The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

“Good,” said Gus, pleased. “That’s good. Then maybe, when you don’t have to send him money, you can marry that nice little lady I seen you with.”

“I hope so,” Bly said. “But first I’ve got to get Bill through college. That’s why I’m hanging on to this lousy job with Crozier so hard. I can’t lose it now, just when Bill’s all set to graduate. After he does, then I can take a chance on looking for another — something decent.”

“Sure, sure,” said Gus. “And you’ll find it, too.”

“If there is one, I will,” Bly said grimly. “Well, I’ll run up and see if I can tune that party down. So long, Gus.”

He went up the grimy shadowed stairs and down the long hall above. The noise of the radio was much louder here, packing itself deafeningly in between the narrow walls until it was one continued formless blare. Bly stopped before the door through which it was coming and hammered emphatically on the panels.

The woman’s shrill thin laughter came faintly to him. Bly waited for a while and then began to kick the bottom of the door in a regular thumping cadence. He kept it up for almost two minutes before the door opened.

Patricia Fitzgerald, if that was her real name, was a tall thin blonde. She must have been pretty once, but she looked haggard now and wearily defiant, and there was a reckless twist to her full-lipped mouth. She was drunk enough to be slightly unsteady on her feet. Her bright hair was mussed untidily and she was wearing what looked like a black fur mitten on her right hand.

“Well?” she said over the blast of the radio.

Bly said: “Do you have to play it that loud?”

She kept the door almost closed. “And who do you think you are, sonny boy?”

“I’m just the poor dope that lives above you. Will you turn that radio down a little, please?”

She considered it, swaying slightly, watching Bly with eyes that were owlishly serious. “If I turn it down will you do a favor for me, huh?”

“What?” Bly asked.

“You wait.” She closed the door.

The sound of the radio suddenly went down to a thin sweet trickle of music and the hall seemed empty without its unbearable noise.

Patricia Fitzgerald opened the door again. She no longer wore the black mitten. She was jingling some change in her right hand.

“You know where Doc’s Hamburger Shack is — over two blocks on Third?”

Bly nodded. “Yes.”

“You be a nice guy and run over there and get me a couple of hamburgers. If you do I won’t make any more noise.”

“O.K.,” Bly agreed.

She gave him the change. “You tell Doc these hamburgers are for me. He knows me and he knows how I like ’em. You tell him my name and tell him they’re for me. Will you?”

“All right.”

“Be sure and tell him they’re for me.”

“Sure, sure,” said Bly. “Just keep the radio turned down like it is and everything will be dandy.”

“Hurry up, fella,” said Patricia Fitzgerald, and neither her eyes nor her voice were blurred now.

Bly nodded patiently. He went back down the hall, down the stairs and across the lobby. The last thing he heard as he opened the front door was Patricia Fitzgerald’s laughter, sounding high and hysterical without the radio to muffle it.