Swag (16 page)

Every time Stick looked around, Arlene seemed to be watching him. That was the feeling he got. Like he was committed to her. She seemed to want to talk and finally steered him toward the balcony. But when they were out there, he spotted three of the junior executives down on the patio drinking beer and yelled at them to come up and be sociable.

The junior executives came in cautiously, like gunfighters in their tight Levi's, and slouched around awhile; but pretty soon they were mixing it up with the others and Stick was glad he had invited them. It didn't hurt to be friendly. He told Arlene to be nice to them. The poor assholes were giving their lives to IBM and the Ford Motor Company and they deserved a little fun.

They were good-looking young guys with families in Bloomfield Hills, two of them named Ron and one named Scott. Ernest Stickley, Jr., could see them jogging through life in their thirty-dollar Adidas, never knowing it was hard. But he didn't hold it against them. He didn't give a shit, one way or the other, what they did.

One of the junior executive Rons went down to his apartment and brought back a Baggie of grass and a pack of yellow cigarette paper. He said it was Nicaragua Gold, which impressed Karen and Jackie. Karen named a couple of other kinds she had smoked. Ron got a few joints going and pretty soon everybody was taking drags. Stick tried it. It was all right, but he didn't feel anything from the two drags and he didn't like the smell at all. Frank said, Man, you know what we used to call this, this kind of scene? Reefer madness. Ron, rolling the joints, said you could call it anything you wanted, but why get mad? Stick asked him if they let you smoke grass out at the Ford Motor Company. Ron looked at him and said, Ford Motor Company? I'm with Merrill fucking Lynch, man. How's your portfolio?

Frank was cruising on Scotch and reefer. He'd poke Stick and say, “Hey, are we having a party or we having a party?” Like he was celebrating something. Stick would say yeah, they were having a party.

Arlene was following Stick's instructions, being nice to the junior executive named Scott. She looked small and frail sitting next to him on the floor. Scott was studying the hammered silver pendant that hung between her breasts. Arlene told him it was a Navajo love symbol or else a sheep spirit, she'd forgotten which, and Scott was nodding, showing his interest in primitive art.

Stick went over to the eight-hundred-dollar hi-fi and put on a Billy Crash Craddock while he picked out a Loretta Lynn, an Olivia Newton-John, and a brand-new LP by Jerry Reed, the Alabama Wild Man.

Mary Kay said, “You like that music?”

He looked up to see her standing close to him with a smudged empty glass in her hand, blue eyes looking at him that he bet were blurry inside. Nice, clean-looking girl letting go. Why did that surprise him? Or what did clean-looking have to do with it?

Stick put the LPs down, took Mary Kay by the arm, and said some of the words along with Billy Crash Craddock, telling her perfect love is milk and honey, Captain Crunch, and you in the morning.

Stick said, “To answer your question, it's not one of my top ten favorites, but I guess I like it pretty well.”

Mary Kay said, “I think it's a bunch of shit. Perfect love, milk and honey, and all that. It's a lot of bullshit.”

A voice told Stick to get out, quick. If he hesitated, she'd tell him how she was the oldest girl in a family of ten kids and how she had to do all the housework and pay her own way through Blessed Sacrament because her dad drank and sat around the house in his undershirt reading paperbacks, and how she went to Mass regularly, prayed for a vocation, worked hard, always did what she was told, and now she was a registered nurse with her own apartment, a savings account, and five doctors who wanted to get her in bed. If he didn't listen to the voice, he'd ask her, What's the problem? and she'd say, What's the
problem?
What good was all the hard work and being good?
This?
Then they'd get in a half-assed discussion about the meaning of life and maybe he'd get her in bed and maybe he wouldn't. Talk about bullshit. Mary Kay was just learning.

Stick said, “Listen, let me get back to you, okay? I think we need some ice.”

He got out of that one, for the time being, but missed the scene with Frank and Sonny, which he'd have gotten a kick out of.

Sonny had had a glass of milk all evening; nothing else, no potato chips and dip or Pinconning cheese. She was out on the balcony with Barry Kleiman and one of the junior executives, the quieter of the two Rons. He and Barry were standing with their fingers in their tight pockets, posing with the poser, very cool and serious about it.

Frank had nothing personal against Sonny. He kind of liked her style, the fashion model put-on and all that. He liked it even though it pissed him off. Look at her. She was skinny, no tits to speak of; bony hips; long, thin, dumb-looking hair she liked to get out of her eyes with a lazy little toss of her head. No personality, no real person in there Frank could see. She stood around with her box pushed out like she was daring anybody to make a grab for it. That's what got him the most.

When Frank walked up to them Sonny handed him her empty milk glass.

“How about another one?” he said. “If you think you can handle it.”

“No thanks.” She didn't look at him. She turned to Barry and said, “I've got to get going,” like it was his place and he was the host. “Have to be at the studio by seven tomorrow. I think we're doing some Oldsmobile stuff.”

“Listen,” Barry said, “what we were talking about. How can I help you? Tell me.”

She gave him a little shrug. “I don't know. Talk to your agency.”

“I mean it,” Barry said, “you'd be terrific. I don't mean behind the counter, one of the broads there in the uniform. I mean a customer . . . high fashion, a very chic chick. You bite into this quarter-pounder. Your eyes are saying mmmmm, great. And here's the part. You get some mustard right here, on the corner of your mouth. Jesus, you'll have every guy watching TV wanting to lick it off.”

Sonny was nodding, picturing it. “That's earthy,” she said. “Or how about, just the tip of my tongue comes out?” She demonstrated. “In a tight close-up.”

“Ter-
rif
ic.”

“With kind of a down-under look.” Sonny lowered her head slightly and gazed up with a sleepy, bedroom look in her eyes. “What do you think?”

Frank said, “You mind if I ask you a personal question?”

Sonny made it seem an effort to turn and look at him. “I think not, if it's all the same to you.”

“What do you mean, all the same?”

“If you don't mind, then.”

“But I mind. That's why I want to ask you something.”

“All right, what is it?”

“You ever been laid?”

Sonny's composure held. She said, “Have you?”

“A few times.”

“Good for you.” She looked at Barry again. “You mind walking me down?”

“Do I
mind
? Does a bear—no, strike that.” Barry held out his hand to Frank. “Man, it was fun, I mean it.”

Frank said, “You going to try your luck?”

Barry frowned, a quick expression of pain. “Hey, come on, let's keep it light, okay?”

“He'll be right back,” Sonny said. “Unless he's going home.”

Frank looked at the quiet, good-looking Ron with his big shoulders and golf shirt.

“You following this?”

“Am I following it?”

“What's going on. The principle involved. The great truth. You know what it is?”

The quiet, good-looking Ron shook his head. “I guess you lost me.”

“It's called,” Frank said, “the myth of the pussy.”

“Hey, what?” Barry was grinning. “Come
on
. The myth of the—what?”

“The myth of the pussy,” Frank said again, solemnly. “It seems like a simple little harmless thing, doesn't it? Something every broad in the world has. But you know what? They sit back on their little myth and watch guys break up homes over it, go in debt, mess up their lives. It can make an intelligent man act like a little kid and do weird things . . . this idea, this myth that's been built up. Girls say, You're bigger and stronger than we are, buddy, but we got something you want, so watch it. They use the myth to get you to open doors and give them things and pick up checks. And some use it more than others.” He looked at Sonny. “Some think it's really a big deal, and you know what? They don't even know what it's for.”

“That's wild,” Barry said, a little awed. “It really is.”

“No, what it is,” Frank said, “it's a fucking shame.”

A little before eleven they drove over to Woodward to find a liquor store open. They needed Scotch, vodka, and beer.

“And grapefruit juice,” Stick said. Stick had got to the car first and he was driving. “All the broads I think're drinking Salty Dogs. You taste one?”

“They're having a good time,” Frank said. “Everybody is. I think there's only one turd in the bunch and she left. No, maybe there's two, I don't know.”

“Who do you mean?”

“That Irish broad, the nurse.”

“She's all right. She's going through her first change.”

“I'll check it out,” Frank said. “That cute little housewife, I think she's another sleeper. Her husband's busy with Jackie, looking down her kitty outfit. Or I could steer him over to Karen. Yeah, I could do that. She'd keep him busy. Christ, her appetite, she'd eat him up.”

Stick glanced over. “You wouldn't mind that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn't care if he got her in the sack?”

“Why should I?”

“I just wondered.”

“Karen's all right,” Frank said. “You know, nice build and all. Maybe a little bigger than she looks. I'd say she goes about one thirty-five. But she's kind of bossy. You see her there? Like she's the hostess, getting Jackie to pass the cheese and crackers. That's the way she is. In the sack she says, Okay, that's enough of that, now do this. Yeah, that's it right there. A little more. No, a little up. That's it, good. Okay, the other thing again. All right, let's try this. It's like doing it by the fucking numbers.” Frank put his head back on the seat cushion, relaxed, comfortably high. “It's something,” he said. “All that scratch in one place. You believe it?”

“You don't say that anymore,” Stick said. “Now you say, ‘Well, here we are.' ”

“That's right. Well, here we are. And you say, ‘You sure?' Say it.”

“You sure?”

“You bet your ass I'm sure,” Frank said. “That's a quiz show on TV. It isn't really, but those dumb broads, they believe anything you tell them. Hey, am I sure? You better believe it I'm sure, because we got it fucking knocked and it's going to get even better. I don't know what happened to Marlys. I saw her this afternoon, I told her stop by, she wasn't doing anything. What's tomorrow?”

“Sunday.”

“All right we'll wait'll Monday, we'll go down there, I'll show you around. It's not worked out yet, you understand, but I want you, I think you ought to start to get the feel of the place.”

“I've been to Hudson's, Frank. Lots of times.”

“Upstairs, where the offices are?”

“I think so.”

“End of the day,” Frank said, “they leave fifty bucks in the cash registers, everything else goes upstairs.”

Stick was a little high but alert, moving along in the night traffic on North Woodward, watching for a liquor store that was still open. He didn't want to get in an argument with Frank or even a discussion with him now. It would be pointless. Frank would start yelling and wouldn't remember anything.

Stick said, “You look on your side.”

He saw it then, in the next block across the street, the neon sign and the lights inside, and felt himself relax again.

“There's a place, Frank. It's still open.”

They parked in front. Going in, Frank said, “What do we need? J&B, vodka?”

“Grapefruit juice,” Stick said. “I don't think they'll have it. Maybe.”

He asked the clerk behind the counter, a neat little gray-haired man with rimless glasses, and the clerk said, “Yes sir, right over there. All your juices.”

Stick got four big cans and brought them to the counter. Frank was ordering the liquor. Stick went over to the cooler and pulled out a case of Stroh's, the brand the young executives were drinking. Walking back to the counter with it, where the clerk was waiting, he saw Frank up by the front of the store.

“We got everything?”

“I'll be right back,” Frank said. He went out the door.

There were three bottles of J&B and three top-priced Smirnoffs on the counter. The clerk was putting them one at a time into an empty liquor case.

“That be it?” the clerk asked.

“I guess a couple bottles of tonic,” Stick said. He got potato chips and Fritos from a rack, a can of mixed nuts. The clerk was coming back with the tonic. He stopped, his eyes wide open behind the rimless glasses. Stick looked around.

Frank was coming toward the counter with a grin on his face, his Colt Python in one hand and Stick's Smith & Wesson in the other.

“What the fuck,” Frank said. “Right?”

Stick almost said his name. It was right there—
Frank, you dumb shit
.

But they were into it already and it wasn't something you could call off and say, Oops, just a minute, let's start over. Or tell the guy you were just kidding.

No, he had to take the poor scared-shitless clerk into the backroom and tie him up with masking tape and paste a strip of it over his mouth, while Frank, the dumb shit, was out there cleaning the cash register. Stick didn't say a word to the clerk. He laid him on the floor and patted his shoulder, twice, telling the guy with the touch to be calm and not to move.