"Listen, we're operating legitimate enterprises, and-"
"Ben, I know exactly how legitimate our enterprises are, because I patronized one the other day, and stayed with it to the bitter end, to see how it worked. It was a golf game, and it took me an hour to make a hole in one, but finally I did, and received my certificate, with my name written on it in the druggist's flowing script. Then I took it to Room 518 of the Coolidge Building where I had heard that such a certificate can be redeemed for $1. I faced Lefty over a glass-top desk, and he knew who I was and I knew who he was, but we didn't speak. I took the silver dollar he gave me, and went out, and I knew that the legitimacy of our enterprises is so slight that it probably can't be found by any test known to science. It's dirty money. So let's say no more about it."
"I notice you take it."
"I take it because I happen to have a sister who makes me a great deal of trouble and costs me a great deal of money. I pretend to be romantically interested in a man that's finer, that's worth more, than you and I will ever be, taken together or separately. Because he happens to believe in me he does a great many things that I ask him to do, as Mayor of this city. Because of that, you're able to do things, to operate enterprises, that pay. I take my share, because I have to. I hate it. I hate myself. I hate you, if you must know the truth. And don't let's have any pretense that what we're doing is any different from what it really is."
"How is she, by the way?"
"Who?"
"Your sister. Dorothy."
"She's fine. She's working in a summer camp, it may interest you to know. That money you lent me, that money I had to send the college authorities to cover what she stole, I made up my mind she had to pay it back. I saw to it that she got a job in a summer camp waiting on tables. It's hard work, and she hasn't much time to get into mischief. And she's paying me back. She's paying me back at the rate of $5 a week."
"Aren't you the skinflint."
"There's a principle involved, and she can learn it."
"Can anybody learn how to be honest?"
"If not, she can wait on tables in a summer camp."
"That money, by the way, is deducted."
"You mean I get all this in addition to what-to that two hundred and some that you put up on account of Dorothy?"
"Everything in the envelope is clear."
"My, my."
"-And dirty."
"I-asked you not to talk about that."
"Now suppose you get out."
"…What?"
"We're not going to dinner. You and I are through."
"Oh. I see."
"So beat it."
"Very well, then…May I ask why?"
"For you being dishonest. With me."
"…I still don't-"
"Oh, that's all right. Just go."
She was standing by now, wholly bewildered, every inch the amateur at love who had wooed him so avidly before. He sat on the sofa coldly staring at her. He was suddenly the man who had faced Cantrell. But since then he had faced a great many people, had taken part in countless bullying scenes. It was impossible to tell where reality began in him, and where playacting ended; everything, in a sense, had become a colossal bluff, and apparently something of the sort figured here. He watched her as she started for the door, made no sign as she stopped and came marching back, her bottom switching quickly, angrily, absurdly. "So you're throwing me out, is that it?"
"Yes."
"That's what you think. Mr. Benjamin Grace, you have just about three seconds to take back what you've said to me and apologize for it. If you don't, I'm going straight to Mr. Jansen, who, as you probably know, is Mayor of this town. I'm going to tell him everything you've done, everything you're doing, and there, I think, will go your perfectly legitimate enterprises, and the thousands you hope to make out of them, and-"
"Get out."
Her mouth twitched as her little flurry crumpled, and once more she started for the door. This time when she stopped and turned, tears were running down her cheeks; and she was cravenly contrite. "Ben, what have I done? Why are you doing this to me?"
"That's more like it. Keep on talking."
"I don't understand-"
"Keep talking!"
"What-do you want me to say?"
He got up, yanked off her hat, sent it skimming into a chair. He cuffed the back of her head so her hair went tumbling over her face. With a quick hip movement, reminiscent of football, he sent her spinning to the sofa. Then he stood over her. "Get this: you can go to Jansen any time you want. If you want to go now, you can go now, and I'll help you out that door with a kick."
"Ben, I don't understand you. I-"
"Then I'll make it plain. In the first place, don't try to tell me you're hooked up with me on account of that bum, Dorothy. She's all paid up, and you've got a grand in that envelope, and so far as she's concerned you got no obligation whatever. You know why you're doing it?"
"It's Dorothy! I've told you, she's been-"
"It's not Dorothy. You know who it is?"
"…Yes."
"Then who is it?"
"You."
"That's right."
He stood away from her, lit a cigarette, while she broke down and cried, great tears squirting out of her eyes and streaming down her face. "That's right, it's me. And from now on suppose you don't forget it."
"I've heard of men like you."
"What do you mean, men like me?"
"Men that pretend to love a girl, and then make her go out and-love other men for the money they bring back, and-"
"Are you loving Jansen?"
"Almost."
"That word is important."
"I don't see that it is."
"It is to me."
"Ben, why do you treat me like this?"
"Didn't you hear me? If you want to go, you can."
"I don't want to. I can't."
"Now we got that straight at last."
He sat at the other end of the sofa, squashed his cigarette, looked at her with heavy-lidded eyes, said, "Now we can talk about love." She had doubled over into a tiny knot, her face i on her knees, and there ensued an interval in which she sobbed, and twisted her handkerchief, and seemed to go through some sort of inner struggle. Then she threw herself on him, held her \ mouth against his, twisted his hair with her fingers, and gave? way to tremulous, half-sobbing little laughs.
Chapter 8
Lefty, dropping in at Ben's apartment, looked exactly as he had looked the day of the Castleton robbery; the elegant surroundings, indeed, only accentuated his ill-fitting suit, his bandy-legged walk, his air of bucolic simplicity. He came in with a friendly hello, marched vacantly around for a few moments, then stood at the window, taking in the view from the high tower of the hotel. The whole city was visible, and in the distance the lake looked blue under the haze of approaching autumn. Something caught his ear. He looked, and a smile spread over his face. "Did you hear it, Ben? There's nothing like it, I swear there isn't-that sound of a shoe on a football. I knew it, soon as I heard it, and sure enough, there they are down there, kicking it around. Don't you love it?"
"Not noticeably."
Surprised, Lefty turned around. Ben seemed dejected. He sat on the sofa, his elbows on his knees, and stared at his feet. They were turned inwards, with a juvenile, ineffectual, pigeon-toed effect that enhanced the suggestion of smallness that hung over everything that he did. Lefty blinked, then laughed. "Oh-I forgot."