by Max Phillips
“What if I do? Love doesn’t help boredom.”
“What does it help?” she said. “You’d think it’d help something.”
I kissed the tip of her nose. It was delicate and finely made. I thought again how, if someone had really punched her there last night, it would’ve been swollen twice the size now, and too painful to touch. I supposed she’d poked a stick or something up there to make it bleed. And Shade’s shirt had been powder-scorched. I couldn’t see him letting Halliday in close enough for that. But getting in close would be no problem for Rebecca. I could see her taking Shade by the hand, leading him round back of the pump house, looking up at him soft-eyed, the way she was looking at me now. Her gun, when I’d checked it last night, had been freshly cleaned. That morning, it’d been full of crud. I guessed there wasn’t much doubt that she’d killed Shade herself. There probably wasn’t too much doubt as to why, either.
“Becky?” I said. “You sure you want to go through with this?”
She said, “I’ve never been so sure.”
I kissed her hair and closed my eyes. We kept dancing.
24
Hanged Man
Rebecca said she was hungry again that evening and, like I said, I made us a big spaghetti dinner, but she didn’t do much to it. She chewed her lip as much as she chewed anything else. She was getting nervy. I wasn’t too pleased with things myself. I had fourteen hours left, about, and no traveling money to speak of. I did the washing up and then sat her down beside me and said, “Look. If we’re going to do this, we’d better do it.”
“Oh, now he’s in a hurry,” she said airily. “I guess he’s tired of this.”
She was coming unraveled, all right.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Don’t keep asking me that.”
“If it’s what you want, sooner is better.”
“You’re tired of me. You’re all tired out. You’re a tired old man,” she said, climbing into my lap and making herself small.
“When’s the next time the safe will be full?” I said, and kissed her shoulder.
“I could find out,” she said.
“Could you find out tonight?”
She thought. “Yes. Sure. I know who to see. I’ll go see them tonight. I guess you want to get me out of here and get some sleep.”
“I’m going to find a car we can use.”
“You’ve got a car,” she said.
“I’m not going to use my own car, Rebecca.”
“Where are you going to get a car?”
“There are a lot of cars in Los Angeles.”
“You know how to do that?”
“It’s not hard.”
“What if somebody notices it in the lot?”
“Rebecca, it’s not going to be in the lot. Let me earn my money, all right?”
Clothes were a problem. All she had left was that brassiere. It had a few speckles of blood on it, but it was a real work of engineering and I don’t know what you’d have had to do to really hurt it. I offered to drive over to her room and fetch her some clothes, but she said no. She put on the brassiere and posed.
“There,” she said. “Now I think I’m all ready to go out. I think I look very nice now. Very stylish. How do I look?”
“Overdressed.”
I picked my old shirt off the floor and buttoned her into it as she beamed up to me.
“Now,” she said. “Now I know I’m ready to go out. What, you don’t like it? You want to put more clothes on me? Mister Corson, I wonder if you really like girls.”
“Why don’t I go get some of your clothes?”
“No. No, I’d rather you didn’t go back there.”
I got out a pair of my dungarees. She was pretty much all legs, so the length wasn’t a problem once we’d cuffed them, but each pants leg was big enough for all of her. I had a coil of rope in my closet next to my tools, and I cut a length and slipped it through the belt loops and pretty much tied her into my clothes. There was nothing to do about shoes. I gave her a few pairs of heavy socks and she put them on. “How’re your feet?” I asked.
“They’re fine,” she said.
They were pretty torn up, but she’d forgotten about them. Her body was just something she hauled around like a suitcase. She went over to the mirror on my dresser and twisted around, trying to get a good look at herself.
“This is wonderful,” she said. “I’m like a scarecrow. It’s like Halloween. Look, you can’t see anything,” she said, and gave herself a little shake.
“Pretty good,” I said.
“This is wonderful. I’m going to dress like this all the time from now on.”
“Think so?”
“I’m sure of it. I’ve decided.”
“I’m going to miss you,” I told her.
“Well. I wish you hadn’t said that. I don’t know what to say to that.”
“I didn’t say it for you to say anything back to,” I said, getting a little hot.
“I’m sorry, Ray.” She lay her palm on my cheek. “You were good to me. You’ve been good to me.”
So I figured I had those two things now: that kiss from before, and her hand on my cheek. And maybe the dance. Three things.
She kissed me again when the taxi came, like I was her best beau but she had other things to think about, and gave me a little toodle-oo wave from the back window as the cab pulled out. I went back in, packed a suitcase, and put it in the trunk of my car, along with my tools. I took my gun from the desk and put it in my holster. I looked around the room. The dishes were still stacked up in the drainer by the sink. I put them away in the cabinet and left. This time I didn’t bother locking the door.
The place I wanted was on Sunset. I remembered it as just a couple blocks west of Western, but they’re never where you remember them and I spent a while cruising back and forth before I clicked. The sign just said SUPPLIES & NOVELTIES. The show window was a little on the empty side. In front of a purple velvet curtain someone had set out a row of different-shaped candles in holders, a row of goblets set with glass jewels, and a figurine of a kneeling woman with a cat’s head.
Inside the place was a lot cheerier. The woman at the cash register was a little witchy-looking, which might have been what gave her the idea to get into the business. She was in her thirties somewhere, dressed in beat chick clothes, a black turtleneck and a peasant skirt, and she smiled when I came in. The place smelled pretty strong of incense.
“Quite a place here,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Pretty good business?”
“I’m not in it for the fresh air and sunshine,” she said contentedly. “I do okay.”
“Your place?”
“That’s right.”
“You keep it nice,” I said truthfully. It was all spic and span. She had rows of Mason jars full of powders and dried leaves, all neatly labeled: Shave Grass, Hyssop, Hemlock Bark, Borage, Hibiscus. There was a box full of horseshoes. There was a glass case full of incense burners stamped out of brass and tin, and everything with pentagrams on it, even what looked like table napkins, and Ouija boards and Junior Ouija Boards with big colored letters. I said, “I guess people want answers, huh?”
“Guess they do.”
“You do this kind of thing yourself? Foretell the future?” I set my hand down in front of her, palm up, and looked hopeful.
She slapped lightly at my arm. “Now, you’d better be nice,” she said. “That kind of stuff is just out of books, anyway. It’s not what’s in the lines, it’s what’s in the person who reads them. What she sees.”
“What she sees? Just by looking?”
“Sure. If you’re good.”
“You can just look at someone and see how he’ll wind up?”
“Well, it’s more you see a sort of light around someone. And in that light, certain pictures come to you, or ideas. And sometimes they’re what’s going to happen.”
She’d been gazing like I was som
ething far off she was trying to get into focus.
“What do you see right now?” I said.
She looked away. “I don’t mean I can see things, personally. I mean, maybe you’ve got a talent, or think you do, but you still have to develop it,” she said uncomfortably.
“No time, huh? Business keeps you hopping?”
“That’s right.”
“You have any books on the Tarot?”
“Sure. Back over there by the antlers. Third shelf.”
She was watching me again. She didn’t seem as jaunty somehow.
I went where she said and took down a book called The Silver Horn Guide to the Tarot. It was by one “Third Dreamer,” complete with double quotes around the name. On the jacket there was something that looked sort of like a diagram of a molecule labeled with numbers and Hebrew letters, and beneath a line in tiny type: And I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the Books and loose the seals thereof? I opened it and flipped the pages until I found a picture of the upside-down guy in the tree.
I read:
MAJOR ARCANA
{KEY 12}
THE HANGED MAN
A Man is hanged by his foot from a Tau-cross of Living Wood. His arms form a Triangle pointing Downward; his legs a Cross. He nears but has not attained the Freedom of the World {Key 21}; his task is Surrender to Death and Resurrection. Through the Cycle from 1 to 10 God guides His Child’s Hands, now the chisel is placed in the hands of the Matured Youth who must shape the Man To Be. Correspondences: the Moon {Key 18}, the Brow Chakra, the High Self, the 12 Signs of the Zodiac, the 12 Labors of Hercules. Viz. the mediæval custom of BAFFLING by which Debtors were hanged by the Foot sometimes prior to Execution.
§ The suspended Mind, governed by the Law of Reversal. Material Temptation. Paradox, difficulty. Remote Intervention. A Sacrifice may be required for Redemption. Punishment, Loss. Fatal and not voluntary. Suffering generally.
Reversed: Arrogance. Willfulness. Resistance to Wisdom, sunken in physical Matters. Wasted Effort. False Prophecy.
Let not the waters on which thou journeyest wet thee. — A. CROWLEY
I closed the book and stood there rubbing my nose. The gal at the cash register hadn’t stopped watching me. By now her eyes were about as sad as eyes get. “Do you want that book,” she said, almost whispering.
I shook my head and put it back on the shelf.
“Can I do anything for you.”
“No,” I said.
She whispered, “Then I think I’d like you out of my store now, please.”
25
Rebecca
Halliday’s house still didn’t look like much house for a gangster. But one good thing about it, no one seemed to be home. No lights, no cars in the driveway. I’m not sure what I’d have done if someone had been there. I turned left at the corner and left again onto Remsen Avenue, which ran parallel to Shippie and one block over, and decided on a house that was being renovated, not quite back to back with Halliday’s but only three doors down, with a few trees in between. I pulled into the driveway, and got my toolkit from the trunk, making no special attempt to be quiet. I went into the new garage, which had no door yet. It was just half-naked studs letting in the moonlight. I set down my tools and put on some gloves. I wiped down my flashlight and gun, in case I had to leave them inside. I put the flashlight in my pocket and my gun in my holster, then slipped out through the open studs at the back of the garage and made my way through the trees to Halliday’s back door.
I was prepared to go back and get my bolt-cutters, but he hadn’t put the chain on and my little strips of Samoan lagoon were all I needed. I stopped inside the door and held my breath. The house was still. If there was anyone there, they were asleep and not snoring. Or else holding their breaths and waiting for me with guns. I stood there with my eyes closed, letting Rebecca’s map come back to me. When I had it clear in my mind and my eyes were used to blackness, I opened them. It’s good to have a flashlight, but it’s better not to use it, and I walked through the dark kitchen into what I knew was the dining room.
Rebecca’s map seemed to be pretty damn good. I peeked through a side door and flashed my light in, just to check, and there were rows of 16mm projectors in carrying cases, just as she’d said. I closed the door softly and went through an archway into the front parlor. In the middle was a big armchair with antimacassars. I flicked the flash on it. It was upholstered in roses and green leaves. I looked through the side door there, not using the light. I saw a small room with a single bed and a movie camera in the corner on a stand.
I got out my gun and went slowly upstairs, stepping on the edges of the risers beside the wall. I still made little noises. You always do. Near the top of the stairs I peered through the banister and found all the doors open. The rooms seemed empty. I strode up the rest of the stairs, not caring about what noise I made, and stalked from room to room, gun first. Nobody. I decided I was probably okay and began going over the rooms in earnest.
The one near the head of the stairs was a bathroom, and there was nothing in it out of the ordinary. Next to it was a small room someone had fitted out with metal shelves. There were cans of film on the shelves, each can neatly labeled. I closed the curtain on the window and put on the flash. Surprise for Auntie, with Big Betsy, Rita, and Ramón. Just A Beginner, with Sandra and Ramón. Penny’s Punishment, with Marilyn and The Sheik. Betsy Gets It Good, with Ramón, The Sheik, and Big Betsy. There was a row of big looseleaf books that seemed to record which copies of which film had been checked out to whom. I closed them and went into the next room.
This was a back bedroom with a frilly cream-colored bedspread. The walls were painted peacock blue and almost bare. The night table held an inlaid jewelry box, but there was nothing in it but a few pieces of costume stuff. I opened the closet and found low-cut evening dresses on hangers. I took down a couple of hatboxes and found hats. I opened the lingerie drawer and found lingerie. I went into the next room, which seemed to be the master bedroom. The curtains were closed, and I turned on my flash again.
In the middle of the room was a queen-sized bed. At the foot was a projector on a stand. The bed’s headboard had been removed, and a white rectangle painted on the wall behind it. I went over to the projector and switched it on. There was that grinding ticking noise, and then a short length of number leader, and then the following appeared on the wall over the bed:
Prestige Enterprises Presents
THREE ON A MATCH
The next frame read:
Starring
BIG BETSY
ESMERALDA
THE SHEIK
Then:
ANOTHER DULL SUMMER AFTER NOON
BIG BETSY IS BORED WHAT TO DO?
Then Rebecca was sitting in the big flowered armchair in the living room I’d just left, with light pouring through the windows. It made her eyelids look translucent. She wore a dressing gown and high heels. Aside from that, she seemed to be waiting for a train. Someone behind the camera must have told her to smile, so she smiled at the camera, then stopped. Then she got up and slipped out of the gown. She lifted her breasts with her hands and then stood there bouncing them in her palms as if wondering what they’d fetch by the pound.
The door to the side room opened and a small dark woman entered, wearing only buckled shoes and those little ooh-la-la black ankle-stockings, and beaming like a prom queen on a parade float. Rebecca stooped to kiss her and Esmeralda began massaging her vigorously with both hands. I watched for a minute more, then switched off my flash, put it in my pocket, and stuck my gun in its holster. I began searching the room in the flickering light from the projector.
In the night table I found a small flat case with some silver cufflinks. I put it in my pocket. I found a cigarette lighter that was probably just nickel, but I’d lost mine and I took it and closed the drawer. There didn’t seem to be anything in the dresser but clothes. The closet was a big one. I’d search it last. There was a small
picture on the wall of a sailboat slipping past a lighthouse, heading out to sea. I looked behind it, looked at the back of it. I checked all the pictures and found a key taped to the back of one of them. I put it in my pocket. I got down on my hands and knees to look under the bed.
When I stood up, I saw that Esmeralda was gone and The Sheik was on the job. He was a bit of a runt, and wore an actual black mask across his eyes. It looked like he’d cut two holes in a black necktie. He was doing what he could to earn his pay, giving it his all, the cords in his neck jerking, and I saw that beneath him, Rebecca’s face had smoothed out, the way a cat’s face smoothes out when you stroke back the fur on its head, and that her body was rippling like a flag in a high wind. I wondered sadly what he had that I didn’t. Just then I smelled that scent of plain harsh soap, the kind you’d do the laundry with, and slowly turned around. Rebecca stood just behind me in a simple pale evening gown, cut steeply down the front. Her mouth was slightly loose, and you could see the gleam of her teeth. Her face was still. Her little chrome .32 was staring at me, but she was staring at her own image on the screen. Her nipples stood out like a pair of steel pegs. Well, I thought, there’s your answer.
Halliday stepped out of the shadows behind her.
“Put your hands in your back pockets,” he said. “All the way, palms in. That’s good.” He sidled over without hurry and slipped the gun out of my holster. He did it right, and there wasn’t a moment when he was blocking Rebecca’s shot. Then he walked around the bed and flopped into an armchair with the gun in his lap. He rubbed his eyes and didn’t say anything more.
“Huh,” I said. “I thought I’d hear if somebody came in.”
“The room’s soundproof,” he said. “You should’ve left the door open.”
“I thought I did.”
“It swings shut.”
“Live and learn,” I said.
“Learn, anyway,” he said. “Any luck finding the safe full of gold?”
“Ah, I wouldn’t know how to open a safe, anyway. I was hoping for something more like the silverware. I needed traveling money and I figured you two owed me something.”