Hoiman and the Solar Circuit

Pay day! I scrawled my Larry Maloney across the back of the check and handed it to Nick, the bartender. "Leave me something to operate on," I told him.

Nick turned it over. "Still with the News?"

The question was rhetorical. I let it pass without swinging at it. I was mentally estimating the total of the pile of tabs Nick pulled out of the cash register, like a fighter on percentage trying to count the house. I didn't like the figure it gave me.

Nick added them up, then added them again before he pulled some bills out of the money drawer and said, "Here's thirty skins. Your rent due?"

"This'll cover it. I'll do my drinking here."

I went over to a booth and sat down. I lit a cigarette. I smoked. And waited. Presently Sherry, tall, dark and delicious, decided I was making like a customer, and strolled over. "Would you like a menu, Mr. Maloney?" she trilled.

"Larry to you," I reminded her. "No menu. Bring me a steak. Big. Thick. Rare. And a plate of french fries. No salad. Bread and butter. Coffee."

She managed at last to pull her writing hand out of mine, and I had to repeat the order. Unless it could be turned into money, Sherry's memory was limited strictly to the present instant.

She put in the order, then brought me a set-up. I let my eyes go over her, real careful, for maybe the thousandth time. No doubt of it--the lassie had a classy chassis. If she just wouldn't yak so damn much.

[Illustration: It looked as though Hoiman's Bum would be remembered on Mars.]

"Did you see the matches last night?" She didn't wait for my answer, just went on with the yat-a-ta. "I spent the whole evening just glued to my television set. I was simply enthralled. When the Horrible Hungarian got the Flying Hackensack on--"

"Standing Hackenschmidt, Sherry!"

"--poor little Billie McElroy I wanted to--to scratch his eyes out."

I pointed out that McElroy weighed in at two forty-one and had gone on to win the match. Sherry never heard me.

"And the way the Weeping Greek kept hitting the other fellow--the announcer said he was throwing Judo cutlets."

"Cuts, not cutlets."

"But aren't Judo cutlets illegitimate?" The barest hint of a puzzled frown tugged at her flawless brows as she poured ice water into my glass.

"The word," I repeated, "is cuts. And the blow is not illegal." I gave my eyes another treat. What a chassis. And what a mind. "Anything these days, so long as you don't kill your opponent, is legal in wrestling."

Suddenly we had company: a little man who made scarcely a sound as he slid into my booth and sat facing me. "Rassling, yet," he said, in bitter tones. "What a woid. Dun't be saying it." He helped himself to a cigarette from my pack lying on the table, and put the pack in his pocket. He lit the cigarette, using my lighter, which he held a moment longer than necessary before replacing it--regretfully--on the table.

He inhaled deeply. "Rassling!" he repeated. "Leave us not discuss it."

* * * * *

He was thin, haggard, unkempt, and his brown suit--in which the chalk stripes were beginning to blend with the background--was threadbare. He needed a shave, and his fingernails were dirty. He was vaguely familiar. The beady little eyes flicked up at me, and all uncertainty dissolved.

"Oh, no!" I said. "Not you. Not--"