The Black Marble (31 page)

While Natalie Zimmerman and Valnikov were having a memorable lunch, Madeline Whitfield and Philo Skinner were having a memorable phone conversation.

“It's Richard,” Philo whispered into the mouthpiece. He was asphyxiating himself inside a smoky phone booth, in the heat of the afternoon, outside a motel five blocks from his business. It was the motel where he had dreamed of taking Pattie Mae to before she quit on him after the Sunday dog show. The miserable little cunt.

“Yes, I've been waiting for your call,” said Madeline, fighting to keep her voice businesslike and unwavering.

“When do I get the money?” Philo croaked.

“You've got to control yourself, Richard, and let me talk,” Madeline began. She'd rehearsed it and believed she could even deal with the threats and obscenities.

“Make it quick.”

“I've been on the phone all day with my accountant and banker and …”

“You
told
someone about this!”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “About needing money only. I just told them I had a pressing need for as much as I could possibly get. I even called an old classmate whose husband is chairman of the board of a savings and loan.”

“What's the bottom line, lady?” Philo snarled.

“I will have, by noon tomorrow, twelve thousand dollars,” Madeline said, and despite herself, her voice broke on the number.

“What did you say? WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Philo began hacking and gagging on the ubiquitous phlegm balls.

Madeline waited until the coughing stopped. When he came back he was wheezing: “Lady … lady …” Then he gasped and said, “You cunt!”

“Please, Richard,” Madeline begged.

“You … you rotten cunt. Twelve thousand!”

“Listen to me,” she said. “It's not only all I have in the world. It represents borrowed money. I'm looking for a
job
. I've never worked in my life. I'm not qualified for anything but I'm looking for a
job
, and this house was refinanced, and the money's all gone. My mother was sick for four years before she died! Do you know what round-the-clock nursing costs? Do you know what hospital bills are like? Please, Richard. Please!”

He didn't hear a complete sentence she uttered. Twelve thousand. It wouldn't even pay Arnold for the gambling losses. The kike and the nigger would be coming for him with the stripping knife. And he promised Arnold the money by Thursday, plus three hundred interest for waiting past Monday.
Twelve
thousand?

“Twelve thousand,” he said, then he felt it grow within him. Philo Skinner had spent much of his life being afraid. He was afraid right now of what the bookmakers would do to him, but he felt the fear being consumed by anger. Twelve thousand!

“I'm cutting off one of that bitch's toes right now. Stay on the line you cunt and you can hear her scream!”

“Noooooooo!” It was Madeline Whitfield who screamed.

“You wanna hear her scream, you cunt!” Philo yelled in the mouthpiece. “You lying, stingy
rich
cunt!”

“Can't we talk face to face, Richard?” Madeline babbled. “I swear I won't call the police. I'll come anywhere. Do anything you want. Oh, please don't hurt Vickie!”

“How's she gonna do in the next dog show, you cunt!”

“Please, please, please. I'll get more money. I swear! Give me one more day. One more.”

“I told you I want eighty-five thousand, you … you …”

“I'll get more! I can get more. If … if you let me have Vickie back. I can … I can send you five hundred a month until I pay it all. I'm going to get a—” Madeline began weeping brokenly “—job. Please.”

“I can't believe it!” Philo said, dropping the paper towel he had wrapped over the mouthpiece. “I can't believe it!” He'd never seen anything like
this
in kidnapping movies. She wanted him to return the bitch and she'd pay the ransom on the installment plan? Ransom by credit card? “Lady I'm gonna cut off a toe,” Philo croaked weakly before another coughing spasm made him open the door of the phone booth and hack and wheeze and spit in the motel parking lot.

At which time the motel proprietor, Bessie Callahan, a woman Phil's age, with a surly red face and broken teeth, opened the screen door of the manager's office and yelled, “Hey, fella, go and spit your goopers in the gutter, not on
my
property!”

“Fuck you too, you miserable cunt,” Philo barked, which cost him yet another coughing spasm and another gooper on her sidewalk.

“What'd you call me, you scrawny coyote?” Bessie Callahan challenged. “If my husband was here he'd tie you in a knot, you filthy coyote!”

Then, wracked with pain and gasping for breath, and filled with consummate frustration and outrage and anger, Philo Skinner dropped the phone and stepped out of the phone booth, and for the first time in memory challenged someone to a fight. “Step out here, you fat cunt,” Philo gasped. “Come out here and I'll punch your fat face in, you fat cunt!”

“Prick!” yelled Bessie Callahan. “Skinny prick! How
dare
you talk to a lady like this!”

And while a trembling Philo Skinner got control of himself, and lit his forty-seventh cigarette of the day, and picked up the phone only to find Madeline Whitfield hysterical because she thought the extortionist was cutting off Vickie's toe, Bessie Callahan had a little surprise for Philo Skinner.

“Control yourself, woman,” he ordered Madeline Whitfield. “Get yourself under control and listen to me, goddamnit!”

“Sir … sir … please don't, please!” Madeline wailed.

“I'm calling you again at six o'clock tonight,” Philo Skinner gasped. “Have some good news for me then. I won't cut off any toes until we have
one
more talk. Understand? I won't cut off any toes. Yet.”

“Sir … sir … thank … thank you,” Madeline sobbed.

“I'll be calling at six. Remember that! Six o'cl—” But he never finished it. He thought he heard running water. Then the door of the phone booth burst open and Philo Skinner was drowning! He couldn't even scream. He swallowed his cigarette butt along with a mouthful of water. He breathed another mouthful into his lungs! He threw his hands out in front of him and fell down in the phone booth. Drowning.

Bessie Callahan, like the sewer worker, Tyrone McGee, had been pushed around all her life, but not by alligators. And certainly not by filthy coyotes who used her telephone and spit goopers on her parking lot. At first she just intended to use the motel fire hose to wash up the wads of filthy goopers he'd deposited all over her sidewalk, but the more she thought of this coyote telling her he'd punch her in the face, and calling her a fat cunt—and heard the coyote screaming over the telephone, calling someone
else a
cunt—the more she decided he wasn't going to get away with it. How about some water for your filthy mouth, you chauvinist prick!

Bessie, her pale eyes bulging with the thrill of it, had Philo helpless on the floor of the phone booth before she knew what she was doing. Still, she kept the fire hose trained on his face. Philo flopped on his belly to breathe. He was finally able to scream but Bessie still wouldn't turn off the hose. Only when she realized what she was doing did she pull the nozzle lever stopping the powerful water jet and hightail it back to her apartment.

“I'll … I'll get you for this,” Philo croaked, coughing water. The soggy cigarette came up in his throat. He swallowed it down but it came back up with his breakfast. Now Bessie had something else to hose away.

“I'm calling the cops, you coyote!” Bessie screamed through the latched screen door. “You can't attack a woman and get away with it. I'm calling the cops!”

“Cops,” Philo gasped. “Cops.” He tried to get up but dropped to one knee, retching again. The second of his three polyester leisure suits, this one a cobalt blue, was absolutely drenched. Philo's shoes squished when he got to his feet staggering against the phone booth.

“The cops're coming, you coyote!” Bessie lied. “I hear the sirens. Now we'll see what they do to coyotes that pick on ladies.”

“Cops,” Philo muttered. Then he was off in a loping, squishy retreat to his El Dorado, which was parked in the alley.

Philo Skinner had driven two blocks before he realized there were no red lights in his rearview mirror. He pulled to the curb and leaned out the window. His tortured lungs were half full of water. He lay back against the leather Cadillac seats and pressed on his scrawny chest trying to give himself artificial respiration. Then he leaned over and out the passenger door, and moaned, hoping the water would trickle out his mouth.

An old pensioner was pushing home a shopping cart full of groceries when he saw a half-drowned man leaning out the El Dorado. The pensioner stopped the shopping cart and shuffled over to Philo, looking down at him curiously. The Cadillac was dry but the man was soaked and dripping.

“Looks like you run yourself through a car wash, sonny,” the old man observed. “It's the
car
you're supposed to wash, not yourself.”

“Ooooooooooohhhhhh,” Philo Skinner moaned, sounding for all the world like Hipless Hooker with a bellyache.

“What's the matter, boy?” the old man said, sucking on a lipload of snuff.

“Ooooooooohhhhhh,” Philo answered.

“Well, I gotta go, sonny,” the old snuff-dipper said. “I was you, next time I drive through the car wash, I'd call a lifeguard.”

And while Philo Skinner was wishing he had the strength to start his Cadillac and run over the cackling snuff-dipper, Mavis Skinner was embarked on a little investigation of her own.

That goddamn Philo was acting awful strange lately. She'd bet he was playing around with some little bird at the kennel. Probably had that Pattie Mae coming in every day for some stud service. Probably buying her pretties with what little money the kennel took in. Well, Mavis Skinner wasn't going to put up with any little birds around
her
nest. She decided to pay Philo an unannounced visit.

She was disappointed not to find his car there. She unlocked the office and didn't find any little birds nesting. There was nothing unusual but an uncommonly bad stench coming from the dog pens. Philo hadn't been cleaning them like he said he was. The lazy asshole!

Then a station wagon pulled into the driveway. A man and a woman got out, leading a 110-pound German shepherd. They walked through the door in front of the animal, who carried his ears back and his tail tucked low. The enormous shepherd had an L-shaped scar over his right eye. His snout was crossed by another scar that drew a blue line from his eye to his scarred, curling lip. He had wary amber eyes. Mavis didn't like him one goddamn bit.

“Yes?” she said to the smiling couple who were dressed like a Hawaiian vacation.

“We'd like to board our Walter for two weeks,” said the man. “We're going on a Caribbean cruise. The whole family.” The thought of it made him grin wider.

“Well,” Mavis said, studying the fearsome beast, “we specialize in terriers here.”

“You only board terriers?”

“No, we board all breeds, but to tell the truth, sir, that looks like an attack dog to me.”

Then the woman stopped smiling and said in a high voice, “Oh, Walter's rehabilitated.”

“Rehabilitated?”

“He
used
to be a guard dog, but that was years ago. Why, he's a family pet. Our children ride him like a pony, and box his ears, and kiss him on the nose, and …”

“That dog's been mistreated,” Mavis said, pointing at the scars. “I dunno …”

“Believe me,” the man said, releasing Walter's lead, “this dog's perfectly gentle. We've adopted four animals from the S.P.C.A. Walter's our pride and joy. He's been tamed with love. He's a family pet.”

But Walter hadn't
always
been a family pet and Mavis knew it by looking at him. He had been seized by court order five years before with thirteen other half-demented brutes, the property of another half-demented brute who owned a guard dog service and “trained” his animals with a three-foot length of ordinary garden hose, loaded with ordinary chunks of lead. Walter had a short unhappy career guarding industrial building sites before the court order brought him to the animal shelter and eventually to the home of the adopted parents who were determined to turn a snarling monster into a lap dog. And they did. He was seven years old now and it was the first time Walter had been away from his adopted family. It was the first time he was to be caged since his hateful formative time in guard dog service. Walter was indifferent to Mavis, but he didn't like cages. Not at all. The bad old days.