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Good enough to go home to Cherry? Morey thought seriously of it for a second; but he
wasn't going to pretend he was wrong and certainly Cherry wasn't going to be willing to admit that
she was at fault.
Besides, Morey told himself grimly, she was undoubtedly asleep. That was an annoying thing
about Cherry at best: she never had any trouble getting to sleep. Didn't even use her quota of
sleeping tab-
lets, though Morey had spoken to her about it more than once. Of course, he reminded himself, he
had been so polite and tactful about it, as befits a newlywed, that very likely she hadn't even
understood that it was a complaint. Well, that would stop!
Man's man Morey Fry, wearing no collar ruff but his own, strode determinedly down the
streets of the Old Town.
"Hey, Joe, want a good time?"
Morey took one unbelieving look. "You again!" he roared.
The little man stared at him in genuine surprise. Then a faint glimmer of recognition
crossed his face. "Oh, yeah," he said. "This morning, huh?" He clucked commiseratingly. "Too bad
you wouldn't deal with me. Your wife was a lot smarten. Of course, you got me a little sore, Jack,
so naturally I had to raise the pnice a little bit."
"You skunk, you cheated my poor wife blind! You and I are going to the local station house
and talk this over."
The little man pursed his lips. "We are, huh?"
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Morey nodded vigorously. "Damn right! And let me tell you-" He stopped in the middle of a
threat as a large hand cupped around his shoulder.
The equally large man who owned the hand said, in a mild and cultured voice, "Is this
gentleman disturbing you, Sam?"
"Not so far," the little man conceded. "He might want to, though, so don't go away."
Morey wrenched his shoulder away. "Don't think you can strongarm me. I'm taking you to the
police."
Sam shook his head unbelievingly. "You mean you're going to call the law in on this?"
"I certainly am!"
Sam sighed regretfully. "What do you think of that, Walter? Treating his wife like that.
Such a nice lady, too."
"What are you talking about?" Morey demanded, stung on a peculiarly sensitive spot.
"I'm talking about your wife," Sam explained. "Of course, I'm not married myself. But it
seems to me that if I was, I wouldn't call the police when my wife was engaged in some kind of
criminal activity or other. No, sir, I'd try to settle it myself. Tell you what," he advised, "why
don't you talk this over with hen? Make her see the error of-"
"Wait a minute," Morey interrupted. "You mean you'd involve my wife in this thing?"
The man spread his hands helplessly. "It's not me that would in-
volve her, Buster," he said. "She already involved her own self. II takes two to make a crime, you
know. I sell, maybe; I won't deny it. But after all, I can't sell unless somebody buys, can I?"
Morey stared at him glumly. He glanced in quick speculation at the large-sized Walter; but
Walter was just as big as he'd remembered, so that took care of that. Violence was out; the police
were out; that left no really attractive way of capitalizing on the good lucl~ of running into the
man again.
Sam said, "Well, I'm glad to see that's off your mind. Now, returning to my original
question, Mac, how would you like a good time? You look like a smart fellow to me; you look like
you'd be kind of interested in a place I happen to know of down the block."
Morey said bitterly, "So you're a dive-steerer, too. A real talented man."
"I admit it," Sam agreed. "Stamp business is slow at night, in my experience. People have
their minds more on a good time. And, believe me, a good time is what I can show 'em. Take this
place I'n~ talking about, Uncle Piggotty's is the name of it, it's what I would call an unusual
kind of place. Wouldn't you say so, Walter?"
"Oh, I agree with you entirely," Walter rumbled.
But Morey was hardly listening. He said, "Uncle Piggotty's, yor say?"
"That's right," said Sam.
Morey frowned for a moment, digesting an idea. Uncle Piggotty'5 sounded like the place
Howland had been talking about back at th plant; it might be interesting, at that.
While he was making up his mind, Sam slipped an arm througi us on one side and Walter
amiably wrapped a big hand around th other. Morey found himself walking.
"You'll like it," Sam promised comfortably. "No hard feelings aboui this morning, sport?
Of course not. Once you get a look at Pig. gotty's, you'll get over your mad, anyhow. It's
something special. swear, on what they pay me for bringing in customers, I wouldn't dc it unless I
believed in it."
"Dance, Jack?" the hostess yelled oven the noise at the bar. Sh stepped back, lifted her
flounced skirts to ankle height and execute a tricky nine-step.
"My name is Morey," Morey yelled back. "And I don't want t' dance, thanks."
The hostess shrugged, frowned meaningfully at Sam and dancec away.
Sam flagged the bartender. "First round's on us," he explained tc
Morey. "Then we won't bother you any more. Unless you want us to, of course. Like the place?"
Morey hesitated, but Sam didn't wait. "Fine place," he yelled, and picked up the drink the
bartender left him. "See you around."
He and the big man were gone. Morey stared after them uncertainly, then gave it up. He was
here, anyhow; might as well at least have a drink. He ordered and looked around.
Uncle Piggotty's was a third-rate dive disguised to look, in parts of it at least, like
one of the exclusive upper-class country clubs. The bar, for instance, was treated to resemble the
clean lines of nailed wood; but underneath the surface treatment, Morey could detect the intricate
laminations of plyplastic. What at first glance appeared to be burlap hangings were in actuality
elaborately textured synthetics. And all through the bar the motif was carried out.
A floor show of sorts was going on, but nobody seemed to be paying much attention to it.
Morey, straining briefly to hear the master of ceremonies, gathered that the wit was on a more
than mildly vulgar level. There was a dispirited string of chorus beauties in long ruffled
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pantaloons and diaphanous tops; one of them, Morey was almost sure, was the hostess who had talked
to him just a few moments before.
Next to him a man was declaiming to a middle-aged woman: [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
