Free The Alcoholics by Jim Thompson Page A

weren't in a very good position to kick up a fuss. Certainly, insisting on his release should not be done except in an extremity.
    The whiskey was dying in him. Black doubts-a fearful sense of insecurity he had never known before-edged into his mind. Was he really as good at his job as he'd boasted? Was he any good at all? Or were they just keeping him on out of pity?
    He laughed impatiently, irritably. Oh, hell. Everyone knew what Jeff Sloan could do. Ask anyone in the trade, and-But could he keep on doing it? What would he do if he couldn't? He'd never done anything else. He wasn't a copywriter or an artist or an accountant or anything like that. All he knew was how to get his teeth into an idea, and give it the old push-to throw it into 'em and make 'em like it. And-.
    And he sure hadn't gone over very big around here. First the Doc had brushed him off, and then Bernie and the Holcombs. And that could have been a brush-off from the Kenfield dame. She could have heard him coming, and pulled the sick act to duck him. She and the General, both. Something might have been said like, well, watch out for that Sloan character. He'll bore you in spades.
    Jeff mopped his forehead with the sleeve of his robe. This was crazy. He was just feeling low. He was making a lot out of nothing. The thing to do was-was-.
    Well, why not? What he'd thought about this morning? Murphy acted like one of those don't-give-a-damn guys, like he didn't care whether school kept or not. And a man like that was a good man to talk deal to. If he could just pin him down long enough to make a proposition, get him to set a figure, and then do a little talking and phoning around as soon as he got out of here… Well, that would show 'em. It would show Murphy.
    If-.
    But-.
    The alcoholic's depressed mood pulls him two ways. While it insists that great deeds must be done by way of proving himself, it insidiously resists his doing them. It tells him simultaneously that he must-and can't. That he is certain to fail-but must succeed.
    It is a maddening sensation. Jeff, to whom it was new, and who was undergoing a relatively light form of it, was almost at the point of yelling when Rufus came upon him.
    Rufus had observed him from a small staircase window, noting with satisfaction that the alcove in which Jeff was sitting would prevent his being seen from almost every other point in the house. Such opportunities seldom came Rufus' way, and he promptly took advantage of this one.
    "Mr. Sloan, I believe," he said, with such crispness as he was capable of. "How are you feeling, suh?"
    "Why-uh-" Jeff looked at him uncertainly, and half-rose from his chair. "Why, all right, I guess."
    "Sit still please. And kin'ly lean back."
    Rufus pulled the stethoscope from his pocket, adjusted the ear-pieces and slid the detector inside Jeff's pajamas. He listened gravely, his eyes professionally serious as they stared into Jeff's. He stood back at last and returned the stethoscope to his pocket, his pursed lips and drawn together brows obviously indicative of disconcerting knowledge.
    "Well?" Jeff laughed nervously.
    "Your heart always been like that?" said Rufus.
    "Like-like what? There's never been anything wrong with my heart that I know of."
    Rufus shook his head, searching for some safe but authentic temporization. "Well, now, o' course it could be simple-sympathetic. A reaction to some other condition. Kin'ly open your mouth, suh."
    Jeff opened his mouth.
    He was a little puzzled. He had thought Rufus only a flunky about the place, a waiter and man of all work, yet here he was assuming the functions of a doctor… Would they have an intern around such a place?
    Everything about this place was cockeyed. If this guy didn't seem to act quite right-and Jeff couldn't say why he didn't seem to-well, it was only natural.
    Rufus looked down at him, frowning, stroking his chin with one hand.
    "'Magine you're pretty constipated, aren't you, suh?" he said hopefully.
    "Not so you could