a Mist’ Interlocutor, it would cost twenty dollars to send her a postcard. No, he definitely did not want to go near her home. But he did want to get in touch with her, just this one more time. He wanted to talk with her, he wanted to reason with her, make a deal with her. Failing in making a deal with her, he—he was not prepared to say, even to himself.
But no one answered the telephone. What was the matter with her mother, her uncle? It was no surprise to Dr. Reddington to learn that Gloria was not at home. She was seldom home. But he often had called at her home and been given a number to call. Full well he knew that whether her mother and uncle knew it or not, the number they gave was a speakeasy or a bachelor’s apartment; a Harlem beer flat was one number Dr. Reddington had called on occasion (he hated to think of that now, the way those Negroes were not surprised or shocked by the appearance of his kind of man, Phi Beta Kappa key and severely conservative clothes and all, at a beer flat one Saturday noon, calling for a drunken girl who greeted him on terms that too plainly indicated that he was not a stern parent coming to fetch a recalcitrant daughter, but—just what he was).
Dr. Reddington sat on the edge of the bed and (as he expressed it to himself) cursed himself for a blithering idiot for never having written down the numbers he had called. No, that was being unjust to himself. The reason he had not written down those numbers was a good one; he didn’t want to be found dead with those numbers on him. He sat on the bed and his finger searched the soft, faintly damp, white skin of his jowls for a hair that had escaped his razor that morning. There was none. There never was. Only when the barber shaved him. He sat in an attitude that is classically pensive, but he could not think. God, wasn’t there one name that would come to him? One name in the numbers that he had called?
It was useless to try to think of the names of speakeasies. His personal experience with speakeasies was slight, as he never drank; but he knew from going to them with Gloria that a place would be known familiarly as Jack’s or Giuseppe’s—and then when the proprietor gave you a card to the place (which you threw away the moment you were safe outside), it would be called Club Aristocrat or something of the sort. So it was no use trying to think of the names of the places, and too much trouble, practically a life work, to try to find them from memory. No telling what a taxi driver would think if you told him to drive up and down all the streets from Sheridan Square to Fourteenth Street in the hope of recognizing a basement entrance through which you had passed one night long ago. No, the thing to do was to recall a name, a person’s name, the name of someone Gloria knew.
A. Ab, Ab, Ab, ante, con, de—no, this was no time to be thinking of the Latin prepositions. Thinking of things like that would only rattle him now. Think viciously, that was the thing. A for Abbott. A for Abercrombie. A for Abingdon. A for Abrams. Wonder what ever happened to that Abrams girl that was so good on the piano? He could think kindly of her now and remember her as a girl who had a nice touch at the piano. She was a degenerate at heart, though, and when her father came to him and asked him what was the meaning of this what his daughter had told him, Dr. Reddington had almost felt like telling the girl’s father what kind of child he was raising. But instead he had said: “Look here, Abrams, this is a terrible thing you are saying to me, a serious charge. Am I to infer that you are taking an impressionable child’s word against mine?” And the little man had said he was only asking, only wanted to know the truth so if it was the truth he could go farther. “Oh, indeed? Go farther, eh? And who might I ask would take your word against mine? I was born in this town, you know, and for five generations my ancestors have been prominent in this town. I
But no one answered the telephone. What was the matter with her mother, her uncle? It was no surprise to Dr. Reddington to learn that Gloria was not at home. She was seldom home. But he often had called at her home and been given a number to call. Full well he knew that whether her mother and uncle knew it or not, the number they gave was a speakeasy or a bachelor’s apartment; a Harlem beer flat was one number Dr. Reddington had called on occasion (he hated to think of that now, the way those Negroes were not surprised or shocked by the appearance of his kind of man, Phi Beta Kappa key and severely conservative clothes and all, at a beer flat one Saturday noon, calling for a drunken girl who greeted him on terms that too plainly indicated that he was not a stern parent coming to fetch a recalcitrant daughter, but—just what he was).
Dr. Reddington sat on the edge of the bed and (as he expressed it to himself) cursed himself for a blithering idiot for never having written down the numbers he had called. No, that was being unjust to himself. The reason he had not written down those numbers was a good one; he didn’t want to be found dead with those numbers on him. He sat on the bed and his finger searched the soft, faintly damp, white skin of his jowls for a hair that had escaped his razor that morning. There was none. There never was. Only when the barber shaved him. He sat in an attitude that is classically pensive, but he could not think. God, wasn’t there one name that would come to him? One name in the numbers that he had called?
It was useless to try to think of the names of speakeasies. His personal experience with speakeasies was slight, as he never drank; but he knew from going to them with Gloria that a place would be known familiarly as Jack’s or Giuseppe’s—and then when the proprietor gave you a card to the place (which you threw away the moment you were safe outside), it would be called Club Aristocrat or something of the sort. So it was no use trying to think of the names of the places, and too much trouble, practically a life work, to try to find them from memory. No telling what a taxi driver would think if you told him to drive up and down all the streets from Sheridan Square to Fourteenth Street in the hope of recognizing a basement entrance through which you had passed one night long ago. No, the thing to do was to recall a name, a person’s name, the name of someone Gloria knew.
A. Ab, Ab, Ab, ante, con, de—no, this was no time to be thinking of the Latin prepositions. Thinking of things like that would only rattle him now. Think viciously, that was the thing. A for Abbott. A for Abercrombie. A for Abingdon. A for Abrams. Wonder what ever happened to that Abrams girl that was so good on the piano? He could think kindly of her now and remember her as a girl who had a nice touch at the piano. She was a degenerate at heart, though, and when her father came to him and asked him what was the meaning of this what his daughter had told him, Dr. Reddington had almost felt like telling the girl’s father what kind of child he was raising. But instead he had said: “Look here, Abrams, this is a terrible thing you are saying to me, a serious charge. Am I to infer that you are taking an impressionable child’s word against mine?” And the little man had said he was only asking, only wanted to know the truth so if it was the truth he could go farther. “Oh, indeed? Go farther, eh? And who might I ask would take your word against mine? I was born in this town, you know, and for five generations my ancestors have been prominent in this town. I
Similar Books
