Read Online Short Stories: Five Decades by Irwin Shaw - Free Book Online Page B

“Your brother Ernest. A man with true ideals. I am very sorry to see what has happened to his character since … Is that them?”
    “No,” Charley said. “It’s two girls from the YWCA on the corner.”
    “He used to be a very merry man,” Stryker said, swallowing rapidly. “Always laughing. Always sure of what he was saying. Before he was married we used to go out together all the time and all the time the girls, my girl and his girl, no matter who they were, would give all their attention to him. All the time. I didn’t mind. I love your brother Ernest as if he was my young brother. I could cry when I see him sitting now, covering his eye and his teeth, not saying anything, just listening to what other people have to say.”
    “Yeah,” Charley said. “Yeah. Why don’t you keep quiet, Stryker?”
    “Excuse me,” Stryker said, talking fast and dry. “I don’t like to bother you. But I must talk. Otherwise, if I just stand here keeping still, I will suddenly start running and I’ll run right up to Forty-second Street. I can’t keep quiet at the moment, excuse me.”
    “Go ahead and talk, Stryker,” Charley said gently, patting him on the shoulder. “Shoot your mouth right off, all you want.”
    “I am only doing this because I think it will help Ernest,” Stryker said, leaning hard against the post, in the shadow, to keep his knees straight. “I have a theory. My theory is that when Ernest finds out what happens to this Lueger, he will pick up. It will be a kind of springboard to him. It is my private notion of the psychology of the situation. We should have brought an instrument with us, though. A club, a knife, brass knuckles.” Stryker put his hands in his pockets, holding them tight against the cloth to keep them from trembling. “It will be very bad if we mess this up. Won’t it be very bad, Charley? Say, Charley …”
    “Sssh,” said Charley.
    Stryker looked up the street. “That’s them. That’s Sally, that’s her coat. That’s the bastard. The lousy German bastard.”
    “Sssh, Stryker. Sssh.”
    “I feel very cold, Charley. Do you feel cold? It’s a warm night but I …”
    “For Christ’s sake, shut up!”
    “We’ll fix him,” Stryker whispered. “Yes, Charley, I’ll shut up, sure, I’ll shut up, depend on me, Charley …”
    Sally and Lueger walked slowly down Twelfth Street. Lueger had his arm around Sally’s waist and their hips rubbed as they walked.
    “That was a very fine film tonight,” Lueger was saying. “I enjoy Deanna Durbin. Very young, fresh, sweet. Like you.” He grinned at Sally in the dark and held tighter to her waist. “A small young maid. You are just the kind I like.” He tried to kiss her. Sally turned her head away.
    “Listen, Mr. Lueger,” she said, not because she liked him, but because he was a human being and thoughtless and unsuspecting and because her heart was softer than she had thought. “Listen, I think you’d better leave me here.”
    “I do not understand English,” Lueger said, enjoying this last coyness.
    “Thank you very much for a pleasant evening,” Sally said desperately, stopping in her tracks. “Thank you for taking me home. You can’t come up. I was lying to you. I don’t live alone …”
    Lueger laughed. “Little frightened girl. That’s nice. I love you for it.”
    “My brother,” Sally said. “I swear to God I live with my brother.”
    Lueger grabbed her and kissed her, hard, bruising her lips against her teeth, his hands pressing harshly into the flesh of her back. She sobbed into his mouth with the pain, helpless. He released her. He was laughing.
    “Come,” he said, holding her close. “I am anxious to meet your brother. Little liar.”
    “All right,” she said, watching Charley and Stryker move out from the L shadow. “All right. Let’s not wait. Let’s walk fast. Very fast. Let’s not waste time.”
    Lueger laughed happily. “That’s it. That’s the way a girl should talk.”
    They