“Those things happen.”
Guild wanted to hit him again, but he knew how Stoddard’s son would get. The kid had plenty of grief already.
Guild waved the receipt at him again. “I want you to reimburse me for this right now, and then I never want you to bother me again. For anything. You understand that?”
“You’re a strange man, Guild. No offense.” Stoddard reached in his pocket. He paid in greenbacks.
A minute later Guild walked out. He slammed the door as hard as he could.
Chapter Six
Eating wasn’t so easy. He ate a piece of steak that he had to cut up into tiny pieces, he ate American fries which he had to mash down, and he ate peas which were just fine. It was his jaw; it was sorer now than it had been six hours ago when he’d been hit.
He sat at a front window table of the Family Steak Restaurant, watching dusk bleed from the sky and the stars come out.
Nearer by, streetlights came on, lending the buildings wan light and deep shadows. People, mostly couples, strolled the business district, pointing out things in windows or simply standing on comers and taking in the air. You could smell rain coming, clear and clean and fine. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees. After the heat today, the chill was a pure blessing.
Guild ate his custard and sipped his coffee. Because of cuts inside his mouth, he had to let the coffee cool, so he read the local paper, most especially “The City in Brief,” which included such items as:
Ten businessmen were caught in a crap-shooting game last night.
Two young people eloped on bicycles front Oquawka, Illinois, and were married at Ottumwa.
Our compositors made Reverend Dr. Iilden’s subject for yesterday morning read “Infidelity and Her Crown,” when it should have read “Fidelity and Her Crown.” (This struck Guild as very funny.)
Mr. Frank Redmond, a new baritone in our city, will sing at the Elks Minstrels tomorrow night.
Geo. Williams carries a full line o f Blatz and Schlitz bottled beer for family use. Telephone No. 133.
Try a Turkish Bath at Ford’s. You will like it.
Guild smoked a cigar with his second cup of coffee. Then he noticed the woman. She was one of those women it would be difficult not to notice.
She sat alone four tables away, gazing out the window. The first thing he noticed about her was how prim and pretty she was in her frilly, high-necked dress and sweet, angled little hat. He supposed she was forty or so. The second thing he noticed was the high, beautiful color of her skin. She was most likely a mulatto. In midwestem cities women who could “pass” were allowed to eat in white restaurants.
If she was aware of Guild’s presence, she kept it a secret to herself.
Given the lingering pain in his jaw, he needed a distraction. She provided it. Like most lonely people, he speculated on the lives of strangers. What they did. What they wanted. Where they’d come from and where they were going. The trouble was, this woman being a mulatto, his usual line of speculation didn’t work. Mulattos were especially despised. The only thing he could think she would want was to be left alone by men who wanted her carnally and by good citizens who wanted to express their contempt.
The hell of it was, that this woman with her dark eyes and full, exotic mouth did not look at all as if she needed Guild’s understanding or pity. Indeed, there was even a certain haughtiness in the way she sat there, dismissing everyone who passed by with a disinterested glance, returning her gaze inevitably to the street and the clip-clop of fancy buggies and the first silver drops of rain sliding down the window.
Several times he started to go to her table and introduce himself, but he always stopped. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing. His heart would get to hammering and his throat would twist into a snake of silence and his palms would get sweaty. He would stand there and everyone would stare at him and he would stand there some more and they would stare at him some more and finally he’d just sort of nod and leave, his face burning with embarrassment and his mind already flaying himself for his terrible performance.
When it came time for sex, he stuck to brothels. He didn’t get crushes on whores; whores never broke his heart.
By this time, still sitting at his window table in the Family Steak Restaurant, Guild was reduced to little eye games. He’d pretend to be vastly interested in whatever was going on in the street. Then he’d kind of ease his gaze back to her, convinced that this time she’d be noticing him.
Only she never did notice him, of course.
And at 9:03, when he very slyly brought his gaze back around again to see if she was watching him, she was gone. He glimpsed her long, graceful back at the cash register, her sweet little hat floating just above the heads of the crowd at the front door, and then-
Gone.
He supposed he was being asinine, but loneliness was a burden sometimes and seemed especially a burden tonight.
He paid his bill and splurged on a fifty-cent cigar and went out to walk the streets. He could hear the vaudeville show over at the opera house, the harmonies of the popular ballads melancholy and irresistible.
Chapter Seven
He tried a whorehouse, but just standing downstairs in the vestibule convinced him. Whores couldn’t help him tonight.
He did the second-best thing. He started at one end of a long city block and drank his way, beer-and-shot, beer-and-shot, to the other end of the block. There were nine saloons on that block. Nine of them.
In the morning when he awakened in the hotel, he found a plain white envelope on the stand next to the bed. The envelope depressed him. Not knowing where it had come from or what it contained reminded him that he’d been pretty bad last night. He did not drink liquor that often or that much, but when he did, and did so indulgently, the hangover always brought on memories of the little girl he’d shot and killed. Now he saw her six-year-old face and her patched gingham dress as she moved from the shadows of her cabin. By then it had been too late. He had already fired.
He looked at the way the dust motes glinted gold in the sunlight. He stared out the window at the hard blue sky until the little girl’s face vanished. His bladder was full and his mouth was dry. His head pounded. Jesus, was he stupid.
He had just returned from the bathroom down the hall ten minutes later when the knock came.
He was dressed and already packing. He wanted to get out of this town. He had come here to try to earn some money, but instead he’d only met Stoddard and been beaten for his troubles. His bones still ached from the beating, but the hangover ached more.
He opened the door on the fifth knock. He jerked it open with some aggravation. He was not good at hangovers and tended to take them out on other people.
“You found the envelope, Mr. Guild?” Stephen Stoddard asked.
“How the hell did it get here?”
“I had the clerk bring it up last night.”
“What is it?”
“You mean you haven’t looked inside?”
“I’m too goddamned hung over for games, kid. What’s in the envelope?”
“A hundred and fifty dollars.”
“For what?”
“My father’s money needs protection.”
“You want to know what I think of your father, kid?”
“I’m willing to make it two hundred, Mr. Guild. For two days’ work.”
Even dehydrated and somewhat shaky, Guild thought the idea of two hundred dollars for two days’ work sounded good.
“I need some breakfast,” Guild said.
“They serve a very fine one here. I ate here yesterday. Toast and scrambled eggs and ham.”
Guild smiled. “You sound like an ad in the newspaper.” His stomach made noises. He’d done a lot of drinking last night but not enough eating. He went back, leaving Stephen Stoddard in the doorway, picked up the envelope, and said, “Let’s go get some breakfast.”