Some Came Running Read Online Free PDF Page A

rest. The scoreboard, he thought. In another year, they’d take it down. Moved by a sudden impulse, he wanted suddenly to walk back up town and see if his name was on it, although he already knew it wasn’t. He had been drafted from Hollywood.
    Curious, wasn’t it? that though you’d lived in Hollywood eleven years you would still give your home address as Parkman, Illinois? That was the reason he had been discharged in Chicago.
    And so now he was here, who had never had any real intention of ever coming back. By a series of snap decisions made on the spur of the moment. And yet all leading in the same direction. Well, he would give it a week. It wasn’t worth any more than that.
    Suddenly, he grinned with a sly heavy levity. So Old Ned Roberts was cashier of the Second National Bank. Prissy little Old Ned.
    At the same time, he was wondering why he had ever convinced himself into coming back here. It would only make for unpleasantness, and basically he was not a man who liked unpleasantness.
    Well, a week was all he was going to give it.

Chapter 2
    H E SAT THERE FOR perhaps twenty minutes. Once he got up to go and mix himself another drink. Then he came back and watched the wet scene of the town from the window. What he planned to do was wait until he was sure Brother Frank had had plenty of time to find out the news. Then he was going to call him at the store. Right now the phones were probably ringing all over the town, or would be before long. He wanted to give Frank plenty of time to stew and worry over his reputation, the son of a bitch.
    That was what he planned. But when he finally got up again, just as he went across the room to mix himself a third drink, his own phone rang shrilly.
    It was so unexpected he jumped. Who in hell in Parkman, Illinois, would be calling him? He couldn’t think of a soul. He was so surprised as the phone continued ringing that he almost didn’t answer it.
    “Hello, Dave,” the voice said.
    “Who is this?”
    The phone laughed heartily in his hand. “He’s been away so long he don’t even recognize his own brother.”
    “Who, Frank?” There were, as a matter of fact, three other brothers, one in Milwaukee, one in New York, one in St Louis. The one in New York he had not even bothered to call when he was there.
    “You got any other brothers in Parkman?” the voice said.
    “No,” Dave said. “Well, what do you want?”
    “Why I just this minute found out you were in town.”
    “You did, hunh?”
    “Ned Roberts at the Second National called me.”
    “I just got in this afternoon,” Dave said.
    “But why didn’t you let us know ahead of time you were comin?”
    “I just decided to come on the spur of the moment.”
    “You could have called long distance,” the voice said.
    “I never thought about it.”
    “Yes, and that’s a fine way to act, after three years in Europe.”
    Dave could feel himself grinning a little, stiffly. “Well, I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me, Frank.”
    “Not want to see you!” the phone said. “Listen, what are you doin tonight? Why don’t you come out to the house for dinner?”
    “Well,” Dave said. “What for?”
    “We won’t have nothin special, because Agnes didn’t know you were comin, ” the phone said. “But you can take potluck with us. I know Agnes and little Dawn will be excited to see you.” There was a pause, “How about it?”
    “Well, Frank, I—”
    “Good,” the phone said. “I’ll pick you up.”
    “Goddam it, I can’t!” Dave burst out.
    “Nonsense! Why can’t you? Of course you can. I tell you what. It’s only three now. I can’t possibly get away from the store, but we close at five-thirty in winter. I’ll be over for you soon as we close.”
    Dave grinned. “I could just as easy come down past the store.”
    “No, no, I’ll pick you up. Don’t want you havin to walk in this weather.”
    “Oh, I don’t mind coming by the store at all, Frank.”
    “Won’t hear of it. Pick you