The victim Read Online Free PDF Page A

even more crowded than before, and noisy. There was another revivalist band on the corner, and the blare of the two joined confusingly above the other sounds. The lamps were yellowed, covered with flies and moths. On one of the paths an old man, sunburned, sinewy, in a linen cap, was shining shoes. The fountain ran with a green, leaden glint. Children in their underclothing waded and rolled in the spray, the parents looking on. Eyes seemed softer than by day, and larger, and gazed at one longer, as though in the dark heat some interspace of reserve had been crossed and strangers might approach one another with a kind of recognition. You looked and thought, at least, that you knew whom you had seen. Some such vague thing was in Leventhal's mind while he waited his turn at the drinking spout, when suddenly he had a feeling that he was not merely looked at but watched. Unless he was greatly mistaken a man was scrutinizing him, pacing slowly with him as the line moved. "He seems to know me," he thought. Or was the man merely lounging there, was he only a bystander? Instantly Leventhal became reserved, partly as a rebuff to his nerves, his busy imagination. But it was not imagination. When he stepped forward, the man moved, too, lowering his head as if to hide a grin at the thin-lipped formality of Leventhal's expression. There was no hint of amusement, however, in his eyes--he was now very close; they were derisive and harsh. "Who's this customer?" Leventhal said to himself. "An actor if I ever saw one. My God, my God, what kind of a fish is this? One of those guys who want you to think they can see to the bottom of your soul." He tried to stare him down, only now realizing how insolent he was. But the man did not go. He was taller than Leventhal but not nearly so burly; large-framed but not robust. "If he starts something," Leventhal thought, "I'll grab his right arm and pull him off balance... No, his left arm and pull towards my left; that's my stronger side. And when he's going down I'll give him a rabbit punch. But why should he start anything? There's no reason." He was squared and resolute; nevertheless there was a tremor in his arms, and during all of it he felt that he himself was the cause of his agitation and suspicion, with his unreliable nerves. Then in astonishment he heard the stranger utter his name. "What, do you know me?" he asked loudly. "Do I? You're Leventhal, aren't you? Why shouldn't I know you? I thought you might not recognize me, though. We met only a few times, and I suppose I look a little different than I used to." "Oh, Allbee, isn't it? Allbee?" Leventhal said slowly, with gradual recognition. "Kirby Allbee. So you do recognize me?" "Well, I'll be damned," said Leventhal, but he said it rather indifferently. What if it were Kirby Allbee? And he certainly looked changed, but what of that? Just then several people in the line pushed against him. It was his turn at the spout and, as he took a swallow of the warm water, he looked sidewise at Allbee. The woman who had preceded him--she was painted heavily and looked like a chorus girl who had slipped out of the theater for a breath of air--was in Allbee's way, and while he was trying to step aside, caught in the circle around the spout, Leventhal walked off. He had never liked this Allbee, but he had never really thought much about him. How was it, then, that his name came to him so readily? He had a poor memory for names; still he saw the man and recognized him in a moment. "What a box, the mind," Leventhal thought with something approaching a smile. "You'd just as soon expect hair to grow in your hand as some of the things that come out of it." "Hey, wait!" Allbee was dodging through the crowd after him. "What does he want?" Leventhal irritably asked himself. "Wait, where are you going?" Leventhal did not answer. What business was it of his? "Are you going home?" "Yes, by and by," he said distantly. "Well, now you've found out that I still exist and