He ran to the window and looked out.
A little knot of people were gathered in the alley behind his house, looking into the yard.
His gaze turned more directly downward and he knew then that he was lost. Across the freshly turned earth of the flower bed, strewn in wild profusion, was a disorderly array of banknotes, like flat green plants that had sprouted too soon.
And asleep on the grass, his nose beside the torn oiled paper in which Wiley had brought him the meat and which Wiley had used later to wrap the banknotes, was the black dog.
The dangerous, vicious, beware-of-the-dog, the hound of hell, whose friendship he had won so thoroughly that it had dug its way under the fence and followed him home.
Little Boy Lost
There was a knock on the door. Gram put the sock she was mending back into the work basket in her lap and then moved the work basket to the table, ready to get up.
But by that time Ma had come out of the kitchen and, wiping her hands on her apron, opened the door. Her eyes went hard.
The smile of the sleek young man in the hallway out-side the door showed two gold teeth. He shoved his hat back from his forehead and said: "How ya, Mrs. Murdock? Tell Eddie I'm-"
"Eddie ain't here." Ma's voice was hard like her eyes.
"Ain't, huh? Said he'd be at the Gem. Wasn't there so I thought--"
"Eddie ain't here." There was finality in Ma's repetition. A tense finality that the man in the hallway couldn't pre-tend to overlook.
His smile faded. "If he comes in, you remind him. Tell him I said nine-thirty's the time."
"The time for what." There wasn't any rising inflection in Ma Murdock's voice to stamp those four words as a question.
There was a sudden narrowing of the eyes that looked at Ma. The man with the gold teeth said: "Eddie'll know that." He turned and walked to the stairs.
Ma closed the door slowly.
Gram was working on the sock again. Her high voice asked: "Was that Johnny Everard, Elsie? Sounded a bit like Johnny's voice."
Ma still faced that closed door. She answered without turning around. "That was Butch Everard, Gram. No one calls him Johnny any more."
Gram's needle didn't pause.
"Johnny Everard," she said. "He had curls, Elsie, a foot long. I 'member when his dad took him down to the barber shop, had 'em cut off. His ma cried. He had the first scooter in the neighborhood, made with roller-skate wheels. He went away for a while, didn't he?"
"He did," said Ma. "For five years. I wish--"
"Used to be crazy about chocolate cake," said Gram. "When he'd leave our paper, I'd give him a slice every time I'd baked one. But, my, he was in eighth grade when Eddie was just starting in first. Isn't he a bit old to want to play with Eddie? I used to say your father--"
The querulous voice trailed off into silence. Ma glanced at her. Poor Gram, living in a world that was neither past nor present, but a hodgepodge of them both. Eddie was a man now--almost. Eddie was seventeen. And sliding away from her. She couldn't seem to hold him any longer.
Butch Everard and Larry and Slim. Yes, and the crooked streets that ran straight, and the dark pool halls that were brightly lighted, and the things that Eddie hid from her but that she read in his eyes. There were things you didn't know how to fight against.
Ma walked to the window and looked down on the street three floors below. A few doors down, at the opposite curb, stood Eddie's recently acquired jalopy. He'd told her he'd bought it for ten bucks, but she knew better than that. It wasn't much of a car, as cars go, but it had cost him at least fifty. And where had that money come from?
Steady creak-creak of Gram's rocker. Ma almost wished she were like Gram, so she wouldn't lie awake nights worrying herself sick until she had to take a sleeping powder to get some sleep. If there was only some way she could make Eddie want to settle down and get a steady job and not run around with men like-Gram's voice cut across her thoughts. "You ain't lookin' so well, Elsie. Guess none of us are, though. It's the spring, the damp air and all. I made up some sulphur and molasses for us. Your pa, he used to swear by it, and he never had a sick day until just the week before he died."
Ma's tone was lifeless. "I'm all right, Gram. I--I guess I worry about Eddie. He--"
Gram nodded her gray head without looking up. "Has a cold coming on. He don't get outdoors enough daytimes. Boy ought to play out more. But you look downright peaked, Elsie. Used to be the purtiest girl on Seventieth Street. You worry about Eddie. He's a good boy."
Ma whirled. "Gram, I never said I thought he wasn't--"
Gram chuckled. "Brought home a special merit star on his report card, didn't he? And I met his teacher on the street, and she say, says she: 'Mrs. Garvin, that there grandson of yours--'"
Ma sighed and turned to go back to the kitchen to finish the dishes. Gram was back in the past again. It was eight years ago, when he was nine, that Eddie'd brought home that report card with the special merit star on it. That was when she'd hoped Eddie would--
"Elsie, you take a big spoonful of that sulphur 'n' molasses. Over the sink there. I took mine for today a'ready."
"All right, Gram." Ma's steps lagged. Maybe she'd failed Eddie; she didn't know. What else could she do? How could she make Butch Everard let him alone? What did Butch want with him?
There was a dull ache in her head and a heavy weight in her chest. She glanced up at the clock over the door of the kitchen, and her feet moved faster. Eight-forty, and she wasn't through with the supper dishes.
Eddie Murdock awoke with a start as the kitchen door closed. It was dark. Golly, he hadn't meant to fall asleep. He lifted his wrist quick to look at the luminous dial of his watch, and then felt a quick sense of relief. It was only eight-forty. He had time. Then he grinned in the darkness, a bit proud that he had been able to take a nap. Tonight of all nights, and he'd been able to fall asleep.
Why, tonight was the night. Lucky he'd waked up. Butch sure wouldn't have liked it if he'd been late or hadn't showed up. But if it was only eight-forty he had lots of time to meet the boys. Nine-thirty they met, and ten o'clock was it.
Suppose his wrist watch was wrong, though. It was a cheap one. With a sudden fear he jumped off the bed and ran to the window to look at the big clock across the way. Whew! Eight-forty it was--on the dot.
Everything was ducky then. Golly, if he'd overslept or anything, Butch would have thought he was yellow. And --why, he wasn't even worried. Hell, he was one of the gang now, a regular, and this was his first crack at some-thing big. Real money.
Well, not big money, maybe, but that box office ought to have enough dough to give them a couple hundred apiece. And that wasn't peanuts.
Butch had all those angles figured. He'd picked the best night, the night the most dough came in that window, and he'd timed the best hour--ten o'clock--just before the box office closed. Sure, they were being smart, waiting until all the money had come in that was coming in. And the getaway was a cinch, the way Butch had planned it.
Eddie turned on the light and then crossed over to the mirror and examined himself critically as he straightened his necktie and ran the comb through his hair. He rubbed his chin carefully, but he didn't seem to need a shave.
He winked at his reflection in the glass. That was a smart guy in there looking back at him. A guy that was going places. If a guy proved to Butch that he was a right guy and had the nerve, he could get in on all kinds of easy money.