You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up Read Online Free PDF Page B

watched me eat.
     
    "I like to cook," she said.
     
    I didn't say anything, just ate.
     
    "You know, I miss cooking for Block. He was a regular horse on food. He used to like breakfast in bed after we'd had a party."
     
    "You know the way to a man's heart," I said.
     
    She went out and I got dressed. When she came back she said, "I thought you'd like these."
     
    She had a toothbrush and some razor blades, and a newspaper.
     
    "You can use my razor," she said. "Put a new blade in it. You don't mind, do you?"
     
    I was thinking about the newspaper. I wanted to look at it, but I didn't dare. I wondered if she was wise. She didn't seem to be. While I was shaving, she shouted:
     
    "Listen to this, big boy. Right in the Jolly Time Parlor, they pinched a holdup man. That's the place where we were last night."
     
    I came out, still shaving, and looked at the paper over her shoulder.
     
    "That's right, so it was," I said.
     
    She gave me the paper and I read it. The guy I'd held up was dead. It said that Hernandez Felice, a Mexican, had been captured by the police, charged with the holdup and murder of Maurice Gottstein. It said how Felice had held him up and then shot him.
     
    How the police do cover up when they've pulled a boner! The cops themselves had shot the guy by mistake, but they wouldn't ever let that out. I couldn't have shot him. I didn't have any gun.
     
    But in the paper they had it how this Mexican had killed him, and how Gottstein was a brother of Mannie Gottstein, operator of concessions on the beach front.
     
    Then it said the holdup money of nearly ten thousand dollars had disappeared, but they were grilling Felice to make him tell what he'd done with it.
     
    That started me thinking about the bag up in the acacia tree. They hadn't found it, I thought. Or maybe they had and there was some city-slicking going on. I thought about that. Then I thought, Maybe they know this Felice didn't do it and they're just holding him to fool me. Maybe they know it is someone else. Maybe they have spotted the bag. Maybe they've taken the money out and left the bag there. Maybe they'll have someone watching the place night and day, waiting to see if anyone shows up to get the bag.
     
    It was all city-slicking from beginning to end. I couldn't make head or tail out of it. I couldn't figure why the Mex had taken that dive through the window. Whatever he did it for, it saved my skin.
     
    I went back and finished shaving, thinking all this over. When I was through Mamie looked me over.
     
    "You want to go down the beach?"
     
    "No, I think I'll stay in a while," I said.
     
    She looked at me and I b egan to wonder if she was wise— about me being leery of showing up on the streets.
     
    "I know why you won't go out," she said.
     
    "Oh, yes?" I said. "How come you know so much?"
     
    "Because I know men," she said. "Look, you wait here. I'll go out and get you a suit and a shirt and things. Then you'll look all right."
     
    She went out in the beach pajamas. She didn't ask me where I came from or why I was broke or anything. I was pretty leery of it all, I'll tell you. I thought maybe she'd gone to get the cops. But after what I'd been through I was too tired to beat it. I couldn't think of another week like I'd had.
     
    I stayed there and after a while Mamie showed up with a regular layout of new clothes for me.
     
    Patsy moved into an apartment of her own, but she came around to see us. I was still living with Mamie, because I didn't know what else to do.
     
    I didn't know what to do. I wanted to stay near San Diego, because I kept thinking I might hit on some way to get Dickie back. I knew Lois wouldn't move far away from Hollywood. She was crazy for Hollywood.
     
    And then, too, I kept thinking about this Mexican, Felice, and what they'd do to him. They were hanging a murder charge on his chin and really it wasn't him—nor even me. It was the police killed Gottstein.
     
    And then I kept thinking about the bag