Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 90, May 1951

I hated having to slug her. But I had to — so I could write this down and you’d know it was all because of Soney. Not me.

The snow’s nearly up to the windows now and no matter how tight I roil them it sifts through. And it’s cold. I just felt Soney’s wrist and it’s like ice, even to my fingers. Her body lies on the back seat, and maybe it’s dead already and maybe it isn’t. It doesn’t, make any difference whether she dies now or an hour from now.

I have to keep feeding the fire all the time because paper burns fast and doesn’t give much heat. And there isn’t much left.

Soney’s dreams are burning. The dreams that were mine too, because Soney made them mine. And the dreams are burning up and will last maybe an hour longer — probably less. Till I can write this down on the stationary Soney cadged from the hotel in Kansas City. And whoever digs us out, please send it on to my friends back home...

It never pays to go into a rat-race like The Triple T. But that night I had to talk to someone. I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer, and after I drank off a few, I started looking around.

In one booth there was a character in a black shirt. With two babes. Both very neat. And the one that sat by herself had on levis and a plaid shirt. Blonde hair that fell to her shoulders and sharp features.

While I watched, the blonde got up and walked past me at the bar to request a number from the groaner. She swaggered when she walked and she exchanged fast conversation with the sleazy people who sat at the tables along her route.

And she bumped me slightly as she passed.

So when she got back to her two friends, I drank off my beer and walked back. She looked up at me with an unfriendly face. It threw me a little off-guard, but I was getting full of beer so I said, “Howdy, friends,” and swept off my hat with a flourish.

The blonde looked me over and moved over to the inside of the booth.

“You wanta sit down?” she said.

“If you want me to.”

“No one’s stopping you,” she said. And then she yelled at a sloppy, pudgy waitress who was passing, “Four beers, Mary.”

And I took my wallet out of my coat pocket and pulled out a ten. And I had someone to talk to.

That’s how I met Soney.

“Do you work for a living?” I said.

“Work?” she said. “What’s that?” Then she lit one of my cigarettes and said to the couple who sat across the table from us, “This character wants to know if I work. Do you call slingin’ hash work?”

She half-turned in the booth and looked me over again. She was looking at the clothes, and my hands that didn’t have black nails like the hands of the man in the black shirt.

“You jerks,” she said. “You jerks that went to college on your old man and then knock down easy jobs. And then slum around. You jerks,” and then she drank off her beer. Chug-a-lug. She was drunk.

After that, the evening didn’t go very good. Soney got nastier and nastier. I bought four more beers and four more beers. But her girl friend told me where they worked — Joe’s Lunch — as we stood out in the winter wind after the tavern closed and Soney was telling me where I could go.

I’d gone in The Triple T that night to find someone to talk to. Because I was new in town, on a new job. I met a drunken blonde and I forgot her — figuring I’d never see her again.

But a week later I was making a call out in the industrial center. It was after five when I left the plant with an order and as I walked to my car I passed a greasy-looking restaurant. Its windows were all steamy and you could barely see the sign that said: Joe’s Lunch.

I was in my car and had the engine going before I remembered. And like a real, twenty-four carat sap I got out and went back. I did have to eat some place, that’s true, but not in the place Soney worked.

It was she who served me. Brought me the roast beef and potatoes and boiled cabbage. It was Soney in a soiled blue uniform. I knew I’d made a mistake. But I said:

“Hi, Soney. Remember me?”

A smile brightened her sharp-featured face and she said, “Why, sure! Sure, I remember you. You’re the college boy I insulted the other night. In The Triple Т.”

She put down my bread and un-colored margarine and a funny half-crooked smile twisted her mouth.

“I guess I was pretty drunk,” she said. “I guess I ought to apologize to you.” She took a cigarette out of my pack that lay on the counter and lit it. “Say, what is your name anyway?”

“Parker Amhurst,” I said.

“A real fancy name,” she said laughing. “Ain’t there a junior or a second or a third on the end of it? Parker Amhurst, II, sounds even better.”

“You’re right,” I said, “there used tо be a II on the name, but I haven’t used it since 1929. When my father died.”