She came in laughing, with Loney’s arm around her waist, and said, “Hello, Champ,” to me.
I said, “Hello,” and shook hands with her.
I liked her, I guess, but I guess I was kind of afraid of her. I mean not only afraid of her on Loney’s account but in a different way. You know, like sometimes when you were a kid and you found yourself all alone in a strange neighborhood on the other side of town. There was nothing you could see to be downright afraid of but you kept halfway expecting something. It was something like that. She was awful pretty but there was something kind of wild-looking about her. I don’t mean wild-looking like some floozies you see; I mean almost like an animal, like she was always on the watch for something. It was like she was hungry. I mean just her eyes and maybe her mouth because you could not call her skinny or anything or fat either.
Loney got out a bottle of whisky and glasses and they had a drink. I stalled around for a few minutes just being polite and then said I guessed I was tired and I said good night to them and took my magazine upstairs to my room. Loney was beginning to tell her about his run-in with Pete Gonzalez when I went upstairs.
After I got undressed I tried to read but I kept worrying about Loney. It was this Mrs. Schiff that Pete made the
crack about in the afternoon. She was the wife of Big Jake
Schiff, the boss of our ward, and a lot of people must have
known about her running around with Loney on the side.
Anyhow Pete knew about it and he and Big Jake were
pretty good friends besides him now having something to
pay Loney back for. I wished Loney would cut it out. He
could have had a lot of other girls and Big Jake was no
body to have trouble with, even leaving aside the pull he
had down at the City Hall. Every time I tried to read I
would get to thinking things like that so finally I gave it up
and went to sleep pretty early, even for me.
That was a Monday. Tuesday night when I got home from the movies she was waiting in the vestibule. She had on a long coat but no hat, and she looked pretty excited.
“Where’s Loney?” she asked, not saying hello or anything.
“I don’t know. He didn’t say where he was going.”
“I’ve got to see him,” she said. “Haven’t you any idea where he’d be?”
“No, I don’t know where he is.”
“Do you think he’ll be late?”
I said, “I guess he usually is.”
She frowned at me and then she said, “I’ve got to see him. I’ll wait a little while anyhow.” So we went back to the dining-room.
She kept her coat on and began to walk around the room looking at things but without paying much attention to them. I asked her if she wanted a drink and she said, “Yes,” sort of absent-minded, but when I started to get it for her she took hold of the lapel of my coat and said, “Listen,
Eddie, will you tell me something? Honest to God?”
I said, “Sure,” feeling kind of embarrassed looking in her face like that, “if I can.”
“Is Loney really in love with me?”
That was a tough one. I could feel my face getting redder and redder. I wished the door would open and Loney would come in. I wished a fire would break out or something.
She jerked my lapel. “Is he?” . I said, “I guess so. I guess he is, all right.”
“Don’t you know?”
I said, “Sure, I know, but Loney don’t ever talk to me about things like that. Honest, he don’t.”
She bit her lip and turned her back on me. I was sweating. I spent as long a time as I could in the kitchen getting the whisky and things. When I went back in the dining-room she had sat down and was putting lip-stick on her mouth. I set the whisky down on the table beside her.