Street of No Return (13 page)

She reached out and her finger gently nudged his throat. "There," she said. "Right there. So you'll wind up with a busted phonograph. And that would really be the payoff, wouldn't it? Sharkey told us you're a famous singer, night clubs and radio and your records selling by the carloads. It figures you don't wanna lose all that."

He stared at the blackjack. It looked very efficient. It was definitely a capable tool in the hands of a professional.

"He looks sorta convinced," Chop said.

"I'll know when he tells me." She put her face close to the bloody, broken face and said, "Come on. Tell me. You gonna stay away from her? You swear on your life you'll stay away from her?"

He said to himself: All right now, Gene, enough is enough, you've taken too much already, you'll hafta give in, you'll hafta say it like they want you to say it.

The blackjack was waiting.

He said to the blackjack, "Well, you almost did it. But not quite."

"What's that?" Bertha said.

"It's no sale."

"That final?"

"Final."

And then he heard Chop saying, "My God." Saying it very slowly in an awed voice, and adding, "What these dumb bastards will do for a jane."

As he heard it, he saw the blackjack coming. It came like something alive, a gleaming black demon going for his throat. It smashed into his throat and he felt the destruction boiling in there, he could almost see the foaming bubbles of purple matter getting split apart.

The blackjack hit him again. And then again. Bertha swung it the fourth time but her aim was too high and the blackjack caught him on the side of the skull.

He went down, falling flat and then going out and way out. And in the instant before he went over the edge, he thought: Well, anyway, that's all for now.

Then it was late the next morning and some country boys played hookey from school and went out hunting for rabbits. At first they thought he was dead. But then he rolled his bulging eyes. He had to tell them with his eyes because he didn't have a voice.

He was in the hospital for nine weeks. There were times when they didn't think he'd make it. Too much traumatic shock, they said, and then of course there was the internal bleeding, the brain concussion, the complications resulting from an excess of broken bones. But the worst damage was in the throat. They said it was a "comminuted fracture of the larynx" and they told him it was urgent that he shouldn't try to talk.

When he was able to sit up, they gave him a pencil and a pad of paper so he could make his wants known to the nurses. One day the law came and wanted to know what happened and he wrote on the pad, "Can't remember."

"Come on," the law said. "Tell us who did it."

He shook his head. He pointed to what he'd written on the pad.

Next day the law tried again. But he wouldn't give them anything. He didn't want the law brought into it. He told himself he wasn't sore at anybody. The only thing he wanted was to see her again. He was certain that any day now, any hour, she'd be visiting the hospital. It had been a front-page story, so of course she knew all about it. And now that he was allowed to have visitors, she'd certainly be coming. With the pencil and paper he asked the nurses, "Did Celia phone?" They said no. He kept asking and they kept saying no. So then it began to hit him. Not even a phone call. Not even an inquiry as to how he was doing.

He'd sit there in the bed looking at the other visitors. His manager. Or the radio people. Or the nightclub people. They gabbed and chattered and he had no idea what they were saying. He'd stare past the blurred curtain of their faces and he'd think, Why? Why didn't she come to me? Why?

But he went on waiting. And hoping. Waking up each morning to start a day of looking at the white door and begging it to open and let her come in. Or handing the written question to the nurses. "Did she phone?" With his eyes pleading for a yes, and their faces sort of gloomy as they gave him a no.

Then it was the ninth week and one night he opened his eyes and looked up at the black ceiling. He had a feeling it was trying to tell him something. He didn't want to be told and he tried to go back to sleep. But he went on looking at the ceiling. And it seemed to be lowering, it was coming toward him, a huge black convincer, the business end of a blackjack so big that it blotted out everything else.

He spoke to it, saying without sound, All right, Mac. You win. I'm convinced.

As he said it, he could feel his spinal column turning to jelly. But it didn't bother him. In a way it was almost pleasant, really soothing and sort of cozy. On his face there was a lazy smile, just a trifle on the slap-happy side, and it stayed there as he fell asleep.

It was there in the morning when he heard the doctor saying, "You're going home today."

The smile widened. But not because he was glad to hear the news. It was just his way of saying, So what?

"I want to see you in a fewdays,"the doctor said.He was a very expensive throat specialist who'd been called in by the manager. He said, "You've made excellent progress and I'm reasonably sure you'll soon regain your voice."

So what? So who cares?

The doctor went on: "Of course, we mustn't be overly optimistic. I'll put it this way: It's a fairly good prognosis. About fifty-fifty. In all these cases the healing process is rather slow. There's a gradual thickening and induration of the vocal cords, resulting in subsequent ability to produce sound. A certain amount of hoarseness, and quite naturally the volume is decreased. What I'm getting at, Mr. Lindell, it's all a matter of hoping for the best. I mean--your singing career--"

He wasn't listening.

And although he kept his appointment with the doctor, and kept all the appointments in the weeks and months that followed, he paid very little attention to the healing campaign. He went to the doctor's office because there was no other place to go. It was costing a lot of money, but of course that didn't matter, for the simple reason that nothing mattered. His manager took him around to keep him in contact with the right names, the well-fed faces in the elegant offices of big-time show business, and they were very nice to him, very kind, very encouraging. They said he'd soon be up there again, making a sensational comeback. His reply was the lazy smile that said, Thanks a lot, but it's strictly from nowhere, I just don't give a damn.

They began to see that he didn't give a damn and gradually they lost interest in him. It took a longer time for the manager to lose interest, but when it happened it was definite. The manager said bluntly, "Look, Gene. I've tried. God knows I've tried. But I can't help a man who don't wanna be helped. It's plain as day that you don't really care."

A shrug. And the lazy smile.

"Well, I'm sorry, Gene. Fact is I got other clients need my attention. I'm afraid we gotta call it quits."

A slow nod. The lazy smile. The limp hand extended. His manager took it and patted him on the shoulder regretfully.

"Good luck, Gene."

As he walked out of the manager's office he passed a wall mirror and it showed him that his hair was turning white. But of course that didn't matter, either.

It was on the fourth floor, but he didn't take the elevator going down. For some reason the stairway seemed like a better idea. He walked down the stairs very slowly, enjoying the feeling of going down one step at a time, lower and lower, nice and easy, no effort at all.

One step at a time. He stopped going to the doctor. He started gambling. He was able to announce his bets in a very weak whisper. Then it became a louder whisper as the larynx continued to heal. And finally it was a cracked hoarse whisper that spoke every night at the dice tables or the card tables, with the lazy smile always there, the hair getting whiter, the eyes getting duller. And the cards and dice eating into his bank account, bringing it down from sixteen thousand to fourteen to eleven to eight and always going down. Some nights he'd get way ahead but he'd sit there and make stupid bets and manage to lose it all, and then more. One night it was five-card stud and he bet several thousand on his two pair against a very evident three queens. As he walked out with an empty wallet, he heard their comments drifting through the hail.

"Can't figure that one. He plays like he wants to lose."

"Sure. I've seen a lotta them that way. It's a certain condition they get in."

"Whaddya mean? What condition?"

"Like suicide. Doing it slow."

"Slow-motion suicide." And then, with a chuckle, "That's a new one."

"All right, ante up. Let's raise it a hundred."

He went back the next night and dropped another roll. It went on that way, and on one occasion he dropped fortyseven hundred dollars. The following day he walked into the bank and took out what was left. It amounted to a little over seven hundred. That afternoon he decided it was time to start with alcohol. He'd never tried alcohol, and he was curious as to what it would do.

It did plenty. It took him a few thousand feet above the rooftops, then dropped him with a thud, and the windup was an alley with a couple of muggers rolling him for every cent.

So then it had to be employment. He got a job washing dishes. But he wasn't thinking in terms of rent money or food money. He liked the idea of alcohol; it was a very pleasant beverage. He began spending most of his weekly earnings on whisky. As the months passed he needed more whisky, and more, and still more.

Going down. One step at a time.

He was fired from so many jobs that he lost count. He was picked up for drunkenness and tossed into cells where other booze hounds were sleeping it off. It reached the point that it always reaches when there isn't sufficient cash for whisky. He started to drink wine.

And from there it was only a few steps down to Skid Row.

On Skid Row it was a bed for fifty cents a night or any old floor where he happened to fall. Or else it was a free mattress in the alcoholic ward of whichever hospital had available space. No matter where it was, he'd be waking up at five-thirty and wanting more wine.

Twenty-nine cents for a bottle of muscatel. It was the outstanding value in the universe. There was no better way of killing time.

But sometimes he didn't have the twenty-nine cents, or any sum near it, and when that happened he'd go for anything that was offered. It might be homemade rotgut or something made from dandelions or ruined plums handed out free at the water-front fruit market. It might be the liquid flame that they sold in Chinatown for a dime a jar. They made it from rice and it was colorless and had no smell, but going down the throat it was relentless and when it hit the belly it was merciless. And then of course there was the canned heat, strained through a dirty rag or a chunk of stale bread. And the bay rum. And on one very thirsty night, a really difficult night, there was a long delightful drink from a bottle of shoe polish.

Through winter and summer and winter again.

Through all the gray Novembers of getting up early to distribute circulars door to door. It had to be that kind of job. It didn't take much thinking. It paid two dollars a day, and sometimes three dollars when the weather was bad and the pavements were icy. On some mornings the sign was out, "No Work Today" and if the sign stayed there for three days in succession it was a financial catastrophe; it meant a long cold wait in the soup lines.

And sometimes he'd go lower than the soup lines, much lower than that, lower than any graph could indicate.

He'd stand in a shadowed doorway with his palm out.

"Got a nickel, buddy?"

The cold stare. "What for?"

He'd always reply with the wary smile. "I'm kinda thirsty."

"Well, at least you're honest about it."

"That's right, mister." With the coin dropping into his palm. "It's the best policy."

But at other moments it was the worst policy and they'd look at him with disdain and disgust and walk away.

Or else they'd take the trouble to say, "Why don't you wise up?"

Or "Nothing doing. I don't give people money to poison themselves."

Or the sour voice of a blasphemer saying, "Tell you what. You go ask Jesus. He'll never fail you."

Then another Samaritan and another nickel. And finally, with fifteen cents in his hand, he'd go looking for Bones and Phfflips. They'd pool their resources and make a beeline for the nearest joint that sold the bottled ecstasy.

It was the only ecstasy they sought.

But every now and then the other kind would come his way, a Tenderloin slut just slumping along and looking for company. It would be like a meeting of two mongrels in the street, no preliminaries necessary. Her bleary eyes would say, I need it tonight, I need it something awful.

He'd look at the shapeless chunk of female wreckage. No matter who she was, she'd be shapeless. If she didn't weigh much, she'd be a string bean. If she carried a lot of poundage, her body would resemble a barrel. The women of Skid Row had lost their figures long ago, along with their hopes and their yearnings. But the juice was still there, and every now and then it churned and bubbled and they had to announce their gender.