Free 1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead by James Hadley Chase

about fighting, but when Caesar wouldn’t train she threw him up. She used to come here night after night about six months ago. Then she suddenly quit. I heard she left town. A tough baby, Vic. They don’t come tougher than she is.’
    ‘Come on out and break the ice for me,’ I said. ‘I want to meet her.’
     
    II
     
    L unchtime at Finnegan’s was always a noisy, crowded free-for-all, with the centre part of the room packed with extra tables to cope with the rush. But on the outer ring of the room alcove tables offered sanctuary from the crush and were jealously reserved for Finnegan’s special customers.
    From my secluded table near the bar, I spotted Kerman and Benny as they came in and waved to them. They waved back and moved towards me, threading their way through the packed-in crowd; Kerman pausing to apologize with old-world courtesy when he happened to jog an elbow or brush against a girl’s hat, while Benny followed on behind, readjusting the girls’ hats by tipping them over their noses and smiling blandly when they turned to remonstrate. Both seemed a little drunk, but that was a good sign. They did their best work after a bout with the bottle.
    As they neared the alcove where I was sitting they spotted Miss Bolus. Both of them came to an abrupt halt and clutched at each other, then surged forward madly, struggling to get to the table before the other.
    ‘All right, all right,’ I said, pushing them back. ‘You don’t have to get so excited. Sit down and try to behave like you were house trained. There’s nothing in this for you.’
    ‘Isn’t this rat cute?’ Benny said, appealing to Kerman. ‘He sends us out all day walking our feet to the bone while all he does is to leech around with women. Then he has the crust to say there’s nothing in it for us.’
    Kerman adjusted his necktie with a finicky little movement and eyed Miss Bolus with unconcealed admiration.
    ‘Madam,’ he said, with a formal bow, ‘I would be shirking my duty if I did not warn you against this man. His reputation is notorious. Ever since he gained access to Ebbing he’s been a menace to young and unprotected girls. All over the country hundreds of revengeful fathers are hunting for him with shotguns. Every time he passes the local orphanage toddlers stretch out their little arms and lisp “Daddy!” The beautiful girls you see lying in the gutters of this fair city have been thrown there by this fiend. Women are his playthings; here today, the gutter tomorrow. May I take you home to your mother?’
    ‘And if she’s anything like you, baby,’ Benny said with a leer, ‘I’ll come along too.’
    Miss Bolus looked at me inquiringly.
    ‘Are they always as drunk as this?’ she asked without a great show of interest.
    ‘It’s about their usual form,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’d better introduce you. You’ll be seeing a lot of them I’m afraid. The dapper drunk is Jack Kerman. The other one who looks as if he’s slept in his clothes is Ed Benny. They’re harmless enough in straitjackets. Boys, meet Miss Bolus.’
    Kerman and Benny sat down. They folded their arms on the table and studied Miss Bolus with an admiration that would have been embarrassing if she was the type to be embarrassed, but she wasn’t.
    ‘I like her eyes, Jack,’ Benny said, bunching his fingers to his lips and blowing a kiss to the ceiling, ‘and the delicate curve of her ears, and the line of her neck - particularly the line of her neck.’
    Kerman declaimed with exaggerated gestures:
    ‘She was a phantom of delight
    When first she gleamed upon my sight;
    A lovely Apparition sent
    To be a moment’s ornament.’
    Benny and I stared at him goggle-eyed.
    ‘Where did you get that?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t know you could read.’
    Benny hurriedly found a pencil and wrote down the quotation on his shirt cuff.
    ‘Would you mind if I used that, Jack?’ he asked anxiously.
    ‘It’s a very beautiful compliment, and I haven’t said anything