The Kind One

by Tom Epperson

  Guys like him and Bud had made most of their money from bootlegging. Repeal had happened just six months ago, which had basically jerked the rug out from under them. Now they were scrambling around trying to get into new things.

  “We put too many of our eggs into one single basket,” said Schnitter, who still had a slight German accent.

  “That’s it exactly, Max,” said Bud. “You need a lot of different baskets, so in case you got some D.A. with a bug up his ass about this thing or that thing you won’t be totally fucked.”

  “And the secret of success is simple,” Schnitter said. “You must give the people what they want. The government did not have the right to deny a hard-working citizen a drink on Saturday night. Neither should it have the right to tell a man he cannot wager a portion of his wages on the roll of a die; that he cannot enjoy the sexual favors of a beautiful young lady in exchange for a few of his hard-earned dollars; that he shouldn’t forget the burdens of existence for an hour or two by smoking opium or snuffing cocaine.”

  Bud wiped his hands on a tissue. “Danny, you oughta be taking notes when this guy talks. He’s a fucking genius.”

  Schnitter smiled at me. He had sharp eye teeth, like Dracula. He was holding a snifter of brandy in his palm. He sloshed it around gently.

  Teddy Bump had a laugh like a dying hyena and he let it loose now. “What’s so funny?” said Bud.

  “That dame over there. The fucking ash from her cigarette fell down the crack between her tits and she’s going nuts.”

  The pug-nosed guy looked over and started laughing too; his laugh was a lot like Teddy’s.

  I excused myself to go to the can. There was crushed ice in the pisser. It steamed and crackled and melted as I hosed it down. I had an image of a little boy peeing in the snow, the little boy seemed to be me and then he vanished.

  I washed my hands, and looked at myself in a mirror over the sink.

  “Danny Landon,” I said softly.

  There was a guy standing next to me combing his hair.

  “What’s that, mac?”

  “Nothing.” I dried my hands and went out.

  But I didn’t go back to the private room. I went in the bar.

  It was crowded. A chubby Negro in a white suit was playing the piano and singing “Stardust”:

  “You wander down the lane and far away,

  Leaving me a song that will not die—

  Love is now the stardust of yesterday…”

  It was a sad kind of a song, but he was smiling as he sang, and seemed like the happiest guy in the room.

  Tommy and Goodlooking Tommy were sitting at the bar arguing about something. They were both very drunk. “Shanghai Sally!” said Goodlooking Tommy, and Tommy said: “You’re full of shit!” Spit was flying out of their mouths they were getting so mad.

  The bar was so full of smoke I wanted to call the fire department. I went outside to get some fresh air.

  Dick Prettie was standing there, one hand in his pants pocket, the other holding a cigarette. “Who’s Shanghai Sally?” I said.

  Dick laughed. “Them two dumbbells still going at it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s this broad that works as a bouncer in this joint in Pedro.”

  “A broad?”

  “Yeah. She weighs about two fifty and she’s got tattoos of dragons and shit all over her arms. Goodlooking Tommy says her name’s Shanghai Sally. Tommy says her name’s Cairo Mary.”

  “You know which one it is?”

  “Sure. But I’m staying out of it. Both them Tommys is fucking nuts.”

  The sea breeze was blowing in on us and it was cold and I shivered a little. Out in the distance in the dark I could see white lines of foam where the waves were coming in. “Let’s go walk on the beach,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “The hell of it.”

  “I’ll get fucking sand in my shoes.”

  “Ah, come on.”

  So we left the lights and the smoke and the noise of the club behind us and went out on the beach. There was half a moon and plenty of stars. And miles out on the ocean I saw the lights of a ship. I wondered if it was a gambling ship, like the one I’d helped to heist and sink.

  Dick stumbled and started cursing. “It’s happening already, I’m getting sand in my shoes! I can’t stand the way it feels in between my fucking toes!”

  I wondered what Darla was doing. Seitz had banished her from his presence for a few days, because it was that time of the month for her and he couldn’t stand to be around her when that was going on.

  “So how’s it going with Shitter?” said Dick.

  “Okay, I guess.” I saw some seaweed washed up on the shore that looked like a tangled clump of snakes. “He called Bud ‘the Kind One.’”

  “Yeah?”

  “Seems like I remember somebody else calling him that once.”

  “Sure, it’s a nickname. It’s kinda like a joke, see? ’Cause kind ain’t the first thing you’d think of calling Bud Seitz.”

  “Who started calling him that?”

  He stopped to light up a new Old Gold. He cupped the flame of the lighter against the wind. His gaunt face was lit up, and the angles were filled with shadow. “It was this Mexican girl. Emperatriz.

  “She was his girl for a while. He met her in Tia Juana, at Agua Caliente. She was there with this rich Mexican asshole old enough to be her grandpa. Bud told her what horses to bet in a couple of races, and she cleaned up. Then she dumped grandpa and came back up here with us.

  “She was a gorgeous broad, but she was also nice. She was nice to people that most people don’t give a shit about.

  “There was this kid, Flumentino. He worked in the kitchen at the Peacock, sweeping up, taking out the garbage, that kinda shit. He had a long neck and big ears and he was always smiling at everybody. Everybody thought he was a dummy, but maybe that’s just ’cause he didn’t speak no English to speak of.

  “Anyway, Emperatriz was nice to Flumentino, and maybe he got the wrong idea. One night, him and one of the cooks, they’d been nipping at a bottle all night, and I guess he musta got pretty plastered, ’cause when Emperatriz walked by he grabbed her by the ass. And Bud happened to walk in right at that moment and he seen it.

  “Jesus Christ, Danny, what they did to that poor kid. They cleared the kitchen out and tied him up and put him up on this counter where the cooks do their chopping. When they got done with him, they had to put him in four different gunnysacks to get him outa the kitchen. And then I got stuck with the job of going out in the desert to bury the sacks.”

  “What was Emperatriz doing during all this?”

  “Begging. Pleading. Screaming. But it didn’t do no good. And after that she started calling Bud el Benévolo. The Kind One.”

  “What ever happened to her?”

  Dick took a drag on his cigarette—took his time blowing the smoke back out. “I don’t know. She just kinda disappeared. Went back to Mexico, I guess.”

  We started walking again. The sand sucked at my shoes. The waves slid up the beach then slipped away.

  “Was I there?” I said.

  “Was you where?”

  “In the kitchen. That night.”

  Dick was quiet a minute. “I think you was outa town. On business.”

  I wondered what business I was on. We heard some laughing and screaming—a happy kind of screaming—then we saw a guy and a girl playing around in the water. Dick said: “Shit. They’re naked.”

  They looked young, maybe seventeen or eighteen. They were chasing each other around and grabbing each other and kissing and then they’d laugh when a wave hit them and by the light of the half of the moon I could make out the nipples on the girl and the hair down between her legs and my heart felt like it was about to bust I wanted so bad to be out there in the waves chasing around a girl, not her, not Darla even, but the girl I dreamed about sometimes, the girl with the dark hair and the olive skin.

  “Looks like th
ey’re having fun,” Dick said wistfully.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know the last time I screwed a broad that wasn’t a whore?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. Probably when Babe Ruth was still a pitcher.”

  We walked a little further, then Dick said: “Hey, lookit!”

  We’d found their clothes on the sand. A “his” pile and a “her” pile.

  “I know what,” said Dick. “Let’s bury ’em!”

  “Their clothes? What for?”

  “’Cause it’ll be funny as hell.”

  I thought about it a minute. “Nah. Let’s just leave ’em alone.”

  “Well, no way I ain’t gonna get a fucking souvenir.”

  He rummaged through the “her” pile then pulled out her underpants. He held them up dangling in front of his eyes and grinned then stuffed them in his pocket.

  We headed back up the beach. When we got close to the Surf Club we saw a couple of guys duking it out on the sand. We got a little closer and saw it was Tommy and Goodlooking Tommy.

  It looked like Goodlooking Tommy was getting the worst of it. By the way, it wasn’t like Goodlooking Tommy was really that goodlooking. Nello Marlini was twice as goodlooking as Goodlooking Tommy, girls were telling him all the time he was a dead ringer for Rudolph Valentino. But it got confusing having two guys named Tommy around, so since one of them was goodlooking in comparison to the other, who was very ugly, he got hung with the name Goodlooking Tommy. The alternative would have been for Goodlooking Tommy just to be Tommy and for Tommy to be Ugly Tommy.

  We ran toward them, as well as you can run in the sand, yelling at them to stop it.

  But they ignored us. Goodlooking Tommy tried to kick Tommy in the balls but Tommy dodged it and grabbed hold of his leg and started twisting it till he fell down. Then Tommy jumped on his back and started pounding on his head with his fists and yelling: “SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT!” and Goodlooking Tommy said: “FUCK YOU!”

  Tommy suddenly whipped out his revolver and put it to Goodlooking Tommy’s head and pulled back the hammer.

  “Say ‘Cairo Mary,’ damn it, or I’m putting a bullet in your fucking head!”

  Dick and I jumped on Tommy and dragged him off. His gun went off with a heartstopping pop and a bullet flew out over the ocean. Dick was beside himself.

  “Jesus Christ, Tommy, are you crazy? Bud’s gonna cut all our fucking balls off!” Because Bud couldn’t stand for us to get out of control in public. Unless, of course, he’d given us the say-so.

  “Dick,” said Tommy, “you know what her fucking name is. Tell him. Tell the prick.”

  “I’m staying outa this.”

  Goodlooking Tommy stood up, brushing sand off his suit. He shot his cuffs, straightened the knot in his tie. “Everybody but this shitstick knows her name is Shanghai Sally.”

  “Shut up,” said Dick. “You guys are like a couple of fucking kids. I don’t wanna hear nothing more about it.”

  We all started walking back toward the Surf Club. By the time we got there the Tommys were laughing and joking around about something. I’d noticed they had memories like dogs or cats, not usually seeming to go back more than a minute or two into the past.

  I went back in the private room. Everybody was standing up and getting ready to go. “That musta been the longest piss in history,” said Bud when he saw me.

  “Sorry, Bud. I went for a walk.”

  Max Schnitter was smiling at me with a slightly puzzled expression, as though he couldn’t quite figure out what to make of me. “It was good to see you again, Danny,” he said, holding his hand out.

  I shook his hand and said: “Good to see you again, Mr. Shitter.” Bud glared at me, but Schnitter didn’t act as if he’d noticed.

  “So, Max,” said Bud, “lemme talk to Blinky about a couple of things and then I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to it,” said Schnitter. He didn’t stick his hand out to Bud because he knew how he felt about shaking hands.

  We all headed toward the door. Teddy Bump was walking in front of us with Vic, Schnitter’s guy. They were talking and swapping their hyena laughs with one another like they’d suddenly become best buddies.

  A fat-assed woman wearing a fox stole that had the sad head and bushy tail of a fox hanging off it squealed as a clatter of quarters came out of a slot machine. A long-legged cigarette girl snarled at some drunk: “Hey, keep your stinking mitts offa me!” White dice tumbled across a green table as the shooter yelled: “Eighter from Decatur!”

  I noticed people looking at us respectfully as we passed, like we were all big important guys, like we had the world by the tail, by its bushy tail.

  We stopped off at a table near the door where some guys were playing cards. “Hey, Floyd,” said Bud, “let’s see what kinda balls you got. Let’s cut the cards for 10,000 bucks.”

  Floyd, who had three or four chins spilling out over his collar, looked around at the other guys at the table, who were grinning at him expectantly; then he set down the deck in front of Bud.

  “Okay, Bud. Let’s go.”

  “Go ahead, Danny,” said Bud.

  “Huh?”

  “Cut the cards.”

  “Aw, no, Bud, not me—”

  “Go ahead, kid. I got a feeling.”

  People at other tables were watching now. The cigarette girl paused in her tour of the room, and waited high atop her legs. I felt my heart speeding up as I reached for the deck.

  Three of hearts.

  The guys at the table started to laugh—Floyd too, his chins shaking. The cigarette girl smirked at me. But Bud didn’t bat an eye.

  “Hey, it ain’t over yet. Floyd?”

  Floyd shook his head and sighed like this was all a tiresome formality and reached over and cut the cards.

  Deuce of spades.

  The guys at the table were howling now. I heard some cheers and applause coming from some of the other tables. The cigarette girl gave me a nice smile, showing rosy gums and even white teeth. And Floyd’s face and all his chins were turning as red as a brick. “You know, Bud, I don’t actually have that kind of money on me right at this moment—”

  “Don’t sweat it, Floyd. I know you’re good for it. Just bring it around tomorrow.”

  Then Bud slapped me on the back as we went out. “See, kid? You’re a winner.”

  Bud and I were in the back seat of his bulletproof black Lincoln sedan as it sped northward on Sepulveda toward Hollywood. Teddy Bump was driving. Dick and the two Tommys were behind us in another car.

  Bud was smoking a cigar and sipping some whiskey on the rocks; he was in a good mood.

  “I figured something out tonight. It’s like silent pictures and pictures with people talking. Most of them old movie stars couldn’t make the switch. It turned out the guys had voices like fairies and the broads sounded like cats that was getting their tails stepped on. Same thing since they made booze legal. A lotta guys are gonna fall along the wayside. But not me. I’m gonna be smart about all this.”

  I nodded. Bud rattled around the ice in his glass. “What do you think of Schnitter?”

  “He’s okay.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “I didn’t say anything was the matter with him.”

  “Come on, Danny, I know you. Spit it out.”

  “Well…if you were to eat a bunch of bad oysters and you’re puking your guts out all night, and then you finally fall asleep, but you’re still sick, and you’re having these horrible dreams, they’re like the worst nightmares of your life, and you’re thrashing around in bed and moaning…well, Schnitter’s the kind of guy you might be dreaming about.”

  Bud puffed on his cigar and looked at me.

  “That sounds nuts, I guess.”

  “No, Danny, I understand your meaning. I’ve noticed you’re usually very sharp about people. I always take what you say very serious.”

  We rolled on through the dark awhile, and then:
“Bud? Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “How old am I?”

  He seemed taken aback. “How old are you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked away from me and out the window. There wasn’t much to look at.

  “Twenty-five, kid. You’re twenty-five.”

  Chapter 8

  “SMELL ME,” SAID Darla.

  She offered me her wrist. I could see green and blue and purple veins under the skin which seemed as thin and white as tissue paper.

  It made me dizzy she smelled so good. Like sticking my head in a bucket of flowers. “Nice,” I said.

  “It’s Mitsouko. Jean Harlow’s favorite. I bought twenty bottles.”

  We were driving away from Bullock’s Department Store on Wilshire. On the radio the announcer said Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker had been killed by lawmen in Louisiana.

  “So they finally got them,” said Darla.

  I’d been guarding her body for three and a half weeks. I was obviously an intimidating force, since there hadn’t been a single attempt to attack or kidnap her.

  I’d taken her, in puffy pants and high black boots, to her weekly horseback-riding lesson at the DuBrock Riding Academy. I’d driven her, pale and sweaty and gritting her teeth, to see a Dr. Siegel in Beverly Hills for some kind of “female” complaint. I’d eaten triple-decker ice cream sundaes with her at Eskimo Ice Cream, which was a building shaped like an igloo, and had platefuls of steaming, gleaming, tender pork ribs at the Pick-a-Rib Barbecue Pit on Melrose. I’d gone with her to a bar in Malibu because she said they served great silver fizzes there, that’s a drink made with egg whites; I couldn’t have choked one down on a bet but she drank three then we drove on up the Coast Highway to Point Dume. It’s a finger of land sticking out in the ocean where Santa Monica Bay ends. We got out of the car and walked around. It was windy and the water was blue and there weren’t any clouds. A couple of hundred feet from shore a sea lion was sunning itself on a big rock. You could look up the coast and see the rest of California disappearing into the distance, and you could imagine disappearing into that distance too, not looking back, just traveling forever.