Under the Skin (3 page)

well of Stephen Crane, especially his poetry, though she liked
The Red
Badge of Courage
for its glorious renditions of battle and tormenting
self-doubt. Had she also read
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,
he wanted
to know. She said she had, but she would not be drawn into a discussion of it—and he reasoned that its subject lay too close to home. She
then asked who had taught him to enjoy books and he said his
mother. “Me too,” she said. And left it at that.

It was in the course of these postcoital conversations that he grew
aware of just how lonely he had been for many years now, and that he
did not want to continue that way.

By the time he and Hartung got together for their next monthly
lark in El Paso, Youngblood had begun coming into town on Fridays
so he could spend both nights of the weekend with Ava. Over supper
he told Hartung of his interim trips into El Paso. His friend chuckled and said it sounded like he’d caught himself an expensive case of
poontang fever and ought to try and get over it before he went broke.

Youngblood told him he had already twice asked her to marry him
and had both times been turned down. Hartung looked stunned for a
moment—and then broke out laughing and slapped him on the
shoulder, taking it for a grand joke. On their arrival at Mrs. O’Malley’s that evening, Hartung jovially asked the madam if she knew of
his friend’s quest to marry one of her girls. Mrs. O’Malley had known
a number of working girls who’d married men they’d met professionally, but the idea of a confirmed bachelor and funlover such as
Youngblood wanting to marry a girl like the Spook—and even more,
the idea of the Spook turning him down—well, it had to be their little jape on everybody, and she joined in Hartung’s laughter. The other
girls suspected that the Spook had enlisted Youngblood’s help to
make sly fun of their own hopes for marriage some day, and they indignantly ignored the matter altogether.

every Friday to be with her. On the past two Saturdays he had taken
her to an early supper at a nice restaurant and then they had gone for
a walk along the riverside before returning to the house at sundown,
at which time she was officially back on the job. He then paid Mrs.
O’Malley and they ascended the stairs to Ava’s room.

He every weekend asked for her hand and she every time turned
him down. The first time she’d refused him he’d been too stunned to
even ask why not, but after the second rebuff he did. She’d given him
an exasperated look and said, “What difference does it make?”—an
answer so baffling he didn’t know how to pursue his argument. He
had settled for asking if it were possible she might change her mind
one day.

He chose to interpret her smile as encouragement. He secretly believed her refusal was more a matter of inexplicable willfulness than
solid conviction, but he was not without strong will of his own.

“In that case,” he said, “I guess I’ll go on asking.”
And he had. And she had continued to say no. Until this morning.
The bartender brings the fresh drinks and retreats.
“If it wasn’t no joke,” Hartung says, “why’d she keep saying no?”
Youngblood shrugs.
“It’s a shitload about her you don’t know.”
“I won’t argue that. But what more you need to know than how

you feel?”
“Miz O’Malley says maybe you just figure it’s cheaper to marry it
than keep spending as much on it as you been. She says you’d be dead
wrong if that’s what you think.”
“O’Malley’s no fool, but I wouldn’t lay too big a bet on her knowing everything.”
They sip their drinks.
“So how come she changed her mind?”
“That’s something I do know,” Youngblood says. He looks side

Hartung stares at him. And then looks around the saloon at the
scattering of other patrons engaged in low conversations spiked with
sporadic laughter. He clears his throat and says, “Let’s see if I got this
straight. She says you knocked her up and so now she’s willing? Now
how in the purple hell can a whore even know
who
—”

“It’s not like that,” Youngblood says. “And I said to quit calling
her that. She aint that no more.”
Hartung leans and spits into the cuspidor at their feet and wipes
his mouth with the back of his hand. He stares at Youngblood in the
backbar mirror. “How’s it like then?”
“She don’t know whose it is except she’s sure it aint mine. She
wanted me to be real clear on that before I asked again.”
“When she tell you?”
“Last night. Wanted me to know it’s a chance it was a sixteenyear-old kid from Chihuahua City. Boy’s daddy wanted to give him
an American girl for his birthday.”
“The daddy might be
Mexican
?”
“She recollects having a problem that night with her whatchacallit... that thing they use to keep from having this kind of trouble.”
Hartung sighs and stares into his glass. Then clears his throat.
“Don’t you think this whole thing calls for maybe a little more consideration?”
“It’s all I did last night was consider it. The news didn’t set too
good with me, let me tell you, none of it, especially the part about it’s
probably Mexican. She said the first thing she thought to do was go
see somebody... you know, somebody who could... eliminate the
problem. But she rather not do it. Said it’s hers, no matter what. Said
she never knew before how much she wanted to be a momma, have
her a normal life. Said if I was still wanting to get hitched she’d be
willing to lay low someplace till it’s born. Back home we can say it’s

“Sweet Baby Jesus.” Hartung shakes his head and studies his
drink.
“She said she’d sure enough understand if I said no. Said she
wouldn’t have no choice then but to go see somebody about it.”
“She’ll get rid of it if you won’t marry her, but she won’t marry you
unless she can have it?”
“That’s it.”
Hartung lets a long breath and stares at him in the mirror.
“I walked all over town and thought about it till sunup.”
“Then went ahead on and asked her again.”
“I’ll rent a place in San Antone where she can stay. I’ll go see her
every weekend till it’s born. Then I’ll take them home and tell the
neighbors meet the new wife and her baby nephew whose momma
died. Or maybe niece, I guess.”
“What about its name?”
“We talked about that. Decided it’d be better to let him be
Youngblood than have a Mexican name. I mean, he’ll be my nephew
too. No harm he can have my name.”
Hartung rubs his face and sighs. He takes off his hat and runs a
hand through his hair and stares into the hat as if it might hold some
sensible explanation for the ways of men and women and the whole
damned world. Then puts the hat back on and looks at Youngblood
in the mirror.
“I don’t even know what to say anymore. I been standing here
thinking you were crazy but this goes way past crazy. This takes crazy
all the way to the end of the goddamn line.”
Youngblood meets his friend’s eyes in the mirror and sips his
drink.
“Jesus, bud. I never knew anybody to have it so bad.”
“I know. But that’s the whole thing, don’t you see? The plain and

He turns from the mirror to look at Hartung. “I’m tired of how I
been doing, Frank. And I aint getting any damn younger. Which by
the way neither are you, but that’s your business.”

Hartung spits into the cuspidor. “I give up. There’s no making
sense with a crazy man.”
He stares into his whiskey for a time, then sips of it. “Damn hopeless case.”
Youngblood grins. “Guess so.”
“No guess about it.”
“She’s really a sweet girl.”
“I’m sure.”
“Wait’ll you meet her.”
“I done met her.”
“No you aint, you just seen her and said howdy. I already told her
you’re gonna visit us real often.”
“I am?”
“You damn right. You’re gonna have many a supper with us.”
Hartung drains his drink and contemplates the empty glass. “Supper, huh?” Then steps back from the bar and gives Youngblood a look
of alarm. “Whoa! Is
she
gonna do the cooking?”
It takes Youngblood a second to catch the allusion to the hapless
McGuane—and they burst into loud barking laughter.

mit herself even a passing thought of where she’s come from or who
she’s been, and thus will her previous history disappear to wherever
the world’s vast store of unrecorded past does vanish.

The last recall of it she allowed herself was when Youngblood returned to her after a full night of pondering her disclosure that she
carried another man’s child, returned to her with the morning light
and held her hands and said it didn’t matter. And asked her again to
be his wife.

She had searched his eyes for any hint of uncertainty but saw nothing in them but love.
Love. The very thing in Cullen Youngblood she had wagered on.
A love whose power she dared not test against the truth but which
proved equal to the lie. And in the moment of staring into his eyes
and marveling at the blazing force of that love, she had the final
thought she will ever have that touches on her earlier self:
And they used to call
me
crazy
.

e wore good suits and hats and freshly shined
shoes. Brando and LQ carried briefcases
stuffed with old newspapers. Anybody who
checked us out as we came through the Jacinto’s revolving

door would’ve figured us for three more members of the
East Texas Insurance Association attending the year-end
convention.

The lobby was brightly lighted and well appointed with
dark leather sofas and easy chairs and ottomans, embroidered carpeting and tall potted palms. Business types stood
chatting in clusters and huddled around documents laid out
on coffee tables. Most of the action at this hour was in the
hotel dining room, which was jammed with conventioneers
and other New Year’s celebrants and pouring out music and
laughter and the loud garble of shouted conversations. The
smell of booze carried out from the room. Even though Prohibition was two years dead and done with, you still
couldn’t belly up to a bar in Texas and buy a hard drink, not
legally, but you could bring in your own, and this bunch
must’ve brought it in by the carload. Through the open
double doors I caught a glimpse of the mob inside, and of a

man and woman seated on a dais—the man grayhaired and wearing a
white toga and a sash that read 1935, the woman young and goodlooking in a white bathing suit with a 1936 sash.

A couple was embracing at the bank of elevators as we came up,
the man holding the woman close and nuzzling her neck, running his
hand over her ass. The woman glanced over at us and pushed his hand
away and hissed, “Will you just hold your horses?”

The little arrow over one of the elevator doors glided past the arc
of floor numbers to stop at number one. The doors dinged open and
another loud bunch of conventioneers came surging out and headed
for the dining room. We moved fast to get into the car ahead of the
couple and LQ turned and raised a hand to them and said, “Houston
police business, folks. Yall take the next one, please.”

Brando smiled at the pretty blond operator and made a shutting
gesture and she closed the doors on the couple standing there with
their mouths open. She had nicelooking legs under her short skirt and
wore her cap at a sassy tilt. Brando winked at her and said, “All the
way up, honey.” She got us moving and said, “Yall policemen?”

“Don’t we look it?” LQ said.
“Yessir,” she said. “I guess so.”
LQ said he was Sergeant O’Brien and Brando and I were Detectives Ramos and Gallo. She wanted to know if we were going to arrest somebody. LQ said probably not, just ask some people some
questions. She looked from one of us to the others. LQ was fairhaired
and cleanshaven and spoke with an East Texas drawl, but Brando and
I were darkskinned and had big mustaches, and I thought the girl
might be wondering when the Houston PD had started hiring guys
that looked like us.

At the top floor LQ set down his briefcase and he and I got out.
Brando stayed with the elevator and kept the door open. I heard
the girl say, “I wanna see,” but Brando told her to keep back from
the door.

We’d figured on the watchdog in the hallway. He got up from his
chair and dropped his magazine on it, tugged his lapels into place and
planted himself with hands on hips. He held his coat flaps back so we
could see the shoulder holster he was wearing.

We kept walking toward him. “Houston police,” LQ said. “Here
to see William Ragsdale.”
The guy cut his eyes from one of us to the other. He was goodsized
but so was I, and although LQ was on the lanky side, he had the
height on us. The guy’s hands dropped off his hips.
“Let’s see some badges,” he said. You could almost hear the gears
turning in his skull, thinking what might happen if he pulled a gun
and we were really cops. That was the trouble with dimwits—in the
time they needed to think it over, they were had.
“Sure thing,” LQ said, pulling the .380 out from under his coat and
cocking it as he put the muzzle in the guy’s face. “Have a good look.”
I drew my revolver from under my arm and held it down against
my leg. It was an old single-action .44 with high-power loads that
could knock down a horse.
The guard looked heartbroken at being taken so easily. He held his
hands away from his sides as LQ reached in his coat and stripped him
of a bulldog.
“How many?” LQ said, jutting his chin at the door.
“Just him and Kersey, a pair of chippies.”
“Kersey a gunner?” LQ said.
“Naw, shit. Owns a truck company, some strip clubs.”
LQ told him what to say and warned him that if he said anything
else he’d be the first to get it.
I stepped off to one side of the door and LQ stood on the other. LQ
nodded and the guard gave the door two sharp raps, waited a second
and then gave it one more.
A voice inside said,
“What?”