Shabby Street

by Orrie Hitt

  It seemed like a long time before we reached Waymart.

  “I ought to stop off at the office,” I told her. “You never can tell what’s happened.”

  “Couldn’t it wait until morning?”

  I halted for the red light at the corner of Western and Orchard. Her chin was thrust forward stubbornly and I could see the shine of tears in the corners of her eyes.

  “I’ll only be a minute or so.”

  “That’s all you think about, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “Business.”

  I shrugged.

  “You eat and sleep and drink it.”

  I shrugged again and parked the car at the curb.

  “I won’t be long, baby.”

  I started to get out but she got her arms around me and wouldn’t let go. She crushed her lips to. my mouth and her fingers dug deep into my neck.

  “I’m an awful fool, Johnny.”

  “You shouldn’t say that.”

  She buried her face against my shoulder and cried like I had belted her one in the jaw. I held her for a long time, trying to feel sorry for her and not finding a good reason. We’d had some fun before and we might have some again. She was going to have a kid because we hadn’t waited. But now she was married and the kid would have a name. She didn’t have a thing to cry about.

  “Women are nuts,” she said.

  “Not all of them.”

  “Maybe it’s just me, then.”

  “I wish I knew what you’re bawling about,” I said. “You give me the creeps.”

  “You wouldn’t understand, Johnny.”

  “Not if you don’t tell me, I won’t.”

  “A woman thinks of her wedding night, Johnny.”

  Her face was real close, her lips moving against my mouth. “She thinks of it as being — the first. Even if it isn’t. Even if there’s been lots of other men — including the man she marries — she forgets about them for that night. She goes to her marriage bed dressed in virgin white. And the next day she’s really a married woman. If she’s pregnant — that’s all right. She’s married. And — oh, God, Johnny!”

  She didn’t cry any more, just kissed me hard, her tongue sliding inside my mouth.

  “That’s why you wanted to stop at a tourist cabin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we can still do it.”

  Her hands came around front and moved inside my coat. I felt her fingers passing across the big hollow shell inside my chest.

  “Thank you, Johnny.”

  I pushed the car door open.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  I went to the front entrance and let myself in with the key. The elevator was on the bottom floor so I didn’t have to wait for that. I just pressed the button, stepped in when the door opened, and rode on up.

  There was a light burning by Janet’s desk so I didn’t bother turning on any others. A wire basket was partially filled with new applications. I grinned and started to whistle. That meant money for Johnny.

  I put the applications aside and picked up a note from the middle of her desk. I read the note and stopped whistling. I almost stopped breathing.

  4:45 — Bank called. Account overdrawn sixty-four hundred dollars. Checks being returned tomorrow morning.

  I took a couple of turns around the office and came back and read the note some more. It was like sitting in a graveyard reading the epitaph on your own tombstone.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!”

  Lately I hadn’t done much of the banking but I’d kept a close check on the overall picture. While the account had never been flush there had always been enough on deposit to meet current expenses. I’d even planned on pulling out some of the money and siphoning it back into the Connors Agency.

  I grabbed up a phone book. I wished to hell Janet had a phone in her place. But she didn’t. She lived way out on the bus line, and she’d never had one put in.

  I turned to the C section, trying to remember the name of one of the guys who worked in the bank. Crandall? Cranson? Crane? No, none of those. What was the matter with me? Couldn’t I think? My finger stopped and moved back up the page. Crissman, Crissman. That was the name. Jeb Crissman. I must be going nuts, not to remember his name.

  His phone rang and rang and after a while he answered sleepily.

  “That you, Dick?” he wanted to know.

  “No, this isn’t Dick,” I said. “This is Reagan, of Family Protective. I just got in, and — ”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Reagan.”

  “ — there’s a note on my desk. Says we’re overdrawn. I hate to bother you, but it’s got me on edge. What’s the story?”

  “I guess it’s true,” he admitted. “There was some talk about it in the bank this afternoon. Just amongst the employees, you know. We’d never had any trouble with it before. It was — surprising.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But why don’t you come down in the morning. Perhaps you can do something. The checks won’t go back to Federal until eleven.”

  “I’d better do that.”

  “I suggest you do, Mr. Reagan.”

  “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “That’s all right.”

  He said good-night and hung up. I glanced at my watch. Eleven-thirty. I started to swear. Less than twelve hours to mend the fence.

  I sat down and tried to think it out. I’d never borrowed any money at the bank before but it would be worth a shot. As soon as I got those checks covered I could sit down and determine what had gone wrong. After that I’d have to spend more time around the office so I could be positive this same stupid thing didn’t happen again.

  I began to feel better.

  All I had to do was show the bank how much business I had on the books and they’d know I was good for it. I could repay them in less than three months. Of course, that’d mean Connors would have to wait but I could worry about him later.

  I took the elevator down to the first floor.

  “What kept you so long?” Beverly wanted to know when I opened the car door.

  I didn’t know quite how to say it.

  “Look,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “I hate like hell to do this, baby, but I’ve got to stick around here the rest of the night. There’s some stuff I have to have ready by morning and it’s going to take me hours to do it.”

  She just sat there numb, staring at me and saying nothing.

  “You drive on home and I’ll call you in the morning.”

  She moved in under the wheel, lips quivering.

  “I’ll make it up to you,” I said.

  “Johnny, you’re lying!”

  I felt like slapping her.

  “You can’t ever make it up to me,” she said. “Not this night.”

  “I’ll try.”

  She leaned forward and started the car. She didn’t look at me again. I guess she knew how it was with us.

  “I wonder,” she said.

  I watched the tail lights of the Ford crawl away through the falling snow. Then I went back into the building.

  She was going to cry and sleep alone on her wedding night. That was tough.

  I wished I could feel sorry for my brand new wife.

  But I didn’t.

  CHAPTER XVII

  The Crash

  I SAT in the diner across the street from the bank, waiting for the doors to open. I’d been there since before eight.

  “Hi, lover!”

  I looked at the waitress. Every time she saw me in there she said the same thing. She was a little on the short side and she was all chest.

  “That clock right?”

  She nodded and pushed some fresh pies into the glass display case.

  A couple of guys came along the street, carrying dinner pails. I wished that I was one of them. No worries. No real troubles. Just eight hours a day, a time clock to punch and a bill to pay once in a while.

  “Hell,” I
said.

  I pulled a sheet of paper out of my pocket and looked at it. I’d worked all night getting those figures. The bank was wrong. I was right. It was Screwy.

  When I looked up from the paper, across the street again, I saw that the bank doors had popped open.

  “So long,” I told the blimp behind the counter, and left.

  I went up to the first window and told the girl what I thought of her bank.

  “Perhaps you should see Mr. Gilson,” she said, not at all ruffled. “Mr. Gilson will be able to straighten it out.”

  Mr. Gilson was a wiry little man in his early fifties and he didn’t waste any time getting down to business. He led me into a tiny office, excused himself and returned a few minutes later and closed the door.

  “These are our records,” he said, dropping a fistful of yellow sheets on top of his desk. “Let’s check them with yours.”

  “All I have written down here,” I said, “are the deposits and the disbursements.”

  “I can’t tell you much about the checks.”

  “But you can about the deposits? I know the checks are right.”

  “Yes,” he said, getting down to work. “I can verify the deposits.”

  He worked steadily for about ten minutes. Every once in a while he’d glance at me and frown.

  “Mr. Reagan,” he said, pushing the papers aside, “I’m afraid I have some rather disturbing news for you. The deposit amounts which you have listed are, in most cases, incorrect. Permit me to show you.”

  He didn’t have to be a math teacher to get the point across. The duplicate deposit slips I’d checked back in the office didn’t mean a thing. She’d never made a full deposit; sometimes they were as much as two or three hundred dollars off.

  I turned away from his moving pencil, cursing.

  “Mr. Reagan,” he said, “you’ve been duped.”

  “What?”

  “Duped. Misled.”

  “Screwed,” I corrected him.

  A faint flush moved up above his white starched collar.

  “Who is responsible?” he wanted to know.

  I told him who she was and how I’d trusted her.

  “I’ll take a look and see if she has an account with us,” he said.

  He was gone quite a while and I kept thinking about her. How we’d slept together. What a damned miserable crook she’d turned out to be.

  Gilson came back, rubbing his hands.

  “She beat you to it, Mr. Reagan. Almost sixty-four hundred. She cleaned her account out yesterday.”

  I started to swear some more, then changed my mind. There was no use yelling about what I was going to do with her. She had me over a neat little briar patch and she knew it. I’d clobbered the money myself. I’d take care of her in my own way when I found her. With my hands. Alone. So that she’d not be so dumb the next time.

  “Well,” I said, “that doesn’t take care of these checks.”

  Gilson nodded soberly.

  “They’ll go back if I don’t cover them?”

  He nodded again.

  “I’m doing a good business,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “I’ve never borrowed any money before,” I told him. “But if the bank could go along with a loan on this I’d be able to take care of it in a couple of months. After all, the business is there, it isn’t as though — ”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Reagan, but that wouldn’t be possible. A loan of this size would have to be passed on by the board and there’d hardly be time before eleven o’clock. Even so — even though there was sufficient time — I’m sure they’d turn it down.”

  “Why?”

  He went over and got the door open for me.

  “I wish we could help,” he said. “It isn’t nice to turn people down. But we’re very conservative here at this bank. We go in pretty strong for government bonds and real estate. A thing of your type — ”

  “Aw, nuts!”

  I was still burning when I hit the street. That guy in there got five-six thousand a year to help people and all he could do was beat his gums and open doors.

  I hailed a cab and jumped in. I gave him Janet’s address.

  “Make this just like New York,” I told him. “Plow up the street.”

  “Okay.”

  It wasn’t very far over to her place and he got me there in a hurry. I tipped him a couple of bucks and entered the brick apartment house. Her card was just above one of the mail boxes and it said 2C. I went up the stairs three at a time.

  Her door was locked so I wore some of the varnish off it with my knuckles. All I got was an echo. I thought of going down to find the super but I had no idea where he might be. The door looked kind of flimsy and I decided to test it with my shoulder. On the third try the wood snapped and shuddered and I went through.

  She hadn’t moved out. Some books and things were lying around the living room and the bed in the bedroom had been slept in. Her clothes hung in the closets.

  I went back out to the hall and met a guy coming up the stairs on a dead run. I handed him twenty as he was going by.

  “Fix your door,” I said.

  He was still yelling when I got to the street but he didn’t try to follow. I guess he’d figured he could fix the door for the twenty and have some left over for himself.

  I walked back to the office, feeling the cold air and taking it easy. I was glad I hadn’t found her in the apartment. Maybe it’d be just as well if I didn’t find her for a day or so. She had a little neck, a real thin neck, and my hands kept going all the time like they wanted to make it smaller. She was a bitch. I’d been a fool. It was a bad combination.

  I took the elevator up to the office and got out.

  “Good-morning, Johnny,” Janet said.

  She went ahead of me into my office. I closed the door and took off my coat. She sat down on the edge of the desk and watched me.

  “I guess you wanted to see me,” she said.

  I slapped her hard, across the face. The red marks from my fingers spread from her temple down to her chin. With steady hands she lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my face.

  “What’s bothering you, Johnny?”

  “You know very well what’s bothering me! You little crook! Cheap bitch! You swiped my dough. I want it back!”

  I got some more of the smoke and it stung my eyes. I knocked the cigarette out of her hand and stepped on it.

  “How’s married life?” she wanted to know.

  “Who told you that?”

  She smiled and slid down from the desk.

  “I tried to get in touch with you yesterday. Miss Noxon drove up from the city. I called over at Connors and they told me you were down in Maryland getting married.” Her smile was contemptuous. “I only wondered how you liked it.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I like it fine.”

  “I imagine.”

  She tried to get away but I grabbed her by the front of her dress and slammed her against the wall. She kicked me a couple of times but then I got my right knee in her belly and she started to cry.

  “Where’d you put the dough, baby.”

  She just shook her head.

  “You’re going to have trouble,” I warned her. “A lot of trouble.”

  She bit her lower lip and kicked at me again.

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  I ripped her dress all the way from the top to the bottom. I tore her brassiere loose and her breasts rose up, naked and angry, before me. I slapped her across the other side of the face. She whimpered and I shoved her into a corner.

  “Get up the dough,” I told her. “Before you part company with yourself.”

  She lifted her head and I could see the blood at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were dry and fierce. The points of her breasts were like red lights in the early morning sun.

  “You’ll never get it,” she said. “Not now. Not a stinking nickel.”

&n
bsp; “We’ll see about that.”

  “It’s mine, Johnny. I earned it.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I earned it being your whore. Sleeping with you. Loving you. Getting pregnant for you.” Her face twisted out of shape. “Waiting for you,” she whispered. “Waiting for Johnny the bastard.”

  “Shut up!”

  “I won’t shut up. It’s true. The people where we rented know it’s true. The hospital knows it. Surprised? You didn’t know I had you down as the father, did you? And you paid the bill, Johnny. You didn’t say anyting about it at all.”

  “Slut!”

  She pulled the rags in around her shoulders.

  “I’ve been afraid for you, Johnny — for us. I knew you didn’t have any money to start this business. I knew you stole it. I didn’t know how. All I knew was that you might get caught. I’ve been awfully afraid, Johnny!”

  “You should’ve kept your nose in your own business, baby.”

  “I wanted to put it away like that to try and make you safe. Then yesterday — yesterday Miss Noxon came up here and said some awful things. I tried to reach you. And they said you were married. Married, Johnny!” Her voice broke. “You — damn you, Johnny!”

  “That has nothing to do with my money.”

  Lightning flashed through the thunder clouds in her eyes.

  “It’s my money,” she repeated. “You threw it away when you married her. It’s all I’ve got left.” Her laugh fell around the room like breaking glass. “I ought to get paid for all of the work I’ve done.”

  The buzzer sounded once on the desk and I picked up the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Johnny!” Beverly sounded excited. “Oh, darling I’m so sorry! Honest! I was an old meanie last night.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “We’ll make it up tonight.”

  “Sure.”