Beebo Brinker

He held out his hand affably and said, “I’m Jack Mann. Does that make you feel any better?”

She took his hand, cautiously at first, then gave it a firm shake. “Should it?” she said.

“Only if you live down here,” he answered. “Everybody knows I’m harmless.”

She seemed reassured. “I’m going to live here. I’m looking for a place now.” She paused as if embarrassed. “I do have a name: Beebo Brinker.”

He blinked. “Beebo?” he said.

“It used to be Betty Jean. But I couldn’t say it right when I was little.”

They smoked a moment in silence and then Beebo said, “I guess I’d better get going. I have to spend the night somewhere.” And she turned a sudden pink, realizing the inference Jack might draw from her remark. “Everybody” might know Jack down here, but Beebo wasn’t everybody. For all she knew he was harmless as a shark. The mere fact that he had a name wasn’t all that reassuring.

“Looks to me like you need some food first,” he said lightly. “There’s always a sack somewhere.”

“I don’t have much money.”

“Better to spend it on food,” he said. “Anyway, what the hell, I’ll treat you. There’s some good Wiener schnitzel about a block back.” He tried to take her wicker case to carry it for her, but she pulled away, offended as if his offer were a comment on her ability to take care of herself.

Jack stopped and laughed a little. “Look, my little friend,” he said kindly. “When I first hit New York I was as pea-green as you are. Somebody did this for me and let me save my few bucks for a room and job hunting. This is my way of paying him back. Ten years from now, you’ll do the same thing for the next guy. Fair?”

It was hard for her to resist. She was almost shaky hungry; she was worn out; she was lost. And Jack looked as kind as he was. It was a part of his success in salvaging people: they liked his face. It was homely, but in the good-humored amiable way that made him seem like an old friend in a matter of minutes.

Finally Beebo smiled at him. “Fair,” she said. “But I’ll pay you back, Jack. I will.”

They walked back to the German delicatessen, Beebo with a firm grip on her suitcase.

She finished her meal in ten minutes. Jack ordered another for her, over her protests, kidding her about her appetite.

“Jesus,” he said. “When did you eat last?”

“Fort Worth.”

“Indiana?” Jack stared.

“Yes. I ate three sandwiches in the rest room, on the train. That was yesterday.” Beebo drained her milk glass and put it on the table. The pneumatic little blonde waitress brought the second plateful. Jack, watching Beebo, who was watching the waitress, saw her wide blue eyes glide up and down the plump pink-uniformed body with curious interest. Beebo pulled back, holding her breath as the waitress leaned over her to set a basket of bread on the table, and there was a look of fear on her face.

Jack thought to himself, she’s afraid of her. Afraid of that bouncy little bitch. Afraid of … women?

When she had finished eating, Beebo glanced up at him. For all her physical sturdiness and arresting face, she was not a forward or a confident girl.

“You eat like a farm hand,” he chuckled.

“I should. I was raised in farm country,” she said, looking away from him. Her shyness beguiled him. “Thank you for the food.”

“My pleasure.” He observed her through a scrim of cigarette smoke. “If I weren’t afraid of scaring hell out of you, I’d ask you over to my place for a drink,” he said. She blanched. “I mean, a drink of milk,” he said.

“I don’t drink,” she told him apologetically, as if teetotaling were something hick-town and unsophisticated.

“Not even milk?”

“Not with strange men.”

“Am I really that strange?” he grinned, laughing at her again.

“Am I really that funny?” she demanded.

“No.” He reached over the table top unexpectedly and pressed her hand. She tried to jerk it away but he held it tight, surprising her with his strength. “You’re a lovely girl,” he said. It wasn’t suggestive or even romantic. He didn’t mean it to be. “You’re a sweet young kid and you’re lost and tired and frightened. You need one thing right now, Beebo, and the rest will take care of itself.”

“What’s that?” She retrieved her hand and tucked it behind her.

“A friend.”

She gazed at him, sizing him up, and then began to move from the booth.

“I’m no wolf,” Jack said, sliding after her. “Can’t you tell? I just like to help lost girls. I collect them.” And when she turned back with a frown of disbelief, he shrugged. “Everybody’s got to have a hobby.”

He bought some Dutch beer and sausage, paid the cashier, and walked with Beebo out the front door. On the pavement she stopped, swinging her wicker case around in front of her like a piece of fragile armor. Jack saw the defensive glint in her eyes.

“Okay, little lost friend,” he said. “You’re under no obligation to me. If this bothers you, the hell with it. Find yourself a hotel room, a park bench. I don’t care. Well … I care, but I don’t want to scare you any more.”

Beebo hesitated a moment, then held out her hand and shook his. “Thanks anyway, Jack. I’ll find you some day and pay you back,” she said. She looked as much afraid to leave him as to stay with him.

“So long, Beebo,” he said, dropping her hand. She walked away from him backwards a few steps so she could keep an eye on him, turned around and then turned back.

Jack smiled at her. “I’m afraid I’m just about your safest bet,” he said kindly. “If you knew how safe, you’d come along without a qualm.”

And when he smiled she had to answer him. “All right,” she said, still clutching her wicker bag in both hands. “But just so you’ll know: my father taught me how to fight.”

“Beebo, my dear,” he said as they began to walk toward his apartment, “you could probably throw me twenty feet through the air if you had to, but you won’t have to. I have no designs on you. Honest to God. I don’t even have a bunch of etchings to show you in my pad. Nothing but good talk and cold beer. And a bed.”

Beebo stopped in her tracks.

“Well, the bed is good and cold too,” he said. “God, you’re a scary one.”

“Did you go home to bed with the first stranger you met in New York?” she demanded.

“Sure,” he said. “Doesn’t everybody?”

She laughed at last, a full country sound that must have carried across the hay fields, and followed him again. He walked, hands in pockets, letting her curb her long stride to keep from getting ahead of him. But when he tried to take her arm at a corner, she shied away, determined to rely only on herself.

Jack unlocked the door of his small apartment, holding it with his foot while Beebo went in. The corridor outside was littered with buckets, planks, and ladders. “They’re redecorating the hall,” he explained. “We like to put on a good front in this rattrap.”

He headed for the kitchen with the bag of sausage and the beer, set them on the counter, and sprang himself a can of cold brew. “What do you want, Beebo? One of these?” He lifted the can. When she hesitated, he said, “You don’t really want that milk, do you?”

“Have you got something—weak?”

“Well, I’ve got something colorful,” he said. “I don’t know how weak it is.” He went down on his haunches in front of a small liquor chest and foraged in it for a minute. “Somebody gave me this stuff for Christmas and I’ve been trying to give it away ever since. Here we are.”