Larry said: “That’s according to how you look at it.” He liked Alice. “I saw that fellow who’s married to the girl’s mother yesterday. You know, the tall fellow I met at your house.”
“Jorgensen?”
“That’s it. He was coming out of a pawnshop on Sixth Avenue near Forty-sixth .”
“Talk to him?”
“I was in a taxi. It’s probably polite to pretend you don’t see people coming out of pawnshops, anyhow.”
Tip said, “Sh-h-h,” in all directions, and Levi Oscant began to play the piano. Quinn and Dorothy arrived while he was playing. Quinn was drunk as a lord and Dorothy seemed to have something better than a glow.
She came over to me and whispered: “I want to leave when you and Nora do.”
I said: “You won’t be here for breakfast.”
Tip said, “Sh-h-h,” in my direction.
We listened to some more music.
Dorothy fidgeted beside me for a minute and whispered again: “Gil says you’re going over to sec Mamma later. Are you?”
“I doubt it.”
Quinn came unsteadily around to us. “How’re you, boy? How’re you, Nora? Give him my message?” (Tip said, “Sb-h-h,” at him. He paid no attention to her. Other people looked relieved and began to talk.) “Listen, boy, you bank at the Golden Gate Trust in San Francisco, don’t you?”
“Got a little money there.”
“Get it out, boy. I heard tonight they’re plenty shaky.”
“All right. I haven’t got much there, though.”
“No? What do you do with all your money?”
“Me and the French hoard gold.”
He shook his head solemnly. “It’s fellows like you that put the country on the bum.”
“And it’s fellows like me that don’t go on the bum with it,” I said. “Where’d you get the skinful?”
“It’s Alice. She’s been sulking for a week. If I didn’t drink I’d go crazy.”
“What’s she sulking about?”
“About my drinking. She thinks–” He leaned forward and lowered his voice confidentially. “Listen. You’re all my friends and I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to get a divorce and marry–”
He had tried to put an arm around Dorothy. She pushed it away and said: “You’re silly and you’re tiresome. I wish you’d leave me alone.”
“She thinks I’m silly and tiresome,” he told me. “You know why she don’t want to marry me? I bet you don’t. It’s because she’s in–”
“Shut up! Shut up, you drunken fool!” Dorothy began to beat his face with both hands. Her face was red, her voice shrill. “If you say that again I’ll kill you!”
I pulled Dorothy away from Quinn; Larry caught him, kept him from falling. He whimpered: “She hit me, Nick.” Tears ran down his cheeks.
Dorothy had her face against my coat and seemed to be crying.
We had what audience there was. Tip came running, her face bright with curiosity. “What is it, Nick?”
I said: “Just a couple of playful drunks. They’re all right. I’ll see that they get home all right.”
Tip was not for that: she wanted thcm to stay at least until she had a chance to discover what had happened. She urged Dorothy to lie down awhile, offered to get something—whatever she meant by that–for Quinn, who was having trouble standing up now.
Nora and I took them out, Larry offered to go along, but we decided that was not necessary. Quinn slept in a corner of the taxicab during the ride to his apartment, and Dorothy sat stiff arid silent in the other corner, with Nora between them. I clung to a folding seat and thought that anyway we had not stayed long at the Edges.
Nora and Dorothy remained in the taxicab while I took Quinn upstairs. He was pretty limp.
Alice opened the door when I rang. She had on green pyjamas and held a hairbrush in one hand. She looked wearily at Quinn and spoke wearily: “Bring it in.”
I took it in and spread it on a bed. It mumbled something I could not make out and moved one hand feebly back and forth, but its eyes stayed shut.
“I’ll tuck him in,” I said and loosened his tie.