The Killers (Ernest Hemingway)

Chapter 2

"He never had the chance to do anything to I. He never even seen us."

"And he's only going  to see us once," AL said from the kitchen.

"What are you going to kill him for, then?" George asked.

"We're killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, bright boy."

"Shut up," said AL from the kitchen. "You talk too goddamn much."

"Well I got to keep bright boy amused. Don't I, bright boy?"

"You talk too damn much," AL said. "The nigger and my bright boy are amused by themselves l. I got them tied up like a couple of girl friends in the convent."

"I suppose you were in a convent."

"You never know."

"You were in a kosher convent. That's where you were." George looked up at the clock.

"If anybody comes in you tell them the cook is off, and if they keep after it, you tell them you'll go back and cook yourself. Do you get that, bright boy?"

"All right," George said. "What you going to do afterwards?"

"That'll depend," Max said. "That's one of those things you never know at the time."

George looked up at the clock. It was quarter past six. The door from the street opened. A street-car motorman came in.

"Hello, George," he said. "Can I get supper?"

"Sam's gone out," George said. "He'll be back in about half-an-hour."

"I'd better go up the street," the motorman said. George looked at the clock. It was twenty minute past six.

"That was nice, bright boy," Max said. "You're a regular gentleman."

"He knew I'd blow his head off," AL said from the kitchen.

"No," said Max. "It ain't that. Bright boy is nice. He's a nice boy. I like him."

"At six-fifty-five," George said. "He's not coming."

Two other people had been in the lunch-room. Once George had gone out to the kitchen and made ham-and-egg sandwich ‘to go’ that a man wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen he saw AL, his derby hat tipped back, sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the nuzzle of a  sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back in the corner, a towel tied in each of their mouths. George had cooked the sandwich and wrapped it up in oiled paper, put it in a bag, brought it in and the man had paid for it and gone out.

"Bright boy can do everything," Max said. "He can cook and everything. You'd made some girl a nice wife, bright boy."

"Yes?" George said. "Your friend Ole Andreson, isn't going to come."

"We'll give him ten minutes," Max said.

Max watched the mirror and the clock. The hands of the clock marked seven o'clock and then five minutes passed seven.

"Come on, Al," said Max. "We'd better go. He's not coming."

"Better give him five minutes," Al said from the kitchen.

In the five minutes a man came I and George explained that the cook was sick.

"Why the hell don't you get another cook?" the man asked. "Aren't you running a lunch-counter?" He went out.

"Come on, Al," Max said.

"What about the two bright boys and the nigger?"

"They're all right."

"You think so?"

"Sure. We're through with it."

"I don't like it," said Al. "It's sloppy. You talk too much."

"Oh, what the hell," said Max. "We got to keep amused, haven't we?"

"You talk too much, all the same," Al said. He came out from the kitchen.

The cut-off barrels of the shotgun made a slight bulge under the waist of his too tight-fitting overcoat. He straightened his coat with his gloves hands.

"So long, bright boy," he said to George. "You got a lot of luck."

"That's the truth." Max said. "You ought to play the races, bright boy."

The two of them went out the door. George watched them through the windows, pass under the arc-light and cross the street. In their tight overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team. George went back through the swinging-door into the kitchen and untied Nick and the cook.

"I don't want anymore of that," said Sam, the cook. "I don't want any more of that."

Nick stood up. He had never had a towel in his mouth before.

"Say," he said. "What the hell?" He was trying to swagger it off.

"They were going to kill Ole Andreson," George said. "They were going to shoot him when he came in to eat."

"Ole Andreson?"

"Sure."

The cook felt the corners of his mouth with his thumbs.

"They all gone?" He said.

"Yeah," said George. "They're gone now."

"I don't like it," said the cook. "I don't like any of it at all."

"Listen," George said to Nick. "You better go see Ole Andreson.".

"All right."

"You better not have anything to do with it all," Sam the cook, said.

"You better stay way out of it."

"Don't go if you don't want to," George said.

"Mixing up is this ain't going to get you anywhere," the cook said. "You stay out of it."

"I'll go see him," Nick said to George. "Where does he live?"

The cook turned away.

"Little boys always know what they want to do," he said.

"He lives up at Hirsh's rooming-house," George said to Nick.

"I'll go up there."

Outside, the arc-light shone through the bare branches of a tree. Nick walked up the street beside the car-tracks and turned at the next arc-light down the side-street. Three houses up the street was Hirsch's rooming-house. Nick walked up the two steps and pushed the bell. A woman came to the door.

"Is Ole Andreson here?"

"Do you want to see him?"

"Yes, if he's in."

Nick followed the woman up a flight of stairs and back to the end of the corridor. She knocked on the door.

"Who is it?"