The Onion Girl

by Charles de Lint

  I got the top of my dress down, hanging at my waist, the bra off. I figure I’m going to have to fix him another drink, but when I walk over to the bed to get his glass, I see his eyes’re glazing over.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” I ask.

  I give him a little push, playfullike, and he just falls back onto the bed. Out like a light. I study him a moment, sit beside him on the bed, and run my hands over his chest, but he’s gone.

  I don’t horse around none then. I get dressed, then go around the room and collect all his clothes, stuff ’em in his suitcase. It’s harder rolling him around on the bed, but I get them clothes, too, and I don’t forget the complimentary terry-cloth robes provided by the hotel. He’s got him ’near three hundred dollars in his wallet which goes direct in my purse, along with his credit cards. Then I heft that suitcase and get me outta there. See, the thing is, I don’t want them clothes. I just want it to be a little hard on him, case he comes ’round quicker’n I’d like and tries to follow.

  I bring the suitcase into the elevator and take it down to the lobby. I thought this might be the tricky part, walking across the lobby with that suitcase of his and all. What if the hotel gets it into their heads that I’m one of their clients, trying to skip out on paying for my room? But no one pays me no mind and I’m out a side door and walking along the alley till I get to the Dumpster. I fling that case up over the side and I keep on a-walking straight on to the train station where me and Pinky planned to meet up.

  After a while, I start to get me worried. It’s been over an hour I’m waiting here on her, and I’m thinking the worst, when in she comes a-sauntering, smiling easy as can be.

  “Where the hell were you?” I ask.

  She gives me a confused look. “With Beau.”

  “Who’s Beau?”

  “The guy who asked me up to his room.”

  I never even asked mine what his name was.

  “Did you take his clothes and stuff?” I ask.

  “Sure did. Tossed the case up the Dumpster like you told me to.”

  “So what took you so long?” I ask. “We was supposed to be in and out.”

  “Well, come on, Raylene,” she says. “I had to give him a little fun for all that money.”

  “You didn’t get him drunk?”

  “Well, he was pretty near’ drunk anyways,” she says, “but I just wore him out instead. It was fun and he was still sleeping when I left.”

  All I can do is shake my head.

  “How much did you get?” I ask.

  “A hundred and thirty and change. I took his cards, too, but what’re we gonna do with ’em? I sure as hell don’t look like no cornfed shoes salesman from Iowa so I cain’t use ’em.”

  “I’m gonna swap ’em for a gun,” I tell her.

  There’s places on the Ramble where you can pretty much trade anything.

  Pinky gives me a look of pure admiration. “That’s what I like about you, Raylene,” she says. “You’re always thinking.”

  TYLER, EARLY SPRING, 1973

  First couple of times we do it, I’m a little uneasy. It ain’t that I’m scared, exactly. Hell, I got me a little .38 straight off, swapped them credit cards for it in a pawnshop on Division Street that I knew was willing to turn a blind eye, the goods were right. Them cards was so fresh, Fat Jack was extra pleased and threw in a box of cartridges for free. It ain’t the best or the newest pistol in the world, but it fits right snug in my handbag, case anything goes wrong.

  I don’t want to be remembered neither and soon as we can, I get us wigs and such, but that come later. Cash we got that first day went to our rent, some food, and a case of beer.

  But by the time winter’s done and the spring melt’s turning the hills outside of town all green, we got us a routine worked out and afore you know it, we’ve moved outta that boardinghouse and into a proper apartment closer to downtown, but not too close. I like to keep our real lives separate from our wicked ways. That was just coming up on the ass end of January.

  When we’re working, we leave the apartment looking pretty much the way we always do, which is Ts and jeans for me, tube tops and halters with her jeans for Pinky. Once we get downtown, we go into the Devary Hotel on Church Street, carrying a couple of bags. We like the Devary ’cause the washroom there’s got it two doors, one on either side of the building. We go in one door, gussy ourselves up with our wigs and working clothes, and come out the other looking like a pair of ladies, and I don’t mean no cheap hookers. We look classy.

  We leave our bags at a locker in the train station and then we go to work.

  I’m careful ’bout where we run our scam. We don’t go to the same bar more’n once a month. We don’t work more’n once or twice a week, depending how many conventions they got in town. We change our wigs and dresses regular as rain so we’re always looking different. Sometimes we have a good score, sometimes you got to wonder what them boys thought they was gonna pay us with, but it all works out. I make a point of skimming a percentage to build us a traveling stake. I leave it up to Pinky and we’d never have us no money.

  And after the first few times, it ain’t just the grab and run anymore. We polish it up some, work different angles. Like Pinky’d let the guy take her up to his room and once they’re hot and heavy at it, I’d come in with a Polaroid and we start talking about how much the guy’s willing to keep his wife from knowing. Or Pinky takes the picture and, surprise, when I show the guy some fake ID, I’m fourteen and jailbait and he’s in serious shit unless he comes up with some folding money. The gun makes sure none of these cowboys get out a hand. Most of ’em take their medicine, go all quiet and nervous, but need comes, I’m willing to pull that .38 out.

  I learned later they call this the badger game, but usually you got you a man playing the role of the pimp, or the husband, or the vice squad dick—whatever you went and figured out aforehand. We didn’t want to bring no one else in on it, so we played it solo. Worked fine, and better the more we got it refined.

  Course the problem with a good thing is, it don’t last. Tyler’s just too small. Got a population of maybe three hundred thousand on a good day. The marks we take in, they ain’t going to the cops, and we stick to out-a-towners, but I guess eventually the word gets out that somebody’s making a dishonest dollar and the boys in the cop shop ain’t getting their cut. Guess we shoulda looked into who to pay off. And probably paid attention to the fact it was election time and nothing looks so good on a D.A.’s record than he’s cleaning up sex crimes.

  Only reason we didn’t get took in was pure dumb luck.

  And the luck started with me being the one in the bar that evening in early April, ’cause I can think quick on my feet.

  “Buy you a drink?” the guy asks, standing by my table.

  I think I knew right then, knew something was off, but not what. Later I figured it was his voice, he’s hiding a hillbilly accent same as me when I’m in those bars. Or maybe he was just too good-looking to be some loser, fixing to pay for a woman. I’m not saying he was straight-out handsome, but he weren’t so bad neither.

  “Depends,” I say, “on what you think that drink will get you.”

  He shrugs. “Some conversation.”

  “A glass of white wine, then,” I tell him because I hate the stuff and can not drink it for hours. “Thanks.”

  I watch him walk to the bar, get us each a glass of the house white. He comes back and we make us some small talk, then finally he leans across the table, giving me this look I can’t read, ’cept I know he thinks something’s funny.

  “What?” I say.

  “Well, here we are, the two of us, each of us waiting for the other to bring up the business.”

  “What business would that be?”

  He leans back now, hands behind his head. “You being a hooker and running a badger game on some poor dumb fuck who just wants to get laid.”

  I don’t have time to play innocent.

  “Oh, I know what you’
re thinking,” he goes on. “Vice can’t do a thing until you incriminate yourself. But I’ve got news for you, girlie. I can say any damn thing I want. I tell the judge you offered to go down under the table here and blow me, who you think he’s going to believe when you say different?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That a fact. Funny. It’s not what your partner says.”

  Just like that, I feel it all go to hell. They got Pinky and we’re the both of us heading for jail time. My fingers start in on a-twitching. I want to pull out my switchblade and gut him where he sits. I want to take the .38 out a my purse and blow that smirk off his face. Hell, I got to do time, I might as well do some serious time. But then he screws up.

  “Yeah, he laid it all out for us,” the cop goes on. “Dates, how much you pulled in, where you’re hocking the cards.”

  “That sonovabitch,” I say.

  He grins. “You can’t trust a pimp. When are you girlies going to figure that out? First thing he does is roll over.”

  “So I’m fucked.”

  Another grin. Bigger. “Not yet.”

  “You offering me an out?” I ask.

  I’m playing up the scared and hopeful, not big time, but enough. Easy, like hooking a catfish.

  “Well,” he says, drawling on the word. “Maybe we could get us a room, talk some. You willing to cut a deal?”

  “If it takes that sonovabitch down.”

  “I’ll be wanting more than what you’ve got on him,” the cop tells me. “You’ll need to give me the names of the rest of his string. Tell me who’s buying the paperwork and credit cards. And then, if you show me the right kind of appreciation, well, I’ll see what I can do to make sure you’re kept out of all of this when the shit hits the fan.”

  “Oh, I’ll show you appreciation you’ll never forget,” I tell him, adding eager to the scared and hopeful. “Whatever you want.”

  “Come on, then,” he says.

  I want to hurt him so bad. It ain’t even so much that we’re busted—I mean, that comes with the territory. It’s the chance we took coming in on all of this. I don’t like it, but what do you do? No, what’s got me so pissed is he’s as big a crook as we are, ’cept he gets to hide behind a badge while we do the time.

  But I don’t let none of that show on my face. I just follow him meekly outta the bar and let him lead me to the elevators. He doesn’t seem to notice that I left my purse hanging from the back of my chair. I spot Pinky in the lobby, pretending to read some glamour magazine—I swear she gets the same nourishment from them as I do a sandwich. I give her the finger signs we worked out for “big trouble,” followed by “cop,” my hand held down at my side where he can’t see it.

  “So what should I call you?” I ask as we get into the elevator.

  “Mister sir,” he says.

  I start to laugh, but then I see that he isn’t joking. So that’s what he’s into.

  “I like that,” I tell him, still playing up the meek.

  He gives me a scornful look. “Bullshit. Truth is, you’ll pretend you like anything I say or do, if you think it’ll get you off.”

  I just give him a blank look, like I’m too dumb to get what he’s saying. He shakes his head. I don’t know whether he’s buying my act, or he just don’t care. I look at Pinky after we get in the elevator and the doors start to close. She’s all gussied up like some tourist, sitting there in a pants suit, cheap camera lying there on the sofa aside her purse.

  Luckily the cop and I have the elevator to ourselves. Pinky’ll mark the floor where it stops, get my purse from the bar, then follow us on up, quicklike. I just hope the cop hasn’t got a few of his buddies waiting for us up in his room. I wouldn’t put a gang-bang past him.

  The elevator stops at the fifteenth floor and we get out.

  “Still scared?” he asks, giving me a little shove down the hall.

  I nod, act like I can’t look him in the eye.

  “You should be,” he says.

  Shit. I’ll bet he does have some buddies waiting for us.

  The room’s empty but it don’t take me long to work out what I’m supposed to be scared of. As soon as we’re inside, he just ups and smacks me across the side of my head with the open palm of his hand. I wasn’t expecting it and go reeling, trip over the corner of his bed.

  “On your knees,” he tells me and unzips his pants.

  Outside the door, afore we come in, I dropped a wadded-up napkin from the bar. I hope it’s enough for Pinky.

  The cop’s got his dick out now. He grabs my head and mashes my face against his groin. I’m just glad the wig don’t come off in his hand, but Pinky knows how to set ’em on, snug and tight.

  “Don’t even think of biting,” he says.

  I wouldn’t dream of it. I do just what he wants, waiting for the door to open. When we first got into this business, we made a point of ripping off pass keys in all the major hotels, so I know Pinky won’t have no trouble getting in. I just got to hope that nobody picked up my marker, but who’s gonna grab a wadded-up napkin from the floor ’cept for the cleaning staff and they finished their work hours ago.

  I hear the door open afore he does ’cause I’m expecting it and then I bite down hard to distract him. It works real fine.

  “Jesus, fuck!” he cries and belts me hard with a closed fist.

  I let go with my teeth and allow the force of that blow to knock me away. We both hear the click when Pinky cocks the gun. I scuttle out of his reach, but he’s already turning, looking into the muzzle of the .38. Funny how fast that dick of his goes limp again.

  “So do I shoot him or what?” Pinky asks.

  But the cop, he still thinks he’s in control.

  “Girlie,” he tells her, talking like the arrogant old redneck cop he is. “You are in deep shit. Now you just put that gun down and—”

  “Shoot him,” I say.

  And Pinky does.

  Christ, it’s loud.

  And the mess. Pinky had to get all fancy, went for a head shot, and now there’s blood and brains and crap all over the place. But none of it got on me. I didn’t touch nothing in the room ’cept his dick, so we ain’t leaving no sign. I go to lift his wallet from his inside jacket pocket, find a fat envelope in there instead. It’s got a bunch a names written on the side—Jackson, Macy, Brown, and others I don’t recognize. Most of ’em got a line run through ’em. The envelope’s stuffed with cash, mostly hundreds.

  “Guess it was collection day,” Pinky says.

  I nod and get up and we walk out, wiping down the door handle as we leave. Pinky puts the gun back in my purse and holds it in her hand as we make for the stairs, moving purposeful, but not rushing. She’s got her own purse slung from her shoulder.

  “How long we got, you think?” Pinky asks as we go down the stairs.

  “Beats me,” I tell her.

  I work at the blonde wig, finally get it off and stuff it in my purse. Comb my own hair with my fingers to fluff it up some. Pinky gives me the jacket she’s wearing and I button it up to cover my cleavage. It’s not much, but the jacket and my natural hair might be enough to throw anybody off while we’re going through the lobby. I just hope anybody who noticed me going up with the cop was too busy looking at my tits to remember my face.

  “You scared?” Pinky asks.

  I shake my head. Funny thing is, I got me this wild buzz that makes me feel like I’m ten feet tall and made of solid steel. I’m ready to take on anybody wants a piece of us, one at a time, or all in a bunch. Don’t matter I got a bruise starting up that takes up most of the side of my face, or that it’ll take the better part of a couple of weeks to disappear.

  “You know we gotta leave town,” Pinky says.

  “What for? Nobody knows we was there. There’s nothing to connect us to him.”

  “He was a cop,” Pinky says.

  “A dirty cop.”

  “Who cares? You know what they’re like when it’s one of
their own. They’re gonna tear this town inside out lookin’ for us.”

  “And I’m telling you, they got nothing to find.”

  She don’t like it, but she follows my lead.

  We get through the lobby fine, make it to the Devary where we change back into our own clothes.

  “There’s almost four thousand dollars here,” I tell Pinky while she’s standing at the mirror, putting on her lipstick.

  “You’re shittin’ me.”

  “God’s truth.”

  Pinky dabs her lips with a tissue. The Devary’s so classy they got fancy tissues set out, hand cream, all kinds of stuff.

  “Didn’t know you could make that much bein’ a crooked cop,” she says.

  I think about how we left him lying dead in the hotel room.

  “I’m guessing it’s got its down side,” I tell her.

  Pinky stares at me for a long minute and then the both of us are laughing. Anybody come in just then and they’d think we was a couple of no-account Hillbilly Holler girls, got us drunk in the big city. Which we was, ’cept for the drinking part.

  The more we laughed, the more my jaw hurt. I took me a good hit from that dead cop’s fist. I could see the skin getting all discolored, the whole side of my face.

  “You’re startin’ to look a little ugly,” Pinky says.

  I give her a grin. “Yeah? You should see the other guy.”

  And that just sets us off again.

  That night was when I first started in a-dreaming about wolves. This weren’t no fancy New Age crap like got popular later on—you know, animal spirit guides and Indian totems and shit like that. I wasn’t getting me no advice in these dreams as to how I could better my life. I was just dreaming I was a wolf. Running wild out in the bush somewheres, ain’t got me a care in the world, ain’t got me any baggage. Life’s just simple, is what it is. You hunt some, you sleep it off, hunt some more.

  I tell Pinky ’bout it next morning when we get up and she just shakes her head and laughs.