I. ALEXANDER ROTH
THE big grey roadster streaked by me and came to a halt fifty yards down the highway with screaming tires. I got my lungs full of the smell of hot oil and burning rubber. It choked me so that for a full minute I couldn't breathe. Neither could I move; I just stood there staring stupidly at it and at the two black skid-marks the wheels left on the concrete. I was heading west, via the thumb-route, and had been waiting over three hours for a lift. I can't remember exactly where I was at the time, but it was somewhere in New Mexico, between Las Cruces and Lordsburg.
It seemed sort of crazy, that car stopping. I had begun to believe that only old jalopies and trucks picked up hikers any more. Bums are generally pretty dirty and good cars have nice seats. Then, too, it was a lonesome stretch in there and plenty can happen on a lonesome stretch.
The guy driving the car yelled at me over his shoulder. “Hey, you! Are you coming?” He acted as though he was in a great hurry, for he goosed his engine impatiently so I'd shake a leg.
I snapped out of it. It was hot as a bastard and I guess the sun was getting me. Somewhere back along the line I had lost my hat and the top of my head seemed to be on fire. Anyway, the last two hours I had been waving cars more or less mechanically, not expecting anyone to stop. A few hundred of them must have whizzed by without even slowing down a little to give me the once-over. You know, hitch-hiking isn't as popular out west as it used to be. I suppose that is why the real bums stick to the rails.
“I'm coming, I'm coming!” I shouted as loud as I could. My throat was caked with road dust and even opening my mouth was painful. It felt like someone had given my tonsils a good going over with sandpaper. Taking the lead out of my pants, I broke all records running to the car and piling in, lugging my valise after me. “Sorry, mister. The heat's got me down.”
The man reached back, pressed a button behind his seat and the rumble popped open. He pointed to my valise. I tossed it in and slammed the rumble shut.
“Make sure your door's closed, Johnny.” I made sure.
We drove along for a little while, neither one of us saying anything. I was glad of that. I never know what to say to strange people driving cars, except the old line of gab which is flat as hell. The chances are a guy knows just as well as you do that it is a nice day, that the scenery is pretty, that the road is quite rough in spots and that it can't be much farther to Deming. Then, too, you never can tell if a fellow wants to talk. A lot of rides have been cut short because of a big mouth.
I was sweating like a man in a Turkish bath, so I kept to my own side of the car. My dirty polo-shirt clung to my back as though it was glued there and I could feel little drops of perspiration trickle down my legs into what was left of my socks. On either side of the road baked endless low hills covered with green sage. Every thing in sight reflected a glare in spite of the thick coating of dust which had settled even on the highway itself. The top was down on the car, but to catch some breeze I had to hold my head out over the wind-wing. We were making better than seventy miles an hour with the road full of curves, yet I was too grateful for the air to be nervous. As I cooled off a bit I took back all the names I had been calling the Southwest.
“How far are you going?” he asked me after a while.
“L.A.”
The man turned to face me in surprise. “Well, you're really traveling, aren't you?”
“Yeah,” I answered him, “but I don't expect to make it for a couple of years at the rate I've been promoting rides.”
“Not much luck?”
I thought I'd make him feel good. They tell me that is the secret of success—you know, winning friends and influencing people. From the looks of the buggy, I figured this guy should be good for a hamburger.
“There ain't many people driving cars,” I said, “who will stop and pick up a fellow these days.”
He ran a sleeve across his sun-glasses to wipe off the dust.
“No, I guess not.”
“They're afraid of a stick-up, maybe. It's only men who have been around that can tell a straight from a phony.” I thought that ought to hold him for a while.
“Where are you coming from?”
“Detroit. ”
I don't know why I said that; there really was no call to lie. Maybe I was so accustomed to lying it had become a habit, I don't know. But that's me all over. For the life of me, I can't figure myself out. The fact of the matter was I hadn't been anywhere near Detroit for years.
“Detroit, eh?”
“Yes, sir.” I said it, so I had to stick to it.
“Well, Detroit, you're in luck this time. I'm going all the way.”
I couldn't believe my ears. I thought I was dreaming.
“You mean you're going straight through to Los Angeles?”
“That's the ticket. Can you drive a car?”
“Sure thing,” I breathed, trying to keep from singing or something.
“Good.”
“Whenever you're tired, let me know.”
“I'll holler.”
He didn't say anything after that for a couple of miles and I slumped back on the rich leather upholstery and got to thinking all the hell I'd been through and how nice it was that it was practically over. Since losing my job playing fiddle in Bellman's band, a lot of water had gone under the bridge. I didn't mind losing the job so much—because with me or without me Bellman's band was pretty punk—but Sue ought never to have walked out like that only a week or ten days before we were slated to get married. The idea of me being unemployed was nothing for her to tear her hair out because I can handle a fiddle well enough to land something in a minute, providing there is a spot open; but what got me was that she was practically postponing our marriage for years. With everything all set, she certainly picked a fine time to go to Hollywood. Well, I told myself, what the devil. She didn't mean anything by it. Sue was an impulsive kid, jumping at the first thing that came along.
That got me to thinking: maybe that was how she agreed to marry me. I had an apartment and forty a week coming in and... But no. It was a dirty thing to think, and it didn't stand up. Sue could have had Bellman if she'd wanted him. She could have had any fellow in the band.
Of course all the hell wasn't over yet by a long shot. Just reaching L.A. didn't mean I had a job and a bank account; but at least the long trip would be over and I'd be with Sue again and there'd be no more hoofing it down the concrete or parking my can on guard-railings. You can lay your bottom dollar the next time I take it into my head to go somewhere I won't blow my money—or, if I do, at least I'll stick around until I can dig up the price of a bus.
We took a curve fast. The rear-end skidded on the smooth surface of the road. I was a little scared. I don't mind fast driving when I'm at the wheel, but I didn't know this guy. A couple of feet to the right was one hell of a ravine and I kept imagining we were edging towards it. One wrong move of the hand could have sent us into eternity, Kingdom Come, or whatever is waiting for us. I glanced at the speedometer and saw the needle hovering at seventy-eight, then eighty. Boy, that was some car all right. It was a year old, but it seemed like Cinderella's coach after that Model T fertilizer truck I'd ridden all the way from El Paso. I still smelled like a barn. The man at the wheel must have noticed me watching the dash. “I started from New York,” he volunteered. “Only four and a half days so far.”
“Some driving,” I commented. The way I said it could have meant almost anything. I'm from New York myself and I know how most of them drive. However, in a few minutes I was considerably relieved. Here was one New Yorker who really could drive. I admired the dexterous way he used his hands and feet as he double clutched into second at seventy to save his brakes at a cow-crossing. It was then that I first got a flash of the deep scratches on his right
wrist. They were wicked marks—three puffy red lines, about a quarter of an inch part.
Without removing his eyes from the road, for which I was grateful, he said, “Aren't they beauties? Those are going to be scars some day. What an animal!”
I'd seen plenty of scars before in my life—from old war wounds and appendicitis incisions to the long whip-welts on an ex-con I knew who'd once been on a Florida chain-gang—but these scratches interested me. “What kind of an animal was it, sir?” I asked. “Must have been pretty big and vicious to have done that.”
He laughed. “Right on both counts, Detroit. I was wrestling with the most dangerous animal in the world. A woman.” He laughed again. This time I joined him. “She must have been Tarzan's mate,” I said. “It looks like you lost the bout.”
“Oh, I'm always getting cut and scratched, seems to me. I can't even shave myself without losing a quart of blood. Have to go to a barber. But if you want to see a real scar, take a look at this.” He pulled the right sleeve of his coat up a little higher and I almost got sick to my stomach. The thing looked like a thick piece of twine twisted around his forearm. It was rough and had a lot of little bumps and knots on it. “I got that one dueling,” he explained.
“Dueling!”
Say, what kind of a chump did this fellow take me for, anyway? Only Germans dueled any more, and I could tell just by looking at him he wasn't German.
“Yes,” he went on. “Of course we were only kids. My dad owned a couple of Franco-Prussian sabers. Kept them on the wall for a decoration. Well, another kid and I took them out one day when he wasn't around and had a duel. He got me on the arm here. It was a mean cut. An infection set in later.”
“Yeah.” I can see.”
“Some beauty-mark, eh?”
I turned my head away and the man pulled down his sleeve. Then he lapsed into silence, his mouth drawn into a thin, tight line. I wondered what he was thinking about, or if I had said something wrong. Some guys are sensitive. Maybe I should have told him the scar was gorgeous?
But in a minute he continued, “The pain made me crazy and I lost my head, I guess. I began slashing, and before I knew it I... I put the other kid's eye out.”
He whipped the Buick around a sharp bend with a yank at the wheel. The rear tires screeched to beat the band. We must have lost at least a half-inch of rubber on that turn and I was beginning to think that maybe I'd never see Sue in Los Angeles at that.
“Gee,” I said solemnly, “that was tough.”
“Oh, it was an accident, of course. But you know how kids are. I got frightened and decided to run away from home. My father almost caught me while I was packing my duds. If the bloody rag I wrapped around my wrist hadn't attracted his attention he would sure as hell have seen my bundle. I sneaked away while he was calling the doctor.”
He paused to light himself a cigarette which he took from a case in the dash-compartment. I was hoping he'd offer me one, but he didn't.
“That was fifteen years ago,” he said. “I haven't been home since.”
I couldn't think of anything to say to that at the moment; I had my mind on bumming one of his butts. If he had only been going a few miles I would have risked making a pest of myself; but this guy was my one chance of getting to Hollywood before next Christmas. I made up my mind to forget about a smoke.
“Well, what do you know about that,” I murmured, trying to appear interested as hell. “Can you beat it?” He was smoking expensive Egyptians.
About two hours later we hit Lordsburg and the owner of the car pulled up before a restaurant on the main drag. Although it was late afternoon, the sun was still shining as bright and as hot as ever; and when the stranger removed his sunglasses he had two round white patches circling his eyes. He mopped his burned face with a handkerchief. I wanted to mop mine, too; but my one and only handkerchief was split in half and being used to plug up the holes in my shoes.
“Hungry, Detroit?”
Was I hungry? Well I certainly should have been. I hadn't had anything to eat since the midnight doughnut and coffee I'd managed to chisel seventeen hours before. I was almost at the point of wishing I was back in the can at Dallas, where at least a fellow could have something to eat twice a day. Yet, even with that rotten gnawing in the pit of my stomach, I didn't want to be in too big a rush to put on the feedbag. First I had to make sure that this fellow knew the score. If I got him down on me it was good-bye ticket to Hollywood.
“I'll wait for you out here in the car, mister,” I mumbled, trying to look as forlorn as possible—without hamming it. It was a big moment. Believe me, if the stranger had shrugged indifferently and walked in without me I would I have collapsed. But I guess an empty gut makes a convincing actor of a man. As I had hoped, he picked up his cue like a trouper.
“Oh, if it's the money, don't worry about paying for it. This time it's on me.”
“Well, that's white of you, mister... er...” I didn't want to go on calling him just plain “sir.” It sounded funny.
“Haskell is the name. But think nothing of it. When you make your first million you can do the same for me.” He came out with one of those loud and sudden laughs of his evidently pleased that he had said something funny. I laughed with him because it was expected of me, but it wasn't such a hot joke. It is very easy to kid about dough—when you've got it.
“Well, much obliged, Mister Haskell damned lucky I met you. My name is Alexander Roth.”
We sort of hesitated around, not knowing whether we ought to shake hands or what; then finally we did, awkwardly, and went into the restaurant. The smell of the place weakened me. It was a little chophouse with one of those open kitchens where a large black cook was barbecuing some meat. I could practically taste the stuff from thirty feet away. They had the joint fixed up sweet, and as soon as we walked in I could tell they clipped you plenty. When there are tablecloths and thin dishes in a roadhouse you can bet your life coffee's a dime. A waiter in a starched white mess-jacket gave me the once over as the screen door slammed behind us and I have an idea he would have tossed me out on my ear if he hadn't spotted Haskell. Even so, he gave me a dirty look, making me fed ill at ease. The way I was dressed, I should have been coming around the back, holding out my hand. “Two? This way, please.”
The waiter was giving Haskell that prop smile of his and me the death's-head grin. Those bastards are all alike, the world over. I've worked in enough clubs and restaurants to know the breed backwards. They'll do anything for a tip, and they can smell where it's coming from a mile away. Anyhow, this guy certainly could. I didn't know him, but I hated him.
He showed us into a booth and I didn't waste any time sitting down and grabbing the menu. Have you ever been so hungry that you get to gnawing through the inside of your cheek? My mouth was full of canker sores.
“Don't you think we'd better wash before ordering?”
I looked up at Mr. Haskell and then down again in shame.
We were alone in the place—it being an odd time—but his voice sounded loud enough to be heard out in the street.
Besides, to add to my embarrassment, there was that grinning baboon with the napkin over his arm standing by the table. I felt like crawling into a hole somewhere. I knew I was dirty as hell. I hadn't had a bath in nine days; my hands were cracked and dusty and my nails were a sight. Jeez, if my old violin teacher, Professor Puglesi, could have seen those nails he would have dropped dead. He used to tell me that some day my hands would be my fortune. What a laugh! The old fellow meant all right I guess; however, on this trip, by far the most valuable finger on my hand was my thumb.
I shoved back the table and hopped out of the booth. “Sure, if you'd rather, Mr. Haskell. Only I thought it save a little time if we ordered now and then washed while he was getting it.”
Haskell nodded. I knew I'd scored. “Maybe you're right at that, Detroit. I want to make Los Angeles before Saturday, so you see every minute counts.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I've
got a line on a plug that runs back east at Belmont Park. It means dough to me if I can get in town before the race.”
I yessed him again. What was he telling me all this for? He didn't want to get there any quicker than I did. It seemed like years since last I saw Sue. In all that time I'd been living the life of a monk.... Well, practically the life of monk. Sue told me before she left that she didn't expect me to be faithful to her—although she, naturally, would be faithful to me. “Men aren't built that way,” she said, “and as long as it doesn't mean anything, I don't really mind. So go out when you feel like it and have a good time.” I thought that was very broad minded of her, yet somehow, I didn't like it. I wanted her to want me to be faithful—even if I wasn't.
Haskell was looking at the menu. “How about a steak, Detroit?”
Imagine! A steak!
“Do you mean it?” I stammered. The guy didn't sound like a ribber.
“Why not? That's what I'm having.”
Then and there I decided this fellow was tops. Feature it. He not only lifts me for hundreds of miles, he buys me steak dinners! And to think that a couple of minutes before I'd been reading the menu from right to left. I didn't know the proper thing to say to him, so I didn't say anything.
“Two sirloin steak dinners,” he told the grinning duck at his elbow. “And be sure you make them rare.”
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
I liked mine well done, but I let it go at that.
It was while I was scrubbing the thick layer of road-dust from my face and hands that I first took a good look at this angel of mine. You know how it is. When you're strictly on your rear-end you kind of feel inferior; you don't look a guy over to size him up when he's giving you a break. You feel thankful enough to be getting the break. Haskell was behind me, looking into the wall-mirror over my shoulder while he combed his hair. He had a rather a handsome face, only it looked a little bloated, as if he'd been keeping late hours or something. It was tanned from the sun, but even so it had the appearance of pallor, a certain puffiness under his eyes and around the corners of his mouth. The eyes themselves were brown like mine, only they were bloodshot and tired and the pupils looked dilated a little—caused by driving too much, no doubt. He was about my own height and build, but probably three or four years my senior. The thing that struck me funny, though, was his nose. It was almost the duplicate of my own. His had the same kind of bump at the bridge which sort of threw the nose a little to one side. And the nostrils flared, too. He must have seen me staring at it, because he asked what was up. I told him.
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