money.â
âA few hundred bucks isnât worth five years in Florence.â
âYou ought to know about that.â
âI havenât been in any trouble since I got out. I want to keep it like that.â
The street dipped under a railroad overpass and Mitch leaned forward to see into the dimness underneath. When they emerged on the downtown side the street narrowed between austere new high-rise buildings and they inched forward in traffic clotted like blood. Mitch said, âWhen I asked you for a job I told you Iâd done a few monthsâ time. You said that was all right so I thought you were doing me a favor, but Iâm getting the feeling you hired me because Iâd done time, not in spite of it.â
âI donât know what youâre complaining about. Youâll never make a living playing that guitar of yoursâif youâve got any talent it must be in your grandmotherâs name.â
âThatâs not true and you know it.â
âI do?â
âI hold up my end. Iâm the best youâve ever had in this third-rate band.â
âTo be sure,â Floyd murmured. âBut that does us a fat lot of good when we canât get booked.â
A light turned green and they started to move ahead. Floyd said, âTurn left up ahead and start looking for a phone booth. I want to make a call.â
Mitch made the turn into the southbound boulevard. It was a woebegone strip of lumberyards, motels and bars. There was a tight string of intersection gas stations, pennants flapping, bitterly engaged in a furious price war.
Floyd said, âListen, there are millions of musicians aroundâdo you really want to spend the rest of your life picking at a guitar in fifty-cent bars? How old are you?â
âTwenty-three.â
âGrade B jobs for Grade B wages. All you can get, Mitch. You want to eat beans the rest of your life? You want to get old and retire on your union pension? I donât.â
âItâs better than prison.â
âOnly the stupid ones end up there.â
âHereâs your phone booth.â
The sun was going down fast; neon signs were lighting up. Mitch stopped by the roadside booth and Floyd got out, leaving the car door open. He didnât shut the phone-booth door and Mitch could hear the coins drop in the phone. After a minute Floyd spoke into the mouthpiece:
âThis is Rymer. Iâve got a car that needs fixingâ¦. No, Iâm afraid it wonât move at all. Iâd like to have the mechanic come over here and look at it. Iâm at the Twenty-first place, same as last timeâ¦. Sure, youâve done some work for me before. Itâs a 1949 Studebaker.⦠Yes, right awayâsay ten minutes.â
Floyd hung up and got back into the car. âLetâs go down Twenty-first.â
âYou havenât got any 1949 Studebaker.â
âThink of that,â Floyd said.
Donât get uptight , he told himself. Donât bust your mind until you find out what the bastardâs up to .
It was a dingy maculose street. Shanties of corrugated metal, junkyards, here and there a squat adobe bar isolated by dusty yards. Floyd said, âThat one on the corner under the Schlitz sign.â
A wheelless Model-A Ford stood on bricks in the vacant lot beside the bar. Mitch pulled into the dirt yard by the billboard; dust hung around the car when Floyd got out. The door chunked shut and Floyd leaned his shaggy head in the window. âCome in with me.â
âWhat for?â
Floyd came around the car and opened Mitchâs door.
âYou going to rob another till?â
âRelax. Nothing like that.â
Twilight fanned gray and pink across the clouds. Mitch got out of the car and followed Floyd into the bar. It was dim and pungent, lit by blue bulbs and beer ads and redolent of stale beer and tobacco smoke. Four or five patronsâMexican laborers and an old