·第4節·
Night
All was serene. As Biff dried his fad hands a breeze tihe glass pendants of the little Japanese pagoda oable.He had just awakened from a nap and had smoked his night cigar.He thought of Blount and wondered if by now he had traveled far.A bottle of Agua Florida was ohroom shelf aouched the stopper to his temples.He whistled an old song, and as he desded the narrow stairs the tu a broken echo behind him.
Louis was supposed to be on duty behind th
e ter. But he had soldiered on the job and the place was deserted.The front door stood open to the empty street.The clo the oio seventeen minutes before midnight.The radio was on and there was talk about the crisis Hitler had cooked up over Danzig.He went back to the kit and found Louis asleep in a chair.The boy had taken off his shoes and unbuttoned his trousers.His head drooped on his chest.A lo spot on his shirt showed that he had been sleeping a good while.His
arms hung straight down at his sides and the wonder was that he did not fall forward on his face.He slept soundly and there was no use to wake him.The night would be a quiet one.
Biff tiptoed across the kit to a shelf which held a basket of tea olive and two water pitchers full of zinnias. He carried the flowers up to the front of the restaurant and removed the cellophane-ed platters of the last special from the display window.He was sick of food.A window of fresh summer flowers—that wou
ld be good.His eyes were closed as he imagined how it could be arranged.A foundation of the tea olive strewhe bottom, cool and green.The red pottery tub filled with the brilliant zinnias.Nothing more.He began te the window carefully.Among the flowers there was a freak plant, a zinnia with six broals and two red.He examihis curio and laid it aside to save.Then the window was finished aood ireet tard his handiwork.The awkward stems of the flowers ha
d beeo just the right degree of restful loosehe electric lights detracted, but when the sun rose the display would show at its best advantage.Dht artistic.
The black, starlit sky seemed close to the earth. He strolled along the sidewalk, pausing oo kno e peel into the gutter with the side of his foot.At the far end of the block two men, small from the distand motionless, stood arm in arm together.No one else could be seen.His place was the only store o
n all the street with an open door and lights inside.
And why?What was the reason for keeping the place open all through the night when every other café iown was closed?He was often asked that question and could never speak the answer out in words.Not money.Sometimes a party would e for beer and scrambled eggs and spend five or ten dollars.But that was rare.Mostly they came o a time and ordered little and stayed long.And on some nights, between the hours of twelve and five o’clock,
not a er would ehere was no profit in it—that lain.
But he would never close up for the night—not as long as he stayed in the business. Night was the time.There were those he would never have seen otherwise.A few came regularly several times a week.Others had e into the plaly once, had drunk a Coca-Cola, and never returned.