see her around, and he had fled (alive and young as that young one) into the brightening street.
That had been the first time, and that had been last week. The second time had been a few days later, again on his way to work, and this time she had been sitting at the bar, and he had summoned up the nerve to sit beside her, making some kind of joke to which she had responded with delightful laughter. They had talked incessantly, for twenty minutes maybe, this second time, until she had to leave to return to her dentist and his drills.
For five successive days after that, he had come into the Walk Inn in search of Ruby Thomas, and she had not been there. At last, casually, he had inquired of Simon what had become of her, and Simon had explained that she had to take her coffee break earlier now, that she was usually in at three o’clock instead of three forty-five. And so two days ago, motivated by this intelligence, Otto Beggs had contrived his first small lie for Gertrude. His shift at the White House began at four o’clock, and he had been leaving for work as late as twenty-five or even twenty minutes to four. At lunch he had told Gertrude that his new shift began at three o’clock, an hour earlier, and he would be leaving around twenty minutes to three. Gertrude had thought nothing of it, except to worry that he would have an hour less to bone up for his real estate examinations. He had promised her that he would make up the lost reading time at night.
Thus two days ago, he had driven to the Walk Inn and found Ruby at the bar, as he had known that he would, and had sat beside her and enjoyed an entire half hour with her. By the end of this meeting, the best there had been yet, he had learned a good deal about Ruby Thomas. She had lived in Louisiana and Indiana, and was an only child. She had managed to have one year of high school before being forced to quit and help support her family. She had wanted to be educated, though, and had saved up for mail-order courses, and tried to take one a year. She had been a photographer’s model-“but when them white boys kept wantin’ me to pose in the way it ain’t fittin’ to be seen, in my altogether, I sorta got it in my cottonpickin’ haid they was wantin’ more than pitchers an’ I told them where to go”-and so she had quit. She had been quick to assure Beggs that she was no prude-“I got as much lovin’ naycher in my bones as any no’mal gals”-but she did not believe in mixing business with pleasure.
She had seen an advertisement in
Best of all, she had enjoyed listening to Beggs, enjoyed questioning him and listening to his lengthy answers, her wide almond eyes concentrating on his lips. She was curious about his life, his achievements, his work in the Secret Service. He had been able to talk to her more easily than he had talked to anyone in years. The latter years with Gertrude had dammed up his pride in himself, and now he was able to release what had been too long held back. He had told Ruby of his boyhood, of his athletic triumphs at Oregon State, of his war days in Korea, of his Medal of Honor, of his numerous jobs, of his years in the Secret Service. He had avoided telling her about his family. All he had recounted to Ruby Thomas, every minute detail, every anecdote, even to the contents of his beloved scrapbooks, impressed and awed her. “Dog my cats!” she would exclaim. “You really done that?” Above all, she held his work in high esteem. Where Gertrude considered a Secret Service agent as nothing more than an underpaid game warden, Ruby considered the role of guarding the President an honor next to the Presidency itself.
Only one truth marred their relationship, and it trailed doggedly after him, following their third meeting. She was black.
Otto Beggs had long taken pride in his tolerance. Sure, Negroes were different from white folk, they were lazier, less dependable, trickier, less smart, but hell, they weren’t to blame, because look what they came from; they came from Africa and from plantation slavery. He had not known any Negroes, except Solly, who ran interference for him on the football team in Oregon, and a few others in the Army, and he had liked them well enough. Of course, he didn’t like Prentiss too much, because Prentiss had got the job as assistant to the head of the White House Detail that had rightfully belonged to himself. Still, he could not hold that against Prentiss personally. It was not Prentiss’ doing. If anyone was to blame, it was Chief Gaynor. Beggs couldn’t prove it yet, but he was willing to bet money Gaynor intended to promote as many colored agents as he could, which was natural when you played politics. As to President Dilman, Beggs wasn’t definite about him. He didn’t like him in general, that was for certain. On the other hand, he could not say he disliked him entirely, either. What he did dislike was having to track around on the heels of a Negro. Beggs knew that he was smarter than Dilman, more courageous (as he had once proved), and had more personality, and yet, look what that lumpy politician was paid per annum and look what he was paid. And worst of all, for the lousy money he was getting, Beggs was pledged to lay his life on the line to protect that colored man. For one of Beggs’s stature, gifts, potential, it was demeaning. Imagine Dilman doing anything to deserve a Medal of Honor? Ha!
Without being able to define it, Beggs felt uncomfortable around Negro men, especially the ones in this cruddy neighborhood, which even his so-called friends, the Schearers, had now abandoned. About Negro women, however, his feelings were more lenient, although still confused. After all, he had loved Lena Horne in his youth, well, when he was younger. He had always liked to watch Negro women in the street from his bedroom window. The young ones carried themselves great. And their builds, they were built for heroic men. Sometimes, but not often, in his pre-Ruby days, he had entertained wild thoughts about Negro women and their secrets. But then he would always get mixed up in his thoughts, for sometimes he would think they were below him, not in the street below but socially beneath him, and not good enough for him, with their secrets, those builds from Africa, and only Negro men could manage them.
Several times he had recalled the night that he had escorted President Dilman to that brownstone where the Reverend Spinger lived, and the crazy thing that had happened before they left, that colored girl, an older one but a swell looker, who had come dashing out after Dilman. The President had called her Miss Gibson and acted like she was a secretary, which she probably was, taking notes on the conference with Spinger, which she probably had done, yet Beggs could not forget that when she had come out, she had been kind of informal, calling after the President, “Doug.” Beggs had never heard of a secretary calling her boss by his first name, especially a boss who was President of the United States. He had tried to picture Miss Gibson exactly in his mind, but could only remember that she had been kind of light-colored and slender, and not bad for her age. He had wondered if she was Spinger’s secretary and had just called Dilman by his first name because she had known him a long time, or if maybe she was Dilman’s lady friend and nothing else. The latter thought had been so disrespectful, so Communistic, especially for one in his job, that Beggs had driven it from his mind as best he could and had not dared repeat the juicy speculation even to Gertrude.
But it had come back to him, the thought, in a different context last night when he could not sleep, when he had enjoyed his daring dreams of Ruby. If Dilman, he had told himself, could manage to take care of a pretty fair- looking light-colored girl-lady-then he, Otto Beggs, could do ten times better with any one of them. This feeling of superiority had brought some order to his confusion, and reinforced his ardor for Ruby Thomas. He had not waited for lunch to tell his lie to Gertrude. He had done so the moment that he had sat down to breakfast.
Suddenly he realized that he was standing before the Walk Inn. No more last night’s dreams. No more last week’s accidental meetings. He was here, now and today, because he had planned it. He had even left the Nash for Gertrude, being gracious and considerate about it, announcing that he would take the bus (because he did not want the car parked so dangerously long in front of the nearby tavern). He had planned everything. His first assignation.
He went inside, past the clanging pinball machines, and headed straight for the horseshoe bar.
He stopped in his tracks. There were three men at the bar, two colored, one a white laborer, but there was no Ruby. His disappointment was as sharp as if he had received a physical blow. He had started toward the bartender, Simon, who was busily drying his glassware, when the flutter of a distant brown hand crossed his vision. He stood on tiptoe, elevating his bulk to its utmost height, and peered over the bartender’s bent head. The
