“I’ve got to, right now,” Ned Beaumont said.
His voice made Jack look at him. Ned Beaumont’s face was an unhealthy yellowish grey. His eyes were muddy, red-rimmed, not sufficiently open to show any of the whites. His lips were dry and somewhat thicker than usual.
“Been up all night?” Jack asked.
“I got some sleep.”
“Unkdray?”
“Yes, but how about the gun?”
Jack swung his legs out from beneath the covers and down over the side of the bed. “Why don’t you get some sleep first? Then we can go after them. You’re in no shape now.”
Ned Beaumont said: “I’m going now.”
Jack said: “All right, but you’re wrong. You know they’re no babies. to go up against shaky. They mean it.”
“Where’s the gun?” Ned Beaumont asked.
Jack stood up and began to unbutton his pajama-coat.
Ned Beaumont said: “Give me the gun and get back in bed. I’m going.”
Jack fastened the button he had just unfastened and got into bed. “The gun’s in the top bureau-drawer,” he said. “There are extra cartridges. in there too if you want them.” He turned over on his side and shut his eyes.
Ned Beaumont found the pistol, put it in a hip-pocket, said, “See you later,” switched off the lights, and went out.
6
The Buckman was a square-built yellow apartment-building that filled most of the block it stood in. Inside, Ned Beaumont said he wanted to see Mr. Dewey. When asked for his name he said: “Ned Beaumont.”
Five minutes later he was walking away from an elevator down a long corridor towards an open door where Bernie Despain stood.
Despain was a small man, short and stringy, with a head too large for his body. The size of his head was exaggerated until it seemed a deformity by long thick fluffy waved hair. His face was swarthy, large-featured except for the eyes, and strongly lined across the forehead and down from nostrils past the mouth. He had a faintly reddish scar on one cheek. His blue suit was carefully pressed and he wore no jewelry.
He stood in the doorway, smiling sardonically, and said: “Good morning, Ned.”
Ned Beaumont said: “I want to talk to you, Bernie.”
“I guessed you did. As soon as they phoned your name up I said to myself: ‘I bet you he wants to talk to me.'”
Ned Beaumont said nothing. His yellow face was tight-lipped.
Despain’s smile became looser. He said: “Well, my boy, you don’t have to stand here. Come on in.” He stepped aside.
The door opened into a small vestibule. Through an opposite door that stood open Lee Wilshire and the man who had struck Ned Beaumont could be seen. They had stopped packing two traveling-bags to look at Ned Beaumont.
He went into the vestibule.
Despain followed him in, shut the corridor-door, and said: “The Kid’s kind of hasty and when you come up to me like that he thought maybe you were looking for trouble, see? I give him hell about it and maybe if you ask him he’ll apologize.”
The Kid said something in an undertone to Lee Wilshire, who was glaring at Ned Beaumont. She laughed a vicious little laugh and replied: “Yes, a sportsman to the last.”
Bernie Despain said: “Go right in, Mr. Beaumont. You’ve already met the folks, haven’t you?”
Ned Beaumont advanced into the room where Lee and the Kid were.
The Kid asked: “How’s the belly?”
Ned Beaumont did not say anything.
Bernie Despain exclaimed: “Jesus! For a guy that says he came up here to talk you’ve done less of it than anybody I ever heard of.”
“I want to talk to you,” Ned Beaumont said. “Do we have to have all these people around?”
“I do,” Despain replied. “You don’t. You can get away from them just by walking out and going about your own business.”
“I’ve got business here.”
“That’s right, there was something about money.” Despain grinned at the Kid. “Wasn’t there something about money, Kid?”
The Kid had moved to stand in the doorway through which Ned Beaumont had come into the room. “Something,” he said in a rasping voice, “but I forget what.”