The Bitch (7 page)

“PLEASE DO NOT THROW CIGARETTE BUTTS IN OUR URINAL—IT MAKES THEM SOGGY AND HARD TO PICK UP.”

I stood there in the men’s room of the Siesta Palm Bar and Grille, over on Ninth and Central, and read this on the wall. It didn’t make me feel any better. It was written in drunken Old English script with a blunt black pencil, across the white-wash.

I went over to the sink and washed up and finally faced myself in the mirror on the towel rack. I looked as if I’d been shot through a cannon, was approaching the net, and knew I would miss it. My eyes were a little wild, and I needed a shave. The light tan suit I’d started out with was splotched and wrinkled and spotted. I fitted in perfectly with the clientèle of this bar. Turning, I stepped deftly to avoid a bit of careless splattering across the wet stone floor, and moved out into the barroom.

The air was slightly better here.

A hill-billy band sawed away on a low podium across the room, and a jammed mêlée of men and women in various stages of acute alcoholic distress laughed, argued, sang, and drank among the booths, tables, and at the bar.

The band was working hard on “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?” and not doing so well with it. It was reminiscent of a phony Chinese full-string orchestra slaving over a children’s lullaby in a Paris vaudeville pit just at that point where the blonde pseudo-
Américaine
doll finished her comic song-bit and snapped her last garter for the night.

I went on over and found an empty stall at the bar and ordered another double rye. I paid for this and drank it, and located the phone booth over the tops of jabbering heads.

In the booth, I shut the door and dialed Morrell.

While the phone rang, I glanced out the glass window of the booth door. Two nicely-dressed women were fighting and arguing over a very sloppy drunk seated at one of the tables. A heavy-set barman kept trying to pull the women away, telling them something, shaking his head. The barman had curly black hair and one of the women kept grabbing a handful of the hair and yanking hard, then letting go. The barman would yell. Suddenly from the back of the room another woman yelled. She was a very small woman and she was very drunk. She came running and dove head-first at the two women who were after the drunk. The barman had his hands full, trying to dump the three of them into the street. The drunk slopped on at the table, bleering happily. Every time the barman got one of the women outside and returned for another, the first followed him in. Somehow, it was very funny burlesque.

“Hello?”

“Mister Morrell?”

“Who is this speaking?”

“I’d like to talk with Johnny Morrell.”

“So you say. I only ask you, who is this speaking?”

“Doesn’t matter. Would you just tell Morrell I want to talk with him for a minute?”

“Who is this speaking?”

“Tell him Morgan wants him.”

“You learn fast,” the flat voice on the other end of the wire said.

“There’s some argument about that,” I told him.

I waited. I heard faraway voices and grunts. Then I heard heels clicking on floor. Somebody cleared his throat on the other end of the line.

“Hello,” I said. “Morrell?”

“Hang on.”

“Sure—I’ve been doing just that.”

“It’s guys like you get me down,” the flat voice said. “All the time cracking with the wise. Wisenheimers. It gets me down, I tell you. Who you think you are?”

“Anyway?” I said. “Sorry.”

“Jesus Christ,” the voice said. “Dear God, forgive me, I have to live with this. I put up with this. Do I have to? I ask you—yeah, sure—here.”

“Hello?” Morrell said. “Morgan—where are you?”

His voice was loaded. He tried to speak evenly, but you could hear the choke in it.

I told him where I was.

“Stay right there,” he said.

“I haven’t got a car,” I said.

“Stay right there. Get by the door—but keep out of sight. We’ll be by, in a hurry. Where’s the money?”

“Never mind that. I want to talk about—”

“Shut up and keep out of the way.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “So far nobody knows I was even in on it. I just want to talk with you, Morrell.”

“Yes. Listen, you’re wrong, Morgan. They know. The police know. We just found out. We got a lead into the department and it just came through. Your brother talked, Morgan. He told them you got the money from the Halquist job. This Schroeder with Homicide, they say he nearly had a heart attack.”

The receiver in my hand grew slippery with sweat. “Sam told them?”

“Yes. That’s right. Now, do as I say. And you’d better be there.”

I started to say something, but he hung up.

• • •

They finally sent Thelma. I stood by the doorway at the entrance to the bar and I saw her pull up out front along the curb, driving a Chevvy convertible, powder-blue, and I saw her face as she searched the area—her eyes, the thick flow of ash-blonde hair, the red, red lips—and I just stood there staring at her, thinking, Run, run, run. For God’s sake, run!

I’d been thinking that for five minutes, just standing there like that and I didn’t react to her being out there. I was plenty tired and a little wound up with the whiskey. My stomach burned and I just stood there and looked at her. People came and went through the doors, laughing and joking and reeling, trailing strong aromas of alcohol.

She laid on the horn.

Blahhhhhhhhh! Blahhhhhhh! Blah! Blahhhhhhhh!

The sound of it shivered in the night.

She could see me standing there like that, the doors swinging in and out. She kept motioning with her hand and arm and laying on that horn of hers. Her mouth was open, her lips going it, but I couldn’t hear her.

Finally she opened the door and came spinning out of the car, showing a lot of leg, dressed in something pale blue and silvery. She raced across the sidewalk, jouncing a little, but very nice to watch, lovely as hell, jouncing that way. And I just stood there and the doors swung in and out and people shouted and cursed and sang and that damned hill-billy band sawed and sawed on nothing new.

“Tate!”

“Hello.”

“Tate, come on!”

She stood in the door, the door banging against her fanny, and yanked at my arm. Her face was all twisted up, the red lips kind of hooked to one side, the eyes batting around inside and outside and up and down the street.

“Come on, Tate! Are you drunk?”

“Not drunk.”

“Tate!” she whispered fiercely, yanking at my arm.

He had turned me in. Sam had done it at last. Janet, Janet, wherever you are….

I walked out across the sidewalk. Her heels clattered along beside me and she kept talking. “Have you gone out of your head, darling? Will you please hurry up and get in the damned car? Will you? If anybody sees you, Tate—for goodness’ sake!”

“Yes. All right. I’m coming, aren’t I?”

I got in the driver’s side and slid across the seat and she piled in and I looked at her. She slammed the door and twisted with a lunge, her hands grabbing for my arm. She brought one knee up on the seat, her leg sleek and shining with sheer nylon, her skirt up to her waist and I just stared at that for a time. It was very nice to look at, the very best, the smooth, lush tan of her thigh, the black garter straps, the black pants, the pale blue shimmering edge of her skirt.

“Tate, there’s a cop!”

She shoved up to me and flung her arms around me and whispered, “Kiss me—make it look good. He’s right outside.” And her mouth opened on mine, hot and excited, her breasts falling and then pushing against my chest, and she took my right hand and held it on her leg, forcing the palm upward against the smooth warm flesh. She broke the kiss and her mouth slid along my cheek to my ear, her whisper hot and fast “He’s moving on, I can see him—Tate, Tate—you can have all this, anything you want—I’ll sell it to you forever, every bit of it, anytime—” Her hair was thick and faint with perfume, clean and sweet, hanging across my face, and the soft thrusting warm and very provocative feel of her was everywhere, her cheek against mine, her lips spilling words in a dead earnest whisper. “I mean it, Tate. I’m being frank—We can go together, in style—away. I know how, believe me, I know how—you can have me right in the middle of the street, right now—anytime, if you’ll only do it with me—the money—”

I pushed her away and it wasn’t easy.

“He’s gone,” I said. “The cop’s gone. What was that about the middle of the street?”

“Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. But I meant it. I mean—” She came toward me again.

“Wait,” I said. “You’d better get driving. You know what Morrell would do to you?”

“Yes, that’s why I’m asking you now—fast. We can go right now. We could get away. We could make it. Wouldn’t you like it—with me?”

“Who wouldn’t?” I said. “Being frank in return, you would drive a monkey nuts.”

“Then—”

“Drive,” I said. “I’m married. Besides, I haven’t got the money—exactly, that is.”

“What?”

“Drive the God damned car,” I said. “That cop’s coming back. He might have thought that was a goodbye, or a hello, but he’ll never put up with us turning this into a hotel room. Get a move on.”

She lunged the other way, as careless as ever, and started the engine and drove out into the street across oncoming traffic, in the wrong lane, going the wrong way. We nearly cracked up with a swooping pair of headlights. She drove through a red light on the corner, and then we were traveling along Ninth and there was little traffic at this time of the morning.

“It’s a good thing that bar was open,” she said. Where would you have hidden?”

“I wasn’t hiding.”

“It’s a good thing,” she said. “They’re trying a new city law. The bars stay open till three. That cop’s there to see they close on time.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Johnny owns a couple bars.”

“You calmed down now?”

“Nope.”

She was driving too fast. I didn’t want to tell her to slow down. She was the type who would only drive faster and laugh with her teeth in the wind. Her hair gushed back from her head and she really looked lovely and hellish there behind that wheel; and what she had said was very damned tempting and I’d had too much whiskey. Then the whiskey began to wear off, and all the rottenness swooped back down into me again. But the going fast part, in the car, helped some. It gave the illusion of running, I suppose, and that’s what was mostly in my mind.

“You’d better think over what I said.”

“Don’t you think Morrell thought of that? How come he ever sent you, I don’t know.”

“He didn’t.”

I cut a look at her, then back at the road again. She made a fast turn and we were already out of the business district, heading through peaceful residential streets.

“Nope, he didn’t tell me. I heard it on the extension. So, while you were still talking with him, I was already on my way out back to get my car. That’s why I was in such a hurry. Anyway, he probably had Stewart drive, and Stewart’s slow as syrup.”

“I see.”

“I’m giving you the chance if you want it, darling. I’ll go right now. I’m for sale. I’ll stick by you, and that’s it. Cold and plain, but served up hot when you want it.”

“A real bargain,” I said.

“Don’t you think so?”

“I’m not denying it.”

“Well?” She turned and looked at me, arching one brow, the hair blowing and smiling just a little. She was very beautiful. She was anything you could possibly want. Only everybody would want her, and she sold it all too cheap. Or so it seemed. And, anyway, it would never work—because Morrell was after that money, and the cops were after me, and Thelma Halquist was the wife of one of the richest men in the state, and she was completely and absolutely scatterbrained.

And there was Janet, waiting. My God, yes!

“It’s no dice,” I said.

She jammed the accelerator with her neat little foot. She rammed it and kicked it and the car bucked and lurched and gunned and slowed and gunned again.

“Well, I’ll get mine, anyway,” she said.

“That’s for sure, honey.”

“I didn’t think it’d work,” she said. “But it was worth a try.”

I didn’t answer her now.

“Where is the money, Tate?”

I laughed. “Ha-haha-haha.”

• • •

There was no laughter inside me. None at all. From now on I had a long row to hoe.

She seemed to be headed for the beaches. I didn’t know anything about where Morrell lived, so I just sat there and let her have her head. The first time Morrell and I had talked had been in Thelma’s car. We had met him on a side street, off Central. The next time I met him was at a bar out on the beaches. I still had no notion what his actual business was, if any.

“Here we are,” Thelma said. She stopped the car abruptly and turned around to look at me. “You sure you won’t reconsider?”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

She made a small sniff through her nose, turned back to the wheel and drove the car swiftly down the street—slowed, and turned sharply in at a broad upward sloping drive into what first seemed to be a park.

It was a park. A trailer park. There was a large sign above the closed gate,
CLOSED, WILL REOPEN JUNE
15. Again Thelma stopped the car and got out, sliding off the seat. I watched her jounce up to the gate, push it open, then jounce back to the car, biting her lower lip. She slithered under the wheel in a swirl of legs and skirt, tossed me a look, and drove straight ahead into shadowed, pitch darkness. Enormous oaks grew seemingly wild and untended everywhere.

She drove fast, cutting to right and left along a narrow dirt drive that was smoothly scraped. Suddenly trailers began to flash by on either side.

It was a weird place at night, like this, with nobody in sight. Through the jungle growth, the headlights flashed on patios, gardens, and trailers parked in rows. Windows glittered, metal gleamed, wood shone. The trailer park had been laid out with destruction of very little of the woodland’s natural growth. It was an immense park, absolutely unlighted just now.

Thelma stopped the car suddenly beside a row of giant double hibiscus bushes, beyond which I glimpsed the top and eaves of a huge trailer, the black and white metal sides shining, and then shadows as she switched off the car lights. Through the hibiscus bushes I saw soft orange light glowing from what must have been windows.