Read Wild Town for Free Online Page B

ones”—adding another half-pint of whiskey to his interior content.
    He tossed the empty bottle into the incinerator chute. Turning away from it, he suddenly staggered wildly and flailed the air with his arms. The fit was gone almost as soon as it came: he had moved in an insane blur for a moment, and then it was all over. But Westbrook knew that it signaled the crossing of an invisible line. From now on the booze would be working against him, sweeping him finally into the dark and disastrous void which he had penetrated so often in the past.
    Westbrook shivered slightly, remembering those occasions. He remembered the agony that had followed them, the terrible sickness and the equally terrible shame and embarrassment. He couldn’t go through it again. God, he couldn’t do it! He could not, must not, take another drink tonight!
    Except, of course, one very small one. Just enough to see him through this Dudley matter.
    He took it. He re-corked the bottle, then slowly uncorked it and took another one. Seemingly, there were no ill effects.
    He did feel a rising anger, but that was natural enough. Goddammit, how long could a man go on catching the dirty end of the stick without getting fed up? He never got any rest. He never had a minute to call his own. Work, by God, that was all he ever got. Work and more work, and then still more work. And what did he have to work with, hah? A bunch of bumbling, bastardly lunatics! And was it appreciated, hah? Did he ever get a goddamned word of thanks, hah?
    Shit, no!
    Westbrook snapped suddenly out of his self-pitying reverie, wondering if he had spoken aloud. He decided (1) that he hadn’t, (2) that he didn’t give a damn if he had, and (3) that he wasn’t the kind of a man who went around talking to himself. The first decision was entirely correct, the last almost. He became hatefully insulting and murderously angry when his alcoholic tolerance was exceeded. But he had to be literally saturated before he appeared drunk, in the usual sense. The fact was at once his curse and his blessing.
    He drank the remainder of his whiskey. Then, with his shoulders hunched pugilistically, his eyes squinted to pinpoints, and his face flushed with righteous indignation, he stamped down the corridor. He was in a wing of the building, one of its two wings. Bugs McKenna’s room was a few steps away, facing the court as did the rooms of all employees who slept in.
    Westbrook strode up to the door. He drew his fist back, hesitated—held it poised for a matter of seconds—and then he pounded.

4
    B ugs had been awakened by the ringing of the telephone. It was his usual eleven p.m. wake-up call, and he and the operator exchanged the usual amenities. With that out of the way, she advised him that yes, he had had one call.
    “Mrs. Hanlon. She said you could give her a ring whenever you waked up.”
    “Oh,” Bugs said. “Well, thanks.”
    “Yes, sir. Shall I get her for you now, sir?”
    Bugs didn’t like the tone of her voice, the subtle note of amusement. So he said, “No. I’ll tell you when I want you to call her,” and slammed up the receiver.
    He took a shower. Toweling his big body, he decided that he was jumping at shadows again, acting like a touchy kid instead of a man. He was wrong about the telephone operator. Or, if he wasn’t—if she was a little tickled about Mrs. Hanlon’s almost nightly calls—what of it? It was nothing to get sore about. He should have let her have her little joke and pretended not to notice.
    “Got to watch that stuff,” he murmured aloud. “You’ve been getting along swell, so don’t start slipping.”
    He shaved. He dressed, standing in front of the door-length mirror, and unconsciously, contentedly, he began to hum. He looked like a different man these days. More important, he felt like one. He was still unsure of himself, still inclined to jump down people’s throats for little or no cause, but not nearly to the extent he had used to be. All the