Hard Rain Falling (38 page)

Not long after Sally left him Jack was released from parole, and with a shock he realized he had been out of San Quentin three full years. He had been out for longer than he had been in. He wanted to celebrate, but there was no one to celebrate with. He did not want to go down to Vesuvio’s and entertain the lushes with his release from parole. They were fun to talk to, but they would not understand this. He had called Myron Bronson, of course, right after Sally left, really hoping she had gone to him, because at Bronson’s Jack was certain the baby would get good treatment. But Bronson did not know where she was. Jack knew Bronson wouldn’t lie to him. He even volunteered to help Jack look for her, but Jack said he would not do that; when she was ready, she would come home. He was not sure he believed it; he was not even certain he knew why she left.

He decided he would have to celebrate his release alone, and so he took the night off and went down to the Tenderloin to do his drinking. There was an urge in him to be among thieves and losers; it would be relaxing to be with thieves; he might even meet somebody from San Quentin and they could talk about old times and how good it was to be on the street.

It was no fun at all. He began drinking at a place on Mason, a block off Market, and after eight straight shots his gut felt tight but the rest of him was still empty. The customers were all strangers and the whole place seemed cheap and dull. He left, and on impulse went around the corner to the poolhall, up the dark double flight of stairs, past the empty wine bottles, the urine- and vomit-stained walls, through the glass doors, and into the huge mellow old room. Right at the door was the long row of billiard tables, all but one in use, old men in dark pants and white shirts leaning into the flood of light over the emerald green baize. He walked past them and the big English snooker tables to the long counter, ordered a bottle of beer, and sat watching a pair of young punks playing six-ball. Other punks lolled in the theater seats behind the tables, and Jack saw among them one or two old men, asleep in out of the cold. Poolhalls never changed. The punks never changed, either. The same knowing, wolfish smiles, the same sharp haircuts, the same wise talk.

In fact, the only difference Jack could see between this place and the Rialto in Portland was that this place stayed open 24 hours a day, and along the dim walls large old paintings hung, illuminated by special lights. The paintings seemed strange but not out of place. There was one, very badly done, of some old men playing billiards, but none of the others was appropriate to a poolhall except perhaps the reclining nude, in the pose of Goya’s naked Alba. The two on the other side of the room fitted the place only in the sense that they were of an era past; one of a group of harem women, the other of a pride of lions on a sandy rise in the greenish North African twilight—a strange picture anywhere, but here a kind of silent, moody comment on the roomful of small-timers. Jack sat and stared at the lions for a long time.

“Levitt? Jack Levitt?”

He turned around. The man speaking to him had thin blond hair, and cold gray eyes, and appeared to be in his middle thirties. Jack did not recognize him. “No,” he said.

The man smiled. “Sure you are. You haven’t changed much. Kol Mano. Portland. About a hundred years ago.”

Mano, the gambler. Jack recognized him now. They shook hands and Mano sat down next to him. “What’s been happening?” Jack said.

Mano shrugged. “I hear you were in Q. How long you been on the street?”

“Three years. Where’d you hear about me?”

“Around. You remember Denny Mellon? You used to run with him in Portland. He’s around, too. I saw him a month ago in Emeryville.”

“You sure got a good memory.”

“I got to. That’s my business.” He explained to Jack that he was still a gambler, and they ordered bottles of beer. Jack was not particularly glad to see Mano, but it was better than nothing.

“I got off parole today,” Jack said.

“Hey, we got to celebrate.”

“Yeah. Well. How’s old Portland?”

“Terrible. I haven’t been back in a long time. They closed the Rialto, tore down Ben Fenne’s building, shut up the card-rooms for poker action, everything. They got a lady mayor up there a few years ago came in and really cleaned house. Man, what a gas. She calls in all the cops and tells them, `Boys, I know what’s shaking; I know the location of every gambling club, brothel, after-hours joint in town. Tomorrow I want them closed and the operators on their way out of town.
Get it?
’.” Mano laughed. “So the cops, they go to the Scotchman—you remember him?—and tell him, `Jesus, this broad is serious!’ and he thinks about it for a minute and then says, `Okay, that’s all she wrote.’ Closed up shop and moved back to Aberdeen. So the whole town is tighter than a tick. The only action is a couple of poker and pan games in Vancouver, and they cut the pots so bad there’s no point. And, of course, the country clubs, University Club, and that kind of shit. But that never gets closed down.”

He squinted at Jack. “Say, it’s been a good ten years since I saw you, no? Lots has happened, man. Remember how I used to have to hold my finger over that hole in my throat? All fixed up.”

“Great. You feel better?”

“Well, I lost a great psychological advantage. You remember Mike? The big one, his mother was the abortionist? Well, he opened his own joint up on 14th, near the ball park, half the thieves in town started hanging in there, guys like Clancy Phipps, Jack Morgan, all those heavies. Anyway, he had a little combo playing there, and one night he gets in an argument with the bass player, I guess this was last year some time, and the bass player gets real pissed off, goes home, gets his old man’s shotgun, comes back and blows Mike’s head off. So he’s dead. So’s Dale Phipps.”

“Huh? I thought he was in the Marines. How’d he get killed? I heard from Denny he killed a bunch of people over in Korea.”

“Yeah. Well, he came back to Portland and was stationed out on Swan Island, got married, had a couple of kids, everything. And one night he comes back from duty and there’s his house on fire and fire trucks there, and a bunch of people standing around, dig? And he rushes into the house to save his wife and kids, and the whole place collapses on him. So he died. But his wife and kids were out of the place. They saw him run in.” Mano shook his head. “Man, what a hero.”

Jack looked at him. He tried to remember the mean, sullen, cruel Dale Phipps, tried to see him as a hero, and just couldn’t do it. They drank their beer quietly for a few minutes, watching a six-ball game.

“You know,” Mano said, “a lot of people got washed down the drain in the last ten years. It kind of makes you wonder.”

“Yeah? Who else?” Now Jack was interested; he wanted to hear about other people’s failures. Now he was glad he had run into Mano.

“Remember my buddy Case? Little Bobby Case? He’s in Alcatraz. Got strung out when he was about seventeen, hit the junk like it was going out of style, and they nailed him in Arizona, he did five there, and they nailed him again, running shit across the border, and he got another two, and then a bit at Lexington, and then finally Alcatraz, on a life term or somethin. I’m not sure what they got him for. We split a long time ago.”

“Who else?” Jack wanted to know. “Who else went down the tubes?”

“Well,” Mano grinned. “You.”

“You remember that colored kid, Billy Lancing? Went to that party up in the West Hills where I got busted?”

“Sure, I know Billy. I see him around once in a while, around the country. He’s a crossroader. I ain’t seen him in a few years, but he’s around. I think he lives up in Seattle now.”

“No. He’s dead. He died in Q.”

“No shit. You want another beer?”

“No.”

One of the punks came up to them, and said to Mano in a low voice, “Hey, man, can you lay fi bucks on me? I got a fish wants to spot me the five. What say?”

“Fuck you, honey,” Mano said cheerfully. “You couldn’t find your ass with both hands. Make it.”

“Cocksucker,” the punk muttered. He went back to the row of seats, but the one he had been occupying now had an old man in it. He snarled at the old man and went away. Mano laughed. “These fucking kids don’t know dick. Not a one of them has the talent Bobby Case had.”

Jack felt hot and flushed. He was angry that Mano hadn’t understood about Billy, although there was no reason he should have. But Jack was tired of him, depressed, unable to get drunk. He felt his already tight gut tighten even more at the thought that Sally had left him and taken little Billy.

“Well,” he said to Mano.

“Listen, I’m going to Hot Springs in a couple days. You want to make the trip?”

“Me? What for?” There was something in Mano’s eyes that Jack didn’t like, a kind of vagueness.

“I can always use some help. You look like you’re still as tough as ever. You know.”

“Bodyguard?”

“Sort of.”

“What else?”

“Nothing. What did you think?”

“What do you think?”

Mano’s mouth tightened in a smile with no humor in it. “When I want a punk, I’ll get somebody prettier than you, baby.”

“Okay. No, I don’t want to go to Hot Springs.”

Mano shrugged. “I just asked.”

“Nice seeing you again.”

In the end, Mano wandered off with his beer bottle, went up to the row of punks, and whispered to one of them. The punk got up and Mano sat down. Jack turned away. He felt terribly uncomfortable. He guzzled the last of his beer, hoping it would cool him off. He did not want to see Mano again. He did not want to see any of these people. He did not like the place at all. He did not know what the hell he had come in here looking for, anyway. Unless it was the ghost of Billy. And that was stupid. The ghost of Billy—even the ghost—would have better things to do than hang around a poolhall, even the poolhall he had been arrested in. This was Billy’s headquarters on that last desperate trip to California when his stake was gone and there didn’t happen to be any squares around who would play him and he had to go out writing bad checks to get eating money, and this was the place where the two big plainclothesmen came in and picked him up with everybody in the joint looking the other way and some of them sidling out the back door, while Billy looked up at the two hard bored faces and grinned and cracked a joke that nobody laughed at, and went out between the cops, telling the houseman to keep his stick for him, walking jauntily, with that nigger-strut cakewalk shuffle he affected to show he wasn’t pretending to be anything he wasn’t, down the stairs to his own death. Only he didn’t know he was going to die in San Quentin. And he probably wouldn’t have if Jack hadn’t come along. But I didn’t kill him, Jack thought furiously, he killed himself. But over me. He really did that.

Jack got up and went down the counter to the check-out stand. The small, balding man behind the counter eyed him blankly.

“Do you still have Billy Lancing’s cue?” The words came thickly up out of his throat.

“Private stick?” the man asked in a bored voice.

“He left it here four or five years ago. He ain’t been back.”

The man bent down and came up with a thick dusty ledger book, flipped it open, and began going down a list of names and numbers. Then, with his finger on a line in the book, he looked up and said, “Four eight five.”

“Is it here?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” the man said. “You could look in the tray.” He pointed to a high dark wood cabinet of trays. Jack went over, found the drawer, opened it, found the numbered slot. The cue was there, a Willie Hoppe Special. Jack lifted it out. It had a fine layer of dust on the exposed side. It was still a good cue.

“Is it yours?” came a voice from behind Jack. The man from the counter was there, to see that Jack didn’t steal anything.

“No. The guy it belongs to is dead. He died over two years ago.”

“Oh? Yeah?” The man did not seem to care. “But it’s not your stick.”

“No. I guess you ought to sell it.”

“How do we know the guy’s dead? People leave their sticks here a long time.”

“He’s dead. Take my word. I saw him die.” Jack stared hard at the man. “At least, I saw him knifed. He died in the hospital, later.”

“Put the stick back. I’ll have to ast Earl. Thanks.”

“I loved him,” Jack said to this complete stranger. “But, see, I never told him about it.”

The man made a face. “Oh, yeah. Well, well.” He waited for Jack to replace the cue in its slot, and then went back to his counter. Jack went down the front stairs to Market Street, the heaviness still in his chest.

So he had finally admitted it, in the only possible set of words he could use. Still, he did not feel any better. He had loved Billy and it hadn’t done any good. He loved Sally, he told her about it many times, but it didn’t do any good. He loved little Billy but it didn’t do any good. They were gone, and out of his stupid pride and cowardice he would not go looking for them. Suddenly he wanted to get into a fight. He was off parole, he could get into a fight if he wanted to. It would only mean a few days in jail at worst. It would feel good to bash somebody in the mouth. He made his way through the Market Street crowds, hoping somebody would look at him cross-eyed, or would push him. Any excuse. He walked past one of those hot dog and magazine stands, full of tough-looking punks and half-Mexicans, with greased hair and hip clothes. He caught the eye of one of them, a big one with thick stupid lips and acne scars on his cheeks. Jack grinned at the punk hopefully.

Very casually, the punk dropped his eyes; Jack waited, but when the punk looked up it was in another direction. It was useless. He did not even want to get into a fight. All he wanted now was another drink. He went on down the street and into a liquor store and bought three fifths of Jack Daniel’s. Very expensive, but only the best. He took a cab home.

He opened one of the bottles in the cab and took a long swallow.

“Don’t do that, buddy,” the driver said without turning around.

“I’m celebrating,” Jack said.

“Yeah? Well, not in my cab. What’s the big occasion?”

They can’t help talking, can they, Jack thought. They must get very lonely. He told the driver about the end of his parole. “My third anniversary on the street,” he added.