry Croft and waited for a dollar bill; he threw a quarter back in exchange.

The wind shifted and rain slashed viciously against the windows.

The scotch had never crossed salt water; its oil clung to his tongue, its peculiarly acrid aroma went up his nose and made him feel like he’d slept all night in a freshly-painted room.

The juke box stopped and one of the old-young men pushed away from the bar and languidly dropped another nickel in. The same record started; nobody seemed to be listening.

The bartender said: “Think he’s a cop, Juney?”

Juney was the one who’d nickelled the machine. He said: “We’ll find out.” He ambled slowly toward Henry Croft, without looking at him. Even with Henry, Juney swept the briefcase and hat off onto the floor, and slouched down on the stool they had occupied. He said: “Beer.”

When the bottle had been opened and the beer poured, he tasted it and said: “Naw, Carley. He’s no cop.” He smiled at Henry Croft between them. “Pick up your hat, man. What you so scared of?”

The one named Carley said: “That’s a good hat, man. Too good to lay on the floor.”

Henry Croft bent slowly and retrieved the hat and briefcase. The back of his neck ached all the time he was bent over, expecting the rabbit punch, the thin knife blade, the unknown. But nothing happened.

Juney said: “Drink your drink. You’ll hurt Carley’s feelings.”

Henry Croft picked up the glass. It was nearly to his mouth when the girl reached over and knocked it out of his hand. The bad whiskey, the ice, the glass itself rolled down the front of his suit. The girl laughed. “Change seats with me, Juney. I like this square.”

Carley began to laugh. It was a funny laugh, without humor, or friendship behind it. “Watch yourself, mister,” he said. “When Gwen gets hot, she sizzles.”

Juney slid out of his seat, and the girl slid over. She put her hand on Henry Croft’s shoulder and slowly slid it down his arm until she could grab his wrist. Her hand was stronger than it looked; she had a pasty, sickly complexion. She was about twenty. “You got a name?”

“Henry.”

“Buy me a drink, Henry. I’m Gwen.”

He nodded at Carley. The bartender grinned, and poured a straight shot for Gwen, threw something on top of ice for Henry. The girl knocked her drink down in a single swallow, and moved her hand from Henry’s wrist to his thigh. “What you want in here, Henry?”

He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “A drink. To get out of the rain,” he said.

Gwen laughed her flat laugh again. “Oh boy. Some rain.”

It didn’t make any sense. Henry Croft grabbed his glass, and this time Gwen let him swallow the oily stuff. She caressed his thigh gently. “You like me, Henry?”

“Sure, Gwen. Sure.”

Carley said: “That’ll be a buck-fifty, mister.”

Henry Croft took his wallet from his hip pocket. He laid two dollar bills on the bar, and started to put the wallet away. Gwen reached out and took the wallet from him and shoved it down the front of her dress. “You want to treat me right, don’t you, Henry?”

He pulled away from her and then lunged at the point of her V-neck. Just as his fingers touched the cloth, Juney hit him on the jaw. He went back against the bar, and Carley brought a bottle down on his head, and he was quiet. Black and quiet.

When he came to he was in a car. It was still raining; almost the first thing he knew was the sweep and swish of the windshield wipers. He moaned and felt his head, confusedly; he had no idea where he was or why he was here, or how he’d gotten there.

Then the whole business of the bar came back to him. Carley, the bartender, was driving, and the girl Gwen was next to him, on the front seat. She had turned around. She said: “Juney, he’s moving.”

Juney’s voice came from next to him, out of the shadows. “Let him move. If he gets too lively, I’ll sock him again.”

Henry Croft lost all desire to move. He even held his breath until he felt his eyes bugging. Then he let his wind out with a deep hissing, and Juney laughed. “He’s being a good boy,” Juney said. “He’s even trying not to breathe.”

“You can Breathe, sucker,” Gwen said. “Help yourself. It won’t be for long.”

“Shut up,” Carley said.

The car went along in the rain; Henry Croft didn’t recognize any of the streets they twisted through. The district was residential, though, and he didn’t know any of the suburbs except his own.

Then Carley said: “There they are,” and started slowing down, “It’s Paul,” he said.

Henry Croft could see him, one of the young men from the bar, standing in the rain, waving his arms. Carley turned the car in behind another, following Paul’s directions, and stopped with his front bumper against the rear one of the parked car.

Juney said: “Watch my sucker,” and got out of the car. He went ahead and got in behind the wheel of the parked sedan, and then disappeared, as though crouching under the dashboard. Gwen twisted around in the front seat, and said: “I’m watching you, Henry.”

Juney reappeared, and waved his hand. Carley let the car go forward in low gear, and Juney’s car went ten or twenty feet along the wet pavement. Then Juney waved his hand again, and Carley cut the motor. Paul came out of the rain, and opened the back door. “Out, sucker. It won’t be long now.” He reached in and prodded Henry Croft, who climbed out, stiffly.

The rain felt good on his battered head.

Carley climbed out and took up a post on Henry Croft’s other side. He and Paul half pulled him to the front car. “Let’s move out,” Paul said. “Even without the starter, sometimes these car-loving citizens wake up when they hear their own motor.”

This time Carley got in the back seat with Henry Croft. He lounged back in the corner, reaching under his coat. He took out a gun, balanced it loosely in his hand, grinning at Henry Croft. In the front seat Gwen suddenly laughed, and said: “Oh, cut it out, Paul.”

Carley said: “Know what this is, Henry?”

Henry Croft nodded.

“Well, then, tell me.” Carley waited a minute, and when Henry didn’t speak, he suddenly lashed out with the pistol, rapping the sights into Henry Croft’s belly. “Speak up, sucker.”

Henry Croft gulped air with difficulty, and said: “A gun.”

Carley nodded wisely, while Gwen told Paul: “That hurts, damnit.” But she laughed.

Carley said: “Kids. Can’t keep their hands off a dame... Yeah, Henry, this is a gun. You know what a gun does?” Again he waited.

Henry said: “It shoots people.”

Carley gave his schoolmaster nod again. “Yeah. A gun. And it shoots people. Dead. So does Paul’s gun, so does Juney’s... You gotta gun, Gwen?”

Gwen said: “If I did, I’d murder this Paul,” still laughing.

“Kids,” Carley said again. “Always I got to work with kids. So Gwen doesn't have a gun. So there will be only three guns. You ever have eighteen holes in you?”

Henry shook his head. Then, remembering, he said: “No, I never did.”

Carley said: “Well, then, I suppose you don’t know how that feels. Well, to tell you the truth, neither do I. But I can guess, and a smart sucker like you, you can guess, too. So maybe you’ll do what we tell you to. Do you think you will?”

Henry Croft said: “Yes. Of course I will.”

“A smart sucker,” Carley said again, and then was silent while the car went around some more corners and through a little park and out again, the water splashing sidewise from the wheels and the windshield wipers squeaking slightly. The wipers on the first car had not squeaked like this.

Then they stopped, and Juney turned the headlights off and said: “This is the place, folks. The sucker know what he’s to do, Carley?”

“No,” Carley said, “but he’ll do it. He’s a very nice sucker.” He laughed. “Listen, Henry. It’s easy. All you do is go up to that house, see there, and ring the bell. Talk nice to them, Henry. They got a heavy chain on the door. Get them to open it.”

Paul said: “Supposing he tells them to call the cops?”

“Why, I guess he will,” Carley said. “That’s about the quickest way I know to get people to open doors. Who wouldn’t trust a sucker who’s calling copper?”

Paul said: “I don’t like it. I like things simple.”

Carley said: “Now he tells me. My strong silent pal. Okay. You go up there. Give them a nice simple look at your face. It’ll make them happy. Or maybe wear your mask. People always open doors for guys with masks on. Especially at night. Especially a guy who’s got a payroll in the house.”

Paul said: “Okay, okay.”

Carley said: “So now you know, Henry. Get going.”

Henry opened the door of the car. He did it slowly, thinking: Now my fingerprints are on a stolen car, and knowing, even while he thought it, that it was a silly thought. His shoes squished across the pavement, and he felt lonesome and chilled and sick. I’ll get pneumonia out of this, he thought, and remembering what Carley had said about the eighteen holes, that was pretty silly too.

Now he was at the steps, four of them, leading up to a little porch, sheltered over so a person wouldn’t get wet waiting for the door to be opened. Lawn on either side of the walk and the steps, nice little house, dark, not a light showing. He took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. The ringing in the depth of the house was shockingly loud.

He stood there, thinking he was going to be sick to his stomach, was going to faint. Instead, he sneezed. He thought he heard an abrupt movement close to him in the night air when he made the involuntary noise; but he couldn’t be sure. Then he pressed the bell-button again.

A light came on in the hall, a voice said: “All right, all right,” and a peephole opened in the door. All he could see was a bushy brow and the bleary eye of a freshly-disturbed sleep, but the voice was masculine and angry: “What do you want?”

“I’ve been — call the police,” Henry Croft said.

The peephole closed then, and there was the noise of the door being unlocked. But it opened only a crack, and there was a heavy chain, brassily shining, that clinked. “Man, you’re beat up,” the voice inside the house said. It belonged, Henry could see now, to a burly man in ridiculously bright blue striped pajamas. “What happened to you?”

“Hold up,” Henry said. “Taken for a ride. I—”

“All right,” the burly man said. “Sit on the porch out there. I’ll phone the cops.”

The guns in the night were real. If this door closed in his face, he’d be shot. Eighteen holes. Again his mind veered away into ridiculousness, shrinking from the reality of death, and a silent bar from the song Sixteen Tons came back to him.

But he knew what he had to do. He flung himself forward, clawing at the edge of the open door, risking having the heavy wood crush his fingers against the frame. “Let me in. For God’s sake, they might come back.”

The big man hesitated. “I can’t — aw, hell, all right. You’ll the out there, and you don’t look like you could hurt me.”

More noise, the noise of the chain being slid out of the slot that held it, then the door opened a little more, and a blue-striped arm shot out to jerk Henry into the house, shut the door quickly.

It didn’t work. Bodies hit Henry Croft from behind, forcing him and the door and the burly man all to swing back into the hall in confusion; then feet were running outside, and more bodies jammed into the mess, and then the door was closed, and the little entry hall was filled with guns and masked faces and terror.

A purple mask said: “You’re Joe Wheeler.”

The burly man said: “So what?”

Upstairs a female voice called: “Joe, Joe what is it?” and the purple mask made a gesture. Two of the masked men started up the stairs. Henry thought they were Paul and Juney, but he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter.

From behind a black silk mask, Carley’s voice said: “You done well, Henry.” The voice laughed nastily. “Somebody give Henry a gun. He done well.”

The third man left in the hall had on a white silk mask, ornamented with sequins; something for a lady in evening dress to wear to a dance. He pushed a gun into Henry’s hands, said: “Help cover Mr. Wheeler there, Henry.”

Wheeler looked at Henry and said: “You had me fooled. You sure had me fooled.” Henry Croft had never been spoken to with such enmity in his life.

He said: “But I—” and a gun barrel slashed his ribs from behind.

Purple Mask said again: “You’re Joe Wheeler. You’re running a little construction job out here. Today you drew your payroll from the bank in the city; you don’t pay off till tomorrow. So the money’s here in the house.”

“Out at the shack,” Joe Wheeler said. “I left it on the job.”

“Yeah?” Purple Mask didn’t sound convinced. “You believe that, Henry?”

Henry said: “I—” but Purple Mask had raised his voice. “Hurry it up there. You guys ain’t here to play around.” He bowed to Joe Wheeler. “Very playful guys.”

Joe Wheeler said nothing. He seemed to have settled down to a policy of quietly hating Henry Croft.

Paul and Juney came down the stairs again. They had a woman between them, a woman about thirty, not bad looking despite her lack of makeup, pretty good figure, with nothing over it but a thin nightgown.

“They wouldn’t let me get a robe, Joe,” she said.

“Don’t worry, lady, we got girls of our own,” Carley said. “Where’s the money, Joe Wheeler?”

“On the job,” Wheeler said. “In the shack.”

“Let her go, boys,” Purple mask said.

On the stairs, Paul and Juney paused, then they pushed, together, and Mrs. Wheeler came down to the hall, fast. She landed on her knees, hands scrabbling on the floor to break her fall. One breast came out of the top of the nightgown, and Joe Wheeler groaned a little.

Paul and Juney followed her down, slowly. She started to rise, and Carley took his foot and pushed her down on the floor, lightly. “The money,” he said.

Joe Wheeler said: “Guys, I—”

Carley leaned forward, putting his weight on the foot that pinned Mrs. Wheeler to the floor. His eyes glittered through the mask, watching Joe Wheeler. Mrs. Wheeler screamed once, as Carley’s other foot came up off the floor.

“In the kitchen,” Joe Wheeler said. “The flour bin.”

Carley put both feet on the floor. “Show us, sucker.”

Wheeler went away, Carley following him. Paul and Juney stood at the foot of the stairs, looking down at the half-naked woman, looking up at Henry Croft. Paul bent forward and looked at Mrs. Wheeler more closely. “Not bad,” he said. “For a rainy night.”

“Cut it out,” Purple Mask said. “Cut it out.” He had never taken his eyes off Henry Croft.

“She’s too old, anyway,” Juney said. “She’s stiff in the joints, aren't you, lady?” He cleared his throat, spat on the floor, near the woman.

“You can get up now,” Purple Mask said. “If we need you anymore, it’ll be easy to put you back down.”

Carley came back alone. His hands and the cuffs of his coat were white with flour. The rain in his sleeves was caking it. He carried a sack of something or other; he slapped it against the newel post, and flour whitened the air. Mrs. Wheeler was getting to her knees. Her hands shakingly adjusted the lace V around her breasts. “Where is he? Where’s Joe?”

Carley said: “Who told you to get up?” and the money sack whirled in his hands. It landed across the back of the woman’s neck and she fell back down to the floor, hard. Henry thought he heard the bones in her nose break, but he couldn’t be sure, because Carley was looking at him now. “I slapped the old man down,” he said.

“He’s in the kitchen, but he ain’t cooking. Let’s roll.”

Henry Croft stepped aside to let them — in God’s name — roll. Roll out of the house, out of the street, out of his life. But Carley made a gesture with his gun. “Out, Henry.”

They had made a very good boy of him. He went out. Out into the cold, the dreary, but not the lonesome rain. He had plenty of company.

Gwen was behind the wheel of the second car, now. Carley motioned Henry into the right-hand front seat, slid behind the wheel, crowding Gwen over against Henry. He dropped the flour-stained sack into Gwen’s lap.

Other guys jumped into the back, they took off fast; Gwen had kept the motor running. Henry leaned back against the cushions, shivering.

Gwen’s hand was back on his thigh. She was breathing hard. “That was kicks,” she said. “That was joy, way up. Ohhhh.” She let out her breath in a long sigh.

Carley said, as he had said before: “Kids. I gotta work with kids. Bopsters... Henry!”

Henry said: “Yes?”

“We gonna have to bump you off, Henry?”

Gwen’s fingers worked up and down Henry’s thigh ecstatically. “Let’s,” she said. “Let’s bump Henry off, Carley. We don’t need him any more.”

“Shut up,” Carley said. “You had your kicks for the night, Gwen... Henry, while you were out, we went through your wallet. We know you, we know where you live. Pictures in the wallet, a wife, a kid.”

“Squares,” Gwen said.

Carley said: “Give him back the wallet, Gwen. You can keep the money.”

She said: “I want the pictures. For my album.” But Carley growled, and she reached into her bra, got the leather out, slipped out the money and gave Henry the wallet. Then she put her hand back on him.

“Leave him alone,” Carley said. “Henry, we’re letting you out. Near your house. You know Polacks, Henry, Polish people?”

“Some,” Henry said.

“They got a custom. They prop stiffs up in their coffins, and take pictures of them. That’s the kind of snapshots you’ll be carrying if you talk, Henry.”

He skidded the car around a corner, then another one. “You get me, Henry?”

Henry Croft said: “Yes.”

Gwen said: “Ah, the river, Carley. In the river with him. We could tie the car jack to his feet.” Her busy hand dug in.

Carley said: “I’m gonna ditch you someday, Gwen. And Juney on accounta you. You got no business sense. We’re cool now. Kill this mark, and we’re not.”

“I like being hot,” Gwen said simply. “It’s living, when you’re hot.”

Carley slid the car to a stop, silently, expertly. “Out, Henry. You’ll keep your mouth buttoned. A guy away from home all day, a salesman, with a wife. And a kid. You’ll keep right on being good, Henry, like you was all evening.”

Henry opened the door. He was sure it couldn’t be over, that the nightmare wasn’t ending, that there’d be a shot from the car, a blackjack out of the night. But all that happened was Gwen’s taunting voice drifting back to him: “You didn’t kiss me good night, Henry—” and then they were gone.

Gone to some unknown rendezvous, where they’d ditch the cars, back to the bar on Slack Street... One street he’d never walk down any more, one neighborhood he’d avoid. The Merser account would have to go unserviced, some other company could have that business.

Thinking about the Merser account, thinking about business brought him back to reality a little. He looked around. He wasn’t more than three blocks from his home.

Excitement died in him, and so did the last tail-ends of his energy. The three blocks were endless, and later he couldn’t have said if he’d walked them in the rain, or if the downpour had stopped.

Then he was on his own porch, fumbling at the lock with his own key, a little surprised that the key had been in his pocket all this time, but home. He got into the hall, and he closed the door after him. He would have to get a chain like Joe Wheeler’s. Everybody ought to have a chain on his front door...

And there was Peggy, his wife, coming down the stairs, in a long house coat, holding it up a little, her eyes anxious and black-circled in her pale face. “Henry. Oh, Henry, thank God you’re home.”

He mumbled something. Then she switched on the hall light, and screamed a little. He looked down at himself. His clothes were soaked with rain, his shirt filthy, and despite all the water, there was still some of the reek of liquor on him. He put up his hand slowly, and his fingers found the bump where they’d knocked him out in the bar on Slack Street.

A couple of buttons were missing from his coat, and his necktie was a soggy string.

He said, with a great effort: “Don’t ask any questions, Peggy. Don’t ever ask any questions about tonight. I’ve been through hell.”

She was a good girl. The remembrance of how good she was made tears come to his eyes. She bent over and got an arm under his shoulders, helped him to his feet. “All right,” she said. “No questions.”

They started up the stairs. He was making a terrible attempt to struggle hack to normalcy, to remember business and what he had to do tomorrow. His whole schedule of accounts had been in his briefcase, and that was gone. He was going to be bawled out by the sales manager, he might even lose his job... There had been forty dollars in the wallet, and Gwen had that. And his hat was gone, he’d have to buy a new one, probably his suit was ruined.

They were halfway up the stairs. Peggy stopped on the landing, said: “Rest here a minute...”

The phone rang. They looked at each other, he with guilt, she with an expression he couldn’t read. It rang and rang, and finally Peggy shrugged and went down to answer it. Maybe she said something about the bell waking the baby, he couldn’t be sure... She was pretty far along with her pregnancy, the second child was due in two months, he shouldn’t have let her help him that way... She didn’t weigh much.

Her voice came through the concentric rings of fatigue in his head. “Yes, he’s back... A few minutes ago... No, he didn’t... That won’t be necessary... Well, if you have to.”

Then she was back. “The police,” she said. “I called them when you didn’t come home.”

“Shouldn’t have,” he mumbled... But she was helping him up the stairs again, and then he was in their bedroom, and she was taking his clothes off, clucking a little as she saw the bruises on him.

He stood in the shower a long time, resting his head against the wall, letting warm water flow down his back. When he came out, there were clean pajamas on the bed. He put them on, reached for the covers, and Peggy was back.

“The police,” she said. “Downstairs. I told them — well, they said they’d come up here if you’d rather.”

“No,” he said. “Downstairs. Less noise... the baby.”

As soon as he came, in robe and slippers, into the living room, Joe Wheeler jumped up and said: “That’s him. That’s the son of a bitch.”

An older man caught Joe Wheeler’s arm, and said: “Now, take it easy. I’m Lieutenant Myers, this is Detective Sloan, he’ll take notes. Mr. Croft, your wife’s description, when she phoned in, was so much like the one Mr. Wheeler gave us of the fellow who—”

Henry Croft said: “Yes. I was there when they held up Mr. Wheeler.”

Lieutenant Myers said: “You’ll have to tell us.”

Henry Croft told it. He told it all but two things: the names — just first names — he’d heard, and the location of the bar he’d found them in.

Joe Wheeler said: “It listens right. He didn’t have a mask, the others did. I guess they were pushing him around, now I think of it... I want to go home. My wife’s nose is broken, the doctor’s there.”

Henry Croft said: “I’m sorry.”

Joe Wheeler said, gruffly: “You don’t look like you had it so easy yourself.” Then he turned and slammed out.

Lieutenant Myers said: “You won’t tell us the names, or where you met them?”

“They know where I live,” Henry Croft said. “They found pictures of my wife and baby in my pocket. For God’s sake, Lieutenant...”

The Lieutenant nodded, slowly. “All right. I can’t make you talk. Maybe the D.A. could, but probably he won’t want to. If I need you, I’ll call on you.”

Henry Croft didn’t go to work the next day. The day after he did, though, and it wasn’t good. Peters, the sales manager was sore about the loss of the schedule, sore about the day off... He took Henry Croft off his territory and gave it to another man, put Henry on a route that would make three quarters as much, at the best.

He had to buy a hat, a briefcase, a suit. His hospital plan would pay for the coming baby, but not for somebody to stay with his kid while his wife was in the hospital. The house needed a paint job bad. And he was sure that insurance salesman would be back when the new baby came. With another child, Henry Croft earnestly believed, just as the salesman had said, a man owed it to his wife and kids to have a little more insurance.

A week after it all happened, he sat at his desk, making up his daily reports, but his mind was on money. Joe Wheeler was maybe covered by insurance, but he was the one who had been robbed. Henry Croft. Sucker was what they had called him, and they were right. That he agreed with their name for him caused a hot flush of anger.

He threw down his pencil and shoved the reports on the desk away from him. This defiance startled him, but also made him feel strangely good.

“They took forty dollars from me,” he said forcefully in his thought, “and I’m going to make them give it back.”

But at once the courage wooshed out of Henry Croft, like air out of a busted balloon. What was that his mother always said? She said that it was better to be a live dog than a dead lion.

The phone rang, and he picked it up. His wife’s voice said, “Henry. I hated to call you, but—”

“What is it?” An image of her body, misshapen with child, falling, flashed in his mind. “You’re all right?”

“It’s all right, dear. I’m all right.”

It was their son who had come down with some virus and the doctor had been in. She had to have him make a house call because of the high fever. Would he pick up the prescription?

Henry Croft said no he might be a little late; have it delivered and give the delivery kid a dime tip; he hung up.

She shouldn’t be worried, he thought, not in her condition. Money. A house call costs more. The hot anger washed through him again and he unconsciously clenched his fist.

It was four-thirty and Henry Croft told the girl at the switchboard that he was going to make a call. He hadn’t told a lie. She looked at him strangely as he went out.

The street didn’t look any better, even though it wasn’t rainy and windy as it had been that day, but mild with the first suggestion of summer.

Henry Croft walked across the street and into the bar. At first the gloomy interior appeared deserted. The juke box bulked dark and silent. For an instant he felt relief that there was no one there. Carley came out of the Men’s Room, wiping his hands on his apron.

“Yeah?” Carley said as he headed for the bar. Then as he came down back of it, he recognized his customer.

Henry Croft put his hat on the bar. “Scotch,” he said. “Where are the others? The girl and the others? I want my forty dollars.”

“Have you gone off your nut!” He kept his eyes on Henry as he poured the Scotch.

Paul and Gwen and Juney sauntered in the front door.

Carley said: “You know what sucker here wants? He wants his forty bucks.” Carley let out a guffaw.

“No kiddin’,” Juney said.

Paul laughed.

Gwen took Henry Croft’s arm in both her hands and drew herself up close to him, put her lips to his throat.

“G’wan,” Carley urged Gwen. “G’wan. Maybe he’d take that forty he’s squawking about in trade.”

Paul said: “This your hat?” and picked up Henry Croft’s hat from the bar.

Henry Croft, with a violent twist of his shoulders, knocked Gwen to one side. “You put that hat down,” he ordered Paul, cords in his neck distended, arms tensed, fists clenched. “Put it down, you sonofabitch, or I’ll kill you!”

A long silence. Paul spun the hat on his forefinger.

“Put it down.”

As Paul put the hat down on the bar with exaggerated care, he shrugged and said, “He says he wants me to put his hat down.”

They all laughed. All of them except Henry Croft. He took the gun from his pocket that they had given him in Jim Wheeler’s home and he said, “Now. My forty dollars.”

Gwen said: “Isn’t he the big, big man.”

They all laughed again.

Henry Croft gestured with the gun. He told Gwen: “Right in the face,” he said. “So help me, the bullet right in your face.”

The place turned very silent. Henry felt himself quivering. Not with fear. Rage had carried him beyond fear.

Juney said, finally: “He’s sore. He’s real sore.” He laughed. It was a very flat laugh.

Gwen’s face was white.

Carley rang up No Sale on the register. As he took bills out, he said, “He didn’t go snitchin’ to the cops. No cop’s been here. Henry’s okay.” He was almost placating. “You deadheads chip in on this. Get it up, before he shoots my place all to hell.”

Paul turned the hat over on the bar and each of them dropped their contribution into it, laughing, making cracks, but dropping it in.

Henry Croft counted the money before he left. He drank his scotch, neat. Then he walked straight out, not backing out, but straight out.

Tomorrow by God he was going in to Peters’ office and demand his old route back. Peters had no goddam right taking it away from him. He hoped his kid’s fever had subsided.