When I came out the heat hit me hard so I ducked into an air-conditioned bar and had a couple of drinks. The picture had gotten my mind off everything for a while, but now it was all starting to come back. What I needed was an island like the guy in the picture, some place I could hole up and forget about everything.
There was the blonde. She had to go and I was afraid to try anything. There was Banghart. I had to get him off my back by Sunday night or I’d be through in town for good. His boys in the blue Nash wouldn’t be just watching me: they’d be looking for me.
I finished my drink and went back to my room and stretched out on the bed. I tried to push all thoughts out of my head but it wasn’t any good.
The phone rang after a while and it brought me up on one elbow, shaking with fear. I waited until it rang a third time and I picked it up and said, “Yes?”
It was Alice. I was excited and scared at the same time.
“Where are you?”
“It’s all right. I’m phoning from the drug store.”
Some of the tightness went out of me and my breath started coming evenly again. “I’m glad you called. What’s happening?”
“Nothing. I’ve been down at the station all day.” She sounded tired. “I keep wondering how long this is going to last.”
“What did the police want?”
“The whole story, over and over.”
“Keep giving it to them, baby. Over and over. And you’d better ask them to let you see Frank.”
“I don’t want to see him,” she said.
“Do what I tell you. You’ve told the cops you weren’t thick with Lesser. They might think it’s funny if you don’t want to see your husband.”
I knew what I was saying was right but I had the uncertain feeling that I was trying to pull too many strings at the same time.
“All right,” she said. And I suddenly understood that she felt the same way. “Can’t I see you some night?”
I wanted to see her, bad. I knew it was dangerous but I had to be with her soon or I’d go crazy. “I’ll fix things and call you,” I said. “Don’t call me anymore. We’re too close to what we want to take any chances.”
“All right, Johnny.”
She hung up and I turned my face into the pillow. I had a date with the blonde in about an hour and it had me scared. I hated to go out of the room. I wanted to be alone in the dark with enough to drink to make me forget everything.
But the date with the blonde was important. I had to keep her happy until I figured out how to shut her up for good.
I changed my shirt and went down to my car and drove out to her place. We went to a show because it was dark inside and then we went to a little joint out on the Northwest Side where we had french fried shrimp and beer. She kept smiling at me most of the evening and she seemed all right.
I saw the blue Nash a couple of times that night. They weren’t bothering to hide the fact they were on my trail. After I took the blonde home I wanted to call Alice, but the guys in that Nash were too much on my mind.
The next day was Friday. I had some things to do in the Loop and I wasn’t out half an hour before I found out I had a shadow. He was a little guy with thin red hair and glasses, wearing cheap clothes.
He sat at the counter with me while I was having coffee and tomato juice. He was right behind me when I left, and I spotted him two or three more times that morning. At noon I went into a restaurant and ordered a meal. He sat at a table about ten feet away and I heard him ask the waitress for a corned beef sandwich and a cup of coffee.
When I heard that much I got up and walked out. He got up and grabbed his hat and was right behind me when I hit the street. I knew for sure, then, that he was one of Banghart’s boys.
I went down the street about half way, then turned and started back, walking fast. He was looking into a sporting goods window when I came up alongside him.
I put a cigarette in my mouth and said, “Got a match?”
He looked at me with a little grin. “Sure, buddy.”
He struck the head of a big kitchen match with his thumbnail and held it to my cigarette. When I had a light he blew the match out and tossed it on the sidewalk.
“Why all the interest?” I said.
He was still grinning. He looked into the sporting goods window and pointed to a rack of shotguns. “You mean in them?” he said.
“Very unfunny,” I said. “You’ve been sticking to me like a mustard plaster this morning. What’s the idea?”
“Maybe I like the way you wear clothes,” he said.
“You’d better change your tastes,” I said.
He kept his grin and said, “Don’t shoot off your yap to me, punk. You know why I’m tailing you. And there’s not a goddam thing you can do about it.”
If I hadn’t been in so deep everywhere I’d probably have put a knee into his gut for that, but what he said was so true it made my teeth hurt.
“Don’t get too close,” I said. “People might think we were friends.”
“I wouldn’t want that.”
I walked away from him and he turned from the window and came after us, his hands stuck in his pockets and that little grin on his face.
When I went back to the hotel he took a seat in the lobby and watched me while I got on the elevator.
That was Friday. Saturday went by and so did Sunday. I went out with the blonde both nights, but Sunday night I got off the street early. That was the night Banghart was waiting for my call.
From nine o’clock Sunday night I stuck in my room with the door locked and the shades down. After about half a bottle it was easy to think I was the only guy alive in the world. The room was dark and quiet and the street noises seemed to be coming from some place a million miles away.
For a while it was easy to think everyone had forgotten about me. Harrigan down at the courts building, Alice in her apartment, the blonde out north cooking for her old man, and Banghart smiling at me from his cold face, were all just names of people who’d forgot I’d ever lived.
That was the booze. I laid in bed with my clothes on that night, taking a drink whenever I started to feel my thoughts getting sharp and crowding into my mind. But somewhere in the back of my head a voice was telling me that no matter how drunk I got, Monday morning was going to come.
I must have passed out because the next I knew the phone was ringing and the sound drove into my brain like a hot needle.
The room was still dark because the shades were down. My head felt like it was ready to tear open and I was shaking and cold.
I picked up the phone. It was Banghart. He was nice and quiet, like he was talking to some kid.
“I didn’t get your call last night, Johnny,” he said.
“I haven’t got the dough,” I said. “I told you I needed a couple of weeks.”
“I told you Sunday,” he said.
“I know you did, Banghart. But you’ve got to give me a chance. I’ll get the dough for you.”
“It’s not just the money,” he said. “People might get the idea I’m a soft touch if I let you take your time about this. Other people will be telling me that I gave you a break and they’ll naturally want the same thing. I might be laughed at for being a sucker. I don’t like being laughed at, Johnny.”
I felt something crawling in my throat. I knew what he was telling me. I wanted to tell him to go to hell, to scream all the dirty things I could at him and then throw the phone away. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I wanted to live.