Part 5 (1/2)
V
The Downward Path
I had left the board money and a note for my landlady on the mantel in the darkened dining-room, had reached the railroad station, and was about to buy a ticket to the farthest corner of the State, when I suddenly remembered that I was running away with an additional handicap to be added to all the others. Leaving the coal company and the city without notice or explanation, I was making it impossible to keep my record clear in the monthly report to the prison authorities.
With a sinking heart I realized that I must wait and fight it out with Mullins to some sort of a conclusion which would give me a clean slate.
There must be nothing that I could not explain clearly to any one who might ask. I had a job, and I must be able to give my reason for quitting it. With this new entanglement to put leaden shoes on my feet, I retraced my steps through the eight weary blocks to the boarding-house, dodging through back streets and walking because I hadn't the nerve to face the cheerful throng of theater-goers at that hour crowding the street-cars.
I think Mullins knew or suspected what was coming when I went to him the next morning and told him I wished to have a talk with him.
Without a word he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the little private office which was used at odd times by the district manager.
”I'm quitting this morning, Mr. Mullins,” I began, when the door was shut. ”If my work has been satisfactory, I should like to have a letter of recommendation.”
The bookkeeper smoked a corn-cob pipe, and he stopped to refill and light it before he opened on me.
”What's wrong?” he demanded. For an Irishman he was always exceedingly sparing of his words.
”Suppose we say that the climate doesn't agree with me here.”
”You're no sick man!” he shot back; and then: ”Want more pay?”
”No; I want a letter of recommendation.”
”We never give 'em.”
”So I have heard. But this time, Mr. Mullins, you are going to make an exception and break your rule.”
”Not for you, we won't.”
”Why not for me?”
”Because we're knowing your record. You're fixing to go back to the pen, where you came from.”
”You knew my record when you hired me. Chief Callahan gave it to you, and I knew that he did. But that is neither here nor there; I want my letter, and I want you to say in it that I am leaving to look for a more favorable climate.”
”And if I don't give it to you?--if I tell you to go straight plumb to h.e.l.l?”
”In that case I shall take all the chances--_all_ of them, mind you---and write a letter to the Interstate Commerce Commission.”
If the man had had a gun in his hands I believe he would have killed me. There was manslaughter in his little gray, pig-like eyes. But he recovered himself quickly.
”If you're that kind of a gink, I'm d.a.m.ned glad to get rid of you at any price,” he rasped; and then went to the district manager's desk and wrote me the letter, ”To Whom it may Concern,” practically as I dictated it.
That ended it, and when the letter was signed and flung across the desk at me I lost no time in getting out of the noxious atmosphere of the place. But before I was well out of the yard it occurred to me that I had still left a loaded weapon in Mullins's hands. Though the threat of exposure might tie him and his grafting coal company up, he could still appeal to Callahan, who would doubtless find an excuse for arresting me before I could leave town. And once in the hands of the chief crook I should be lost.
Under the spur of this new menace I returned quickly to the coal office, with some inchoate idea of trying to bully the scoundrelly chief of police through the hold I had acquired upon the coal company.
The office was empty when I reached it, and at first I thought Mullins had gone out. But at a second glance I saw that he was in the telephone closet, the door of which he had left ajar. Overhearing my own name barked into the transmitter, I listened without scruple.