Morrie shook his head. “Twenty bucks isn’t much. You need more than that, don’t you?”
“Need!” The word seemed to shake Ralph. He sure is in bad shape, Morrie thought. “Need! I’m afraid there’s no hope of getting what I need!”
That was getting around to it, getting close to where Morrie had been heading.
“I don’t get you,” Morrie said. “I thought you said Myrna had seven hundred bucks. I don’t see why—”
“She had seven hundred,” Ralph cut in. His eyes were getting wild and his long fingers were trembling. “She had it until her rotten brother lost it for her!”
“Take it easy, Ralph. How’d you lose it?”
“I thought I was smart. We got here a week ago. Myrna saw the lawyer and made arrangements, paid him an advance. We had about six hundred left. I had it. But I thought I was smart—”
“Gambling, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Morrie, “these layouts are all right. That is, they’re straight enough. But the percentage is against the customer. You can’t win if you stay with it.”
“It wasn’t a gambling house. I met a fellow who was just having a little game up in his hotel room. Poker. He was a crook. I let him rob me! I really thought I could make some money for Myrna. I was a rotten fool. I might have had a chance, but he was a crook. He had another fellow with him—”
“What’s his name?”
“Nolan. Hank Nolan.”
“I know him,” Morrie said. “Nolan is no good. I don’t like him. Who was the guy working for him?”
“The other fellow’s name was Harber.”
Morrie nodded. “Jake Harber. I’ve met him, but I don’t know him very good.”
Ralph stared at Morrie. “What would you do if some crook beat you out of your money — out of your sister’s money?”
Morrie didn’t even think about that. He said: “I’d take it away from him. One way or another, I’d take it away from him.” Morrie was leaning against an old bureau. He noticed a small photograph in a frame on the bureau, a picture of a young man. He picked it up. “Say,” he said, “who’s this?”
“Eh?” Ralph’s mind was churning over about the money, and he barely looked at the photograph. “Oh, that’s Jim Field. Jim works in an aircraft factory, out on the coast. He’s a swell fellow.”
Morrie grinned. “Jim is whacky about Myrna, huh?”
Ralph smiled feebly. He seemed to be thinking of something else, but he said: “Yes. Always has been. I guess Myrna likes him first rate, but she wouldn’t think of anything like that until she got the old business cleaned up.”
Morrie studied the face. Yes, it was a good face. Uneven features, but they were put together nicely. A friendly straightforward face. There wouldn’t be any line between a guy like that and a girl like Myrna.
Still, Jim was ’way out on the Coast, busy in a factory. And Morrie was here, and he could take all the time he wanted.
Morrie said: “Well, Ralph, I got to go. I’ll see about peddling a picture for you. We’ll do all right.”
Ralph let him out. He was quiet. It was bad, though, Morrie thought. A bad kind of quietness.
At two o’clock Morrie went back to the Diamond Grill. Myrna would be getting off for the afternoon. She was just sitting down with her lunch at the table near the kitchen door.
Morrie said: “Mind if I sit at this table with you?”
She hesitated, then smiled. “All right.”
“I got a confession to make,” Morrie said, as soon as he had ordered his sandwich. “I was over to your house, talking to Ralph.”
She colored a little. “I didn’t know you knew him.”
“I just barged in.” Morrie grinned. “You think I’m kind of nervy, huh?”
She hesitated again. “Maybe, but that’s all right.”
“Ralph is a swell guy,” Morrie said. “He paints fine pictures, too.” Morrie fiddled with his paper napkin. “That Jim Field looks like a great guy, too,” he added.
She colored a little more and her lip tightened. She looked beyond Morrie, out of the window, as if she were looking far west. “Yes,” she said, “Jim is certainly swell.”
Morrie was glad that was out. He expected her to feel that way, and it didn’t worry him, much. Now it was time to talk about himself.
“I haven’t done much of anything myself. I guess I’m what you’d call a gambler.”
“I had wondered,” Myrna said. She looked at him quite straight. “Well, I’ll bet you’re a good one.”
“In some ways I’m pretty good,” Morrie conceded. “Only I don’t like to gamble with friends, with people I like. That’s bad business, feeling like that.”
“Why don’t you like that?”
“I play hard. I figure on taking the other guy all down the line. So I don’t like to play with people I like. It’s bad business, being that way.”
“Have you never thought of doing anything else?”
“Why, yes,” said Morrie. “Yes. Especially being out here in Nevada gives me ideas. Now, right here in town is something like I always been used to, bright lights and hotel rooms and cards and dice. But all around the town is different. The wind blows the smell of the country into the town. It is the west, like you see in the movies. Cattle and horses. Even guys with guns, guns they have hanging on a belt out where you can see ’em, not hid away in a pocket.”
“Yes,” said Myrna. “I like that, too.”
“So I think maybe I’ll get me a ranch. I could blow into town any time I felt like it.”
“Yes,” said Myrna. “That would be good.”
Morrie got up. “Glad you like the idea,” he said. “Well, I got to go now.” He fingered his lower lip, more nervous than he was used to being. “I thought maybe tonight, at eight o’clock, when you got off duty, being as I know Ralph now, you might let me walk home with you.”
Myrna thought about that. Morrie knew what she was thinking. She was thinking about her life, and about Jim Field. And about what was happening to her. Morrie wasn’t worried about that, much.
“All right,” she said presently.
He walked home with her, under the trees along Third Street. They didn’t talk much. They turned along the boardwalk and Morrie noticed that she was hurrying.
“There’s no light,” she said. “There’s usually a light in the front room but I don’t see any. Maybe something’s happened.”
The door was locked. Myrna found a key and unlocked it. They went into the dark house and turned on lights. Ralph wasn’t there.
Myrna sat down. She said: “He shouldn’t have gone out. He might get sick. And why should he have gone out now anyway?”
“He’ll be here soon,” said Morrie. “He probably expected to be back before you got in.”
That was the way he figured it. But he didn’t blame Myrna for being worried. He had a feeling there was something to worry about.
And, in a few minutes, Ralph came. They heard him running down the walk. Myrna had the door open for him. He stumbled in. He had been running hard. He dropped on the couch. His long fingers were shaking.
Myrna said: “Ralph! What’s happened?”
Something had happened. When anything happened, Ralph wasn’t the kind who could conceal it. Ralph would spill it, Morrie thought.
“I got it!” Ralph said. “I got it back! Yes, sir! I got it back!”
“You got what back?” Myrna said. “The money. I got it back from Hank Nolan.” Ralph was shaking all over. He was sick and crazy. “The crook! If I hadn’t known he cheated, I wouldn’t have—”
“Ralph!” Myrna was down on her knees in front of Ralph. She was talking like a mother to her boy. “What have you done? Tell me — how did you do this thing?”