rhythm of love-making. But she had at last grown accustomed to Shank’s presence; and when he slept she and Joe made love.
Shank put down his coffee. “Got to move,” he said. “Got to see a man.”
Joe looked up. “Who?”
Shank shrugged. “A man. Short or tall, fat or thin. I don’t know who he is or what he looks like. All I got is a name-Basil. You know, I don’t believe there’s anybody named Basil. It’s impossible.”
“A connection?”
“Call it a possibility. Call it a notion. I don’t know. They busted Mau-Mau and they put the lid on as tight as it gets around here. It gets hot and it gets cool. Cycles. Junk has as many cycles as sunspots. It gets hot and it gets cool and I wish to hell it would come on a little cooler.”
Joe put out his cigarette. “Basil,” he said.
“Basil. A name with no face. I don’t know. He hangs out in the Kitchen. Hell’s Kitchen. Midtown West Side. I go over there and I connect with him, I guess. Nobody knows who he is. He buys and sells. That’s all I know.”
“When do you find him?”
“Today,” Shank said. “Today, unless the bastard closes on Sundays. He shouldn’t. Business as usual seven days a week in the junk business. He hangs in a coffee pot on West Thirty-ninth. Maybe.”
“There’s always tomorrow.”
Shank shook his head. “I ran into Judy,” he said. “I got a set to supply tomorrow night. So I have to meet Basil today. Life is filled with responsibilities.” He smiled, more to himself than to Joe and Anita. He was beginning to enjoy coming on with philosophical phrases. You sounded deep and people put you up for it, Shank thought.
“A set?” Anita asked.
“A party,” Joe answered Anita. “At Judy Obershain’s. She’s a good little chick. Sick, but a good chick. Her parties move nicely.”
“Are we going,” Anita wanted to know.
“Might as well,” Joe said. “Be some good people there. Be best if Shank scores with this Basil cat. Judy’s parties can be a bring-down if there’s nothing to ease the pain.”
Shank stood up slowly. He wandered around the room, found a leather jacket and put it on. “Rain,” he said. “God, I hate rain. One thing about the coast, you didn’t get rain like this. If it rained it did it and got done. None of this slow rain that stays around all day.”
“Wait for it to clear a little,” Joe suggested.
“Hell with it. Basil won’t wait. The world won’t wait. Life is a collection of unbearable demands. Later for all of you.”
And Shank was gone. Anita crossed the room to close the door and then returned to Joe.
“I hope he scores,” Joe said.
“I hope he doesn’t,” Anita blurted.
Joe gave her an odd look. “Really? What’s bugging you?”
“I don’t like…pot.”
He laughed softly. “How do you know? You never made it, baby.”
“I just don’t like it.”
Joe’s voice was lazy. “I can remember when you didn’t like sex, baby. Then you turned on to it and you found out it was something fine. You haven’t been the same since, you know. Sexiest woman around.”
Anita started to grin, but then shook her head. “I still don’t like pot,” she said. “I don’t have to try it to know I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like about it?”
“What it does to you. It takes you far away from me. It makes you so…I don’t know. Cool. Distant. As though you’re miles and miles away. As though there’s a thick glass wall around you, so that you can see out and I can see in but I can’t touch you. And a really thick wall, so that the images are a little warped.”
“You talk fine. Poetic, sort of.”
“Joe—”
“You can tear down the wall, baby. You can turn yourself on and come inside where it’s warm and cozy.”
“Joe—”
“I’m a permissive cat,” he went on. “Very easy to get along with. You want to stay straight, that’s your business. I don’t try to turn you on. I don’t try to run your life. You go where you want and you do what you want. It’s up to you. You want to smoke a stick or two, that’s all right with me—we can smoke together and swing together and take a quiet trip way to the top. You don’t want to, fine. Solid. So you be permissive. So don’t try to run my life. It’s my life, baby.”
“I know it, Joe.”
“Then show it. You know how many times you told me you don’t like pot? It can get on a cat’s nerves. Really, baby. You can become a drag.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Like yesterday. Like walking out of the pad because I was turning on and you didn’t want to be around. That wasn’t nice. Anti-social.”
“I—”
“A lot of cats would have insisted you make the scene yourself. I’m not like that. Hell, it’s not like we’re married, for God’s sake. We just swing together. All right. So you don’t have to smoke and I don’t have to stop.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m…sorry.”
He relaxed. “I’m going out for a walk,” Joe said. “Just a little walk.”
“In the rain?”
“I won’t melt. The pad has me all confined today. Like a prison. I’ll be back in a while.”
“Can I come?”
He hesitated. “You stay here,” he said. “I got thinking to do. I can do it better alone.”
Her disappointment showed in her face. “Oh,” she said. “Will you be gone long?”
“God,” he said. “I told you, a little while. Just stay here and maybe straighten up a little and I’ll be back. God, I told you—”
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
Joe gave the girl a quick kiss on the forehead, forced a smile and quit the apartment. When he hit the street he at once felt better—liberated, as if he had escaped. The rain did not trouble him; it slanted down lightly now, a fine spray. Joe strode through without difficulty.
He hurried to Second Avenue, then walked to a small East Side coffee house called Bird In Hand. It was dark inside. The front part contained half a dozen tables, and a back room had four more. It was to the back that Joe walked, where he took a table close to the adjoining kitchen. For a moment he was completely alone, until the waitress approached for his order.
The waitress, a thin, hollow-eyed blonde named Eileen, wore tight dungarees and a loose-fitting black sweater. Joe grinned, reaching to pat her buttocks. He had slept with her once or twice several months ago and had liked her.
“Coffee,” he said. “American coffee, black, no sugar. And if somebody’s looking for a chess game, here I am. Ready and willing.”
“Solid,” Eileen said. “You’ve been absent lately.”
“Miss me?”
“Like I miss a boil. Busy?”
“Not too.” Joe shrugged.
“There’s a set at Judy’s. Going?” Eileen asked.
“I think so. Tomorrow night?”
“That’s the one.”
She headed for the kitchen and returned with a cup of coffee. Joe handed her a quarter and she pocketed it in her dungarees; then she sighed heavily and sat down opposite him. “God, I’m dragged,” she said. “This is a bitch of a day.”
