“My God!” Johnnie’s cross voice broke into the stillness. “I thought you’d never come back! I suppose you’ve been out catting around, you sly thing! Oh, oh! My back is broken in three places.”

When they reached Annie’s room, they counted the money Jim had given her, thirty-five dollars. All was silent in Germany next door. She told Johnnie little fragments of the evening, but he showed no special interest. He’d been to all those parties, he commented, and better ones than she’d ever see. Then she pulled down the wall bed while he yawned and scratched his backside, complaining about the spools of thread that he’d been sleeping on.

They both lay down, fully dressed, too tired to take off anything except shoes and jackets, he with his head at the foot of the bed, she with her head on a pillow. He was asleep at once. In the light that filtered through the gray window shade, she looked at the heavy, elderly man. A faint rancid smell of perspiration and cigarette smoke emanated from his clothes. She tried to visualize him as a young film star, a lover with a profile to cherish. She thought she heard a scrabble of dog claws against the wall from the next room. But then, comforted by Johnnie’s presence, she too fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 6

“The dog may like it,” Johnnie Bliss said irritably. “You could do a lot worse than this place.” He looked with disgust at the shoe in his hand. “Look at that! I’ll be walking around in newspapers yet. I’m too mortified to even take these things in to a shoemaker.” He pulled the shoe over his foot, groaning with the effort of leaning over.

“Coming back here at night, it’s like being punished,” she said. She dried her face and hands and went to the window. A breeze rustled the window shade.

“You’re a boob, Annie. Some absolute stranger tells you to call another stranger, and you think you’ve got a swank suite to move into. What if the rent is five times what it is here? What are you doing with your suitcase open? You haven’t even called the man yet!”

“It’s not only the dog—it’s the German grunting and crying all night. And these crazy old people who live here.”

“Listen, my dear, with the money we have, that’s our crowd you’re being so hoity-toity about.” He giggled.

Annie split open a brown paper sack and emptied her handbag over it. Shreds of tobacco and a dozen or so pennies fell on the paper along with a New Jersey bus timetable and a square piece of cardboard to which had been stapled a dozen small vials of the world’s greatest perfumes Annie had bought in the five-and-ten. She sniffed at the card.

“I’m going out to call that actor. Where’s Sycamore Street?” she asked.