It was just like one of those nosy neighbors, Vi reflected, to be minding other people’s business when they ought to be in bed. Sparrow chewed on while the officer relieved Stash of the.38 and all three eyed Old Husband suspiciously while he struggled, first on one foot and then upon the other, into his greasy work pants. Nobody offered him an arm to lean upon, even when he went face forward and caught himself, by sheer luck, against the wall.
‘Looks like one of them Berkshire cases to me,’ the law surmised. ‘If I hadn’t happened along you’d be up on a murder rap – how many people you slaughtered with this thing lately, Old Man?’
‘He sure has been terrerizin’ us t’night,’ Sparrow put in. Stash gaped and looked to Violet for help. An odd place to look for it. ‘How about my ten bucks?’ was what Violet wanted to know.
Stash turned hopefully to Sparrow.
‘He buries his dead under his fingernails is what they tell me,’ Sparrow felt it his duty to inform the law. Stash shook his head in vague assent, sensing he had somebody on his side at last. ‘You good boy,’ he thanked Sparrow for everything. He could tell that Sparrow was going to make something nice happen for everybody now. So everyone could have secondhand twist bread and go back to bed.
‘Maybe he oney fired to scare her,’ Sparrow suggested, not wanting to take any chances on having to sleep with Old Man rather than Violet. Over the officer’s shoulder he saw Poor Peter’s face, as white and long as the face of an Aberdeen rabbit, come peering. Sparrow waved once and the docile, dolorous mug disappeared once again into the dimness. The Jailer wouldn’t be able to make much sense out of what Poor Peter would be trying to tell him, the things he had seen in the night, that was certain.
While all down the hall neighbors peeked out of darkened cracks just long enough to see what was going on without becoming involved. Every time the law eyed one of the slightly ajar doors it closed slowly and ever so softly; as though only the morning wind were shutting it.
‘You ever confined to an institution?’ the officer turned on Stash professionally.
‘He means where you work, Old Man,’ Violet translated loosely.
‘Sure, sure, worrrk ever’ day, sixteen-eighteen hour, I’m not gone by yoo-nyun.’ Stash put a timid hand on Vi’s broad shoulder. ‘My hoa-ney,’ he explained, feeling that the gesture would clear everything up. And shivered in the bitter tenement wind. ‘My hoa-ney, I’m still love her.’ Someone, he felt uneasily with that uneasy wind, was trying to take his hoa-ney away.
‘You got a damned funny way of showing affection,’ the ace observed, playing a flashlight onto one of the slightly ajar doors. ‘I’ll have to book this old sot for drunk ’n disorderly, creatin’ a nuisance of hisself, malicious mischief ’n attemp’ to do great bodily harm. Besides, who’s going to pay for that arc lamp, cowboy?’ He flashed the light briefly to surprise anyone reaching for a five-spot.
But caught no one reaching for a thing.
‘The courts are very severe on these cases of late,’ the ace went on regretfully, ‘it might be assault wit’ attemp’ to tap a gas main for immoral purposes for all I know. Seems to me you answer the description of Firebox Phil, the fiend who’s pullin’ boxes for the purpose of pickin’ the fire chief’s pocket when he hangs his coat on the hook-’n-ladder.’
The wind searched curiously all the way down to the end of the hall; yet no one reached for a fiver at all. It turned and jostled back between them, nudging each suggestively. Yet no one came up with a crying dime.
‘You better look out or he’ll try to buy you off,’ Sparrow warned the law.
‘Where you work? You look awful familiar to me,’ the ace turned irritably upon the punk. ‘Let’s see some eyedintification.’
Sparrow’s wallet was in apple-pie order. It wasn’t his, but it was all there: the photostated discharge stolen off a sleeping drunk on a Humboldt Park local and the Social Security card with the carelessly forged signature. He let the ace see there wasn’t so much as a single loose deuce in the package.
‘Now let’s see yours, Scarface,’ he turned back to Stash, sensing easier game. He didn’t want to fool with the one in glasses, he looked like some kind of crook.
‘Worrrk by izehowz,’ Stash insisted, feeling the net beginning to close.
‘He didn’t even register for the Spanish-Americun War, I bet,’ Violet scoffed, while Old Husband hauled out his icehouse badge and his Christmas bonus check.
‘’N you told me you were broke just last night!’ Violet whooped in indignation. ‘Gimme that! A fine pervider you turned out to be, holdin’ out on your own flesh ’n blood.
Bringin’ home stale pumpernickel with a uncashed check in your poke! I guess you figure you could take it with you ’r somethin’.’
‘If he can’t he won’t go,’ Sparrow put in, and apologized immediately. ‘I heard that on the radio.’
The ace craned his neck, inwardly cursing his slowness in failing to grab the check first – not a loose fin among the three of them. Maybe he ought to make them take off their shoes; if he could just think of one good reason for the pair still wearing them. Well, he could always get a fin for the gun from any Division Street hood.
‘Now I go by worrrk,’ Stash announced, hugging himself to keep warm while Violet, relenting at last, buttoned his fly. When the whisky ebbed she’d be half sorry for him.
‘Now you go by station howz ’n get good lawyer,’ the officer corrected Stash. ‘Maybe you’ll talk better English after you’ve slept a spell.’
At mention of sleep Stash looked homesick for bed. Anybody’s bed. Was there such a place left in the world where no one woke you up at a quarter to four, plastered you with mustard and ran you onto a fire escape in your underwear for neighbors to make bad scandals?
‘We got a nice dry cell for you – or don’t you think it’s time for your fam’ly to get a little rest? You ought to be ashamed, a man of your age,’ n holdin’ out on your kids on top of it.’ Apparently he’d concluded that Sparrow and Violet were brother and sister.
Old Husband hung his unhappy old head. He just hadn’t known you could be arrested for holding out a pay check on your wife. Down the stairwell and by the ace’s firm hand on the back of his belt, all the way down, he realized now it was a real bad thing he had done.
‘Could sleep by station howz?’ He wriggled a bit with hope.
‘Yeh.’ N coffee ’n a sausage sandrich for you too.’
Stash slid his dim eyes sidewise like a condemned rooster’s. ‘Please – no sandrich.’
Violet and Sparrow, standing with arms hooked about each other’s waists as the first light began carpeting the ironwork of the fire escape and started down the hall, watched from the alley window while the law helped Stash into a squad car. They saw the little red taillight wink up at them once. To warn them to be good children so they’d never have to go to jail.
‘That old man is certainly a lot of trouble to me,’ Violet sighed as the car pulled east out of the alley and wheeled south toward the station.
‘I hope they take him to Racine Street better’n by Saloon Street – by Racine they got mattresses,’ Sparrow hoped wanly in the wan city dawn. While the light of Chicago’s vast West Side, like the light of nowhere else in the world, crept softly, with its special Chicago softness, up a hundred thousand seamed city walls. ‘What makes that old man so mean in the first place?’ Sparrow wondered. ‘Don’t you treat him nice?’