My Lovely Executioner

by Peter Rabe

  “You mean convince them?”

  “If you mean talking, yes.”

  “Why should they listen to me?”

  “Because I tell ‘em to,” said Mishkin. “Besides, Rand will be along.”

  “That’ll convince them,” I said.

  “Yeah. He’s good.”

  Later in the afternoon I got very tired so Mishkin ordered some coffee. He stuck to whiskey. I drank the coffee and smoked too much and when I didn’t think about this dope business I had a number of other things preying on my mind. Maybe that was the reason for my being so tired.

  Mishkin kept drilling names into me, names of his men and what they were like, which ones he figured he could spare from the payroll and why not some others. What made me more and more irritable, as time wore on, was the fact that all this was sham. It was excellent, fully detailed, very plausible business but it all stood for something else and I was the patsy, and the more I felt like the patsy the more ominous everything became.

  “You listening, Gallivan?”

  “Yes. And thinking.”

  “You thinking how we can drop that east sector and handle that part from the rest of town?”

  “No. How in hell can I? None of this stuff here,” and I slapped the papers, “shows how much is pushed by whom. That jerk who’s reporting on that sector doesn’t know how many pushers from the other end are peddling in his territory.”

  “You mean Tooley.”

  “Whoever he is. Before I can make an intelligent move …”

  “Good thinking,” said Mishkin. “I wish Tooley was thinking that way.”

  “Maybe he didn’t go to college.” I took another cigarette and I noticed that it took me a while to get it lit. It didn’t take much to make me jumpy.

  “The other one, your buddy, he was much better.”

  “So hire him.”

  “He ran it good,” said Mishkin. He didn’t seem to notice my little case of nerves but was looking up at the ceiling. “Only trouble was, he kept himself awful secretive.”

  “Maybe that had to do with the cops,” I said. “Maybe he didn’t want them to know what he was doing.”

  “He kept himself that way all around. Did you notice that?”

  “When?”

  “When you knew him. You bunked with him, you told me.”

  I didn’t get to answer that or think about the remark in detail because Rand came in.

  “My, you guys keep at it Why don’t you open a window here? The smoke is something.”

  “Leave it, leave it,” said Mishkin. “All I need is a draft.”

  He was getting irritable, too, but Rand laughed.

  “Why don’t you knock off,” he said. “Give Gallivan here a chance to enjoy his freedom.”

  “We’re almost done,” said Mishkin. “Where was I?”

  “How do I know,” I told him. “Rand, if I could have another cup of coffee …”

  “Yeah, I remember now,” said Mishkin. “What a secretive bastard that Tooley was. Gallivan here was telling me.”

  “I was? What did I say?”

  “That’s right, you didn’t get a chance to say. Rand came in.”

  I said, “Tooley only talked his head off when he had nothing to say.” Which was true.

  “Except when he got sentimental,” said Rand. “You remember?”

  “Remember?”

  “In the yard once,” said Rand. “You and me by the south wall when the sun was shining, half a year ago, maybe.”

  “They were playing baseball — ” I said, trying to think.

  “How sentimental Tooley got sometimes,” Rand went on, while I hung on each word like hanging on a sill by the fingernails, and if I could only pull myself up and look into the window, then I’d know everything.

  I had said something to Rand about Tooley. I knew something they didn’t know — and something I couldn’t remember!

  And all this — the weird, painful escape, the weird, smoothly-planned job — all this was about something they thought I knew!

  “Was hot that day,” Rand said.

  Cautious. But he was cautious.

  “I think Block C was ahead with two runs, when we talked,” he said.

  So cautious, because if I should realize what he was after —

  “They were always ahead. Was that the day they kept Linsky down to one hit?”

  So cautious, because if they should realize that I couldn’t remember —

  “I don’t know,” said Rand. “We weren’t watching too hard, anyway. You kept talking.”

  “About baseball?”

  “Some. About home.”

  “I never played baseball at home. I played …”

  “No, you didn’t say that.”

  “Hell,” I said, “I don’t remember,” but the meaning of that phrase threw me into a hot set of jitters, as if I had already told them, “Listen, Rand, listen, Mishkin, whatever you want from me, so help me, I can’t remember!”

  It didn’t take much to throw me that day. There had been one rotten quirk after another. If Rand flipped a gun out now and hauled out for the bridge of my nose —

  He laughed, which frightened me almost as much as my fantasy, and then he said, “You didn’t remember then, either, so don’t worry about it.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, I didn’t know what I had missed, and if this went on much longer —

  “I want Gallivan to pay some attention here,” Mishkin said, “and you and him can do your reminiscing some other time. You paying attention, Gallivan?”

  All I needed now was somebody riding me. I looked at Mishkin and thought I had never seen anybody so sloppy fat.

  “Yuh. I’m paying attention. I’m listening to Rand with my ears and to you with my intuition. Business intuition. You want to know how to squeeze a little more dough, another drop maybe, out of all the half-dead little junkies who go to high school to prepare for life, and the others who look at the river thinking how to end it You …”

  “Watch it, Gallivan,” Rand said next to me.

  But it wasn’t a threat He put his hand on my shoulder and said it as if he thought I’d feel better if I were calm.

  “You get outa here,” Mishkin snapped at Rand. “If I’m gonna get any work done on any kind of an intelligent level …”

  “I think Gallivan’s getting tired,” said Rand.

  “I think Gallivan is,” I said, though I wasn’t tired, only riled up and too tense.

  “How are you and him going to pull out of here tonight if all you’re gonna do is talk about baseball in the pen, damn it!”

  “Pull out of here tonight?” said Rand.

  “Gallivan’s a smart boy,” said Mishkin, “but not smart enough to walk out of here with half the facts in his head and the rest nowhere and him supposed to look like something in the morning.”

  “I can’t go tonight,” said Rand. “Honest, Mishkin.”

  “Why? You got lights out at nine or something?”

  “There’s a party.”

  “A what?”

  “Jeesis, Mishkin, I just got out! Some of the others in town are making a party, and as for that Yorkdam business, I don’t see how a day is going to make any difference.”

  “It better make a difference,” said Mishkin. “Do you realize …”

  “I’m going tomorrow,” said Rand. “Not tonight.”

  “Yes,” I said to Mishkin, “let’s first have a party. I haven’t had a party …”

  “Yeah, I know, in over seven years.”

  “And now it’s time for the seven-year itch.”

  Mishkin didn’t like my tone and wanted to say something else when that sharp bell went off again. Mishkin looked at the door and then he started to curse, low and foul. He was done by the time he got out of his chair, but when he walked out of the door he said, “Christ, how I hate that damn thing!”

  Rand and I watched the door close and then looked at each other.

  “What was that?” I asked
him.

  “Mishkin hates to move.”

  “The bell, I mean.”

  “That’s a signal for Mishkin. Well, what do you say, Gallivan? Party?”

  I sat back in my chair and thought, why in hell not I was suspicious enough now to think even the quarrel between Mishkin and Rand had been fake, to make the party less suspect to me while all along that would be the time when they’d hook me like never before. But a party was fine. Whatever was up, at least it would look like a party and since nothing looked like what it really was anyway —

  “What kind of party?”

  “Like the kind you think about, in the bucket.”

  Another illusion. I said, “That’s for me, Rand.” And then we left.

  • • •

  Five miles from the sanatorium we came to the town. It looked Christmasy when we rolled up to it, because of the snow on the roofs, the little lights in the windows, and because it was dark by then. From close up, when we drove through the streets, the town was crummy. Salt had burnt the snow off the streets and there was a mess of cinders all over.

  “Whoopla,” said Rand when he bumped over a clinker.

  “That’s a party sound,” I told him.

  “We won’t be bumping no clinkers,” he said and gave a laugh.

  I didn’t think the “whoopla” or the laugh fit Rand, but I wasn’t going to worry about it.

  “There’ll be liquor, I assume.”

  “We’ll be bumping that, and more.”

  “You can say it, Rand. You mean girls.”

  “Whoopla.”

  He said it as if reading it off a script It would be a fine party.

  We went up a driveway, past a house, and up to another house in a yard of junk. The clapboard was sprung on one side and the wooden porch leaned a little.

  There was a wreath on the front door, with a red ribbon. When we got out of the car I saw the wreath give a jump because somebody must have bumped the door. All the windows had brown shades drawn down to the bottom. They looked almost gold with the light from the other side.

  Once inside I thought I had never seen such a lousy place for a party. It was good and busy and there was a lot of blue smoke in the air, but one couch was missing a leg, one wall was missing wallpaper, the bulb at the ceiling was missing a shade. Doors there were none, just curtains.

  I said, “Jeesis!”

  “Something, huh?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Everybody knew Rand. In a minute he had three cans of beer in his arm, a glass in his hand, and a red lipstick smear on the side of his nose.

  The men were short, tall, with jackets, without jackets, ties on and off, but all of them noisy. Very young party, I thought. Showing a lot of effort yet. And the girls were short, tall, with dresses, with things barely called dresses, straps on or off, but all of them noisy. Very young party girls, I noticed. Showing a lot of effort yet.

  “And this is my buddy, Gallivan,” Rand was yelling, and then I got slapped on the back too, got a glass to hold and a can of beer and a smack of red lipstick on my jawbone.

  “Hi, buddy,” she said.

  She was wearing an evening gown which didn’t seem to start until you looked down to the waist. She was very young and I had an impulse to ask her about it but was afraid of what she might say.

  “You want something, buddy?” She hung close up against me and smiled.

  “Huh?”

  “The way you looked,” she said, “I was wondering if you wanted something.”

  “A drink. I want a big drink.”

  She took me to the kitchen. We fought through the curtain which hung in the doorway and then we fought as far as the sink. It had a wooden drainboard, stained with mold, and all the bottles on top were leaning. The sink itself, which was tin, had nothing but ice in it Young party. Lots of ice yet.

  “You want it brown or amber or yellow?”

  “Huh?”

  “Buddy, you keep saying ‘huh’ to me. What’s it mean, buddy?”

  “It means I love you but don’t know how to say it.”

  “Brown, amber, or yellow?”

  “Just pour, girl. As long as there’s no water in it I don’t care if it’s green.”

  “You’re fuh-nee,” she said and gave me a highball glass all brown up to the middle.

  I didn’t do much talking for a while but kept smiling at the girl now and then so she wouldn’t be insulted. I was still that sober. She talked about various things, about her name being Betty, about loving parties, about “Gee, did you ever see such an old fridge,” at which point she walked over to it and gave it a kick. The refrigerator stopped churning on the inside and something seemed to drop, the motor maybe. She said, “Gee,” and came back.

  “Buddy, isn’t it nicer now without the noise?”

  “Betty, I love the silence. Just happy people now, all screaming.”

  “Fuh-nee.”

  “Ought to be. Betty and Buddy, like a team.”

  “Move your hand a little, buddy, you got such big knuckles.”

  I moved my hand so she could get closer and put it on her hip. She gave a squeal and a jump.

  “Buh-dee, you got three hands?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean, how’d you goose me just now?”

  I hadn’t goosed her. Somebody else had done it and she could take her pick from among a dozen.

  “You said ‘huh’ again just a minute ago. What did you say that meant?”

  “It’s short for huhuhuhu! Laughter.”

  “Fuh-nee. My, buddy, lookit your glass!”

  I looked at the glass and saw that it was almost empty.

  “You always gotta drink so much beforehand?”

  I didn’t say ‘huh’ again, but “What?”

  “We’re gonna play, aren’t we?”

  She made that clear by taking my hand off her hip and putting it someplace else. Then she gave a squeal and a jump.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “Somebody else goosed you.”

  “Such a cold one!” she yelled, and it turned out she wasn’t talking about a goose at all but an ice cube down her back.

  “Take it out,” she said.

  I wasn’t quick enough, or not enough hands for a place such as this one, because a kid more like Betty’s age got there first and found the ice cube.

  “Was twice the size when I dropped it,” he told her and held the cube out for her.

  “Fuh-nee!” and that was the last I saw of Betty because the other one, the kid, had managed to make a much stronger impression on her.

  I had more to drink.

  There were herring and pickles in the refrigerator and I ate some of that at the half-way mark. Afterwards I got rid of the taste with more brown liquor and was soon well beyond the half-way mark or the point of no return. I didn’t know which yet.

  There was another room I hadn’t seen. The furniture was pushed out of the way and a manner of dancing was going on in the middle. We had records for dancing. We had wondrous dance talent on display, unless it was the liquor responsible for the distortion. This girl really shook that dance all to pieces. She started out normal enough, except for the homburg on her head, and even that wasn’t too far gone and certainly better looking than some party tricks I’d seen.

  Except this one ended up with just the homburg in a short while, and for a strip tease it was the absolute fastest in my recollection, a rip tease, more properly.

  Then a big guy came out to dance with her which meant she had to give up the hat too. Which she did. For a little while she wasn’t going to dance with him or anybody else without her shoes on. She’d be damned if she did and somebody around here better cough up those shoes but right quick.

  “Ain’t she got spirit?” said Micky.

  “Very effective, everything. I love those shoes.”

  “Boy,” said Micky. “And you got the spirit You talk thick.”

  “Don’t lisp, Micky.”

  “Lookit what she’s
doing, Gallivan!”

  “She’s dancing.”

  “No, not that.”

  “She’s taking her shoes off, that devil.”

  “I mean with the fat guy, the way she’s turning him. He’s getting dizzy, I think.”

  “Wouldn’t you, Micky?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Don’t be vulgar, Micky.”

  “Gallivan, sometimes I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “So. You been listening to every word, have you?”

  “But weren’t you talking to me?”

  I felt very comfortable talking to Micky and we kept it up for a while, because here, I was certain, there were no ulterior motives.

  Then he said, “Somebody been looking for you, Gallivan.”

  “Who, Betty?”

  “No.”

  “Buddy.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Fuh-nee.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, Jessie was.”

  “She’s here?”

  “Now where in hell would she be if she was looking for you, Gallivan?”

  “Don’t riddle me no riddles, feller, I’ve had a full day of that.”

  “Yeah, that Mishkin. But she’s across the way.”

  I tried to look across the way but it was either the liquor or all the dancers —

  “How many dancers now, Micky?”

  “A whole floor full, Gallivan. The nekkid one’s disappeared.”

  “Thank you, Micky.”

  I knocked his glass out of his hand by mistake but then I got off well enough, with all the dancers supporting me on the way. On the other side of the room I rested a moment, holding on to what turned out to be a radiator with all the fins running the wrong way. I took that in my stride until it turned out that they did run the wrong way, since the radiator wasn’t connected but stood upended in the corner. I rested some more then, wishing there were some fresh air.

  Then I saw Jessie. She was sitting on a table and laughing. I had never seen her laugh before and the sight gave me a shock. I couldn’t see well enough to tell whether her eyes did in fact close all the way when she laughed, but I saw how her head was back, laughing hard.

  I went over there and said, “Hello, Jessie.”