Street of No Return (11 page)

Then he looked at Sharkey. 'All right," he said. "I'm listening."

Sharkey took a slow easy pull at the cigar. The smoke seeped from the corners of his lips. He said, "Coupla weeks ago. I got to thinking about it. She was staying out too late. A few times I checked with the stag parties and they said she'd left the place hours ago.

"I didn't ask her about it," Sharkey went on. "I just waited for her to tell me. Well, you know how it is, you get tired of waiting. So one night I followed her."

It was quiet for some moments and Sharkey pulled easily at the cigar, sort of guiding the smoke as it came out of his mouth. The smoke drifted lazily between them.

Then Sharkey said, "Next night I followed her again. And every night from then on." He shook his head slowly. "It wasn't fun, believe me. I was hoping it would end so I could check it off and forget about it. But every night there she is, meeting you in the taproom. And there I am, sitting in a rented car parked across the street.

"So you see it cost me money. Six bucks a night for the car. And a nickel for the newspaper to hold in front of my face."

"Why'd you do it that way? Why didn't you come into the taproom?"

Sharkey shrugged. "It would have been an argument. I don't like arguments. It always gives me indigestion."

From the platform upstairs there was the sound of the train coming in.

He heard Sharkey saying, "Well, that's the way it was. I'd be sitting there in the car and then I'd see you putting her in the cab. And the cab going away and you standing on the corner. Then I'd put the car in gear and step on the gas to get home before she did."

The sound of the train was louder, coming closer, and then there was the squealing sound of the train drawing to a stop at the platform.

And Sharkey was saying, "Every night the same routine. Until last night. When you got in the cab with her. And I knew I had to follow the cab.

"I swear I didn't want to follow that cab. I knew where it would go. Some cheap hotel with a clerk who doesn't ask questions. So that's the way it was. I'm in the car and it's parked near the hotel and I'm waiting an hour and then another hour and more hours. Finally she comes out and gets in a cab. When she comes home, I'm in bed. Today I told her I'd be away on business. I watch the house and I see her walking out with a hatbox and a suitcase. So then it's another cab and I'm in the rented car and there's a couple people with me."

"Chop and Bertha?"

"Yeah." Sharkey's eyebrows went up just a trifle. "She tell you about them?"

He nodded.

"Well," Sharkey said, taking another easy pull at the cigar, "it figures. I guess she told you everything."

Then from upstairs along the platform there was the sound of the train moving away and gathering steam.

"We stopped her when she got out of the cab," Sharkey said. He laughed softly, amiably. "She's some girl, that Celia. She didn't even blink. I told her to get in the car with Chop and Bertha and she said, 'O.K., Boss.' She always calls me Boss."

The train was going away. He tried to tell himself there'd be another train. He begged himself to believe there'd soon be another train and they'd be on it. But the sound of the departing train was a good-by sound, like music fading out, saying, No more, no more.

"They took her home," Sharkey said. "I knew you'd be here in the waiting room and it was time for you and me to talk."

He looked at the cigar in Sharkey's mouth. It was coming apart and he knew it was a cheap cigar. Then he looked at the camel's-hair coat that must have cost over a hundred when it was new but now it was very old and wouldn't bring fifteen in a secondhand store. The same applied to the brown beaver. The band was tattered and the crown was dull from loss of fibers. Without seeing inside Sharkey's wallet, he knew it contained one-dollar bills or maybe none at all. For some vague reason he felt like treating Sharkey to something. He heard himself saying, "I'm gonna have dinner. Join me?"

"All right," Sharkey said.

They walked into the station restaurant and took a table. There was a wine list and Sharkey ordered double bourbon straight and a water chaser. The bourbon was a bonded brand costing eighty cents a shot. Then Sharkey ordered a four-fifty T bone.

He said, "Make it two," and the waitress wrote it down and walked away from the table. He looked at Sharkey and said, "I'd have a drink with you, except I don't drink."

"It's better not to," Sharkey said. "I don't use it much myself. Not on an empty stomach, anyway. It don't pay to drink too much on an empty stomach."

"I wonder why they do it," he said.

"Do what?"

"Drink themselves half crazy."

"You mean," Sharkey murmured, "the way she does?"

He didn't say anything. He wasn't looking at Sharkey.

"I'll tell you," Sharkey said. "She don't get crazy from it. Fact is, it does her a lot of good. She needs it."

"Why?" And now he looked directly at Sharkey. "Why does she need it?"

"Problems," Sharkey said.

"You think she'll do a lot of drinking now?"

Sharkey put his large hands flat on the tablecloth and looked down at his thick fingers. "What do you think?"

"I think she'll do an awful lot of drinking."

"For a while, anyway," Sharkey said. He went on looking down at his fingers. "Let's say a few days. A week at the most."

"Longer than a week," he said. "You know it'll be longer than a week."

"Maybe." Sharkey nodded slowly. "Maybe an entire month. Maybe six months." He looked up, showing the soft easy smile. "Maybe she'll stay drunk for a year."

"And then into next year. And the next."

"Well," Sharkey said, "that's up to her." He leaned back and hooked his arm over the back of the chair. "Tell ya the truth, I don't care if she stays drunk the rest of her life. Just so long as she stays with me."

"What if she gets sick?"

"I'll take care of her."

"What I mean is, really sick. I mean--"

"Look, I'll put it this way," Sharkey said, his smile very gentle, his voice soft and soothing. "My main interest in life is taking care of her. It's the only real enjoyment I get. I just wanna take care of her. If she was in a wheel chair I'd spend all my time wheeling her around. If she was flat on her back I'd stay in the room with her day and night. You get the general idea?"

"Yes," he said. "I get it."

Sharkey took the mangled cigar from his mouth and put it in the ash tray. He sighed softly and said, "It's a queer thing. I used to be a cake of ice when it came to women. I mean, they were all right to play with, but aside from that I wasn't in the market. Sure, I got married a couple of times, but only so's I'd have it ready for me when I came home. In each case it wasn't any deeper than the mattress. The first one turns out to be a nympho and I pay her off and send her to Nevada. The next number is all right in the beginning, but then she develops a weakness for rumba teachers and I hafta throw her out. Then this one comes along and I take one look and it's like falling off a cliff with nothing underneath, just falling and falling. All the time falling."

The double bourbon arrived and Sharkey shot it down and ordered another. Then he had a third, and he was on the fourth when he laughed apologetically and said, "Look at me, the man who says he don't drink on an empty stomach."

"Go on and drink. Drink all you want."

Sharkey went on laughing lightly. "You wanna get me drunk?"

"No, it isn't that."

"I think I know what it is," Sharkey said. "You feel that you owe me the drinks, the steak dinner. Sure, that's what it is, you just feel that you owe me something."

"Maybe," he said, and he was staring past Sharkey. "I'm not really sure."

"Well, anyway," Sharkey smiled, "I'll have another drink."

Sharkey was on the seventh double bourbon when the waitress brought the T bones. The steaks were large and prime and he watched Sharkey tackling the plate with considerable appetite. His own appetite was less than zero and he tried a few bites and couldn't go on with it. He pushed his plate aside and lit a cigarette, and it was quiet at the table except for the sound of Sharkey's knife and fork working methodically on the T bone, Sharkey with seven double bourbons in him but not the least bit drunk, doing a thorough job on the steak and French fries, doing it medium fast and with reasonable etiquette and finally lifting the napkin to his lips and saying, "Goddamn, that was good."

He smiled sadly. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"What about yours? Something wrong with yours?"

"No," he said. "I'm just not hungry."

Sharkey nodded slowly and understandingly and somewhat sympathetically. The waitress came to the table and asked if they would like dessert. Sharkey told her to bring a pot of coffee and another double bourbon. Then Sharkey grinned at him and said, "It ain't often I get a treat like this. I might as well take advantage of it."

He didn't say anything. He went on smiling sadly.

"Another thing," Sharkey said. "Maybe I'll get my name in the columns. I'm having dinner with a celebrity."

"I'm not a celebrity."

"Well, maybe not yet. But you're getting there. You're really getting there. I heard you on the radio last week. The disc jockey played three of your records, one right after another. They never do that except with the solid talent."

It was a genuine compliment and he started to murmur thanks. But it wouldn't come out. His hands gripped the edge of the table and he said, "Listen, Sharkey--"

And Sharkey went on quickly: "You're a cinch to hit the top brackets. I can tell. It's like at the races when I look at a horse and I just know it's gotta come in. So it's--"

"Listen," he said, not loudly but aiming it, shooting it. And then, sending in the clincher, "I want her."

Then it was quiet. Sharkey was looking down at the table. He had a technical expression in his eyes, like a dealer studying all the cards face up.

"I want her." Now it was louder. And it quivered. "I can't give her up. Just can't do without her."

Sharkey went on looking at the table. His lips scarcely moved as he said, "You know something? I think we're in trouble."

Then quietly again, and feeling very friendly toward Sharkey but wishing Sharkey didn't exist, he said, "I'm gonna take her."

"Goddamn." As if the cards on the table showed a sorry mess. "We're in real trouble."

"I've gotta have her and I'm gonna have her, that's all."

Sharkey looked up. The technical expression went out of his eyes and the only thing in his eyes was sadness. It was sincere sadness and his voice was gloomy as he said, "It's a goddamn shame."

"Well, anyway, now you know. You know what I'm gonna do."

"Yeah," Sharkey said "I know. I wish you hadn't told me."

The rest of it was rapid and blurred and there was no thought, no plan, no logic in the pattern of getting up and leaving Sharkey sitting there at the table. He lunged toward the waitress and jammed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. He ran out of the restaurant, leaving his hat and coat on the hanger, his suitcase forgotten, everything forgotten in the rush to get out of there and get into a cab. The only symbols in his brain were the four numbers of the address where she lived with Sharkey and Chop and Bertha, and what he had to do was erase those numbers, take her out of there, take her far away and make sure they'd never carry her back.

As he entered the cab and gave the address to the driver, he didn't feel the winter cold, he didn't notice the evening blackness, and of course he paid no attention to the telephone wires stretched high above the street, glimmering silver against the darkness. If he had focused on the wires, if he'd been able to think clearly and with a reasonable amount of arithmetic, he would have known what was happening up there at this very instant. He would have known that the wires were carrying Sharkey's voice from a phone booth to the address where the cab was headed.

When he arrived there, they were waiting for him, ready for him. The short wide man opened the door for him and he walked in and then the short wide man moved in close behind him and swung a blackjack and knocked him unconscious. The big woman who weighed more than three hundred was smiling down at him and then she picked him up from the floor and carried him as if he were a child. Or as if she were a child carrying a rag doll. The smile on her face was childlike, and while she carried him down the cellar stairs she purred, "You pretty little boy. You're so cute."

He heard the voice but he didn't know what it was saying. He had a feeling of being carried but there was no way to look and make sure. It seemed there was a thick spike planted in his skull, cutting off all communication between one side of him and the other.