The drunk scowled and tried to draw himself up straight. “I know it’s no good. Not one goddam good thing about it. It doesn’t lead any place. Oh, it’s all right when you’ve had everything else and hit the skids. Then you’ve got nothing to live for anyway.”

  “Like you, for instance,” the girl jeered.

  The drunk wasn’t offended. “That’s right,” he agreed, his voice thick. “Like me. For me that would have been just fine. I’d have been a stand-in for her if the guy had asked me. All he had to do was come to me and say, I’m gonna kill somebody, bud, and you want it to be you or this girl here? And I’d have said kill me, I’m no use for anything, let the girl live. She’s still got time to pull herself outa the mud.”

  “You liked Doris, huh?”

  He finished his drink before he answered. “Yeah, why not? Everybody liked Doris.”

  “For what she gave you?”

  The drunk glared. “You got me wrong, sister. I wasn’t interested in Doris for that. Oh, no. I was finished with all that, too— a long time ago. A…goddam…long…time…ago…”

  His voice trailed off sadly and he looked out into nowhere, humming to himself.

  2

  Brady was aware that somebody was standing in back of him. He turned quickly, to face a round-faced, smiling man.

  “Didn’t know this was where you relaxed,” the man said.

  Brady forced a grin. “There’s no sign up says only bums and columnists allowed.”

  The sleepy drunk on Brady’s right turned his head to look at them. Apparently what he saw displeased him. He grimaced disgustedly, then rose and departed.

  The round-faced man laughed. “People hate cops instinctively, I believe,” he said. “It isn’t natural not to, don’t you think so?”

  He sat down on the stool the fellow had vacated. He was a familiar figure in places such as Carrol’s, third-rate hotel lobbies, cheap beaneries, Salvation Army posts, the police stations and the night courts. It was all part of a job which he held down on the Gazette, a job writing a unique column, sponsored by a liberal-minded editor who saw it as a counterbalance to the dry rot of prosperity and happiness which papers have to ballyhoo in order to hold their advertising. “The Seamy Side” was the title of the column and it did an excellent job of presenting just that but Lowry, its author, took nothing secondhand. To fill the column with what he wanted in it he had to keep moving around.

  “I don’t think about it,” Brady said.

  Lowry caught the glance Brady threw in the blond young man’s direction.

  “Still I’d give something to get my hands on the guy who murdered her,” the young man was saying. “How could anybody have done such a thing? Strangled that lovely throat. My God, it was like a flower stem, so white, so graceful. It’s horrible.”

  “Young love,” Lowry muttered, hoping to draw Brady out.

  “Or the ravings of the kind of guys they get down in the psychopathic ward,” Brady said sourly. “You know, cry over a little white rabbit, then slit it open and cry some more.”

  Lowry raised his eyebrows. “Very scientific, Brady. Been reading Krafft-Ebing or something?”

  “No, I’ll leave the reading to you. I get to know a lot of the things you guys find in books and a lot more that you don’t.”

  “Good for you. I was always strong for that first-hand experience stuff, myself.”

  “For cryin’ out loud,” the girl was saying. “I didn’t know you were carrying the torch for her. She’d have laughed herself sick if she’d known it, I’ll bet.”

  “Wrong again,” the young man said. “Wrong on both counts. I only carried a torch once. I put it out in a barrel of corn. Since then beauty has been pure aesthetics with me.”

  “What’s that mean?” the girl asked suspiciously.

  Lowry couldn’t suppress a laugh. The girl knew he was laughing at her. She leaned over to glare at him.

  “You went to Harvard, I suppose, Mister,” she snapped, “but I still don’t like the way you’re laughing.”

  Lowry’s mirth grew uncontrollable. “As a matter of fact I did,” he said. “And I’ll try to laugh some other way.”

  The blond man wavered on his feet as he turned to face Lowry.

  “Hello, McKay,” Lowry said. “You’re pure poetry and philosophy tonight. I couldn’t help hearing you.”

  McKay grinned sheepishly. “Hiya Ned,” he said. “Nice knowing you’re around someplace. Old Faithful, the poor man’s friend. Gives a fellow a sense of security. You been making fun of this little lady by any chance?”

  Lowry laughed again. “Far be it from me,” he said. “I’ve no quarrel with the uneducated. On the contrary, I think it’s a blessing in disguise to be unable even to read. But laughing at her, good heavens, no.”

  “Then I’ve no faith in that sense of humor you’re famous for,” McKay said solemnly. “Because I tell you, Ned, this little lady, when you get to know her the way I do, is just about the funniest creature on God’s green earth.”

  “Is that so?” the girl snarled belligerently. Her light blue eyes sparkled with anger. “And what do you think you’re pullin’, smart guy? I don’t have to take anything like that from no stew bum like you.”

  With the back of her hand, she struck McKay on the cheek. He looked at her in bewilderment and then Carrol was at their side. He ignored Brady.

  “Outside, you,” he said to McKay.

  A new aspect of the situation seemed to dawn in McKay’s befogged eyes. From bewilderment he passed to a firm determination not to be the victim of an injustice.

  “I’ll stay right here,” he said boldly.

  “Like hell, you will,” Carrol said. There was a burly man behind him now who seemed to be placidly awaiting developments.

  Carrol put his hand out to grasp McKay’s collar. McKay swung from the hip and landed a lucky punch on Carrol’s jaw. Carrol went down. Somebody whooped with glee a little further down the bar. Carrol’s husky assistant moved in to grip with McKay. The barfly who had shown such pleasure when Carrol was hit now flung the contents of a glass into the bouncer’s eyes. Carrol’s man wiped the liquid from his face with his palm, then shifted his attack to his new source of trouble, forgetting McKay, who grasped the advantage and let him, too, have one from the hip. But Carrol was up now and rocked McKay with a blow that landed flush on his mouth, sending him to the floor. That should have ended it, serving as it did in place of the few more drinks that it would have taken to put McKay in the same position, but Carrol’s lieutenant had made a serious mistake in now ignoring the man who had flung the drink at him. That playful lad picked up a half-empty bottle from the bar and greeted his adversary, at close quarters, with a sharp crack on the skull. Then somebody took it into his head to feel sorry for the bouncer and clouted the temporary victor. In another minute all but a few men, the girls and Brady and Lowry were in the thick of it. Lowry and Brady stood close to the bar and watched what they could see of the brawl. Somebody yelled “he cut me” which indicated a more or less successful stabbing. Brady eased himself over to the door and returned in a few minutes with two patrolmen in black leather windbreakers. The latter looked more like a couple of seedy building watchmen rather than cops on a big city force but they made up for the poor figures they cut with the zest with which they wielded their night sticks. A respect for the law, even if a little slow in coming, was restored and the two policemen took ten of the most troublesome in tow, just as the siren of the patrol wagon was heard outside.

  3

  Brady stooped down and yanked the unconscious McKay to his feet.

  “Take this one too,” he told the policemen.

  They shook McKay into wakefulness and supported by one of the cops, he staggered along, rolling his head from side to side as if it were attached to his neck by hinges. The police who had come with the wagon met them at the door.

  “That one was all right where he was,” Lowry said pointedly.

  “Which one?” Brady asked.

  “McKay, the one you reminded them to take along.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “In a way. I knew him before he went to pot.”

  “Can’t say much for your friends, Lowry.”

  They both started for the door.

  “You didn’t drop in just in the hope that you’d be in time for the brawl, did you Brady?” Lowry asked peculiarly.

  “No, but I don’t know why I’m telling you.”

  They walked down the street together.

  “You didn’t have to tell them to take that boy along,” Lowry said.

  Brady looked at him. “Say, what is this anyway? He belonged with the rest, didn’t he, and besides what’s it to you?”

  “He’s been having a tough time, for one thing.”

  “Cry about it in your column.”

  “For another, I have a feeling you wanted to take him in the first place, fight or no fight. Sometimes two men cross each other’s paths and you know right off the bat that one of them is going to bend over backwards to make the other one miserable. There’s no sense in it but it happens that way.”

  Brady’s eyes narrowed slightly. His square, fleshy jaw jutted out a little further.

  “Sometimes, maybe it’s a good thing it’s that way,” he said. “Some guys need to be made miserable.” He stopped abruptly and faced Lowry. “I got nothing against you, Lowry, but I’ve often asked why they let you run around loose all over headquarters. You’re not only too damn nosy, you’re a pest.”

  “Thanks, Brady,” Lowry said.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Brady walked away quickly and turned the corner. Lowry strolled slowly in the direction of the Gazette Building.

  * * *

  In Dumas on Wilshire Boulevard, sleekly groomed men and women ate their midnight suppers, drank costly liquors and listened to the orchestra’s smooth rendition of a South American tango. Half a dozen couples danced in the semi-darkness, the women with frozen smiles on their faces, the men intent upon the steps they were taking. One of the dancers, a fortyish, bullet-headed man, pulled his partner toward him at the same time that he took a long backward stride. The awkwardness with which he executed the step made the girl laugh. He quickly relapsed into a series of more modest maneuvers which, if they made the dance look less like the tango, at least offered some degree of security from disaster.

  “I was never much of a tango dancer,” he said.

  “You’re doing very nicely,” she said quickly, anxious to make him forget that she had laughed at his clumsiness.

  He held her closer, pressing his fingers into her bare back. He looked into her eyes and smiled, displaying a mouthful of large teeth. She returned the smile, putting a softness into her calm brown eyes, then she lowered the long black lashes as if the intensity of his gaze were too much for her.

  “You’re lovely, Terry,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said. It was easy this time to restrain the impulse to laugh. The remark, she thought, was as badly timed as his dancing but a verbal clown is never as comical as one who actually tumbles about the arena. She hadn’t trusted herself to think of a witty retort. The temptation to put a sting into it would have been too strong and besides a simple “thank you” smacked of the sincere modesty which she knew he looked for in her.

  He led her about in a small circle, holding her more tightly than was necessary. She hoped the music would stop soon.

  The orchestra let the number fade out on a series of soft measures. The man and the girl returned to their table. A waiter refilled their glasses and withdrew. They sat in silence. He opened his hand on the table and she put her own in it in a show of understanding. His eyes caressed her dark hair, the fine, even features, the soft bare shoulders.

  “I feel as if something big is happening to me, Terry,” he said. “I don’t know how to describe it. I suppose it would sound silly. I’m supposed to be the man of action, you know, the extrovert. Ask anybody if he’d believe Jack Colin was ever anything else?” He paused, put into his face what was meant to be a wistful look. “Sometimes people with dreams in their hearts, people who could have been poets if they hadn’t hidden their true natures from the eyes of the world, are forced into lives of action.”

  She forced herself to return the pressure of his hand.

  “I’ve found something in you, Terry,” he went on. “Something I’ve needed for a long time. It makes everything else look small by comparison.”

  Was it possible that anyone had ever swallowed a line like that, she wondered. Some must have. Those women who wouldn’t notice the shrewd lines around his eyes, the bullish neck, the loose, flabby mouth. Perhaps they had even liked him without having an axe to grind.

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  He rubbed her fingers with his own. Her hand was growing clammy from his perspiring palm. She saw him floundering for something with which to follow up.

  A thin, sallow man approached the table. Colin looked up at him and frowned. The man barely looked at the girl.

  “My God,” he said to Colin. “It’s a good thing there aren’t twice as many joints in this town or I’d have had some more places to look. Where you been all day?”

  “My partner, Mr. Rafael, Miss Stafford,” Colin said. He looked sternly at Rafael. “Meet Miss Stafford, Sam.”

  Rafael nodded quickly in Terry’s direction. Without waiting to be asked, he yanked a chair over from the next table and sat down.

  “Look, Jack,” he said. “You didn’t say you’d be out all day. That’s all right but at least you could have called up. I been in a spot and I didn’t know what to do. Michaels—he’s still waiting. He swears he’s gonna tear up Shayne’s contract and the hell with it if he doesn’t sign right away. I knew you’d want to hold out but hell, fifteen hundred a week ain’t beans and Shayne ain’t as hot as he thinks he is anymore. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Terry watched Colin’s face grow hard. “I couldn’t get back today. I don’t want to talk business now, if you don’t mind. I’ll see you in the morning, Sam.”

  Rafael looked from Colin to the girl and back.

  “Can that, will you Jack?” he pleaded. “The lady will excuse you.” A wave of resentment made Terry flush as she caught the slur in ‘the lady.’ “I tell you Michaels means it. He won’t wait till tomorrow.”

  Colin shook his head impatiently. “Please forgive this unwelcome interlude, Terry,” he said pompously. “It’s the price one must pay.” He turned to Rafael. “All right, Sam. Go to Michaels. Tell him if he won’t renew Shayne’s contract at two thousand, he can go to hell. Tell him I said so and tell him that Apex’ll be goddam glad to pay it. You must be an awful sap letting a guy like Michaels put it over on you. He knows damn well Shayne is worth two thousand to any studio in town.”

  Rafael looked dubious. “You really think it’ll work, Jack? I’m not so sure.”

  “You’re not sure! What do you know about it? Letting Michaels pull stuff like that! Who the hell’s he think he’s fooling around with?”

  Rafael rose to go. “I hope you’re right, Jack. I’ll see you in the morning.” A pasty grin spread over his face as he turned to Terry. “Good night Miss—or—”

  “Stafford,” Terry said shortly.

  “Glad to have met you.”

  Terry saw him smirk at Colin as he turned to leave.

  When Rafael was gone, Colin finished his drink. It restored him quickly to his former mood.

  “It’s as I was saying, Terry,” he said. “Sometimes men have dreams in their hearts but the world won’t let them bring those dreams to beautiful life. A man’s soul doesn’t really belong to him then.”

  Terry took a cigarette from the pack on the table. Colin held a match to it. With her other hand she held her glass. That left neither hand free for him to dampen with his moist paws.

  “I understand, Jack,” she said mechanically, feeling strangely stupid and uncertain that she could carry on with the game.

  “I knew you would, my dear,” Colin continued. “There’s something fine about you that’s different. You can see things like that where others can’t.”

  4

  She wished she could bring things to a head, ask for what she wanted and get it over with one way or another. But would it be wise to throw a wrench into the machinery now by dragging sordid materialism into the spirituality he was parading?

  He looked vaguely about the half dark room and seemed to decide he could develop his mood no further in that atmosphere.

  “Shall we go?” he asked suddenly.

  She nodded her head in a way that told him his every wish was her command. They stepped out into the night. A sedan was waiting, a huge, black car half a block long. The chauffeur came scuttling out to open the door for her, and she slid lithely into the roomy back, nestling into a corner of the wide seat and staring straight forward at the black, sleek hair of the chauffeur.

  Colin moved in close to her side. He slipped a hand possessively round her waist.

  “You’re so lovely, Terry,” he murmured.

  She forced herself not to blurt out, Don’t you know you said that a little while ago? Instead she forced herself to smile, hoping he’d let it go at that.

  He didn’t. He moved closer to her, practically flattening her against the side of the car, and he pressed his rubbery lips on her mouth. At first her head moved back instinctively, then, fearing he would notice, she remained passively inert. She did not want to offend Colin.

  His lips clung to hers. His hand roamed upward from her waist to her bare back, then began to wander past her left side until the groping fingers just barely touched the curve of her breast. She felt sharp inner disgust at the contact, but she did not remove the hand, nor did she give any hint of welcoming the caress.

  After a moment that threatened to be prolonged forever, he removed his lips from hers, let the hand drop from her breast, and sighed deeply. She said nothing. He drew his features into the melancholy, faintly ridiculous expression which she knew was the precursor of more talk about his soul.