Little Tramp (Prologue Crime)

by Gil Brewer

  “You dirty bastard,” he said. “I’ve seen them like you, Bollins—what makes you like that? Can you tell me?”

  Bollins’s eyes were round. He did not speak.

  “Fight, why don’t you?” Gary said. “Why don’t you make something out of it?”

  “You won’t have to worry about that,” Bollins mumbled through mashed lips. But he did not move.

  Gary released the man. He had done the wrong thing all over again. He turned, went over to the Ford, slipped under the wheel. He drove out of the yard through the early amber twilight, the knuckles on his right hand beginning to smart and ache. Two blocks away, he parked by the curb and just sat there.

  Sprawled on the couch, he held the almost empty fifth of whisky up, peering at it. He drained it, hurled the bottle at the wall. It smashed in a vicious shower of brown glass. He sat staring at the saffron-shaded floor lamp by the open front door of the duplex. Moths and mosquitoes and nameless bugs bombarded the bulging screen.

  Focusing his eyes with an effort, he held his left wrist with his right hand, and eyed his watch. Nine-thirty. He had started drinking at some downtown bars, questioning chance acquaintances about Franklin Harper. He was bitter about the man. He had realized people looked at him strangely, the way he was carrying on—so he bought a fifth and returned home. Now that he’d drunk it, he was unsteady on his feet, his eyes didn’t focus too well, but his mind remained clear.

  He had to see Doll. He had to tell her he’d been fired, somehow explain. Only he couldn’t. It was too much to ask. It would break her heart, no matter how she would try to brush it off.

  The more he considered the angles, the angrier he became—with himself, with everybody—but mostly with Franklin Harper.

  Bollins was an instigator. Lonnigan was a boss who perhaps was a pawn. Harper was big enough to think, to understand, or he wouldn’t be where he was.

  Gary stood up, reeling, and lurched toward the shower stall beyond the bedroom, stripping off his clothes as he went. Moments later, still dripping, he rummaged through his top bureau drawer, drew out the black metal box in which he kept his papers and money. He had fifty dollars there, and he put it into his wallet. As he did so, he glanced at the handful of twine-tied correspondence with Jane Matthias. He slammed the drawer and dressed in a light gray suit, white shirt, no tie.

  He took the car, headed out toward the Gulf beaches and the Jungle Club, where Doll worked. He wanted to see her. He hadn’t called her on the phone, as he did every evening. If she had stopped by, it was before he came home, and she’d left no word.

  The closer he came to the Jungle Club, the more he knew he would not be able to face her. Not now. He cursed himself for acting childish, stopped off and purchased another fifth of whisky at a roadside liquor store called Mama’s Place. He sat in the car and took two long drinks. And he knew it wasn’t being childish.

  Doll was out there, doing her nightly grind, thinking about him—about them and what they had, believing in him.

  The Jungle Club was a fairly large square red brick building, on the dunes above the Gulf of Mexico. Trees of all kinds had been transplanted thickly around the place. Elephant vine trailed in a mat over the entire area. Once inside, you were transported to a modern Amazonian woods. Monkeys chattered, chained to coconut palms. Peacocks screamed in the night. The cars were parked in a walled space to the right of the club itself.

  Gary wandered drunkenly around the outside of the club, ended up standing on a low knoll against a narrow window, surrounded by shadows. He looked down inside onto the tiny dance floor, past bamboo and fish-net and blackened beams. Smoke layered the dimly lighted interior. Bursts of laughter surged through the walls. Glasses clinked distantly. Guttural jungle music throbbed … and he saw Doll.

  It was something like being eaten by acid, slowly, excruciatingly. He didn’t stand it for long. He pressed his face against the warm glass, watching, listening.

  Behind her on a small platform, white-coated musicians wailed. The twin drummers beat a torrid rhythm, and on the floor Doll writhed to the driving beat. Her clothes were shimmering white, and the contrast with her bronzed skin and ebony hair was startling. She was down to heavily shredded white cloth stretched across her swollen breasts, and a long thick white silken panel that clung between her ever-moving thighs. She was on her knees, her back arched, head flung back, hair trailing in cloud-black waves, her hips gently lifting, insinuating a grotesque and monstrous orgy with the invisible.

  He saw the invisible, too—the men leaning toward her from the tables, the shining eyes; he caught their thoughts. The music became louder, threading through the night in a pounding monotony of drums, like the hoarse grunts of animalistic orgasm. He saw her slowly rise, red lips set, eyes lidded, and the sudden renewed violence of her firm buttocks as she spun into the shadows away from the spot, peeling the last traces of shimmering white cloth from her body.

  She appeared again, holding a long, round drum, naked flesh gleaming in crimson light. The drum was silver and black. She gripped it between her thighs, and lay down on the floor, beating out a bright and wild rhythmic pattern of her own, her body caught up in untame movement, the thick black hair fanned out on the floor around her head….

  He drove violently away from there, running from it, one last vestige of hold over himself remaining. If he had stayed, he would have entered the club and carried her out with him. He knew now why she had made him promise not to come to see her act. He had seen the faces.

  She had to quit the job. The money didn’t count.

  Only what could he tell her?

  He held the accelerator to the floor, pushing the car crazily through the slow, humid night. Inside his chest something threatened to burst, and he wanted to fight—to strike out. But against what?

  He found himself blaming her for doing what she did—for her act at the club. The next instant he was suffering for what he’d seen, bending under the knowledge that hundreds of persons stared at her every night, raping her in their minds.

  He pounded on the thick glass door. Soft yellow light stretched down the hall. He called, “Harper! Harper—come out here!”

  He ran round the house, onto the back porch, pounded on the rear door. He found the garage. There was no sign of the Cadillac, but there was the white convertible, and a low sports car. He crashed, violently drunk, across the garden, came up the back porch steps, and again battered at the door. He had to see Harper, to make him take him back on the job. It was his plan, like something mysteriously inevitable in the fogged nooks of his mind. Explain to the man about his daughter, how it was all a big mistake. Get the job back. Then return to the Jungle Club and take Doll forcibly away—forever.

  Nobody came to the door. There was no sound from within the house.

  The drums still were beating in his brain.

  In his mind’s eye, he visioned the tanned body moving to the tireless rhythm of the drums, the snap and release of the thick hair across her shoulders, the movements of her hands.

  He lurched through the door of the Country Tavern, near his place, wanting to drink himself into oblivion. It was a quiet night. The large barroom was empty, the bar lonely-looking, the bartender down at the end, listening to the radio. At the front end of the bar, nearest the door, he stared at the girl. He saw her through a silvery blur. The tight yellow skirt, the yellow sweater, the shining hair. As she slid from the stool she’d been seated on, her skirt moved up across round, nylon-sheathed knees and she held her arms out toward him.

  “Gary, honey, I’ve been waiting for you. It’s about time.”

  “What you doing here?”

  “What’s it look like? I’m waiting for you. I couldn’t get into your place—the door was locked.”

  “Didn’t see car outside.”

  “I came in a taxi, Gary.”

  He heard the bartender call him by name, ask him if he wanted anything, then say, “You’d better get on home, man.”

  He took a step t
oward the girl, muttering, and fell against the bar. He sensed her movements as she shoved against him closely. He knew he had started home for a reason, but he couldn’t recall what it was, and he wondered why he was here.

  “I lost my job—your father.”

  “I told you he was a bastard. He’s mean, Gary.”

  His face was an inch from hers. He inhaled her perfume, her breasts against him, her red lips parted, eyes swimming before him.

  “I’m drunk,” he said.

  “No kidding?”

  The place swam sickeningly. He sank his fingers through her hair, straining to look at it. For a moment he thought she was Doll, and one hand fell to her arm, squeezing the warm, plump flesh.

  “Gary, honey—let’s go, huh?”

  “He’d better get home,” the bartender said. “He’s in bad shape.”

  “I’ll see he gets home. Go away.”

  “Finish bottle,” Gary said.

  “I’ve got a bottle. Here.” She held up a package.

  “He better not have any of that,” the bartender said.

  “You go away,” Arlene said. “Like I told you. I’ll take care of him.”

  She had the neck of the bottle out of the paper, uncapping it. He took it and drank, knowing it was gin. He pushed it at her.

  “I’ll do anything you want, honey,” she whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  He tried to speak, but somewhere in his throat the words died….

  He became aware of the fact that they were in a car. Aware first of himself, then of the fact that he wanted a drink, and then of her, his arm around her shoulders, the other hand on her bare thighs, his face nuzzled into her soft throat.

  “Where we?” he said.

  “Taking a ride, Gary. Someplace where we can be all alone.”

  “Where?”

  “Take a drink, Gary. The bottle’s on the floor. Here.” The car slowed and he sat up, reeling as the night poured by. He realized they were in his Ford. He saw the white highway in the headlights and was partially conscious of open country, and then the bottle. He drank, remembering suddenly—then drinking for sleep. She took the bottle. The car had ceased moving.

  “You like me, Gary?” she said from miles away.

  The car began to roll again.

  “Sure. Where we go? Where you taking me?”

  “It’s where are you taking me, Gary.”

  “What you mean?”

  He began to slide away, the world spinning.

  “… you’re kidnaping me, Gary. Isn’t it fun?”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” he said, and passed out cold.

  FIVE

  HE CAME AWAKE not knowing he’d been unconscious. He had passed out fighting. He fought through a labyrinth of surging and grotesque happenings. He was awake and not awake, his eyes wide. At first he thought he was in his own car, driving from the Jungle Club. He couldn’t see the road. He grasped the steering wheel, only there was no wheel. He came out of it that far, grabbing at a rim of air, remembered being drunk, couldn’t see anything except blackness, thought he was blind, and got up from where-ever he was and ran headlong into a hard flat surface.

  It knocked him down.

  Vision swimming, he detected the faintly paler outline of a doorway and ran at that, lurching, panting, sweating. He couldn’t seem to breathe, the heat an unbearable quantity. He had no idea where he was or where he’d been—and crashd into a screen door that snapped viciously away from him, spring shrieking, then snapped back at him as he rushed through.

  “Gary!”

  He was on a porch. He saw the moon, low over pine tops. Between frozen shadows rippling water cast bright gleams. Stars hooded a rich night sky. Frogs twanged and bellowed. Crickets chorused in a wild cascade of sound.

  “Gary!”

  He ran toward the moonlight, flew sprawling through the air off steep porch steps and tumbled across a wet lawn.

  It shocked him into sensibility.

  “Gary, where are you?”

  He sat up slowly, staring at what appeared to be some sort of cabin nestled among pines and small oaks. He heard somebody padding toward the door of the cabin, and at the same instant saw a car parked over under deep trees on a low rise of ground. It was his Ford,

  The screen door opened.

  “For gosh sakes!”

  He sat there on the wet grass.

  She came across the porch.

  “I thought you were out till morning.”

  He grunted. He felt nauseous and the old head was ballooned all out of shape, throbbing along the temples, streaking with bright new aches up and down the crown. His heart pounded. Sweat coursed under his shirt. His feet burned. His belt was too tight. He needed a drink badly.

  Pale moonlight bathed the porch and Arlene Harper. He stood up slowly, staring at her, the ground tilting very gently, then settling. She stood on the top step of the porch, wearing a black lace brassiere, black panties, and stockings rolled high.

  “Are you all right, Gary?”

  “What’s going on?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I said what’s going on?”

  “Don’t tell me I have to go through all that again?”

  He took a step toward the porch. The ground stayed level now. He felt no better, but at least the world behaved. Then he felt too sick to pursue the questions right then. He fumbled up the porch steps, frowned past the girl, and went inside the cabin.

  “Where the hell’re the lights?”

  “There aren’t any. I’m afraid the—”

  “I need some water. I need a drink.”

  “I’ll get a match.”

  “A match?”

  He turned and stared at the screen door again as she came thrugh. She walked rapidly past him and he smelled perfume, mingled with the odor of gin. She seemed sober.

  “In here, Gary.”

  He followed her voice through a dark doorway, and saw a kitchen. A match scraped, flared. The girl laughed.

  “My God, you’re a mess!”

  A light bulb dangled from the ceiling. He grabbed for it, pulled the chain, but nothing happened.

  He saw a refrigerator, thought of cold water, forgot there was no electricity. He went over, flung the door of the refrigerator open and the match went out. Stale air came out of the refrigerator.

  “I’ll find the fuse box.”

  He found the box in a closet off the kitchen. It was a simple matter of throwing the main switch. Lights came on in the kitchen, and another room, and the refrigerator surged into rumbling life.

  Arlene Harper stood still in the kitchen, holding the burnt match.

  “You better have a drink, Gary.”

  He watched her go to the sink, pour gin into a glass, mix it with water at the sink. Her hips swayed as she turned toward him, smiling, the harsh naked light glaring on her hair and flesh.

  “Here.”

  He took the glass and sampled it. He knew he had to get it down, and find out what was going on. He gulped it all, somehow held it in his stomach, and almost immediately began to feel better. There had been a faint sulphur taste in the water mingled with the gin.

  “No air conditioner in here,” Arlene said. “But they told me there were some fans in one of the closets.”

  “Fans.”

  He went over to the sink, poured another two fingers of gin into the glass, added tepid water, and drank that. He set the glass down, trying to remember. The past hours were all fouled up. Then he remembered drinking in bars, meeting Arlene Harper in one of them. He remembered riding someplace, with her driving the car. A white ribbon of road. He turned and looked at her again.

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly daylight.”

  He turned to the sink again, filled the glass with the foul-tasting water, and drank it. He filled the glass again and stood frowning at her, sipping the water. He was sweating heavily, but he felt a little better, at least able to function.

  “Oka
y,” he said. “Get dressed, honey. We may as well head back to town. Where are we?”

  She laughed at him. It was light, bright laughter. She brushed past him, walking in her stocking feet into the living room. A rickety floor lamp with a battered crimson shade threw nightmarish light across a studio couch against the wall. She stood in front of the couch, grinning at him. He’d never before really noticed Arlene Harper, but now he did. Her boldness struck him sharply. She seemed to have changed subtly. In the dull red lamplight shadows palmed her body.

  “You mean you want to go home, now?” she said.

  Her eyes were laughing, her red lips slightly parted, and she looked at him boldly, the white tips of her teeth glistening, her breasts heavy and firm under the wisp of black lace.

  “Get dressed,” he said.

  She was still smiling. “Why d’you want to leave me now?” she said. “Am I so bad to look at?” She smoothed her palms down across the swell of her breasts to her waist and her fingers squeezed the smooth, slim expanse of bare flesh. “You didn’t think I was so bad in the car, Gary. Before you passed out. I damned near wrecked the car the way you were after me.”

  He began to think maybe she was crazy. The red light played across her body and her eyes were lewdly inviting. His throat thickened. In a small pile on the floor beside the studio couch, he saw her yellow skirt and the yellow sweater.

  “If you don’t hurry up and get some clothes on—”

  “What?” she said. “What’ll you do, Gary?”

  He strode past her to the couch and sat down, staring at the floor, very conscious of her now.

  Her voice was soft. “We can have fun, honey. I get a kick out of you.”

  He moved fast off the couch, over to her, looked harshly into her eyes. “I said get dressed,” he told her quietly. “Or you’ll get a kick from me! Either that, or I’ll leave you here.”

  She changed. He’d seen the same lifted curl of her lip before at her home, and some of the color drained from her face. “All right, damn you,” she said. “You think you’re my type? You think you’re all I can get? I can have any man I want.” She snapped her fingers, reaching toward his face, watching him closely. “All right—you think that’s why we’re here? Do you?”