Jim Thompson
Savage Night
1
I'd caught a slight cold when I changed trains at Chicago; and three days in New York-three days of babes and booze while I waited to see The Man-hadn't helped it any. I felt lousy by the time I arrived in Peardale. For the first time in years, there was a faint trace of blood in my spit.
I walked through the little Long Island Railway station, and stood looking up the main street of Peardale. It was about four blocks long, splitting the town into two ragged halves. It ended at the teachers' college, a half-dozen red brick buildings scattered across a dozen acres or so of badly tended campus. The tallest business building was three stories. The residences looked pretty ratty.
I started coughing a little, and lighted a cigarette to quiet it. I wondered whether I could risk a few drinks to pull me out of my hangover. I needed them. I picked up my two suitcases and headed up the street.
It was probably partly due to my mood, but the farther I got into Peardale the less I liked it. The whole place had a kind of decayed, dying-on-the-vine appearance. There wasn't any local industry apparently; just the farm trade. And you don't have commuters in a town ninety-five miles from New York City. The teachers' college doubtless helped things along a little, but I figured it was damned little. There was something sad about it, something that reminded me of bald-headed men who comb their side hair across the top.
I walked a couple blocks without sighting a bar, either on the main drag or the side streets. Sweating, trembling a little inside, I set the suitcase down and lighted another cigarette. I coughed some more. I cursed The Man to myself, calling him every kind of a son-of-a-bitch I could think of.
I'd have given everything I had just to be back at the filling station in Arizona.
But it couldn't be that way. It was either me and The Man's thirty grand, or no me, no nothing.
I'd stopped in front of a store, a shoe store, and as I straightened I caught a glimpse of myself in the window. I wasn't much to look at. You could say I'd improved a hundred per cent in the last eight or nine years, and you wouldn't be lying. But I still didn't add up to much. It wasn't that my kisser would stop clocks, understand, or anything like that. It was on account of my size. I looked like a boy trying to look like a man. I was just five feet tall.
I turned away from the window, then turned back again. I wasn't supposed to have much dough, but I didn't need to be rolling in it to wear good shoes. New shoes had always done something for me. They made me feel like something, even if I couldn't look it. I went inside.
There was a little showcase full of socks and garters up near the front, and a chubby middle-aged guy, the proprietor, I guess, was bending over it reading a newspaper. He barely glanced up at me, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
"Right up the street there, sonny," he said. "Those red brick buildings you see."
"What?" I said. "I-"
"That's right. You just go right on up there, and they'll fix you up. Tell you what boarding house to go to and anything else you need to know."
"Look," I said. "I-"
"You do that, sonny."
If there's anything I don't like to be called, it's sonny. If there's a goddamned thing in the world I don't like to be called, it's sonny. I swung the suitcases high as I could and let them drop. They came down with a jar that almost shook the glasses off his nose.
I walked back to the fitting chairs and sat down. He followed me, red-faced and hurt-looking, and sat down on the stool in front of me.
"You didn't need to do that," he said, reproachfully. "I'd watch that temper if I were you."
He was right; I was going to have to watch it. "Sure," I grinned. "It just kind of gets my goat to be called sonny. You probably feel the same way when people call you fatty."
He started to scowl, then shifted it into a laugh. He wasn't a bad guy, I guess. Just a nosy know-it-all small-towner. I asked for size five double-A elevators, and he began dragging the job out to get in as many questions as possible.
Was I going to attend the teachers' college? Wasn't I entering a little late in the term? Had I got myself a place to stay yet?
I said that I'd been delayed by sickness, and that I was going to stay at the J.C. Winroy residence.
"Jake Winroy's!" He looked up sharply. "Why you don't- why are you staying there?"
"Mainly because of the price," I said, "It was the cheapest place for board and room the college had listed."
"Uh-huh," he nodded, "and do you know why it's cheap, son-young man? Because there ain't no one else that will stay there."
I let my mouth drop open. I sat staring at him, worriedlooking. "Gosh," I said. "You don't mean he's that Winroy?"
"Yes, sir!" He bobbed his head triumphantly. "That's just who he is, the very same! The man who handled the payoff for that big horse-betting ring."
"Gosh," I said again. "Why I thought he was in jail!"
He smiled at me pityingly. "You're way behind the times, s-what'd you say your name was?"
"Bigelow. Carl Bigelow."
"Well, you're way behind on your news, Carl.Jake's been out for-well-six-seven months now. Got pretty sick of jail, I reckon. Just couldn't take it even if the big boys were paying him plenty to stay there and keep his mouth shut."
I kept on looking worried and kind of scared.
"Understand, now, I'm not saying that you won't be perfectly all right there at the Winroy place. They've got one other boarder-not a student, a fellow that works over to the bakery-and he seems to do all right. There hasn't been a detective around the house in weeks."
"Detectives!" I said.
"Sure. To keep Jake from being killed. Y'see, Carl"-he spelled it out for me, like someone talking to an idiot child- "Y'see Jake is the key witness in that big bookie case. He's the only one who can put the finger on all them crooked politicians and judges and so on who were taking bribes. So when he agrees to turn state's evidence and they let him out of jail, the cops are afraid he might get killed."
"D-did--" My voice shook; talking with this clown was doing me a lot of good. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. "Did anyone ever try it?"
"Huh-uh… Stand up a minute, Carl. Feel okay? Well, let's try the other shoe… Nope, no one ever tried it. And the more you think about it, the easier it is to see why. The public just ain't much interested in seeing those bookies prosecuted, as things stand now. They can't see why it's so wrong to bet with a bookie when it's all right to bet at the track. But taking bets is one thing, and murder is another. The public wouldn't go for that, and o'course everyone'd know who was responsible. Them bookies would be out of business. There'd be such a stink the politicians would have to stage a cleanup, no matter how they hated to."
I nodded. He'd hit the nail right on the head. Jake Winroy couldn't be murdered. At least he couldn't be murdered in a way that looked like murder.
"What do you think will happen, then?" I said. "They'll just let Ja-Mr. Winroy go ahead and testify?"