“Awri’,” sullenly.
“Naa, let ’im comm too,” Esther repented her rashness.
“G’wan!” He grabbed her hand. “He don’ wanna! Whe-e-e!” He sirened like a fire-engine, pawed the ground. “Hol’ fast!” And before she could tear from his grasp he was off — Esther squalling rapturously after.
XIV
DAZED with a kind of listless desolation, he watched them speed toward the opposite corner, saw Esther whirled round and grabbed, and then both spin screeching out of sight. He slumped as though his own gathering foreboding dragged him down, slouched aimlessly to the curb and sat down.
— I know … I know … I know … (Like a heavy stone pried half out of its clinging socket of earth, sluggish thought stirred and settled again) I know … I know … They’re going to. So … Don’t care. I know.
Incurious eyes glided over the shallow glare of the street, caught on slight snags of significance, dwelled, returned, dwelled, shuttle-like. There were several boys across the street, playing for steel marbles which they rolled beside the curb. They played with the large ones, the twentiers, and paid each other off with small ones, as big as steel beads. He watched them awhile, and then his mind returned to its own misery.
— Getting scared …
— Wonder where they are? Could have gone all around the block already. Twice. Two blocks, even. Went away, maybe? Naa staying there. I know. Hope they never come— Will though …
— Getting scared …
— Shut up! I ain’t! So if he gets her — down there — what? What’ll I do? I’ll ask. Just ask, that’s all. I’ll say, give it to me, them lucky beads, c’mon! You said you would before. And now he’ll give it to me. Has to. Then what? Go someplace else. So I’ll go. And I’ll take them, yea. And I’ll look in and I’ll let them down slow, slow, that’s right— Gee! And if I get it so it’ll be all right. I’l do it all the time, so it will be all right.
— A twentier I’ll try to get — a twentier-light. It was bigger the first time, a quarter-big-light. But even if it’s a twentier, I’ll be glad. Even if it’s only a tenner-light, I’ll be glad. Could get it light. He said like his. In and out. Wonder how big his is. Didn’t ask. But never have to be scared even if it’s only a tenner-light. And have to watch out too — don’t lose them. Where’ll I put? Lots of places. Could hide them on roof. Top of chimney where no one looks. Yea — but! Fall in, maybe. Gee! And hee! Lady finds them in the stove. Look! Ooh! What! A cross! Oy! Gevalt, like my aunt says. Naa. Better in the house. Under the bed — no. Mama cleans. Then where then … behind looking — yea! Big looking glass on the floor. Every time I looked, yea, could remember—
“Talk like I said!” The sharp undertone meshed with no cog in the humming street.
He started, turned around.
“Hullo, Davy!” Leo, boldly impassive, now carried the skates. Esther beside him lifted guilty eyes from the ground, squirmed, scratched painstakingly under a pigtail. “I tolju he wuz sleepin’. He’s a’ways sleepin’, aintcha Davy?”
She giggled.
David rose, watched them uneasily.
“We had some skate, didn’ we Esther?” Leo prompted her.
“Yea.” And as if by rote. “Yurra good ronner.”
“Sure I am.” Exuberantly. “But y’oughta see me w’en I’m goin’ real good! An’ c’n she skate, Davy! Wait’ll you see ’er do a spread eagle — way out, dat way!”
“Shottop!” She blushed, shuffled.
There was a pause.
“Uh — I gotta go, Esther.” Abruptly he took David’s arm.
“Aintcha—? Aintcha—?” David was startled. “Wea yuh goin’?” Automatically, he fell into step as though he had been braced against a body charging at him and been missed. “Home, yuh goin’?”
“Naw!” Leo led him two or three paces off, and with elaborate modesty whispered loudly in his ear. “I gotta take a piss.”
“Oh!”
“See I tol’ ’er dat!” Leo hissed the last words, nudged him. “See!” And called back noncommittally. “Yuh goin’ in de staw, aintcha Esther.”
“I don’ know,” she shrugged in huffy indifference.
“C’mo-on,” he drawled at her and smirked when he saw her melting, winked. “Le’s go, Davy!” His urgent hand hurried David toward the store again. “Here she comes after us!”
Out of the corner of his eye when he turned, David glimpsed her leisurely trailing behind them. Reaching the cellar steps, they halted, Leo glancing around under the guise of fumbling with his skates. A few houses away Esther too had stopped and was watching them with a queer, mixed simper — as though she were flaunting her vacancy.
“Don’ watch ’er!” Leo snapped. “Hop down!”
Frightened now to the very core, sure of the approaching crisis, David stumbled down the steps. Before he reached the bottom, Leo’s feet came pattering after, and Leo with a “Hurry up!” threw back the door. Together, they entered. The door swung to. In the rank gloom nothing had changed but the notch of light bitten from the further dark, which was wider.
“Cheezis!” Leo’s clashing skates heightened the exultation of his voice. “Tol’ yuh I’d git ’er goin’! Didn’ I? Didn’ I? Oh, boy! Wut we didn’ do aroun’ at corner’! Did I feel ’er! Oh, boy! Looka—” hastily. “You don’ know nutt’n about it, see? Don’ fergit now — I’m jis’ takin’ a piss!”
“Y-yea.”
“Oh, boy! oh, boy!” His restless feet patted the earthen floor. “Wait’ll she gits down here.”
(Ask him now!) “Yuh — are yuh—?”
But as though the dark were a medium for his thought—“Yea! Yea!” Leo interrupted him irritably. “Cantcha wait’ll she gits down! Cheez, I fergot!” He hurried past the toilet. “Lemme try some of dese daws faw she comes — see if dey—” And yanked at one after another of the grey doors of the storage-bins. “Oh, boy!” As one swung open. “Lot’s o’ room in hea. See dat?” He motioned for David to draw closer. “Lot’s o’ room ain’ it?” There was a small, clear space between the doorway and the shapeless black masses of furniture piled high in the rear.
“Now one fer you!” He clawed the doors across the murky alley, found another that opened. “Now if some-buddy comes, see, you gits in hea — her ol’ lady er sumpt’n. Soon as ye hear ’em you go psst! an’ duck! See? But stay near dat daw so’s yuh c’n see ’em faw dey sees you — den duck an’ psst! Catch on? An’ nen we’re safe — all of us!” He glanced at the open doorway. “W’ea de hell is she? An’ looka, w’en she comes down wotever I says, jis say yea, see? An’ look dumb, dat’s all, jis’ look dumb! An’ I’ll give it t’ye like I said — jus w’en she comes. Now don’ fergit.” He motioned to the cellar bin, “Dat’s w’ea you runs, if — Sh!”
Both had heard it — the scrape of feet outside.
“Lay low!” Leo shoved him before him into the bin, shut the door, “Sh!” He peeped out through a crack in the doorway. “Who de hell is it?”
Strumming silence. Only the sound of their breath in the blackness. Behind him the hard edges, knobs, of piled furniture, and higher something yielding, sack or mattress. Confused and formless memories. Again the scrape of feet, cautious and approaching.
“Wonner if — cheezis, must be her! Hol’ me skates!” He pushed the door open a few inches wider, knifed through and ran on tip-toe toward the yard-light.
Watching him through the bin-door, David froze in terror.
“Hey, c’mon!” Leo had flattened himself into the shadow behind the door-jamb. “C’mon down, will ye. We’re hea.” A pause. “C’mon kid.” Again the persuasive drawl. “You know me-e.”