COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1956 by H. Vernor Dixon.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
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ONE
MORGAN O’KEEFE used the few dollars he could borrow to buy a Greyhound bus ticket from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He had sent an airmail letter to his New York agent a few days before, telling him where he was going. When he arrived at the Riverton Hotel a Western Union money order for $360, his latest royalty, minus commission, was waiting for him. He checked into the hotel, enjoyed a steak dinner, and dropped into a bar on Sutter Street for a couple of cold beers. There he got into an argument with an ex-Infantry officer and switched to bourbon highballs. Within an hour he was drinking the whisky straight and was well on his way.
Five days later he was broke. He pawned his only possessions, a suitcaseful of clothes and personal effects and a portable typewriter. He had no difficulty locating San Francisco’s Skid Row on Howard Street and patronized the saloons there, drinking cheap sherry and muscatel. On the tenth night of his drunk he was picked up sleeping in a doorway and wound up in the drunk tank with a dozen derelicts. He had no record in San Francisco and it was also obvious to the judge, in court the following morning, that Morgan was neither a vagrant nor a derelict. The judge let him go with the admonition that he stay away from Howard Street. “Your kind doesn’t belong there.” Morgan felt like laughing, but he controlled the impulse.
He made his way outside and came to a halt in the thin fog blanketing Kearny Street, wondering what to do. A uniformed policeman who had been in the courtroom followed him outside and leaned against the stone wall to watch him. The cop was curious. He had seen all kinds picked up on Howard Street, but never anyone quite like Morgan. He puffed lazily at a cigarette and appraised the other man.
Morgan was a tall man with good shoulders, but the frame of his body was so thin and wiry that he seemed almost weightless, in spite of his height. His straight brown hair, cut short and parted to the left of center, appeared to be graying at the temples. The effect, however, was caused not by gray hairs but by light yellow streaks acquired in the sun on the blazing white beaches of Southern California. His blue eyes were set deeply in a bony, angular face; the prominent, eaglelike ridge of his nose was sharply thin and skin was stretched tightly about the slight suggestion of a cleft in his chin. There were a few freckles high on his cheekbones. He seemed to be in his late thirties, but his eyes and mouth were tired and the lines etched deeply in his face were those of a man far beyond his years.
He was wearing a lightweight sport shirt open at the throat, a suede jacket that had been obviously and expensively tailored for him, beige gabardine slacks and Weejun moccasins stained dark cordovan. The jacket now was ripped at one shoulder. There was a rip in the left knee of his slacks, and the buttons had been ripped from the back pockets. His clothes were so soiled and wrinkled that he looked and smelled as if he had been crawling through a sewer.
The cop flipped his cigarette into the street, approached Morgan and tapped him on the shoulder. “Got any place to go, Mac?”
Morgan looked at him out of bloodshot eyes. At first he thought it was another arrest, but then noticed the cop’s open, even friendly, expression. He shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”
“I figured that. How long you been in town?”
“Ten days.”
“How long you been drunk?”
“Ten days.”
“Uh-huh. No dough?”
“No.”
“No dough and no place to go. And right now you need a place to go real bad or you’re gonna wind up screaming your brains out in a psycho ward. Is that the picture?”
“I can feel it coming on.”
“You look it, too. I know. I had a brother like you.”
Morgan said in a low voice, “If you know of anything—”
The cop rubbed his chin and said slowly, “Well, now, maybe I do. There are a couple of clinics for drunks, but all they’ll give you is a sedative shot and shove you along. Maybe you could get into the county hospital, but all you’ll get there’re the same sedatives and in a couple days you’ll be outside facing the screaming meemies and maybe on your way back to the tank. If that judge sees you again so soon you’ll get the full treatment—ninety days.”
“If you know—”
“Yeah. I’m telling you. There’s a gal here in town named Irene Wilson. Every once in a while she takes in a stray drunk and puts him back on his feet.”
Morgan’s lips twisted into a sour grimace. “A Bible thumper?”
The cop was amused. He chuckled and said, “Far from it, Mac. Don’t ask me why she does it. I don’t know. The main thing is, she does it and if you’re real lucky maybe she’ll take you in. It’s worth trying. Now, you go up here a couple blocks and catch the forty-one bus going west. Get off at Fillmore and Union and transfer to the twenty-two. That’ll take you to the top of the hill. That whole section in there is called Pacific Heights. Very ritzy. So you walk east down Pacific Street a block and a half. Her place is between Green and Buchanan. I don’t know the number, but it’s a big stone place set back from the sidewalk with a curved driveway in front and fancy white pillars at the entrance. Think you can find it?”
Morgan nodded. “I can try. Irene Wilson?”
“That’s right. You got bus fare?” Morgan shook his head. The cop sighed and handed him fifteen cents. “Okay. Better be on your way before you go to pieces. And good luck.”
The cop slapped him on the shoulder and walked away. Morgan stood indecisively a moment longer; then he started walking toward the bus line. There was a great scream within him, bubbling to burst forth into maniacal howls of despair. He kept the scream contained by walking stiffly, his elbows pressed tightly against his ribs. If he relaxed even the slightest degree he knew he would wind up in a strait-jacket.
He found the bus stop and boarded the first forty-one that came along. He sat far in the rear. Other passengers wrinkled their noses, stared at him with distaste and moved forward. He had the rear of the bus to himself. He missed the transfer point and had to walk back three blocks to Fillmore. It was then he realized that he had also forgotten to get a transfer. He looked up at the towering ridge of Pacific Heights. Some of the steepest streets in San Francisco climbed to its crest. The sidewalks angled up so sharply that they were made of concrete steps. Morgan’s heart sank. He doubted that he had the strength to make the climb. But it had to be attempted. His will to keep going was hanging by a last shred. Anything could snap it.
He started up the Fillmore Street hill, pacing himself by looking down and counting steps, afraid to look up, afraid that if he did he would never make it. He walked slowly, holding himself in tightly, perspiration heavy on his forehead and upper lip. His mouth and throat were so dry that his breath rattled in his lungs.
When he reached the top finally he had to lean against a telephone pole to keep from collapsing. Even that was dangerous. Too much rest and his eyes would close and he would sink down. He shoved himself
