He Who Hesitates Read online

  "Your mother'll like it," the girl said.

  "I think so. I need some stamps; do you sell stamps?"

  "In the machine," the girl said.

  "And, oh, wait a minute . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "I want to get another card."

  "All right," she said.

  "Don't ring that up yet."

  "I won't."

  He went back to the rack and bypassed the Mother and Wife and Sweetheart section, searching for a section labeled Friend or Acquaintance, and finding one marked General, and then looking over the cards there until he found one that said simply, To Someone Very Nice on Valentine's Day. There wasn't any poem inside the card. All it said was Have a Happy. He took the card back to the cash register and showed it to the colored girl.

  "Do you like this one?" he asked.

  "Who's it for? Your girl?"

  "No, I don't have a girl," he answered.

  "Oh, sure, come on," she said, "big handsome fellow like you."

  "Really," he said, "I don't have a girl," and realized all at once she was flirting with him.

  "Who's it for?" she asked archly.

  "My landlady."

  The girl laughed. "You must be the only man in this entire city who's sending a card to his landlady."

  "Well, I am," he said, and laughed with her.

  "She must be something, your landlady."

  "She's very nice."

  "A blonde, I'll bet."

  "Well, no."

  "What then? A readhead?"

  "No, no, she's—"

  "Or maybe you like darker girls," she said, and looked him square in the eye.

  He looked back at her and said nothing.

  "Do you like dark girls?" she said.

  "I like dark girls," he said.

  "I'll just bet you do," she said, very softly.

  They were both silent for a moment.

  "How much do I owe you?" he asked.

  "Well, let me take a look at the one for your landlady," she said, and turned the card over. "Seventy-five and . . . twenty-five is a dollar."

  He reached into his wallet and handed her a bill.

  "Didn't you say you wanted stamps?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do you have change for the machine?"

  "Yes, I think so," he said.

  "Machine's right over there," she said, gesturing toward it with her head. She rang up his dollar bill, and then reached for a paper bag below the counter. "Are you from the neighborhood?"

  "No."

  She watched him as he put his money in the machine and then pulled the lever for the stamps.

  "Out of town?"

  "Yes."

  "Where?"

  "Carey, do you know it?"

  "I don't think so."

  "It's near Huddleston. Do you ski?"

  "Me?" the girl said, and laughed.

  He licked the stamps and put one in the corner of each envelope. "Do you have a pen?" he asked.

  "Sure," she said, and handed him one from alongside the cash register. "Did you ever see a colored person skiing?"

  "Tell you the truth," he said, "I've never been skiing, so I wouldn't know."

  "Oh, I'm sure there's one or two," she said. "There must be one or two in the whole United States, don't you think?"

  "I guess there must be."

  "Yeah, but I don't know any of them," she said.

  "Neither do I."

  She glanced at the envelope he was addressing. "Who's Dorothy Broome?" she asked.

  "My mother."

  "What's your name?"

  "Roger Broome."

  "I'm Amelia," she said.

  "Hello, Amelia."

  "Amelia Perez." She paused. "My father's Spanish."

  "All right, Amelia," he said, and looked up at her and smiled, and then began addressing the other envelope.

  "This is the one to your landlady, huh, Roger?"

  "That's right."

  "Mrs . . . Agnes . . . Dougherty." Amelia grinned. "Some landlady."

  "She really is," Roger said.

  "Mmm."

  "Well," he said, and looked up and smiled. "That's that."

  "Mailbox right outside," Amelia said.

  "Thank you," he said. They stared at each other for a moment. "Well." He shrugged. "Well, so long."

  "So long, Roger," she said behind him.

  He stopped at the phone booth on the way out and opened the directory, first looking up POLICE, and then turning to the CITY OF section and finding a listing there for POLICE DEPT. His finger skipped over the various headings, Alcoholic Unit, Bomb Squad, Central Motors Repr Shop, Hrbr Precinct, Homicide Squads, Narcotic, Safety, Traffic, Youth — where were all the individual precincts? What did a man do if he simply wanted a cop? He closed the directory and walked back to the cash register. Amelia looked up.

  "Hi," she said. "Did you forget something?" "I'm supposed to meet a friend of mine outside the police station," he said, and shrugged. "Trouble is, I don't know where it is."

  "Go across to the park," she said, "and start walking uptown on Graver Avenue. You can't miss it. It's got these big green globes out front."

  2

  The big green globes were each marked with the numerals "87." They flanked the closed brown entrance doors of the building, the building a soot-covered monotonous gray against the gray early-morning sky behind it. Roger stood across the street near the low stone wall marking the park's northern boundary on Grover Avenue, and looked at the building and wondered if anyone was inside; the doors were closed. Well, he thought, you can't expect them to leave the doors open in the middle of winter. Anyway, the police are always there, that's their job. They don't close on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

  He looked at the building again.

  It wasn't a very cheerful place sitting there across the street covered with the dirt of maybe half a century, its windows protected by wire-mesh grilles on the outside, the interior hidden by partially drawn and faded shades within. The only friendly thing about the place was the wisp of smoke that trailed up from a chimney hidden by the roofs parapets. He wondered how many policemen were inside there, and then he wondered if he should go in. Maybe it was too early to be bothering them. He walked up some fifty feet to where there was an entrance break in the low stone wall, and then walked into the park and onto the gravel path paralleling the stone wall. He looked across to the police station again, and then sat on a bench with his head partially turned so that he could watch the building.

  As he watched, the front door opened, and a stream of uniformed policemen came down the steps chatting and laughing; it looked for a minute like all the cops in the city were pouring out of that door. They came down the low flat steps to the sidewalk and began walking off in different directions, some of them heading downtown and others heading uptown, some of them turning at the corner and heading north toward the river, and half a dozen of the rest crossing the street and coming directly to the wall entrance he himself had used not three, four minutes ago. Inside the park, two of them turned left and started heading up the gravel path in the opposite direction, and two of them cut across the grass and what looked like a bridle path and waved at the last two cops, who were coming right past the bench where Roger was sitting. He looked up at them as they went by, and he nodded at them briefly. One of the cops, as though he recognized Roger as somebody he greeted every morning (which was impossible since Roger had never been on this bench across from the police station in his life), sort of waved at him, and smiled, and said, "Hi, there," and then turned back to the other cop and picked up his conversation as both of them continued on the path heading downtown.

  Roger watched them until they were out of sight.

  He turned on the bench again and busied himself with looking at the police station across the street.

  He supposed he would have to talk to a detective. That was probably the thing. You probably went in and said you wanted to talk to a detective, and they probably asked
you what it was in reference to, something like a bank or a business office, he supposed.

  He didn't like the idea of talking it over with somebody before they let him see a detective. That bothered him a little. He wanted to see a detective right out and clean, get it over with, instead of a lot of talk with a uniformed cop.

  "That's what they are in there, all right," the voice said.

  He turned, startled. He had been so absorbed with watching the building that he hadn't heard footsteps on the gravel path, and was surprised now to see a man sitting on the bench opposite him. It was still maybe quarter of nine in the morning, maybe a little earlier, and the temperature was, oh, he would guess somewhere in the twenties or even the upper teens, and the two of them were the only ones sitting in the park, facing each other on opposite benches.

  "What?"he said.

  "That's what they are in there, all right," the other man said.

  "That's what who is in where?" he asked.

  "Cops," the other man said. He was a small dapper man of about fifty, wearing a black overcoat with black velveteen collar and cuffs and wearing a gray fedora pulled rakishly over one eye. He had a small pencil-line black mustache and a black bow tie with yellow polka dots, the tie showing in the opening of his coat like the gaily painted propeller of an airplane. He gave a small meaningful contemptuous jerk of his head toward the police station across the street. "Cops," he repeated.

  "That's right," Roger said.

  "Yeah, sure that's right," the man said.

  Roger looked at him, and nodded, and then dismissed him with a brief shrug and turned back to study the police station again.

  "Have they got somebody in there?" the man asked.

  "What?" Roger said, and turned again.

  "In there."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Are they holding somebody?"

  "I don't think I know what you mean."

  "Of yours," the man said.

  "Of mine?"

  "In there."

  "What?"

  "Are they holding somebody of yours in there?" the man said, impatiently.

  "Oh. No. No, they're not."

  "Then why are you watching the building?"

  Roger shrugged.

  "Look, you don't have to put on airs with me," the man said. "I've been in and out of that place more times than you can count on your fingers and toes."

  "Mm?" Roger said, and was about to get up and move out of the park, when the man rose and crossed the gravel path and sat on the bench alongside him.

  "They've had me in there on a lot of little things," the man said. "My name's Clyde."

  "How do you do?" Roger said.

  "Clyde Warren, what's yours?"

  "Roger. Broome."

  "Roger Broome, well, a new broom sweeps clean, eh?" Clyde said, and burst out laughing. His teeth were very white. His breath plumed vigorously from his mouth as he laughed. He lifted one hand to brush away a frozen laughter tear from the corner of his eye. His fingers were stained with nicotine. "Yessir," he said, still laughing, "a new broom sweeps clean, they've had me in there on a lot of little things, Roger, oh yes, a lot of little things."

  "Well, I guess I'd better be getting along," Roger said, and again made a move to rise, but Clyde put his hand gently on his shoulder, and then removed it immediately, as though suddenly aware of Roger's size and potential power and not wishing to provoke him in any way. The sudden retreat was not wasted on Roger, who felt himself subtly flattered and hesitated on the bench a moment longer. After all, he thought, this man's been inside there, he knows what it's like inside there.

  "What do they do?" he asked. "When you go in?"

  "When you go in?" Clyde said. "When you go in? You mean when they take you in, don't you?"

  "Well, I suppose so."

  "They book you, if they've got anything to book you on, and then they take you back to the detention cells on the first floor there and keep you locked up until it's time to go downtown for lineup and arraignment, that's if your offense was a felony."

  "What's a felony?" Roger asked.

  "Death or a state prison," Clyde answered.

  "What do you mean?"

  "The punishment."

  "Oh."

  "Sure."

  "Well, what sort of crimes would that be?"

  "Burglary is a felony, murder is a felony, armed robbery is a felony, you get the idea?"

  "Yes," Roger said, nodding.

  "Indecent exposure," Clyde said, "is only a misdemeanor."

  "I see."

  "Yes sir, only a misdemeanor," Clyde said, and grinned. His teeth were dazzlingly white. "They're false," he said, following Roger's gaze, and clicked the teeth in his mouth to prove it. Roger nodded. "Sodomy, on the other hand, is a felony," Clyde said. "You can get twenty years for sodomy."

  "Is that right?" Roger said.

  "Absolutely. They've never had me in there on sodomy," Clyde said.

  "Well, that's good," Roger said, not knowing what sodomy was, and really not terribly interested in what they had had Clyde in there on, but only interested in what it was like once they got you inside there.

  "For them to have a case of sodomy," Clyde said, "it's got to be against the other person's will, or by force, or under age, you know what I mean? They've never had me in there on that."

  "Do they take your fingerprints?"

  "I just told you I've never been in there on sodomy."

  "I meant for anything."

  "Well, sure they take your fingerprints, that's their job. Their job is to take your fingerprints and get your hands dirty and make life miserable for you whatever chance they can get. That's what being a cop means."

  "Mm," Roger said, and both men fell silent. Roger glanced over his shoulder at the police station again.

  "I've got a place near here," Clyde said.

  "Mm," Roger said.

  "Few blocks east."

  "Mm."

  "Nice apartment," Clyde said.

  "Do they let you make a phone call?" Roger said.

  "What?"

  "The police."

  "Oh, sure. Listen, would you like to come up?"

  "Up where?" Roger said.

  "My place."

  "What for?"

  Clyde shrugged. "I thought you might like to."

  "Well, thanks a lot," Roger said, "but I've got some things to do."

  "Maybe you could come up later."

  "Thanks, but—"

  "It's a nice place," Clyde said, and shrugged.

  "Well, the thing is—"

  "They've never had me in there on anything big, if that's what's bothering you."

  "That's not—"

  "I'd have told you if it was anything worse than a misdemeanor."

  "I know, but—"

  "They just think it's fun to pick me up every now and then, that's all." He made a contemptuous face, and then said, "Cops."

  "Well, thank you very much," Roger said, standing, "but—"

  "Will you come up later?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  "I have a poodle," Clyde said.

  "That's—"

  "His name is Shatzie, he's a nice dog, you'd like him."

  "I'm sorry," Roger said.

  "Please," Clyde said, and looked up at him.

  Roger shook his head.

  "No," he said.

  He kept shaking his head.

  "No," he said again, and then walked away from the bench and out of the park.

  He found the post office on Culver Avenue and he went in and made out a postal money order for one hundred dollars, made payable to Dorothy Broome. The money order cost him thirty-five cents, and he spent another six cents for a stamped envelope, which he addressed to his mother on Terminal Street in Carey. He put the money order in the envelope, sealed it and then took it directly to the window and handed it to the clerk.

  "Will that get there by tomorrow?" he asked.

  The clerk looked at the address. "Supposed
to," he said. "If you bring it in before five, it's supposed to get there by tomorrow. I can't vouch for the post office up there, though. They may let it lay around two, three days."

  "No, they're very good," Roger said.

  "Then it should get there tomorrow."

  "Thank you." he said.

  He came out of the post office and looked up at the sky, and figured there was just one more thing he had to do before going to the police station, and that was call his mother in Carey to tell her not to worry, that he wouldn't be home tonight the way he'd promised. A clock in a jeweler's window told him it still wasn't nine o'clock, but that was all right, his mother would have been up a long time already, just like he'd told Mrs. Dougherty. He wondered what Mrs. Dougherty would think when she got his valentine, he wished he could be around to see the look on her face when she opened it. Smiling he continued down the side street, looking for a phone booth. A bunch of teen-age boys and girls were standing on one of the front stoops, talking and laughing and smoking, all of them carrying schoolbooks, the girls clutching the books to their small high perfect breasts, the boys carrying them at arm's length or on straps. They'll be going to school any minute now, Roger thought, and remembered when he'd been going to school in Carey, and put the memory out of his mind, and saw the candy store some fifteen feet beyond where the kids were laughing and talking. He went into the store, saw the phone booth at the rear, and stopped at the counter to get change for a dollar bill. He waited until a fat Spanish woman came out of the booth. She smiled up at him as she went by. He sat in the booth smelling of her perfume and her sweat, and dialed the area code for Carey and then the number, Carey 7—3341, and waited while the phone rang on the other end.

  "Hello?" his mother's voice said.

  "Mom?"

  "Roger? Is that you?"

  "Yes, Mom."

  "Where are you?"

  "The city."

  "Did you sell the stuff?"

  "Yes, Mom."

  "How much did you get?"

  "A hundred and twenty-two dollars."

  "That's more'n we figured, ain't it?" his mother said.

  "It's forty-seven dollars more, Mom."

  "That's right, it is," his mother said. "That's very good, son."

  "It's because I went to that new place I was telling you about. The one I noticed in December, when I was in just before Christmas, do you remember?"

  "Downtown there? In the Quarter?"

  "That's the place. You know what he gave me for the salad bowls, Mom?"