And sure enough, up into the Hurry-Up went Kitty Twist. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked the paddy wagon gloom, ‘Who’s else takin’ this ride?’
‘It aint Herbert Hoover,’ Frenchy’s voice said.
‘Officer,’ Kitty Twist told the nab guarding the door, ‘What are you waiting for? We’re ready to roll.’
‘There may be others along in time,’ the officer said.
‘You only got one wagon for the good sake of God?’ Kitty scolded him.
‘We’re trying to make it in one trip, sis,’ he apologized, and a roar like a battle shout rocked the stars just then. The girls poked their sad fancy faces out and heard an iron clamor ring.
‘Sure sounds like someone don’t want to come along,’ Frenchy guessed.
Someone framed in a door-shaped light. Dove in an undershirt, nothing more, hollering ‘hands off me!’ Slamming right and left with the flat of a book, raging with whiskey and terrible fright. Kitty saw one nab catch it across the cheek – ‘Hands off I said!’ – another caught it smack in the eye. Then one of them clasped him by the nape of the neck, another caught his book hand. ‘Be a good boy like I was at your age,’ one said, and another yanked his legs right out from under. Then all three got a good firm hold – ‘One! Two! Three!—’ Kitty and Frenchy had just time to get out of the way as the bare-assed body came flying – Bawnk – and Watkins’ ex-representative lay on his stomach clutching an iron floor.
‘At least this time you came along,’ Kitty congratulated him. And gave him a tentative dig with her toe.
The body never stirred.
Kitty found then she didn’t care really whether he came along or not. She didn’t care for anything or anyone, least of all herself. Anything that happens has a right to happen, so what does it matter who it happens to? That was how Kitty felt.
‘I heard a sneeze in the closet,’ the nab informed the girls, ‘and when I open the door, there was this boy buck-naked but for hat and undershirt and a book under his arm.’
‘Just somebody who didn’t have time to pull his pants on,’ Frenchy sounded out the law on how much he really knew.
‘So long as he wasn’t no inmate he aint in serious trouble,’ the nabber felt. ‘He don’t look to me like no pimp.’
‘Myself, I never seen him before,’ and gave Kitty the nudge.
‘I never did neither,’ Kitty Twist said.
Dove came to in a dungeon heat with something across his face.
Hello, pants.
He felt his head swell and subside, then try to swell again. By not so much as batting an eye it hurt a little less. When someone lifted the pants off his face he stared straight up. ‘I think the sonofabitch is dead,’ he heard an indifferent voice report and caught a whiff of cigar smoke.
‘I don’t see no blood, Harry.’
‘They bleed inside.’
‘Then we’re both in this together.’
‘Both? Since when did Smitty get out of it?’ The pants dropped back.
‘Why, that’s right. Oh, that Smitty, suppose to be watchin’ the whore in the Hurry-Up, instead he’s showin’ off he’s a tackle now for L.S.U.’
‘Remember the time he finished off the nigger with his open palm? That shows you what jiu-jitsu can do.’
‘No, but I was with him the time he lost his temper on the Spanish lad for pretendin’ he can’t talk good English. That’s what pretendin’ can do.’
‘Officer,’ some phony down the tier piped, ‘I can pay for aspering if it aint asking too much.’
‘It’s asking too much. You’ll get aspering at your destination,’ Harry promised the piper and belted Dove a crunchy kick in the side just for a crunchy little surprise.
‘I been kicked lots harder than that,’ Dove reflected and wished they’d stop smoking. It didn’t seem respectful at a time like this.
‘You know what, Jeff?’ Harry asked softly.
‘What?’ Jeff was anxious to know.
‘I think the sonofabitch really is dead.’
Deep in Dove’s throat a great tear trembled, making a bubble that tickled his neck. There wasn’t a breath of air in the cell and if they didn’t quit smoking he’d have to cough and come alive once more. He’d rather be dead, Dove thought, than that.
‘Poor rummy. Between whiskey and women, his heart give out.’
‘Was that his heart clanged like a damned bell when he landed on iron? If you can’t make sense don’t say nothin’.’
‘Captain’ll be on our side,’ Jeff kept trying, sense or no.
‘That cracker? Are you sure you’re feeling well? I’m sure he’d purely hate to see that cracker puss on the front page of the Picayune for cleaning roughnecks out of the department. Sure he would.’
Then a silence bespoke an understanding reached. Dove felt one take his arms and the other his feet.
‘People treat you better when you’re dead,’ Dove realized as they bore him gently. ‘Now this is really something like it.’
‘Where we takin’ him, Harry?’
‘Where you think? Loew’s State?’
A river-boat moaned like a weary cow abandoning hope between darkness and tide.
Dove felt the air clear suddenly and knew they were in the open night. Somewhere above him a window slammed.
‘What are you silly bastards up to now?’ Dove heard a new voice, more commanding than Harry’s.
‘Another one kicked off on us, Captain.’
‘How many times do I have to tell you that a man can die in jail just the same as in a hospital? Get him over to Charity and get a receipt. I’m getting sick of having to tell you every time.’ The window slammed. Dove hoped that they wouldn’t drop him; he had a feeling he was hanging above concrete.
‘What he mean, Harry, “get a receipt”?’
‘He means register the stiff with the hospital.’
‘Couldn’t we just leave him on the steps and trust to the kindness of nurses?’
‘I’d as soon be took inside if you don’t mind,’ Dove requested politely.
Like statues of astonishment both nabs froze. In that second Dove realized that had been his own voice and leaping free, was off and running straight into a red brick wall.
Harry caught him on the rebound and led him by the hand back to Jeff.
‘I knew he was faking all the while,’ Harry decided, ‘I was only waiting for him to make one false move. See, I made him give hisself away.’
Dove folded his pants carefully into a pillow and tucking it neatly under his head, stretched out contentedly, waiting to be lifted again.
‘You see,’ he excused himself to the Southern stars above the nabber’s heads, ‘I really wouldn’t want to leave this old world, for it’s the only one I know anything about.’
Jeff looked at Harry. Harry looked at Jeff.
‘Son,’ Jeff broke the news at last, ‘we both been on duty this whole hard hot day, and it’s been just one darned thing after another. Would you mind walking back to your cell?’
‘Why,’ Dove leaped to his feet and began pulling on his pants, all eagerness, as though invited to a chicken dinner. ‘Why, I’d admire to do just that. A little walk in the night air would clear my head.’ Then looked slyly from one to the other. There was something in the air.
‘You fellows mad at me about something?’
‘Of course, not, son,’ Harry reassured him with good-natured gruffness. ‘You’re a character. That’s your turn and we enjoy it. We want everyone in on the joke,’ and slammed Dove so hard on the side of the head with his open palm that he spun him almost clean about. Dove stood shaking his head to let the night air make it even clearer. The nights were certainly getting cooler.