Patmore came hurriedly in from the pool room, flanked by the two who’d summoned him. He paused a moment to listen, his ear against the door. “I hear sump’n,” he said. “Wonder is—?” and at once unlocked and opened the door.
Everyone had pressed forward behind Pat, but now they all fell back, and as a lane opened through their midst, Jinx was seen framed in the doorway. He was swaying a little from side to side even though he attempted to steady himself against the door frame, and there was a far-off vacancy in his eyes that made him seem completely unaware of those who stood and stared at him. No one said anything, no one moved to help him, as he relinquished his support and started uncertainly forward.
He took four or five grotesque tottering steps, then his legs and feet seemed to get all tangled like those of a fly trying to escape sticky paper, and rather slowly, he sank to the floor and lay crumpled in a twisted, senseless heap.
Pat, who alone of all the onlookers could afford to take an active hand in this matter, started toward that crumpled heap. A sound behind him brought him up short and he turned with the others to see the short broad form of Bubber come into and through the doorway.
Bubber looked decidedly dazed, yet not so much so as had Jinx, and the unsteadiness of his bearing was somewhat modified by his rotundity. His progress through the crowd toward his prone enemy resembled that of a pool ball through a scattered field of its fellows, kissing first this one then that and accordingly zigzagging forward from side to side; like the other balls, his fellows each withdrew a little at each glancing impact, not one extending a supporting hand or revealing a sympathetic impulse. Even Pat did not offer to catch him when he reached Jinx’s figure, tripped over Jinx’s feet, and fell across Jinx’s body.
Then curious things happened.
Jinx, roused by the jolt of Bubber’s fall, stirred drowsily with a movement that rolled Bubber off to one side, and Bubber was heard to murmur stupidly, “Ain’ nuthin’ to fight about, boogy. Ain’t you my boy?”
Pat called abruptly to a bystander for help, and together they reached down and raised Jinx to his feet. He opened his eyes for a moment, then, as if realizing the futility of trying to see anything, allowed his heavy lids to drop again. They got him on to a chair and his head sagged limply forward.
As they were in the act of turning to render similar assistance to Bubber something halted them half-about and they exchanged puzzled and apprehensive looks. Everyone exchanged similar glances with his neighbor, gazed at Jinx’s sagging form in a fear that grew into conviction; for in that moment the something happened again, as if to substantiate itself by repetition: A shudder took hold on Jinx’s body, shook it from below upwards, halted in his throat with a little choking sound that seemed almost to break his neck.
“Death rattle—Jesus—!” somebody muttered. One or two peripheral observers near the door eased stealthily out. “Ain’ goin’ be no witness in no murder case—no suh.”
Scowling, Pat stepped forward, seized Jinx’s shoulder, shook him, called him, pushed up his lids with a thumb. Each lid, released, drooped slowly resolutely shut. Pat frisked Jinx’s clothing, palpated him, searched swiftly but futilely for the wound that must have been dealt; swung around to find Bubber on hands and knees trying to rise, laid hold and yanked him to his feet. Bubber stood teetering like an exercising-ball, stared sleepily about, said, “Where-my-boy?” and unceremoniously sat down unanswered. Pat strode through the cellar door and disappeared down the stairs.
Somebody now searched Bubber for a weapon, and somebody else said Pat had gone to find it. Periodically a spasmodic shudder almost jerked Jinx off his chair. Nobody seemed to know what to do, everyone was helpless.
“Must a strangled ’im, huh?”
“Seem like it—chokes off his breath.”
“Jes’ goes to show y’—”
Presently Pat returned and came into the circle with ominous deliberateness. He stood for a moment looking down on the helpless pair, nodding his head in mingled conviction and disgust. Then he held up what he had found downstairs, a round quart bottle with perhaps a half-inch of whiskey left in its bottom.
“Give it to Jinx,” urged a bystander. “Might stop that rattle yet—”
“Rattle, hell,” said Pat. “That jigaboo ain’t got a thing but the hiccups.” He set the bottle on the bar counter with a sarcastic thump. “That,” he growled glumly, “is the only damn thing they hit. They found a case.”
XIX
The fact that Linda had taken the job in Fred Merrit’s house as soon as it was available seemed to Shine, like the slap, a mere gesture of defiance, as a matter of fact rather complimentary and encouraging. But the fact that she stubbornly withheld her company and had done so now for two weeks seemed an unnecessary emphasis of her already defined position.
And because it was for him an entirely new experience, for which his knowledge of women contained no therapy, his own futile resentment rendered him daily more and more violent. He worked harder and played harder and knew that nothing ailed him; but with a stubbornness greater than Linda’s he refused to admit to himself that the girl had anything at all to do with the change.
