Detour (3 page)

During this period I don't think I missed a day without asking her to marry me and make it permanent. I'd start in on it in the morning after breakfast, at lunch, at dinner between numbers at the club and in bed at night. Sue insisted she was every bit as much in love as I was, but that marriage is a serious step and people should never go into a thing like that until they were
sure.
I was sure all right; maybe she wasn't. Nevertheless, with all the cold water she threw on the idea, one night, after we had been living together for almost three months, she agreed to be the Mrs.

“I'm only doing it so that I can have a little peace,” she laughed. I laughed too when I wondered which way to take that.

It was early in the spring when I got fired for poking a customer in the jaw. I'm usually a very quiet guy, and I don't pick fights unless they're forced on me; but there were a lot of wiseacres who came into the Break O'Dawn stag, looking for whatever they could pick up. This one bird made a pass at Sue while she was on the floor doing her number. It wasn't much, really—all he did was pat her fanny—but it riled me, I saw red, hopped off the bandstand and let him have it. The management put him out, and when work was over Bellman came up and told me I was through. I expected him at least to give me two weeks' pay. All I got was the curl of his lip. That, naturally, was grounds for a beef to the Union. However, I didn't want to make trouble on account of Sue.

I was sorry to lose that job; not that the money was much, but because it meant not being able to work with her. As things turned out, though, it wouldn't have made much difference. Less than a month later she decided to go to Hollywood, on spec. A friend of hers kept writing that she was doing fine out there and how marvelous the sunshine was and how it never rained in Southern California; that was all the encouragement Sue needed.

“But we were supposed to get married next Monday!” I howled.

“We'll get married when I come back, Alex, huh? Or when you come out. Say, that's an idea. Why don't you come out, too?”

She knew very well why I couldn't come out. I had fourteen bucks left in the bank. So all I could do was kiss her good-bye and tell her to be sure to write at least once a week. She did, about a month later, enclosing a ten-dollar bill, which she said she was sure I could use. It came in very handy. She must have been a mind reader or psychic or something, because I just couldn't find work. No band seemed to be short on fiddles. I made the rounds six days a week, but summer is a bad season for everything in New York. Then one day I went to see a friend of mine who is an assistant program director at N.B.C. and he advised me to sleep mornings. I put the bee on him for twenty bucks and decided to follow Sue.

In a way, her leaving wasn't so bad, and I began to feel much better about things. It gave me an excuse to do what I'd always dreamed of doing: striking out to the west. When we were kids it was the Indians we wanted to hunt; now it's the movies. I know I'm probably the millionth guy to start out for the film capital, hoping to connect; but why shouldn't I be able to crash the racket? I'm not Heifetz or Kreisler, but I can handle a bow a lot better than Rubinoff, for instance, and I'm only twenty-nine and not bad looking. The only cockeyed feature about me is my nose, and that shouldn't prove such a handicap. I understand they can hook enough filters, portrait-attachments and jiggers to the camera to make Madame X look like Shirley Temple.

My only regret in starting for L.A. was my fiddle. Since the only way I could afford to cross the country was to bum it, I didn't need train or bus fare. But I'd have to eat, so into hock it went—along with the few pieces of furniture that were paid for, two suits and my working tux. That stuff I didn't mind pawning, but I'd need the violin to work. It was no Stradivarius, I'll grant you, but it could carry a tune with the best of them. As the professor always claimed, a true artist doesn't need an expensive instrument. He can get by with an old cigar-box and a couple of yards of cat-gut.

The going wasn't so bad in the east. I didn't have any trouble catching rides—except around Philadelphia, where you can catch about everything else—and all went along smoothly until I ran into tough luck in Dallas. My money was all gone and I was thrown in the jug for swiping some fruit off a stand. I'm no thief, but, boy, three days of penny candy can make a great difference in a fellow's scruples. The cops treated me mean, slapped me around plenty, took my picture and finger-prints; then they hauled me into court. When he heard the charges against me the judge smiled kind of wistfully. He was a benign sort, that judge; he looked like an owl, with his bald head and heavy spectacles.

“Another State
v.
Jean Valjean, eh?”

Maybe he had a notion I didn't know what he was talking about, but I'd seen that picture, too. The arresting officer evidently hadn't. “You must have the wrong case, Your Honor. This man is Alexander Roth.”

The judge didn't say anything for a moment, just sat there on the bench, peering at me through those milk-bottle lenses. Then he sighed wearily. “Thirty days,” he said. “When you get out, Roth, come back and see me. Next case.”

I thought it was a bum rap, but when I went back to see him he wrote me a letter of reference. That was nice of him, especially since he didn't mention that I'd served time. In the letter he called me a personal friend of his, I still had the thing in my valise.

The guy across the table from me was just finishing his dessert. I'd finished mine ten minutes before, He took a final slug of coffee and then wiped his lips with a napkin. As if that was some prearranged signal, the waiter approached, still wearing that sickly smile, and laid the check on the table, face down. I've often wondered why waiters do that. Is it because they don't want to spoil the customer's appetite?

“All set, Detroit?”

“Yes, sir. That certainly was grand of you to...”

“Forget it—forget it.”

“Oh, I can't do that. I'll bet there's not another man who'd have—”

He shut me up with a wave of the hand and, reaching into his inside pocket, took out a big black wallet. My heart almost stopped beating when I got a flash of that thick sheaf of twenties and tens. I'd never before seen a roll like that one, not even in the clubs. The sight of so much cash really got me, and I scarcely breathed while he was thumbing through it. I tried to look away—because I was afraid if he saw me watching him he might think I was getting ideas—but I just couldn't remove my eyes.

They say that money is nothing, that a buck is only a piece of paper crawling with germs, and that you can't buy happiness with cash. I say sour grapes. Name me one thing money can't buy. Respect? That's usually the first item people mention. Well, will you tell me who respects a guy
without
money? A guy that's starving, say, or on the bum? Go on the bum some time and find out how much respect you get. I know. Love? That's usually the next come-back. Brother, don't ever let anyone pull that one on you. You can win a woman a lot easier with a mink coat than with poetry and walks in the park. But what got me off on this?

The check couldn't have been more than two and a half, but Haskell paid it with a fin.

“Keep the change, Mac,” he told the waiter. I made up my mind that I must be riding with some kind of crook. No honest man would think of tipping a waiter like that.

The road from Lordsburg to Phoenix—U.S. 70—winds around an awful lot through mountain passes. The scenery is really beautiful, if you like mat sort of thing. I don't. Wilderness may be O.K. for animals and hermits, but give me cultivated lawns, buildings and people every time. When I was a young sprout I had an ambition to become a cowboy and roam the range, shooting rustlers and rescuing good-looking women. But I'm older and wiser now and I've learned there are more good-looking numbers to be had by riding around in a flashy car with a pocketful of chips.

While we were tearing around curves the sun was going down. The sky became a dull red, gradually growing darker as if it was cooling off which, as a matter of fact, it was. Somehow I wasn't at all nervous any more and I didn't keep wondering what would happen if we blew a tire or met a truck on a bend. I just leaned back, completely at ease puffing away on the cigar Haskell treated me to. If we had run off a cliff then, I'd have died feeling happy. Funny how little it actually takes to make a man contended. Why, if it had been Sue there alongside me, there would have been nothing more I could ask of the world.

Haskell was driving without his sunglasses and I noticed that his eyes looked sleepy. He was squinting a little and the lids drooped. The puffiness in his face had gone away, only now there were bags and pouches and his skin had a transparency about it. I could almost see clean through to his cheek-bones. The man looked unhealthy. “Want me to take over for a while, Mr. Haskell?”

He thought it over for a few seconds. “Well... think you can handle her all right?”

“Sure. I'll take it easy. You must be all fagged out, driving so long.”

Haskell covered a yawn. “I am, rather. Didn't get much sleep last night in El Paso. All right, Detroit. Wait until we come to the next gas station. Tank's almost empty, anyway.”

We swung into a Shell joint about twenty minutes later and two attendants rushed out, smiling the company smile—from ear to ear. An independent dealer will smile according to the amount of gas you buy, but these college graduates, most of them engineers, lawyers, bacteriologists, BA. and B.S. men
cum laude,
cheerfully wipe your windshield, put water in your radiator, check the headlights and battery, add air, clean the steering-wheel, and do everything else they can think of but give you a shave and a shine. Haskell broke out his roll again and handed me a twenty. It was definitely a thrill. I hadn't had that much dough in my hands for months.

“Tell them to fill her up and change the oil. I'm going in the back. Hey, Johnny,” he called to one of the attendants, “where is it?”

“You have to go out there to the shed, mister.”

“I hate this natural plumbing,” he said to me.

“I won't be long.”

When he came back I handed him his change. He counted it. “Let me see. You're giving me back sixteen twenty-two. That leaves three seventy-eight. That must have been twelve gallons at nineteen and six quarts at two-bits. Correct isn't it?” My jaw dropped wide open. Jimmy, this guy certainly was up on his arithmetic! What was he, anyway? A. C.P.A.? I knocked wood mentally that I hadn't tried to pocket a few dimes on the transaction.

He smiled when he saw the look on my face.

“Yes, I'm pretty good at figures, Detroit. I should be. I wrote sheet for seven years.”

That explained it. He was a bookie.

When we got going again, with me at the wheel, Haskell rode with his head resting against the back of the seat and his eyes closed. I hit a steady pace of fifty-five, which I decided was plenty in the dark with all those twists and turns. Not only that, it was getting a little foggy, and the headlights of approaching cars, even after they were dimmed, blinded me. Half the time I didn't even bother to strain my eyes to see ahead; I merely followed the line in the center of the road. After about an hour passed, and Haskell still rode in that same position, I thought he may be asleep. It startled me when he suddenly said, “Hey Detroit, have you got a stick of gum on you, by any chance?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Haskell, I haven't.”

“My mouth feels so dry,” he grunted, shifting his position an inch or so. “Guess my stomach is upset a little. No wonder, with all these lousy restaurant meals.”

“A shot of bi-car ought to fix you up, Mr. Haskell. What's the trouble? Didn't that steak go down right?”

“Oh, I don't know. I've been feeling this way all afternoon. My tongue feels like a wad of paper. And water doesn't seem to do much good I've had gallons.”

“How ill do you feel?” I asked, not that I gave a damn.

“Eh? Oh, I guess I'm all right.”

“Want to stop and see a doctor at the next town?”

“Hell, no,” he grumbled. “It's not that bad. I guess I can wait until we get to Los Angeles. We should be there tomorrow afternoon—or tomorrow night if we stop over some place. The trouble is there's no place of any size to stop at between here and the coast, except Phoenix. We ought to be in there pretty soon.”

“In about an hour, I guess. You want me to stop when we hit Phoenix?”

“No. Keep going.”

“O.K.”

That suited me down to the ground. If he decided to stop over somewhere, I could count on a night spent walking around or sleeping in the car.

“But if you pass a drug store anywhere along the line, stop. I want to buy some gum and put more iodine on these scratches. They sting like hell. There ought to be a law against women with sharp nails.”

I felt like saying that was what he got for playing around. However, I had sense enough to keep my mouth shut. What business was it of mine if he tried to manhandle some dame?

“I know how you must feel,” I remarked sympathetically. “I've been scratched like that lots of times myself. One time the gal I was sleeping with got so passionate she damned near ripped my back to pieces.”

Another of my lies. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. I hear women do get like that now and then; but never one that I had out. It sounded good, though.

“Well, it's the first time for me. And the last. God, females are unreasonable! One minute they love you and the next they're ready to tear your face to ribbons. Well, no woman can do that to me and expect me to forgive her. I put her out on her ear.”

“That's the stuff,” I said.

“I don't believe in babying them, like some men do. If they get out of line, slap them down. They'll respect you for it in the long run.” He paused and yawned. “Say, open that glove compartment and get out my cigarette-case, will you?”

I felt around in there until I pulled out the long, silver case, thin as a dime.

“Want me to light one for you, Mr. Haskell?”

He opened his eyes in a jiffy. “No, no. That's all right. I'll light it myself.”

He lit it and by the flare of the match I saw that his hands were trembling, although the night air was warm as toast. I figured he must have some sort of fever. I began praying he wouldn't ask me to put up the top and roll up the windows because I can't stand the smell of Egyptian tobacco. I don't mind it when I'm smoking it, understand; but when I'm not, it gets me in the stomach. A few drags on the cigarette, however, seemed to stop him shivering. He sat up.