Take Me As I Am by William H. Fielding

Author:William H. Fielding [Fielding, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gate Way Publishers
Published: 2010-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Probably because it was so close to closing time, no customers were waiting at the cosmetic counter. The girl with the friendly pug face was busy counting her sales stubs. She remembered him right away. She had his gift ready, wrapped in a crinkly silver-cellophane paper. She said, "I'd almost given you up—" and regarded him with unabashed curiosity. "You weren't wearing that suit, were you, this afternoon?"

"No. I got a new suit at Crabtree's." He looked down at his trousers. They appeared sleazy after being wet by the rain. "It's a rotten fit, isn't it? I walked into Crabtree's and I expect I was taken. But I got it free. It was one of those advertising deals."

She said sympathetically he ought to have gone to Martin and Somerlane's. They had good men's clothes. By now almost everyone in Omaha knew Crabtree's was owned by Sid Gramellini. Last month the grand jury had tried to indict him, but failed for lack of proof that he ran the vice racket here. Gramellini was supposed to use his store as a front like that racketeer on the west coast had used a haberdashery store. Because prices were dirt cheap and they advertised that Photometric-Robot thing, they did a big business; but none of the men she knew ever bought clothes there.

She smiled. "Anyway, you didn't pay for it. I suppose you've got a date now with your girl to give her that fancy lipstick job?"

Alma wasn't really his girl but something warm and exciting touched his mind just to think of seeing her in a few more minutes. He said, "If I don't get washed away," stuck the gift in his pocket, and shoved the parcel of his old clothes under his arm. She said, "Here," impulsively, reaching under the counter for an umbrella. It was an old one, she said. It had been kicking around for ages. He could take it. He wouldn't have to bother to return it.

He hurried through the park. By now, rain was pouring. Even if the umbrella had been kicking around for ages it shed most of the water. That pug-faced girl had been unexpectedly kind. Having her give him the umbrella helped balance his experience in the clothing store. He wouldn't tell Alma he had walked into a place owned by a racketeer. Even if he was so fresh from the country that that girl behind the cosmetic counter had been able to guess where he was from, he wasn't going to let Alma know exactly how easily he'd been taken in.

On the corner below the park he waited impatiently for the green light. Through the rain the gray bulk of the library building dimly loomed before him on the other side of the street. A crowd of forty or fifty people was milling around the opposite corner. It looked as if there had been an accident. His heart gave a great thump of agony. Not Alma? He didn't wait for the light to change.

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