There’s Always A Price Tag

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On a hot night in June I happened to be lounging outside one of those lush Hollywood niteries that have no free table unless you have a five-figure income, when a tall man in a tuxedo came through the revolving doors as if shot out of a gun.

I could see by his rigid stare and the stiffness of his facial muscles that he was plastered to the hairline. He was a middle-aged bird with a complexion like an overripe plum, raven black hair with a white streak in it and a moustache not much bigger than a well-fed caterpillar. Before his complexion had turned sour on him, he must have been handsome, but that raw mauve skin spoilt any claim he might now have had to a Hollywood Adonis.

He came down the six shallow steps that led from the nightclub as if they didn’t exist, and headed towards the main street that was loaded with fast-moving traffic.

I should have minded my own business and let him walk to his death. If I had done so I should have kept out of a lot of trouble, but instead, just as he reached the kerb, still going fast, and just as a big Packard, going a lot faster, would have nailed him if he had taken another step forward, I reached out, grabbed his arm and jerked him back.

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