“How do you do Mr. Goldstein?” the reporter breezily chanted as he squeezed the thick flipper held out to him over the counter of the cigar store. “My name’s Brewster. … I’m writing up the crime wave for the News.”
Mr. Goldstein was a larvashaped man with a hooked nose a little crooked in a gray face, behind which pink attentive ears stood out unexpectedly. He looked at the reporter out of suspicious screwedup eyes.
“If you’d be so good I’d like to have your story of last night’s little … misadventure …”
“Vont get no story from me young man. Vat vill you do but print it so that other boys and goils vill get the same idear.”
“It’s too bad you feel that way Mr. Goldstein … Will you give me a Robert Burns please … ? Publicity it seems to me is as necessary as ventilation. … It lets in fresh air.” The reporter bit off the end of the cigar, lit it, and stood looking thoughtfully at Mr. Goldstein through a swirling ring of blue smoke. “You see Mr. Goldstein it’s this way,” he began impressively. “We are handling this matter from the human interest angle … pity and tears … you understand. A photographer was on his way out here to get your photograph. … I bet you it would increase your volume of business for the next couple of weeks. … I suppose I’ll have to phone him not to come now.”
“Well this guy,” began Mr. Goldstein abruptly, “he’s a welldressed lookin feller, new spring overcoat an all that and he comes in to buy a package o Camels. … ‘A nice night,’ he says openin the package an takin out a cigarette to smoke it. Then I notices the goil with him had a veil on.”
“Then she didnt have bobbed hair?”
“All I seen was a kind o mournin veil. The foist thing I knew she was behind the counter an had a gun stuck in my ribs an began talkin … you know kinder kiddin like … and afore I knew what to think the guy’d cleaned out the cashregister an says to me, ‘Got any cash in your jeans Buddy?’ I’ll tell ye I was sweatin some …”
“And that’s all?”
“Sure by the time I’d got hold of a cop they vere off to hell an gone.”
“How much did they get?”
“Oh about fifty berries an six dollars off me.”
“Was the girl pretty?”
“I dunno, maybe she was. I’d like to smashed her face in. They ought to make it the electric chair for those babies. … Aint no security nowhere. Vy should anybody voirk if all you’ve got to do is get a gun an stick up your neighbors?”
“You say they were welldressed … like welltodo people?”
“Yare.”
“I’m working on the theory that he’s a college boy and that she’s a society girl and that they do it for sport.”
“The feller vas a hardlookin bastard.”
“Well there are hardlooking college men. … You wait for the story called ‘The Gilded Bandits’ in next Sunday’s paper Mr. Goldstein. … You take the News dont you?”
Mr. Goldstein shook his head.
“I’ll send you a copy anyway.”
“I want to see those babies convicted, do you understand? If there’s anythin I can do I sure vill do it … Aint no security no more. … I dont care about no Sunday supplement publicity.”
“Well the photographer’ll be right along. I’m sure you’ll consent to pose Mr. Goldstein. … Well thank you very much. … Good day Mr. Goldstein.”
Mr. Goldstein suddenly produced a shiny new revolver from under the counter and pointed it at the reporter.
“Hay go easy with that.”
Mr. Goldstein laughed a sardonic laugh. “I’m ready for em next time they come,” he shouted after the reporter who was already making for the Subway.
“Our business, my dear Mrs. Herf,” declaimed Mr. Harpsicourt, looking sweetly in her eyes and smiling his gray Cheshire cat smile, “is to roll ashore on the wave of fashion the second before it breaks, like riding a surfboard.”
Ellen was delicately digging with her spoon into half an alligator pear; she kept her eyes on her plate, her lips a little parted; she felt cool and slender in the tightfitting darkblue dress, shyly alert in the middle of the tangle of sideways glances and the singsong modish talk of the restaurant.
“It’s a knack that I can prophesy in you more than in any girl, and more charmingly than any girl I’ve ever known.”
“Prophesy?” asked Ellen, looking up at him laughing.
“You shouldnt pick up an old man’s word. … I’m expressing myself badly. … That’s always a dangerous sign. No, you understand so perfectly, though you disdain it a little … admit that. … What we need on such a periodical, that I’m sure you could explain it to me far better.”
“Of course what you want to do is make every reader feel Johnny on the spot in the center of things.”
“As if she were having lunch right here at the Algonquin.”
“Not today but tomorrow,” added Ellen.
Mr. Harpsicourt laughed his creaky
