Mitchell Smith (32 page)

“No. Really.”

“Well … two extremely uncomfortable things…. I hope you’ll forgive me-this telephone thing is not…

it’s strictly the coward’s way. First, I’m really terrified to admit that I think I’m in love with you. Not just loving you-I’ve always loved you. And-let me get this over with fast-a little bird tells me that you are feeling no such thing about yours truly.”

Ellie didn’t say anything.

“I see,” Clara said.

After a few moments more, she said, “Well-then I won’t trouble you with it.”

Ellie’s heart was beating thump-a-thump, as fast as Mayo’s had.

“Were you watching TV?” Clara said. “Reading?-I know that brute of a job wears you out. -Would you just like me to hang up? We can talk another time.”

“No . . . no; we can talk.”

“A safer subject, then,” Clara said. “What were you watching . . . ?”

“I was reading.”

“O.K. —one of those god-awful Regency things?”

“That’s right,” Ellie said. Her heart was beating more slowly.

“Tell me about it,” Clara said. “-Do you need to go to sleep? -If you do, just tell me-“

“I don’t . . . I don’t.”

“O.K. -If you don’t mind, just tell me about the book.”

“Well, it takes place in 1814.”

“Right.”

“In the western part of England, near the sea.”

“Right.”

“I’m only about halfway through.”

“That’s O.K.,” Clara said. “-Go ahead.”

“Well, an American from Kentucky-a frontiersman-“

“Um-hmm.”

“He was the grand-nephew of a rich English squire in the West of England; and in America, he heard-a lawyer from New Orleans came and told him he had inherited this estate in England. -And it was good news, because he had gambled all his land away. He was upset by the war.”

“What war?”

“The war of 1812, with the British.”

“Right. I got it.”

“He’d been a big hero, a cavalry officer in that war.

He fought at the battle of New Orleans with Andrew Jackson.”

“Right. -Cotton bales. I got it.”

“So, now, he’s in England with this old trapper friend of his, and they’re riding through the West Country to go claim his estate-and the English are still angry about the war.”

“Um-hmm.

“Do you really want to hear this?”

“Damned right I do,” Clara said. “-Just go on.”

“Well—he and his friend go to an inn to get some food, and to have some ale-they have a little dog with them, and the dog gets into a fight with another man’s dog. And then there’s some trouble with one of the other men-the American has a fight with this young gentleman, and beats him up. And the man challenges him to a &6-“

“Does this young gentleman have a beautiful sister?”

Clara said.

“Yes.”

“She lives next to the estate the American guy is inheriting?”

“Did you read this … ?”

“No, sweetheart, but it’s sort of a classic kind of situation…. I’m going to let you go to sleep.”

“That’s O.K.”

“No-go on. Go to sleep. I’ll call you in a couple of days. And, fisten-when I said I loved you, I meant it. -I just get the feeling, sometimes … well, I get the feeling I’m supposed to be the dark, evil one in this relationship-you know, seducing little Nss White Bread . .

. and, if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t do that kind of stuff. Is that true … ? That isn’t the way you feel about me, is it, El? Just a sort of creep, who’s handy when you want to do something dirty?”

“No,” Eflie said. “-Never. I don’t feel that way about you. I really don’t.”

“I hope to God you don’t,” Clara said. “Please, please don’t feel that way about me.”

“I don’t. I really don’t.”

“Well-I apologize for running on here, begging for a word of love. -It is goddamn humiliating, I can tell you that.”

Ellie heard Clara start to cry. She’d never heard Clara cry before, and it was frightening. Clara was a hard crier.-She would try to stop and say something, but the sounds seemed to force their way out of her, as if her mouth were made of rusty iron, forced apart so she could cry.

“Give me a minute,” Clara said, sounding like someone else. “Give me a minute. . . . Jesus Christ!” The sobbing, the gasping for air began again. “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she said, “I’m so sorry……

“Clara,” Ellie said, “-please don’t do that. Please don’t!” and began to cry, herself.

They wept together over the phone for a little while, then Clara blew her nose, said, “I just blew my nose on the sheet,” and began to laugh.

She stopped laughing, said, “Gee whiz . . .” and started laughing again. She caught her breath. “-Sophisticated gay woman, hard as nails.” She blew her nose again. “A two-hundred-dollar a-night handkerchief,” she said.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments, then Clara said,

“Stormy weather . . . I love you. I’ll do anything you want . .”

and hung up.

“I love you, too,” Ellie said. Late.

Maureen Lacey almost never went with blacks. Brucie had given her that little lesson in spades-and he was black as the ace, himself.

“Usually-they got no bread. Jus’ bullshit. Usually, they nothin’

special with white chicks anyway-got too much ridin’ to get it up. An’

usually, they so pissed off they got to beat on something-an’ honey, you going’ be the something’! “

Sweet Brucie was upstate right now, doing three-and hadn’t run Maureen anyway, not for a long time-but his advice was out and free and right on the street.

Maureen, who didn’t like to, was working the tunnel entrance with a black girl named Rosalie; lady cops were staking their regular block for a couple days, playing pussy, and had asked the girls to give them room.

This evening, Maureen had turned two before ten O’clock, then had been flashed over by this black guy in a Dodge with rental plates. Big dude-bigger than Brucie, even-and wore glasses. Maureen took one look, and motioned him off on Rosalie; Rosalie would go with anything-had to go with anything because she had a coke hole through the middle of her nose, inside, that whistled when she breathed with her mouth closed.

Except for that, though, she was nice-looking. But this big guy smiled and shook his head, and gestured Maureen over.-Maybe a cop, after all, Maureen thought.

“Listen,” he said to her across the car seat, “I’m not a creep, I’m not a pervert-and I’d never hurt a nice working girl. -What I am, is a decent guy just in town from Cleveland looking for a little sugar-pussy for an hour. -What do you charge, darling?”

Probably he reminded her of Brucie, a little. A real intelligent nigger. Big dude. Nice clothes. Rosalie was making a face at her-my meat.

What the fuck. “-It’ll cost you a hundred.”

Big laugh out of the guy on that one. “-And I bet you’re worth every penny,” he said, “but fifty’s all I got.

Tell you this, honey-you’ll be safe with me. I won’t hassle you-and nobody else will, either.”

What the fuck … Maureen gave Rosalie the finger, and jumped in the guy’s car. When they were in the tunnel, the guy dug in his jacket pocket, brought out money, thumbed through it while he drove and handed it over. Seventy-five bucks. “Split the difference-O.K.? I don’t like to see women worried about money.”

He took her over to Jersey, drove down to one of the container docks over there, then took her out of the car and over to some crates, under the lights. Maureen said she didn’t want to do anything out there like that, because they have guards there, but the guy just said, “It would be a sad sucker would interfere with me,” and right there pulled this real big boner out of his pants, balls and all-and she thought what the fuck, and got on it, right there. She couldn’t take it all, but she took what she could, and got it as wet as she could, so it wouldn’t hurt her.

He was really nice-but it sure as shit was no short time. She was lying on a crate under those bright lights for an hour, it felt like, this big nigger on her just humping away like he paid a thousand. He had a gun on him; she felt the butt against her right breast, sometimes. -A cop after all, or a runner or something. “Ooohh,” he said-and about time.

“Ooohh-ooh!” and came in her about a quart, it felt like. That stuff went all over. Ran down her legs when he got up off her and let her off the crate and she stood up, still blinking from looking up at those lights.

“Clean me up, please, honey,” he said, and she got down on her knees to get that done-licked some stuff off his pants, too-and when she got up, he gave her another twenty-five bucks, and said, “You are a special little lady-a professional. You’re a person. Don’t ever let anybody treat you like shit, just because they call you a name.”

Drove her back to New York, no problem-she’d had to blow her way back in some truck more than once shook her -hand and wished her luck when he dropped her off.

“Well, motherfucker. Rosalie said, looking a little pissed (she was supposed to get all the niggers), “I thought you didn’t go with bloods!”

“He was the exception makes the rule,” Maureen told her. “-More tricks like him, this would be a good business to be in.”

“I hope you don’t want to be talking to the kids because I’m sure as hell not waking them up at this hour.

And Kameesha’s got a cold and doesn’t need to be awake this late.”

“Don’t wake them up,” Tucker said, holding the phone in his right, a roast-beef sandwich in his left hand. He lay in bed in great comfort, wrapped in his terry-cloth robe.

“-I know it’s late.” He’d gotten banana cream pie, ginger ale, and the roast-beef sandwich sent up, and was chewing the sandwich, swallowing his bites before speaking. “I didn’t think they’d be up this late-couldn’t help it; I was working.”

“More of that snooping-around stuff. -I got to call that hotel for a

“Mr. Robbins.” My friends ask me what duty you drew, I’m ashamed to say. I really do not know why my husband, a full master sergeant with five years in grade-could be warrant with no trouble at all-can’t get some troop-command duty overseas!”

“Too much chicken, sweet thing,” Tucker said, and took another bite of his sandwich. “You may think I look cute in that uniform-“

“Who said I did?” his wife said.

“Well, you know you do. -But butter-pat, you don’t have to take that morning-report shit that goes with it. -You don’t mind, I’ll just keep on spookin’.”

“Fine-you go ahead. You see what those people are going to do for you for staying out of straight duty. -They don’t give a damn about your career……

“Honey,” Tucker said, “-will you continue my career counseling another time? I just called to see how you and the girls were doing.”

“The girls are fine—except that Kameesha can’t shake that cold and got an ear infection from it as usual-“

“Take her to the hospital?”

“No—I didn’t take her to the hospital, I just let her suffer-“

“I was just asking.”

“Eddie-you are not the only one who loves those girls! I am their mother-and I am very fond of them, too. Yes, I did take her to the hospital-and I took Kimana, too, because she likes to see her big sister suffer. ” I I

“What a couple of monsters . . .

“Very much like their father-who is probably lying in bed with some white whore this very moment, while he’s talking to the mother of his children.”

“I am not. Honey-I told you; I do not step out on you these trips. I haven’t got the time, even if I did have the inclination, which I don’t.

-And you know I don’t like the way white women smell! Smell like sardines . , .”

‘-‘Stead of tuna, right? Eddie, you are full of it-and you always have been. I believe you would do it to any lady of any color that couldn’t get up and run away.”

“That’s a lie. I’ve had the best—don’t want the rest.”

“If I ever catch you-you won’t have any use for any.”

“Listen, honey-I don’t fool around. And I trust you not to fool around.”

“You trust me because I’m a damn fool woman loves you and got two little girls to look after. -And I trust you, too-just as long as I can see you and you’re on post, same as I’d trust any man.”

“O.K. Mama … What did the doctor say?”

“He said Kameesha had an ear infection the way she always gets an ear infection-and he gave me some antibiotics, and he said she ought to have a drain put in that ear like he always says she ought to have a drain put in that ear.”

“No drain. You can forget that shit-you hear me?”

“No drain.”

“That procedure does no damn good. -It’s dangerous.

No drain or anything else in that ear-you understand me? I mean it, now!”

“All right … all right. He’s not doing it.”

“That’s Captain Kirby, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you see that asshole doesn’t do it. I mean that, Jacklyn; don’t let me come home and find that shit sticking out of my little girl’s ear.”

“I won’t let him do it-I promise. Now, sugar, calm down. Nobody’s going to do anything you don’t want.”

“He can pull that quack shit on somebody else’s child………

“O.K. He’s not going to do it.”

“All right.”

“All right .

“I miss you, sweetie………

“I miss you, too, my big man. . I miss you a lot. .

“I wish you were right here, right now.”

“You do . . . ?”

“Damn right.”

“What would you do if I was?”

“I’d suck that sweet thing till it cried.

“That’s a nice way to talk to your wife over the phone.”

“That’s what I’d do, just the same.”

“Well . . .”

“That’s just what I’d be doing.”

“And I’d lie there and let you do it, too. -I don’t give a damn who’s listening on that hotel switchboard.”

“You’d do something for me, too, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” his wife said.

“You would . . .”

“Yes, I would. I’d do anything you wanted me to do.”

“You know what I’m doin now … ?”

I guess I do.”

“I’m doing it just for you, honey.” He took another two bites of the sandwich, had some ginger ale.