Some Came Running Read Online Free PDF

up right the hotel. Better yet, why don’t you just move on out here with us? We got plenty room.”
    “What!”
    “I said, move in with us.”
    “No,” Dave said sharply. “I mean thanks, Frank, but I’m all settled in here now. Anyway, I’m only in town for a week.”
    “Is that all?” the voice said. “You’ll wanta stay longer’n that. Anyway you could spend the week with us.”
    “No!” Dave said.
    “Well, all right,” the phone said. “But you’re sure welcome, Dave, you know that.”
    “Sure,” he said, “sure.”
    “I’ll pick you up at five-thirty.”
    “All right,” he said, vaguely feeling he had won a point.
    As soon as he had hung up, he began to think of all the things he could have said. He could have said sorry Frank I’ve got another dinner date tonight. Or he could have said not from the way you wrote to Francie you didn’t want to see me Frank. He hadn’t really won a point at all, about moving in, Frank had just donated him that to ensure the other.
    What he should have done was not accepted.
    Dave lit a cigarette. His hands were trembling. You wouldn’t think it would have bothered him that much. He smoked deeply. Gradually, it sorted itself all out.
    In the first exchange, he had come off a good bit less than second best. He hadn’t even finished. Even in his fondest hopes of success, he had not anticipated so much success that it would make Frank call him first. That was the first mistake. And was why Frank had called, of course, instead of waiting to be called. And then when he had him off balance, he hit him with this unexpected invitation to dinner. It stole the offensive right out from under him. And Dave had not only been outsmarted, but completely out-generaled, too.
    Suddenly, Dave laughed. It was a deep throaty laugh of sheer pleasure. By God, you had to hand it to the little son of a bitch. It was no fluke that he had run all the other jewelry stores in town out of business except two, and relegated these to the position of tolerated competitors. It had been so long since Dave had listened to that flat voice with its twanging nasal Midwest drawl with all the Gs so conspicuously missing. He had almost forgotten what it was like. The little lying cheating mean no-good bastard he thought happily and with a kind of tumultuous tight-lipped rancor. Maybe it was because Frank had always been the father in the family, from the time the old man had run off when Dave was in grade school. The authority. Maybe it was because it was Frank who had suggested—suggested? ordered!—him to run off with that carnival when he got that girl pregnant. He had given him five dollars. Five lousy dollars. Anyway the others never seemed to mean anything. And that included Francine; though he oughtn’t to say that, and felt guilty because he did. After all she’d done for him. But they none of them meant anything. One way or the other. Except Frank, he thought malevolently, the son of a bitch.
    Dave looked at his watch. It was silly for his hands to be trembling. He was glad he had saved back a clean, pressed pair of ODs and some clean shirts. He poured himself a quick drink and went to lay them out. At least, he had gotten out of moving in with them in their house.
    Who you kidding? he asked himself. He never had any intention of you moving in with them. What you should have said was sure I’ll pack and be right out. That would have scared the living daylights out of him. Agnes would flay him alive.
    When he had laid out the clothes, he walked back into the living room. But suddenly, he could no longer stand the thought of spending two and a half hours in this hotel room.
    Anyway, he was hungry. A guy should eat, shouldn’t he?
    He looked at the overcoat and decided not to take it. What he wanted was some cold air on him. It was far too hot in here, all of a sudden, and his face felt flushed. There was a beer tavern-restaurant half a block up the street toward the square, he