He saw an open sewer grating at the first corner and for a moment he was tempted to push the damned jewelry, handkerchief and all, through it. But the thought came to him that that would be a useless gesture now. With the written confession in Irby's hands, soon in Dolly's, having the stuff on him was no additional danger to him now. Besides, it was worth something. If a fence had considered giving him fifty for the ring, probably a hock shop proprietor would give him at least that and maybe more tomorrow. And since the police didn't have a list for checking there'd be no danger selling the ring openly now. No use throwing fifty bucks or more down the sewer. Maybe Uncle would give him a few bucks, say five for all of it, for the costume stuff.
He thought again of the ring in connection with the poker game. The game would be starting by now. But—oh, hell, it was hopeless. He needed fifteen hundred now, fourteen hundred and eighty to be exact, and he'd never seen money like that change hands in the game. A few hundred, never more than five or six, was as much as he'd ever seen anybody win or lose, and not that much very often. It would have been a miracle if he'd have got in the game and won enough to pay off Amico.
His only chance, his only chance, now was Ruth and her insurance policy. (What if she'd get killed by a car on the way home from work tonight? He'd have the whole ten thousand coming, as her beneficiary, and his troubles would be gone. Eight and a half thousand left after paying off one and a half thousand. But things like that never happened, not when you desperately needed to have them happen.) But what remotely credible story could he make up when he'd needed only five hundred late this afternoon? Not that he'd lost another thousand gambling—if she did believe that, it would make her so mad she'd be more likely to walk out on him than meekly agree to borrow that much on the policy for him. And she probably wouldn't believe him to begin with, and he couldn't blame her; he'd never gambled for stakes like that before, a grand in one evening. The four-eighty to Amico had been lost in his bad-luck run over several weeks.
But there had to be some way out. There had to be.
He'd walked two blocks before he decided that walking wasn't doing him any good. His mind was going in circles, getting nowhere. He could think better sitting down. And besides, the shock of Mack Irby had knocked off his slight edge, had knocked all the alcohol out of him. And he could think better with a slight edge, just a slight one, than cold sober. He needed a drink and needed it badly.
The Palace Bar was coming up. It was a place he ordinarily didn't like and seldom drank at, especially since he'd never been able to get the place on his customer list. It was mostly a workingman's bar, doing a beer trade. But they did sell whisky, and any port in a storm. Maybe it would be a better place right now than most because he'd almost certainly not run into anybody he knew there. And he didn't want to see anybody he knew.
He played safe by looking into the window first. There were a few men in the place, mostly down at the far end of the bar, but they were all strangers. Still better, he didn't even know the bartender. Kowalsky, who ran the place, wasn't there himself and the bartender must be a new man he'd put on recently.
Ray Fleck went in and took a stool at the corner of the bar, facing the back. The bartender came over and he ordered a double, a highball. It came and he paid for it.
He sipped at it and tried to think, but nothing came, nothing constructive. He thought, damn Amico; if Amico hadn't put the heat on him, if Amico hadn't been so tough, he'd still be all right; he'd have got Amico paid off sooner or later and he wouldn't have been tempted to steal Dolly's stuff. And damn Dolly and double damn Irby; he hadn't had time to get to her place yet, but soon they'd be celebrating his check and confession and laughing at him. And then going to bed together to celebrate some more. Irby hadn't fooled him by calling his client Miss Mason; he was one of her men all right, and probably her steady. He wondered how many other shakedown rackets they'd worked together.
Most of all, damn Ruth. It all had started by her being selfish and unreasonable this afternoon, refusing him the five hundred he'd needed then. If she'd been reasonable and sensible then, none of the rest would have happened, none of it.