Strange Fugitive Read online

  He shook his head. The sun felt too hot on his face. Always he got back to Vera. He had left her, and was going further and further away so that now he was without passion for her and was anxious for new experiences in strange places. There was a world where he could be alone in his own life, but now she had become a strong thought, a magnet, and all his new thoughts returned finally to her. He was irritated and got up quickly to finish dressing.

  Anna was still sleeping when he left the house to go downtown. On the street he was self-conscious, as though people were turning, looking at him. He had to prevent himself from half turning and glancing out of the corner of his eye at many people.

  All afternoon he was uneasy, though he talked and laughed a lot with Jimmie over taking the trucks last night. He didn’t say that he had become nervous, and worked for an hour in the office.

  At four in the afternoon he went over to the department store to loaf away the hour before supper. He went into the store because many people were there, and he was determined to get rid of the notion of people watching him, and besides he liked the big store in the afternoon, at the magazine counter and in the perfume department. He looked directly at girls behind the perfume counters. He had always been convinced that girls at perfume counters were more apt to be loose and voluptuous than any other girls — the perfume probably did it.

  He had a good time in the store. So many people seemed unaware of him that he became more confident and lazily good-humoured, smiling at all the girls who would look at him. A big blond girl in the perfume department was eager to be friendly and he walked down her aisle twice, enjoying himself.

  He went back to the office and phoned Anna to say he wouldn’t be home because there was a hockey game. Jimmie was taking Eva out to dinner, so he ate by himself.

  After supper he had an hour before the hockey game, so at the newsstand on the corner, where he had established himself as a customer, he bought some papers, read the magazines and saw a mystery story, “The Gaunt Stranger” by Edgar Wallace. He had read all the good mysteries that Eva had picked out for him, but the cover on this one looked so interesting he bought it and hurried back to the store. In the office he took off his coat and vest, scratched himself under the right armpit, slipped his suspenders over his shoulders, lit a cigarette, then taking the book by Edgar Wallace, he made himself comfortable. Breathing easily, he read: “. . . it is impossible not to be thrilled by Edgar Wallace, and Premier Baldwin, who has the affairs of an Empire on which the sun never sets at his fingertips, was seen purchasing two copies of this author’s book before getting on a train.” Two copies of the one book, or two books by Edgar Wallace? he reflected, looking around for some place to throw his cigarette. He dropped it on the floor and put his foot on it. Who cares, he thought: somebody had said Winston Churchill, too, liked Edgar Wallace. Important English politicians, and someday possibly his own picture on the cover of one of these books!

  Now he was seriously interested in the book, following “The Creeper” in London fog, a finger pushing his soft collar down from his Adam’s apple. In the contact of finger against neck, he discovered a hangnail on his right index finger, and though his thoughts remained entirely with the story, he tried to seize with his teeth the hangnail, which persistently eluded him until his mind wavered between it and the story. When Vera would see him biting at his fingers she would pull his hand away from his lips. He didn’t like the thought, but abandoned the finger which he held between his legs underneath the book.

  The story was exciting and yet not as thrilling as one he had read two nights ago in bed, and he got up to wash his hands. The only time to read mystery stories is in bed, when there’s a wind in the streets, and windows rattle and you listen for small sounds.

  He put his coat on quickly so there would be time to walk over to the arena. Outside, his flesh tingled in the winter weather. He jerked his fur collar up to his ears. Standing under the street light, looking at a red traffic signal, he was vaguely aware of feeling fine; there was so much satisfaction in being alone.

  He was a little late for the game, but had a reserved seat in the fourth row, in the centre of the arena. The usher preceded him down the aisle and his satisfaction increased because people were staring at his fur coat. To reach his seat he had to walk on some people’s toes and brush closely against knees of good-looking girls, and even, he hoped, tickle their small faces, in passing with the fur of his coat. Finally seated and quite happy he looked at the ice, then at the rows of faces, the skin on his back tingling when he heard a great shouting, and took a deep breath before concentrating on the ice. Canadians, of Montreal, playing the local team. Canadians in flashy red sweaters, the best team in the world, and for no reason he jumped up and yelled, “Come on, Morenz” and the people around him yelled: “Sit down, you ham.”

  He yelled for the Canadians, their graceful skating and neat stick handling arousing him as they swept down the ice, three abreast, Morenz in the centre, taking the pass, hurdling the sticks of the defense to get the shot on goal; the local team, checking stubbornly, defending, attacking clumsily. He roared with the crowd, then they tied the score near the end of the first period.

  The second period was livelier, and he slapped his gloved hands together and stamped his feet. The score was tied. Morenz, the Canadian centre player, skating recklessly, rushed, sidestepping, feinting with his body, split the local defense, but missed an open goal. He started at his own goal line, a marvellous dash, zigzagging up the ice, his face absolutely calm, hair flat on his head, held back by the fierce speed of the rush. Harry jumped up, yelling “Come on Morenz,” and howled derisively when a local defense man bodychecked Morenz, swinging against him heavily, spinning him flat on the ice.

  The referee swung his arm and the defense man skated off to the penalty box. It looked like a stiff but legitimate bodycheck, and the crowd, convinced the officials were discriminating against the local team, booed and yelled, and many newspapers were thrown down on the ice. Harry fumbled eagerly in his pockets, finding eight coppers, and standing up he yelled at the official, who smiled cheerfully while dodging newspapers and a few pop bottles, “Oh you lousy skunk,” and threw the pennies down at him. The crowd around him liked it and cheered. Other people began to throw coppers at the referee. The coppers stuck on the ice and at first the officials, down on their knees, tried to dig them out of the ice, and the crowd laughed, but they couldn’t pick them all up and the game was stopped while attendants cleared the ice. Two policemen walked out on the ice to quiet the crowd. The crowd yelled in unison, “Left right, left right, left right,” while the policemen walked.

  A hard-boiled little man, near Harry, grabbed hold of him by the arm and said: “Boy, how would you like to sock that sap of a referee? Did you ever see anything like him?”

  “Brother, you said it.”

  “What I wants to know, mister,” the little man continued, “is how much d’egg has on de Canadians?”

  “Yeah, he’s got his shirt on them,” Harry said, standing up suddenly and letting out a long, loud, “Boo-oo-oo-oo.” “Listen, Mac,” he said confidentially to the little man, “another thing I want to ask, is did that guy out there stop the punishment they were handing out to Morenz in the first period?”

  “Morenz, huh?”

  “Sure, Morenz.”

  “Canadians, huh?”

  “Sure, Morenz.”

  “For the love of Mike, sure they’re handing him punishment, making him like it. I hope they kill the bastard. What’s the matter with birds like youse, don’t you want your own boys to win? You might as well be refereeing this game, brother.” He stood and yelled: ‘Kill Morenz.”

  “Lay down, you smell,” Harry said.

  “Say, Mac. Me smell, eh? Who the hell do you think you are, a performer? I was playing this game when you were so high, see.”

  They were playing the game again, but three of the home team were in the penalty box and the Canadians quickly scored two goals. The cr
owd booed mournfully. For Harry, the figures in coloured sweaters on the ice were now simply arranging themselves into a series of patterns and he was thinking of the little man saying he had played the game years ago. Harry remembered playing in the high-school league. He had been a good stick handler, though a rather clumsy skater, and was always getting hurt. Over his left eye he rubbed his fingers, feeling the slight indentation that remained from stitches that had been necessary one afternoon after a high-school game. Three fellows had pulled him on a toboggan to the doctor, then pulled him home and lifted him onto the kitchen table. He remembered how glad he had been that his mother was out that afternoon. The doctor had stitched the wound over his eye and taken him up to bed. When his mother came home, he was asleep, his head bandaged. He heard her crying and she was kissing him, and the doctor was assuring her his sight wouldn’t be affected. The worst part of it all had been lying on the toboggan, the fellows pulling him home, in his mind a picture of his mother’s misery when she should see the hasty bandages over the eye. And she hadn’t been home. Sweat was on his forehead now, for he had been drawn back into that afternoon and suddenly had the feeling he should get up, leave the arena, and go home and see his mother. Leaning back, he was only pretending to watch coloured sweaters moving on ice. Really he was experiencing the uneasy restiveness that had been bothering him whenever he thought of his mother. Thinking of her he was happy but nervous, then a little sad and eager to do something that always eluded him when he thought too hard about it.

  People on the seats behind him shouted angrily as he got up slowly and moved along, banging against girls’ knees, but not noticing it this time. “Sit down there, you sap in the coat,” they shouted. He hardly heard them. The game was no longer interesting. He preferred his own thoughts.

  Outside on the street he walked south, intending to go down to Childs on King Street and have something to eat, for in his present mood he definitely didn’t want to go home to Anna. He was sad, a few flakes of snow were falling lazily, drifting under the street lights. The air, no longer damp, was brisk. He walked on, becoming disappointed, for he couldn’t think clearly of his mother, other thoughts — of the game and the little man who had spoken to him — coming into his head, till he finally got a clear picture of her again, and the lonely feeling was agreeable to him. He walked slowly, indifferently, old memories comforting him. In a way he was happier than he had been in a long time. He muttered to himself, crossing the road, that he ought to be able to do something about it, then was angry with himself for breaking the flow of his thoughts.

  He went down to Childs, where young people and some good-looking actresses go after the shows, and ordered a plate of kidney beans. He looked around, heard many voices and laughter and realized he was entirely satisfied to be alone. “It’s funny the way I’m getting to like being alone,” he thought.

  6

  Late in March when the snow had gone from the streets and the river had overflowed the Don Flats and the lumberyards and gravel below the first bridge, the body of Joe Atkins, the legs tied and caught on the branch of a tree, was found by two boys. He had disappeared early in March when the snow was on the ground. The truck he had been driving and two men with him had disappeared. He had been driving the truck out west at eleven o’clock in the evening.

  Sitting in the office in the early afternoon, checking up the payroll, Harry tried to forget Joe and yesterday’s funeral and the long talk with Mrs. Atkins. It had been a poor funeral. He looked at the payroll, counting, multiplying, making mistakes. Words he had said to Jimmie were still in his mind, words for Cosantino running through his thoughts. He didn’t want so many words to come easily to him. Later on he would think of Cosantino, but now, in his mind was the monotony of newspaper facts, insistent and simple, forcing his attention.

  The late Joseph Atkins was survived by a wife, two children and a sister. Hearing the dreadful news that followed closely upon a previous communication filled with a detailed account of happy enjoyment, the sister wasted no time in useless lamentations. She instinctively knew her duty and followed it out willingly and with dispatch. She had the grief-stricken wife and children brought to her home where Mrs. Atkins, with extraordinary fortitude, recovered her composure sufficiently to be interviewed. Mrs. Atkins declared that her husband had no enemies. He didn’t belong to any lodges, though at one time he had been a member of the Episcopalian Church. The wounds in the back of the head of the murdered man, and the fact that his feet had been tied, led the police to suspect a deliberate killing with bootleg vengeance as a possible motive. The theory of the police was that he had been taken to the bridge in a car and tossed into the water. This was the third killing of a similar character in the last three months. If her husband had been a lawless man, there was no suggestion of it in the face of Mrs. Atkins, or in the eyes of the little children, for the gray-haired mother had wept when she told how her husband had come back from the war. The two children, little girls, Alice, aged eight, and Pansy, nine, held on to their mother’s skirt and cried.

  Harry rubbed his hands through his hair. The figures on the page bothered him, and he had read the newspapers too much. He looked steadily at the page and by concentrating he avoided all thoughts of Joe. He scanned the column of names closely, for he had been writing many checks for fellows operating the houses. “There are too damned many cops on this list,” he thought. Thousands of dollars a month for cops and lawyers. Still, they were doing well, with twenty houses in the city, and they were supplying many independent bootleggers, the thought of it giving him a fine feeling. He tilted back in his chair. Fifteen powerful trucks, the best on the market, and yet it was hard to supply the customers’ demand for liquor. About once a week they took one of Cosantino’s trucks. He grinned, thinking of Cosantino, then was nervous at the thought that came into his head — something he had been avoiding for hours.

  Through the office doorway he saw Eva Lawson in a black silk smock, waiting on a customer. Again he rubbed his hand through his hair, patting the top of his head. Then he hitched up his trousers further above the knees, so the creases would not be spoiled. Nothing in the world like a first-class suit, and the ones he had at home, fifteen good ones, had lots of class. He always enjoyed thinking of buying a new suit. He turned and looked out of the window to the lane leading to the stage door of the Olympia Burlesque. It was about half-past one in the afternoon, the show started at two-fifteen, and he watched girls walking along to the stage door. Some girls had much nicer legs than others. Most of the girls wore funny-looking shoes but he liked the way chorus girls walked, their thin dresses clinging to their shapes, their backs arched, walking defiantly, proud of their silk-stockinged legs, even the hard-boiled ones walking independently. The muscles at the back of the leg were too highly developed on some of the girls. He wondered what Anna would look like walking down the lane. He imagined Vera stepping along with some of the girls. He got the old uneasy feeling and tightness inside him thinking of Vera. He stared out of the window, though now there was no one in the lane.

  Jimmie opened the door. Jimmie was putting on weight. He had a small paunch. His face was much fatter. He sat down on the edge of the desk. “What’s worrying you, the poison ivies in the lane?” he asked.

  “You’re getting fat, Jimmie. I just noticed it, you’re getting fat.”

  “Me fat? Fat! Just normal, and eating like a gentleman.”

  “You’re getting fat anyway.”

  “All right, I’m getting fat, but you’re a sad-looking guy.”

  “I’ve been thinking too much about Joe.”

  “Joe? Why, we talked about it last night until we were blue in the face.”

  “I know.”

  “Now let Cosantino worry about it. Listen, Harry. I’ll bet a dollar you’re sitting there mooning about Vera.”

  “Who the hell said I was thinking about Vera?”

  “I shudder to think of it, but I did.”

  “The wise guy, eh?”

&nb
sp; “You’re not sore are you?”

  “No, I’m not getting sore, you’re just a wise guy, that’s all.”

  “You’re rather bright yourself, you know.”

  “Yeah, only you know things, you’ve been there.”

  “Ah shut up. I don’t care what’s bothering you, only try and get some manners.”

  “Manners, eh?”

  “Sure, manners, and while you’re at it, come down to earth and try and be civilized.”

  “Oh, don’t bother me, you never have anything to say.”

  “No?”

  “Listen, when are you going to cut this out?”

  “Sure, I’ll cut it out, I just asked what was wrong with you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, Jimmie, only it’s hard to get used to being away from a person you’ve been with a couple of years. See? Off and on it gets your goat and you feel punk.”

  Jimmie sat down and crossed his legs. Harry grinned at him, offering a cigarette. Jimmie took the cigarette.

  “Well, I may be dumb but I can’t see what it’s all about,” Jimmie said finally.

  “What’s what all about?”

  “I mean, why on earth did you leave Vera then? What got into you?”

  “Nothing got into me, I tellya. We were getting on each other’s nerves.”

  He listened to Jimmie talking and tried to place definitely in his mind the particular quarrel that had been the cause of separation. Old words he half-remembered, but the unpleasant words seemed unimportant. He couldn’t think of them for any long time, and his thoughts drifted till he was talking to her, the unimportant little details of their life together pleasing him, and though trying to justify leaving her, he found himself holding on to thoughts of happy moments they had both enjoyed. Jimmie was talking but he didn’t hear him, half-remembering the way he had balanced Vera on the tracks walking up the railway ties in the summer, before going down the ravine.