by Ben Benson
Just then a car came into the parking lot. I looked at it automatically. It was a yellow Mercury with a black top. I flipped my cigarette away. The door of the Mercury opened and a girl got out. She wore the sweater-and-skirt uniform like the others, but it was modified by multi-colored, high, cork-heeled shoes.
When the boy stepped out, they started for the entrance. As they passed the lighted windows I caught a glimpse of his face. Scott Cluett.
I got out of my car, took a deep breath, and followed them.
CHAPTER FOUR
INSIDE, I CAME UP BEHIND CLUETT AS HE STOOD THERE with the girl. Then I moved around him and went to the fountain. I took a good look at him.
He stood there casually, with ease and assurance. He was about an inch shorter than I, but broader in the shoulders. His neck was thickly muscled, and I could see the muscles rippling in his forearms. He was speaking to some kids near the door and his voice was clear and well-modulated. His pale-blue eyes came up and swept the counter for a moment, and if I hadn’t known of his criminal record I would have had misgivings about the whole job. He was a clean, good-looking boy and his face had a smooth, golden tan. I could see the girls in the room looking at him, going into feverish activities, like so many puppies in a kennel when you came to buy them.
I eyed Cluett’s clothes. He wore a royal blue, short-sleeved sport shirt, open-throated, with hand stitching on the collar and pockets; pale blue slacks with an expensive silky sheen and hand stitching along the seams, cordovan leather moccasins with nail studs on the flaps.
His eyes wandered once, came back and locked with mine for a moment. Then he turned and spoke to the girl. Her eyes switched around to me. She was about seventeen. She had a pretty, waxen face, her blond hair glazed as though it were lacquered. She whispered back to him, shaking her head slightly. Her eyes dropped to half-mast. She stood there, a sneer forming around her ruby red mouth as if to show she had just dropped into the Peppermint Stick for laughs, and she was more accustomed to supper clubs.
She looked around at the well-filled booths, yawned languidly, and said loudly, “Scotty, I’m not going to stay unless we have a booth to ourselves.”
Cluett smiled down at her, showing strong white teeth. “Baby,” he said, “you’ll have a booth.”
He moved across the room, pushing between tables, patting a boy on the back, pinching a girl’s cheek, the two recipients squirming delightedly with the importance of it.
Cluett came to a booth. A small boy in horn-rimmed glasses sat on the end. Cluett reached out, took the boy by the back of the collar and pulled him out of the booth. The boy smiled shamefacedly, straightened his jacket and moved away. Cluett jerked his thumb back and three other boys in the booth slithered out, laughing uneasily and making loud jokes that they were leaving anyway.
The girl minced across the room, a frozen smile on her face. She yawned again and sat down. I turned back to the counterman and ordered a chocolate malt.
Beside me two boys were discussing hot rods, using words like dual exhausts, Edelbrock pistons, high compression Evans heads, each trying to outbrag the other.
“I was drag-racing this cat,” one of the boys said, “and the cat says, ‘You’re fast, man. Fast.’”
The other one scratched at the pimples on his forehead and changed the subject. “You going to the dance tomorrow night?”
“Which one is it?”
The pimply-faced one said, “The one in Eatonville. Everybody’s going. Scotty’s going with Irma. Just everybody’s going to be there.”
“I might. If Scotty’s going, it might be worth some laughs. That the place on the lake?”
The pimply-faced one said, “Yeah. You want a date? I got some stuff. Not local.”
“Who?” the other asked suspiciously.
“Slick chicks. Out-of-town stuff. What I mean smooth. Everything goes with them. What I mean, everything.”
“What about liquor?”
“I’ve got three king-sized beers in my trunk.”
“Man, count me in.”
I swung around on my stool with my back to the counter. Seated at a table in front of me was Arkie, the goateed one. He was using a cigarette lighter to heat a silver quarter on his plate. Now he put the lighter away and called, “Hey, you spook.”
A waiter came over. Arkie said, “We’re leaving.” He pointed to the quarter. “Grab your tip before somebody else snatches it. This is a den of thieves.”
The waiter picked up the quarter, then dropped it quickly. He stood there shaking his head, making small noises in his throat and blowing on his fingers. He fled. Everybody at the table roared, slapping each other, chattering like chipmunks, “Hey, you spook.”
Behind me I heard a glass smash. I turned around. It was the little counterman. He glared at me defiantly.
“I threw the glass against the bin,” he said. “You want me to laugh at the big joke, too?”
“No,” I said slowly. “I didn’t laugh either.”
I stood up and looked toward Cluett’s booth. He was pouring liquor from a hammered silver flask into two paper cups. My palms were moist as I picked up my malted and started for him.
I came to the booth. Cluett was putting the silver flask away in his hip pocket. He moved the paper cup in a gentle circular motion, then put it to his lips. The girl looked up at me, her face immobile.
I started past the booth. As I did, I tilted the malt and sloshed it onto Cluett’s trouser leg. He stared down at the froth-widened stain on the blue fabric. “Sorry,” I said contritely. “Honest, I’m really sorry.”
“You dirty creep,” he said coldly. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry.”
“But I am sorry,” I said. “If you want, I’ll pay for cleaning it.”
He looked at me fixedly. “I didn’t ask you to pay for it, you stupid sonovabitch.”
I said nothing. It wasn’t going well at all. I had expected him to take the apology with surly grace. Then we could sit down and talk like two wary tomcats.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, raising his voice. “I called you a stupid sonavabitch. Now I’m calling you a yellow sonavabitch.”
“I heard you,” I said. The room had stilled and faces turned toward us. “I offered to pay for it and you didn’t want it. What else do you want me to do? Get down on my knees and bow three times to Mecca?”
“Punk,” he said softly. “Loud-mouthed, noisy punk. You’ll get down on your knees and lick it off with your tongue.”
I put the malt down on the table. I was breathing hard. Push it, Newpole had said. I swallowed. Then I pushed. I said, “Don’t showboat in front of the girl, sonny. That’s kid stuff.”
“Hit him, Scotty,” the girl said suddenly. “Hit him.”
Cluett slid out of the booth. He had his right hand in his pants pocket. He faced me, his head jutted close to mine. I could smell the liquor on his breath.
“Outside,” he said. “You and me. When I get through with you, we’ll come back in and you’ll show everybody how you lick it off with your tongue.”
“Right here, sonny,” I said. “I’ll make you look good in front of the babe.” I was long past trying to make a friend of him. Instead, I was trying to goad him now, waiting for his right hand to come out and throw the first punch.
His hand came out, but in it was a switch knife. The long blade flicked open. He came at me with it, the wrong way, overhand, trying to slice me down the middle like a melon. I parried the thrust with my right wrist under his. With my left I caught his hand and snapped it down. The knife clattered to the floor. I kicked it under the booth.
“All right,” I said harshly. “Now, how are you without a knife?”
He swung his right quickly, aiming for my jaw. I moved my head back, taking it going away. It bounced off me. It hurt, but it was high, off-target. He was bringing up his left, telegraphing it, his right protecting his chin. But I didn’t go for his chin. I hit him a hard, short jab to the pit of the stomach, just under the ribs
. He gasped, sucked for air and fell back. I hooked him inside again, harder, with my right. His face was mottled and his mouth worked in agony, fighting off pain and nausea. He swung his right for my jaw, wildly, ineffectually. I hooked him inside the third time and he fell back and crashed to the floor. He was through. The fight was out of him. He lay there supported by his hands, retching and sucking for air.
Just then I was struck in the back. I started to turn. Two kids grabbed my legs. Two others grabbed my arms. I twisted my head. Behind me, I saw the fifth one, Arkie, his silver-studded belt in his hand. He was shouting, “So you want to fight, huh?” He twisted the end of the belt around his fist. “We’ll show you how to fight. You’re going to wish you never came in here.”
He swung the belt. I pulled my head back just in time or I would have had it across the eyes. I felt it cut into my back with such shivering pain that I fell forward, dragging the four kids hanging on to me. I saw a blurred image of Cluett sitting on the floor, his head drooped. In the booth the girl was staring at me dreamy-eyed, wetting her lips.
I felt another blow and a sharp cut across the back of my head. There was another shivering pain as I was cut across the back again. I felt wetness trickling down my spine.
A girl screamed, “Take him outside. We’ll strip him naked.”
I tried to break away, but the four boys were fastened to me like leeches, their hot beery breaths fanning me. They began to drag me toward the door.
There was a dull thud in back of me and my arms were released. A sudden scramble and I felt my legs freed. There was shouting and swearing. Kids scuttled away from me, clearing the area. I straightened up. I saw the small, undersized counterman. He was holding a toy baseball bat cocked in his hand. His mouth was a thin slash, his eyes wet with anger.
“Heroes,” he said, half-crying, swinging the bat in a wide swath. They jumped back. “Always the same thing. You love it when it’s five to one. Go ahead, jump him now, you yellow little squirts.”
There was a muttering, but nobody came forward. The counterman looked at me and said, “Go into the kitchen and get washed off.”
Behind me, the owner was shouting angrily at Arkie. Arkie grinned and pushed him away. He swaggered off, putting on his belt. Cluett was in his booth now, slumped forward. He didn’t look up.
I went into the kitchen. The cook there shook his fat bald head as I washed the blood from my face. My lip felt puffed and my jaw hurt as I wiped it with a paper towel. My back was laced with pain and my head was cut and bleeding.
The counterman came in and leaned against the wall, half-sobbing.
“Thanks,” I said to him. “I won’t forget it. You had more guts than all of them put together. They could have killed me.”
“Do me a favor,” he said, his mouth trembling. “Get out of here, out of Carlton. It’s all your fault. You saw the kind of place it was when you came in.”
I pressed the towel to my head. “I’m not blaming anybody. All I want to say is thanks.”
“Never mind the thanks, just beat it.”
I took out my wallet and put ten dollars down on the breadboard. “Buy yourself a new bat.”
“I don’t want your money. Just beat it.”
Delmar, the owner, came in, his hands fluttering. “Monty,” he said to the little counterman, “I told you never to use the bat. You fracture a skull and we’ve got a lawsuit from the parents. Poof, like that, we’re out of business.”
“Maybe you ought to be out of business,” Monty said. “You’ve got no right to let these young kids get drunk in here.”
“I don’t serve them the beer,” Delmar said angrily. “I can’t fish every kid who comes in.”
“You see them take it out from under their jackets,” Monty said. “And you don’t do a damn thing.”
“Maybe you don’t like it here,” Delmar said. “Maybe you want to go back working at the Dairy Bar.”
“Maybe I do,” Monty said. “I wouldn’t have to take guff from a bunch of half-witted, drunken jellybeans.”
“Maybe you don’t like the twenty bucks more a week I’m paying you.”
“God,” Monty said, “if I didn’t need the dough—” He slammed out of the kitchen, leaving the ten-dollar bill on the breadboard.
I pointed to the money. “Give it to Monty,” I said. “It’s his.”
“You go out the back way,” Delmar said furiously. “Go away and don’t come back here any more.”
“There’s no fatal attraction around here for me,” I said. I went around the mammoth refrigerator, opened the screendoor and stepped outside.
The air was fresh and cool and I stood there and gulped in large draughts of it. I walked to the parking lot, warily watching the shadows. Nobody jumped out at me. Nobody was waiting for me. They were temporarily without a leader. Cluett was no longer capable of action and Arkie had lost interest. There was no Pied Piper to play the piccolo and show them the way.
I got into my car and drove back to Mrs. Kincaid’s rooming house. I climbed the stairs with utter weariness. Push it, Newpole had said. So I had pushed it. I had almost pushed myself into the hospital or the grave. Make noise, Newpole had said. Attract attention. So I had made noise and I had attracted attention. Maybe too much. Maybe I had overdone it, because it had come out all wrong.
Climbing the stairs had made me lightheaded and giddy. I stumbled into my musty room and turned on the light. I looked into the dusty bureau mirror. My lip was beginning to swell and there was a slight discoloration on my jaw. I unbuttoned my shirt and started to take it off. The back of it clung to me. I worked it off gingerly and painfully.
The entire back of my sport shirt was shredded and bloodstained. The undershirt was torn to ribbons. Eight dollars I had paid for the sport shirt, a dollar for the jersey. I wasn’t going to put in a voucher to the Commonwealth. It was better to forget it than go through the red tape and explanations.
I lay down on the bed, my back throbbing with pain at the pressure. I was thinking of the girl who had screamed, “Take him outside. We’ll strip him naked.” I shook my head over it.
It made me remember another incident that had happened not more than a month ago when I was on patrol with Al Burdette. It was at night and a speeding car flashed by us on the Concord Pike. We took off after it, caught up at eighty-five miles an hour. It was a robin’s-egg-blue convertible and, as we drew alongside, the car swerved toward us and tried to force us off the road. We fell back then, our siren shrieking, picked up speed and tried once more. The convertible forged ahead, weaving erratically. Suddenly it crossed over into the opposite lane and hit an oncoming sedan head on.
We stopped a hundred feet ahead and ran back. Burdette had gone for the old sedan. In it was a middle-aged schoolteacher. The steering wheel had rammed into her chest, killing her instantly.
I had gone for the convertible. When I pulled the door open, I saw a straw-haired young girl lolling across the front seat. She was dead, her head askew, her neck broken. In the driver’s seat was a boy about seventeen. He was spattered with blood and his face was bruised, but otherwise he was uninjured.
I pulled him out of the car and there was a strong reek of liquor from him. He cocked a fist and swung at me, but I grabbed his clumsy arms and threw him into the cruiser.
At the barracks we booked him for drunkenness, driving under the influence, and manslaughter. Then we locked him in a cell. His mother and father came down with a lawyer and a bondsman. They bailed him out and after that it was a matter for the courts.
But I remembered the boy’s mother that night. She had been called in from a country club dance and there were a few drinks in her, too. She was a slim, attractive woman of forty, made slimmer by an expensive girdle, and wearing clothes for a girl in her twenties. Her face was masked with pancake makeup. I suppose there’s a fetish of youth with some women, that they must look as young as they can, even if it means wearing childish clothes, dyeing the hair outlandish hues, taking the cartilage out
of the nose and giving it a little snoutlike look. And if they have wrinkles, the face is lifted by cutting the skin cleverly at the hairline and pulling it back tight. If there is no face lift, they cover the skin with a mask of flesh-colored clay called pancake makeup.
The mother, I remembered, was terribly upset and shocked. But after she was in the barracks a short time, her defense mechanism began to go to work. There was no apology for her son. Instead, she accused me of beating up her boy. Picking on little boys, she said, instead of looking for criminals and murderers. I remembered I got very angry and I was going to tell her I didn’t have to look far for a murderer, her son had murdered two people. But I had to go by the rules and keep my mouth shut.
The thing that stayed with me a long time was that the mother was a spoiled, pouting woman who had no more sense of responsibility than her son. She had been brought up, pampered and petted by parents and husband alike. In turn she had begotten an offspring who had been reared the same way. The responsibility for her, for her son, had to lie somewhere. You couldn’t pass it off to police officers and the courts.
It was the same with the kids at the Peppermint Stick, I thought. They weren’t entirely bad. Certainly they weren’t born that way. They were small-town kids, the sinews, the network of America. But some kids, growing up, were like young animals. They needed supervision, otherwise they grew up warped and twisted. And if I were to go into any of their homes, I’d find petty, immature parents—parents who were divorced or separated, some at local gin mills, some swapping bed partners at the country club, some in alcoholic stupors in their own living rooms, and most of them still leaning heavily on their own parents.