William P. McGivern
Heaven Ran Last
Chapter I
I saw him when he got off the train. He was just as big as I remembered him, with thick Irish features, and that made him easy to spot. He was bent a little under the weight of his duffel bag and he looked uncomfortable in the heavy uniform.
I worked my way through the crowd and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Welcome home, hero,” I said. I gave him a big grin that probably seemed on the level.
He eyed me for a second and then he smiled, a slow, easy smile of recognition.
“Well, Johnny, this is swell. It’s swell to see you.”
I pulled him away from the mob coming off the train and he put the duffel bag down, and began to look around. He was looking for someone and I know who he was looking for.
“Is Alice here?” he said. “Did she come down with you, Johnny?”
“You’ll have to wait about another half hour to see her,” I said. “She didn’t want to meet you in a crowd so she called me this morning and asked me to pick you up. You know how a woman is.”
“Well,” he said, smiling again in his slow, soft way, “it was swell of you to go to the trouble.”
“What do you mean? I was glad to do it. Now grab that bag and come along. I know you want to see that little wife of yours.”
“I sure do,” he said, very simply.
We didn’t do any more talking on the way through the station. I was wondering what he was thinking. He didn’t know me very well. I had met him a few times before he went into the army. He used to stop in to put down a bet or two when I had my place out North. I knew his wife better. I met her after he left, and after I got to know her real well, I told her to mention me every now and then in her letters. Just casual stuff, so if somebody saw us together and wrote him about it she could cover up.
He whistled when he saw the car, a Packard with red leather upholstery and a lot of fancy chrome gadgets. He put his duffel bag in back and got in front with me.
“This is class,” he said. “Things must be going good with you.”
“You know me. I like things that cost money.”
I drove over to Madison street, turned left and went down to Michigan. I swung left there and got in the outer lane so I could get over to the Drive at the Drake Hotel. Alice lived on Winthrop avenue, about sixty hundred north, and the Drive would get us there in twenty minutes.
We didn’t talk much until we passed the Drake. He was looking at the buildings and the lake and the crowds of people.
“It all looks the same,” he said finally. “Funny, but you get to thinking you won’t recognize things when you get back. You worry about the people, too.”
“They never change,” I said.
“I guess you’re right.” He turned a little on the seat and looked at me. “They don’t change if you’re with them because you’re both changing, I guess, and you don’t notice it because it happens slow. But after not seeing a person for three years...”
He didn’t finish it. The words just trailed off and he looked out at the lake with a kind of strange look on his face. I knew he was thinking about Alice.
“Three years is quite a stretch,” I said. “How was it? Pretty tough?”
His eyes came around to me. “It wasn’t much fun. The worst thing is the feeling you’re slipping away from everybody you knew at home.” He frowned a little. “That isn’t just what I mean but it’s hard to put into words.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said.
“I should have got home eight or ten months ago,” he said. “My outfit left just before Christmas in forty-five, but I got stuck as a witness for those war trials. That’s what held me up. Those last months were really the worst because there didn’t seem to be any reason for being over there any more, and I knew Alice was having a tough time waiting for me to get back.” He looked at me then, like he was a little embarrassed. “You know, Johnny, I want to thank you for showing Alice a good time while I was away. She wrote me about the times you took her swimming and things like that.”
“Ah, cut it out,” I said. “That was a break for me. She’s a swell kid. Anyway she paid me back by saving my neck a couple of times. Every time I’d figure on getting married I’d bring the girl over for Alice to take a look at. And she always gave me the straight dope. Those babes can fool you and me, but they don’t fool her.”
He laughed at that. “Yeah, she’s plenty sharp about things like that. I guess it’s because she’s so straight herself she can see through the wrong kind.”
“Sure,” I said.
We didn’t talk any more until I turned off Sheridan at Granville. When I started down Winthrop he said suddenly, “Johnny, you may think I’m nuts but I’d like you to come up with me for a while.” He looked at me anxiously. “You know how it is. I haven’t seen her for a long time and it’d be easier if someone was around.”
“Don’t be crazy,” I said. “You kids want to be alone. You don’t want a broken-down bookie hanging around.”
“I wish you would,” he said. “I don’t know, I guess I’m kind of nervous.”
You slob, I thought. You stupid, damn slob.
“Well,” I said, “I’ll go and buy a couple bottles of beer and come back for a little while. But you should see her alone first.”
“I guess that’s best,” he said.
I pulled up in front of the place where Alice lived. It was a four-story, brown-brick walkup that some smart operator had made into two-room kitchenette apartments. Alice’s front room faced the street on the second floor.
He got his duffel bag out and said, “Well, I’ll be seeing you in a little while, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll be back with the beer pretty soon.”
I put the car in gear and got out of there fast. There was a bar about three blocks away and I went in there and told the bartender I wanted a beer and three quart bottles to go.
The bartender was middle-aged, with a pink bald head beaded with sweat. He nodded and drew me a beer and then bent over with a grunt to get the bottles out of the ice box.
I sat there and sipped my beer, trying to get my mind off what was going on back there in her apartment. But I couldn’t think of anything else.
I could see him running up the steps, like a guy in a magazine story, and swinging her up in his arms to show her he was husky and strong and full of juice. Then he’d carry her into the little front room and kiss her a dozen times and run his hands over her and tell her how wonderful she was and how glad he was to be home.
I wondered how she’d take that big Irish guy with the husky shoulders and heavy hands.
I knew what hands did to her. She’d probably suck in her stomach and push herself closer to him and wriggle.
I was holding the glass so tight my knuckles were white. I felt mean. I wanted the bartender to say something, anything, so I could let him have it right in the face. But he just stood there, his back to the cash register, looking out at the street.
I put a bill on the bar, picked up the bottles of beer and went out into the hot sunlight. My shirt was sticking to my back by the time I got behind the wheel. Some kids were playing in the street, and the sidewalks were crowded with tired looking women in wash dresses, with damp stringy hair and bare legs. Most of them were carrying brown paper bags full of groceries.
I drove back down Winthrop and parked across the street from her place. I put the bottles of beer under my arm and went inside the cool, tiled vestibule.
My fingers hit Alice’s bell automatically. I didn’t have to look. The buzzer sounded after a moment and I opened the door and went up to the second floor.