‘Cheapie? Is that you name for me?’
‘That’s it, Cheapie.’
‘You call me Cheapie... I call you Smelly... right?’
There was a suppressed giggle in the passage which was instantly hushed. Spooky’s tiny eyes lit up and became red beads.
‘A wise guy...’
‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘Makes two of us, doesn’t it, Smelly? What can I do for you?’
Slowly and deliberately, he unbuckled his belt and swung it in his hand.
‘How would you like this across your stinking face, Cheapie?’ he asked.
I shoved back my chair and stood up in one movement. I caught up the portable typewriter.
‘How would you like this in your stinking face, Smelly?’ I asked.
Only a few hours ago I wondered if I would scare easily. Now I knew... I didn’t.
We regarded each other, then slowly and with the same deliberation he buckled on the belt again and I with equal slowness and with equal deliberation, put down the portable typewriter.
We seemed to be back on square A.
‘Don’t stay long, Cheapie,’ he said. ‘We don’t like creeps like you. Don’t go to the cops again. We don’t like creeps going to the cops.’ He tossed a packet done up in greasy brown paper on the desk. ‘The stupid turd didn’t know it was gold,’ and he walked out, leaving the door open.
I stood there, listening, but they went as silently as they had come. This was a chilling experience. They seemed deliberately to move like ghosts.
I undid the packet and found my cigarette case or what was left of it. Someone had flattened it into a thin, scratched sheet of gold — probably using a sledge hammer.
That night, for the first time since Judy had died, I didn’t dream of her. Instead, I dreamed of two ferret-like eyes sneering at me and a deep, threatening voice saying over and over again: Don’t stay long, Cheapie.
Jenny didn’t show up at the office until nearly midday. For the past hours I had been hard at work on the card index and I had got as far as letter H. The telephone rang five or six times, but each time the caller, a woman, mumbled she wanted to speak to Miss Baxter and had hung up. I had three visitors, all shabby elderly women who gaped at me, then backed away, also saying they wanted Miss Baxter. I gave them my brightest smile and asked if there was anything I could do, but they scuttled away like frightened rats. Around 10.30 while I was pounding the typewriter the door slammed open and a kid I immediately recognised as the kid who had stolen my cigarette case and had slashed my jacket blew me a raspberry and then dashed away. I didn’t bother to chase after him.
When Jenny arrived, her hair looking as if it would fall down any second, her smile was less warm and her eyes worried.
‘There’s bad trouble at the prison,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t let me in. One of the prisoners went berserk. Two of the wardens have been hurt.’
‘That’s tough.’
She sat down and regarded me.
‘Yes...’ A pause, then she went on, ‘Is everything under control?’
‘Sure. You won’t recognise your system when you have time to look at it.’
‘Any trouble?’
‘You could call it that. I had a character here last night.’ I went on to describe him. ‘Mean anything to you?’
‘That’s Spooky Jinx.’ She lifted her hands and dropped them a little helplessly into her lap. ‘He’s quick off the mark. He didn’t bother Fred until he had been here two weeks.’
‘Fred? Your accountant friend?’
She nodded.
‘Tell me what happened,’ she said.
I told her, but I didn’t mention the cigarette case, I said Spooky had arrived and had told me not to stay long. I said we both made threatening gestures at each other, then he had left.
‘I warned you, Larry. Spooky is dangerous. You had better quit.’
‘How come you have remained here for two years? Hasn’t he tried to run you out?’
‘Of course, but he has his own odd code of honour. He doesn’t attack women, and besides, I told him he couldn’t scare me.’
‘He can’t scare me either.’
She shook her head. A strand of hair fell over her eyes. Impatiently, she pinned it back into place.
‘You can’t afford to be brave in this town, Larry. No... if Spooky doesn’t want you here, you have to go.’
‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’
‘For your sake, I do. You must go. I’ll manage. Don’t make things more complicated than they are. Please go.’
‘I’m not going. Your uncle advised a change of scene. Sorry to sound selfish, but I’m more concerned with my problem than with yours.’ I smiled at her. ‘Since I’ve arrived in this town I haven’t thought of Judy. That must be good. I’m staying.’
‘Larry! You could get hurt!’
‘So what?’ Then deliberately changing the subject, I went on, ‘I had three old girls here, but they wouldn’t talk to me: they wanted you.’
‘Please go, Larry. I’m telling you Spooky is dangerous.’
I looked at my strap watch. It was now a quarter after midday.
‘I want to eat.’ I got to my feet. ‘I won’t be long. Is there any place in this town where I can get a decent meal? Up to now, I’ve been living on hamburgers.’
She regarded me, her eyes worried, then she lifted her hands in a gesture of defeat.
‘Larry, I do hope you realise what you are doing and what you’re walking into.’
‘You said you wanted help... that’s what you’re going to get. Don’t let’s get dramatic about it. How’s about a decent restaurant?’
‘All right: if that’s the way you want it.’ She smiled at me. ‘Luigi’s on 3rd Street: two blocks to your left. You can’t call it good, but it isn’t bad,’ then the telephone bell began to ring and I left her going through her ‘yes’ and ‘no’ routine.
After an indifferent meal — the meat was tough as old leather — I went around to the cop house.
There was a solitary kid sitting on the bench against the wall. He was around twelve years of age and he had a black eye. Blood dripped from his nose on to the floor. I looked at him and he looked at me. The hate in his eyes was something to see.
I went over to the Desk Sergeant, who was still rolling his pencil backwards and forwards while he breathed heavily through his nose. He looked up.
‘You again?’
‘To save you trouble,’ I said, not bothering to keep my voice down because I was sure the kid, sitting on the bench, was a member of Spooky’s gang, ‘I have my cigarette case back.’ I laid the flattened strip of gold on the sergeant’s blotter.
He regarded what was left of it, picked it up, turned it in his big sweaty hands, then put it down.
‘Spooky Jinx returned it to me last night,’ I said.
He stared down at the battered strip of gold.
I went on in a deadpan voice, ‘He said they didn’t realise it was gold. You can see what they have done with it.’
He squinted at the flattened metal, then released a snort down his nose.
‘Fifteen hundred bucks, huh?’
‘Yes.’
‘Spooky Jinx?’
‘Yes.’
He sat back and pushed his cap to the back of his head. After staring at me for a long moment, his pig eyes quizzing, he asked, ‘Are you making a complaint?’
‘Should I?’
We stared at each other. I could almost hear his brain creak as he thought.
‘Did Spooky say he had stolen your case?’
‘No.’
He got some cement dust out of his left nostril with his little finger, peered at what he had found and then wiped it on his shirtfront.
‘You got a witness when he returned it?’
‘No.’
He folded his hands together, leaned forward and regarded me with contemptuous pity.