“Forget it, baby,” he said. “It was just one of those things. Anyway, she wasn’t so hot.”
Sadie knew he was lying, but she suddenly felt very tired, and she leant back, shutting her eyes.
As she didn’t say anything, Benny hopefully assumed she wasn’t mad any more. He drove along, his mind half on the traffic, thinking of the dame. She’d been a smasher. To think that had happened. If Sadie hadn’t been there, and if that tough hadn’t been there, maybe he could have dated her up. It would have been a pushover. It was a natural. He could hardly wait to get the car away.
Sadie leant limply against the wall of the little elevator as it droned up to the sixth floor. She didn’t look at him. Benny stood close to her, watching her anxiously as he wiped his sweating hands with a handkerchief.
She was looking tired and a little irritable, he thought. Anyway, if he went about it in the right way it’d be all right.
In the early days of marriage he would come in from work, sweep her off her feet into the bedroom, leaving the supper to burn. She’d always protested, but he knew she was pleased as he was when it was over.
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor, and Sadie walked out. On the opposite passage Tootsie Mendetta had his apartment.
It always made Benny mad to think that a rich guy like Mendetta should live just across his passage, and he’d never set eyes on him. He knew he was there, but he’d never seen him. Anyway, right at this minute, he didn’t give Mendetta a thought.
He fumbled at the keyhole, making two attempts before he sank the key. His hands shook a little.
Inside the small apartment he let her take off her hat and coat, and then he sidled up behind her. He put his arms round her from behind. “I love you, honey,” he said, his voice shaking.