One On The House (9 page)

“You take it, Miss Tinkham!” Katy urged. “Take it and mail it back when you get home, if you don’t need it. We’d feel better if you had it in case of emergency.”

Miss Tinkham said gravely:

“Perhaps discretion is the better part of valor.” She took the bills from Katy. The thunderous voice of the loud-speaker called the train and when Danny interpreted the weird syllables, Mrs. Feeley put her arms around his neck.

“It’s been the swellest time in our whole lives…words ain’t no good. But we gotta go now!” She kissed Katy and the baby. Their faces were soon covered with beery, teary kisses. Old-Timer hugged Little Danny hard and walked away blowing his nose into a big red handkerchief. They inched along towards the gate.

“Don’t attempt to come!” Miss Tinkham said. “It would be frightful to bring the baby into this atmosphere of microbes.” She hugged him to her breast for what seemed a long time.

“Well, gals! You’re on your own!” Danny said.

“There’s no bull to that, son!” Mrs. Feeley kissed him a last time and turned to shove her way after the other three who were bull-dozing a path through the crowd. She could see Old-Timer’s red suspenders ahead of her like a beacon.

“Gawd!” she muttered, “we sure better find them bags in a hurry!” The beer was circulating through her veins and she felt like crying. She hated partings and there ought to be a law against them.

“How come Miss Tinkham took that money?” she wailed. “How could she?” She saw Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen beckoning madly, leaning out of the door of the last coach.

“We must find our luggage…and it’s almost train time! We have to search the coaches…I couldn’t bear to lose Aphrodite…then we have to find the local!”

Mrs. Rasmussen had Old-Timer by the sleeve and the four started forward with a great banging of doors.

“All aboard!” the conductor shouted outside on the platform.

Mrs. Feeley looked at her friends in apprehension. Miss Tinkham spied the luggage and handed it down quickly. “Hurry! This door!” The train began to move slowly as the four stepped onto the platform.

“Too close for comfort!” Miss Tinkham said. “I do hope they have gone! The local is at the next track to the right of the stairs we just came down! We can’t go back up the same way…we must go round!” Miss Tinkham issued directions to her dazed friends. The Philadelphia train was just about to pull out when the conductor herded them aboard.

“Hardly worth the bother,” she said, “but I am going to sit down anyway.” Miss Tinkham smiled as she handed the conductor the tickets. She got her bag and the lamp ready to carry off as soon as the train stopped. She smiled dreamily:

“I do hope dear Katy checks the laundry!”

“The laundry? What put laundry in your head at a time like this?”

“All that money! It’s buttoned up in the pocket of the baby’s shirt!”

The train slowed down and the conductor yelled:

“Newark! Newark! Station stop Newark!”

“This is it!” Mrs. Feeley said. “The end o’ the line, people!” She grinned and turned to Miss Tinkham; “I don’t mind a damn bit! I shoulda knowed you’d find some way to give that money back!”

Outside on the grim tunnel-like platform, they put down their bags and looked around them.

“What do the stars say now, Miss Tinkham?” Mrs. Feeley said.

Miss Tinkham smiled bleakly.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June,

And a vagrant!

“We can’t even qualify for that,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “We got a home address.”

“Don’t lose it!” Mrs. Feeley laughed without much spirit.

“Where do we go from here?” Mrs. Rasmussen asked.

“We go downstairs an’ see if the walkin’ is all took up,” Mrs. Feeley said. The streets below were small and dingy. The four walked slowly for several blocks searching for a highway or main thoroughfare of some kind. All the streets seemed alike, full of factories and storage warehouses.

“No stores,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Better get us a coupla loaves day-old bread.”

“This is obviously some kind of manufacturing district…all these dark work-lofts and packing plants.” Miss Tinkham put the straps of her small bag over her wrist to leave both arms free to carry the lamp.

“Where’s the houses? Don’t nobody live here at all?” Mrs. Feeley said.

“They must be in a different section,” Miss Tinkham said and led the way down another mean street. At the end of it she sighted a neon sign.

“Look!” she cried in the tone Noah must have used when he spotted the dove.

Mrs. Feeley glanced at the bar on the corner, then at Mrs. Rasmussen. “Reckon we can afford it?”

“I feel like sittin’ down…an’ we gotta go somewhere!”

“We must marshal our forces,” Miss Tinkham said. “It will do as a point of departure.”

“How much we got? Can’t be much.” Mrs. Feeley looked hopefully at Mrs. Rasmussen.

“Two thirty-two for the tickets; five cents for the phone last night makes two thirty-seven…from three eighty-seven, leaves a buck an’ a half, even.”

The red leather and chrome stools of the bar gleamed invitation.

Mrs. Feeley emptied the pockets of her seersucker suit. “Nothin” but Kleenex! When I come out they’re gonna be full o’ pretzels or potato chips.”

Miss Tinkham pushed open the door and the four entered. The bar was deserted save for a bartender in a flossy white coat and horn-rimmed glasses. Miss Tinkham stood Aphrodite in a corner and then joined her friends at the bar. The bartender stared at them:

“What’s your pleasure?”

“Four beers,” Mrs. Feeley said warily; the shiny surroundings would come high.

“Bottles only.”

She looked at Mrs. Rasmussen. It was too late to back out now and the cool bar-smell had already taken effect.

“Four,” Mrs. Feeley said. She noticed that there was not a pretzel anywhere in sight. The bartender brought up the four bottles and poured deftly.

“How much?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“One dollar.”

Mrs. Rasmussen almost fell off the stool. Mrs. Feeley nudged her gently. This was no time to quibble.

Miss Tinkham raised her glass to her friends in a “We who are about to die” salute. Mrs. Rasmussen got out the dollar reluctantly. “If a truck was to hit us an’ we still had that dollar, we’d never forgive ourselfs!” Mrs. Feeley consoled her. “It’s stronger than draught beer anyhow. Ain’t you got no pretzels or potato chips or nothin ‘to put this stuff down with?” she asked the bartender, who was examining his nails intently.

“This is not an old-fashioned beer saloon with free lunch, madam.” The pay phone in the booth rang and he went over to answer it. Mrs. Feeley picked up a salt cellar and dropped it into her pocket.

“C’mon! Let’s drink up an’ get outa here! This guy’s so close he’d make us pearl-dive for a week just to put a little re-cap on our beer.”

Miss Tinkham finished her beer hurriedly. The mention of washing dishes horrified her. Worse yet the heartless barman might garnishee her statue.

“We are getting exactly nowhere,” she said. “It is time we were on our way.” Strengthened by the beer, they set out to look for a main highway. The streets twisted and turned for several blocks, all dull and businesslike. At the end of the block there was a used-car lot, with no one in sight.

“Let’s sit down on the runnin’-board o’ one o’ them cars for a while; these bags is gettin’ heavier by the minute.” Mrs. Feeley ran her fingers through her springy white curls. “Head’s sweatin’,” she said.

Old-Timer tried the doors on a fairly modern sedan hoping for a softer seat. The doors were locked.

“Don’t look good,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“Least Katy an’ Danny don’t know nothin’ about it…they think we’re in Chicago by now,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“They must never find out,” Miss Tinkham said. “Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat! The Alamo had none!”

“What was that Danny an’ the fellers was always sayin’ in the war, when things was pretty black? Snafu? Well, that’s what we are: snafu,” Mrs. Feeley said.

Miss Tinkham nodded.

“Situation normal, all fouled up. Danny explained it to me…but I think our situation could be more accurately described as what Danny called the superlative of snafu: fumtu! Meaning fouled up more than usual!”

“Yeah. But what we gonna do?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

There was a long heavy silence. At last Mrs. Feeley said:

“We gotta find a bar or a store or somethin’ that’s open an’ ask ’em for some cleanin’ or sweepin’ to do for our beer an’ supper…maybe a place to sleep. Otherwise we’ll have to hoof it back to the station an’ find the Traveler’s Aid….They won’t give us no beer.” The running-board of the car was beginning to feel like home and Mrs. Feeley hated to leave it. She looked the place over carefully.

“If we can promote some beer, this wouldn’t be the worst place in the world to sleep tonight. Don’t want to lose track of how to get here.” They walked across the street and turned the corner by a low brick building. As they did so they came face to face with the dingy cobwebby windows of a small, sickly looking saloon. The sign over the door said:
I
NFANTRY
B
AR
.

“That’s a hell of a name for a saloon.” Mrs. Feeley peered at the sign. “Infantry Bar! They don’t even allow no infants in bars.”

“Looks shabby,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

“We’ll try here,” Mrs. Feeley said. “When you need help, you gotta go to the poor.”

“Then we sure come to the right place,” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered. Strips of flypaper hung from the ceiling. Not a soul was in sight: not even a bartender. The place was so still that the ticking of the clock sounded like a trip hammer. Four small round tables occupied the center of the floor and six small booths provided the rest of the accommodations. Two booths were under the large dusty front window. The remaining booths were shoved into corners.

“Not very impressive, is it?” Miss Tinkham whispered. There was a door to the right of the bar. “That, I take it, would be the lavabo,” she said.

“Naw, I’m pretty sure it’s the John,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Wonder where everybody is?” Mrs. Rasmussen said. She rose cautiously in her seat and peered through the open door in back of the bar. “Gas-plate in there on top of a piece oilcloth on a box,” she said. “I can see a canvas cot an’ they’s a calendar hangin’ on the wall…sure ain’t no millionaire’s mansion.” She took off her hat and fanned herself with it. Miss Tinkham copied her.

“They got a radio.” Mrs. Feeley pointed to the one on the counter back of the bar that held the scanty array of wine bottles. “An’ a phone!” She spotted the pay phone on the wall. “Wonder where that door goes?” She pointed to one at the left of the bar.

“Who’s that feller?” Mrs. Rasmussen pointed to a large picture of a man in the field uniform of a General. Miss Tinkham studied the General through her lorgnette:

“If I am not mistaken, that is General Patton. Blood and Guts I believe he was called admiringly.”

“By God, that’s what we need around here!” Mrs. Feeley raised her voice: “Bartender! How about a little blood and guts for the customers? Or are you just fresh out?” She pushed her way out of the booth and began to roam around the saloon. “Maybe he’s corkin’-off on the cot in there!” She started around the open end of the bar into the room behind. She released a shriek that would have given a Comanche Indian an inferiority complex. “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” she yelled jumping high in the air. “I damn near stepped on the corp! Him a-lyin’ here all this time! Gawd, let’s get outa here fast! If the jen-darmes see us, we won’t never get home!” She rushed around the bar and grabbed her bag.

“Let’s get goin’!”

“Somebody’s bound to o’ seen us come in,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Be worse if we was to run.” She walked around the bar to have a look. “Sure young, ain’t he?”

“Handsome in a lean, hungry sort of way,” Miss Tinkham looked too. “You’re quite right: we’d only be taken as accessories after the fact.” Old-Timer came around the bar and very gently nudged the body with his toe. The young man moved slightly and began to moan.

“He’s alive!” Miss Tinkham said. “We must notify the police and get the ambulance at once!”

Mrs. Feeley took another look herself. “He’s alive, but not for long! Sure sick! He’s pea-green. We can’t go off an’ leave the poor booger!”

Miss Tinkham went over to the telephone.

“Oh dear!” she said in exasperation, “I haven’t a nickel.”

“We only got the half-dollar,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Don’t see no cash register to change it.”

“Reckon he hocked that long ago,” Mrs. Feeley said.

“Then we’ll have to get the police!” Miss Tinkham took charge.

“How the hell will you?” Mrs. Feeley demanded. “Ain’t a livin’ soul in sight for miles…let alone a cop! They’re all down to the Fifth Ward Democratic Club playin’ snooker, I’ll be bound. You could raise a thousand dollars quicker’n you could raise a flatfoot when you need one.”

“Observe, Mrs. Feeley! Observe!” Miss Tinkham led the way out the door to the corner. Over her shoulder she remarked: “As you have so often said, ‘There are more ways of killing a cat than kissing it to death!” She tripped gaily to the telephone pole at the corner, inspired and animated at the prospect of action. With considerable skill she smashed the glass door on the fire-alarm box.