Strange Fugitive Read online

  “I don’t want to waste any more time thinking of Vera,” he said.

  “That’s the stuff. If you want Vera, go and get her. If you don’t, then stop thinking about her. See?”

  “I see all right.”

  “Only it don’t mean a thing to you.”

  “Not a damned thing.”

  “Suit yourself,” Jimmie said, offended. “Don’t mind me. Go to hell if you want to, it’s none of my business.”

  “Don’t get sore, Jimmie. No use getting sore.”

  “I’m not interested, let alone sore.”

  “Aw, be a good guy, Jimmie. I mean I want you to do something for me. Go around and see her, willya, just to get a line on things? Not that I want to see her again, but if I’m happy thinking about her, then I ought to go on thinking about her. It don’t do me any harm.”

  “Why not go and see her yourself?”

  “It can’t be done. Jimmie, you know it can’t be done.”

  “Sure it can. Shoot her a line. Tell her you’ve become a first-class shoe salesman.’

  “Stop kidding, Jimmie. Later on but not now.”

  Jimmie tilted his hat over his eyes. Harry couldn’t see his eyes.

  “If she wouldn’t stick with me, whatever I was doing, she could go to the devil,” Jimmie said quietly.

  Harry was unhappy. He wished Jimmie wouldn’t tilt his hat over his eyes. He heard Eva talking to a customer, chatting gaily.

  “That’s all right, Jimmie, only this is a little different.” Really it wasn’t different, he thought, but from another viewpoint was probably different absolutely.

  “Do you want me to go and see her, Harry?”

  “Maybe you’d better not,” he said thoughtfully.

  “All right, I won’t then.”

  “No, you’d better not.”

  Eva came into the office, the same height as Vera, same shape, too. She said: “Did you tell Harry about your friend in here this morning?”

  “No, I forgot,” Jimmie said.

  “Who, Jim?”

  “Guess who, Stan Farrel.”

  “Farrel, eh?”

  “Farrel himself.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  “Nothing, as usual. I let him think I was buying a book here,” Jimmie said. “He enjoyed me immensely.”

  “Did he buy anything?”

  “Oh no,” Eva said, “but some other day . . . ”

  “Stan himself,” Jimmie said, “just as bright and breezy as life itself. Says he saw you on the street one day and mentioned it to Vera, but she insisted you were travelling.”

  Eva went out. Harry grinned at Jimmie, who was looking at him thoughtfully. “I don’t want to meet Farrel,” he said.

  “Oh, forget that guy. Come on out. I’ve got to go over to the bank.”

  They went out to the street and over to the bank. It was winter weather but the air was fine, and wet pavements near open doorways were steaming. Their coats swung open. A great day for a long walk. The sun was bright and many people were on the streets for afternoon shopping. Girls with pretty legs walked with open fur coats showing short bright skirts and a flash of round silken knees. They crossed the road and a man waved at them. He stood in the United Cigar store entrance, lighting a cigarette.

  “Holy smoke, there’s old Harris, the guy we met with Bob that night at Angelina’s.”

  “Poor old Harris, he’s looking bad. I haven’t seen him since.”

  They waved at him and shook hands on the corner.

  “You boys are looking fine,” he said, wheezing.

  “How’s the real estate business, Mr. Harris?”

  “Bad, very bad, off and on as it were.”

  Mr. Harris was trying to talk without moving his lips. He smiled. His upper teeth were missing.

  “Lord man, who borrowed your teeth?” Jimmie said.

  “If someone borrowed them I’d be able to ask for them,” he said sadly.

  He explained he had lost them somewhere last night. With his old friend Bob he had been drinking at a woman’s place and he had taken out his teeth. He only took them out when he felt himself getting a little stupid from drinking a good deal. He had been unable to find them. He couldn’t go home to his wife because she would know he had been drinking heavily if he appeared without his teeth, and two weeks ago he had sworn never to touch a drop again, so he hadn’t been home all night. At the moment he was going over to Bob’s office to find out if Bob knew anything of the teeth.

  “What’s happening to Bob?” Harry asked.

  “He’s done, I think,” Mr. Harris said. “He’s going away.”

  “Last I heard of he was straightening up. Living with his wife and so on.”

  “So he is. He did it for a month. Now his wife’s trying to look after the office. She can never find him.”

  “It’s a damn shame. He was a good sort.”

  “He is. I think he’s giving up law and going to New York to sell bonds for somebody.”

  “Oh well, wish him luck.”

  They hoped he would find his teeth and he left them.

  The bank was on the corner opposite the city hall. Jimmie made out a deposit slip while Harry leaned against the marble table. Chinese were lining up at the teller’s cage, the bank having most of the Chinese trade in the city. The manager came over to the counter, feeling friendly and respectful, and asked them to sit down in the office and have a cigar. They were good customers and Harry was impressive in the coon-skin coat. Sitting in the office the manager politely stood for a good deal of kidding from Jimmie, then told some jokes rather pompously. Some of the manager’s jokes were fair but most of them poor.

  Outside the bank Jimmie said: “Let’s go down to Childs. Some of the newspaper boys may be there and we’ll talk. Chuck Taylor and Bill Rose usually have some coffee about this time.”

  They went down Bay, passing people standing on a corner watching excavation work for a new skyscraper. The long-necked crane swung the shovel in a wide arc, then dipping down, the jaws gripping earth. The engine at the base rattled, the long arm stationary, then lifting slowly swinging wide, emptying the jaws. Heads moved, following the swing of the shovel.

  They crossed Adelaide Street. The Metropolitan Building stood up over smaller buildings grouped around it, the squat tower dark, the sun striking the west wall, tan colouring the bricks, sunfire in the gleaming windows.

  Chuck Taylor was in Childs at one of the tables telling a story to a laughing big man and the manager in a white uniform. He waved to Jimmie and Harry. They sat down at the table while Chuck went on with the story about leprechauns and his nine-year-old kid.

  “The kid believes I can go along a road, and, whist! Change my coat for a pink one or a purple one, or I can squat in a field and become a pansy, or a butterfly with long quivering feelers. Beautiful, isn’t it, Trotter?”

  “I believe anything you say, Chuck.”

  The manager said, “Very good, Chuck, but did you hear this one,” and he told a sly story, and they laughed while he walked away to the desk. The manager turned quickly, came back to the table and told another story. He was a good-natured manager. Harry liked talking to these fellows. Often they kidded him about bootlegging but in the same way they kidded boys in the bond business. He poured coffee from one of the funny little mugs, spilling it on the glass tabletop. The manager, bending over the table, said: “Watch the fellow out on the street looking in the window.”

  A man, poorly dressed and without an overcoat, was looking in the window.

  “Watch me,” the manager said.

  He got up, walking a few steps toward the window, and stood still, looking at the man. The man without an overcoat became aware that the manager was looking at him and moved away guiltily.

  The fellows at the table laughed, and the manager came back and said: “That big window’s there for people to look in. There’s a guilty feeling in nearly everybody. Nearly everybody looks in the window and runs away when they see
me frowning at them. I play the trick a couple of times a week. They all hurry away.”

  For nearly an hour they sat at the table talking agreeably. Chuck Taylor conducted an ignorance contest in classical reading. The man who hadn’t read the famous book got a point. “Have you read Tom Jones?” “Yes.” “No.” “No.” “No.” “How about A Tale of Two Cities?” “No.” “Yes.” “No.” “Yes.” And the questions and answers became monotonous to Harry, again the idea he had been avoiding all afternoon came back to him, exciting him till he shifted uneasily in the chair, gazing solemnly at Chuck Taylor. “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” “No,” then a loud laugh gradually becoming irritating as he moistened his lips, grinning foolishly, thinking of Cosantino. “I’m all right,” he thought. “I’ll always be all right with these guys.” Still there was the thought that he had withdrawn, become more alert, working on the outside. “I got to, I got to,” he was saying to himself, and when they laughed and answered “Yes,” “No,” he felt it was in the same swing. “I got to, I got to.” Suddenly he was eager to beat Cosantino with his fists, swinging, hooking, pounding, but became depressed, knowing he was trying to get away from the important thought. “It’s settled, settled,” he repeated to himself.

  “Snap out of it, Harry,” Jimmie said.

  “You’re right, Trotter, it’s getting tiresome, and I’ve got some work to do, let’s go,” Chuck Taylor said.

  “I was only thinking,” Harry said.

  “Some other day then.”

  He walked up as far as the store with Jimmie, who said he was going to take Eva home. Harry didn’t go to the store but walked over to York Street and got his car out of the garage, one of those buildings six stories high, and he coasted down alternate grades to the street.

  7

  He drove up to the apartment on St. Clair, the blue car moving smoothly along residential streets. He avoided streets with heavy traffic, not wishing to force a genial smile of recognition for policemen on corners who knew him, and followed the crescent around Queen’s Park — snow and ice at the base of the red stone parliament buildings, trees bare, lights in the windows of Hart House. The snow had gone in patches from the level park ground but was still banked along the curb. Out of the park he drove up Avenue Road. The street lights, coming on, curved up the slope and dipped down, then stretched out on a level run.

  He was hungry. The meal would be good, and afterward he might go to a show with Anna — all the same to her unless she had a pain from overeating.

  When he got home she was stretched out on a sofa in the front room, dressed nicely, her knees hunched up, the line of her long leg accentuated by silk stockings all the way up to the thigh. She enjoyed sprawling out, showing her legs. Alone in the house she hardly wore anything, no stockings or shoes, and only a slip loose on her full body. She waved to him when he came into the room.

  “How’s the big boy?” she said, yawning.

  “How’s the dinner?” he said, sitting beside her and pinching her leg till she squealed. She stretched out lazily and he wondered where she had been all afternoon. He didn’t want to ask her, for she would laugh, trying to tease him, and even if someone had been petting her all afternoon, she wouldn’t think it important enough to tell. Hardly interesting enough to tell. He had often wished she would try and conceal adventures, rather than pass them off as unimportant. He pinched her again and she giggled, kicking, and he held on to her long leg, loosening the garter. She lay there while he kissed her knee and then she suddenly tickled him and he straightened up, laughing. He felt himself getting excited, wanting to take hold of her tightly so she would never be interested in anybody’s lovemaking, pin her down definitely so she would understand she belonged to him, but he was aware that he would leave something untouched, something he was unable to take away from her that prevented him from exhausting her.

  They got up and went into the dining room. Watching her sitting across from him, he smiled turning away casually, a thought making him feel sore. “She makes me think she belongs to any guy that’s ready for her.” It was the way she let herself go that excited him and the feverish thought that she could smile while he offered all his energy. She was big-bodied, but had no intensity, no thin-lipped intensity nervously eager, and he thanked God for that.

  The maid, not very good-looking, brought in soup, and for a few minutes they had a careless conversation about the Chinese cook who was satisfactory.

  Then he said: “Want to go to a show, Anna?”

  “Sure, if there’s anything worth seeing?”

  “How about Blossom Time at the Royal? I can get tickets if you want to, or if you’d rather we’ll drag out some wine and sit around for the evening, eh?”

  “I’ll have both, thanks.”

  “How come?”

  “Let’s go to a show first and come back and sit around afterward.”

  “All right.”

  “A lovely evening, eh?”

  He enjoyed each single dish and was disappointed when he felt his hunger leaving him. He liked being hungry. He was glad Anna had such a fine appetite. He hated people who fasted, or tried diets, or counted calories. Sitting at the table with Anna he was happy. He was unhappy only when he thought too much about her.

  “How’d things go today, Harry?” she said.

  “Nothing much to talk about, nothin’ stirrin’.”

  “Weren’t you thinking of seeing Cosantino?”

  “No, who said I was going to see Cosantino?”

  “I thought you said so yesterday.”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t say anything of the kind. You know I didn’t.”

  “Well for heaven’s sake, don’t get sore about it.”

  “I’m not sore, I tell you.” He was furiously indignant.

  “I just meant, why should you take anything from that wop.”

  “You don’t see me taking anything, do you? What did I say to the little bastard the last time I met him? I told him to lay off me while he had his health.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “What did he say? Same as usual, the old bull, a lot of crap about having it all fixed with Weinreb and Asche to stick together.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “But that ain’t the main thing.”

  “What’s the main thing?”

  He folded his napkin. He unfolded it, and crumpled it in his hand. “Joe Atkins has been worrying me.”

  “It’s kind of late to worry about him, I think.”

  “It ain’t him exactly, it’s the idea really,” he said slowly. He decided not to talk to Anna about Cosantino and the notion that had worried him all afternoon.

  “We’ve lost a couple of trucks, all right,” he said.

  “That’s terrible, Harry,” she said.

  “It’s lousy all right.”

  She winked at him. “Spit in their beer, Harry old boy.”

  “There’s only one thing stoppin’ me.”

  “One thing stoppin’ you?”

  “Yeah, no, nothin’s stoppin’ me, not a thing in the world.”

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing right now.”

  “Take it, eh?”

  “The hell you say so.”

  “It’s hell, I’ll say so.”

  “Aw, forget it.”

  “Everybody gets used to taking it,” she said, putting her plump elbows on the table.

  “Stop kidding me, you sap. I won’t be kidded, I tellya.”

  “Whoa, papa.”

  “I’ll ‘whoa papa’ you.”

  “Be nice, Harry. Anna’s only teasin’. Come let’s get up and step out, eh, big boy, what do you say, big boy, come on, let’s go.”

  “Well, lay off me, Anna, see, or I’ll start rubbing your fur the wrong way.”

  “You mean you’re really sore?”

  “No,” he said, thoughts going swiftly through his head. He wanted to have many thoughts, not one, not the one thought that was too important. A
nna was sitting there smiling cheerfully, faithful to him, her thoughts faithful, only the woman part of her belonged to everybody on earth. It had been that way when he had first met her in that office of Farrel’s. It would always be like that. Vera was entirely different. He shook his head and frowned.

  “Through, honey?” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m through.”

  He left her sitting in the front room while he changed his clothes for a dark suit, English woolens, the best fabric in town, the fashionable herringbone stripe complimented by a flashy bowtie with a fairly loose knot, and in the mirror he admired the cut of suit and flash of colour at his neck. Then he walked down the hall. Anna was not in the front room. She came along the hall and he helped her with her mink wrap. The maid was attentive to Anna, patting her gently on the shoulder, smiling, holding her hands together. It interested him the way the homely, masculine girl fussed over Anna, and the way Anna enjoyed having the girl in love with her.

  “You look well,” he said casually.

  “You’re a hot-looking baby yourself,” she said, taking his arm.

  They went out and she walked slowly up and down the front walk while he got the car out of the garage. She got in beside him, shivering a little. The air had turned colder, it was freezing, a fine snow swirling along the pavements. He turned the car around without speaking. It was warm in the car and she straightened up, glancing at him, aware that he was not, at the moment, interested in her, his face somber in shadows, his eyes staring at the windshield. She wanted to interest him.

  “I saw Momma today,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “No, it wasn’t nice, it was funny.”

  “What was funny about it?” he smiled slightly.

  “You ’member me telling you about Ma being divorced?”

  “Something, I remember about it, why?”

  “You ’member she divorced Pa about three years ago, I said, to marry the guy she’s living with now, the hardware salesman, you remember, don’t you?”