“Learn not to expect anything of them, friend. You learn that, you’re all right. You expect nothing of a woman, that’s what you’ll get. You won’t be let down.”

  Henry got up. The pigeons fluttered out of his way and settled back on the popcorn.

  “Take it easy, friend. You have to scare my pigeons?”

  Henry glanced at the stout man over his shoulder as he crossed the grassy patch to the drive.

  The stout man was standing up, trying to soothe the frightened pigeons.

  That slug, Henry thought. If I can find that slug.

  He heard the sound of a motor being gunned, hard. He jerked his head around. He was just stepping out on the drive when he saw the car leap away from the kerb inside the park and start towards him.

  He started on across the street. The car was coming too fast! He saw he wasn’t going to be able to make it.

  Quickly, he turned back, moving to get away from the oncoming car.

  He leaped as far as he could on to the grass, trying to dodge. He saw two things that were burned into his mind: there was a woman at the wheel. Her eyes were fixed on him. The man beside her was yelling directions at her. Was he teaching her to drive? Was he telling her to swerve up over the kerb?

  The right front wheels came up over the kerb. Henry went scrambling back across the grass towards the bench.

  He could hear the car roaring behind him. They weren’t going to let him get away. They were going to run him down.

  * * *

  The pigeons got airborne with a rusty whirring of wings. In a blur of movement, Henry saw the old man leap to his feet and run across the walk. He grabbed Henry by both arms and pulled him towards the bench.

  At the last possible moment the big car wheeled back on the drive, bumping and clattering off the kerb. The woman driver pressed on the gas pedal and raced towards the park exit.

  Henry was still on his knees. He tried to twist around and scramble to his feet. But the stout man was holding him and trying to lift him. By the time Henry shook himself free, the car was gone. He swore.

  “What’s the idea of holding me like that?” he rasped. “I wanted to get that licence number.”

  “She damn near ran over you,” the stout man said.

  “She damn near did,” Henry said. “And I wanted her number.”

  “Gosh, friend. I’m sorry. Gettin’ her licence number just never occurred to me. Guess when you get old like me, your reflexes aren’t so good any more. You sure moved fast, friend. Nothing wrong with your reflexes.”

  “Okay.” Henry said. “Okay.”

  He turned and started across the grass again. The man said, “Friend.”

  “What?”

  “I can tell you one thing. That licence. It was white. Blue letters on it, I think. Or green.”

  Henry tried to control the jittery nerves in his stomach. “All right,” he said. He started away again.

  “Friend.”

  He jerked his head around. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t want nothing, friend. I was just thinking. You’d be a lot safer if you kept to the sidewalks.”

  Henry exhaled a long frustrated breath, re-crossed the grassy turf and strode along the sidewalk. He looked down at himself. The knees of his trousers were mud brown and grass green. And that was just how he felt inside. He’d have to go home now. No matter what Lila thought when he told her he’d lost his job, he’d had enough for one day.

  He saw a Wise Owl Drugstore over on the corner of Quincy Park Drive and Eighth Street. He crossed the busy avenue, went into the air-conditioned drugstore.

  In a phone booth he sat on the slab that had never been meant for comfort. But for the moment he wasn’t looking for comfort.

  He thumbed through the Richmont Phone Directory to the W’s. He ran his fingers along the columns until he came to the Wilsons. He remembered that he and Lila had counted them once just for the hell of it. Counting the Wilsons who spelled their name with two l’s, there were almost a hundred of them. There were four Henry Wilsons. There were three Henry Willsons.

  He sat and stared at the pay phone. Somebody wanted to kill him, or they wanted to kill another guy named Henry Wilson and they had their lines crossed. But bad.

  He swallowed. They were watching him. They’d seen him go in the park, watched him when he tried to leave it. They were probably watching him now.

  He took a gander through the window of the phone booth. There were a few customers, clerks. Nobody was looking towards him.

  It seemed to Henry that the best thing he could do was find the right Henry Wilson. He had to get these people off his back, he had to have his job, he had to save his own life.

  He looked again at the names of the four other Henry Wilsons. Would it do any good to call this time of day? If he did call what would he say? Do you know a homicidal maniac named Sammy? Were you ever in a California prison?

  He felt ill. There was only the slimmest chance he’d find the man he wanted, and nobody was going to talk in such a serious situation.

  He took a small pad from his inside pocket, copied out the addresses of the other Henry Wilsons. He didn’t feel any better. He replaced the pad and stood up. The place was air-conditioned, but he was wet with sweat—chilled sweat.

  Henry got off his bus at the corner of Bailey Boulevard and started slowly along Oak Street. Nothing had changed much. The blind man and his dog were still in the sun. A slatternly looking woman had come out and was sitting in a straight chair and talking at him steadily.

  Henry could see his own house down the block: the small patch of lawn, the dinky porch; inside were the five rooms. The thing that made that house different and beautiful was Lila. He thought that every afternoon. Only now it wasn’t afternoon. And he was bringing home trouble, like two pork chops wrapped in a neat little package.

  He’d tell her about it. That for sure. There was no use lying, or delaying, or misrepresenting anything. He’d change his clothes and then he’d go out looking for the slug-faced man.

  He wouldn’t tell her about that.

  He went up the steps, noticing the loose board on the porch. He’d been meaning to fix that. Well, now he had plenty of time.

  He called, “Honey.”

  There wasn’t any answer. In the street a car drove by lazily. Somewhere a housewife was running a vacuum. He found his key and unlocked the door.

  The house was immaculate. He walked into the front room. Everything looked polished and bright for Captain’s inspection. He peered into the bedrooms, and things were furbished in there, too. He smiled. He’d have to give her a “well done.”

  “Lila. Honey?”

  She must have used polish to make the bathroom gleam like that. She always said all she ever wanted was a house and she’d keep it like a house was supposed to be.

  He stopped in the kitchen doorway. The feeling that something was wrong went all through him. Where was she? At neighbours? The store? What did he know about where she spent her mornings? Or the whole day as far as that was concerned?

  Suddenly, the way the house looked so polished and clean didn’t seem so impressive. She worked like hell, polished everything and went out somewhere. Where? Then she’d get home in the afternoon in time to have dinner ready.

  He felt weak in the region of his heart. Doubt was eating at him like a tumour. He cursed himself. He had to cut it out. What reason had he to believe wrong of Lila? Why should he stand there in that doorway and be sure there was anything wrong?

  His gaze moved to the kitchen table and he knew what was wrong. In the spotless kitchen they stood out like crazy. Two cocktail glasses. Still half a drink in the bottom of one of them. Lila. She drank only to be sociable. She never finished a drink in her life.

  He stood and stared at those two glasses. Light got lodged in them through the window, or maybe his eyes blurred over. Anyway, it was as if those glasses winked at him. They were like two harlots in a bawdy house window.

  CHAPTER VI

  Henry told himself to calm down. But that was another one of those little things that was easier to tell yourself to do than to do.

  He walked over to the table and looked down at those glasses in that spotless kitchen—those winking, dirty, rotten, filthy glasses. He picked one up, the one that was empty. He held it and looked at it as though it could speak, tell him what he wanted to know.

  Where was Lila?

  He shook his head. He picked up both glasses, carried them over to the sink and washed them out. He let the water run on them a long time, and then he rinsed them. He found a dishcloth and dried the glasses until they shone. Then he put them away. He admitted it: he was doing anything that would keep him from thinking.

  He didn’t want to think. It was very easy to say that she was at a neighbour’s house and that she’d be back soon. But then, it was also easy to see the line in that letter: she calls herself Lila now, eh, Henry?

  Where was she?

  He was terrified, with a horror stronger than anything he’d ever known. He knew that he could not stand to let her go, no matter what she was, who she was, or what she had done, he could never let her go.

  He breathed in deeply, and felt better because he had thought that. It helped. It made everything better. It was like laying out the battle lines and getting everything all squared away.

  He looked around the room. His mind was ready for the Captain’s Inspection now. It was clear. He didn’t give a damn what she’d ever done—she’d been seven kinds of an angel since he’d known her. What had he ever done but doubt her? He cursed. Hadn’t he thought the worse, the minute he walked in here and saw those glasses?

  He felt that twitch in his diaphragm. The hell with that. She could explain that. It would have a simple, ordinary, everyday explanation. A neighbour’s wife. Anybody. The milkman. The thing was that she would explain it. And he wasn’t going to hound her about it. He wouldn’t mention it unless she did. It was time he started trusting her. He was in trouble. If he didn’t have her with him all the way, nothing was worth the effort. Then he might as well pick up the marbles.

  So there was only one thing to do, wait until Lila came home so he could ask her about the glasses. No. Wait until she came home to find out where she went mornings.

  Oh, God, he thought, help me. Make me know I can trust her as much as I love her. It isn’t that I’m crazy, or mean, or even neurotic. It’s just that I still don’t see how an angel could love a character like me.

  That brought him back to the fact that he still had no job, he had not found out who Sammy was, or whom this letter was intended for.

  He went through the house again, making up his mind to go out to look for the slug who’d hit him that morning. That was the important thing. When he came back home, Lila would be there.

  Wasn’t she always home when he got there? At least, hadn’t she been, until now? But hadn’t the world been a sane place until now?

  He ran from the house, like a man trying to escape something. In this case, the something Henry was trying to escape was his own thoughts.

  He stopped at the walk and looked back at the house. He felt a physical ache of loneliness and wrong. He had to get things back as they were and nobody could help him but himself.

  He walked down to the boulevard and waited for a downtown bus. The very world felt strange. The air was too cold, and the sun on him was too hot. It made him sweaty and uncomfortable. And God help him, he couldn’t escape the thought that somebody was watching him.

  The back of his neck ached and he wanted to wheel around and look. But he forced himself to stand without moving until the bus came.

  The place he knew best was the Kit-Kat Club. For him it was the border between the world he’d always known and the strange jungle world infested by men in sharp-tailored, cream-coloured suits.

  The Kit-Kat was closed at noon. It was strictly a supper and show club, and didn’t cater to the beer trade that the other joints along Market Avenue picked up during the day. Henry stood for a moment on the walk and looked up the unlighted neons. They looked anaemic in the sunlight.

  A boy was watching him from the shoe-shine stand beside the entrance to the Kit-Kat.

  “Shine, Mister Wilson?”

  Henry turned, remembering how many times he’d had his shoes shined while he waited for Lila. It was better than sitting inside the Kit-Kat. He nodded, and climbed up in the chair.

  “Haven’t seen you long time,” the boy said.

  Henry managed to smile. “That’s right,” he said. “My shoes really need a good shine.”

  The boy was working. “Always know where you can get a good shine. Mister Wilson. Yes, sir.”

  Henry sighed. This was what you got for being a good customer, a steady citizen. He leaned forward while the boy worked. “Buzz,” he said, “I’m looking for somebody.”

  There was an almost imperceptible miss in the rhythm of the boy’s cloth. “Yes, sir?” He cleared his throat. “Everything is all right with you and Miss Lila?”

  “Yes,” Henry said. “Yes, fine.”

  This was wonderful, he thought. He wondered how many men Buzz had seen who had married girls from this dump, and then come down here, alone and frantic, in the hot noon, looking for them?

  “That’s nice.”

  “The guy I’m looking for might hang around here.”

  “Oh.”

  Again Henry was sure he could read Buzz’s thoughts. Henry’s wife had a lover down here. That happened all the time, too. Not to us, Henry thought, his fists clenched. Not to Lila and me.

  He said, “This hasn’t anything to do with Lila and me.” He thought quickly, “No. This is some veteran’s business. I’m in Accounting at the VA office, you know.”

  “Oh.” Buzz didn’t sound convinced. “What’s the gee’s name?”

  There, Henry thought, was proof of the foolishness of lying.

  He’d have to invent a name, that was all. He’d started this ridiculous lie, and he couldn’t back out of it. The VA never sent you out looking for a vet without supplying his name.

  With a million names in the world, why was it so hard to hit on one. He said, “Muggert.” That was a dilly of a name. “His name is Fred Muggert.”

  He could feel the chill between him and Buzz. “Don’t know the name, Mr. Wilson.”

  “Maybe if I describe him to you.”

  “Maybe.”

  He told Buzz how tall the man was, and how white his face was, and how dead his eyes were, how tailored his suit was. He finished lamely, because he knew Buzz had seen dozens of men like that right here in front of the Kit-Kat.

  “Know something else about him?” Buzz said. “How he walks, or the way he talks, or anything?”

  Henry shook his head. He was a good customer and Buzz wanted to help him. But Henry knew there was no way. He had to find the slug himself, alone.

  He paid Buzz, tipped him heavily and walked down Market Avenue, feeling Buzz’s eyes on him. Buzz’s worried eyes.

  * * *

  Henry looked around at the scabby buildings. He had forgotten that in a town as wealthy as John Quincy Bailey’s Richmont there could be such squalor, such poverty.

  He had been in a dozen bars along Market. At Twenty-third, he turned right because there were more bars down there. The bartenders looked up and smiled when he walked in. But when he looked around and didn’t buy, the smile faded and some of them asked sarcastically, “You looking for someone, friend? We also sell beer.”

  Henry was tired. He knew that the slug might be asleep in any of these cheap flophouses. He might be anywhere.

  But it never occurred to Henry to stop looking. A man like the slug couldn’t stand loneliness. Sooner or later, he’d come out, looking for company. And when he did? What?

  Henry felt more tired than ever.

  In the afternoon, these streets were quieter. The shop owners stood out front and talked and watched Henry. They watched him pause before the dirt-smeared windows of Jose’s Mexican Restaurant and peer through the glass.

  Before Henry could move on, a beggar in a tattered army uniform stopped him. “Got a quarter. Buddy? Ex-service man. Buddy. Down on my luck.”

  Henry gave him a quarter. He moved on down the street, reached the tracks and the warehouses. He crossed the street then and started back along the other side.

  The B-girls were coming to work in the hot spots by the time he got back to Market Avenue. One of them smiled at him from the bar in Nicky’s Place.

  He went over to the bar. He sat down besides her and she ordered a champagne.

  She said, “What you doin’ down here, honey?”

  Henry looked at her. He was so tired that his legs felt bloodless when he took his weight off them.

  “I’m looking for somebody,” he said. He was too tired to think of any smart cracks.

  Something happened to her face. “You a cop?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m just a guy. I work for the VA. This guy I’m looking for—I might have something for him.”

  She was interested. She turned on the stool and wriggled nearer to him. Her dress hitched further along her thigh.

  “My name’s Rose,” she said. “What you got for this guy? He got some insurance of some kind that he didn’t collect?”

  Henry nodded. “Something like that.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Here we go again, Henry thought. “His name is Muggert,” he said, his voice tired and hopeless. He drank off his whisky straight. It was tasteless, emasculated. Hell, Henry thought, and this time I really need a drink.

  “Don’t know the name,” Rose said. “What’s he look like?”

  He described the man carefully this time. It would be a miracle if she knew him, but he was tired enough to need a miracle.

  Rose stopped smiling. “I know a guy like that,” she said. She looked at Henry narrowly. “Just one thing. Guy I know looks like that never was in the army. He wouldn’t have any VA insurance.”

  “Where does he live?” Henry said. He knew he was too excited. “Maybe he was in for a while and never told you —just long enough to start the account. If you’ll tell me where to find him...”