Ed Lacy - The Men From the Boys

“I know, sometimes we were real good, and then other times...” She nibbled at the lobe of my ear, the right one that used to be cauliflowered. “Marty, I'm sick of a lot of things. Lousy hotel rooms, stale night-club dressing rooms. I'm sick of climbing. I was foolish, never even knew exactly what I was aiming for.”

“You mean you're getting on. You were all right, Flo, except you never stopped bouncing.”

“And you, you never bounced at all, a big solid lump, proud of your fists, like a kid.”

“Guess so, ambition never bothered me.”

She took my hands and pressed them over her breasts. I remembered now how we used to joke in bed—I'd press her nipples and say, “Special delivery.” Flo put her head back on my shoulder, said, “I've had it, Marty, had it over my head.” She paused. “I have time, want to go to bed?”

“Maybe later. Let's talk.”

“Since when did you get to be a talker?”

“Since a few days ago.”

“Your hands are still so rough and strong, so good. Isn't it nutty, an ugly buzzard like you still sending me? Oh, Marty, I'm not bulling you, I have been thinking of you.”

“What were you thinking?” I asked as a belch tore at my guts. I turned my head and let the gas out slowly.

“I'm done in show biz, I'm going no place but down now. Another year and I won't even be able to get these stinking dates. I got me a big house out on Long Island, way out, near Montauk. It can be fixed up so we have about thirty rooms. I have a couple living there now, keeping it up—and keeping me broke. That's why I'm living in this dumpy hotel.”

“How did you get the place?” I asked, stroking her long hair. It was very soft and her neck and shoulders were as firm as an athlete's.

“A fan of mine got pie-eyed one week end, gave it to me. Don't worry, it's all mine, I have the deed. I've been holding it over a year, waiting for somebody like you. Marty, the two of us could move out there, make it into a first-class hotel.”

“I've got a head start along those lines—I'm a hotel dick.”

She clapped her hands. “An omen! A sign we should be back together!”

“You still go in for star reading, palms, and all that other junk?”

“Seriously, Marty, we can make a go of it, live well. That's all I want out of life from now on, to live graciously. I've seen how some of these rich cats do it, and this hotel will be our meal ticket. We hire a man and wife to cook and clean the rooms. I have it all planned—it will be a kind of joint where people come to rest, take it easy. No kids, no drunks. Expensive but not ritzy. Get what I mean—fine food, quiet, lounging around the beach, fishing. And we'll live just like the guests. We won't get rich but nobody breaks their back either. Buy it?”

“Sounds great. I wouldn't mind a lot of sun and sleeping late.”

Flo squirmed on my lap. “Marty, all we need is a couple of grand worth of good furniture. I'll do the decorating and you be a handy-Andy. I'll make you a one-third partner.”

“Nope, not for me.”

Her voice rose. “You said it sounded great. What the hell you want—half? Okay, make it fifty-fifty. I know enough rich Johns and toney theatrical people we can get as a starter. Then in time, we build up the...”

“Honey, I can't do it.”

“Damn you, Marty, I'm not asking you for any dough. The joint is free and clear. I can raise a few grand on it from any bank. Hell, I can sell it any time I want for nearly forty thousand!”

“Flo, you don't understand. I'd go for the deal without any partnership, even put up the dough. The trouble is, it's too late for me.”

“What makes it...? Hey! Marty, you married, got kids?”

“Nope, you were the last Mrs. Bond. It's something else.”

“What else can it be?” Flo asked, making a bra out of my hands.

I didn't answer and she gave me a know-it-all smile, then reached over and picked up the perfume from the bed. She opened the bottle and put a few drops behind each ear, then pulled her dress off her shoulders. “I go with the house, too, Marty. You know that. This time it will be for keeps. I still have time to try for a kid, if you want.”

The damn perfume smelled like lilies of the valley, the flowers they have at funerals. I lifted Flo off my lap, sat her on the bed—the sure smile was still on her face.

The perfume stink gave me the creeps, like death was following me around. I felt the box of goof balls in my pocket, headed for the door. “So long, Flo, it was nice seeing you.”

“Marty!” She came running across the room, grabbed my coat. “Marty, what's the matter, what did I say wrong?”

“You said everything right. It's a good offer, so is your bed. And we'd make a go of the hotel, probably be very happy leading a nice slow life, grow old gracefully, and all that slop.”

“Why is that slop?”

“It isn't, it's great, only I can't make it.” Taking her hands off my sleeve, I opened the door. “I'll be dead by Saturday. 'Bye, Flo.”

Walking down the hall to the elevator I wondered why I had to be such a dramatic ham. I felt lousy. And it would be good out there with Flo, away from crummy hotels, the smell of insecticide, watching people. We'd have a station wagon and I'd meet the trains, maybe tend the desk, and knock off for a few hours of surf fishing anytime I wanted. It was a great buy—for a healthy joker.

I stood outside the hotel for a while. It was a bit cooler.

I walked over to Broadway, stared at all the cheap gaudy lights, the hicks—from out of town and in town—walking up and down the Stem, enjoying all this phony sparkle, the tough kids in jeans and black leather windbreakers who needed a belt in the slats—or something to do. At one time Broadway used to give me a bang, now it looked like a freak show.

I stopped and had a couple of hot dogs, a coconut drink, then walked uptown. I kept looking around like a stranger, feeling terribly dramatic and sorry for myself—and knowing I was enjoying every second of it. It was like there were two of me—one guy saying, “Look around, get a full whiff of this.” And the other saying, “Cut it, there's nothing left but to go to the hotel room, take the sleeping pills and you've had it.”

I stared into each passing face, hoping I'd see somebody I knew. Maybe a jerk from the army, a... I suddenly remembered Art. At least I ought to call him. I reached him at his home and he started bawling me out, adding, “He'll soak you double now for missing your appointment. What happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“I've been calling you at your hotel but...”

“Thanks for being interested. Art, but I'm not going to that specialist.”

“You're not? What do you mean by that?”

“I've become a Christian Scientist—I'm not going to let any doc monkey with my belly.”

“You must be crocked. Listen to me, Marty, this isn't anything to clown about. I advise you to...”

I tried to laugh. “Why not clown about it, Art? Told me yourself it was nothing to worry about. Tumor-shumor. Look, kid, don't worry about me. I'm taking care of it another way.”

“Have you been to another doctor?”

“No, you're my doctor. I'm trying an old-fashioned remedy. Thanks for everything, Art. And don't worry about me.”

“Marty, stop acting like a thick-headed ...”

I hung up, bought a paper and took a cab uptown. It gave me a queer feeling to realize I wouldn't need the sixty-odd bucks I had in my wallet, could throw them out the window if I wanted.

There wasn't much in the paper. They had already started the life story of Cocky Anderson, and some broad had come forward and said she was his wife and they had a baby boy. There was a picture of a plain-faced woman named Pollard who had backed her husband against a wall—with a Chewy. Somehow her face looked familiar and I read the whole piece. They'd had a spat and he'd run to her mother's—he was one guy who was on the best of terms with his mother-in-law. Mrs. Pollard was driving by when she saw him leaving and he tried to duck into the driveway, so she wouldn't see him. She swung the Chewy into the driveway and chased him down to the dead-end wall of the garage door. She said she didn't know “why I did it. But I feel relieved now.”

Her face still looked like somebody I knew, but I couldn't place it. I looked through the paper to see if they'd caught Mr. Mudd, the amateur stick-up artist, but he'd faded from the news.

There was a column about past baseball greats who hadn't made the Hall of Fame and an editorial about crime followed by another hash about New York City gangsters lolling around Miami. Bochio's alibi was perfect. Not only did he claim he'd been in his hotel room for two weeks, but the Miami police had a two-man guard on his room twenty-four hours a day during those weeks.

Several minor hoods had been picked up and questioned. There was the usual statement from Homicide about “waiting for a break in the case... any hour now...”

I turned back and looked at the snap of Mrs. Pollard. She had nice eyes. Had they looked so nice when she was bearing down on hubby with the Chewy?

We reached the hotel and I gave the cabbie a dime tip, wondered why I didn't hand him all my dough, or at least a buck.

Up in my room I undressed to my shorts, lit a cigarette, and decided there wasn't any point in horsing around. I dropped all the pills but two into a glass of water, hoped they wouldn't have a bad taste.

I never found out.

For an hour I sweated as I tried to lift that little glass to my mouth, but it was like a great weight—I couldn't get it off the table. It was exactly like with the gun, when I didn't have the strength to squeeze the trigger. I moved my arms, my hands, but not when they were holding the glass. I strained and I sweated and cried with shame, yet nothing helped—I didn't have the guts to take my life.

I couldn't understand it; I'd never lacked the old moxie before. Even in the ring, when I started going against some of the real pros, the dancing masters, who cut and hacked at me for ten rounds while I kept moving in, waiting for one shot—even then when I knew I was outclassed and being stupid-brave, still I had the guts to keep going.

I tried and tried lifting the glass, then I finally knocked it over trying to lift it with my teeth, and my muscles loosened up. I sat down, staring at the wet spot on the rug for a long time, thinking of nothing, of everything. I could practically see my arms bone thin as a doc hunted for a spot to stick the intravenous-feeding needle.

I stared at the rug so long I got a bit slappy; I suddenly saw Mrs. DeCosta screaming at me, heard the shrill “You thug with a badge!” I saw the blood streaming from her nose, a tiny pink trickle.

Closing my eyes made her go away, and then I had the runs and forgot about everything. I was sweating pretty badly and was very weak as I sat on the side of the bed and smoked a butt—for three puffs. As a kind of experiment I took a single pill and was able to swallow that. However when I started reaching for the second one, the last one, my arm wouldn't move. It was so damn uncanny I nearly started praying.

The one pill didn't do a thing but put me in a sort of daze—and I had a head start on that. I stretched out on the bed and wasn't asleep, at least I don't think I was. I stared up at the darkness and for no reason lazily ran through my life.

Right from Mom's funeral, and her looking so cold and different in the cheap casket, so different from the way she was gay and full of jokes in our room. Then moving in with Aunt May, and all the times I ran away from that silly old bitch with her big house and a million rules about “Don't do that!” She meant well, I guess, but an old-maid bitch is the worst kind. And the three years in the “home.” Some home! I was more muscular than the average ten-year-old and I learned two things in the home. Many times a day I found out I was a bastard—till I teed off on a big kid—and also learned I could punch.