What's in It for Me? (35 page)

“Long distance. I want to call New York.”

“Person to person or station to station?”

“Station to station.”

“Number, please?”

I gave her the Intervale number.

“That'll be—”

“Just a moment. I'll get some silver.”

I hurried out to the soda fountain and broke one of my remaining three dollars into quarters. I saw the clerk watching me curiously as I went back into the phone booth.

“Hello?” the girl said.

“Hello. How much is that?”

She told me and I dropped the money in the slot. Then the phone began to ring at the other end. It rang three times. In the middle of the fourth ring it was picked up.

“Hello?”

I recognized Ruthie's voice.

“Ruthie,” I said quickly, “this is Harry. How is—?”

“Harry!” she cried. “Oh, Harry—!”

Then she was sobbing against the mouthpiece. There was a piece of phlegm in her throat that roared loudly as she breathed. My stomach started to get hard and tight until I could taste the ham and the soggy bread of the sandwich I had eaten on the train.

She sniffed quickly, drew the piece of phlegm into her mouth, and swallowed it.

“Harry! She's—she's—!”

The sobs made her voice sound wide and unreal. As though it were coming from the wrong end of a megaphone. Suddenly I hunched forward over the mouthpiece. I pressed the receiver against my ear until it hurt.

“Ruthie!”
I screamed.
“Ruthie, what—?”

“She's—she's—!”

The sobs choked her off. Then there was a man's voice on the phone.

“Harry.” It was Murray's voice. Very serious, very calm. “You've got to take this like a—”

The hand holding the receiver dropped down to my side. From somewhere against my thigh his low steady sorry voice came buzzing up slowly; then, sharply, “Hello, hello, hello,
hello—?”

I replaced the receiver on the hook carefully and went out of the store. I started to walk quickly up Broad Street to the station. But after a half block I stopped. I couldn't go back to New York. There was Nissem and Yazdabian and the cops. I turned and began to hurry back to the hotel. A half block further down I stopped again. I didn't have enough money to sleep there. And she might have told Nissem that I was at the Ben Franklin.

I couldn't go back. I couldn't stay here.

I looked around quickly. I was back in front of the drug store again. Two young kids in cheap polo coats were standing outside the door, smoking cigarettes. They looked at me, then down at my feet, then they leaned their heads together and began to whisper. They were admiring my shoes.

I crumpled the telegram into a ball and threw it into the gutter. How could a thing like this happen to me? That goddam little bitch! I should have known better than to trust her. I should have—I looked up and down the dark empty street. The kids were gone, too. I was all alone.

What the hell does a guy do now?

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1938 by Jerome Weidman

Cover design by Kelly Parr

978-1-4804-1071-8

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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