They started up the stairs. He was making a terrible attempt to struggle hack to normalcy, to remember business and what he had to do tomorrow. His whole schedule of accounts had been in his briefcase, and that was gone. He was going to be bawled out by the sales manager, he might even lose his job... There had been forty dollars in the wallet, and Gwen had that. And his hat was gone, he’d have to buy a new one, probably his suit was ruined.
They were halfway up the stairs. Peggy stopped on the landing, said: “Rest here a minute...”
The phone rang. They looked at each other, he with guilt, she with an expression he couldn’t read. It rang and rang, and finally Peggy shrugged and went down to answer it. Maybe she said something about the bell waking the baby, he couldn’t be sure... She was pretty far along with her pregnancy, the second child was due in two months, he shouldn’t have let her help him that way... She didn’t weigh much.
Her voice came through the concentric rings of fatigue in his head. “Yes, he’s back... A few minutes ago... No, he didn’t... That won’t be necessary... Well, if you have to.”
Then she was back. “The police,” she said. “I called them when you didn’t come home.”
“Shouldn’t have,” he mumbled... But she was helping him up the stairs again, and then he was in their bedroom, and she was taking his clothes off, clucking a little as she saw the bruises on him.
He stood in the shower a long time, resting his head against the wall, letting warm water flow down his back. When he came out, there were clean pajamas on the bed. He put them on, reached for the covers, and Peggy was back.
“The police,” she said. “Downstairs. I told them — well, they said they’d come up here if you’d rather.”
“No,” he said. “Downstairs. Less noise... the baby.”
As soon as he came, in robe and slippers, into the living room, Joe Wheeler jumped up and said: “That’s him. That’s the son of a bitch.”
An older man caught Joe Wheeler’s arm, and said: “Now, take it easy. I’m Lieutenant Myers, this is Detective Sloan, he’ll take notes. Mr. Croft, your wife’s description, when she phoned in, was so much like the one Mr. Wheeler gave us of the fellow who—”
Henry Croft said: “Yes. I was there when they held up Mr. Wheeler.”
Lieutenant Myers said: “You’ll have to tell us.”
Henry Croft told it. He told it all but two things: the names — just first names — he’d heard, and the location of the bar he’d found them in.
Joe Wheeler said: “It listens right. He didn’t have a mask, the others did. I guess they were pushing him around, now I think of it... I want to go home. My wife’s nose is broken, the doctor’s there.”
Henry Croft said: “I’m sorry.”
Joe Wheeler said, gruffly: “You don’t look like you had it so easy yourself.” Then he turned and slammed out.
Lieutenant Myers said: “You won’t tell us the names, or where you met them?”
“They know where I live,” Henry Croft said. “They found pictures of my wife and baby in my pocket. For God’s sake, Lieutenant...”
The Lieutenant nodded, slowly. “All right. I can’t make you talk. Maybe the D.A. could, but probably he won’t want to. If I need you, I’ll call on you.”
Henry Croft didn’t go to work the next day. The day after he did, though, and it wasn’t good. Peters, the sales manager was sore about the loss of the schedule, sore about the day off... He took Henry Croft off his territory and gave it to another man, put Henry on a route that would make three quarters as much, at the best.
He had to buy a hat, a briefcase, a suit. His hospital plan would pay for the coming baby, but not for somebody to stay with his kid while his wife was in the hospital. The house needed a paint job bad. And he was sure that insurance salesman would be back when the new baby came. With another child, Henry Croft earnestly believed, just as the salesman had said, a man owed it to his wife and kids to have a little more insurance.
A week after it all happened, he sat at his desk, making up his daily reports, but his mind was on money. Joe Wheeler was maybe covered by insurance, but he was the one who had been robbed. Henry Croft. Sucker was what they had called him, and they were right. That he agreed with their name for him caused a hot flush of anger.
He threw down his pencil and shoved the reports on the desk away from him. This defiance startled him, but also made him feel strangely good.
“They took forty dollars from me,” he said forcefully in his thought, “and I’m going to make them give it back.”
But at once the courage wooshed out of Henry Croft, like air out of a busted balloon. What was that his mother always said? She said that it was better to be a live dog than a dead lion.
The phone rang, and he picked it up. His wife’s voice said, “Henry. I hated to call you, but—”
“What is it?” An image of her body, misshapen with child, falling, flashed in his mind. “You’re all right?”
“It’s all right, dear. I’m all right.”
It was their son who had come down with some virus and the doctor had been in. She had to have him make a house call because of the high fever. Would he pick up the prescription?
Henry Croft said no he might be a little late; have it delivered and give the delivery kid a dime tip; he hung up.
She shouldn’t be worried, he thought, not in her condition. Money. A house call costs more. The hot anger washed through him again and he unconsciously clenched his fist.
It was four-thirty and Henry Croft told the girl at the switchboard that he was going to make a call. He hadn’t told a lie. She looked at him strangely as he went out.
The street didn’t look any better, even though it wasn’t rainy and windy as it had been that day, but mild with the first suggestion of summer.
Henry Croft walked across the street and into the bar. At first the gloomy interior appeared deserted. The juke box bulked dark and silent. For an instant he felt relief that there was no one there. Carley came out of the Men’s Room, wiping his hands on his apron.
“Yeah?” Carley said as he headed for the bar. Then as he came down back of it, he recognized his customer.
Henry Croft put his hat on the bar. “Scotch,” he said. “Where are the others? The girl and the others? I want my forty dollars.”
“Have you gone off your nut!” He kept his eyes on Henry as he poured the Scotch.
Paul and Gwen and Juney sauntered in the front door.
Carley said: “You know what sucker here wants? He wants his forty bucks.” Carley let out a guffaw.
“No kiddin’,” Juney said.
Paul laughed.
Gwen took Henry Croft’s arm in both her hands and drew herself up close to him, put her lips to his throat.
“G’wan,” Carley urged Gwen. “G’wan. Maybe he’d take that forty he’s squawking about in trade.”
Paul said: “This your hat?” and picked up Henry Croft’s hat from the bar.
Henry Croft, with a violent twist of his shoulders, knocked Gwen to one side. “You put that hat down,” he ordered Paul, cords in his neck distended, arms tensed, fists clenched. “Put it down, you sonofabitch, or I’ll kill you!”
A long silence. Paul spun the hat on his forefinger.
“Put it down.”
As Paul put the hat down on the bar with exaggerated care, he shrugged and said, “He says he wants me to put his hat down.”
They all laughed. All of them except Henry Croft. He took the gun from his pocket that they had given him in Jim Wheeler’s home and he said, “Now. My forty dollars.”
Gwen said: “Isn’t he the big, big man.”
They all laughed again.