A pair of sailors, quite cheerfully drunk, wandered into the place and took stools next to Alvin and continued their drinking. The young man with the woman in the booth started to get up to leave, but as he rose from his seat, he saw that the woman was looking intently at Alvin, who was leaning off his stool in her direction, like a tower about to fall, and the young man quickly sat down again.
One of the sailors, a thin, red-headed boy with freckles swarming across his face, elbowed Alvin in the side and, grinning good-naturedly, said to him, “You got somethin’ goin’ with Blondie over there, ain’t you?”
Slowly Alvin turned and looked at the sailor. All he could see was the red-headed boy’s huge grin, a tooth-filled half-moon, and to Alvin at that moment the sailor’s great, good-hearted grin was the silliest, weakest thing he’d ever seen, so he said, “Whyn’t you mind your own fuckin’ business?” and watched with pleasure the collapse of the grin.
“Fuck you,” the sailor quietly offered, and he turned away.
Satisfied, Alvin resumed watching the woman in the booth, who had now placed herself so that Alvin could see her legs, crossed, halfway up her thighs.
By this time Feeney, too, had realized that Alvin’s attention was focused solely on one person, and also that the person’s attention seemed to be focused on Alvin as well. “Go easy, Al,” he warned. “We’re a long ways from home, y’know.”
Alvin brushed his friend’s warning aside with a crooked smile, and the next thing he knew he was standing beside the booth, staring down at the blond woman. “Buy you a drink?” he asked, flashing the same crooked smile he had given Feeney a moment before.
The woman looked up at him, her face wide open and pleased, but before she could answer, the man seated opposite her snarled, “Screw, kid. Get fuckin’ lost, will ya?”
In a dead voice Alvin said, “I didn’t offer to buy you a drink.” And for the first time he saw that the man was actually quite a bit older than he’d thought, was in fact the same age as the woman, probably in his late thirties. Up close, Alvin could see that the man was large, and muscular too, red-faced from working outside, with large tanned hands crossed with pencil-thick veins.
The man jammed an unlit cigarette between his thin lips, and with one motion he snapped open his lighter and lit the cigarette while with his free hand he pointed first his index finger at Alvin’s chest and then a hooked thumb at the barstool Alvin had just left. Inhaling deeply, blowing the smoke from flared nostrils, the man repeated his instructions: “Screw, kid. The lady’s with me. Now get fuckin’ lost, will ya!”
The woman smiled helplessly up at Alvin and remained silent.
Alvin looked coldly into the man’s pale blue eyes. “Shut up,” he said evenly. “I’m talkin’ to her, not you.”
“Lissen, honey, maybe some other time, okay?” the woman said to him in a husky voice. She was still smiling up at him.
“I’m from outa town, I’m leavin’ tonight, so whyn’t you let someone who’s just passin’ through buy you a drink? Whaddaya drinkin’, anyhow?” Alvin peered down into her glass, as if peering down a well.
“Gin and tonic.”
“Gin and tonic!” Alvin called to the bartender. “An’ another Seven-an’-Seven!” He started to sit down next to the woman, who quickly slid over to make room, when suddenly the man reached across and clamped onto Alvin’s wrist, stopping him.
“Kid,” he hissed, “if you don’t turn around an’ get the hell outa here I’m gonna take you apart.”
Swinging his other hand around in front of him, Alvin wrenched the man’s hand free of his wrist and threw it against the table. “You ain’t takin’ anybody apart tonight, pal.”
Alvin felt wonderful. Like a tractor or bull or tree. And fast, like a cobra or lariat or chain saw. And fearless, like a block of ice or a surgeon or the wind. Here was a big man who was older than he, a tough, wiry man facing him with threats and anger, yet to Alvin the man was like a curtain that could easily be brushed aside. So he turned all his attention to the woman, asking her name and did she live around here.
The man stood up and grabbed Alvin’s right shoulder. “Let’s go. Out.” His voice was hurried but low and smooth, almost pleasant, as if he were putting his cat out for the night.
At the bar, Feeney, the sailors, the bartender, and three or four other customers, all older men, were watching intently. Only Feeney looked frightened. He got off his stool and took a step toward the booth, then a sideways step toward the door that led out to the street and Alvin’s car. From the juke box at the back Frank Sinatra was singing “On the Road to Mandalay,” but otherwise the place was silent, still, and waiting.
Alvin looked down at the man’s hand clamped to his shoulder. He said, “You wanta step outside with me, pal? ’Cause that’s the only way I’m goin’.”
“Some other time, kid. I ain’t got time to play games with punks like you. Now get outa here.”
“Screw you. Either you step outside with me, mister, and get the shit pounded outa you, or you just pick up your little lunch-box there and trot home alone. I plan to sit here awhile an’ have a drink an’ a talk with Mary. Is that your name, honey? What’s your name?” he asked the woman with the vanilla ice cream hair.
“Helen.”
“Terrific. Terrific. What’s you say you were drinkin’? Gin an’ tonic?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, honey. Bartender, let’s have a gin an’ tonic an’ a Seven-an’-Seven over here!”
“Okay,” the man in khakis said. “You want your head beat in, you’re gonna get it. Let’s go, sonny. Outside,” he said, and he let go of Alvin’s shoulder and strode angrily for the door in back that led to the alley.
Alvin grinned and slid out of the booth without looking back at the woman.
Feeney grabbed him by the arm. “C’mon, Al, let’s get the fuck outa here. Whaddaya doin’, for chrissakes? That guy’ll kill ya!”
Pulling silently away, Alvin started for the exit to the alley, and Feeney shrugged his shoulders and followed his friend, averting his eyes as he passed the woman in the booth.
Jumping from their stools, the pair of sailors followed. “I hope the bastard gets creamed,” the red-headed one said.
The bartender, wiping up the bar with a dirty gray cloth, shook his head as if disgusted and slightly bored by the whole thing. “Fuckin’ kid drinkers,” he mumbled to one of the men at the bar. “Who needs ’em?” Then he called over to the woman, who was lighting a cigarette from a lit butt in the ashtray in front of her. “Hey, Helen, you still want that drink?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’s payin’ for it?” the bartender asked, winking to the men along the bar.
“Whichever one comes back, Freddie. Whichever one comes back.” She laughed and started studying her pink fingernails again.
The man in the khaki work clothes was at least six feet tall and broad-shouldered, but still he wasn’t as tall as Alvin or anywhere near as wide. He was thick and compact, though, one of those men whose muscles are flat and short, an efficiently built, heavy-boned man with thick wrists and large hands.
When Alvin stepped out of the bar into the alley, he saw the man standing, facing him, a half-dozen paces away at the edge of a circle of light thrown by the single bulb burning over the door. In back of the man was a cinderblock wall about nine feet high, and beyond that was a belt of the dark gray, almost black sky that rose straight up from the river below. Next to the back door of the bar on either side were overflowing garbage cans and collapsing, rain-soaked, card-board boxes. The ground was puddled and muddy, and a nasty, erratic wind was blowing.