He had never seen the man before.
But he did not realise this now.
It was only later that he remembered that, and remembered the piled luggage in the dark room which he had looked at for an instant while thought went faster than seeing.
The stranger sat on the bed too, also smoking.
His hat was tipped forward so that the shadow of the brim fell across his mouth.
He was not old, yet he did not look young either.
He and Max might have been brothers in the sense that any two white men strayed suddenly into an African village might look like brothers to them who live there.
His face, his chin where the light fell upon it, was still.
Whether or not the stranger was looking at him, Joe did not know.
And that Max was standing just behind him Joe did not know either.
And he heard their actual voices without knowing what they said, without even listening: Ask him.
How would he know. Perhaps he heard the words.
But likely not.
Likely they were as yet no more significant than the rasping of insects beyond the closedrawn window, or the packed bags which he had looked at and had not yet seen.
He cleared out right afterward, Bobbie said,
He might know.
Let’s find out if we can just what we are running from, at least.
Though Joe had not moved since he entered, he was still running.
When Max touched his shoulder he turned as if he had been halted in midstride.
He had not been aware that Max was even in the room.
He looked at Max over his shoulder with a kind of furious annoyance.
“Let’s have it, kid,” Max said. “What about it?”
“What about what?” Joe said.
“The old guy.
Do you think you croaked him?
Let’s have it straight.
You don’t want to get Bobbie in a jam.”
“Bobbie,” Joe said, thinking, Bobbie.
Bobbie.
He turned, running again; this time Max caught his shoulder, though not hard.
“Come on,” Max said. “Ain’t we all friends here?
Did you croak him?”
“Croak him?” Joe said, in that fretted tone of impatience and restraint, as if he were being detained and questioned by a child.
The stranger spoke.
“The one you crowned with the chair.
Is he dead?”
“Dead?” Joe said.
He looked at the stranger.
When he did so, he saw the waitress again and he ran again.
He actually moved now.
He had completely dismissed the two men from his mind.
He went to the bed, dragging at his pocket, on his face an expression both exalted and victorious.
The waitress did not look at him.
She had not looked at him once since he entered, though very likely he had completely forgot that.
She had not moved; the cigarette still burned in her hand.
Her motionless hand looked as big and dead and pale as a piece of cooking meat.
Again someone grasped him by the shoulder.
It was the stranger now.
The stranger and Max stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at Joe.
“Quit stalling,” the stranger said.