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lighter
attachment on top. He lighted a cigarette and tossed the empty pack
into a grey-violet wastebasket. He looked at a yellow-stained radio
with a phonograph annex. Then he found himself glancing at the
record albums grouped in a yellow case beside the yellow-stained
cabinet.
    “I see you go in for swing,” he
said.
    From another room she said, “Legitimate
swing.”
    He heard a door closing and knew she was
in the bathroom. All he had to do now was open the door that faced
the corridor. Then down the corridor and out by way of the fire
escape. And then where?
    Dragging on the cigarette he stooped over
and began going through the record albums. When he came to Basie he
frowned. There was a lot of Basie. The best Basie. The same Basie
he liked. There was Every Tub and Swinging the Blues and Texas
Shuffle. There was John’s Idea and Lester Leaps In and Out the
Window. He took a glance at the window. He came back to the records
and decided to play Texas Shuffle. He remembered that every time he
played Texas Shuffle he got a picture of countless steers parading
fast across an endless plain in Texas. He switched on the current
and got the record under the needle. Texas Shuffle began to roll
softly and it was very lovely. It clicked with the fact that he had
a cigarette in his mouth, watching the smoke go up, and the police
didn’t know he was here.
    Texas Shuffle was hitting its climax when
she came out of the bathroom. Parry turned and looked at her. She
smiled at him.
    She said, “You like Basie?”
    “I collect him. That is, I
did.”
    “What else do you like?”
    “Gin.”
    “Straight?”
    “Yes. With a drink of water after every
three or four.”
    She stopped smiling. She said, “There’s
something odd about that.”
    “Odd about what?”
    “I also go for gin. The same way. The same
chaser schedule.”
    He said nothing. She went into another
room. The record ended and Parry got Basie started with John’s
Idea. The idea was well under way and Basie’s right hand was doing
wonderful things on the keys and then she was coming in with a tray
that had two glasses and two jiggers, a bottle of gin and a pitcher
of water.
    She poured the gin. Parry watched her
while he listened to the jumping music. She gave him some gin and
he threw it down his throat while she was filling her jigger. He
helped himself to a second jigger. He lit another cigarette. She
put on another record, and sat down in a violet chair, leaning back
and gazing at the ceiling.
    “Light me a cigarette,” she
said.
    He usually smoked a bit wet but he lighted
her cigarette dry. As she took it from him she leaned over to lift
the needle from the finished record.
    “More?” she said.
    “No. Let’s talk instead. Let's talk about
what's going to be.”
    “Do you have plans already?”
    “No.”
    “I do, Vincent. I think you should live
here for a while. Live here until the excitement dies down and an
opening presents itself.”
    Parry picked himself up from the floor. He
walked to the window and looked out. The street was almost empty.
He saw smoke coming from a row of stacks beyond rooftops. He took
himself away from the window and looked at a grey-violet
wall.
    He said, “If I had a lot of money I could
understand it. The way it is now I don’t get it at all. There's
nothing in this for you. Nothing but aggravation and
hardship.”
    He heard her getting up from the chair,
walking out of the room. From another room he heard a sound of a
bureau drawer getting opened. Then she was coming back and saying,
“I want to show you something.”
    He turned and she handed him a clipping.
He recognized the print. It was from the Chronicle. It was a letter
to the editor.
    There’s a great deal to be said in behalf
of Vincent
    Parry, the man now on trial for the murder
of his wife. I don’t expect you to print this letter, because the
issue will be ultimately settled in court and from the looks of
things it is a fair trial and Parry has his own lawyer. And yet the
prosecution has steadily aimed