“Fortunately? Gentlemen?” He walked away, then turned. “I’ll see you later, Mister!”
Roberts watched him leave. Powerful brute, he thought. Rio! A shipmate. A friend. How good a friend? Roberts put his finger to his lips. Certainly not a good contact for Martin. Damn the intimacy of the sea—like prison, like Devil’s Island, holding men together, destroying all the niceties of camaraderie.... Were those stories true about men on ships? A sordid subject exaggerated out of all proportion—still, some of it must be true. That big fellow. Was he? He had been unwarrantedly excited.
Rio left the Station. Mr. Fish inside would look good with his teeth out. Strictly fruit, huh? By God, these governors! Well, what of it?... Where to look now? Martin wasn’t trying to ship. He wasn’t at the Hall or on the docks. He wasn’t on Relief. He hadn’t got a job at the Station—or was Roberts lying. “Gentlemen here vested with that privilege!”
Rio took a train to Forty-second Street. The bright, flashing lights of Broadway shut out the early stars. The hurrying expanse of faces had less individuality than waves. There was no bond between their eyes and his, impassionate. They were as eternal, as indestructible as ants. They passed him, died, were born and passed again; a long, driving throng, pale and imperishable, typed and counterparted into immortality. Rio turned away, disgusted. Martin wasn’t there. He’d die in such a sea. God bless sailors and their drifted lives.
Rio returned to his room and lay down on the bed, nervous from its quiet. He saw the unused pitcher—one of dignity; with whiteness and good height. It made him slightly sick. There was a girl’s bag on a chair; and one article, too intimate, beside it. He rolled over. Suddenly the doorknob rattled.
“What is it?” he called out, impatiently.
Two girls walked in, smiling, red-cheeked.
“Hello, Rio,” one of them said. “Did you find your buddy?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad, Rio.”