The Moth

24

It was a year, I guess, before I began sobering up, not from the champagne we drank celebrating, but from the business, and what I did for it, and from her. From the minute she took up the option, things began to break, and everything I touched turned to gold. First off, when we started our pumps on the other wells, they worked fine, and no particular damage had been done, so right way we got stuff to sell. When we brought in the new well, it was a heavy producer. The tanks were a five-hundred-dollar repair job. Our Luxor contract was nearly up, so we could put in pipe to the refinery right away, and a few weeks later make the switchover. Next, Mendel asked for pipe, and a week later, Perrin, so instead of Rohrer having to beat all the bushes on the hill for enough crude to keep himself busy, he had all he could handle, and could run to capacity. They didn’t have anything against Luxor, except that Luxor had done nothing while they were facing ruin, where I had risked my life and put out the fire. Then we had luck with still another well, that went down to the zone the previous permit had covered, and came in big. Next, we were offered a string of small filling stations, on lease, for so little we couldn’t turn them down, even if I hadn’t had a tip that the Sepulveda road, where three or four of them were located, was to be improved. So when pretty soon business began to grow, we had a deal that let us make money and put our Seven-Star sign all over Los Angeles, in fifteen or twenty different places. We were nothing but a little independent outfit, but at last, as they say, we were integrated. We had wells, we had a plant, we had outlets. When our business was good, we got our price, retail. When it was off, we got rid of our surplus to other independents, but still made something. I made connections that took our lube, fuel, and asphalt, so wherever you looked, stuff was flowing. And wherever you listened, there was a pump. It’s a wonderful thing, a pump. It’s automatic: you sleep and it still goes. It’s like a heart, putting life into you.

And if ever a woman could make a man drunk, from how she looked and thought and did, Hannah would be the one. Her eyes kept that shiny look, and she never got enough of me, which of course didn’t antagonize me. On looks, she was a knockout, a lot more than I had had any idea of when I first met her. After things began to break for us she began to dress, and made me do it. We took in shows in Los Angeles, she in gold gowns, with gold shoes and gold things in her hair, so she looked like something from Egypt, and me in white tie and silk hat. Wherever you went you could hear them ask who she was, and you could see she was made for drawing rooms and boulevards and opera houses. She said I was too, so we got along all right. And yet, that first Christmas we had, when she worked three days on the snow garden at one end of the living room, I looked at it when she cut the juice into it, and wondered if I really cared whether the train jumped its switches or not, or the dancing doll was flush with the plexiglass pool, so she was really skating. I tried to tell myself to snap out of it, that I had everything I had ever wanted, a dream job, big dough, the respect of the business I was in. I had a car, a Packard that just floated. I had an apartment, looking right over the ocean, in the Castile Arms, one of the swank places on the water front. I had a woman with every kind of looks there was, and a husband, just to make it really good, because Branch wasn’t making any motions toward divorce yet, and she couldn’t marry if she wanted to. And yet, if it was what I had been thirsty for, it never came clear, really to quench thirst, but had bubbles in it, like the damned champagne she was always drinking, and that I got so sick of I felt like life was nothing but one long string of Christmas afternoons. After a while I had it, or thought I did, what some of the trouble was. What stuck to my ribs was the job, and the stink of oil, and all the things I was able to do with it, so it really did things to me. But to her, for all her talk about my “machinist’s soul,” none of it meant anything but the money it brought in, and the things she could buy with it. Even that, I think, I could have stood, if she had stuck to cloth of gold and mink and opera tickets. But after a while she took the place in Beverly. It’s about twenty miles up the line, where all the movie stars live and Eastern millionaires. Her house cost four hundred dollars a month, furnished, with swimming pool out back and badminton at one side, and it was just right for the parties she began to give. They got bigger and bigger, until pretty soon everybody came, columnists, stars, directors, and writers, and after a while even the gangsters, which in that part of the world is really showing class.

Little by little it began to get on my nerves. I’d get in around five, all full of some deal I’d made, and find some fish-faced dame sitting around with two guys, talking about what Lubitsch could do if he’d only try musicals. Hannah’d fix my old-fashioned, and I’d sit there grinning without saying anything, which was the tip-off, because a guy with a drink and a deal, if he’s not saying any thing, he just doesn’t like it there. Then one day I came home and a party was going on out there at the pool, and when they went home it was getting dark. I sat finishing my drink when she started batting at something. Then a shadow began flitting around from the patio lamp. I looked up as she was swinging a newspaper, and grabbed her arm. Then I snapped out the light. Fluttering over the wall by the magnolia tree, went the biggest, blue-green luna I had ever seen. When I turned around her eyes were blazing at me. “What’s the idea of the Londos grip?”

“Just a superstition of mine. About moths.”

“Do you have to twist my arm off?”

Next day she showed me her forearm, that had a big blue mark on it from my thumb. “Jack, what got into you? I was killing a bug, and you jerked me around — look at that! It looks like Hogan’s Alley on Saturday night.”

“I told you — I’m superstitious about them.”

“Yeah but — look at that bruise!”

When I couldn’t tell her what the real reason was, when I knew that all she would see in it was a bug, I didn’t kid myself any longer. This wasn’t it, no matter how much I had yenned for it there in the rain, on the outside looking in, while fat guys ate rare meat and their women watched them do it. And yet, from the way I tried to smooth her down, and the quick nervous way my spine prickled at her look, for fear she would tumble to what I really thought of her, I knew I’d hang on, to the bitter end, if I had to. I didn’t want her, but I did want the job, and I’d go pretty far to keep it.

One day, driving up Cherry Avenue, I got held by a light, and I heard somebody yell: “Hey, Jack!” There could be no mistake about that croaky voice. It was Hosey, and when I looked in the mirror there he was, not twenty feet away. As the light turned I started but here came a truck, and I had to stop or be hit. I looked again, and he was running after me. I got going at last and went zooming up the hill, but back of me I could see him, waving and running and yelling. And then I did one of the stupidest things I ever did in my life. If I’d gone on, just disappeared as I went over the hill, the chances are it was the last I’d ever have seen of him, because he never knew me by my right name, and he probably didn’t take the number of the car. But I had it in mind to shake him, so when I came to the refinery I turned in. Then it came over me, how stupid it was, and I knew I had to get away quick. They thought I was crazy, I guess, when I asked if there had been any calls, then ducked out again. But just as I jumped in the car, he reached the main gate and began arguing with the watchman. I zipped out the back way and drove on down to the Jergins Trust Building, where I’d opened a headquarters to handle sales. I went through the main room and on back to my private office and told Lida, my girl, if any calls came through to take the message, but I didn’t want to be disturbed.

Then I sat and cursed the day I’d ever seen Hosey, or called him a friend, or pulled anything with him, or had anything to do with him. Then I tried to think what I was going to do about him. I couldn’t think. Somehow, the idea of having to take that scavenger’s hand, and let him call me by my first name, and call him by his, and act like I was friendly with him, in front of everybody in the whole works, just turned me to jelly, and the thought of what he might tell on me turned me to soup. I’ve been scared in my life, but never worse than that morning, and never more ashamed of it. But after a while something began going through my head, and I grabbed it, and made myself turn into a man again, or something that at least could think. I said to myself: Dog it. You never saw Hosey. You never heard of him. You don’t know what he’s talking about, and while you’ve got all due sympathy for guys out of luck, your private opinion is, he’s crazy. And just on his looks, that will sound like a highly probable idea. I checked it over and over and over, for something that would louse it. Unless they took me back to Las Vegas, and somebody in the motel remembered me, I couldn’t think of anything.

In an hour or so, around noon I would say, Lida came back and asked me if we had anybody working for us by the name of Dixon. That was the name I’d signed on the registers of some of the hotels and flophouses and missions we had stayed at. But all I gave it was a dead pan, like I didn’t want to be bothered. “Not that I know of, unless Rohrer has put somebody on he hasn’t told me about.”

“There’s some bum over there asking.”

“Tell Rohrer to watch it. Maybe it’s a bum and maybe it’s our friend Uncle Sam trailing hot oil. Not that we’re buying any, but—”

I went over to the Hilton and had lunch, then went to the apartment. About two I rang Rohrer and asked could he drop over. He came around three and I started in on a road-tar deal, which was mostly imaginary, but I took an hour over it. I said nothing about Hosey, and he was almost out the door before he said anything, and I was getting nervous, as I had to know, but I dared not take any interest in it. Then he said: “Oh, by the way, Jack, what do I do about this bum that showed up this morning? Says we’ve got somebody working for us named Dixon, and won’t go away till he sees him.”

“I don’t know any Dixon.”

“Says he drove up in a black Packard car.”

“I’ve got the only Packard around the place.”

“So I told him. But he’s still there. On the curb outside.”

“Is he pulling anything?”

“No, but he’s sitting.”

“Then do nothing.”

“Just leave him sit?”

“Isn’t it a free country?”

“Why sure. And if the cops don’t like it—?”

“Then he’s their bum.”

That night, when I got to Rodeo Drive in Beverly, believe me, I listened to the jokes and laughed at them. Next morning, instead of going to the Jergins Trust Building, I went direct to the refinery, and sure enough, there he was, still sitting and still waiting. He yelled at me as I went in the back way and I paid no attention but went and parked. But as I started for my office, Mulligan, the watchman, caught me, looking pretty uncomfortable. “Would you come talk to this guy, Mr. Dillon? I’ve just got the idea that in some kind of a cockeyed way he means you, and if you could just convince him he’s got his signals mixed, maybe we can get rid of him. To tell you the truth, he’s getting on everybody’s nerves.”

I went over to the gate, and when Hosey saw me he began to yell like some kind of a movie. “Jack! Don’t you know me? It’s Hosey! That hoboed all over Louisiana and Texas and Nevada with you and Buck? Jack! I’m ready to go to work. Remember that job we was going to give each other, whichever one hit the jackpot first?”

He meant it so hard he sounded phony. Even Mulligan turned his back. I blinked and said: “Well, Mulligan, he thinks he knows me, that’s a cinch.”

“Why, sir, that’s ridiculous.”

“No, he thinks I’m a pal.”

“Pal my eye. It’s just a racket—”

He went roaring on, while Hosey stared and listened. Then I said: “Anyway, get rid of him.”

“You bet I’ll get rid of him.”

He started for the gate with his shoulders up, but I stopped the rough stuff. “Look, he’s human too.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, sir. But O.K. I let the cops do it.”

But I took out ten dollars, shoved it through the wire at Hosey, and said: “My friend, I don’t know who you think I am, but the times are bad, so buy yourself a meal and a bath and a flop, and keep the change. And if I ever run into somebody named Dixon, I’ll give him your—”

“But — Jack!”

“Listen, goddam it, you want this ten or not?”

“Why sure, but—”

“Then take it and stop calling me Jack.”

“... And what would I call you, then?”

“Try mister, for a change.”

“Mister what?”

“Just mister, pal.”

He took the ten, turned away, and walked off. I started inside. Then something hit me on the head. It was a stone. We turned, and Hosey was standing there, in the middle of the street. “You dirty son of a bitch! I mean you, Jack. You heel! You yellow-bellied rat, that would do this to a friend! But I’ll get you for it. I’ll—”

Mulligan started for him, but I caught his arm. A drawstring was tightening around my belly, but I knew nothing could be done about it today, and the better I acted now, when the tote was made later, the better it would be for me. We stood there, and he threw more stones, and screamed and cussed and raved, and then when some kids gathered around, he went away.

It was a long twenty-four hours, a longer forty-eight, and a still longer seventy-two, but there was nothing I could do, so I did it. I shifted between the refinery, the Jergins Trust Building, and the apartment. Each night I’d stay in Beverly, and put on a black tie, and take her some place in the Strip. Because getting indicted for murder would be bad, and being claimed by some bum as a pal and college chum, that would be still worse. I meant, if I could possibly stack it up that way, that she’d never know anything about it. I drank champagne and called for more, but not enough more to get oiled and talk. Just enough more to have nothing on my mind at all, except what a swell party and what a swell girl. Everything swell, except by belly, which was getting slightly shriveled.

The third day, at the Jergins Trust Building, Lida came back around eleven and said there was a police officer out there that wanted to see me. I had her send him in. He was a young guy, and I saw him take a flash at my old football pictures, that Hannah had blown up and framed and hung there. He said nothing about them, though, but sat down and got out a blue paper. “Mr. Dillon, you got somebody here, working for you, by the name of Dixon?”

“No. Why?”

“You ever use that name? Yourself?”

“State your business.”

I made it quiet, courteous, and cold. He looked at me some seconds, which is something all cops make a specialty of doing, and I dialed a call. It was to Rohrer, and I told him to stand by for something important later, that under no circumstances should he leave. As he never did leave, except when quitting time came, he was all crossed up, but that didn’t bother me, and I hung up. I had given an order and somebody had taken it, that was the main thing, and Mr. Cop had to wait, and speak when I was ready to be spoken to. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “... I’m serving a warrant, Mr. Dillon. For the arrest of a party known as Jack Dixon. However, as our information is that he’s a pretty big shot in the Seven-Star organization, and in fact is believed to be the general manager of it, it looks like he might be you. It’s up to you whether you accept service or not, though I may as well tell you I have the power to take you in custody on this warrant, whatever you do about it.”

“Well... could I read it?”

“If you would, that might help.”

It was on complaint of the Las Vegas, Nevada, police, which meant that Hosey had spilled what he knew and some telegraphing had been going on. Beyond “suspected of felony” it told me nothing, but reading it gave me time to think. I knew dogging it with this guy wouldn’t do. His job was to bring me in, and if I got tough and he rode over me, I had lost the advantage I’d had, from the football pictures, and maybe his wanting to be friendly without my knowing it. And yet the last thing I should do was get myself booked, because that made it a public record, and led straight to the newspapers, Beverly, and her. I said: “Well — I guess I know about this. A bum showed up, called me by this name, and promoted a few bucks off me. Then he said we were buddies, and when I didn’t ask him in, he got sore and went off, calling me names and throwing rocks at me... Well, you’ve got nothing to do with that. I always say, if a guy says he’s the victim of a mistake, O.K., but he should do what he can to straighten things out. I’m not accepting service of this warrant in any way, shape, or form. I don’t know what the Las Vegas police want with me, I’ve never been to Las Vegas, and can’t imagine why they’ve filed this complaint. But, just in a friendly way, why don’t I go back with you, talk with whoever is in charge, and see if we can’t straighten it out?”

“I would suggest that.”

“Wait till I make a call.”

I dialed the refinery again, got Mulligan on the line, and told him to hop in a cab and get over to the police station, as the bum was making trouble. Getting Mulligan in it wasn’t from some angles the best judgment in the world, because my best play would be to go down there alone, with no lawyers, watchmen, or anybody else to help me. But Mulligan had been a cop and spoke their language, he thought Hosey was a phony, and he worked for me.

At the police station, which is in the city hall, we went in a room back of the main desk, and Mulligan was there ahead of us, sitting with Chief Lucas, that I’d met at the fire, a clerk, a heavy-set man in a blue suit, that looked like a detective, and a man in a blue blouse, that looked like a turnkey. Mulligan was roaring, pretty sore, and kept it up after I was brought in. There were two or three office chairs with hard seats, though Mulligan, the Chief, and the man in the blue suit were sitting on soft ones, upholstered in leather. I didn’t sit down until the Chief motioned me to. Then I took a hard chair. I took care not to be sore, indignant, or funny. I was just a guy the cops wanted to talk to, and that took it pretty serious. The cop who brought me explained that I hadn’t accepted service on the warrant, but had come on a voluntary basis, to give any help that I could. That seemed O.K. with the Chief, because he spoke to me then, by name. “You understand, though, Mr. Dillon, that if any evidence comes to light of a criminal kind, we may still have to put you under arrest while the Las Vegas police start extradition proceedings to send you back to Nevada?”

“Back there? I haven’t left there yet.”

That got a laugh, but I played it straight and said: “Where this goddam fool got the idea I’m named Dixon or have been to Nevada I don’t know, but wherever it is I’ll face it, and I’ve got no fear how it’ll come out. I never robbed any banks that I know of, but if I did walk in my sleep and they can prove it on me — then O.K.”

That seemed all right, so far, though cops are a twenty-minute lot, and you can’t always tell how you’re doing with them. However, he nodded, and said: “I think the simplest way would be to get this guy in and let him chirp.”

“What’s your name?”

“Hosey Brown.”

“Where you from?”

“Chillicothe, Ohio.”

“What you do?”

“Structural iron.”

“When you work last?”

“That was in Spokane, sir. In Spokane, Washington, before the depression hit. I haven’t been able to get work since. I applied, but couldn’t hit no jobs.”

“You done time?”

“... I don’t just recollect.”

“What you mean, you don’t just recollect?”

“Chief, I was in an accident when I was twenty-two years old. I got hit when a I-beam fell on me. I don’t know what I done for two years after that, or where I was.”

“You don’t remember Lewisburg?”

“No, sir, not good.”

“But a little bit?”

“I hear tell of it, yes.”

“You know this man here.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Jack Dixon.”

“Where was this you knew him?”

“I met him first just outside of Chattanooga. Him and me, we got a fellow up that was fixing to die, name of Buck Mitchell. Then him and me and Buck, we traveled together for must of been nigh on to a year maybe, maybe two years. We was buddies, and we went all over the South and Southwest together.”

“You pull any jobs? You and him?”

“Him and Buck, not me.”

“What was you doing while they was pulling jobs?”

“Just waiting, sir.”

“Where?”

“Up the street, generally.”

“Not looking?”

“Of course I could see what was going on. But I never helped on no jobs, no, sir. I was up the street.”

“Anybody bother them?”

“I don’t just recollect. Some time, maybe.”

“And what did you do, then?”

“Well, sir, what could I do?”

“You could holler, couldn’t you?”

“Well, I guess I could, yes, I could holler.”

“Did you?”

“... I don’t just recollect.”

“Then you were lookout man?”

“No, sir, not me.”

“And where was it you pulled these jobs?”

“He pulled them. Him and Buck.”

“Where was this?”

“That was Phoenix, Yuma, Indio, Banning, I don’t know where-all. The last place, where Buck got killed, was Las Vegas.”

“You see that?”

“I was up the street waiting.”

“And hollering?”

“I tell you I never done nothing.”

“What happened on this hold-up?”

“Well, I was up the street, waiting, and Buck and Jack, they were to steal a car, first. Then here they come, in a little green coupe, and blowed the horn at me, and turned around and went up the street near this here filling station where they hoped to get the money. Then here they come back to the filling station in the car and went in to get gas. Then Buck and Jack got out and went in the men’s room. Then they come out. Then Jack got in. Then Buck reached for the gun. Then a fellow stepped out from behind a car that was parked on the other side of the grease jack, leveled a gun, and then there was a shot. And Buck dropped. And then Jack come by in the car hell to split. I run out and yelled at him, but he drove off.”

“That car — was it a Chevvie, 1933 coupe?”

“I don’t know. It was green.”

“You didn’t see it later?”

“Not after that.”

“You’re sure you’re not the one that ripped the seat cushions where it was abandoned out there by the grade crossing?”

“Not me, no, sir.”

“When was all this?”

“Couple of years ago.”

“Two years ago, in Las Vegas?”

“Could a been two, three years ago.”

“Well listen, make up your mind.”

“Maybe four year.”

“Which is it?”

“Two, three, four year.”

The Chief thought while the clerk wound up some notes on what was said, then motioned to the turnkey, who went out. Two or three guys came in that were cops, by their brick color, but they were in plain clothes. They sat down near me. The turnkey came back with two or three guys that, by their looks, were from the cells, then went out again. One had no coat on, the others had shabby clothes, and none had a shave. And then it came to me what this was: It was an identification. Through that door in a minute somebody would come to pick me out of the line. I don’t know if ever in my life my head worked faster than it did then. I went over it in a flash, what I had looked like in Las Vegas four years ago, when I was hard, weatherbeaten, and thin, and what I looked like now, with soft, hundred-fifty-dollar tweeds on, a dark coat of tan, thirty pounds more weight, and a little Hollywood mustache I had sprouted. And I caught it with my eye, what a bum looked like, from the set of these faces the turnkey had brought in, that hadn’t smiled in a month of Sundays, that had a dull heavy film on their eyes, and were covered with fuzz and grease and dirt. I knew I still had a chance, but something kept telling me — smile, smile, smile! Don’t look like these bums! Don’t be part of the line-up at all! Keep your head up, give out with it so anybody can see you, don’t turn away like these guys are going to do, and SMILE! Smile so it COULDN’T BE YOU!

The door was still open, where the turnkey had gone out again, and through it came the station-house cat, a big black thing with yellow eyes and a red ribbon around his neck. I didn’t overplay it. I didn’t make a corny dive for him and grab him up in a hurry. I made motions at him with my fingers, and grinned at him, and whispered at him, and picked him up. Then I rolled him out on my knee and began scratching his chin.

“I couldn’t be sure. It’s been some time ago. But I’d say it was him. This one here, with no coat on.”

I looked up, kind of like I didn’t know what was going on, then went back to the cat. The turnkey had come back again, and with him was a little guy, around fifty maybe, that I’d never even known by name, but that had taken care of night calls at the motel where Hosey and Buck and I had stayed before pulling our job, and robbed the fellow of his gun. I didn’t pay the least attention. I kept my head up while I was whispering to the cat. My heart skipped a beat when they brought in the guy in the filling station, the one that had sold us gas. But he didn’t point to anybody at all. The Chief said O.K., the detectives went, all but the one in the blue suit, and the turnkey motioned Hosey and the prisoners and the two guys from Las Vegas, and took them out and closed the door. The Chief turned to me. “Mr. Dillon, what do you know about this?”

“Nothing.”

“Just nothing at all?”

“Just nothing, period, new paragraph.”

“You never been to Las Vegas?”

“No.”

“O.K.”

The guy in the blue suit got up, and it turned out he was a Las Vegas detective. He said: “Well, Chief, it looked to me like a phony, but you got to do something about it, even if you think it’s a bum trying to promote a free ride. He saw the job, I’m sure of that, and probably traveled with a pair of yeggs a week or two, though not regular. One or two of those jobs, like the one he talked about in Yuma, were never pulled. But he never once mentioned that the one who got away in Las Vegas was a dark gimpy guy, and he never had the right name of the man that was killed. Of course, he could have called himself Buck, and maybe he used the name Mitchell. But the papers we took off him said Horace Burns, and if he doesn’t know that, then we’re chasing our tail to listen to him. Release this gentleman, I’d say.”

“I’m going to. Sorry, Mr. Dillon.”

“It’s O.K. Cute cat.”

“I found that gentleman in an alley when he was two days old and didn’t have his eyes open yet. I raised him with an eye dropper and milk warmed on that electric heater beside your chair, and he’s never known any home but this one. To him a cell is a front parlor.”

“Pretty eyes.”

“And fight his weight in wild ones.”

“Nice seeing you again.”

Outside, Mulligan went off to scare up a cab and I stood there waiting for him to come back. Then back of me I heard something, and turned. Hosey came running, and ducked across the street, to the park. After him came the guy from the motel and the guy from the filling station. When they caught up with him, the guy from the motel hit him and he staggered and then the guy from the filling station hit him and he went down. I turned my back, and when a cab came with Mulligan alongside, I got in quick and closed my eyes. “What’s the matter, Mr. Dillon?”

“Not a thing.”

“You sick?”

“Just tired.”

He gave my apartment address and we started up. Ahead of us, walking along, were the two guys from Las Vegas, the one from the filling station and the one from the motel. In the park was something lying on the grass. I felt big and cruel and cold, a thick, heavy-shouldered bunch of whatever it takes to be a success. As we turned into the ocean front it flashed through my mind I was going to do the one last thing, or try to, that I would have to do to hold what I had, so I could never be pried loose. Branch, at last, had decided to give her a divorce, and I meant, as soon as she was free, at the end of this interlocutory year they’ve got in California, to marry her and stay married to her. At least, even if I was a little shy on love, I could breathe easy, and if any more Hoseys came along, they might dent me but they couldn’t break me.