The bill was twenty-seven dollars and seventy-three cents. I figured they'd padded it but I didn't beef. I simply borrowed the waiter's pencil and wrote: 'At your prices I cannot afford to eat at your joint often enough for you to worry about,' and put the note, three tens, and some change on the tray.
The waiter leaned over and said, 'If it will make you feel any better I'm going to quit. And you can read what I think about it in the People's World.'
I looked at him a moment and said, 'If you're thinking about how I feel, when you should have quit was before you brought the note.'
When I held Alice's wrap I could feel her body trembling. A tiny vein throbbed in her temple and nerve tension picked at her face. On the way out it was an effort to walk slowly; she pulled at me as if she wanted to run. We had to wait for the car. Passing people looked at us curiously. I thought we should have waited inside, but it didn't make any difference now. When the car came Alice ran out to it and slipped beneath the wheel. I gave the doorman a five-dollar bill, his assistant a couple of ones.
The doorman fingered the five, hesitated for an instant, then said impassively, 'Thank you, sir, and good evening,' in his thick impersonal brogue. The assistant said nothing.
'You can always tell a shipyard worker by the tips he gives,' Alice sneered when I got in beside her and dug off with a jerk.
'A fool to the bitter end,' I said, slumping down in the seat. 'I'm sorry you didn't like it.'
I didn't like Alice very much then, didn't even respect her.
'I did like it,' she snapped. 'Even with you acting boorish. The food was excellent.'
'Yes, the food was delicious,' I murmured.
She gave me a quick angry look and almost bumped into a car ahead as it stopped for the light.
'But for thirty dollars,' I added, 'I could have bought a hunting licence, gone hunting and shot a couple of pheasants, bought a quart of liquor and got drunk and gone to bed with two country whores and had enough money left over to buy gasoline home.'
She said, 'You don't have to insult me any more, Bob. I don't intend to see you after this anyway.'
I took a deep, long breath, let it out. 'It had to end sometime,' I said. 'I suppose you knew I wasn't going back to college.'
After that she didn't say anything. She kept out Hill to Washington, turned west on Washington to Western. I thought she was going home, but at Western she turned north again to Sunset, jerking the big car from each stop, riding second to forty, forty-five, fifty, before shifting into high. She pushed in the traffic, shouldered in the lines, tipped bumpers, dug up to sixty, sixty-five, seventy in the openings as if something was after her.
At Sunset she turned west, went out past the broadcasting studios, past Vine, turned left by the Garden of Allah into the winding Sunset Strip. At the bridle path she began tipping off her lid: seventy, eighty, back to seventy for a bend, up to ninety again. I thought she was trying to get up nerve to kill us both and I didn't give a damn if she did.
At Sepulveda Boulevard she turned south to Santa Monica Boulevard, then west again toward the beach. It was early, not eleven o'clock, and there was plenty of traffic on the street. But she didn't even slow.
'I like to go places in a party,' she said suddenly. 'Then to the theatre and a night club afterward.'
'With the white folks,' I remarked.
'You go to hell!' she flared, pushing back up to ninety.
CHAPTER VIII
We got the ticket just as we were coming into Santa Monica. Two motor-cycle cops pulled up and flagged us down. They rolled to a stop in front of us, stormed back on foot, cursing.
'All right,' one said, pulling out his book. 'Start lying.'
Laughter came up inside of me. If they wait a couple of days they can get me for murder, I thought. 'The lady's going to have some babies,' I said.
The cop leaned over to see me better. 'A coon,' he said. Then he looked at Alice again. 'Both coons.' Then on second thought he asked her, 'Are you white?'
'She's a coon, too,' I answered for her.
'Well, we'll just run you in,' the cop said.
'That's fine,' I taunted. 'You on your puddle jumper and me in my Buick Roadmaster.'
The cop's mouth opened and his face got blood-red. The other cop started back toward me.
'Wait a minute,' Alice said. 'I don't like this, I don't like any of this.' The cold hard authority in her voice stopped the cop. 'I am a supervisor in the Los Angeles Department of Welfare,' she went on, enunciating each syllable with careful deliberation. 'My father's a prominent Los Angeles physician, a personal friend of the mayor's, and one of the civic leaders of our community. I don't like the way you have spoken to me, the words you have employed, nor the tone of your voice. If you cannot give me the respect that is due me I'll see to it that you are both discharged from the police force.'
Both the cops looked at her as if they didn't believe they were hearing right. I had to look at her too.
Finally one of them asked her, 'Your car?'
'Mine,' I said.
He gave me a long hard look. 'I suppose your pa is a senator,' he said.
I didn't say anything. The other one said to Alice, 'Lemme see your operator's licence.'
'I left it in another bag,' she said imperiously. 'Mr. Jones called to escort me to dinner and I didn't think I'd need it.'
The cop grinned evilly. 'Been to a gin party, eh?'
Alice turned a slow red. 'May I have your names and identification numbers?' she said.
The cop looked at the other cop, then said, 'Okay, fall in behind me.' As an afterthought he added, 'And move over and let Rufus drive. You got your licence, haven't you, Rufus?'
I got out and walked around the car. He blocked my path. The other cop closed in beside me. I took a breath, let it out, said: 'Rufus isn't the name on it.'
'Lemme see it,' he said.
I let him see it. He spat, moved aside, and let me get into the car. They took us to the station in Santa Monica. I put up cash bail and the desk sergeant said, 'Now get back where you belong and stay there.'
We went out and got into the car and I drove down to the beach. I parked and we sat for a time looking out over the Pacific Ocean. There were two bright red spots in Alice's cheeks and she clenched and unclenched her hands.
'You could kill 'em, couldn't you?' I said. Suddenly I felt sorry for her. I put my arm about her shoulder and tried to pull her to me. 'Don't let it get you down, baby,' I said, trying to turn her face around to kiss her. 'You're not just finding out you're a nigger?'
She jerked away from me. 'I wish I was a man,' she said.
'If you were a man what would you do?' I asked.
Suddenly she began crying. 'I never had anybody talk to me like that,' she sobbed. 'People have always respected me. My father's known all over California.'
I reached for the key, kicked on the motor. 'Too bad they don't know me,' I said.
I turned the car and drove down to Venice, came back into Los Angeles on Venice Boulevard. By the time we reached the city Alice had stopped crying and repaired her make-up. I glanced at my watch. It was eleven- thirty.
'Shall I take you home?' I asked.
'No, let's go by some friends of mine,' she said. 'I want some excitement.' Her voice had a hard dry gaiety and her face kept breaking apart like glass.
I followed her directions, drove over to a little cottage on San Pedro, past Vernon. A short, dumpy, brown- skinned girl with slow-rolling eyes and a tiny pouting mouth let us in.
'Alice,' she greeted, then to the others in the room, 'Her Highness.'
A light-complexioned, simple-looking girl with a pretty face and dangling hair sat on the arm of an empty
