The walk from the shirt factory where Marylin worked, to the long, lean house in the long, lean street where she roomed, smelled of unfastidious bedclothes airing on window sills; of garbage cans that repulsed even high-legged cats; of petty tradesmen who, mysteriously enough, with aërial clotheslines flapping their perpetually washings, worked and sweated and even slept in the same sour garments. Facing her there on these sidewalks of slops, and the unprivacy of stoops swarming with enormous young mothers and puny old children, Getaway, with a certain fox pointiness out in his face, squeezed her arm until she could feel the bite of his elaborately manicured finger nails.
"Marry me, Marylin," he said, "and you'll wear diamonds."
In spite of herself, his bay-rummed nearness was not unpleasant to her.
"Cut it out—here, Getaway," she said through a blush.
He hooked her very close to him by the elbow, and together they crossed through the crash of a street bifurcated by elevated tracks.
"You hear, Marylin," he shouted above the din. "Marry me and you'll wear diamonds."
"Getaway, you're up to something again!"
"Whadda you mean?"
"Diamonds on your twenty a week! It can't be done."
His gaze lit up with the pointiness. "I tell you, Marylin, I can promise you headlights!"
"How?"