‘Well this guy,’ began Mr Goldstein abruptly, ‘he’s a welldressed lookin feller, new spring overcoat an all that and he comes in to buy a package o Camels… “A nice night,” he says openin the package an takin out a cigarette to smoke it. Then I notices the goil with him had a veil on.’
‘Then she didnt have bobbed hair?’
‘All I seen was a kind o mournin veil. The foist thing I knew she was behind the counter an had a gun stuck in my ribs an began talkin… you know kinder kiddin like… and afore I knew what to think the guy’d cleaned out the cashregister an says to me, “Got any cash in your jeans Buddy?” I’ll tell ye I was sweatin some…’
‘And that’s all?’
‘Sure by the time I’d got hold of a cop they vere off to hell an gone.’
‘How much did they get?’
‘Oh about fifty berries an six dollars off me.’
‘Was the girl pretty?’
‘I dunno, maybe she was. I’d like to smashed her face in. They ought to make it the electric chair for those babies… Aint no security nowhere. Vy should anybody voirk if all you’ve got to do is get a gun an stick up your neighbors?’
‘You say they were welldressed… like welltodo people?’
‘Yare.’
‘I’m working on the theory that he’s a college boy and that she’s a society girl and that they do it for sport.’
‘The feller vas a hardlookin bastard.’
‘Well there are hardlooking college men… You wait for the story called “The Gilded Bandits” in next Sunday’s paper Mr Goldstein… You take the News dont you?’
Mr Goldstein shook his head.
‘I’ll send you a copy anyway.’
‘I want to see those babies convicted, do you understand? If there’s anythin I can do I sure vill do it… Aint no security no more… I dont care about no Sunday supplement publicity.’
‘Well the photographer’ll be right along. I’m sure you’ll consent to pose Mr Goldstein… Well thank you very much… Good day Mr Goldstein.’
Mr Goldstein suddenly produced a shiny new revolver from under the counter and pointed it at the reporter.
‘Hay go easy with that.’
Mr Goldstein laughed a sardonic laugh. ‘I’m ready for em next time they come,’ he shouted after the reporter who was already making for the Subway.
‘Our business, my dear Mrs Herf,’ declaimed Mr Harpsicourt, looking sweetly in her eyes and smiling his gray Cheshire cat smile, ‘is to roll ashore on the wave of fashion the second before it breaks, like riding a surfboard.’
Ellen was delicately digging with her spoon into half an alligator pear; she kept her eyes on her plate, her lips a little parted; she felt cool and slender in the tightfitting darkblue dress, shyly alert in the middle of the tangle of sideways glances and the singsong modish talk of the restaurant.
‘It’s a knack that I can prophesy in you more than in any girl, and more charmingly than any girl I’ve ever known.’
‘Prophesy?’ asked Ellen, looking up at him laughing.
‘You shouldnt pick up an old man’s word… I’m expressing myself badly… That’s always a dangerous sign. No, you understand so perfectly, though you disdain it a little… admit that… What we need on such a periodical, that I’m sure you could explain it to me far better.’
‘Of course what you want to do is make every reader feel Johnny on the spot in the center of things.’
‘As if she were having lunch right here at the Algonquin.’
‘Not today but tomorrow,’ added Ellen.
Mr Harpsicourt laughed his creaky little laugh and tried to look deep among the laughing gold specs in her gray eyes. Blushing she looked down into the gutted half of an alligator pear in her plate. Like the sense of a mirror behind her she felt the smart probing glances of men and women at the tables round about.
The pancakes were comfortably furry against his ginbitten tongue. Jimmy Herf sat in Child’s in the middle of a noisy drunken company. Eyes, lips, evening dresses, the smell of bacon and coffee blurred and throbbed about him. He ate the pancakes painstakingly, called for more coffee. He felt better. He had been afraid he was going to feel sick. He began reading the paper. The print swam and spread like Japanese flowers. Then it was sharp again, orderly, running in a smooth black and white paste over his orderly black and white brain:
Misguided youth again took its toll of tragedy amid the tinsel gayeties of Coney Island fresh painted for the season when plainclothes men arrested ‘Dutch’ Robinson and a girl companion alleged to be the Flapper Bandit. The pair are accused of committing more than a score of holdups in Brooklyn and Queens. The police had been watching the couple for some days. They had rented a small kitchenette apartment at 7356 Seacroft Avenue. Suspicion was first aroused when the girl, about to become a mother, was taken in an ambulance to the Canarsie Presbyterian Hospital. Hospital attendants were surprised by Robinson’s seemingly endless supply of money. The girl had a private room, expensive flowers and fruit were sent in to her daily, and a well-known physician was called into consultation at the man’s request. When it came to the point of registering the name of the baby girl the young man admitted to the physician that they were not married. One of the hospital attendants, noticing that the woman answered to the description published in the Evening Times of the flapper bandit and her pal, telephoned the police. Plainclothes men sleuthed the couple for some days after they had returned to the apartment on Seacroft Avenue and this afternoon made the arrests.
The arrest of the flapper bandit…
A hot biscuit landed on Herf’s paper. He looked up with a start; a darkeyed Jewish girl at the next table was making a face at him. He nodded and took off an imaginary hat. ‘I thank thee lovely nymph,’ he said thickly and began eating the biscuit.
‘Quit dat djer hear?’ the young man who sat beside her, who looked like a prizefighter’s trainer, bellowed in her ear.
The people at Herf’s table all had their mouths open laughing. He picked up his check, vaguely said good night and walked out. The clock over the cashier’s desk said three o’clock. Outside a rowdy scattering of people still milled about Columbus Circle. A smell of rainy pavements mingled with the exhausts of cars and occasionally there was a whiff of wet earth and sprouting grass from the Park. He stood a long time on the corner not knowing which way to go. These nights he hated to go home. He felt vaguely sorry that the Flapper Bandit and her pal had been arrested. He wished they could have escaped. He had looked forward to reading their exploits every day in the papers. Poor devils, he thought. And with a newborn baby too.
Meanwhile a rumpus had started behind him in Child’s. He went back and looked through the window across the griddle where sizzled three abandoned buttercakes. The waiters were struggling to eject a tall man in a dress suit. The thickjawed friend of the Jewish girl who had thrown the biscuit was being held back by his friends. Then the bouncer elbowed his way through the crowd. He was a small broadshouldered man with deepset tired monkey eyes. Calmly and without enthusiasm he took hold of the tall man. In a flash he had him shooting through the door. Out on the pavement the tall man looked about him dazedly and tried to straighten his collar. At that moment a policewagon drove up jingling. Two policemen jumped out and quickly arrested three Italians who stood chatting quietly on the corner. Herf and the tall man in the dress suit looked at each other, almost spoke and walked off greatly sobered in opposite directions.