Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  Below Nob Hill the Jaguar was nosing into a parking space a hundred feet from the blue and green neon sign of the Bada.

  “Doesn’t look like much of a place,” said Mitchell.

  “We’ll take a quick peek, and if we don’t like it we can go on to the Hungry Eye or some place.” Erika pulled the stole over her shoulders. “I don’t know this part of town at all.”

  “I don’t want to know it,” said Mitchell, turning his wheels into the curb.

  The cab double-parked in front of the Bada entrance just as they reached it.

  “Nice to hit at the same time. Waif and I’ll go in and get my friends,” said the Gopher as he gave the driver a dollar and waved him away.

  Arthur and Erika stood for a moment looking at the faded advertisements for beers behind the gummy windows of the Bada. Erika’s fine eyebrows went up.

  “Not so good. Arthur, not so good. Maybe we’d just better move on.”

  “Here you are,” said the Gopher, swinging open the door and smiling. “Now we’re all together. Let’s hear some real great music now.”

  Behind Arthur was the rangy bulk of Big Tom, the heavy lids of his eyes pulling up as he saw Erika. Honey was behind him. Gage and Kicks came out last.

  “I’m sorry, but—” Erika began.

  The big, sleepy-eyed man moved smoothly and quickly, one hand on Erika’s arm. “I’m Tom—Big Tom, the kids call me mostly. We’ll just drop by this place for a couple of minutes so you can get the feel of the music. The most, girl, the very most.”

  Arthur was looking at the neat, smoldering beauty of Honey. She stood alone, •somehow, as if there was no one else on the street. The great eyes were looking away, and there was a dreamer’s smile on her lips.

  Erika turned to Arthur and saw him looking at the girl.

  “Maybe, for a couple of minutes,” she said. She could feel the hard big fingers on her arm, touching her softly but with the sense of strength behind the softness.

  SURE, a couple of minutes,” said Big Tom. “You know Derek, and these are. a couple of Stanford boys, Duane and Harry.”

  “Stanford?” said Erika, amusement almost hidden in the tiny smile.

  Big Tom laughed. “A couple of musicians. I think they got through the third grade. Anyway, Duane and Harry.” Arthur was still looking at the girl. It wasn’t her dark beauty, but the quality of strangeness to her that seemed suddenly fascinating.

  This is Honey Hamilton, one of our better singers,” said Big Tom. The girl glanced at him and for a moment, in the street lights, she looked alive, her bow lips parted, her eyes almost luminous.”

  “I’m Arthur Mitchell and this is Erika London.”

  “Let’s move, the beat’s wasting,” said Big Tom.

  “We’ve got our car.”

  “We can get seven into ours. Come on.” The big man had a force, a compulsion that made the issue too naked and too violent for what it was.

  Mitchell didn’t want to go in the other car. He knew better. But now he began to walk with the others, his hand at Erika’s arm, toward the street and away from the neon splatter of the Bada.

  He felt a thin edge of fear of the big, sleepy-eyed man. A sense that here, now, for no particular reason, there could be a fight. A bad fight.

  That alone would have made going into the other car rash foolishness, but the edge of fear angered him. He wanted to stay with the big man until the fear was ridiculous and gone. Arthur Johnstone Mitchell was not going to show fear of a stranger; a few minutes more and their positions would be established.

  And there was the curiosity suddenly strong in him about the dark, beautiful, faraway girl. Not exactly sexual curiosity. Not exactly. But there was something about this girl called Honey.

  “The Buick right across the street,” said Big Tom. Five men and two girls walked together across O’Farrell toward the ’47 sedan. Big Tom turned his head once and looked at the Gopher. There was no sign of expression on his square, high-boned face. “How right, man,” he said.

  The Gopher thought once more that if he’d only had another ten he would never have brought Big Tom into this. As they crowded into the car he had a quick picture of a Greyhound bus rolling south on 101 early tomorrow morning. “Long gone,” he said, moving his lips silently. “Long gone tomorrow.”

  Big Tom slipped behind the wheel with Erika next to him and Mitchell on the outside. In back, Honey sat on the Gopher’s lap. He fondled her without interest and she felt his hands on her without response. There had been too many parties, too many three- and four-day racks with only the sweet-hay smell of marijuana as reality.

  “Where is this spot?” asked Erika, her hand in Mitchell’s.

  “Over toward North Beach. A small spot with big, new music,” said Kuppfen.

  For Erika, too, there were edges now of fear, of curiosity, of an odd excitement. She was a woman, and as a woman she sensed the cruel, brutal force of this man, Tom. If it had only been cruelty, brutality, strength, maybe it would not have been exciting. But she sensed also the amusement, the laughter within him.

  The other men, except maybe this charming, maybe somehow not-right Derek, were unimportant. She accepted Big Tom’s description of them—part-time musicians living between the jam and the furnished room.

  But the girl Honey—Erika wondered about her. Like this boy, Derek, there was something not quite right about the girl. She had felt it when she first saw her. And yet the girl’s smart, simple suit, her fine face and fine eyes, all fitted together to a carefully groomed beauty.

  Erika turned to say something to the girl and turned her head quickly back. She was shocked—but not by the physical obscenity of the situation behind her. The street lamp had highlighted Honey’s face, and that fine face had shown only amused disinterest.

  “What have we got ourselves into?” There was sudden, quick panic for Erika, and her hand tightened on Arthur’s. She wanted to push open the car door, jump out, run away.

  “This spot nobody ever heard of,” said Big Tom, one hand twirling the wheel into a tire-screaming curve. “But you’re going to like it the best.”

  “WHAT’S the name of the place?” asked Arthur.

  “Matter of fact, it doesn’t have much name.”

  Erika bent her head toward Arthur. “As soon as this car stops we get into a cab and away. Right away.” Her words were whispered.

  The car swung around another corner into a narrow street of ancient buildings. Over a cellar stairway, toward the center of the block, was a single yellow bulb. Two windows in old buildings showed glows of light; otherwise the street was dark.

  A few cars were parked along the curb but there was plenty of space near the yellow bulb over the cellar stairs for the Buick. Kuppfen rasped the tires as he swung in.

  “Away we go,” he said, and his voice had a curious tired, easy quality. Erika could not see his face.

  Arthur opened the car door and they got out. Erika looked once at Honey—the abrupt searching look a woman will give another—and looked away. She moved to Arthur’s side.

  “Let’s get our cab, Arthur,” she said, speaking loud and clear.

  He looked at the old, dark empty street and shook his head. “I’ll call one from inside.”

  As they walked down the rounded, hollowed stone steps they could smell the place. There was a clatter of music, and the tired smell of old saloons in the morning. Erika turned to look back. The boy she knew as Derek Fielding was at their side, still smiling. Behind them were Honey and one of the other men. At the top of the stairs was Big Tom, and he was looking at her.

  Something much like what Arthur had felt came to her now. The panic was gone. These might be the wrong kind of people, but there was nothing to be afraid of in them. Nothing for Erika London and Arthur Johnstone Mitchell to fear. Tags of textbook paragraph in Sociology 201 and Psychology 218 came to her mind:

  “In modern urban society there are the ‘wild dogs,’ unable or unwilling to fit into a normal pattern of l
iving, and unable and unwilling to leave other people alone . . .

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE place that didn’t have much name was almost dark. Erika could see a few tables and some booths. Three couples were dancing in a space no more than eight feet square. Most of the light came from the corner where a trio was making frantic, chattering music.

  A balloon of a man walked toward them, a man with a short, grossly rounded, balloon body, and a balloon head sitting on his shoulders. He had no neck.

  “How many?”

  “Seven of us—and double shots of bourbon over ice all around.”

  The balloon man’s head bobbed toward Big Tom. “Okay. Seven doubles over ice.”

  Erika started to say something, but stopped as Big Tom towered over her, taking her in his arms for a dance. She would have broken away except that his hands were gentle on her, and she felt the rhythmic grace of the giant. In seconds she realized that he could dance superbly. She loved to dance.

  There was no fear nor sense of something not right here. Only the frantic chatter of the trio, the great, gentle hands, the rhythm and the beat. Somewhere behind her the others were at a table, and for the moment she was dancing.

  Big Tom, strong, gentle, dancing, looked down at her. A big, square face, with the bones high, a curve of cruelty and a curve of amusement in his mouth.

  The music ended like an animal dying suddenly and they stood there in the dimness with the people around beginning to talk a little to cut through the silence and the loneliness of the place when there was no music. She could see that there were people there, quite a few, but she could sense the loneliness of this place without much name.

  She turned away from Big Tom, but before his hands left her he let her know the strength and cruelty, one pressure of the hard, strong fingers. Again they looked at each other and there was a knowing between them, a knowing she rejected with hate.

  They walked to the table and she saw that Arthur was talking to Honey. The other three men were looking at her. Before they reached the table the music began again and Big Tom spun her to him.

  This time he was not gentle. She felt the muscle ridges of his body against her softer body, and felt the animal strength of his hands.

  If the music hadn’t a basic frenzy to it, if she hadn’t had the four drinks at un Cirque, if Big Tom Kuppfen hadn’t the laughter within him in addition to the strength and the cruelty, if maybe Arthur wasn’t talking to the strange, terrible girl. . . .

  But these things were all true, and she wanted to hurt the big man who held her, she wanted to laugh at him, and she wanted to dance with him.

  Make love in a red-black room with the frantic music beyond the door, make love in a forest with animal eyes watching from the darkness, make love on a windy hill with the storm clouds piling up beyond the sun.

  Crazy. She caught herself and she was remembering girl talk now. The wondering talk about how much there was to the simple man-woman animal attraction. For a moment she realized the subtle skill this big man was using on her body. There was nothing casual or accidental about the pressures and the contacts; he knew women, this big man, and he knew the bodies of women.

  The music ended in stark, unwanted silence again and she felt tired, defeated. This time they went to the table and sat down. As she walked over she saw the three pairs of eyes of the men at the table looking at her, eyes moving slowly as she moved, unblinking, staring.

  “Arthur.” she said.

  “Yes, Erika?” He turned from the lovely, lost girl.

  “Please call a cab. We have to leave,” she said urgently.

  There was a little stack of bills and silver in front of him, and his double bourbon glass was empty.

  Honey looked at her without interest. The big eyes of the girl had warmth and light and yet they were strange.

  “I asked Honey what she did. Erika, and she told me that she lived a very happy, very complete life,” said Arthur.

  “We live fine,” said Honey. “Not long, but high and big and fine.”

  “How do you like this music, Erika?” asked the young man in the vicuna topcoat. thrown back from his shoulders now.

  “It’s a very ordinary trio,” said Erika evenly. “They pick their numbers, they play a strong beat, and loud. It’s effective, but it’s not good music.”

  The Gopher looked at her with the smile breaking away slowly from his face.

  “Catch the chick,” said Gage. “She don’t even see the music and she talks it down.”

  “From you I hear the long silence.” said Big Tom. “Do I hear it?”

  Gage nodded quickly, his lips tight.

  “We go now,” said Big Tom. “We go now because I don’t want this.”

  Again Erika felt shock. The three men and the girl were standing.

  “They’re completely afraid of this brute,” she thought, and trying not to. she looked at him.

  “Will you drive us back to our car or shall I call a cab?” asked Mitchell.

  “He doesn’t know what we’re into; he doesn’t even guess,” she said, the low words audible.

  THE Gopher heard her and he was grinning now. “I knew you were cool. Even up at the Cirque I said this is a cool chick.” said the Gopher.

  “I don’t want you around.” Big Tom’s voice was lazy, almost a whisper.

  “I’m tapped. I’ve got to ease out and I need the paper to get to L.A.” Frank Worth Williams’ essential quality of desperation, of daylong, nightlong desperation was suddenly bare and horrible on his face.

  “The streets aren’t empty. Men waiting for buses, drunks walking along. You lazy?”

  The Gopher’s face was strained as if he had run too far. “I’d have to be up there. Gimme a stick and maybe I can make it. With a stick to smoke, maybe I could make it.”

  Arthur Johnstone Mitchell understood the conversation. The man who called himself Derek Fielding had been told to go away. He had asked for money to go to Los Angeles. The giant had told him to get it by holding up someone, and the boy had said he didn’t have the courage for a robbery unless he had marijuana first. Arthur Mitchell understood this and now he understood quite well thy people he and Erika were with.

  He pushed back his chair and walked to the balloon-shaped man.

  “Where’s your phone?”

  “Phone? Who has phones?” said the balloon head.

  Mitchell swung around. Erika was standing and he pushed by Honey to her. “We’re leaving, Erika.”

  They walked out of the noise and the sweet-sour smell, up the stairs and out on the black, ancient street.

  “I want you nice people to come over to our pad and listen to some records.” Big Tom was right behind them.

  Neither Arthur nor Erika turned. They kept walking until Mitchell felt Kuppfen’s hand on his arm. He stopped and faced Big Tom.

  “We’re walking.”

  “I want you to look over our pad. It’s a good place in a quiet neighborhood.” Erika sensed the other two men behind her and turned to them. She knew that if she screamed they would be on her before her mouth was fully open. This was the naked moment.

  She knew what could happen. Mitchell could be on the sidewalk in seconds, with Big Tom stomping on his face, kicking him, tearing his body. She could be pulled into the car and left hours later on some empty road.

  This was the naked moment.

  San Francisco newspapers carried such stories every day. Men beaten up and robbed by prowling gangs, girls pulled into cars. On this dark, empty street there was no chance for help. They couldn’t even try for the chance of running back to the cellar place.

  She heard the soft laugh. Big Tom was laughing.

  Arthur had courage. He was a good man; she could see that. He was carrying himself ready to move, arms raised a little, a quick glance at Big Tom, at the two men behind her. Arthur was ready to try a fight and she had to stop him before he did. Big Tom wouldn’t fight, she knew. He would smash, tear, maim, cripple.

  �
��Let’s go over and listen to the records, Arthur,” she said. Her voice was cool and easy. Any place would be better than this empty, ancient street. Any moment in the future would be better than this naked moment only a breath away from the smashing fists, the terrible hands on her.

  Mitchell’s hands rose a little, a reflex from his readiness, and then he turned to look at her. She couldn’t see his face well but she could guess at the surprise it must be showing.

  “You want to go?” There was more than surprise in his voice; there was the rasp of anger.

  “Sure, why not? It’s early, probably only a little after one.”

  “I want to get back to my car.”

  The other three men and Honey were quiet, waiting.

  “Come on, Arthur, let’s go.” She stepped toward Big Tom. Mitchell’s hands dropped to his sides.

  “Okay, chick. A ball. A ball for us.” Big Tom was a shadow giant, tall, slow-moving. As she bent to slide into the front seat of the old Buick she felt his hands stroke her back.

  In the car, with Big Tom behind the wheel and Arthur on the other side, Erika London felt the sudden tightening of her body—knees and thighs pressed together, hands balled into fists, her breasts now seeming too large—and knew that this was fear, real fear, panic. But no one spoke. In back were Honey, Duane, Harry. The only sound was the kick of the starter and the burr of the tires as Kuppfen gunned the car.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AT THE cellar place Frank Worth Williams sat at the table, holding his empty glass, hearing the high, slurring beat of the band as if it were echoes in an enormous room.

  “I set them up for him. A kid with maybe a hundred or two, and a doll chick like you never see to touch. I bring them to him,” he thought, and his mouth was twisting with hate and self-pity, “I bring them to him and he kicks me off. Why Kicks and Gage and not me?”

  He banged the glass on the table and the balloon-shaped man looked at him. readying his soft, powerful body for trouble. The balloon man knew boys like Frank Worth Williams and he knew the quick cure for trouble they might start—the blackjack, smooth, hard and fast. The balloon man didn’t believe there was any other practical cure. But he waited, his breath sounding like little snores.