XX
GOLDY SIMPSON!—proprietor of the “Alhambra of Mystic marvels and Persian Beauty Show” that had a large and gaudy entrance on one of the Island’s “avenues” and an inconspicuous exit on a neighboring walk. Its promises of entertainment were as lavish as the paint on its front canvas, and its fulfilment of them as shabby as the bleached pine of its back door. Its whole staff, in fact, was employed in drawing the public past its ticket office. Once inside the booth, you found nothing but three scrawny “Persian Beauties” posed on a curtained stage; the eloquent Simpson rose to make more promises of what was tobe seen, for another payment, still further in, where the police could not interfere; and the “boosters” led those who paid, down a dark passage, to the exit—and laughed at them in the street.
It was to this cave of robbers that “Shine” was led—led by the promise that if he assisted the “show” for the afternoon, he would be paid off at night with 25 cents for car fare, a pair of old shoes, a cap and a coat in which to return to town. He had to accept the offer; there was nothing else to be done; and he was in no condition to think of anything else even if there had been anything.
They dressed him to represent a Hindoo snake-charmer, in a white cotton undershirt, baggy chintz trousers, Turkish bath-slippers and a turban made of several twisted towels. Still half-stupefiedby Doherty’s “knockout drops,” he was shoved out on a platform before the “Alhambra,” heard muffled voices around him, saw upturned faces below him in a sort of crowded nightmare, and went out into the sunlight and came back into the dark, without understanding the orders he obeyed—dazed and sullen, and all the time groping in the uproar of a drugged brain for a thought that moved somewhere in the obscurity every time Doherty’s face flashed across his memory.
He could not recall what had happened. He knew that he had been with Doherty—but that was all.
When the costumed staff of the “Alhambra” sat down, inside the booth, to a supper that had been brought in from a neighboring New England kitchen—to save the necessity of changing clothesand going out to an eating house—“Shine” found himself with Simpson, Simpson’s wife, who was the cashier of the ticket office, a boy called “Butts,” who turned the crank of the mechanical piano, and three flaxen-wigged “Queens of the Harem” wrapped in faded dressing robes. Frankfurters, sandwiches and beer had been laid out like a picnic on a trestle-table of rough boards. In the dim light that filtered through a dirty skylight overhead, the powdered shoulders of the women were wanly white and their unpowdered hands werenot. “Shine” sat humped over his food, unable to eat.
Several times he looked up with a momentary blink of intelligence, and then frowned about him in a helpless return of his stupor, his head aching as if it would split. He put his hand to hisforehead and cleared his throat. He asked, in a husky and uncertain voice: “Where’s ... Doherty?”
Simpson was enjoying the situation. “I guess he’s blowed. I ain’t seen him since mornin’.”
“What’d he tell yuh?”
“He said yuh was over at Timmin’s lookin’ fer a job.”
“Shine” looked up under his eyebrows with a bloodshot glower. “He sloughed me fer ev’rythin’ I had on me.”
“I guess you’re right,” Simpson said. “He looked like he had.”
“Shine” put his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. Simpson winked at his wife. The Queens of the Harem smiled appreciatively, but with care—on account of their “makeup.”
After a long silence, “Shine” said weakly, “I got to get back to the boat, I’m off without leave. Gi’ me a pair o’ boots an’ le’ me go.”
“Sure thing,” Simpson promised. “There’s a fullah promised he’d be here t’night. I’ll let yuh go as soon ’s he comes.”
“I got to go now.”
“Long way to walk—in bare hoofs, too. Better work out yer contrac’.”
“Shine” tried to focus a wavering eye on him. “Yuh’re in this with Doherty,” he said. “Yuh damn double-crosser. Yuh dirty back-capper!”
Simpson replied, with meaning, “D’ yuh mind the time yuh handed me over to Pikey Moffat? Think about it.” He got up from the table. “Think about it,” he said as he went out.
His wife brushed the crumbs from thelap of her flowered satin evening gown, and followed him. The beauties in the bath robes trailed off to their dressing-room. The boy began to gather up the beer mugs.
He looked commiseratingly at “Shine.” “Wish yuh hadmyjob,” he said. “I dreamt I was a music box las’ night, an’ they wound me up by the arm. I got a cramp in ’t this mornin’, an’ he says he’ll dock me ten cents fer slowin’ down to rub it.”
“Shine” did not speak.
The boy looked after the Queens of the Harem. “Wish I was a woman,” he said, “an’ didn’t have to do nuthin’ but look picturesquew.”
He sighed. He pinched off the lighted end of his cigarette, put the butt in his pocket, and went out, grumbling, with the beer mugs.
“Shine” remained hunched over the table, staring at nothing and slowly gathering venom. When he went out to the platform, he was full of it, bitter with it, almost indeed sober and clear-headed with it.