Some Came Running by James Jones Page A

westerns but two, light comedies, all of them were bad movies, atrocious, even he could tell that, and in addition he did not find Dave’s name mentioned anywhere in any of them. Luckily, he had not told anybody else about the list, not even Agnes. He had no choice but to conclude Francine had been lying, and he wrote her so. He got no answer at all. Nevertheless, later on he had been glad when Francine, after her long and injured silence, had written to tell him Dave was being inducted and asked if he couldn’t do something about it. He felt the Army might be damned good for Dave. He sincerely doubted if it would and yet he still could not give up hope that something good might come of it.
    Well, evidently it hadn’t.
    Now obviously, Dave’s reason for not calling him was because Dave knew the news of the deposit would reach him. That could only mean he was out to make trouble.
    It left two alternatives: Either Dave would call him later, or he wouldn’t call at all. With a sure swift instinct, sitting at his desk in his office, he felt out and reconstructed Dave’s plan. Dave intended to call him later. He knew it. Probably the idea was to let him sweat a while over the deposit. And if this was true, and Frank knew it was true (it’s what you would’ve done, ain’t it?), then his countermove was to call Dave first. Catch him off his guard. Dave would expect him to be angry. So he would not be angry. He would invite Dave out to the house for dinner.
    Then we’ll see what happens.
    Finding his eyes staring at the back of Edith Barclay’s prettily bent neck and feeling not much better over what he’d just worked out he reached his hand out for the phone when suddenly another aspect hit him, which he had not thought about. Oh, Jesus Christ, the Old Man, son of a bitch.
    It was a very lovely neck, half of his mind was thinking, especially bent over low like that. The two cords or tendons or whatever they were that ran up to the base of the skull stood out in high relief, making very feminine very kissable hollows. For some young guy to enjoy, the half of his mind added quickly.
    Yes, the Old Man. It was a subject he very rarely allowed. Even when they met on the street or in the poolroom, and spoke, the old man irascibly, as often happened. He had trained his mind to ignore it all completely the handicap to his reputation the perpetual drawback to surmount in the town the constant affront to himself. This old bastard who was too old to weld anymore, so now he lived on the old age pension, in one of those homes for pensioners that middle-aged widows without incomes were starting all over, thirty dollars a month! that got him his room and board, and his liquor he had to scrounge for. But he seemed to do pretty goddamned well, because he never seemed to be sober. What was this going to do to that situation?
    Dave’s coming home would reawaken all that old stuff about him and Doc Cost’s first wife, as well as Dave’s own scandal. And himself had become one of Doc Cost’s best friends! All that old dirt stirred up from the bottom of the pool, and himself expecting to be elected secretary of the Country Club at the annual meeting next spring.
    Frank had offered him four times as much as his pension, if he would move clear out of the county. But the old son of a bitch refused to leave Parkman, just out of sheer cussedness, just as he’d refused to drop the c and mid t off his name and change e to i all these years, just so he could continue to wander town a worthless poolroom drunken bum and listen to people say, There goes Old Man Herschmidt, Frank Hirsh’s father, and then cackle over it, the no-good bastard.
    No wonder Mother’s life had been ruined, and she had nothing but sadness and had become practically a recluse except for her Holiness Church friends.
    What he should have done, obviously, was offered him the $120 a month if he’d promise not to leave Parkman, then the old reprobate would have insisted on