“Take it easy.”
“That’s right, Bill. Thanks.”
“Have some wine?”
“. . . Rock, of course, was fixed. He had property, and for the building, where the Paddock was, he got $250,000 – or so I heard. But then came the tip on Maryland.”
That crossed me up, and instead of switching her off, I asked her what she meant. She said: “That Maryland would legalize wheels.”
“What do you smoke in Nevada?”
“Oh, I didn’t believe it. And Rock didn’t. But Mrs Rock went nuts about it. Oh well, she had a reason.” “Dark, handsome reason?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, but that reason took the Rocks for a ride, for every cent they got for the place, and tried to take me too, for other things beside money. When they went off to Italy, they thought they had it fixed, he was to keep me at my salary, in case Maryland would legalize, and if not, to send me home, with severance pay, as it’s called. And instead of that—”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve said too much.”
“What’s this guy to you?”
“Nothing! I never even saw him until the three of us stepped off the plane – with our hopes. In a way it seemed reasonable. Maryland has tracks, and they help with the taxes. Why not wheels?”
“And who is this guy?”
“I’d be ashamed to say, but I’ll say this much: I won’t be a kept floozy. I don’t care who he thinks he is, or—”
She bit her lip, started to cry, and really shut up then. To switch off, I asked why she was working for Jack, and she said: “Why not? You can’t go home in a barrel. But he’s been swell to me.”
Saying people were swell seemed to be what she liked, and she calmed down, letting her hand stay when I pressed it in both of mine. Then we were really close, and I meditated if we were close enough that I’d be warranted in laying it on the line, she should let that plane fly away, and not go to Nevada at all. But while I was working on that, business was picking up, with waiters stopping by to let her look at their trays, and I hadn’t much chance to say it, whatever I wanted to say. Then, through the IN door, a waiter came through with a tray that had a wine bottle on it. A guy followed him in, a little noisy guy, who said the bottle was full and grabbed it off the tray. He had hardly gone out again, when Jack was in the door, watching him as he staggered back to the table. The waiter swore the bottle was empty, but all Jack did was nod.
Then Jack came over to her, took another little peep through the window in the OUT door, which was just under her balcony, and said: “Lydia, what did you make of him?”
“Why – he’s drunk, that’s all.”
“You notice him, Mr Cameron?”
“No – except it crossed my mind he wasn’t as tight as the act he was putting on.”
“Just what crossed my mind! How could he get that drunk on a split of Napa red? What did he want back here?”
By now, the waiter had gone out on the floor and came back, saying the guy wanted his check. But as he started to shuffle it out of the bunch he had tucked in his vest, Jack stopped him and said: “He don’t get any check – not till I give the word. Tell Joe I said stand by and see he don’t get out. Move!”
The waiter had looked kind of blank, but hustled out as told, and then Jack looked at her. He said: “Lady, I’ll be back. I’m taking a look around.”
He went, and she drew another of her long, trembly breaths. I cut my eye around, but no one had noticed a thing, and yet it semed kind of funny they’d all be slicing bread, wiping glass, or fixing cocktail setups, with Jack mumbling it low out of the side of his mouth. I had a creepy feeling of things going on, and my mind took it a little, fitting it together, what she had said about the bag checked at the airport, the guy trying to make her, and most of all, the way Jack had acted, the second she showed with her cigarettes, shooing her off the floor, getting her out of sight. She kept staring through the window, at the drunk where he sat with his bottle, and seemed to ease when a captain I took to be Joe planted himself pretty solid in a spot that would block off a runout.
Then Jack was back, marching around, snapping his fingers, giving orders for the night. But as he pressed the back door, I noticed his hand touched the lock, as though putting the catch on. He started back to the floor, but stopped as he passed her desk, and shot it quick in a whisper: “He’s out there, Lydia, parked in back. This drunk, like I thought, is a finger he sent in to stop you, but he won’t be getting out for the airport, right now.”
“Will you call me a cab, Jack?”
“Cab? I’m taking you.”
He stepped near me and whispered: “Mr Cameron, I’m sorry, this little lady has to leave, for—”
“I know about that.”
“She’s in danger—”
“I’ve also caught on to that.”
“From a no-good imitation goon that’s been trying to get to her here, which is why I’m shipping her out. I hate to break this up, but if you’ll ride with us, Mr Cameron—”
“I’ll follow you down.”
“That’s right, you have your car. It’s Friendship Airport just down the road.”
He told her to get ready, while he was having his car brought up, and the boy who would take her place on the desk was changing his clothes. Step on it, he said, but wait until he came back. He went out on the floor and marched past the drunk without even turning his head. But she sat watching me. She said: “You’re not coming, are you?”
“Friendship’s a little cold.”
“But not mine, Bill, no.”
She got off her stool, stood near me and touched my hair. She said: “Ships that pass in the night pass so close, so close.” And then: “I’m ashamed, Bill. I’d have to go for this reason. I wonder, for the first time if gambling’s really much good.” She pulled the chain of the light, so we were half in the dark. Then she kissed me. She said: “God bless and keep you, Bill.”
“And you, Lydia.”
I felt her tears on my cheek, and then she pulled away and stepped to the little office, where she began putting a coat on and tying a scarf on her head. She looked so pretty it came to me I still hadn’t given her the one little bouquet I’d been saving for the last. I picked up the guitar and started Nevada.
She wheeled, but what stared at me were eyes as hard as glass. I was so startled I stopped, but she kept right on staring. Outside a car door slammed, and she listened at the window beside her. Then at last she looked away, to peep through the Venetian blind. Jack popped in, wearing his coat and hat, and motioned her to hurry. But he caught something and said, low yet so I could hear him: “Lydia! What’s the matter?”
She stalked over to me, with him following along, pointed her finger, and then didn’t say it, but spat it: “He’s the finger – that’s what’s the matter, that’s all. He played Nevada, as though we hadn’t had enough trouble with it already. And Vanny heard it. He hopped out of his car and he’s under the window right now.”
“Then OK, let’s go.”
I was a little too burned to make with the explanations, and took my time, parking the guitar, sliding off, and climbing down, to give them a chance to blow. But she still had something to say, and to me, not to him. She pushed her face up to mine, and mocking how I had spoken, yipped. “Oh! . . . Oh! OH!” Then she went, with Jack. Then I went, clumping after.
Then it broke wide open.
The drunk, who was supposed to sit there, conveniently boxed in, while she went slipping out, turned out more of a hog-calling type, and instead of playing his part, jumped up and yelled: “Vanny! Vanny! Here she comes! She’s leaving! VANNY!”
He kept it up, while women screamed all over, then pulled a gun from his pocket, and let go at the ceiling, so it sounded like the field artillery. Jack jumped for him and hit the deck, as his feet shot from under him on the slippery wood of the dance floor. Joe swung, missed, swung again, and landed, so Mr Drunk went down. But when Joe scrambled for the gun, t
here came this voice through the smoke: “Hold it! As you were – and leave that gun alone.”
Then hulking in came this short-necked, thick-shouldered thing, in Homburg hat, double-breasted coat, and white muffler, one hand in his pocket, the other giving an imitation of a movie gangster. He said keep still and nobody would get hurt, but “I won’t stand for tricks.” He helped Jack up, asked how he’d been. Jack said: “Young man, let me tell you something—”
“How you been? I asked.”
“Fine, Mr Rocco.”
“Any telling, Jack – I’ll do it.”
Then, to her: “Lydia, how’ve you been?”
“That doesn’t concern you.”
Then she burst out about what he had done to his mother, the gyp he’d handed his father, and his propositions to her, and I got it, at last, who this idiot was. He listened, but right in the middle of it, he waved his hand toward me and asked: “Who’s this guy?”
“Vanny, I think you know.”
“Guy, are you the boyfriend?”
“If so I don’t tell you.”
I sounded tough, but my stomach didn’t feel that way. They had it some more, and he connected me with the tune, and seemed to enjoy it a lot, that it had told him where to find her, on the broadcast and here now tonight. But he kept creeping closer, to where we were all lined up, with the drunk stretched on the floor, the gun under his hand, and I suddenly felt the prickle, that Vanny was really nuts, and in a minute meant to kill her. It also crossed my mind, that a guy who plays the guitar has a left hand made of steel, from squeezing down on the strings, and is a dead sure judge of distance, to the last eighth of an inch.
I grabbed for my chord and got it.
I choked down on his hand, the one he held in his pocket, while hell broke loose in the place, with women screaming, men running, and fists trying to help. I had the gun hand all right, but when I reached for the other he twisted, butted, and bit, and for that long I thought he’d get loose, and that I was a gone pigeon. The gun barked, and a piledriver hit my leg. I went down. Another gun spoke and he went down beside me. Then there was Jack, the drunk’s gun in his hand, stepping in close, and firing again.
I blacked out.
I came to, and then she was there, a knife in her hand, ripping the cloth away from the outside of my leg, grabbing napkins, stanching blood, while somewhere ten miles off I could hear Jack’s voice, as he yelled into a phone. On the floor right beside me was something under a tablecloth.
That went on for some time, with Joe calming things down and some people sliding out. The band came in, and I heard a boy ask for his guitar. Somebody brought it to him, and then, at last, came the screech of sirens, and she whispered some thanks to God.
Then, while the cops were catching up, with me, with Jack, and what was under the cloth, we both went kind of haywire, me laughing, she crying, and both in each other’s arms. I said: “Lydia, Lydia, you’re not taking that plane. They legalize things in Maryland, one thing specially, except that instead of wheels, they generally use a ring.”
THE GETAWAY
Gil Brewer
Vincenti lit a fat joint, took a big toke, then glanced sideways at the wheelman of the silver Continental Mark IV. Vincenti was loose. He was always loose. He had a job to do and would be paid well. He was a heavy and he only worked to contract.
“Nervous?” the paunchy, red-faced driver asked. He wore medium blue with a plum maroon tie.
Vincenti did not answer. He took another deep toke and chewed on the acrid smoke. Tall, slim, impeccably groomed in pearl gray, with eyes like slate, he somehow resembled a statue.
The wheelman’s name was Morganza. He was also the finger. His hair looked like a wet, blue-black cap, and there was something anxious in his pale eyes.
“I’d be nervous,” he said.
“You are.”
“I mean if I was you.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that.”
Vincenti’s voice was silken. It appealed to women, along with everything else about the man, and he enjoyed that fact.
They were on Franklin and mid-afternoon Tampa traffic moved glitteringly, sedately. Then Morganza made a sharp right and slowed the flash car. They drew to the curb.
Vincenti’s practiced finger flicked the roach out the window. He was patient. He had to be.
“It’s that loan company, across there. Acme,” Morganza said. He coughed lightly and checked his wrist where gold gleamed. “Due – right now.”
Vincenti watched the Acme Loan entrance. His nose was a blade and his chin held a deep cleft. He sighed and yearned for Vegas with some fresh broad. Well, it would come later, after he returned to LA.
The grass had given him a small lift.
Suddenly Morganza said, “Here it is, you.”
Vincenti looked quickly towards the Acme Loan.
An enormous man in eye-shattering white, slow-moving, ponderous but with the provoking grace of an elephant, still young, shoved from the Acme entrance into the street. Another man, short, reed-like, gripping a tan straw hat, was with him. They stood there on the sidewalk. The short man gestured ubiquitously, while the big man grew like a tree.
Morganza opened his door and stepped out.
“Which the hell one?” Vincenti’s voice was flat, like tepid tea.
“Biggie,” Morganza jerked, and was gone, melting into the afternoon.
Vincenti lifted long legs and slid over beneath the wheel, planting his feet. He waited, watching the big man.
So, this was Nemo Lucelli, god of the Gulf Coast, with wormy fingers that fatted into Miami’s guts, palpated Jacksonville, and saw to the Bahamas skim. Overlord of Florida crime, glutting on everything from prostitution and narcotics to illegal Florida gambling; twisting the coat-tails of governors, senators, and shipping magnates. It was reported authoritatively that his Mexican connection was the fatted calf itself. And anachronistic Murder Inc. was nothing to Lucelli’s bloodbath.
The Big Nemo . . . but Vincenti hadn’t figured him this big in girth.
The National Syndicate wanted Nemo wasted.
Vincenti knew he would be able to retire for maybe three years after this job, able to thoroughly feed his own ravening appetites. Women. Young girls.
He tightened his teeth, his slate-colored eyes checking every corner for soldatos, bodyguards, the lieutenants of Lucelli’s regime. The Tampa hierarchy did not know Vincenti and would not make him. Morganza was from Chi, with capo Ringotti. Morganza would already be at Tampa International, a fly duck.
A quick-moving soldier opened a Caddy limousine door, and Lucelli lurched towards the shiny car, leaving the short fellow still gesticulant.
Vincenti knew that car would be slug-proof.
A door slammed. Vincenti saw the fat man in white lift a glass from a portable bar in the limo. Then the Caddy purred into traffic.
Vincenti knew it had to be obtuse.
Now was the word. Or as close to now as conditions would permit. Make the damn hit and get out.
Vincenti quickly lit a previously rolled joint, took a vigorous toke, and skunked after the Cad, holding his breath, experiencing a tingle in his solar plexus. This was the biggest hit he’d ever attained, and he was playing it to rule . . . the rule cooked up on the cross-country jet flight.
Hit – now. No maps. No clockwork. No shenanigans.
It had to be hit now, because Lucelli’s fortress could be creepy, and there was the ever-gnawing probability that winds would blow news of this top-brass execution decision.
There was always a long tongue, no matter how the odds looked.
Vincenti toked the fat joint deeply, holding the narcotic smoke, the red ember sputtering. Ordinarily he spent days, sometimes weeks, on a hit – planning, scheming, checking every angle. Not this time. No time was this time.
He knew he had to be high. It was in and hit and run.
Desperation was beginning to drive him now.
He worked at desperation. He was a pro. His
card was death and the deal was no shuffle, no cut.
They were approaching West Shore Boulevard, the limo blurringly smooth at a sixty clip.
Traffic was heavy.
The afternoon sighed, turned, and rolled over towards four o’clock. Black palm fronds fingered the yellow haze like cemetery hands.
Abruptly the limousine crawled into a circular drive rimmed with glistening poplars and silk oaks, slowed to gleam and glitter in the shadows of a portico fronting a small yellow-stone cottage – small by Lucelli’s standards, Vincenti mused, firing another joint. Actually the cottage was a minor mansion.
Still . . . it didn’t look like home ground, for some reason.
He tooled the outside lane slowly, turning to check. Sure enough, Lucelli was out of the limo and the big car was pulling away in the drive.
Vincenti checked the rear-view mirror, holding his breath.
The Cad crept back onto the boulevard and increased speed.
Lucelli was alone back there at the yellow-stone cottage.
Vincenti wheeled the Continental to the right, down a curving red-brick street shaded with ancient water oaks.
He couldn’t believe it! He couldn’t!
The now was in solid.
Curtly, then, the professional took over. He sped down the block, turned fast right again, marking where the yellow-stone cottage would stand on the boulevard.
He parked at the curb, allowed his right hand to check the spring-holstered, silenced Luger beneath his left arm, then just sat there a moment.
The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction Page 23