with the manicured hand that held the king-size cigarette. “But the general doesn’t like it. A little slumming is all right when it’s done in a group, but not alone. I understand Miss Cramer has been here unescorted.”
I felt the slow burn starting but I don’t think it showed. I inhaled cigar smoke. It was heavy, rich and quieted my first angry impulses. I managed to say quietly enough, “My compliments to the general on the work of his intelligence agents. I hadn’t thought of River House as a slum area.”
The major thought that one over, changing color slightly. I got the feeling of an imminent explosion. When I looked down at his hands, all I could see were knuckles.
He said, “Look, Broome. Maybe I’d better use your own language. You’ve been putting up a big front here, but I know your background. I’ve looked you up. Do you begin to understand?”
I said, “No. I wear a clean shirt and don’t swear in front of ladies. Doesn’t that make me a gentleman?”
“All right—crack wise. I’ve met a lot of men like you in my career. They’re as brittle as their pretensions.”
I said, “You’re making me some kind of threat and I don’t understand why.”
I understood why all right, but I needed time. I needed to stall him. We were going to have it out—that was why he was here. The general probably said, “Craddock, my daughter is getting interested in a bum from the brickyards who runs some kind of a saloon out on Brickyard Avenue. Go take care of this bum.”
The idea burned me, but under the burn it amused me a little, too. I wondered if the major still saluted the general. They were both out of the army but I would have bet they kept observing all the regulations.
“I’m not threatening you, Broome. I’m explaining a delicate situation. You are to discourage Anne’s coming here. The general won’t have it. Is that clear?”
I said, “You express yourself well, Major. If I don’t give Anne Cramer the cold shoulder hereafter—I’m in serious trouble?”
He leaned back, relaxed. I could see the beginning of contempt and amusement in his eyes.
“I’m glad you realize that, Broome. I thought we would meet on common ground. I understand you had some sort of military experience yourself. You know how these things are.”
I knew how they were. The army expected the corporal to be a better man than the private; and the majors and the bird-boys stood up in the officer’s mess when the man with the star on his collar came in late. There was a reason for it, and a good one. A chain of command, unquestioning obedience, so automatic that it became a natural way of life in wartime.
But this was not war—not yet—and I didn’t stand up any more in the presence of field grade or better. I was a citizen of a free and democratic country and it was now my privilege to tell Major Craddock where to go.
I leaned across the table, even as he was relaxing, and told him just that. “Major Craddock, you can go to hell.”
It might have been kinder to have hit him in the stomach. The result could have been no more startling. Craddock’s neck began to swell and the fine, oxford collar cut into it and left a thin line of white, bloodless flesh in the midst of all that red flush of anger.
He got up at once, as I had expected he would, and the MP in him made his hand reach out automatically to take hold of my shirt front. I knew the next move. He would drag me up close and belt me across the mouth with the back of his other hand. I could imagine his arm and shoulder tensing under the expensive suit, preparing for just that effort.
I pushed my chair back quickly and walked to the door and he followed me, as I knew he would. I stepped out into the graveled drive and when he reached for me I took the sap out of my hip pocket and let it lie there across the palm of my hand where he could see it. The sap is a leather pouch, weighted with shot, the handle short but flexible. There was once a leather wrist thong on it, but I had cut that off.
I said, “You’re bigger than I am, Major, and all things being equal you could beat me up. But all things are not equal, as you’ve just pointed out.” I hefted the sap. I said, “I’m my own bouncer and this is only in case two people give me trouble at once. You’re as big as two people. Were you thinking of giving me trouble?”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. He looked the situation over. He wasn’t afraid. I’m sure of that. He would have walked into me and taken the chance that I knew how to use that sap. But as angry as he was, there was a calculating glint in the depths of his squinted eyes. I couldn’t actually see it there, but I could sense it.
He said, “Broome, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were. I could understand your having a gun, but not that sap. They never issue licenses for those things. It’s a concealed weapon and you’re not a police officer, and you have threatened me. You’re in trouble, Broome.”
“Why don’t you go down to town, Major, and round up a couple of the boys in white helmets? Or don’t the boys in white helmets recognize your rank any more?”
It didn’t work. He said, “For a little while, Broome, I thought you might be going to be a problem. I overrated you. You’re not any problem at all, now.” He turned away and started across the gravel toward his car. It was a little satisfaction to me to see that I had guessed right about that—it was a fish-tail convertible, at least a five grand raytop, inelegantly. But that was about all the satisfaction that I did get from the incident.
I expected to hear from him again, but not quite the way it happened. The next I heard of him, Major Craddock was dead.
I went back into the barroom after Major Craddock had left. It was Saturday night, the big night of the week at River House. At the bar I told Armando to give me Black Label. I swallowed the drink down fast. He had the chaser ready but I shook my head and gave him back the empty shot glass and he filled it again. I never drink more than two in succession like that and although I wanted a third, I walked away from the bar without it.
My date with Anne Cramer was obviously off for tonight. And yet it didn’t seem reasonable to me that the general, or Major Craddock either, could dictate to Anne. I had not given much thought to her age, but it seemed quite apparent that she had been long enough out of school to be well-started down her twenties. She was a free agent, an adult. Wasn’t there a chance that she might ignore her father and come anyway?
As I moved around the room, never quite sure to whom I was speaking, I had one eye on the door. But Anne Cramer did not put in an appearance, nor did I see anything more of Major Craddock.
At closing time I walked with the last of the guests to the blue drive. When the parking lot was empty, I went back inside and got the cash deposit bag and went around to my own car. I gave the motor a half-minute to warm up, wondering if I was making a mistake to go down to the bank alone at this hour of the night. I wonder about it every Saturday night, though nothing has ever happened. Newburyport has a good and efficient police department.
I cut off Brickyard Avenue into Water Street and slowed to the legal limit. Prowl cars often cruised here. I saw a couple of drunks rolling home, and a girl too young for what she was doing leaned out from the curb and made an elaborate pick-up gesture. I grinned at her and went on, but when I stopped in front of the bank and went over to the bronze plate of the night depository she hurried along the street and stopped beside me.
“You look lonesome, honey,”
