The burglaralarm across the street had rung on steadily. Jimmy’s sleep had been strung on it in hard knobs like beads on a string. Knocking woke him. He sat up in bed with a lurch and found Stan Emery, his face gray with dust, his hands in the pockets of a red leather coat, standing at the foot of the bed. He was laughing swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet.
“Gosh what time is it?” Jimmy sat up in bed digging his knuckles into his eyes. He yawned and looked about with bitter dislike, at the wallpaper the dead green of Poland Water bottles, at the split green shade that let in a long trickle of sunlight, at the marble fireplace blocked up by an enameled tin plate painted with scaly roses, at the frayed blue bathrobe on the foot of the bed, at the mashed cigarette-butts in the mauve glass ashtray.
Stan’s face was red and brown and laughing under the chalky mask of dust. “Eleven thirty,” he was saying.
“Let’s see that’s six hours and a half. I guess that’ll do. But Stan what the hell are you doing here?”
“You havent got a little nip of liquor anywhere have you Herf? Dingo and I are extraordinarily thirsty. We came all the way from Boston and only stopped once for gas and water. I havent been to bed for two days. I want to see if I can last out the week.”
“Kerist I wish I could last out the week in bed.”
“What you need’s a job on a newspaper to keep you busy Herfy.”
“What’s going to happen to you Stan ...” Jimmy twisted himself round so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed “... is that you’re going to wake up one morning and find yourself on a marble slab at the morgue.”
The bathroom smelled of other people’s toothpaste and of chloride disinfectant. The bathmat was wet and Jimmy folded it into a small square before he stepped gingerly out of his slippers. The cold water set the blood jolting through him. He ducked his head under and jumped out and stood shaking himself like a dog, the water streaming into his eyes and ears. Then he put on his bathrobe and lathered his face.