I said, “Hi, Billie the Kid.”
“Just woke up, Howie. What time is it?”
“A little after ten,” I told her. “Is there a drink around?”
“Jeez, only ten? Oh well, I had seven hours. Guy came here when Mike closed at two, but he didn’t stay long.”
She sat up in bed and stretched, the covers falling away from her naked body. Beautiful breasts she had, size and shape of half grape-fruits and firm. Nice arms and shoulders, and a lovely face. Hair black and sleek in a page-boy bob that fell into place as she shook her head. Twenty-five, she told me once; and I believed her, but she could have passed for several years less than that, even, now without make up and her eyes still a little puffy from sleep. Certainly it didn’t show that she’d spent three years as a B-girl, part-time hustler, heavy drinker. Before that she’d been married to a man who’d worked for a manufacturing jeweler; he’d suddenly left for parts unknown with a considerable portion of his employer’s stock, leaving Billie in a jam and with a mess of debts.
Wilhelmina Kidder, Billie the Kid, my Billie. Any man’s Billie if he flashed a roll, but oddly I’d found that I could love her a little and not let that bother me. Maybe because it had been that way when I’d first met her over a month ago; I’d come to love her knowing what she was, so why should it bother me? What she saw in me I don’t know, and didn’t care.
“About that drink,” I said.
She laughed and threw down the covers, got out of bed and walked past me naked to the closet to get a robe. I wanted to reach for her but I didn’t; I’d learned by now that Billie the Kid was never amorous early in the morning and resented any passes made before noon.
She shrugged into a quilted robe and padded barefoot over to the little refrigerator behind the screen that hid a tiny kitchenette. She opened the door and said, “God damn it.”
“God damn what?” I wanted to know. “Out of liquor?”
She held up over the screen a Hiram Walker bottle with only half an inch of ready-mixed Manhattan in it. Almost the only thing Billie ever drank, Manhattans.
“As near out as matters. Honey, would you run upstairs and see if Mame’s got some? She usually has.”
Mame is a big blonde who works behind the bar at Mike Karas’ joint, The Best Chance, where Billie works as B-girl. A tough number, Mame. I said, “If she’s asleep she’ll murder me for waking her. What’s wrong with the store?”
“She’s up by now. She was off early last night. And if you get it at the store it won’t be on ice. Wait, I’ll phone her, though, so if she is asleep it’ll be me that wakes her and not you.”
She made the call and then nodded. “Okay, honey. She’s got a full bottle she’ll lend me. Scram.”
I scrammed, from the second floor rear to the third floor front. Mame’s door was open; she was out in the hallway paying off a milkman and waiting for him to receipt the bill. She said, “Go on in. Take a load off.” I went inside the room and sat down in the chair that was built to match Mame, overstuffed. I ran my fingers around under the edge of the cushion; one of Mame’s men friends might have sat there with change in his pocket. It’s surprising how much change you can pick up just by trying any overstuffed chairs or sofas you sit on. No change this time, but I came up with a fountain pen, a cheap dime-store-looking one. Mame had just closed the door and I held it up. “In the chair. Yours, Mame?”
“Nope. Keep it, Howie, I got a pen.”
“Maybe one of your friends’ll miss it,” I said. It was too cheap a pen to sell or hock so I might as well be honest about it.
“Nope, I know who lost it. Seen it in his pocket last night. It was Jesus, and the hell with him.”
“Mame, you sound sacrilegious.”
She laughed. “Hay-soos, then. Jesus Gonzales. A Mex. But when he told me that was his handle I called him Jesus. And Jesus was he like a cat on a hot stove!” She walked around me over to her refrigerator but her voice kept on. “Told me not to turn on the lights when he come in and went over to watch out the front window for a while like he was watching for the heat. Looks out my side window too, one with the fire escape. Pulls down all the shades before he says okay, turn on the lights.” The refrigerator door closed and she came back with a bottle.
“Was he a hot one,” she said. “Just got his coat off – he threw it on that chair, when there’s a knock. Grabs his coat again and goes out my side window down the fire escape.” She laughed again. “Was that a flip? It was only Dixie from the next room knocking, to bum cigarettes. So if I ever see Jesus again it’s no dice, guy as jumpy as that. Keep his pen. Want a drink here?”
“If you’ll have one with me.”
“I don’t drink, Howie. Just keep stuff around for friends and callers. Tell Billie to give me another bottle like this back. I got a friend likes Manhattans, like her.”
When I got back to Billie’s room, she’d put on a costume instead of the robe, but it wasn’t much of a costume. A skimpy Bikini bathing suit. She pirouetted in it. “Like it, Howie? Just bought it yesterday.”
“Nice,” I said, “but I like you better without it.”
“Pour us drinks, huh? For me, just a quickie.”
“Speaking of quickies,” I said.
She picked up a dress and started to pull it over her head. “If you’re thinking that way, Professor, I’ll hide the family treasures. Say, that’s a good line; I’m getting to talk like you do sometimes.”
I poured us drinks and we sat down with them. She’d stepped into sandals and was dressed. I said, “You’ve got lots of good lines, Billie the Kid. But correct me – was that lingerie instead of a bathing suit, or am I out of date on fashions?”
“I’m going to the beach today, Howie, for a sun-soak. Won’t go near the water so why not just wear the suit under and save changing? Say, why don’t you take a day off and come along?”
“Broke. The one thing to be said for Burke as an employer is that he pays every day. Otherwise there’d be some dry, dry evenings.”
“What you make there? A fin, maybe. I’ll lend you a fin.”
“That way lies madness,” I said. “Drinks I’ll take from you, or more important things than drinks. But taking money would make me—” I stopped and wondered just what taking money from Billie would make me, just how consistent I was being. After all, I could always send it back to her from Chicago. What kept me from taking it, then? A gal named Honor, I guess. Corny as it sounds, I said it lightly. “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Honor more.”
“You’re a funny guy, Howie. I don’t understand you.”
Suddenly I wanted to change the subject. “Billie, how come Mame doesn’t drink?”
“Don’t you know hypes don’t like to drink?”
“Sure, but I didn’t spot Mame for one.”
“Hype with a big H for heroin, Howie. Doesn’t show it much, though. I’ll give you that.”
“I haven’t known enough junkies to be any judge,” I said. “The only one I know for sure is the cook at Burke’s.”
“Don’t ever try it, Howie. It’s bad stuff. I joy-popped once just to see what it was like, but never again. Too easy to get to like it. And Howie, it can make things rough.”
I said, “I hear your words of wisdom and shall stick to drink. Speaking of which—” I poured myself another.
2
I got to the restaurant – it’s on Main, a block from Fifth – at a quarter after eleven, only fifteen minutes late. Burke was at the stove – he does his own cooking until noon, when Ramon comes on – and turned to glare at me but didn’t say anything.
Still feeling good from the drinks, I dived into my dishwashing.
The good feeling was mostly gone, though, by noon, when Ramon came on. He had a fresh bandage on his forehead; I wondered if there was a new knife wound under it. He already had two knife scars, old ones, on his cheek and on his chin. He looked mean, too, and I decided to stay out of his way. Ramon’s got a nasty temper when he needs a
jolt, and it was pretty obvious that he needed one. He looked like a man with a kingsize monkey, and he was. I’d often wondered how he fed it. Cooks draw good money compared to other restaurant help, but even a cook doesn’t get enough to support a five or six cap a day habit, not at a joint like Burke’s anyway. Ramon was tall for a Mexican, but he was thin and his face looked gaunt. It’s an ugly face except when he grins and his teeth flash white. But he wouldn’t be grinning this afternoon, not if he needed a jolt.
Burke went front to work the register and help at the counter for the noon rush, and Ramon took over at the stove. We worked in silence until the rush was over, about two o’clock.
He came over to me then. He was sniffling and his eyes were running. He said, “Howie, you do me a favor. I’m burning, Howie, I need a fix, quick. I got to sneak out, fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, I’ll try to watch things. What’s working?”
“Two hamburg steak dinners on. Done one side, five more minutes other side. You know what else to put on.”
“Sure, and if Burke comes back I’ll tell him you’re in the can. But you’d better hurry.”
He rushed out, not even bothering to take off his apron or chef’s hat. I timed five minutes on the clock and then I took up the steaks, added the trimmings and put them on the ledge, standing at an angle back of the window so Burke couldn’t see that it was I and not Ramon who was putting them there. A few minutes later the waitress put in a call for stuffed peppers, a pair; they were already cooked and I didn’t have any trouble dishing them.
Ramon came back before anything else happened. He looked like a different man – he would be for as long as the fix lasted. His teeth flashed. “Million thanks, Howie.” He handed me a flat pint bottle of muscatel. “For you, my friend.”
“Ramon,” I said, “you are a gentleman and a scholar.” He went back to his stove and started scraping it. I bent down out of sight to open the bottle. I took a good long drink and then hid it back out of sight under one of the tubs.
Two-thirty, and my half-hour lunch break. Only I wasn’t hungry. I took another drink of the muskie and put it back. I could have killed it but the rest of the afternoon would go better if I rationed it and made it last until near quitting time.
I wandered over to the alley entrance, rolling a cigarette. A beautiful bright day out; it would have been wonderful to be at the beach with Billie the Kid.
Only Billie the Kid wasn’t at the beach; she was coming toward me from the mouth of the alley. She was still wearing the dress she’d pulled on over the bathing suit but she wasn’t at the beach. She was walking toward me, looking worried, looking frightened.
I walked to meet her. She grabbed my arm, tightly. “Howie. Howie, did you kill Mame?”
“Did I – what?”
Her eyes were big, looking up at me. “Howie, if you did, I don’t care. I’ll help you, give you money to get away. But—”
“Whoa,” I said, “Whoa, Billie. I didn’t kill Mame. I didn’t even rape her. She was okay when I left. What happened? Or are you dreaming this up?”
“She’s dead, Howie, murdered. And about the time you were there. They found her a little after noon and say she’d been dead somewhere around two hours. Let’s go have a drink and I’ll tell you what all happened.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ve got most of my lunch time left. Only I haven’t been paid yet—”
“Come on, hurry.” As we walked out of the alley she took a bill from her purse and stuffed it into my pocket. We took the nearest ginmill and ordered drinks at a booth at the back where we weren’t near enough anyone to be heard. The bill she’d put in my pocket was a sawbuck. When the waitress brought our drinks and the change I shoved it toward Billie. She shook her head and pushed it back. “Keep it and owe me ten, Howie. You might need it in case – well, just in case.” I said, “Okay, Billie, but I’ll pay this back.” I would, too, but it probably wouldn’t be until I mailed it to her from Chicago and it would probably surprise the hell out of her to get it.
I said, “Now tell me, but quit looking so worried. I’m as innocent as new-fallen snow – and I don’t mean cocaine. Let me reconstruct my end first, and then tell yours. I got to work at eleven-twenty. Walked straight there from your place, so it would have been ten after when I left you. And – let’s see, from the other end, it was ten o’clock when I woke up, wouldn’t have been over ten or fifteen minutes before I knocked on your door, another few minutes before I got to Mame’s and I was up there only a few minutes. Say I saw her last around twenty after ten, and she was okay then. Over.”
“Huh? Over what?”
“I mean, you take it. From when I left you, about ten minutes after eleven.”
“Oh. Well, I straightened the room, did a couple things, and left, it must have been a little after twelve on account of the noon whistles had blown just a few minutes ago. I was going to the beach. I was going to walk over to the terminal and catch the Santa Monica bus, go to Ocean Park. Only first I stopped in the drugstore right on the corner for a cup of coffee. I was there maybe ten–fifteen minutes letting it cool enough to drink and drinking it. While I was there I heard a cop car stop near but I didn’t think anything of it; they’re always picking up drunks and all.
“But while I was there, too, I remembered I’d forgot to bring my sunglasses and sun-tan oil, so I went back to get them.
“Minute I got inside the cops were waiting and they asked if I lived there and then started asking questions, did I know Mame and when I saw her last and all.”
“Did you tell them you’d talked to her on the phone?”
“Course not, Howie. I’m not a dope. I knew by then something had happened to her and if I told them about that call and what it was about, it would have brought you in and put you on the spot. I didn’t even tell them you were with me, let alone going up to Mame’s. I kept you out of it.
“They’re really questioning everybody, Howie. They didn’t pull me in but they kept me in my own room questioning me till just fifteen minutes ago. See, they really worked on me because I admitted I knew Mame – I had to admit that ’cause we work at the same place and they’d have found that out.
“And of course they knew she was a hype, her arms and all; they’re checking everybody’s arms and thank God mine are okay. They asked me mostly about where we worked, Mike’s. I think they figure Mike Karas is a dealer, what with Mame working for him.”
“Is he, Billie?”
“I don’t know, honey. He’s in some racket, but it isn’t dope.”
I said, “Well, I don’t see what either of us has to worry about. It’s not our – My God, I just remembered something.”
“What, Howie?”
“A guy saw me going in her room, a milkman. Mame was in the hall paying him off when I went up. She told me to go on in and I did, right past him.”
“Jesus, Howie, did she call you by name when she told you to go on in? If they get a name, even a first name, and you living right across the street—”
I thought hard. “Pretty sure she didn’t, Billie. She told me to go in and take a load off, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t add a Howie to it. Anyway, they may never find the milkman was there. He isn’t likely to stick his neck out by coming to them. How was she killed, Billie?”
“Somebody said a shiv, but I don’t know for sure.”
“Who found her and how come?”
“I don’t know. They were asking me questions, not me asking them. That part’ll be in the papers, though.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s let it go till this evening, then. How’s about this evening, Billie, are you going to The Best Chance anyway?”
“I got to, tonight, after that. If I don’t show up, they’ll want to know why and where I was and everything. And listen, don’t you come around either, after hours tonight or in the morning. You stay away from that building, Howie. If they find that milkman they might even have him staked out watching for you. Don’t even walk p
ast. You better even stay off that block, go in and out the back way to your own room. And we better not even see each other till the heat’s off or till we know what the score is.”
I sighed.
I was ten minutes late reporting back and Burke glared at me again but still didn’t say anything. I guess I was still relatively dependable for a dishwasher, but I was learning.
I made the rest of the wine last me till Baldy, the evening shift dishwasher, showed up to relieve me. Burke paid me off for the day then, and I was rich again.
3
Someone was shaking me, shaking me hard. I woke to fuzz and fog and Billie the Kid was peering through it at me, looking really scared, more scared than when she’d asked me yesterday if I’d killed Mame.
“Howie, wake up.” I was in my own little shoebox of a room, Billie standing by my cot bending over me. I wasn’t covered, but the extent of my undressing had been to kick off my shoes.
“Howie, listen, you’re in trouble, honey. You got to get out of here, back way like I come in. Hurry.”
I sat up and wanted to know the time.
“Only nine, Howie. But hurry. Here. This will help you.” She screwed off the top of a half-pint bottle of whisky. “Drink some quick. Help you wake up.”
I took a drink and the whisky burned rawly down my throat. For a moment I thought it was going to make me sick to my stomach, but then it decided to stay down and it did clear my head a little. Not much, but a little.
“What’s wrong, Billie?”
“Put on your shoes. I’ll tell you, but not here.”
Luckily my shoes were loafers and I could step into them. I went to the basin of water, rubbed some on my face. While I washed and dried and ran a comb through my hair Billie was going through the dresser; a towel on the bed, everything I owned piled on it. It didn’t make much of a bundle.
The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction Page 56