A Killer is Loose Read Online Free Page B

here.”
    “Good a place as any.”
    I started inside. He took hold of my arm and held me back. He looked at me levelly.
    “Thanks, for that back there,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Thanks,” he said. “I’m just telling you thanks. You saved my life. We’re buddies now, pal.”
    “Forget it,” I said. “You didn’t see the bus, is all.”
    “No.”
    “Anybody’d do the same thing.”
    “No,” he said. “Not anybody.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You,” he said. “We’re buddies.” He banged me on the shoulder. “See? Like that. You’re my pal.”
    “All right.”
    “You saved my life. I’ll never forget that. Never.”
    “All right,” I said. “But-” Then I got a look at his eyes and changed it, and said, “O.K.”
    “Let’s have a drink on it.”
    “Sure, but I got to get right over to the hospital.”
    He said nothing. We went on inside. I had got a look at his eyes and there hadn’t been anything there. That’s what was the matter. There was not a damned thing there, nothing. Just eyes, like a blind man. Nothing registered, you could tell. Just plain eyes. They were gray eyes and they were open and that’s all you could say about them.
    Otherwise he seemed a very energetic young guy who had maybe done considerable farm work, lots of energy, talking soft and fast and moving around a lot, even when he stood in one spot.
    It was cool and shady in Jake’s Place. I liked it because it was one of the last of the real bars you find anyplace. There was no red plastic and no chromium and the bar was wood, all the way. There was sawdust on the floor, good clean, fresh sawdust, and you drank wine, beer, or whisky just the way they were. If you asked for a Whisky Sour, you got a glass of whisky. You asked for a Martini, you got a glass of gin. And that’s the way it was, because Jake didn’t believe in cocktails or in mixing “the grape,” as he called it, with anything but water. Everything was “the grape,” and “water ain’t good for the grape, either, but you want water, you get water. Now why not catch hold of yourself, man? Drink the grape the way it’s naturally got to be drunk. You want ice, I got ice, sure. You want ice water, drink ice water. You want the grape, for your own sake, drink the grape. God wants it that way.” And his name was Jake Halloran. Big and black-eyed and black-haired and loud-laughing, and there was always a plate of cheese and crackers on the bar, and it never went empty for long.
    If you asked for gin, Jake would pour and say nothing, then lean on the bar with the bottle in his big hairy fist and stare at you until you’d drunk it. “You like that?” he’d ask. “Sure, I like it,” you’d say. “Have another, then,” Jake would say. And he’d pour you another. “You like that one, too?” he’d ask gently, leaning there with the bottle, watching you drink it, and by now you feel like ha-ha … well. “You still like it?” Jake would say. “Then get the hell across the street to the Tangerine Bar and Grille and drink up. They got better stuff.” Then he would stand there with the bottle and watch you soberly and pretty soon you’d grin because you for cripes sake had to do something and you saw that’s what it was. That he was waiting for you to do something, so he’d bust out laughing and you’d say, “Give me a whisky,” and he’d slap the bottle of gin on the bar in front of you and have a whisky with you, on the house. “The grape,” he would say. “Good, hey?” And all the time you were there, the bottle of gin would stand in front of you, and every time Jake passed by, he’d lift the bottle and rap it on the wood. Well, if you didn’t like it, that was too damned bad, and you could get out. Because he owned the place and that’s the way it was. He didn’t like gin. And by this time you didn’t either. You’d never take another drink of gin without looking over your shoulder first, either.
    There was a man and a