Ed Lacy - Room To Swing

When the waiter handed us menus, I was the only one to glance at it. There wasn't any cover or minimum, but at three bucks a shot they didn't need one. They ordered gin and tonic; I took Irish whiskey neat. The girls decided they had to go to the ladies' room and Steve said, “Never saw it to fail; second a woman gets anyplace she has to leave.”

“I'll have library send you a biology book tomorrow,” Kay told him, walking away.

We listened to the music for a while. It was very smooth, like the old Nat King Cole combo. Steve slipped me a line about writing the jazz novel someday. I wanted to tell him he could find material for a book in what a brown musician runs up against on a one-night-stands tour of the South, but didn't. We sipped our drinks and watched a babe putting her “all” into her dancing. “My Lord, what a Diesel motor that bimbo has,” Steve said. “How do you like going stag?”

“Stag?”

He flashed his eyes as he smirked, “Man, I see you haven't known Kay long. She and Barbara—Lesbians for years,” he added, like a kid mouthing a dirty joke. “Didn't you see them arguing before we left? Bobby didn't want Kay to take her pipe.”

I laughed—at myself. Shrugged as I told him, “Democratic country, everybody to their own tastes.”

He rubbed his nose with a slim finger. “You're so right. Thanks for bringing me up short. Did you really play much football?” he asked, changing the subject.

The girls returned and I told myself Steve was kidding; they both looked very feminine. Kay asked, “Dance?”

I stood up. “Okay, but I'm not much of a dancer.”

I took her in my arms and we glided around smoothly enough to pass for dancing. She said, “Sorry to leave you alone with Steve.”

“What's he got, the measles?”

“Oh Lord! Can't you tell, Touie? He's as queer as a six-bit coin. What are you grinning about?”

“Your hair is tickling my chin.”

“By radar? I'm inches from you,” she said, putting her head on my shoulder. “Do you like this place?”

“Aha.”

“I trust you'll pad it into your swindle sheet.”

“Don't worry about it.”

After another round of drinks I danced with Barbara and noticed she was wearing a wedding ring like Kay's. She gave me a workout, although Steve was on the floor with Kay and Barbara kept following them with her eyes. He was a good dancer. When she saw me watching her she smiled up at me, said, “Sorry. But I can't stand that smug creature. Because he finally has a TV show, he acts as if he had the world by the tail. And the boyish act: the crew cut and the college clothes—the ass. I don't know why Kay lets him hang around. Ever have the misfortune to read his book?”

“Nope.”

“Trash. Naturalism at its worst.” She rubbed her gray head on my tie. “How tall are you?”

“About six-two.”

So she told me what an athlete she'd been in college; talked until we sat down. Steve was wiping his face with a napkin, said, “This is actually becoming a steam room. Are you a Turkish bath aficionado, Touie?”

“Never in one.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said, motioning for the waiter. Instead of a drink I ordered a club sandwich. The show came on. The “show” was a tall girl with a faraway look on a powdered death-mask face, her eyebrows painted in like two darts. She sang a torch song—off key. After the second song it got to me, or maybe I was getting a little high.

The sandwich was dressed in pants and had a crazy border of pickle chips and olives. It impressed me, seemed the most high-class sandwich I'd ever had. I paid more attention to it than to Kay's knee wearing my trouser thin.

I ate slowly, listening to the weird singing, glanced around the table. I couldn't fully make any of them: they were all a little phony. So was the Steam Room. Yet I'd long lost the blue mood Sybil had put me in. I'd forgotten the dumb fight in the coffeepot, even about blowing the whistle on Thomas. This was big time. I had to admit that, phony or not, I liked it.

It wasn't even much of a shock to admit I liked playing the pet Negro... well, at least a little.

4

I WAS between the sheets before two—my own sheets. I'd insisted upon splitting the thirty-one-dollar tab with Steve, although Kay had whispered, “Let him take it, he comes from a loaded family.” We'd taken the girls home, then I dropped Steve off at Sixty-fifth Street and taxied all the way uptown like a big shot.

At six the alarm dragged me out of a deep sleep. Dressing quickly in slacks and an old sweat shirt, I was parked on Thomas' block when he came out at 7:35 a.m. I followed him to Twenty-third Street, where he stopped for breakfast, and at 8:21 a.m. I watched him enter the freight-company building, whistling cheerfully.

I drove home, lucked up on a parking space. I had a glass of milk, picked up a new Jet Ollie had brought in, and hit the sack, reading myself to sleep.

I awoke after one, came awake and hungry under a shower. Sybil phoned as I was dressing; I'd forgotten it was her day off. She horsed around about wanting me to drive her to a beauty parlor on 126th Street, to have her hair touched up, and finally asked what she really wanted to say—had I decided to take the P.O. job? I said I still had time to make up my mind and at the moment only food was on my brain. She said she was making lunch. I drove over to her place, decided not to say anything about last night.

Sybil looked all rested and pretty, sort of springy. Her lips were a very lush red. I wanted to kiss her but let it alone. I was still annoyed by her putting things on a my-becoming-a-postman-or-else basis. But I was feeling too good for an argument. When I drove her to 126th Street I had a couple of hours to kill, considered taking a swim at the Y, then decided I might as well do some work for Ted Bailey.

His letter said the James woman was fifty-two years old, had worked in a hospital, and her last address was a crummy rooming house on 131st Street. There was a set of penciled instructions pasted next to the bell outside this ancient private house: ring one for Flatts, two for Adams, and a Stewart—probably on the top floor—got a serenade of ten bells. Of course there wasn't any James listed, but some of the names were so faded you couldn't make them out.

I went down to the basement and rang. A teen-age chick, wearing overbright lipstick, narrow dungarees, a club sweater and a plaid men's shirt answered the door. She was chewing gum and very sure of her young figure and cute face—no one could tell she wasn't the sharpest chick this side of nothing. I figured Mrs. James hadn't moved, merely arranged with her landlady to give the bill collector the runaround. She'd changed jobs, but a person with a combination stove-refrigerator doesn't flit from room to room.

When I asked for Mrs. James the girl showed me how well she could snap her gum as she asked, “Who you?”

“Friend of hers, in town for the day.”

“Friend, she moved out last month.”

“Do you know where? I haven't got much time and I'd like to see her.”

She shrugged, both of us watching what danced. “Naw. I think out on Long Island someplace.”

She wasn't much of a liar. “Too bad. I have some money for her. Phoned the hospital but they told me she left. Now I can't mail it to her either. Well, maybe I'll run into her one of these days.”

Miss Fine Brown Frame gave me a practiced look through her long eyelashes. “What town did you say you came from, big boy?”

“Drove in from Chicago. Her cousin lives there.”

“Well...” The bright eyes ran over me slowly, decided my clothes looked like money. “Tell you a secret, she does live here. Five bells. But she won't be home till four. She's ducking one of them damn credit companies, that's why I gave you a wrong steer before. You either come back here, or call her at the Boulevard Hospital—that's over in the Bronx—tonight. She started working there last week.”

“Thanks. And, honey, they sure grow some fine young stuff around here.”

She snapped her gum with obvious pleasure. “Yeah man, but they don't grow no corn. This is the Big Apple, buster.” She shut the door with a little curtsy. Kids today; everything for effect.

I drove along 125th Street, found an empty space, dropped a dime in the meter. One-twenty-fifth is something like a small-town main street; wait long enough and you must see somebody you know. I'd hardly got my pipe going when two clowns rushed over to the Jag, said, “Touie! How's every little thing?”

“I'm just here,” I said, shaking hands, wondering who they were. Turned out we'd been in the army together. I left the Jag and took them into Frank's, bought beers, and made a lot of small talk about that magic land—old times. I left after the second beer, drove back to 13151 Street, pressed the bell five times.

A small but spry-looking coffee-brown woman opened the door a moment later. Her face was old and her hands work-worn, but her eyes were young and she had an excited way of talking, gushing like an eager young thing. When I asked, “Mrs. James?” she said, “You must be the Chicago man Esther said was just here, my cousin Jane's friend. How is she? I keep meaning to write her but... Excuse me, step inside.”

The narrow hallway was in need of paint, a thready carpet ran up the wooden steps—a firetrap. We seemed to be alone and I said, “I don't know your cousin, Mrs. James,” and flashed my badge. “Ducking payment on that stove-refrigerator is the same thing as stealing.”

She seemed to age in a split second, to shrivel up as she fell against the wall—as if I'd socked her in the stomach. Her face was a sickly brown, and then her eyes got angry and she pulled herself together, was really boiling. “Why you goddam lousy stoolie! The 'man' downtown can always manage to find one of our folks to be a Judas! I never—”

“Cut that talk,” I snapped, both of us keeping our voices low, hers a hiss.

“Why?” she asked, sticking her thin face forward. “Why should I keep still? You going to hit me? Try it; I'll be the last brown woman you ever lay a hand on!”

“Mrs. James, take it easy. I'm only doing my job. Stop all the big talk about the 'man' and anybody threatening you. If you ran a store and somebody tried a skip on you, you'd be the first to raise the roof. Listen to me, you're a decent, hard-working woman, and I know you wouldn't think of stealing, but—”

“Stealing? That damn company is the crook! I paid $320 for that kitchen combination, plus interest and handling charges. Fifty dollars down and twenty a month. Now you listen to me! A month—one month, mind you—after I bought the combination I see the exact same thing in Macy's for $140! What do you think of that? I go down to the company and damn if they ain't selling it for $260 themselves. Well, I made up my mind I work too hard for my money to give it away. I've paid them f 150, plus their lousy charges, and that's all they're going to get!”

“Mrs. James, why do you get involved in these installment deals? It's always cheaper to buy anything outright from a big store.”

“You talk like you have a paper head I Where am I ever going to get $140 all at one time? I got to buy on installment. You think I have anything to spare on that little salary they pay me at the hospital? Talk sense, boy!”

I felt both lousy and angry—mad at her. Most of these installment joints make their money playing the poor for suckers. I was sore at her for being so dumb; she probably could have gone to a big department store and still bought the damn thing on time. But somehow it always turns out that the people who can afford to pay the least end up paying the most. Still, that wasn't my business. I said, “Look, Mrs. James, let's both of us talk some sense. You don't have to tell me how hard you work, that you're probably overpaying for your room, your food, and everything else. But nobody twisted your arm to make you buy this kitchen combination. Sure, you made a bad deal, but you're a grown woman and you signed a contract. I don't have to tell you the law is on their side. They can come up today and yank the combination out and you haven't a legal peep. It's a mess, but you got yourself into it with your eyes open. Now, you'd better decide what you're going to do—lose everything or get up to date on your payments.” The words had a rotten taste as I mouthed them.