I haven’t any left, thank God.

Shortly.

Don’t complain about this place. You couldn’t find a better for lying low.

PARRITT

I’m glad of that, Larry. I don’t feel any too damned good. I was knocked off my base by that business on the Coast, and since then it’s been no fun dodging around the country, thinking every guy you see might be a dick.

LARRY

Sympathetically now.

No, it wouldn’t be. But you’re safe here. The cops ignore this dump.

They think it’s as harmless as a graveyard.

He grins sardonically.

And, be God, they’re right.

PARRITT

It’s been lonely as hell.

Impulsively.

Christ, Larry, I was glad to find you. I kept saying to myself, “If I can only find Larry. He’s the one guy in the world who can understand—”

He hesitates, staring at LARRY with a strange appeal.

LARRY

Watching him puzzledly. Understand what?

PARRITT

Hastily.

Why, all I’ve been through.

Looking away.

Oh, I know you’re thinking. This guy has a hell of a nerve. I haven’t seen him since he was a kid. I’d forgotten he was alive. But I’ve never forgotten you, Larry. You were the only friend of Mother’s who ever paid attention to me, or knew I was alive. All the others were too busy with the Movement. Even Mother. And I had no Old Man. You used to take me on your knee and tell me stories and crack jokes and make me laugh. You’d ask me questions and take what I said seriously. I guess I got to feel in the years you lived with us that you’d taken the place of my Old Man.

Embarrassedly.

But, hell, that sounds like a lot of mush. I suppose you don’t remember a damned thing about it.

LARRY

Moved in spite of himself.

I remember well. You were a serious lonely little shaver.

Then resenting being moved, changes the subject.

How is it they didn’t pick you up when they got your mother and the rest?

PARRITT

In a lowered voice but eagerly, as if he wanted this chance to tell about it. I wasn’t around, and as soon as I heard the news I went under cover. You’ve noticed my glad rags. I was staked to them—as a disguise, sort of. I hung around pool rooms and gambling joints and hooker shops, where they’d never look for a Wobblie, pretending I was a sport. Anyway, they’d grabbed everyone important, so I suppose they didn’t think of me until afterward.

LARRY

The papers say the cops got them all dead to rights, that the Burns dicks knew every move before it was made, and someone inside the Movement must have sold out and tipped them off.

PARRITT

Turns to look larry in the eyes—slowly.

Yes, I guess that must be true, Larry. It hasn’t come out who it was. It may never come out. I suppose whoever it was made a bargain with the Burns men to keep him out of it.