Strange Fugitive Read online

  “I getcha.”

  “Well, listen to this.”

  “Go on.”

  “Pa had been out of the city ever since Ma divorced him, and he came back the other day and went to see Ma and he made love to her, and now Ma’s having a new love affair with him in the afternoons while her husband’s out to work. What do you think of that?”

  “Damn funny.”

  “It’s funny all right, but it doesn’t seem wrong to me, I mean there’s nothing wrong with my Ma and Pa making love, is there?”

  “No, I guess not, only where does the other guy, her husband, come in?”

  “I don’t know, but he ought to be able to see there’s nothing wrong with Ma and Pa making love to each other, and think of the kick they probably get out of it.”

  He was interested and she was satisfied. They were nearly downtown. A wind was driving the thin snow against the windshield. Half a block away from the Royal they parked the car and walked over to the theatre, and in the foyer he got a good feeling, glad of his coon-skin coat and Anna’s mink wrap.

  Anna was enjoying Blossom Time but he was interested only occasionally. A plump round-faced man sang songs in a sweet voice and Harry liked it because the music helped him to think more clearly. He went to a great many shows because of thoughts that came to him in a theatre. He could close his eyes, listen to the music and think about tomorrow, the pictures in his mind remarkably clear. He tilted his head back, half-closed his eyes, seeing the lips of the round-faced man with the sweet voice, and thought of the two trucks that had been hijacked and the money lost. Then he thought of Cosantino and his eyes opened wide and he was alert, the one idea strong in his thoughts. He didn’t answer Anna when she talked. He had lost all interest in the show.

  On the way home, and later, sitting in the front room sipping wine and eating biscuits, he couldn’t get interested in Anna, the wine, or good jokes. He talked and laughed and she sat on his knee, but his hands were clammy, and when he closed his eyes, kissing her, thoughts flew into his head, probing, eliminating difficulties, the situation directly under his eye, the fruit store, Cosantino, the car, Eddie driving the car. He held on to the kiss and his thoughts went beyond the point he had been avoiding all day. Pressing against Anna, he felt his head hot, he was sweating, but relieved, much more content. It was harder going after a man you knew, and thinking about it for a long time. It was much harder than shooting at someone you didn’t even know. He made Anna get off his knee.

  “I’m going to bed,” he said.

  “Heavens, Harry, what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter.”

  “Well, you’re not very sociable.”

  “I know, I’m just tired. I’ve felt tired all day but this is the first time I’ve felt like lying down.”

  He slept alone. He had a good sleep.

  8

  The newspapers were carrying long stories about a bootleg war. Harry, sitting in the office, was reading a reporter’s interview with O’Reilly. There was a picture of O’Reilly and he spoke sadly of unnecessary trouble between exporters, and couldn’t understand why there was so much shooting. He himself had a wife and children and didn’t want to be carried out on a slab someday because of greed getting the better of common sense. He talked in a straightforward manly way, hoping there would be no more trouble. A picture of Joe Atkins was on the same page. Harry looked at O’Reilly’s picture, wondering why he had talked so much to the reporter. “What the hell has it got to do with O’Reilly?” he thought. He closed his eyes, rubbing the palms of his hands up and down his face, restive, but ready for Cosantino. He had become very practical, he imagined. He had been looking forward to this afternoon and now he was ready and waiting. It had become such a simple matter he was ashamed to think he had wasted so much time worrying over it. He looked at his watch. In an hour the business would be finished. In the meantime he simply had to wait for Jimmie and Eddie, then it would be so easy he’d get a big laugh out of it. He tried reading the sporting page but he lost track of words in the column and before he could find them again he was thinking of something else. He closed the paper and looked out through the open door to the store. Eva was bending over a table reading a book. He put his feet up on the desk, observing the shiny toe-caps. He heard the front door open. Jimmie spoke to Eva, then came into the office. Jimmie sat down without smiling.

  “Well,” he said.

  “Well, there’s a good story in the paper.”

  “I saw it.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know. The thing that bothers me is why did O’Reilly open up. Is he coming in on it?”

  “That’s just a lot of bull. He just thinks Cosantino is going to come out right side up. That’s all.”

  “Are you going ahead this afternoon?”

  “You bet.”

  “Listen, Harry, why not let Sam and Eddie do it?”

  “Not on your life. It wouldn’t be any good. If they didn’t bring it off things would be all shot. I’m going along, Jimmie.”

  “There’s no use talking about it then.”

  “No use at all, we’ve talked it back and forth enough haven’t we?”

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  Harry got up and walked the length of the room. “Sam ought to be here now,” he said.

  “In a few minutes.”

  “Listen Jimmie, if anything happens, remember how to straighten out things and fix up Vera. She’ll be fixed for life anyway.”

  “I’ll do it, only don’t talk about it, let’s not talk any more about it.”

  “All right Jimmie, there’s no harm mentioning it, and if I were you and this thing didn’t come out all right I’d beat it, cross the border, go to Europe, Paris, see?”

  “Say, are you trying to give me a good time?”

  Eddie came in. Harry slapped Jimmie on the back, put on a cloth coat and a felt hat and opened the door. He grinned at Eva. He didn’t even look back at Jimmie. He got into the car beside Eddie, it moved forward slowly and he said: “It’s about twenty after three, what time should we get there?”

  “About twenty to four, I think,” Eddie said.

  He leaned back in the car. Eddie was driving slowly, out west and then north. “It’s a swell day, a spring day almost,” Harry thought. The snow was gone from the streets, and little kids playing follyta with marbles along the curb shouted loudly. He felt that his breathing was becoming uneven and he straightened up in the car, anxious to have only agreeable and placid thoughts but, unable to think of anything, he became too much aware of his own body, the little itch at the back of his head, the heavy feeling in his shoulder — so conscious of his own being that he felt alone in the car. He glanced at Eddie’s profile. What were his thoughts? The car turned suddenly around a corner, he lurched against Eddie, the lurch startling him, and he was suddenly alert, for the first time aware of the hard object in his hip pocket pressing against him. The uneasy restive feeling was gone, his back stiffened, he was ready.

  The car was going along residential streets, with old houses, in the district above the Arcadia dance hall. Then they passed Cosantino’s store, an old-fashioned fruit store on a corner, fruit on stands on the sidewalk. Across the road was a three-storied vacant house, the windows boarded and nailed. On the other corner was a grocery store and to the left a garage and a lane. Two kids were playing catch in the lane, coaxing summer. Eddie turned the car around the corner for three blocks to the Catholic church and then came back slowly. A woman with a black shawl over her head came out of the store. They passed the corner again going a few blocks west before turning. Harry moved uneasily, rubbing his back against the seat. Cosantino might not come out of the store, he thought. He glanced angrily at Eddie, but they were at the corner and three men were coming out of the side door of the fruit store. Harry leaned forward, the breath whistling in his nostrils; he rubbed his left arm gently, then touched his head, and pulled down the peak of the cap he had put on. Th
e car turned at the corner. One of the men coming out the side door was Cosantino, short and dark. The two men with him were taller and wore caps. Cosantino’s overcoat was open, the white scarf flapping loosely over the blue coat. They were on the sidewalk. They were crossing the road. The car passed, moving slowly. Harry fired three times at Cosantino. Eddie fired twice. The car was moving very slowly. Cosantino and one of the men fell on the road. The other man with the cap stumbled, lurched to one side, and staggered across the road toward the lane. The car jerked forward, gaining speed. They didn’t speak to each other. At the first corner Eddie spun the wheel, the car swung round, coming back along the street, the woman who had come out of the store screamed and ran, the car passed within a few feet of Cosantino who was sprawled in the middle of the road, his face down, one knee hunched up. The white scarf had got tangled around his neck. His hat had fallen off. The car passed over the hat and close to Cosantino and Harry fired two more shots into the body, and the car leaped forward, swinging around the corner. People running along the streets were yelling. A cop on a bicycle came along but they sped by him and he blew his whistle.

  They turned north. “We got the wop,” Harry said, “we got the wop.” The blood seemed to be surging into his head. He heard the whistle again and laughed out loud. The car turned east, north, west, north, south, zigzagging down to the lakefront. In Exhibition Park Eddie got out of the car and changed the license plate. Harry got out of the car and helped him put up the car top. Then they took off their caps and put on felt hats. Harry grinned at Eddie when they were driving along the lakefront.

  “That was a good job,” he said.

  “The best in the world,” Eddie said.

  They drove downtown. There seemed to be no noise in the city, everything quiet, and Harry couldn’t even hear the car wheels moving on the road. He listened intently, waiting to hear the wheels, and heard a purring sound and felt better. Suddenly he thought of Cosantino standing bewildered on the road, then swaying drunkenly and spinning a little on his heel before going down. Cosantino on the road, his face against the pavement. He closed his eyes, opened them quickly, looking at Eddie. Eddie’s fat face had a pleasant expression. Harry wiped his lips with his tongue, deliberately avoiding bad thoughts. He thought of something else, anything that had happened the night before.

  The car stopped outside the bookstore. Jimmie came out on the sidewalk and grinned, waving his hand. Harry was suddenly glad to see Jimmie. He put his hand on his shoulder as though he hadn’t seen him for a long time. He looked at him as if he hadn’t really expected to see him, and had experienced all the disappointment, and then, accidentally, had encountered him again.

  Eddie stayed in the car to drive it over to the garage. Jimmie and Harry went through the store to the office and sat down, and Harry told about him about it. He didn’t use many words.

  “It was going to be me or Cosantino,” he said.

  “You can bet your boots on that, anyway.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  9

  The rest of the afternoon he was nervously alert but gradually became confident and sure of himself. Over an hour he sat in the office, expecting something to happen, then got up and walked into the store and talked casually with Eva. He began to talk pompously, turning his mouth down at the corner. He put his hands in his pockets, leaned against a table and grinned. He felt very impressive, and wanted to talk authoritatively to someone. He went back to the office to think of people he might talk to. Remembering Julie Roberts, he slammed the palm of his hand on the desk, for she would be astonished at his self-possession, while he suggested certain facts that would leave her with absolutely nothing to say. Augustus, her husband, was of no consequence, she could get rid of him for the evening. So he looked up the number in the phonebook, found they were living in Julie’s cottage and phoned her, and she was first of all surprised, then polite, and finally quite eager to see him in the evening.

  He drove up to Julie’s house. She opened the door. Standing in the hall he was sore at himself for thinking momentarily of Augustus. Julie took hold of his hand and he sat down on the couch but he moved awkwardly, for he didn’t have the old curiosity. He felt he was with a very big woman, wondering what to say easily, and she remained a very big woman. She smiled. Her face was pale, with the cheeks faintly rouged. Her face was round. Her lips moved. She said: “Why on earth haven’t you come around before, Harry?”

  “Oh, I thought you’d be all wrapped up in Augustus,” he said playfully.

  She sat down slowly, very heavily, the spring sagging, stretching, sinking, and she leaned heavily against him, her hand on his knee. “Start talking about yourself,” she said.

  “There’s nothing much to say. Jimmie was asking for you the other day. You remember Jim?”

  “Yes. I liked him. What are you thinking about so solemnly?”

  “I’m not thinking about anything, Julie.”

  “You don’t look happy.”

  “Honestly, I’m happy, happy. Sure, I’m the happiest guy in the world.”

  “Kiss me.”

  He kissed her, without putting his arm around her, then tried to talk rapidly because she was looking at him too eagerly. She got up, moved over to the desk, the size of her startling him, and sat down slowly. He watched her covering completely the seat and back of the chair. She bent over the desk, a curious rigidity to her body, her fingers stroking gently a metal paperknife. “What’s so different about her,” he thought, as she put both hands flat on the table, interested only, it seemed, in the large green blotter on the desk.

  “How have things been going?” he said slowly, fumbling for words.

  “There have been times when I would have phoned you, times when I was so unhappy I wanted to sit all day without moving. What have you been doing?”

  “Things have been going all right, Julie.”

  “We used to have such good times together.”

  “Good times, I liked the good times. They were part of a fine summer and I was pretty happy. I needed to be happy then.”

  Curious, he watched her, imagining she was deliberately arranging and rearranging words to get a convincing combination, and he was embarrassed, for she no longer seemed so experienced and aloof. In her big body she had apparently felt many of the important sensations that elude most women, he used to think; she had smiled at him, always held in restraint, till he felt like a kid, nervously hoping to touch her. That arousing part of her was gone. He had no words for her. She sat there, still trying to get the right words.

  “Have you sometimes felt that you’d like to make love to me?” she said, without smiling. “I’m happy, but I’m lonely, I don’t mean Augustus isn’t good company but he needs a background. He’s individualistic compared with other people but always there must be the other people. By himself, or just the two of us together, well . . . it’s very lonesome. He plays the violin for me then.”

  She was talking quite rapidly and he was interested. She used to talk lazily, now she was trying to convince him of something important to her.

  “I don’t mean I don’t want him. I do, but he’s slight, or rather, inadequate. Oh, he’d far rather someone else was interested in me too. Then he wouldn’t feel entirely responsible. Do you see, Harry? He’s really very nice.”

  “He’s not a bad kid at that,” Harry said, stretching his legs, “but just a kid and not very interesting to me, Julie.” He felt very generous.

  “Of course not, silly, nor would he be offended at you for saying it. He wouldn’t be jealous of you either. You two are so entirely different, he’d never feel jealous of you.”

  He frowned, while she went on talking, wondering why she was trying to interest him in Augustus. The implication was eluding him, and then he decided vaguely that she was attempting to come to an understanding on the basis of their appreciation of Augustus. He started to laugh. He slapped her lightly on the back and laughed. She simply took hold of his hand, holding it firmly, her
eyes turned to a corner of the room. He followed the line from her eyes. Nothing in the corner. His hand was getting moist, so he tried to withdraw it gently but she held tightly, her hand trembling. He said good-naturedly: “I’ve often thought of you, Julie, nine times out of ten, when I get fed up with all kinds of people, and I want someone to talk easily and slowly, making me feel I’m not so wise.” He stopped abruptly. She loomed over him, her body trembling. He went on nervously, “I mean sometimes in the evening. Oh, let go my hand, Julie, your nail, ouch.” He tried to pull it away but she held on, bending over him, following him, getting up slowly, her lips shaped to kiss him.

  He put his arm on her shoulder, the tips of his fingers touching her hair lightly. She smiled, moving to sit down again but he held on to her, his arm slipping around her waist. Her heavy corset, hard under his fingers, terrified him; he let go suddenly and she sat down, the couch-spring sagging beneath her. Never before had she seemed such a huge woman, and he wouldn’t sit down beside her. He shoved his hands in his pockets, staring at her round, large knees. Always he had thought of her as a woman with a big body, now she was merely a fat woman of a startling size, years older than he had imagined. He tried to be sympathetic.

  “It was good to see you,” he said, “but I really ought to go now.”

  “Sit down a few minutes,” she said slowly.

  “If I sit down I’ll stay.” He smiled with difficulty, feeling the lines on his face. “I must go and get home early for I haven’t slept for weeks. I just wanted to drop in on you.”

  “There wasn’t much use coming,” she said, without looking at him. He was ready to answer genially, but saw only the white part in her dark hair and said weakly: “No, I guess there wasn’t much use coming.”

  “Don’t go, be a good scout and stay for a while, Harry.”

  “I got to go,” he said suddenly. He looked at her directly, repeating angrily: “I got to go.” She didn’t move from the couch and he walked quickly out of the room. He took his hat and coat from a peg in the hall and opened the front door, putting his coat on as he hurried along the street.