Ed Lacy - The Men From the Boys

“Long as I have a buddy-buddy like you, Dewey pal, what have I to worry about?” I said, walking out.

At the coffeepot I had a couple of pastrami sandwiches and some orange juice. My stomach was solid and I felt good. I was a dummy not to have thought of sleeping pills. Merely rent a room in one of the uptown hotels where I wasn't known, tell them not to disturb me. About fifteen straight hours would do the trick.

I felt so good I listened to the old waitress's dirty jokes— which she told me over and over again every week—and nearly gave her heart condition by leaving a half-a-buck tip.

I had close to three grand in a safe-deposit box and another grand in a savings account. I had to leave it to somebody. Leaving it to Lawrence would be a waste; he'd never learn how to enjoy a buck. Flo would get hysterical if I left her anything. Barbara really needed the dough, but it would only end up as a new car for pimp Harold. Still, best I draw up a will or some snotty cousins in Atlantic City would come into it—if they were still alive. The last time I saw them I was twenty-one and they gave me a crummy stickpin.

I walked around till I found a public typist—a pimply girl in a plumbing store. I dictated a short will giving Lawrence all my dough on the condition he buy Dewey a barrel of cheap wine. I asked the girl if she was a notary and she told me, “Wills do not need to be notarized, just two witnesses.”

“Okay, you want to be a witness?”

“I don't mind,” she said and called some guy out of the shop in the back of the store. He signed as a witness too, getting the paper all dirty with his greasy hands. The girl even made him put his address down. All this cost me only a buck and I took the will back to the Grover and left it in a sealed envelope in my desk.

Across from the Grover there's an old drugstore which I give all the hotel business. I dropped in there and Sam said, “Marty, don't tell me you need a new supply so soon.”

“I want to buy a small bottle of perfume. Something going for about three bucks. Wrap it up nice.”

“What kind?”

“How would I know? Anything that smells strong.”

Sam showed me a bottle that was all glass with about four drops of yellow liquid that looked like a doctor's sample. “This is the real stuff, from Paris and no lie.”

“All right. By the way, Sam, I get calls for sleeping pills now and then. Let me have a box of goof balls.”

Sam reached under the counter, then showed me a tiny box. “These are the newest thing on the market. Put you to sleep but no drugs, no chance of anything going wrong.”

“I want the old kind, the strong ones.”

“Marty, you don't understand, these are safe. You can take the whole box and your heart won't burst, or your lungs get paralyzed.”

“Sam, I want goof balls.”

He had heavy lids and when he got excited the lids seemed to droop, giving him an evil expression. “Marty, you need a doctor's prescription for those.”

“Stop horsing around. Sam, you know me. When a guy asks for a pill, pays for it, I have to give him what he wants. Don't worry, I won't give him more than two. Think I want to get into trouble?”

“But they're damn strict these days. I can lose my license, my store, maybe worse.”

“You put them in a plain box—I found them in one of the rooms when a guest checked out.”

“Marty, you have no idea how tight they are on sleeping pills and sedatives. I can't take the chance.” His fat face was troubled, his eyes nearly shut.

“All right, if you want me to start dealing with another ...”

“Marty, be reasonable!”

“I'm asking you for a simple favor and you're making a production out of it. What's wrong with you, Sam? You think I'd be nuts, giving some clown too many?”

The lids opened a little and after a moment he whispered, “Okay, but remember, if anything happens, I'll swear you never got them here.”

Sam went behind the clouded glass partition in the rear of his store, returned in a few minutes with a plain pillbox which he crudely palmed in my hand as we shook hands— although we were alone in the store. He said, “No charge. Just pay for the perfume. You can have that wholesale—a dollar seventy-three.”

“How many pills are in here?”

“A dozen. I'll cover it in my inventory—somehow.”

“To be on the safe side, what's a fatal dose?”

“Marty, don't talk like that!”

“Hell, Sam, I got to know.”

“Well, never give more than two during a twelve-hour period. Maybe three if the party looks young, but not even one if the party is old and looks like his ticker is shot.”

“Would five or six taken at one time kill?”

“Marty, what are you saying? Suppose somebody overheard us! Any time you give a party five or six at one time, leave town fast.”

“All right, and thanks. Don't worry, Sam.”

I took the subway uptown and got myself in the rush hour, so I was all sweaty when I shoved my way out at Ninety-sixth Street. I took a three-buck room in a large hotel on One Hundredth Street, but not big enough to sport a house dick. I registered under my own name, said I came from Jersey City, paid in advance for two days.

It was a better room than any we had at the Grover. My stomach started rumbling and when that was over I sat on the bed and stared at the light brown walls—there's nothing as lonely as a hotel room. I wanted to see Flo. I went down to the lobby and tried looking her up in the phone book, but she might have married half a dozen times since I last saw her.

I walked along Broadway, considered going up to see Lilly and getting my dough, only what did I need dough for now? Still, I didn't like for people to put something over on me. The neighborhood had changed. When I worked out of the precinct on One Hundredth Street, it used to be all micks with a lot of Jews. Now it was full of spicks.

I was walking around like a damn tourist, so I took a cab down to the Fifty-second Street night club. It was near seven and a porter was sweeping up, taking the chairs off the tables. A roly-poly bartender was washing glasses, getting ready for the night. He looked at me nervously, asked, “What can I do for you?” He had a fat face and an even fatter mouth. When he talked, it looked like his head was coming off.

“I want the home address of Flo Harris,” I said, the proper growl in my voice.

“Flo? Flo who?”

“Come on, fatso, the 'Divine Flame,' one of your strippers.”

“She'll be here about ten and you can...”

“I want to see her now.”

“You a cop?” His voice was a bull whisper.

“What do I look like?”

“A cop.” He sighed. “If she's in a jam we'll cancel her act right...”

“She ain't in trouble. But I need to see her—now.”

“I'll see if I can locate her.”

He waddled from behind the bar over to a door and a second later some drip who looked like a younger Mr. King stuck his sharp puss out of the office and gave me the eye. When the barkeep returned a moment later he told me she was living in a Forty-sixth Street hotel and her name was Mrs. Flo York.

I told him, “All right. Don't phone her Fm coming, or I'll close you up.”

“You got us wrong—we always co-operate with the police. We have to. Care for a shot?”

“No. But I'll take a mint leaf.”

“A mint leaf?”

“Sure, my mother was frightened by a cow.”

He put a few leaves on a plate and I walked out chewing them.

The hotel was one of these ratty dumps you find in the Times Square area, worse than the Grover because it suffered more daily wear and tear. Flo was in 417. As I knocked on the door I wondered if I'd have to throw “Mr. York” out.

Flo looked great when she opened the door. She was wearing a light print dress that sort of showed off the curves without bragging about them. Her face was minus make-up and except for a few lines around her eyes, she hadn't aged. She said, “Marty!” Said it big and her teeth showed her real age.

“Hello, Flo. Can I come in?”

She stepped aside and it was a seedy room, the walls with old dirty rose wallpaper—bedbug traps—and space enough for a crummy metal bed, a small dresser covered with bottles and jars of cosmetics, one skinny chair, a metal bed table, and clothing piled atop her two suitcases in the corner.

Flo had on low-heeled shoes, the way I always liked her best, and her long black hair hung off the back of her head in a horse's tail. She waved a hand at the room. “Not much, hey, Marty?”

I smiled, took some underthings off the chair and sat down. I tossed the things on the bed. Flo always was sloppy. I had a feeling I was home.

She stared at me with hard, suspicious eyes, said sarcastically, “Make yourself comfortable!”

“I did. You haven't changed a bit, not even the acid in your voice.”

“What's on your mind, Marty?” She looked around for a cigarette. I dug in my pockets, didn't have a pack. She finally found some on the dresser, lit one as she held out the pack to me.

oI shook my head.

Flo blew a cloud of smoke in my face. “Used to be a chain smoker, Marty. What's the matter, believe this lung-cancer stuff?”

“Lost my taste. Who's afraid of lung cancer?” I said, laughing—my own little joke I was stuck with.

She puffed a few more times, waiting, then asked, “What do you want?”

“Not a thing. Merely dropped in to see you. Saw your picture in front of the club and got your address. Where did you get the York handle?”

“Left that louse couple of years ago. Didn't I read about you being bounced from the force?”

“Aha. But they fixed it so I retired on physical disability, said I was 'nervous.' I saw you in the movies a couple of times.”

She sat on the bed. Aside from a few tiny veins starting to show, her legs were as perfect as ever.

“Come up to see my legs, Marty?” she asked, raising her skirt.

“Don't think so. I could drop into the club if I wanted to see them.”

She ran her eyes over my clothes, my shoes. “If you came for a handout, you're wasting time.”

“I never held my hand out to you. Told you I'm on a pension. And I have a two-bit job. You need a couple of bills?”

“You giving me something? That's a twist. Come on, Marty, I have a show to make. What's this all about?”

“Nothing. Wanted to see you, talk to you. Lately I got to thinking about us, the way it was real fine—at the start.”

She puffed on her butt like an engine. “Selling something, Marty?”

“What's wrong with a joker getting a yen to see his ex-wife? Here.” I took out Barbara's perfume. “I brought you a little gift.”

Flo stared at the tiny package as if she expected it to snap at her, then slowly opened the gift wrapping, said, “Oh, it's some Clichy! This is real sweet of you.”

“Nothing much—ten bucks.”

“Ten bucks your ass but it's the nicest gift I ever got,” Flo said quickly, and for a moment I thought she was either going to cry or put on an act. Her hand hugged the bottle. “Marty, you really do want to see me.”

“Sure. What's the matter—don't guys chase you any more?”

“I don't mean that. Would you believe it, Marty, I was thinking about you recently, too.”

“No, I wouldn't believe it.”

She suddenly laughed and crushed the cigarette, came over and sat on my lap. “You're still the same mean sonofabitch, the only stud I ever knew who didn't bull me, took me as I was.”

“Sometimes you were quite a lot, Flo,” I said, opening the back of her dress, then giving up the idea. It felt swell having Flo on my lap, smelling her, talking to her.