‘What’s that!’ exclaimed the taxi-driver, scowling.
‘You heard me,’ said George. ‘You don’t need no gun.’
‘Well,’ said the taxi-driver, ‘that’s our regular rate, Mister. Maybe you better take a street car.’
Then he climbed into his cab and drove off. George stood there staring at the cab till it turned a corner.
‘Damn’ hick!’ he said. ‘Talking to me like that!’
The doorman took his bags.
‘You sure got some smart boys in this town,’ said George.
The doorman merely put his head on one side and grinned.
There were three men ahead of George at the desk, and he had to wait. The clerk ignored him.
‘Say,’ said George, finally, ‘give me one of them cards. I can be filling it out.’
The clerk stared at him and then handed him a card. George screwed up his mouth and wrote very carefully: Mr Geo. P. Barber, Chicago, Ill.
The clerk glanced at the card and said: ‘You’ll have to give us an address, Mr Barber, please.’
‘Allard Hotel,’ said George. ‘Listen, I’m tired, and I can’t be standing around in this lobby all night.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the clerk. ‘About how long will you be here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said George. ‘It all depends.’
As soon as George was settled in his room he unpacked his bag and undressed slowly. He still felt tired and bored.
‘Some town,’ he said. ‘Why, the way them birds act you’d think this was a town.’
He turned out the lights, lighted a cigarette, and sat down at a window in his pyjamas. It was about twelve o’clock and the streets were nearly empty.
‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘Why, in Chi it’s busier than this five miles north.’
He flung the cigarette out the window and climbed into bed. He lay thinking about The Spade and Weinberg. Finally he fell asleep.
He woke early the next morning, which was unusual for him, and discovered that he had a headache and a sore throat.
‘Hell!’ he said.
He pulled on his clothes hurriedly and went across the street to a little Italian restaurant with a green facade and an aquarium in the window. The place was empty. He sat down at a table in the front and stared out into the street. A waiter came over and handed him a menu. The waiter was tall and stooped, with a dark, sad face. He studied George for a moment, then addressed him in Italian. George turned and stared at the waiter. He did not like to be reminded that he had been born Giovanni Pasquale Barbieri.
‘Talk American! Talk American!’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘You a stranger here?’
‘Yeah,’ said George.
‘I seen you come out of the hotel, so I thought you was.’
‘Yeah,’ said George, with a certain amount of pride, ‘I’m from Chicago.’
‘Me, too,’ said the waiter. ‘My brother’s got a plumbing shop on Grand Avenue.’
‘Yeah?’ said George. ‘Well, I live 4000 numbers north on Sheridan.’
‘That so? Pretty swell out there, ain’t it?’
‘Not bad,’ said George. ‘Say what do you do around here for excitement?’
The waiter smiled sadly and shrugged.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said George.
‘If I ever get me some money I’m going back to Chicago,’ said the waiter.
George ate his breakfast hurriedly and gave the waiter a big tip. The waiter smiled sadly.
Thank you. We don’t get no tip around here like that.’
‘Small town, small money,’ said George.
The waiter helped him on with his overcoat, then George returned to the hotel. He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he went to bed. When he woke up his headache was worse and he could hardly swallow.
‘By God, if I ain’t got me a nice cold,’ he said.
He dressed in his best blue-serge suit and took a taxi down to Chiggi’s. Chiggi was in the beer racket and was making good. He had a new place now with mirrors all around the wall and white tablecloths. The bouncer took him back to Chiggi’s office. Chiggi got up and shook hands.
‘Hello, George,’ he said. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘I ain’t starving.’
‘In bad over in Chi?’
‘Me? I should say not.’
Chiggi just grinned and said nothing.
‘Listen,’ said George, ‘does a guy have to be in bad to leave Chi?’
‘Well,’ said Chiggi, ‘the only guys I ever knew that left were in bad.’
‘Here’s one that ain’t.’
‘That’s your story, anyway,’ said Chiggi, grinning.
The bouncer came and called Chiggi, and George put his feet up on Chiggi’s desk and sat looking at the wall. From time to time he felt his throat. Once or twice he sneezed.
‘It’s a damn’ good thing I didn’t come over on a sleeper; I’d’ve had pneumonia,’ he thought.
Chiggi came back and they organised a poker game. George played listlessly and dropped two hundred dollars. Then he went out into the dance hall, got himself a girl, and danced a couple of times. The music wasn’t bad, the floor was good, and the girl was a cute kid and willing, but George wasn’t having a good time.
‘Say,’ he thought, ‘what the devil’s wrong with me?’
About two o’clock he left Chiggi’s, got a taxi, and went back to the hotel. It was raining. He sat hunched in one corner of the taxi with his coat collar turned up.
He went to bed as soon as he could get his clothes off, but he didn’t sleep well and kept tossing around.
At eleven o’clock the next morning he came down into the lobby. He went over to the mail clerk to ask if he had any mail; not that he was expecting any, but just to give the impression that he was the kind of man that got mail, important mail. The girl handed him a sealed envelope with his name on it. Surprised, he tore it open and read:
…as your stay is marked on our cards as indefinite, and as you are not listed among our reservations, we must ask that your room be vacated by six tonight. There are several conventions in town this week and it is absolutely necessary that we take care of our reservations.
W. W. Hurlburt, Asst. Mgr.
‘Well, tie that!’ said George.
The girl at the mail desk stared at him.
‘Say, sister,’ he said, ‘where’s the assistant manager’s office?’
She pointed. He went over and knocked at the door, and then went in. A big, bald-headed man looked up.
‘Well?’
‘Listen,’ said George, ‘are you the assistant manager?’
‘I am,’ said the big man.
George tossed him the letter.
‘Sorry,’ said the big man, ‘but what can we do, Mr Barber?’
‘I’ll tell you what you can do,’ said George. ‘You can tear that letter up and forget about it.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You think I’m going to leave, I suppose?’
‘Well,’ said the big man, ‘I guess you’ll have to.’
‘Oh, that’s it,’ said George, smiling. ‘Well, try to put me out.’
The big man stared at him.
‘Yeah,’ said George. ‘Try to put me out. I’d like to see somebody come up and put me out. I’ll learn them something.’
‘Well, Mr Barber,’ said the big man, ‘as a matter of fact, it is a little unusual for us to do anything like this. That is, it’s not customary. But we were instructed to do so. That’s all I can tell you.’
George stared at him for a moment. ‘You mean the bulls?’
‘Sorry,’ said the big man. ‘That’s all I can tell you.’
George laughed.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m staying, so don’t try to rent that room.’
He went out, banging the door, ate his dinner at the Italian restaurant across the street, talked with the waiter for a quarter of an hour and gave him another big tip; then he took a taxi out to Chiggi’s. But Chiggi had been called to Detroit on business. George had a couple of cocktails and sat talking with Curly, the bouncer, about Chicago Red, who had once been Chiggi’s partner, and Rico, the gang leader, who had been killed by the police in the alley back of Chiggi’s old place. At four o’clock George got a taxi and went back to the hotel. All the way to the hotel he sat trying to figure out why he had come to Toledo. This was sure a hell of a vacation!