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taking my hand?”
    â€œWe’re getting married, tonight.”
    Tears squirted out of her eyes, and she said: “Where?”
    â€œElkton. They got day and night service, for license, preacher and witnesses. Maybe not the way we’d want it done, but it’s one way. And it’s a two-hour drive in my car.”
    â€œWhat about—?” She waved at the bag, equipment, and money.
    I said: “I tell you, I’ll look it all up to make sure, but I’m under the impression—just a hunch—that they got parcel post now, so we can lock, seal, and mail it. How’s that?”
    â€œYou sure are a wheedling cowboy.”
    â€œMight be, I love you.”
    â€œMight be, that does it.”
    We fixed it up then, whispering fast, how I’d wait outside in the car while she stuck around to pay the last few winners, which she said would make it easier. So I sat there, knowing I could still drive off, and not even for a second wanting to. All I could think about was how sweet she was, how happy the old man would be, and how happy our life would be, all full of love and hope and California sunshine. Some people went in the café, and a whole slew came out. The juke box started, a tune called Night and Day , then played it again and again.
    Then it came to me: I’d been there quite a while. I wondered if something was wrong, if maybe she had taken a powder. I got up, walked to the café, and peeped. She was still there, at the table. But a guy was standing beside her, with his hat on, and if it was the way he talked or the way he held himself, as to that I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he looked kind of mean. I started in. Mike was blocking the door. He said: “Pal, come back later. Just now I’m kind of full.”
    â€œFull? Your crowd’s leaving.”
    â€œYeah, but the cops are watching me.”
    â€œHey, what is this?”
    He’d sort of mumbled, but I roared it, and as he’s little and I’m big it took less than a second for him to bounce off me and for me to start past the bar. But the guy heard it, and as I headed for him he headed for me. We met a few feet from her table, and she was white as a sheet. He was tall, thin, and sporty-looking, in a light, double-breasted suit, and I didn’t stop until I bumped him and he had to back up. Some girl screamed. I said: “What seems to be the trouble?”
    He tuned to Mike and said, “Mike, who’s your friend?”
    â€œI don’t know, Tony. Some jerk.”
    He said to her: “Ruth, who is he?”
    â€œHow would I know?”
    â€œHe’s not a friend, by chance?”
    â€œI never saw him before.”
    I bowed to her and waved at Mike. I said: “I’m greatly obliged to you two for your thoughtful if misplaced effort to conceal my identity. You may now relax, as I propose to stand revealed.”
    I turned to the guy and said: “I am a friend, as it happens, of Ruth’s and in fact considerably more. I’m going to marry her. As for you, you’re getting out.”
    â€œI am?”
    â€œI’ll show you.”
    I let drive with a nice one-two, and you think he went down on the floor? He just wasn’t there. All that was left was perfume, a queer foreign smell, and it seemed to hang on my fist. When I found him in my sights again he was at the end of the bar, looking at me over a gun. He said: “Put ’em up.”
    I did.
    â€œMike, get me his money.”
    â€œListen, Tony, I don’t pick pockets—”
    â€œMike!”
    â€œYes, Tony.”
    Mike got my wallet, and did what he was told: “Take out that money, and every ten in it, hold it up to the light, here where I can see. … There they are, two pinholes in Hamilton’s eyes, right where I put them before passing the jack to a crooked two-timing dame who was playing me double.”
    He made me follow his gun to where she was. He leaned