A Diet of Treacle

by Lawrence Block

  Now Shank was looking for someone named Bunky. Bunky would give them money, or a connection, or something. Bunky would save the day. Then the trio would be safe again; the three could stop running. Joe wondered how it would feel to stop running. They had been running for a long time.

  “He’s a killer,” Anita persisted. “He didn’t have to kill that man, Joe. He didn’t have to kill the cop, either. He could have let him live. He meant to kill him. You don’t shoot someone six times unless you want to kill him. He’s a murderer.”

  “We’re all murderers.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe we are. I don’t know any more. We were going to live clean, Joe. Do you remember? Our own apartment on 19th Street near Gramercy Park. All by ourselves. You were supposed to have a good job and I would be keeping the apartment nice for you. So wonderful. It would have been so wonderful.”

  “A dream, Anita.”

  She looked at him.

  “A dream,” he continued in a monotone. “Everything’s a dream. No apartment, no clean. No anything. Just running.”

  “Can we ever stop?” Anita’s voice climbed higher.

  “I don’t know.”

  “They’ll catch us, Joe. He must know that. You can’t get away from murder by crossing a state line. You just can’t do it. They’ll catch us.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And then what? How far can we run? How fast? They’ll kill us. Just like he killed the cop. And just like he killed the man in Cleveland.”

  Joe was silent.

  “What next, Joe?”

  “I think he wants to get out of the country.”

  She laughed. Her laughter was low, bitter, humorless. “Of course,” she said. “Out of New York, out of the state, out of the country. Run like a rabbit and wind up dead as a doornail. Where to?”

  “Mexico.”

  She was all eyebrow.

  “I think that’s what he wants to do,” he explained. “Connect with this Bunky. A guy he knew in Frisco or something. Connect with Bunky and get some bread together. Then head for Mexico. He thinks we’ll be safe in Mexico.”

  “Until he shoots somebody. Then what? Guatemala? Brazil? Spain? Where next?”

  “If we get to Mexico—”

  “We won’t get to Mexico. We won’t get anywhere. We’ll be killed.”

  Joe lit a cigarette. “You can still walk out,” he said “Shank won’t mind, he won’t even know where you went.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not being silly,” he said reasonably. “Chicago’s a big town. You can walk out on us and disappear. You’ll be safe. The cops know about you, sure. But they don’t know who you are. They don’t have your picture. You can find a niche for yourself and be safe.”

  “Do you want me to do that?”

  He glanced away from her. “I don’t know. I want you to be safe. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Joe—”

  “I really don’t know,” he said. “I think I…this is silly, Anita. So silly.”

  “Go ahead, Joe.”

  “I still love you, Anita. Isn’t that silly? All washed up, the whole world, all falling in. And I just plain love you. I don’t understand it.”

  “I love you, Joe.”

  “Don’t talk silly. I ruined you, loused you up. You had a life.”

  “It was an empty life.”

  “This one’s worse.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe everything is the way it is and we can’t do anything about it.”

  “Run, Anita. Before he gets back. We’ll make out. Shank and I. We’ll manage.”

  “I can’t, Joe.”

  “Leave me, Anita. I’m no good. I can’t move. So I’m impotent without you—so what? Leave me.”

  “I can’t, Joe. I can’t.”

  He took her in his arms. “There ought to be a way out,” he said. “Some way. There honest-to-God ought to. This is a mess.”

  She stroked his forehead. He was sweating.

  “What do we do, baby?” Joe said, hopelessly.

  “I guess we stick together.”

  “But how do we get out of this?”

  “I wish I knew,” she said. “God in heaven, I wish I knew.”

  They held each other and waited for Shank. Shank’s entrance was something special.

  The door swung open. A second or two later Shank came through, his shoulders hunched, his white face more pale than usual. His eyes had a hunted look. He closed the door, slid the bolt home. He turned to face them. The smile on his lips did not include his eyes.

  “I found Bunky,” he said.

  They stared at him.

  “It was tough,” Shank said. “Had to turn the town upside-down. Big city, Chicago. I figured Bunky would be on the North Side. I combed that North Side. Went to all the hip hangouts, all the places a cat like Bunky would probably hang. Took time. Too much time.”

  “What happened?”

  “I found him.”

  “And—”

  Shank sighed. “Good old Bunky,” he said. The smile grew but the eyes became more dead than ever. “He was glad to see me. Auld lang syne. That type of scene.”

  They waited.

  “Something funny,” he said. “Never would have expected it. Big change in Bunky. Fundamental difference from old Bunky. Big change.”

  Why didn’t he get to the point? Anita and Joe wondered. He had connected with Bunky. The three could leave the country. Why did he have to drag it out forever?

  “Funny,” Shank said. “You know what it is about Bunky? Funny. It makes a poem.”

  They stared at him.

  “Bunky is a junkie,” he said. “Bunky is a junkie with a forty-pound monkey. It rhymes, dig? Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard?”

  11

  “Junkie Bunky,” Shank said. “No good at all to me. Horse is his whole life. Forty dollars a day. Forty dollars a day to put in his arm. He couldn’t give me a connection.”

  “What then?”

  A wider grin. “But don’t panic. He told me the way. The way to Mexico. There’s a plane making the trip once a week.”

  “You need some kind of a passport,” Joe said softly.

  “Not for this plane, baby. This is a private plane. It goes straight to Monterrey. From Chicago to Monterrey. Makes three stops at private airfields. Carries a dozen passengers, no more. You don’t need anything like a passport for this one, baby. All you need is money.”

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred a person.”

  “That’s six hundred dollars.”

  “You add good, baby.”

  “How the hell can we get six hundred dollars?”

  “Easy.”

  “Easy? Are you going to kill some more men, Shank? Shoot more old men in alleys?”

  “It made the paper, huh?”

  “It made the paper. And they traced the gun. They know it’s us, Shank.”

  “I figured they would.”

  “So no more hold-ups, Shank. You can’t pull a hold-up without a gun. Right?”

  “Right as rain, Joe, baby. You’ve got a head on your neck. You truly do.”

  “Then how?”

  Shank found a cigarette, placed it between his lips. He took a pack of matches, ripped one out and struck it. He lit the cigarette and dragged on it.

  “Same way Bunky feeds his habit,” he said. “Bunky uses almost three big bills a week. That’s a lot of bread. And he gets it.”

  “How?”

  “He’s got a stable of girls, man. Three of them. Good little girls. Hustling girls. Working girls. Fly chicks. They take good care of Bunky. They go out and earn a habitful of money.”

  The message was beginning to sink in.

  “We’ve got an asset,” Shank said. “A natural resource. We’ve got little Anita. She can take care of us, Joe, baby. We carried her this far. Now she can carry us a little bit of the way. She can go wiggle her behind and carry us all the w
ay to Mexico.”

  “I won’t do it,” Anita said, her tones flat. Shank looked at her. She was standing up now, fear and disgust in her eyes. Shank walked to her, put his hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrink away, but his hand held.

  “Sure you will,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No—”

  “You listen to me,” he said. “You shut your mouth and listen. They’re going to kill us. All three of us. Strap us in the chair and turn on the juice. We’ll die. Die for murder.”

  “You did the murders,” she said. “You killed the cop. You shot the old man. I read in the paper the old man had three children. A wife and three children.”

  “So they’ll get his insurance.”

  “You bastard!”

  He laughed. A loud laugh. But he did not take his hand from her shoulder. “You took my money,” Shank said. “And you ran with me. Both of you. You were there when I killed the cop. And I killed the old man for you, for both of you. I could have run alone. I had enough money to make Chicago. I killed so you could come with me. So don’t pin it on me, little girl. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Shank—” She stopped. She had nothing to say. She could only stare at him and listen to him.

  “Now you’ll hustle,” he told her. “We need six hundred dollars. Sounds like a lot of money. It’s not that much. Say you get ten bucks a trick. It’s only sixty tricks. You can handle twenty a day easy. Just quick tricks. Fast and easy and simple. Three days and we’re ready to roll. Plane leaves in four days. So we can’t miss. All you have to do is turn your tricks.”

  “I’m no whore.” Easy laughter rolled out of Shank.

  “Whoever said you were?” he said. “I’m not telling you to make a profession out of it, baby. Just sixty times. Just sixty quick tricks to save us all. That’s all, Anita. Maybe less, if you can get some guys to go more than ten bucks. Say, twenty. And the more tricks you turn, the faster you’re done. And then—”

  “You filthy son of a—”

  “You’ll do it, Anita. You’ll do it whether you like it or not. Because it’s the only way.” She tried to imagine herself as a prostitute. She pictured herself walking the streets, picking up men, taking their money and letting them use her body as a mute receptacle for their lust. She thought about the last thing he had suggested, the twenty dollar tricks, and she thought she was going to be sick to her stomach.

  “Don’t play virgin with me, Anita.”

  She turned to Joe, “Joe,” she said. “I can’t do it, Joe. Do you want me to do it? Do you want me to be a whore, Joe? Is that what you want?” Joe’s eyes were filled with pain.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me to whore for you and I will. Tell me that’s what you want and I’ll do it. I can’t think straight any more, Joe. I thought I was your woman. I thought I was just for you. But tell me to do it and I’ll do it. You tell me, Joe.”

  Joe stood up. His body uncoiled slowly and he stood up, his eyes on Shank. “No,” he said.

  “Joe—” Shank started.

  “No,” he repeated. “Think of some other way, Shank. Some cleaner way.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “You better find another. She’s my woman. She’s not a hustler. Not now and not ever. So find another way.” Shank looked first at Joe, then at Anita, then at Joe again. He began to laugh. “Your chick? That’s funny, man. Too funny. You don’t know how funny it is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I made it with her, baby. Back in New York. Right on your own little bed, man. So don’t play possessive papa with me, baby. She’s nobody’s chick at all. And she can hustle and get us to Mexico like I said.”

  Joe went white. “Is it true, Anita?” he said in a beaten voice. Her voice was soft.

  “He made me, Joe. He made me do it. I didn’t want to.”

  “Go on.” Joe’s eyes were on Shank, cold. He listened to what she had to say.

  “He made me, Joe. He…beat me up. He hurt me. And he was going to cut me with his knife. I was afraid. He…he raped me.”

  “You never told me.”

  “I was afraid.” Something happened to Joe. Something inside. He turned on Shank and his eyes were on fire.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “Easy, baby.”

  “You rotten—”

  “Cool! It don’t change a thing, Joe. It’s the same scene all across the board. Now she can hustle, you dig? Now she can earn some bread and—”

  “No.” Shank sensed something. He knew that Joe was not kidding now. He shoved the girl and she skidded across the room.

  “Back off, Joe.” But Joe moved forward. Shank’s hand dropped to his pocket. The knife came out in a single fluid motion. He held it in his right hand, his finger poised on the button.

  “Back off.”

  “Drop it.”

  “I don’t want to cut you, Joe. I don’t want to hurt you. You better let it alone, man. It happened a long time ago. It’s ancient history. We got to swing together or we both lose.”

  “You’ll have to kill me.”

  “Don’t make it tough, Joe.”

  “It’s going to be tough. Very tough.” Shank nodded. His finger pressed on the button. The knife blade shot forward, six inches of glistening steel. Shank rubbed his thumb back and forth across the face of the blade. His eyes were on Joe. Joe kept coming. Shank moved the knife back and forth like the head of a cobra about to strike, He moved around in a little dance. His eyes were on Joe’s face. Joe backed away and Shank moved in, the knife moving back and forth, ready. Joe moved to the side of the bed. His hand dropped, gripped a pillow. Shank lunged with the knife and Joe swung with the pillow. The timing was perfect. The knife slashed into the pillow and feathers filled the room, fluttering to the floor. Joe yanked on the pillow, dropped it and crashed a fist to the side of Shank’s jaw. Shank staggered. His head dropped and Joe caught it on the way down with both hands. He cupped the head, pushed it down, raised a knee to meet it. Teeth gave way. Shank sank to the floor. He started to raise himself on his knees. Then Joe kicked him in the face and he fell down again. The feathers settled over him. Some of the feathers were red from the blood from his mouth. This time he stayed down.

  Shank regained consciousness some ten minutes later. Joe was standing over him, knife in hand. Joe’s other arm was around Anita.

  “You won,” Shank said slowly. “But it doesn’t change a thing.”

  “You think not?”

  “We’re in the same spot,” Shank said. “We’re running. We still need six hundred dollars. So you beat me. Solid. But we’re married, baby. You can’t cut me out.”

  “Anita,” Joe said. “Go pick up the phone.”

  “You calling somebody? I don’t get it, baby. Who are you calling?” Shank did not understand. But Joe did, finally. Everything was very clear now. It all fit in place. And Joe knew everything was going to be all right. He had found some portion of himself, a portion that had been lost for a long, long time. Not too long, though. The portion was still there—and functioning. Joe looked at Anita and loved her. He knew it was going to be all right with them now. From here on in everything was going to be all right.

  “Pick up the phone,” he repeated. “Dial the operator. Dial 0.”

  “Joe—” Shank began. He told Shank to shut up.

  “Tell the operator you want the police, Anita,” he went on. “Tell them to come over here right away. Tell them you’ve got a murderer trapped.”

  “They’ll fry us all, Joe. They’ll cool the three of us,” Shank promised.

  “Just you,” Joe said. “Just you.”

  “You’ll go to jail.”

  “Maybe. But we’ll get out. You’ll fry but we’ll get out. And we’ll be alive then. We won’t have to run anymore.”

  “You’re crazy!” Shank said in a high-pitched voice. Joe flicked a glance at Shank. Anita was talking to the police on the telephone, her vo
ice very calm.

  “You’re the one who’s crazy,” he told Shank. “I’m sane. I’m sane again. It’s been a long time, but I’m sane again.” Anita finished the call. She walked to Joe’s side, and the three waited for the police to come.

  A New Afterword by the Author

  In the summer of 1956, after a freshman year at Antioch College, I came to New York to spend three months in the mail room at Pines Publications. I’d be rooming with Paul Grillo, who’d arrived a few days before me and found us a place to live, at 147 West 14th Street. We were there for two weeks and then found a less expensive place to stay at 108 West 12th. By then we’d acquired another roommate, Fred Anliot, and the three of us were sharing a squalid little cell that a solitary midget would have found confining. Two weeks of that and we moved again, to a first-floor apartment at 54 Barrow Street, where we remained until our three months was up and it was time to return to campus.

  The job was supposed to provide valuable vocational experience, and I’m sure it did. The guy who ran the promotion and publicity department took me aside one day and said his assistant was leaving and would I like to replace him? I was all set to go for it, and said maybe I’d drop out of school—and that led him to rescind the offer. If I was a student, he said, I should stay in school. That would be more valuable to me than the job he was offering.

  I’m not sure he was right about that. The real education was being on my own and living in the Village and meeting all sorts of fascinating folk. I still know some of the people I met on Sunday afternoons around the fountain in Washington Square. A few of them are gone, and I miss them, even as I miss those days and nights.

  A few years later I wrote a book set in that time and place. I called it A Diet of Treacle, with an epigraph quote from Alice in Wonderland. It wound up at Beacon Books, where they published it with the title Pads Are for Passion. I used a pen name on the book—Sheldon Lord, a name I’d used before and would use again.

  Years passed, as they’re apt to do. Hard Case Crime, which had reprinted several of my early crime novels, was casting about for something else of mine, and I remembered the book. Founder Charles Ardai not only liked the book, he even liked its original title.