It was my turn to laugh. “That's a sore spot with me. I just don't like work, I guess.”
“... What do you like, Mr. O'Connor.”
That name kept throwing me. I couldn't get used to it— and, too, it reminded me of Dorris Venci who had given the name to me, and thinking of Dorris reminded me of that letter that I had to intercept, and it all got to be a vicious circle, or a net that had fallen around me, and I wondered if I would ever truly get completely out of it.
“What do I like?” I said. “Well, I like you, I think.”
“Now there is a left-handed sort of compliment, if I ever heard one!”
“I didn't mean it to be.”
“Anyway,” she said, “you must like other things. Money, perhaps.”
“Money... of course I like the things that can be done with money, but I don't have much respect for it as such. Money is the easiest thing in the world to come by, if you know the secret and practice it.”
“Well, I am sure that a great many people would love to have the secret. Would you mind telling me what it is?”
“It's all right there in that book,” I said, “the one you were reading. Nietzche proved with crushing finality that the only civilization capable of enduring is one in which the strong are not penalized for taking from the weak. This particular civilization in which we are living calls it robbery, extortion, piracy, and a lot of other things.”
She leaned her head to one side, smiling quizzically. “And do you approve of these particular methods of obtaining money?”
“Let us just say that as a philosophy, Nietzsche's can be a very tough one to logically argue down. However, I wasn't going to bring up this subject, was I?”
“You didn't bring it up, I did, and I find it very interesting.” he wasn't smiling now, she looked extremely sober. Like a little girl who had just been told that some day she must die. Once again she touched my hair, and I felt the soothing effect of her hand. There was a satisfaction and pleasure in having her reach out, of her own accord, and touch me. This is the way it would be when the time came... only more so. “Tell me,” she said, “what else do you believe?”
“What else do I believe? Well, I believe in strength. And I believe that man should believe in himself.”
“You must be terribly bright,” she said, in a lighter vein now, smiling. “You must have read a horrible lot of books in order to have developed so many positive opinions.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “you are right. I have read a great many books, during recent years especially. And I have an intelligence quotient of one hundred and forty-nine, which isn't bad when you consider that one hundred and forty-five is usually considered a genius rating.”
She laughed suddenly, with surprising merriment. “Coming from anyone else,” she said, “such a statement would tag the guy as an insufferable braggart.”
“I wasn't bragging, I was merely stating a fact.”
“I know,” she said, “and that is one of the things about you that amazes me.”
“However,” I said, “I don't believe that a man of ability should underrate himself.”
Once again she laughed. “I can believe that! I certainly can!”
We sat there for quite a long time. And at last she said, “I'm going to have to put you out before long; I'm still a working girl, you know.”
I said, “You don't have to be. All you have to do is say the word and you can have anything you want. Anything.”
“This is rather unlike you, isn't it? I didn't think you asked for things. I thought you took what you wanted.”
“This is my new technique, remember?”
This time she didn't smile. “... Yes. I remember.” Then she said, “You frighten me at times... did you know that?”
“No. I don't mean to. Why do I frighten you?”
“You're so sure of yourself. You have such absolute confidence in your own power to get the things you want.”
“That's the way I am; when I say something, I mean it. Remember what I said that night about turning this town upside down and shaking it, and you said you would like to be around when the money started falling?”
“... I was only joking.”
I wasn't joking. Before long I'll hold this town in my own two hands. I'll make it sit up and talk just the way I want it to talk, like a ventriloquist operating a wooden dummy. Don't ask me how I'm going to do it, just believe me when I say it's going to happen.”
She looked at me for one long moment. “Yes... I can believe you.”
“You haven't asked any questions,” I said, “and I appreciate that.”
“It isn't because I haven't wondered. I wouldn't have been human, not to have wondered.”
“But you didn't ask, that's the important thing. That's the way well keep it.” I took her hand, just her hand and held it. “That coat I gave you,” I said. “That was nothing. You can have a closet full of coats exactly like it, if you want them. That Lincoln that surprised you so... you can have a fleet of them, one for every day in the week, if you feel like it. That is the way I am going to shake this town. That's the way the money is going to fall when I really start moving.”
She said nothing, but there was a brightness in her eyes, a strangeness, when I glanced at her and she didn't know that I was looking.
“Think about it,” I said.
“... Yes. I'll think about it.”
I had her hooked. I could feel it. This was her chance to stop being a working girl and really become somebody. Yes sir, beyond a doubt she was hooked.
Still, it wasn't the time to start grabbing. Instead I let go of her hand and stood up. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said, “tomorrow.”
Let her think it over. Let her dwell on that fleet of Lincolns and that closet full of Balmain coats. I smiled and walked out of the apartment.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THAT NIGHT I slept like the dead.
I awoke slowly the next morning. I lay in bed and let consciousness creep gently, quietly into my brain, and at last I opened my eyes and saw that the sun was high, I had forgotten to draw the blinds and my drab, cramped bedroom was obscenely bright.
The first thing I thought of was Pat. Maybe I had been dreaming about her, I don't remember, but the first thing I thought of was the brightness of her eyes and the way she had looked at me the night before, and I thought pleasantly: Sure as hell, I've got her hooked.
Then I remembered Calvart.
Ah, yes, Mr. Stephen S. Calvart, and a very tough boy he had been, too. But a dead one now. So I forgot about Calvart.
I padded into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, ran some hot water and began to shave. What I needed was some coffee, but there wasn't any coffee in the apartment, and if there had been it wouldn't have done me much good because I made lousy coffee. But all that would be changed before long. Pat would soon be making my coffee in the mornings.
That thought cheered me. I began to whistle as I lathered my face. I had a feeling that this was going to be a fine day, that this was going to be the day the cards started falling on my side of the table. First Burton, and then Calvart, both of them tough boys, but now they were dead and I could forget them. Surely, I told myself, that list of Venci's doesn't contain any more names that would prove as tough as Burton and Calvart. Surely my luck is due to change!
Not until that moment did I remember the letter.
Christ, what time was it anyway? I didn't have a watch, and there wasn't a clock in the place, but I remembered Pat saying that the postman usually showed up around ten o'clock.
I finished shaving and got out to that mail box as fast as possible. The house porter came around and said it
