"I might walk you home after school tomorrow," he said in compensation.

"Ralph," said she, dropping her arms from his neck, "there's something I have to tell you." Her back still against the tree, she moved around to the shadowed side of the trunk. He too, feeling stranded, got out of the light. "My brother comes home the same way. So what that means is if he sees us he will find out who you are, and tell."

"So?"

"So, my father doesn't like your father."

"For heaven's sakes, why not?" asked Ralph, who had never heard his own father speak ill of anyone.

"Don't ask me," said Margie. "He just hates his guts. He'd never buy a used car from him, that I know."

"What's your father do?"

"He's a bookkeeper at Universal Playing Card."

"Uh-huh."

"Look, Ralph, that shouldn't make any difference with us. Did you ever see Romeo and Juliet, with Norma Shearer?"

He shook his head. "Leslie Howard was in that, wasn't he? I like Englishmen like Errol Flynn and even Ronald Colman in an action part, but Leslie Howard's sort of a sissy."

"Their parents had a feud, so they had to meet on the sly," said Margie. "I saw that when I was about twelve. My mother took me. She likes love stories, the sadder the better. I didn't understand it all, but it was sad. We both cried."

"Maybe we'll have to read it in English," said Ralph. "I'm not looking forward to it, I'll say that. I don't go much for poetry. I prefer modern writings: adventure, stuff like that. Also history, about real people and events."

He wanted to get off the subject of their fathers, but Margie wouldn't let it go: "So we've got to watch our P's and Q's." He detected a certain excitement in her voice. "If my father knows about you, he'll slay me. So if you call me at home and I'm not there or if I'm taking a bath, just say 'Ralph.' If they ask 'Ralph who,' make up another last name, and I'll know it's you and call back soon as I can."

Ralph was himself appalled at the thought of such a sneaky association. Besides, if their fathers were on the outs, it might be because his had caught hers in some criminal enterprise: for example, fiddling with the books he kept for the playing-card company.

"Better forget about the telephone altogether," he advised her. "Your name might be mud at my house too." Having recaptured the initiative, he decided to escape before her next offensive. "See you in school."

Margie refused to say goodbye, holding him there with her silence. Maybe she wanted to be kissed again, but he was determined not to be aroused.

"Well, I guess I'll say so long," said he, resting one gym shoe on its snub toe and lifting a hand into the light outside the shadow. "I better get on my way."

"I think it's because my father thinks your father was fooling around with my mother," said Margie at last.

Ralph brought his hand into the darkness and replaced his foot flat upon the earth.

"I heard them fighting once," Margie said. "My folks, I mean. It was really awful."

Ralph was on the sidewalk now and moving in the direction of home.

Behind him she cried: "There might be some mistake!" Then, as he put more distance between them: "I'm crazy about you, Ralph!"

But after that, he having broken into a run, she would have had to shout to reach him, and it was a quiet neighborhood and she a discreet daughter. He heard no more. He wondered whether her mother's first two names were Mary Joy.

chapter 16.

LAVERNE TOOK HER OLD STOOL at the short end of the bar, against the wall and near the door, and when Vinnie waddled up unwittingly, she said: "I never let a day go by. I stop all Italians."

His eyes disappeared and his peg teeth went on display. "I din't reckonize yuh! Holy hell. Laverne!" He put a set of hairy knuckles across the bar. "Kid, you look like a million onna hoof."

"See you still walk like you got a load in your pants," Laverne said, affectionately fondling his warm fat paw.

He winked, looked around stealthily--a lone morose man sat at the other end of the long side of the bar, and a quiet couple occupied the rearmost booth--took back his hand and grasped his crotch. "It's the load I carry here," said he. "I got enough for three men." He was already tentatively wheezing, but reserving the big belly laugh for her comeback.

"Yeah? Well, your old lady tole me you was two hundred and fifty pounds of dynamite with a two-inch fuse." His shoulders began to heave. "She says it looks like the neck of a balloon."

He gave a great roar, at the sound of which the solitary drinker looked sourly towards them and the couple, sitting on the same side of the booth, stared in brief alarm.

Vinnie said, eyes full of water: "What I can't figure is where she's getting it. Bread in the oven again."

"How many's that make now?"

"Shit sake, seven," said Vinnie in proud exasperation, hooking a thumb on one pocket of his black satin bar vest.

"Boy, it is a long time since I seen you," said Laverne. "You had only five then. The ice man's been mighty busy." She made a sober face and began to count her fingers. "Dom, Connie, Treese, John, and Marie."

"What a memory you got, Laverne," Vinnie said, shaking his blue jowls. "I couldn't name-um no faster. So last spring, Rocco."

"I gather you never heard of the Rhythm, Vinnie." The man at the end of the bar drained his glass, then just sat there staring bleakly into it.

"Rosie's got the book, with the archbishop's imprimer in it and all, but we never been able to figure it out. I ain't got no head for numbers unless it's dollars and cents."

"Yeah," said Laverne, "you got enough money you don't need to count anything else."

"I always say I'm working on my own ball team, you count the girls."

"You gotta keep your eye on Catholic girls though," said Laverne. "Get-um married quick or in the convent." She was sorry she said that. Vinnie wasn't terribly amused and neither was she. "Hey"--she leaned over--"Hot Dan the Mustard Man down there could use a refill. Get out and earn a dollar. You go broke talking to old Laverne."

Vinnie's wide body moved down the slot. He resembled Two-Ton Tony Galento. She hadn't seen him since Joe Louis slaughtered Tony, so when he came back she would crack him up by saying: "I see the jigs got you back for Ethiopia." Being in Vinnie's affectionate presence brought out her sense of humor, which had gone unused for too long.

He poured a fresh one for the guy and then came back with a bottle of Four Roses in one hand and a Seven-Up in the other.

"He's buying," said Vinnie.

Laverne made a moue. "He ain't hardly looked at me." She had to get fortified by the time she started to work, so she threw down the first jigger in one swallow, had a sip of Seven-Up, the bubbles stinging her nose, and then took the refilled shot glass in two gulps.

"That one's on me," Vinnie said.

"Now I'll pay for one," Laverne said, and he poured a third. She lifted the little vessel between thumb and middle finger, crooking the index to salute Cock Robin down there, but still he wasn't looking.

"So where you been all my life?" asked Vinnie. "I ain't seen you since Hector was a pup."

"I been hauling it elsewhere." All of a sudden Laverne felt like crying on his shoulder, but she restrained herself. "Hey, you heard this one? I know a girl who can speak English and French at the same time?" She leaned back until her throat was vertical and dumped the booze down it.

Vinnie's face was swarthily concerned. He pushed the Seven-Up glass towards her. "Take a little chaser, willya?"

"I don't want to get drunk." This was true: diluted whiskey went more quickly to the brain; she wanted to keep it warm in the belly. She took a five-spot from her purse and leaned forward. "You hang on ta that," she said to Vinnie. "You buy a rattle for little Rocky from his Aunt Laverne."

"Awww..." Vinnie was touched.

"C'mon," Laverne said, forcing the bill into his big mitt. "One of these days the world'll be all wops, and I wanna keep on their good side." She got up and went around the corner of the bar and along to where Herman Hotdog was chewing his cud and climbed on the next stool beyond him, where she could watch the door for the bulls or better prospects.

He was long and skinny and dark. It was the curve of his nose where it met his lips that gave him the sour feature. He wore a pale-gray fedora like Dick Tracy.

"Much obliged for the free juice," said Laverne to his inscrutable profile.

"My pleasure," he said, lifting his glass and drinking from it, slitting his eyes towards the blue mirror behind the bar.

"Please to meet you," said she. "I'm June. Who are you?"

His hat slowly turned. He had the palest eyes in a murky, lined face. He seemed about forty. He looked like the kind of bird who would show his cock to a Campfire Girl in the park. Laverne could handle him.

"Doc Savage," he said.

"I seen your name on a book."

"You bet. The one and only." He produced a crumpled bill from his pocket and carefully smoothed it on the polished wood, thumbs traveling away from each other. "I'm gonna get on my horse. The silence here is deafening."

"Maybe you just got coffee nerves," said Laverne.

"I'm going down the morgue for a few haha's," said he. He wore a gray suit and a gray tie, and his sideburns matched his gray hat.

"I been called funny as a crutch," said Laverne. She slid her hand along the bar and asked levelly: "Did you want a giggle?"

"I dunno," said Doc Savage. "Depends on what you got, sister. But"-he looked critically at her hand-"don't touch me unless you love me."

Vinnie was futzing around at the other end of the bar, watering his stock or something, and Laverne's back was to the couple in the booth. She lowered her hand and finger-walked up the inside of his left thigh until she touched the lump.

He said immediately: "O.K.," and rose. She tucked her purse under her arm and followed, ignoring and ignored by Vinnie.

Doc's car was parked nearby. It was an old heap, an Auburn or something, so old she worried he might be a piker, so after he got in the driver's side, leaving her to wrench at the corroded handle of the passenger's door, she thought she'd better get the price settled pronto.

The upholstery felt ripped as she slid her ass on it. She asked: "Five O.K.?"

He started up the engine, which sounded like a wash machine, then stared at her angrily.

She wrinkled her nose. "We better get this straight," she said. "I ain't a pickup. I'm a prostitute."

He snorted. "Congratulations." And eased away from the curb, drove four blocks, and glided to a stop just beyond the twin green lights that flanked the doorway of a police station. He let the engine idle and showed her his badge.

"Oh no." She grasped her picture hat in two hands.

"You must be a tenderfoot," he said. "You sure don't know the ropes. You feel me in a intimate place, you quote your price before I say nothing, and then you name your profession. It's like you was reading from the rules of evidence."

She made a crazy grin. "I swear I was kidding! I thought you was a fruit. Can't you take a joke?" She put her face into her hands. "Would you believe, this is my first time?" She came up. "That's why I never knew the procedure, see? Think I would of done that if I was a real hustler? Like you said."

"Maybe not if you was sober, huh?"

"That's it!" cried Laverne. "My old man busted his hand at the plant today and he ain't covered by Accident-"

"Pigshit," said the detective, yawning cavernously and then for good measure sounding a shattering raspberry from which she felt the spray. "I got you cold, Sister Sue. So don't tell me about your kid with infantile paralysis."

"Yeah," Laverne agreed dolefully. "Today has been some cocksucker."

"Show me one that ain't, kiddo, and you win the gold toilet seat."

Believing that she detected a note of bitter compassion for all of God's creatures, she said: "I don't suppose you'd want to talk a little business?"

"Talk."

She took the change purse from her bag and, holding it to the nearest lighted dial, withdrew and counted its contents. "Seven dollars and thirty-nine cents. That's the works." With her free hand she overturned the little purse and shook it.

He put the car in gear, drove around the corner, entered an alley, and parked halfway along it. He turned off headlights and engine, but left the dashboard aglow. He hooked a finger into his side pocket and pulled it open. She dumped the money in.

"Looky," he said, holding his badge to the light. She leaned forward and read JUNIOR G-MAN.

He caught her claw in mid-air and fished out his wallet with his left hand, flipping it open to show the real badge.

"I took that phony one off a punk tonight who was shaking down bartenders." He dropped her wrist and put both badges away. "In case you think I'm nothing but a cunt cop."

"Hey," said she. "Can I have a nickel back for carfare? I ain't got no way to get home."

"Sure thing," he said, leaning against the seat back and probing for his fly-zipper with an insolent finger. "Soon's you play a little tune on my meat whistle. Don't bite, and maybe I'll slip you a dime."

"Lemme," said Laverne. He wore BVD's under the gray serge, and she unfastened the appropriate button, gathered his squirmy balls in her hand, and squeezed as if she were cracking one walnut against another.

He let out a rush of air and slammed his head on the steering wheel. She jumped out of the auto and ran up the alley in the impossible direction for his pursuit, the passage being one car wide. Reaching the street, she shrewdly walked in the direction of the police station. She might even have had the guts to go in, report a robbery, and borrow a nickel from the desk sergeant, but in the next block she saw a taxi stand with an attendant Yellow Cab. The driver was happy to get a fare out to the Valley, seventy-five cents on the zone chart.

She told him, "Cheap at half the price," took off her big hat, and scrooched down on the seat till they had cleared the downtown. When they reached her house, a half hour later, she told the cabbie she had to go in and get the money, and he didn't even give her a funny look. Going on the offensive had changed her luck.

"You just take your time, ma'am," said he.

Sitting on the bottom step of her stairway in the dark was Buddy's boy, chin on hand like The Thinker. They were both startled. He recovered before she did, sprang up, and began to jabber about owing her money.

She caught her breath and said: "Gimme a dollar then." He dug one from his pocket, and she took it out to the taxi.

"Keep it." She walked away from the profuse thanks and returned to Ralph. Only he was gone now. She wondered whether he was a mental case. She found him more or less hiding behind the steps.