Jim Thompson - The Getaway

"Why, I slept fine, Charlie," he said, in his amiably sincere voice. "Don't suppose I should ask you the same question, eh? Ha-ha! Got my breakfast on the way, have you? Fine, attaboy. You're a gentleman and a scholar, Charlie."

Doc McCoy hung up the receiver, yawned and stretched agreeably, and sat up in the big, old-fashioned bed. Tipping the shade of the side-street window a little, he glanced at the all-night lunchroom a block away. A Negro busboy was just emerging from the place, a tray covered with a white cloth balanced on one hand. He came up the street at the slow but sullenly steady pace of one who is performing an unavoidable and unfairly imposed task.

Doc grinned sympathetically. It was the boy's own fault, of course. He should have known better than to boast to Charlie about the handsome tip "Mr. Kramer" had given him-known that Charlie would relieve him of delivering the tray from then on. Still-Doc went into the bathroom and began to wash-fair was fair; and a boy in a job like that probably needed every nickel he could get.

"You know how it is, Charlie," he explained ingratiatingly when the clerk arrived with his breakfast. "Now, with people like you and me, a few bucks either way doesn't make any difference, but-mind giving him this five-spot for me? Tell him I'll drop around and thank him personally when I get back in town."

The clerk beamed. Him and Mr. Kramer! People like them! He'd have given the five to that dish jockey even if Mr. Kramer hadn't fixed it so that he just about had to.

His face fell suddenly as the full import of Doc's words registered on him. "W-when you get back? You mean you're leavin'?"

"Just for two-three days, Charlie. A little business matter that can't wait. You bet I'm coming back, and I'm going to tack this time- out onto the end of my vacation."

"Well-" the clerk was almost weak with relief. "We-I-I guess you know we're sure glad to have you, Mr. Kramer. But believe me, I sure wouldn't be spending no vacation in this place if I was fixed like- if I was you. I'd be cuttin' it up out in Las Vegas, or"

"No, no, I don't think you would, Charlie. You're too sensible. You'd get fed up mighty fast, just like I did. So you'd pick out a nice town where you could just laze around and take things easy, and meet some real people for a change." He nodded earnestly, then pressed a bill into the clerk's hand. "You'll look after everything for me while I'm gone, Charlie? I don't think I'll be taking anything more than a briefcase."

"You bet! But, gosh, Mr. Kramer, you don't need to give me twenty dollars just for"

"But you need it to keep up with those beautiful babes you've got on the string." Doc urged him genially toward the door. "Thought I wasn't wise to you, hah? Didn't figure I'd know you were the town lady-killer-ha-ha! Well, take it easy, Charlie."

Charlie was eager to learn the basis for Mr. Kramer's flattering conclusions. But he found that somehow he had gotten out in the hall, and Mr. Kramer's door had closed in his face. Dreamily beaming, he went back downstairs to the desk.

Several signals were flashing on the tiny switchboard. Charlie answered them deliberately, stonily unapologetic in the face of inquiries as to whether he'd dropped dead or been on a vacation. Everyone ought to know by this time that he was the only night employee of the Beacon City Hotel. He had the whole shooting match to take care of from nine peeyem until nine ayem, so he had plenty to do besides just stick around the desk. And any time anyone got griped too much about it, they could go to another hotel-the nearest of which was twenty miles away.

Charlie had told a number of gripers where they could head in. Mr. Farley, the owner, had told him to. The way Farley-the stingy old jerk!-figured it, hardly anyone stayed at the Beacon City Hotel unless they had to, and he couldn't sell any more rooms with two night employees than he could with one.

Charlie yawned sleepily, and glanced at the oak-cased wall clock. Going behind the key rack, he doused his face at the dingy lavatory and dried on one of the cleaner sections of a soiled roller towel. Lady-killer, he thought, studying his pimpled reflection in the mirror. Oh, you beautiful babes!

Offhand, he could remember seeing only two or three girls in Beacon City who might even remotely qualify as truly beautiful babes; and none of these, as the saying is, had been able to see him at all. But- well, maybe he just hadn't been lookin' sharp enough. He hadn't gone about things right. Because that Mr. Kramer was one might-ee shrewd hombre, and if he had a fella sized up in a certain way!

Leaving the desk, Charlie took up a position before the lobby window; hands folded behind him, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. The glass was so dusty and fly-specked as to serve inadequately as a mirror, and in it he was only mildly unappetizing.

Rose Hip, the Chinese laundryman's lovely daughter, tripped by on her way to business college. Charlie winked at her, and she stuck out her tongue at him. Charlie smirked knowingly.

There just wasn't much of anything stirring after that. As Charlie put it, you could have fired a machine gun down Main Street without hitting a soul. It was due to the recent changeover to daylight saving time, Charlie thought; folks hadn't got used to it yet. Maybe the clock said it was getting kind of late-seventeen minutes of eight-but it still wasn't seven to the people.

Charlie started to turn away from the window; then, hesitantly, hearing a familiar creak of cartwheels, he faced it again. The woman was old "Crazy" Cvec, the town scavenger. Her wobbly cart was piled high with cardboard cartons, rags and bottles. She was dressed in a ragged mother hubbard, an ancient picture hat, and toeless tennis shoes. A frayed cigar butt protruded from the corner of her sunken-in mouth.

When Charlie winked at her, her gums parted in an insane cackle and the butt dropped down the front of her gown. This sent her into another paroxysm of crazy cackling, which she concluded by gripping the handle of the cart and kicking friskily backward with both feet. Charlie giggled lewdly. Lifting a foot, he shook his leg in the manner of a man who has got a bee up his trousers. Then

"Well, I'll be damned," said a jeering voice. "Yes, sir, I will be damned."

It was Mack Wingate, bank guard and long-time resident of the hotel. Mack Wingate, dressed in his crisp gray-blue uniform and cap; his plump face twisted in a look of acid astonishment.

"So that's your girl friend," he said. "You and Crazy Cvec. Well, Iguess you're gettin' the best of the bargain at that."

"Now, l-listen you!" The clerk was scarlet-faced, tremulously furious. "You better not-go on and fill your inkwells! Clean out the spittoons!"

"Spect you're feeling pretty proud, hey, Charlie? Me, now I like 'em kind of ma-chure myself, and you sure got to admit old Crazy's matured. Hard to tell which stinks the ripest, her or the"

"Yah!" said Charlie desperately. "I guess you know, don't you? You know all about her, don't you, Mack?"

"Now, don't you worry, boy. I know a real love match when I see it, and I ain't gonna come between you."

"Dang you, Mack! You-" he searched wildly for some effective threat. "You-I'm warning you for the last time, Mack! No more cooking in your room. You do it just once more, and.."

Wingate belched, emanating an odor of day-old rolls and coffee. "But you're goin' to let me bake your weddin' cake, ain't you, Charlie? Or was you figurin' on Crazy pickin' one up from the garbage?"