Read Online Some Came Running by James Jones - Free Book Online Page B

Even his bushy eyebrows looked feathery.
    “Do you remember me?” Dave asked grinning, as if talking to a child. “You know who I am?”
    “I remember ye,” his father said. “Well, whatta you want?”
    “I just got in town. Thought I’d say hello.”
    “All right, hello. If it’s money ye want, I ain’t got any. If you’re wantin me to change my name, I won’t do it. Now, what else do you want?”
    “Nothing,” Dave said. “Not a thing. I don’t want anything, I just thought I’d buy you a beer.”
    The old man jerked his head at the gray-headed bartender. “Tell him. He’s the one you’ll have to pay for it.”
    “Bring Mr Herschmidt here another beer,” Dave said, “and put it on my check.”
    “And ye can tell Frank I’m never goin to change it. lt’d give the son of a bitch too much pleasure. He-he.” Greedily he pulled at the beer he obviously had been nursing.
    “All right, I’ll tell him,” Dave said. “I’m goin out to his house tonight.”
    “You are, hunh? Then tell him for me that the next time he sends somebody around they should buy me a pint of whiskey instead of a beer and not make it so obvious.”
    “Okay,” Dave said, “I’ll tell him.”
    “Don’t baby me, you son of a bitch,” his father said. He was watching Dave in the mirror, grinning malevolently, like a predatory bird. “It won’t do you any damn good. Agnes already tried it.”
    “Okay, Pop,” Dave said lightly. “Get him another beer when he wants it,” he said to the gray head, who was standing down the bar listening without interest. “And give him a fifth of whiskey.”
    “Go to hell,” his father said. “You just tell Frankie what I said. He-he.” Frankie was a nickname Frank hated.
    “I’ll tell him,” Dave grinned. His face was flushed. He turned away from the bar. “See you later.”
    The old man took another long drink of his beer without looking around.
    Dave sat down in the booth and grinning looked at the three men and shook his head ruefully. “What’re you gonna do?”
    It was a reasonably good act. They all grinned back. There wasn’t really any malice in them. They had just wanted to watch.
    “He’s a mean old bastard,” ’Bama said from where he leaned against the booth, as if voicing Dave’s thought. “Well, I got to go and make my rounds.” He straightened up and turned, and then stopped and put his hands in his pants pockets and stood motionless facing the window, like he had done before.
    Up at the bar, Dave’s father was having the barman put six bottles of beer, instead of one, in the sack with his fifth of whiskey. Without paying, he clutched the sack and stumped to the door, looking neither right nor left.
    ’Bama pulled his hands out of his pockets and lit a cigarette, and then stepped over and held the door open for the old man with his sack. Old Man Herschmidt stumped on through, and ’Bama holding the door with one swayed-back buttock as if it were a usable appendage jerked his head at the bartender and made a motion as if writing on his cuff, then pointed his finger at himself. Then he turned out and was gone, up the street.
    “He’s not paying for all that!” Dave protested.
    “He’s done done it,” Hubie drawled.
    “What’s he do for a living?” Dave asked, looking after him.
    “He gambles,” Dewey grinned.
    “Is that all?”
    “That’s enough. If you gamble like he gambles,” Hubie said.
    “He’s pretty good,” Dave said.
    “Good enough to make a lot of money around here. When he works,” Dewey said. “But half of what he wins, he donates to the bookies in Terre Haute or Evansville or Indianapolis.”
    “The rest he spends,” Hubie drawled.
    “He’s a hell of a pool player,” Dewey said. “Makes a lot, that way. At’s where he’s goin now.”
    “Has he got a name? I’ve never heard anybody call him anything but ’Bama,” Dave said.
    Dewey grinned boyishly and his incredibly handsome blue eyes lit up with relish.