“Not at all, Lura,” he said, looking back at her. “If I can be of any help, just let me know.”
As we walked down the lawn toward the car at the curb, I said, “For Pete’s sake, Kenny, you ain’t falling for that tomato, are you?”
He turned and took a swing at my jaw, and if he hadn’t slipped on the grass, I’d have been spitting teeth for a week.
I jumped back out of the way before he could wind up again. “I’m sorry, Kenny,” I said. “I didn’t mean...”
“Nuts!” he said, real sore. “‘Let’s get to work.”
He walked up the sidewalk and I followed him. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t even answer. I didn’t know what to make of it. I just couldn’t believe he was falling for a dame like that. I mean, that stuff she tried to give us about Andresson and trying to fight him off et cetera. This wasn’t football. There weren’t no uncompleted passes in her league. Then I thought, the hell with it.
We poked around, but we didn’t find out very much. There were only the two houses on the block and the people next door weren’t home and the neighbors across the street was at the ball park. But three blocks away was the gas station, and the attendant told us that Lew Sloan had bought a tankful a little after six, and had acted real funny, his hands shaking, dropping his money, and all that.
“Like he was drunk or something,” he said. “I asked him what was the matter and he yelled for me to mind my own damn business, and shot out of here like a bat out of hell.”
That was just about all we got anywheres.
Lura gave us a handful of pictures of him, and we passed them out to the papers, and had a flock of readers printed, and got the usual false alarms from jerks who were almost positive they had seen Lew Sloan in Philly, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and points north, east, south, and west.
A week passed, and we were still on the same dime — and with Kenny, I was still behind the eight-ball. At first I tried to make it up with him — hell, I liked the guy — but it went on and on and I couldn’t get to first base, and finally I thought, the hell with you.
Then this Saturday night I was in the Drop Anchor Inn down by the river with this dame I know, and we were dancing to the juke box, and back there in the corner booth, who do I see but Kenny and Lura. There were a couple drinks on the table in front of them and they were sitting side by side so close you couldn’t have wedged a finger between them even if you were a midget.
And while I was watching them, she lifted up her mouth and he kissed her, leaning down into it as though that was all he wanted to do for the rest of his life. And when I saw that, brother, I really blew my stack.
I took my dame back to the bar and said to her, “Put it on a stool and keep it warm, baby. I’ll be right back.”
I walked over to the booth. Kenny saw me coming and stood up, giving me a silly grin. His hair was mussed and there was lipstick all over him.
“Hiya, Gene.” He flapped his hand at the booth. “Siddown, siddown. Buy y’ drink.”
I started. “You damn fool...”
He smacked me. His fist couldn’t have moved six inches, but when I opened my eyes, there I was down on the floor among the cigar butts and chair legs, and my dame was sloshing my face with a wet rag and not caring how she did it, either. Boy, was she sore! Half the gin mill was standing around looking down at me over her shoulder.
“Now if you’re finished making a holy show of yourself,” she snapped, “I hope you’ll be gentleman enough to take me home!”
I got up and looked around. Kenny and Lura were gone. I took my dame by the arm and she pulled away from me and marched out with me behind her. Every face in the joint watched us go, and there wasn’t a friend among them. Brother, I was in the doghouse all round. I took her home, but I had sense enough not to even try to kiss her goodnight. I didn’t need anymore pokes in the snoot.
The next day the Chief had me up on the carpet.
“What’s this with you and Kenny Riordan?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir,” I said.
“You tried to pick a fight with him last night.”
“Yessir,” I said, but I couldn’t tell him about Kenny and Lura. “I had a fight with my girl and took it out on Kenny.”
He bawled the hell out of me and said if Kenny hadn’t spoken up for me, I’d be on thirty days suspension without pay.
“Now for God sake,” he yelled at me, “get out there and see if you can help him clean up this Sloan mess and stop acting like a damn fool!”
I walked out with my ears on fire. I went into the detectives room. There were a couple of the guys standing there talking, and when they saw me, they turned their backs. In their book, I was a muckheel. I was bigger and heavier than Kenny. I should have picked on a guy my own size. I didn’t have to be no mind reader to see what they were thinking.
By now, it was over ten days and still nothing on Sloan. He had gone into a hole and pulled the hole in after him. I didn’t see much of Kenny, but I knew he was spending every minute he could with Lura. I saw them together a couple times, once at another nightspot when they disappeared outside for an hour and he came back with more lipstick on him than she had.
When they got back to their booth, they fell in another clinch, and I walked out before I flipped my lid again. She had her eye on me all the time, but he didn’t know that anybody else was alive but her. I never saw a guy so gone on a dame.
And that’s what started me thinking about Sloan. He was just an ordinary guy. He worked from eight to five, forty hours a week, and you couldn’t call him a guy that knew his way around or had contacts. Then all of a sudden I remembered what I had thought about Sloan going into a hole and pulling the hole in after him. I mean, the very words.
Him going into a hole, specially.
Lura didn’t have me fooled. She was a beautiful dame. Marilyn Monroe didn’t have a thing on her but Arthur Miller. And furthermore I knew damn well she had been shacking up with Andresson and didn’t give a damn about Sloan. Let’s say she even wanted to get rid of him, but didn’t do anything about it till he blew Andresson all over her bedroom.
Okay. So Sloan knocks Andresson off and she gives him that song and dance about Andresson attacking her and he believes her, but at the same time he knows he’s got to get the hell out of there or it’s the chair. He loves her. Let’s get out of here, he says. Okay, she says. So he runs down to the gas station and fills up while she’s supposed to be dressing and packing.
He goes back, and when he walks in the door, she points a gun at him and pulls the trigger, drags him down in the cellar and puts him under the coal pile, and when me and Kenny walk in, she gives us that business about passing out. So now she’s making a play for Kenny, so that when she gets him good and hooked, he’ll help her get rid of the stiff in the cellar and have police protection at the same time. A very nice set-up.
But I was the guy that was going to clobber it!
I waited till about ten that night when I was sure her and Kenny would be out somewheres, and then I took the car and drove around the side street a block away from her house. I had a pickax and a shovel with me, in case I might have to do some digging in her cellar, and went around the back way, coming up to her house through the empty lot behind.
The house was dark, so I didn’t bother ducking around playing cops and robbers. They had one of those slanting cellar doors, but there was a padlock on it, so I put the pickax under the hasp and pulled it out by the roots.
I was just bending over to pick up the shovel when — wham! Something hit me on the side of the head, and the next thing I knew I was looking straight up and the moon was wavering around in front of my eyes. Only — it wasn’t the moon. It was Kenny’s face and he was saying hoarsely: “Gene, Gene, Gene...”