“I should!” Beau said and took the proffered pen.
Not that evening, but the next, Beau made his way to The Block. He was determined, having obtained the needed money, and a few hundreds extra, for private use when and if and as needed, to expose himself to no further risks. So he approached by bus, then taxi, and then a second taxi and at last on foot.
Jake was there, in his littered office. He took the five one-thousand-dollar bills without comment. He dug in a greasy file for some time, produced Beau’s I.O.U.’s, handed them over, and then looked across his cigar stub. “Where’d you get the dough?”
“Borrowed it,” Beau answered cheerfully.
“Off who?”
“Friend.”
“What friend?”
“I can’t say. It was—a woman.” Beau was suddenly very nervous. He had entered the gambling place confidently, whistling a little. He had thought that all Jake wanted was the money. He realized, in a new way, that he was in the windowless back room of a stone building which once had been a house and was now empty, pretty much. At least the big downstairs room, with the wheels and dice tables under dusty canvas, was empty and had been for months-since the latest police cleanup.
“What woman?” Jake said.
“I told you…. Look! I paid. We’re square. So what?”