Too Old a Cat (Trace 6) (4 page)

“You’d be impressed if I were a private eye?” he asked.

“At least you’d be something.” She twisted her mouth and did her Marlon Brando impersonation. “Instead of a bum, which is what you are. Something, Trace. Anything. It would have been good, but it’s not there. What I want isn’t in you to give.”

“I’ll join the CIA,” Trace said. For a split second he meant it. He had seen an ad in the Sunday paper two weeks earlier advertising for CIA personnel. If they were reduced to advertising for spies, he could probably get in.

“They wouldn’t have you. You’d sell America out for a drink,” she said.

“Well,
they
don’t know that.”

“I’d tell them. This is my country too,” she said.

“Yeah. This and Japan and Sicily,” Trace growled. “All right. I’ll join the FBI. I was an accountant. They’ll take me. They take everybody nowadays.”

“You look ridiculous in a trench coat. You always look like a flasher,” she said. “You wouldn’t make it.”

Suddenly, she turned away from him and, head down, fumbled in her purse. She dabbed at her face with her handkerchief, and when she turned back, her eyes were wet.

“Let’s stop it, Trace. Jokes and all, that’s what we’ve had for three years. I don’t have any more stomach for any more jokes.”

His stomach seemed to settle lower in his body. He could smell the food scents from the tables around near them. The clinking of silverware and buzz of conversation seemed astonishingly loud and grew louder as he listened. He reached across the table and engulfed Chico’s hand in his large hand.

“You’re telling me there’s no way?” he said.

“None that I see. You are what you are. I told you I would never try to change you and I’m not going to do that now. There’s no point in it. Nobody can change anybody else.”

“
I
can change me,” he said.

“Sure. And it
can
snow in July. It’s just not the way to bet,” she said. She put her other hand on top of his.

“Go ahead, Trace. Have another drink.”

“I’m going to cut down,” he said stubbornly.

Chico shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Trace. It really doesn’t matter.” There were still tears in her eyes.

When the telephone rang, Trace decided not to answer it. It wouldn’t be Chico; she never called when she was dealing at the Araby, so it was probably a bookmaker wondering why Trace hadn’t been around. To hell with it, Trace thought. And besides, the answering machine would pick up the call on the fourth ring.

When it rang five times, Trace remembered that he had dropped the answering machine in the garbage pail the day before because he couldn’t play back his messages. That was another thing. How the hell could Chico leave him? She was the only one who knew how things worked. She did something magic with the stereo to make it play when all he got was hiss. She was always able to get messages from the telephone tape when all he got were clicks and sounds like electrical sparks. She knew how to turn on the electric oven. He had tried to cook something in the oven once to surprise her when she came home from work. He turned the oven on to 450 degrees, and when she came home four hours later, everything in the oven was still cold. She tried to explain to him that you had to turn another dial also to actually turn on the oven. He thought that this was ridiculous and vowed never to use the oven again. Chico had agreed with this idea; in fact, she had gently suggested: “Keep your fucking hands off my oven.”

What the hell was he going to do without her?

He answered the telephone finally, knowing that this was the way it was going to be. From now on, he’d have to answer the telephone to shut it up; he’d have to stand in front of the oven, hoping it would come on someday. He would have to listen to the radio because he would never get the stereo to play a tape or a record. How would he ever hear an opera again if he couldn’t play a record? It was a certifiable fact that not once in the history of Las Vegas radio had an opera sound ever emerged from a radio receiver.

This was it, the end of his comfortable life as he had known it. From here on in, it was radio and cold canned beans—if he could figure out how to work the electric can opener. Answer your own phone all the way, no matter what detestable person might be on the other end of the line.

It was in a sour mood that he finally growled, “Hello.”

It was his father. As usual, the easy seen-it-all voice of Retired New York City Police Sergeant Patrick Tracy made Trace feel instantly better.

“What’s up, Sarge?” Trace asked.

“Just wanted somebody to share my misery.”

“What happened?”

“Your mother won a cruise in some kind of raffle or something at the Hadassah.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Trace said.

“It’s a cruise for two, son,” Sarge said. “I’ve got to go.”

“Oh. That
is
bad news. You have to go with Mother? You can’t take somebody else?”

“No. I’m stuck. You know what’s really rotten?”

“I don’t know how anything can top taking a cruise with my mother,” Trace said, “but try me. What’s really rotten?”

“She won the damned thing a month ago and kept it a secret. She wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Always the incurable romantic,” Trace said.

“So yesterday I get this pretty good case and I go home last night and she’s packing our bags. We’re leaving on freaking Monday. God, I hate your mother’s surprises.”

“Did you try the old bad-back trick?” Trace asked.

“Right away. She wasn’t buying. I guess I’ve gone to that well too often,” Sarge said. “So I faked a coronary attack. She said if I died she’d bury me at sea. I even went over this morning to that old quack, Doc Johnson, to get him to write a report that I was allergic to sea air. You know what he told me? He told me I should stop complaining. That I should enjoy all these moments, that I should live in the present and learn to enjoy the present.”

“You ought to send
him
on the goddam boat ride,” Trace said.

“I offered, but the quack turned me down. No use, son, I’m hooked. I’ve got to go.”

“Where’s the cruise to?”

“Puerto Rico or some other goddamn place where the sun’s going to shine all the time.”

“Might be nice,” Trace said.

“Hey, I see enough Puerto Ricans around here,” Sarge said. “If Puerto Rico’s so nice, why the hell are they all living in New York?”

“They wanted to be close to you and Mother,” Trace said.

“God, I hate this city,” Sarge said.

“I know. More Puerto Ricans than San Juan, more Jews than Tel Aviv, more blacks than Kenya.”

“Hell with that,” Sarge said. “It’s got your mother. Phooey. I didn’t call to complain about my life.”

“Sure you did,” Trace said.

“Okay, so I did. Stop me before I wimp again. How’s it by you?”

“Not so good, Sarge.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Chico’s going to leave me,” Trace said.

“She catch you in the sack again with somebody else?”

“Nope.”

“You steal money from her savings account to buy liquor?”

“Not even that.”

“I bet you rearranged the cans in her kitchen,” Sarge said.

“Innocent.”

“Then what’s on her mind?”

“She says I don’t amount to anything and probably never will,” Trace said.

“Well, hell, she’s known that for a long time,” Sarge said.

“Thanks a lot, pal. That isn’t exactly the reaction I wanted.”

“Hey, son. The only good thing that ever happened to you in your life is that little girl. You’re leading me one to nothing. Don’t blow it.”

“I don’t know how to unblow it,” Trace said.

“What do you have to do to keep her?”

“Change. Maybe get a job or something. Settle down a little bit. Try to make something out of myself.”

Sarge whistled softly. “That’s a lot to try to handle,” he said, no trace of humor in his voice.

“You’re not very encouraging.”

“When I was bringing you up, I never told you life was going to be easy,” Sarge said. “Now you have to pay your dues. Most of the time, all of us, we just drift through life and we don’t have to do anything, and everything works out all right anyway. But once in a while, you have to punch the clock. This is one of those times, son.”

“So you think I ought to change too?”

“I think you better not let Chico get away, is what I think. What you’ve got to do to do that is your business, not mine. She didn’t ask you to stop drinking, did she?”

“No. Actually, she didn’t ask me to do anything. In her mind, it’s all over. She talks about us as if we were past tense. Like some old high-school sweetheart, you know, you think about once in a dozen years and you smile a little but you don’t even ask yourself, I wonder what happened to old Glenda, ’cause you don’t even care. It’s just a nice memory but it doesn’t have anything to do with your life anymore. That’s the way she’s treating us. Something dead and gone and once in a while remember it with a smile.”

“You’re in real trouble,” Sarge said.

“I know. Aren’t you glad you called looking for sympathy?”

“Let’s think for a minute,” Sarge said. He hesitated, then asked, “If Chico could have anything, what would she want?”

“To be six feet nine inches tall.”

“Why?”

“Because she’d like to kick the shit out of all the people who were rude or pushed her around because she was small or a woman or a half-breed or whatever.”

“Shit, that’s a tough one,” Sarge said. “I don’t know how we can make her six-foot-nine.”

“Not without an operation,” Trace said. “Maybe we can graft her and Mother together.”

“Six feet nine tall, not wide,” Sarge said.

“Then I guess we’re lost,” Trace said. “That’s one of the reasons she’s hung around with me so long, ’cause I’m big and people don’t push hard against somebody as big as me.”

“Wait. I got it,” Sarge said.

“Quick, man. What is it? This is important.”

“The great equalizer. I know how to make her six-feet-nine and make her stay with you.”

“How’s that?” Trace asked.

“Get her a gun.”

“That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard. The way she’s feeling now, I give her a gun and she’ll plug me between the eyes. Anyway, we’ve got a gun in the bedroom closet. I think it’s there anyway. I don’t take it out a lot.”

“Not like give her a gun for a present,” Sarge said, disgusted. “Sometimes you’re as thick as shit.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Detective. You get your license here and work with the agency. Then we’ll get her her license, and before you know it, she’ll have a gun. That’s what she wants, Dev. She wants power. Guns make everybody six-foot-nine. Why else do you think all those midget muggers carry them? If they were any bigger than four-foot-two, they’d carry chains and sticks.”

“You think this’d work?” Trace said.

“I know it would.”

There was a long pause before Trace said, “You’re up to something, Sarge. When is that cruise anyway?”

“We leave Monday. For a week.”

“Right. And you just happen to have a job that you would like me to keep an eye on while you’re gone.”

“I am hurt by your suspicious nature,” Sarge said. “As I mentioned, yes, I do happen to have a case right now, but I’ll have it done before I leave. You misjudge me totally.”

“Sorry, Sarge. I want to think about this thing with Chico.”

“Don’t think too long. My idea will work. I guarantee it.”

“I’ll think about it. There’s something else I want to try first. I’ll get back to you tomorrow. And cheer up. You’ll love the cruise.”

“Not unless it goes down and only selected lifeboats sink,” Sarge said. “Call tomorrow.”

“I will. I just want to try this other thing first,” Trace said.

“
Birinci. Ikinci. Ucuncu. Dorduncu. Besinci. Altinci. Yedinci
.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Chico asked. She was standing inside the doorway to their apartment. Trace was sitting on the floor, facing a bare wall, his knees folded up in front of him, his back to her. He waved a hand over his head, as if gesturing for silence.

“
Sekizinci. Dokuzuncu. Onuncu. On
…Dammit, you made me lose my train of thought,” Trace said as he lumbered to his feet.

“Please tell me what you’re doing,” Chico said.

“For your information, lady, I am improving myself.”

“By mumbling at the wall?”

“That is not mumbling. That is Turkish. I am learning Turkish and I was counting.
Birinci, ikinci, ucuncu, dorduncu
. One, two, three, four. Hah! And you think you’re so smart.”

“Trace. Why are you learning Turkish?”

“Because I think unless people continually learn things and stretch their minds, they get stale, they get old, they get fat, and their women leave them.
Birinci, ikinci, ucuncu, dorduncu, besinci, altinci, yedinci
.”

“You’re making that up, aren’t you?” she said suspiciously.

“I knew you’d say that, but for your information, I am making nothing up. I am counting in Turkish for when I go to Istanbul. Actually it’s very simple. You get to ten and then you start all over again. Nothing complicated like a new word like eleven. See, one is
birinci
and eleven is
on birinci
. Two is
ikinci
and twelve is
on ikinci
. You just stick ‘
on
’ in front of the numbers and that makes them ten higher. English should be so simple as Turkish. I’ll have this language down in two, three days at the most.”

“Why?”

“I’m doing it all for you,” Trace said.

“I’m still leaving,” she said.

“Turkish won’t do it? You mean, Turkish won’t do it?”

“Not two days of Turkish so you learn just enough words to embarass me when we go someplace. It’s like when you exercise and you promise one push-up a day for a year, except you forget to do them after the first day. Or you stop drinking vodka and you promise to drink wine, and you do it for a day and then you forget and you’re back to vodka. Trace, you are a degenerate who cannot be trusted and that is that and why do we keep having this same conversation?”

“What can I do to make you stay?” Trace said.

“Nothing I can conceive of,” Chico said.

“That’s it. Conceive. I’ll get you pregnant.”

“Not as long as I’m in charge of that,” she said.

She turned back to the hall, filled her arms with grocery bags, kicked the door shut, and brushed by Trace as she walked into the kitchen. With anybody else, so many groceries might have been a tipoff that she was planning to stay forever, but with Chico, it was just her usual precaution against hunger, famine, pestilence, plague, or worse yet, missing a meal. As she put the bags down on the kitchen counter, she saw a vase filled with the fresh flowers Trace had bought.

“The cleaning lady must have forgotten her flowers,” she mumbled to Trace, who stood in the doorway of the small kitchen admiring her. He couldn’t help admiring her. Even more than her face, than her form, there was some-thing about her, something about the light way she moved, the way she seemed to command the air she moved through, that always touched his heart. It was time, he realized. Time to stop fooling around and to bite the bullet.

“All right,” he said. He sat at the table in the kitchen, and without being asked, Chico filled a glass with ice cubes from the freezer and poured over it from the bottle of vodka that Trace kept in the freezer compartment. The liquid, slightly purple, burbled out heavily over the ice. She set the glass on the table in front of him.

“Thank you. You like to see me crawl, don’t you?”

“No, Trace. Just the opposite. I don’t ever want you to crawl, but I don’t want to crawl either. That’s why I’m leaving.”

“Don’t lock yourself into fixed positions yet. It’s too soon. You haven’t heard my best offer.”

“Go ahead.” She turned away from the cupboard to look at him.

“You want a dollar?” he said, and winked.

“I’ll pass. I’ve already got a dollar.” She turned back and resumed putting groceries away.

“All right. Only kidding,” he said. “I’m going to become a private detective. I’m taking the job with Sarge.”

She turned back and said, “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. And I want you to be a partner. Come into the company with us.” Even as he said it, Trace thought this is a stupid idea. Sarge had his head up his ass from hanging around too long with Trace’s mother.

“Do I get to carry a gun?” Chico asked.

“After you pass the licensing things, whatever they are,” Trace said.

“I accept.”

“And only when you learn to shoot with your eyes open,” Trace said. “I’ve seen you shoot.”

“I accept.”

“Hold on. Just like that? You accept?”

“I accept.” She came over and put her hands on his face.

“No negotiations?” Trace said.

She shook her head. “None necessary. You’re joining Sarge’s firm and you’ve got a place for me. Nothing to negotiate. I have reviewed your offer and find it acceptable.”

“And you won’t leave me?” Trace said.

“Not for the time being,” Chico said.

“You can turn it on and off just like that?” Trace said.

“It’s on again, pal. Don’t knock it,” she said.

“You always wanted to carry a gun, didn’t you?” Trace said.

Chico nodded. She had that look on her face that comes to those who are speaking so basic and obvious a truth that it seems really unnecessary to have to say it at all, but if it made you happy, why not?

“If we’re successful at this, you’ll probably be busy,” Trace said. “Have to give up your job at the casino.”

“I’ll walk away without ever looking back.”

“No more boyfriends.”

“Without ever looking back,” she said.

“We might have to move to New York for a while, until we get a lot more business for the company. It’d take a while before we could justify an office out here.”

“That’s all right,” she said.

“Just like that, you’d pick up and move to New York if we had to?”

“They haven’t closed Bloomingdale’s yet, have they?”

“We should leave right away,” he said.

“I’ll start packing.”

“Give me a kiss,” he said.

“Later,” she said. “For now, practice your Turkish. In case you’re a lousy detective.”

“I hope you know what I’m risking for you,” he said.

“What are you risking for me?”

“If we move east, we just move that much closer to my ex-wife and kids. I might have to see them someday.”

“That’s a chance you’ll have to take,” Chico said.

“The things I do for you,” Trace said.

“I know. Ain’t love grand?”