The Hunter's Prey (4 page)

One night, Hickok had even more whiskey than usual. I heard him come upstairs, hitting his hands against the wall. (You ever seen a man do that when he’s too drunk to stand upright without help? Walks down the hall, thumping the walls every step just to make sure he knows which way is up.) A big heavy guy like Hickok - well, it almost sounded like a hammer.
 

I was in my room, trying on a new dress in hopes of getting some attention out of Ethan. I came out right away to stop Hickok before he bothered Johnny. But I found the oddest sight in the hallway.

There was Hickok in Ethan’s arms. It looked like Ethan was kissing him on the neck and I stopped dead. I burned with envy, feverish to have Ethan’s arms around me. I felt my whole body clench with lust.
 

Then the men shifted slightly and I could see more. Hickok had his eyes shut, with a horrified look on his face. He wasn’t fighting though. I hesitated, not sure what to do.
 

Ethan’s eyes opened and he stared at me. I could see a little blood on his lip. I knew then and there that I had interrupted something that was none of my business.
 

I blinked and popped back into my room, mumbling something about being sorry to disturb them. The last thing I saw was Ethan watching me with his mouth still fastened to Hickok’s neck. It almost looked like he was sucking on Hickok but surely that couldn’t be.
 

Do you go to the cinema often, sugar? I always have. Now I’ve seen a lot of things in the movies, from vampires to King Kong. But those were made-up stories about monsters, not real-life. This was real. A man’s teeth on another man’s body. It still shakes me up to think of it…
 

Yes, thank you. A drink tastes real good after remembering that sight.
 

What happened to Hickok? Did he sober up? Would you, a bartender, want a good customer to stop drinking?
 

I wish he had though.

I heard the next morning that they’d found Hickok dead in an alley off Guadeloupe. He’d been filled with bullets and there wasn’t much left of him. Funny thing though, the newspaper photos didn’t show any blood around the body. But maybe the newspaper prettied up the photo some to make it acceptable for family viewing.
 

Johnny got angry, said the other gang was responsible for Hickok’s death. Ethan never said anything about seeing Hickok that night and I wondered if I’d really seen anything. I went to church though, for the first time in years, and said a prayer for Hickok…

Thank you, sugar. I needed another drink. I’ve been drinking champagne cocktails since I was sixteen. You make a very good one. It takes me right back…

The fellows were more nervous after Hickok’s death. The men walked around each other like bantam roosters just looking for a chance to strike at the other gang.
 

I couldn’t help myself. No matter how much I sweated and sobbed in Johnny’s bed, no matter what I’d seen or not seen, no matter how much death seemed to be walking the halls, I kept watching Ethan, begging him with my eyes for an opportunity to get closer. I was half-scared he would touch me and half-scared that he wouldn’t. It was like chewing the sugar cube at the bottom of a champagne cocktail: sweet and bitter at the same time.
 

I can still see him sometimes when I close my eyes. Those green eyes watching the gamblers and the drunks, like a rattler watching mice.
 

One night, just after sundown, I went outside for a smoke on the rooftop. One of the fellows was keeping watch there but I told him to go away. I wanted some time alone to think about Ethan, try to talk myself out of hungering for him, tell myself again that I only dreamed about him because I couldn’t have him.
 

The fellow argued with me a bit. He said that something could happen. There’d been talk that the law would raid this joint. It was his job to protect Johnny’s place.

I told him that I’d keep an eye out. If anything happened, I’d sound the alarm.

He left finally. Reluctantly but he left.

Heaven help me but I forgot about keeping watch before the door closed behind him. It was easier to picture Ethan in my bed.
 

So I stood up there, looking out across the alleys and rooftops in the last rays of light. Of course, I started thinking about all the possibilities of that cruel mouth of his. Or his hands—slender but fast and deft. Or that beautiful ass…

Suddenly a hand slid up my throat and pulled me back against a man. I jerked and fought but the man’s other hand slid down my breast. He nipped my earlobe and then my neck below it. I froze when I recognized Ethan’s touch from my dreams.
 

He muttered in my hair that maybe, this time, I was worth the effort. I tried to turn so I could slap him for that but he kept me tight against him.
 

He caressed my breast insolently and I began to tremble against him. Every movement roused me still higher until I was writhing against him.
 

I closed my eyes, to enjoy the feeling. But he growled in my ear to keep my eyes open and watch the city, look at the streets. I pleaded that I couldn’t pay attention to buildings while he touched me like that. His hands went still and I knew that he wouldn’t fondle me again unless I looked at those piles of brick.
 

I opened my eyes and he stroked me again. I blinked and then gasped when he ran his hand up my leg. So I stared out at the city, eyes wide and moaning his name, as he worked me over.
 

Suddenly a string of police cars pulled up the alley and surrounded the speakeasy. I opened my mouth to scream a warning to Johnny but Ethan’s teeth bit hard into my neck. Climax struck me like a bullet, just as I realized how my blind hunger had betrayed my dear Johnny…

Give me another drink, will you, sugar? Some French brandy, please. I need to wash away that memory.
 

The cops arrested Johnny and his fellows then turned them over to the IRS for tax evasion. Taxes, can you imagine that? Well, if it was good enough to put Capone away, I guess it was good enough for Johnny.
 

There was blood on my neck when the cops found me on the roof. They hustled me out of there to the hospital so a doctor could take a look. Actually I think they just wanted me out of the way.
 

The last thing I saw before getting into the ambulance was Ethan standing with two other men, just beyond the cops rushing around like roaches. He was with the steak house’s owner and that wine waiter, the big Mexican and the short Frenchman.
 

Ethan treated the big Mexican with a reverence that he’d never shown Johnny. I knew that he’d come to the speakeasy because that man wanted him to. Maybe for the money to be gained from taking over the speakeasy but maybe not. I never heard talk of any big Mexicans running a fine speakeasy, then or later.
 

I felt so sick then that I was glad to be heading for the hospital. I swore that I would never be disloyal to Johnny again, in any way…
 

The newspapers were full of talk for weeks, about all of the speakeasies being shutdown and their owners hauled off to jail. When things quieted down, speakeasies started opening up again with new owners. Wild Bill, Hickok’s younger brother bought Johnny’s place and reopened it. The new owners were very careful to keep things quiet and avoid attention from the cops.
 

Johnny spent ten years in The Big House before his heart got him out of there. We got married on his first day of freedom. See my ring? Big diamond, isn’t it? Johnny always did know how to treat a girl right.
 

I saw Ethan again right after Johnny got out. He was standing under a streetlight, flipping a coin. Ten years later but he didn’t look a day older, still young and sexy as sin.
 

As soon as I saw him, I turned around and went the other way as quick as I could. I couldn’t bear to look at him and remember what he had made me watch. Then I talked Johnny into moving someplace far away. That wasn’t too hard to do. Speakeasies weren’t the same after Prohibition ended and he felt like taking things easy after The Big House.
 

Now we live down here in Florida where the weather’s always warm. We play gin to pass the time, and sometimes we’ll play canasta with friends. Or we’ll walk on the beach.
 

Johnny still talks about the shows I used to put on for him with other girls. He even teases me about looking at other fellows. I don’t do anything more than look now. I haven’t asked permission to be with another man since the night they arrested him.
 

But mostly Johnny and I just hold hands. It’s what he’s best at doing these days…

I drink brandy now if I drink anything. But sometimes I feel the need to remember the past. Then I go out and find a good champagne cocktail, to relive the days when I was young and bubbly as the wine.
 

Thanks for listening to me, sugar. You’re a very kind man to listen to the ramblings of an old lady. I sure do appreciate the offer of a taxi.
 

I’d better be going now before Johnny wakes up from his nap.
 

A Tale Of Jean-Marie St. Just

Okay, Mary, I’ll tell you the story. You’ve heard parts of it before and I guess it’s time to tell you the whole truth, now that you’ve turned twenty-five. You’re married with a baby on the way so I think you can understand. And we’ve talked about some very racy things before.

Besides it’s better than watching for news about Korea, even if your husband isn’t in the Army and my husband is retired. But I can only tell it just this one time, as I promised him then. If you ask any questions later, I’ll have to say that I can’t answer you.
 

I was wild when I was growing up but usually a good girl. I’d do some things like ride my pony down the town’s board sidewalks. Heck, all the boys pulled tricks like that too back then. But nobody expected a girl to do crazy stunts and I got a reputation as being willing to do anything.
 

My parents weren’t much help since they put most of their attention on working hard. All of us nine children were expected to do our chores and stay out of trouble, without requiring much attention from them.
 

One night, the local preacher’s son and I played a game of double dare in the graveyard. He won, if you can call it that, and you were conceived that night. Of course, he denied everything, my parents wouldn’t mention my name, and I went to Aunt Mabel’s in San Antonio to have the baby.

You’ve heard all of this before but I still like to talk about it. I loved you from the minute you were born and couldn’t give you up. All those black curls on your head, those big blue eyes, and your perfect little fingers. I thought you were the most beautiful baby in the world.
 

Aunt Mabel understood and she offered to raise you, if I could get some money to help out. Times were tough then, with the wind constantly blowing and the dust swallowing up houses and farms and towns too.

I tried to find respectable work but couldn’t. Finally, I ended up at Miss Jessie’s place, where I worked as a boarder. That’s what the working girls were called: boarders.
 

It was pretty simple work, especially once you and the client were alone in the bedroom. Just fifteen minutes to negotiate price, pay, undress and do the act. Only the missionary position was permitted and Miss Jessie would wallop any client she caught trying some of that “foreign” nonsense. She was a slip of a thing, no taller than you were at thirteen. But every man paid attention when she swung that thin iron bar.

Yes, “foreign” included anything involving the tongue on any portion of the boarder, or the client. The boarder couldn’t be on top of the client, or… I’m sure you get the idea.

You’re giggling, Mary. Well, so did I, after I learned better.
 

Miss Jessie’s rules of conduct for the boarders were actually a lot harder to live by. But she was fair and she spelled out all of her rules in a proclamation posted in the kitchen, where everyone could see it regularly. There were rules for receiving callers too, Miss Jessie’s name for a man that a boarder saw regularly outside of a business relationship.

I visited you and Aunt Mabel to celebrate your first birthday. But it was after ten that Saturday night, thanks to two breakdowns by the bus, when I got off in Susanville.
  

It had been a hot day and looked like a hotter night, unless a thunderstorm came along to cool things off.
 

Susanville was a little town then and worse hit than most by the hard times. San Tomas, the next town west, was doing a little better. Of course, it had Rafael Perez and the Santiago Trust, rather than a mayor who claimed a personal chunk of every nickel.
 

But some scientists had found ancient animal tracks, made millions of year ago. Rich Eastern folks wanted to dig those rocks up and take them home. The locals thought the rocks had been sent from heaven to give them jobs. The mayor believed the rocks were there to make him rich and he was making sure that no rock left Susanville until coins clinked in his pocket.