but in the morning he told us. We weren't looking for you—for murder. I ain't doing anything about you kneeing that beat cop.... But I'll give you some free advice: don't ever get into trouble, not even a traffic ticket. Because I ain't doing anything about you kicking a cop doesn't mean we're forgetting it.”
“What was I supposed to do, let him bust my head open?” I asked, but the captain had walked away.
As it turned light outside, Ted, who had been smiling and handing out his cards as if he'd been elected mayor, told me, “Come on, Toussaint, I'll drive you home.”
I finally got my wallet and stuff, and outside as I got into his car I said, “Let's get coffee. I'm empty-hungry.”
“You haven't any shoes on.”
“I don't drink with my shoes,” I mumbled, full of tiredness.
Ted actually doubled up with stupid laughter.
10
WE STOPPED in a cafeteria on Eighty-sixth Street that was jumping with sleepy people drinking a fast cup of coffee before taking off for work. My stockinged feet didn't attract any attention, although the suit Kay got me should have been a crowd-stopper—it was made of a dark blue stiff material that simply hung on me. It was either a gag suit or custom made for a giant. The shot the doc had given me was wearing off, I was starting to feel pain, and very tired.
Ted was just the opposite. Although his eyes were bloodshot with strain and the bags under them dark as storm clouds, he was full of pep and on a talking jag. He was going to be in on the re- enacting of the McDonald capture, of course, and he kept chattering about what a break this was for his agency. After a couple of hot buttered bagels washed down with several glasses of orange juice and milk, I felt better; maybe the liquids were already replacing the blood I'd lost. But I was still blue and beat.
Ted dashed out and got the morning papers. I was all over the front page of most of them, even a small column in the Times. The News had a full-page picture of me standing in Steve's apartment, the busted window in the background. I looked out of this world—my clothes ripped and hanging in places, blood all over them and my shirt. My eyes seemed glassy, perhaps from the belt Steve gave me on the chin. Crazy the way a slim guy could punch like that. There were more pictures inside; of Kay, of Steve being led up the police-station steps, and one of Ted pointing to the recorder in the back of his car. Ted even had his coat open, showing his shoulder holster. I tried reading a few paragraphs and lost interest.
Ted read everything in a hoarse whisper, grunting with joy whenever his name was mentioned. He said, “I'm going to buy a couple dozen papers. This is worth a thousand bucks in advertising to me.”
“You couldn't buy it for ten times a grand. Tell me, Ted, are you going to stop wearing two-pants suits now?”
“What's wrong with this suit? Needs pressing but—”
“Nothing. It's a beautiful hunk of cloth. Let's blow. I need my beauty rest before facing the cameras. What do you know, suddenly I'm an actor.”
“Listen, Toussaint, we got some business talking to do.”
“I'm exhausted. Let's chatter while you drive me home.” I was too tired to be surprised at Ted's trying to hold me up for a day's pay, or whatever he wanted.
As we headed uptown, Ted chewing on a fresh cigar, he said, “I been thinking hard these last hours. You—we— have a good thing in these Madison Avenue buffs, a salting-money deal if we act smart and fast. Remember me telling you about this industrial stuff I'm going after? TV is an industry too, a big one. They must need private dicks on a thousand deals: spying on other networks, hush up scandals, keep track of a star's drinking, protect him—or her—from babes and con men—plenty of work. By acting smart I mean this: you have the “in” and I have the outfit. I'm offering you a partnership. Bailey and Moore. You get forty per cent. How's that, Toussaint?”
I shook my head. My eyes half closed with sleep, I was watching a TV show. Once more I was seeing Steve's apartment framed by the window, all the cockeyed furniture. Steve was “explaining” again why he killed Thomas. Kay was sitting there, calmly listening to him... agreeing with him. Cockeyed furniture, cockeyed sick people. Both of them talking like...
“I'm not chiseling you. I'd give you a straight fifty per cent only I am bringing in the equipment, a going agency, so seems to me I —”
I opened my eyes. “You can have it all, a hundred per cent, Ted. I'm throwing away my badge. I'll plug you to Kay. You'll be a cinch, the life of her parties.”
We were stopped for a light. Ted turned to stare at me, the strong cigar almost in my face. “Toussaint, you know what your mouth is saying?”
“They'll be making fun of you at the parties, but it means a big buck. Actually it isn't too hard to take or—”
“After years of starving in this racket, now you're giving it up?”
“Aha. Now. When for the first time I feel I know my stuff, would make a good investigator. Also give you Sid's weekend jobs too. Only time I want to hear about cops and detectives is in a novel or a movie, and maybe not even then. I've had it. Before I go to the studio today, I'm stopping at G.P.O. to tell Uncle Sam I'm one of his new mail carriers.”
“Toussaint, I figure we can't do less than ten thousand a year each, as a starter. You're wrong if you think you can go it alone or— You have something else working for you? Say, you ain't taking this acting stuff seriously?”
“Ted, I'm sick of phonies. I want to be a mailman and mind my own business. Let somebody else be waiting to collar a babe shoplifting because she hasn't money to buy the clothes she needs. I don't ever want to dun an old woman into paying up on some goddamn sink on which she was screwed from the word go. Most of all I'm sick of being around people busy stepping on each other's backs, turning in their own relatives for a job, murdering them to keep the job,” I said, seeing Kay again listening to Steve as if what he was telling her was normal, understandable; as if any job was worth what he did. “In short, I'm sick to death of playing in other people's dirt.”
“You lost blood, you're excited, tired. Tomorrow you'll think differently about—”
“No, Ted. Maybe this has been in the back of my noggin for a long time, without me knowing it. I'm finished as a dick. You did a lot for me, Ted, and I appreciate the chance you took. I mean that. But you don't need me for this Madison Avenue rat race. I'll talk to Kay, you'll be in solid.”
“If you do that, Toussaint, I'll never forget you. I'll take care of you at Christmas. I'll... you are going through with this acting business, ain't you?”
“Sure. I'll need the money to get straight. But that's it, the end of my being a badge. I'm tired. There was a farm outside Bingston. I'd like to just sit around that for a week, resting. No, no, that would drive me nuts. My stop is somewhere in the middle of the line.”
“You sure need sleep.”
We pulled up in front of the house—I hadn't seen the old dump in almost a week. It still looked like a dump, but such a friendly one. It really looked like home. Getting out of the car I shook Ted's hand, told him, “Thanks again. I hope this pays off big for you. Ask Kay for a good publicity man, get as much out of this hoopla as you can.”
“Hey, that's good. A publicity man—sure—easily worth a couple hundred to me. Kay will show me the ropes.... Suppose she won't be in her office till noon or so.”
“Strike while you're hot. She's working there right now; phone her. See you this afternoon, Ted.”
The apartment looked the same, as shabby and comfortable as ever. Neither Roy nor Ollie was in. I opened my studio bed, undressed. A shower was out—my body looked like a weird crossword puzzle, the patches of white tape and bandages against my brown. I couldn't recall when I was to see the doc again, made a note to phone him. It was a few minutes after eight thirty when I set the alarm for noon, fell into bed.
As if the bed was wired for sound, the second I touched the sheets the phone rang. I placed the phone on the floor, got back into bed, and picked up the receiver. It was Sybil. “Touie, I've just seen the papers.... My God!”
“Hello, Sybil honey. I was going to call you later. I'll be able to pay back your money by tonight.”
“Who mentioned money? Are you all right?”
“Tired—and busy. You mentioned money the last time I called you—from Kentucky. You mentioned it a lot.”
“Oh, I was angry, you mixed up in all this crazy business. I mean, I thought it was nutty.”
“But now that it has turned out okay, it wasn't crazy?” I asked, wondering how I'd tell her.
“Touie, I've called in sick, thinking you'd come here. What are you doing in your place? I want to talk to you.”
“I have a little talking to do, too. Look, I'm in bed and pretty beat—can you come over here?”
“You know how I feel about going to your place.”
“How do you feel?”
“Come on, Touie, I've told you a hundred times.”
“But you never told me why, the true-blue why. Why?”
“Touie, are you drunk?”
“Only groggy. Sybil, it's important you tell me why.”
“Really, you know how it looks. I mean I don't want Roy or Ollie to think I'm... You know.”
“They aren't here. Yeah, I know, but what I know isn't what you know,” I said, wondering if I was afraid to say what I was thinking. “Honey, if I take the P.O. job today, would you marry me and move in here?”
“Touie, what's got into you? Why on earth should we live there?”
“Sybil, I'm saying this a little mixed-up, but... Babe, we have different standards, always have had, I guess. You want to marry me not because I'm me but because I've suddenly become a double income, a new apartment, a new car—the Harlem social swindle, which is even sillier than the Park Avenue monkey cage. You've been holding out—”
“Touie, I don't know what you're saying. You sleep and then come over this afternoon and we'll talk.”
“I have to work
