Free You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up by Richard Hallas Page B

kept saying I'd better not try it. All of a sudden I got a scare, and I felt sure Mamie knew all about me and Gottstein.
     
    I walked off and left her and sat down on the beach, right about the place I sat that day when Gottstein offered me the ten-spot to hold him up. I hadn't been thinking of leaving Mamie. I had begun to forget all about wanting to go. But the way she had talked got me to thinking about it again.
     
    But then I kept wondering if Mamie did know anything. She'd kept hinting as if she did.
     
    It got late and I dec ided to go back and have a show down. Mamie wasn't in when I got there. I sat there about an hour, playing solitaire and trying to make up my mind what to do. And then Mamie walked in with the cops.
     
    I just sat there and stared, looking at the two cops, watch ing them, and waiting for a break. They both had their guns strapped outside their coats. I just sat there, waiting. Then Mamie started laughing.
     
    "Gees, don't look like you was a murderer, big boy. These boys are friends of mine. We just met down in the Nude Eel, and I asked them up to have a drink of real liquor."
     
    Then I saw all three of them were fairly well loaded.
     
    "This is my husband," Mamie said. "And this one is Sam and the big handsome boy is Eddie. And they're both nice boys."
     
    They were both big enough. They took their belts and guns and coats off and Mamie got a bottle of Scotch and we sat there drinking. We started a penny ante game. I played right along, listening to them gab. The one named Sam was a big windbag. He kept saying:
     
    "How long since we went into action, Eddie?"
     
    Then Eddie would say, "You haven't shot a man in two months, Sam."
     
    "I'll be getting all out of practice. I'll have to get into action soon or I'll be all rusty," Sam kept blowing.
     
    This Sam, who was Irish, was getting plenty oiled. Finally he couldn't even hold his cards. And he kept letting his hand fall on the floor. We quit playing, and Eddie started kidding him. He got Sam to tell about the shotgun he kept under his bed in case enemies attacked him, and how he always slept with two guns under his pillow.
     
    They were both windbags, but this Sam was yellow, too. You could see that. He was afraid day and night that somebody would get him. He was a big bag of wind.
     
    After they'd gone I sat there thinking.
     
    "What's the matter, big boy?" Mamie said, "Jealous?"
     
    I was thinking that maybe it was just chance Mamie had picked up with the two cops. But then maybe she did know something. If she did, she had picked a good way to get me identified by police, so's they'd know me.
     
    "No," I said, "I don't mind you having a good time any way you want. But personally I'd sooner go round with a coyote than a cop."
     
    "What are you afraid of cops for?" she asked me.
     
    "I never said I was afraid of them," I said. "I just don't like lice round my house."
     
    "Well, anyone would think you were afraid of them—that you'd committed a crime or something and was afraid they'd find out."
     
    "Say, I've never committed any crime," I said.
     
    "I didn't say you had, did I? I only said you acted like you had. Gosh, what are you getting so flustered about?"
     
    "I'm not flustered," I said.
     
    Then I figured I'd better stop talking. If I had kept on talk ing two more minutes I'd have spilled the beans to Mamie.
     
    Then I got thinking she acted like she knew all about it anyhow. I kept going back over what she'd said and remembering her words. And one time it would sound sure as if she knew everything, and the next time I could prove to myself that she'd said nothing that wasn't just an innocent remark. And that's the way it went, back and forth. I could prove either way I wanted: that she had to know all about me to say and do the things she'd done, and the next minute proving she could have done and said everything by chance.
     
    That's the way I sat there, not saying anything, and Mamie sitting there in her new