The air was sweet with the first freshness of the new day. Annie peered in through the window of the Model T. Johnnie Bliss was lying on the back seat on his rat’s nest of things, his stocking feet sticking up over the front seat. He was snoring softly. She leaned against the car, looking around at the palmettos, the silent houses, the shaded windows of her apartment house, the wide heavens. It had been a long long day. She’d been to the sea in the morning and then at night, to that same coastline along which Walter’s ship was even now making its way. She thought of Max Shore and the woman with the white gloves. Their meeting, or whatever it was they had been going to, must be long over.

“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.