Read Ebook: Juke-Box by Kuttner Henry Moore C L Catherine Lucile Marchioni M Marco Enrico Illustrator

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Ebook has 218 lines and 8316 words, and 5 pages

JUKE-BOX

Jerry Foster told the bartender that nobody loved him. The bartender, with the experience of his trade, said that Jerry was mistaken, and how about another drink.

"Why not?" said the unhappy Mr. Foster, examining the scanty contents of his wallet. "'I'll take the daughter of the vine to spouse. Nor heed the music of a distant drum.' That's Omar."

"Sure," the bartender said surprisingly. "But you want to look out you don't go out by the same door that in you went. No brawls allowed here. This isn't East Fifth, chum."

"You may call me chum," Foster said, reverting to the main topic, "but you don't mean it. I'm nobody's pal. Nobody loves me."

"What about that babe you brought in last night?"

Foster tested his drink. He was a good-looking, youngish man with slick blond hair and a rather hazy expression in his blue eyes.

"Betty?" he murmured. "Well, the fact is, a while ago I was down at the Tom-Tom with Betty and this redhead came along. So I ditched Betty. Then the redhead iced me. Now I'm lonely, and everyone hates me."

"You shouldn't of ditched Betty, maybe," the bartender suggested.

"I'm fickle," Foster said, tears springing to his eyes. "I can't help it. Women are my downfall. Gimme another drink and tell me your name."

"Austin."

"Austin. Well, Austin, I'm nearly in trouble. Did you notice who won the fifth at Santa Anita yesterday?"

"Pig's Trotters, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Foster said, "but I laid my dough right on the nose of White Flash. That's why I'm here. Sammy comes around to this joint now, doesn't he?"

"That's right."

"I'm lucky," Foster said. "I got the money to pay him. Sammy is a hard man when you don't pay off."

"I wouldn't know," the bartender said. "Excuse me."

He moved off to take care of a couple of vodka collinses.

"So you hate me too," Foster said, and, picking up his drink, wandered away from the bar.

He was surprised to see Betty sitting alone in a booth, watching him. But he was not at all surprised to see that her blond hair, her limpid eyes, her pink-and-white skin had lost all attraction for him. She bored him. Also, she was going to make a nuisance of herself.

Foster ignored the girl and went further back, to where a bulky oblong object was glowing in polychromatic colors against the far wall. It was what the manufacturers insist on terming an automatic phonograph, in spite of the more aptly descriptive word juke-box.

This was a lovely juke-box. It had lots of lights and colors. Moreover, it wasn't watching Foster, and it kept its mouth shut.

Foster draped himself over the juke-box and patted its sleek sides.

"You're my girl," he announced. "You're beautiful. I love you madly, do you hear? Madly."

He could feel Betty's gaze on his back. He swigged his drink and smoothed the juke-box's flanks, glibly protesting his sudden affection for the object. Once he glanced around. Betty was starting to get up.

Foster hastily found a nickel in his pocket and slipped it into the coin-lever, but before he could push it in, a stocky, dark man wearing horn-rimmed glasses entered the bar, nodded at Foster, and moved quickly to a booth where a fat person in tweeds was sitting. There was a short consultation, during which money changed hands, and the stocky man made a note in a small book he brought from his pocket.

Foster took out his wallet. He had had trouble with Sammy before, and wanted no more. The bookie was insistent on his pound of flesh. Foster counted his money, blinked, and counted it again, while his stomach fell several feet. Either he had been short-changed, or he had lost some dough. He was short.

Sammy wouldn't like that.

Forcing his fogged brain to think, Foster wondered how he could gain time. Sammy had already seen him. If he could duck out the back.

It had become altogether too silent in the bar. He needed noise to cover his movements. He saw the nickel in the juke-box's coin-lever and hastily pushed it in.

Money began to spew out of the coin return slot.

Foster got his hat under the slot almost instantly. Quarters, dimes, and nickels popped out in a never-ending stream. The juke-box broke into song. A needle scratched over the black disc. The torchy mourning of "My Man" came out sadly. It covered the tinkling of the coins as they filled Foster's hat.

After a while the money stopped coming out of the juke-box. Foster stood there, thanking his personal gods, as he saw Sammy moving toward him. The bookie glanced at Foster's hat and blinked.

"Hi, Jerry. What gives?"

"I hit a jackpot," Foster said.

"Not on the juke-box!"

"No, down at the Onyx," Foster said, naming a private club several blocks away. "Haven't had a chance to get these changed into bills yet. Want to help me out?"

"I'm no cash register," Sammy said. "I'll take mine in green."

The juke-box stopped playing "My Man" and broke into "Always." Foster put his jingling hat on top of the phonograph and counted out bills. He didn't have enough, but he made the balance up out of quarters he fished from the hat.

"Thanks," Sammy said. "Too bad your nag didn't make it."

"Can't be helped," Foster said. "Maybe next time I'll hit 'em."

"Want anything on Oaklawn?"

Foster had been leaning on the juke-box. On the last two words, a tingling little shock raced through him. Those particular two words jumped out of nothing, impinged on the surface of his brain, and sank in indelibly, like the stamp of a die. He couldn't hear anything else. They echoed and re-echoed.

"Uh--helping hand," he said hazily. "Helping--"

"A sleeper?" Sammy said. "Okay, Helping Hand in the third, at Oaklawn. The usual?"

The room started to turn around. Foster managed to nod. After a time he discovered that Sammy was gone. He saw his drink on the juke-box, next to his hat, and swallowed the cool liquid in three quick gulps. Then he bent and stared into the cryptic innards of the automatic phonograph.

"It can't be," he whispered. "I'm drunk. But not drunk enough. I need another shot."

A quarter rolled out of the coin-return slot, and Foster automatically caught it.

"No!" he gulped. "Oh-h-h!" He stuffed his pockets with the booty from the hat, held on to his glass with the grip of a drowning man, and went toward the bar. On the way he felt someone touch his sleeve.

"Jerry," Betty said. "Please."

He ignored her. He went on to the bar and ordered another drink.

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