After about twenty seconds Larsen decided not to kick him in the face.
“Well, are you going to keep your mouth shut?” he asked.
Glasses nodded. I let go my grip on the chair.
“Where’s the load?” asked Larsen.
I took the bullets out of my pocket and put them on the table, moving deliberately.
Larsen reloaded the gun. It made me sick to see his big hands sliding along the blue-black metal, because I remembered the feel of it.
“Nobody touches this but me, see?” he said.
And with that he walked into the bedroom and closed the door.
All I could think of was, “Glasses was right when he said that Larsen was crazy on the subject of Inky’s automatic. And it’s just the same as it was with Inky. He has to have the gun close to him. That’s what was bothering him all morning, only he didn’t know.”
Then I kneeled down by Glasses, who was still lying on the floor, propped up on his elbows looking at the bedroom door. The mark of Larsen’s hand was brick-red on the side of his face, with a little trickle of blood on the cheekbone, where the skin was broken.
I whispered, very low, just what I thought of Larsen. “Let’s beat it first chance and get the police on him,” I finished.
Glasses shook his head a little. He kept staring at the door, his left eye blinking spasmodically. Then he shivered, and gave a funny grunt deep down in his throat.
“I can’t believe it,” he said.
“He killed Inky,” I whispered in his ear. “I’m almost sure of it. And he was within an inch of killing you.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Glasses.
“What do you mean then?”
Glasses shook his head, as if he were trying to change the subject of his thoughts.
“Something I saw,” he said, “or, rather, something I realized.”
“The gun?” I questioned. My lips were dry and it was hard for me to say the word.
He gave me a funny look and got up.
“We’d better both be sensible from now on,” he said, and then added in a whisper. “We can’t do anything now. Maybe we’ll get a chance tonight.”
After a long while Larsen called to me to heat some water so he could shave. I brought it to him, and by the time I was frying hash he came out and sat down at the table. He was all washed and shaved, and the straggling patches of hair around his bald head were brushed smooth. He was dressed and had his hat on. But in spite of everything he still had that yellow, seedy, laudanum-jag look. We ate our hash and beans and drank our beer, no one talking. It was dark now, and a tiny wind was making the blades of sea-grass whine.
Finally Larsen got up and walked around the table once and said, “Let’s have a game of stud poker.”
While I was clearing off the dishes he brought out his suitcase and planked it down on the side table. He took Inky’s automatic out of his pocket and looked at it a second. Then he laid the automatic in the suitcase, and shut it up and strapped it tight.
“We’re leaving after the game,” he said.
I wasn’t quite sure whether to feel relieved or not.
We played with a ten-cent limit, and right from the start Larsen began to win. It was a queer game, what with me feeling so jittery, and Glasses sitting there with the left side of his face all swollen, squinting through the right lens of his spectacles because the left lens had been cracked when Larsen hit him, and Larsen all dressed up as if he were sitting in a station waiting for a train. The shades were all down and the hanging light bulb, which was shaded with a foolscap of newspaper, threw a bright circle of light on the table, but left the rest of the room too dark to please me.
It was after Larsen had won about five dollars from each of us that I began hearing the noise. At first I couldn’t be sure, because it was very low and because of the dry whining of the sea-grass, but right from the first it bothered me.
Larsen turned up a king and raked in another pot.
“You can’t lose tonight,” observed Glasses, smiling—and winced because the smile hurt his cheek.
Larsen scowled. He didn’t seem pleased at his luck, or at Glasses’ remark. His pig eyes were moving in the same way that had given us the jim-jams earlier in the day. And I kept thinking, “Maybe he killed Inky Kozacs. Glasses and me are just small fry to him. Maybe he’s trying to figure out whether to kill us too. Or maybe he’s got a use for us, and he’s wondering how much to tell us. If he starts anything I’ll shove the table over on him; that is, if I get the chance.” He was beginning to look like a stranger to me, although I’d known him for ten years and he’d been my boss and paid me good money.
Then I heard the noise again, a little plainer this time. It was very peculiar and hard to describe—something like the noise a rat would make if it were tied up in a lot of blankets and trying to work its way out. I looked up and saw that the bruise on Glasses’ left cheek stood out plainer.
“My black bullet bets ten cents,” said Larsen, pushing a dime into the pot.
“I’m with you,” I answered, shoving in two nickels. My voice sounded so dry and choked it startled me.
Glasses put in his money and dealt another card to each of us.
Then I felt my face going pale, for it seemed to me that the noise was coming from Larsen’s suitcase, and I remembered that he had put Inky’s automatic into the suitcase with its muzzle pointing away from us.
The noise was louder now. Glasses couldn’t bear to sit still without saying anything. He pushed back his chair and started to whisper, “I think I hear—”
Then he saw the crazy, murderous look that came into Larsen’s eyes, and he had sense enough to finish, “I think I hear the eleven o’clock train.”
“Sit still,” said Larsen, “very still. It’s only ten forty-five. My ace bets another ten cents.”
“I’ll raise you,” I croaked.
I wanted to jump up. I wanted to throw Larsen’s suitcase out the door. I wanted to run out myself. Yet I sat tight. We all sat tight. We didn’t dare make a move, for if we had, it would have shown that we believed the impossible was happening. And if a man does that he’s crazy. I kept rubbing my tongue against my lips, without wetting them.
I stared at the cards, trying to shut out everything else. The hand was all dealt now. I had a jack and some little ones, and I knew my face-down card was a jack. Glasses had a king showing. Larsen’s ace of clubs was the highest card on the board.
And still the sound kept coming. Something twisting, straining, heaving. A muffled sound.
“And I raise you ten cents,” said Glasses loudly. I got the idea he did it just to make a noise, not because he thought his cards were especially good.
I turned to Larsen, trying to pretend I was interested in whether he would raise or stop betting. His eyes had stopped moving and were staring straight ahead at the suitcase. His mouth was twisted in a funny, set way. After a while his lips began to move. His voice was so low I could barely catch the words.
“Ten cents more. I killed Inky you know. What does your jack say, No Nose?”
“It raises you,” I said automatically.
His reply came in the same almost inaudible voice. “You haven’t a chance of winning, No Nose. He didn’t bring the money with him, like he said he would. But I made him tell me where he hid it in his room. I can’t pull the job myself; the cops would recognize me. But you two ought to be able to do it for me. That’s why we’re going to New York tonight. I raise you ten cents more.”
“I’ll see you,” I heard myself saying.
The noise stopped, not gradually but all of a sudden. Right away I wanted ten times worse to jump up and do something. But I was stuck to my chair.