knew it was time to settle the check. I gave him my last five-dollar bill. He grinned sympathetically as he handed me the change. The grin told me he knew a drunk when he saw one. I felt like getting up and driving my fist into his fat, stupid face, but I took the change and as I started to look for a small coin to tip him, his grin widened and he went back to the bar.
It was at this moment, when I realised he knew the kind of lush he was selling liquor to, that I felt pretty ashamed of myself. I felt so goddamed ashamed, I could have walked right out of the bar and under a fast moving car, but that kind of an end took guts, and I had left my guts in Cell 114. I wasn’t walking in front of any fast moving car. I was just going to sit here and drink myself silly. It was better and easier that way.
Then a woman came into the bar. She walked to the telephone booth and shut herself in.
She was wearing a close-fitting canary coloured sweater and white slacks. She had on bottle green sun goggles, and she carried a yellow and white plastic handbag.
She immediately attracted my attention because she had solid, heavy hips and her slacks were tight fitting. As she walked to the telephone booth the movement of her
I was a drinking, non-respectable man, so I stared without any inhibition. When I had lost sight of this portion of her body as she shut the telephone booth door, I lifted my eyes to look at her face.
She would be about thirty-three: a blonde with clear cut, somewhat cold features, but as a general ensemble she was very, very attractive to any male.
I drank half my ninth whisky and watched her use the telephone. I couldn’t tell if her conversation was a happy one or not. The sun goggles made speculation impossible, but she was quick and to-the-point. She was in the booth under a minute flat. She came out and walked past me, without looking at me. I stared at her straight back and the heavy curve of her hips for a brief, pleasant couple of seconds before she let the door swing behind her.
I was drunk enough to think that if I had been a single man, she would be the one I would have gone for. A woman, I reasoned to myself, with a figure like that, with her poise and looks must be sensational in bed. If she wasn’t, then life was even a bigger illusion that I had imagined it to be.
I wondered who she was. Her clothes were expensive. The yellow and white handbag wasn’t something you picked up in a junk shop.
She had taken it into the telephone booth with her, but I couldn’t remember her coming out with it.
I was now so sloshed, thinking became an effort. I screwed up my face, trying to remember. She had gone into the booth with the bag in her right hand. I was certain she had come out of the booth without anything in either hand.
I finished my whisky, then with a shaky hand, I lit a cigarette. So what? I said to myself. I had probably not noticed the bag when she came out.
Suddenly the bag became important to me. It became important because I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t as plastered as I thought I was.
I got unsteadily to my feet and walked to the telephone booth. I opened the door and there on the shelf was the handbag.
Well, you old sonofabitch, I said to myself, you’re as sober as a judge. You saw at once she had forgotten her bag. You’re carrying your liquor like… like… well, you’re carrying your liquor.
The thing to do, I went on, talking to myself, is to look in the bag and find out who she is. Then you take the bag, telling the barman she has left it in the telephone booth – you must tell him otherwise if you are spotted walking down the street with a lady’s yellow and white handbag, some cop might pinch you – then when you have told the barman, you’ll take the bag to her address and who knows – she might reward you with something more than a kiss – who knows?
That’s how drunk I was.
So I stepped into the booth and closed the door. I picked up the handbag and opened it. As I did so, I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching me. Ex-jailbird Barber: that was me: taking no chances; always on the look out for trouble.
No one was watching me.
I turned my back which was broad enough to fill nearly all the booth, and picked up the telephone receiver; a smart move this – and resting the receiver against my ears, I examined the contents of the bag.
There was a gold cigarette case and a gold lighter. There was a diamond clip which could have been worth fifteen hundred dollars if not more. There was a driving licence. And there was a fat roll of bills and the top one was a fifty. If the others matched it, there could be close on two thousand dollars in that nice looking, juicy roll.
The sight of all that money brought me out in a sweat.
The cigarette case, the lighter and the diamond clip didn’t interest me. All three could be traced, but I found myself being too interested in this fat roll of money.
With this money in my pocket, I wouldn’t have to ask Nina for five bucks tomorrow morning. I wouldn’t have to ask her for money neither tomorrow nor the day after, nor any time. I would be able to find a job by the time I had used up this money. Even if I kept on drinking, day in and night out.
I was plastered. I was not only plastered but I was demoralised. If this rich woman was so dumb as to leave the money right here, then she deserved to lose it.
Then far away, a faint voice that was my own said to me, ‘Have you gone crazy? It’s stealing! If they catch you with your record, you’ll go away for ten years. Put the goddam bag down and get the hell out of here! What’s the matter with you? Do you want ten more years in a cell?’
But the voice was too far away to make an impression. I wanted that money. It was easy. All I had to do was to take it out of the bag, put it in my pocket, close the bag, put it back on the shelf and fade away.
The barman couldn’t see me. There was a continual stream of people going in and out of the booth.
Anyone could have taken it – anyone.
The money was there – probably not two thousand dollars, but getting on that way.
