The Kind One

by Tom Epperson

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You didn’t hear it?” I said.

  “Hear what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nucky told me you were out here.”

  “Nucky!” snorted Janet.

  Darla looked at Janet with puzzlement and distaste. “Who are you?”

  Janet sighed, and wiped away a tear just under her eye. “‘She wiped away a tear of laughter.’ I’m sorry. I plead guilty to conduct unbecoming a Rumson girl. I’m Janet.” She looked at me. “My parents and I are leaving in the morning, Danny. For Lake Tahoe. We specialize in lakes. So I guess this is good-bye.”

  She approached and then as she leaned in I put my hand on my gun in case she was planning to go for it again but all she did was whisper in my ear: “Room 225. I’ll leave the door unlocked, my darling.” She brushed my earlobe with her lips, then Darla and I watched her walk back inside.

  “What was that all about?”

  “She reminds me of somebody I think I used to know.”

  “Oh, Danny, you’re starting to remember?”

  “I think so. A little.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Where’s Bud and everybody?”

  “Discussing ‘important business.’ They told Violet and me to get lost. The crummy bastards.”

  The sounds of Sally Layne and her band floated out onto the terrace. We looked back into the Moonlight Room, could see Sally Layne dramatically lit up in the dark, covered in the cold fire of her gown.

  “That should be me,” Darla said softly.

  “You miss singing?”

  She nodded. She looked at me. “Wanna go down to the lake?”

  We were the only ones on the little road. The pines crowded in close as the lights of Birkenhead Manor disappeared behind us. All we could hear was the wind in the tops of the trees and our shoes on the pavement.

  “’Member that bear in the lobby?” said Darla.

  “Yeah.”

  “Think there’s any more like him out here?”

  “I doubt it. I think the pioneers killed all the bears and the Indians and so on.”

  “It’s still pretty scary though.”

  “Wanna go back?”

  “No.” And then her hand found mine.

  “Danny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I hear the guys talking about you sometimes. I hate to say it, but—it’s like they’re making fun of you. It’s like they don’t respect you.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They make jokes about you being stupid. ’Cause you can’t remember stuff. Which shows you how stupid they are. And they got this name for you.”

  She hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Limpy. Two Gun Limpy Landon.”

  “Dick? He calls me that?”

  “No, not Dick. I think he really cares about you.”

  “And Bud? What does he say about me?”

  “It’s funny with Bud. I can tell he really likes you. But he never wants to talk about you. Except to make sure you haven’t been getting fresh with me.”

  “How come you’re telling me this?”

  “I just think you should know who your friends are. That’s all.”

  It seemed like there were about ten times as many stars up here in the mountains as down in the city, and they shined above us between the pines like a parallel heavenly road. I started thinking as we kept walking and didn’t find the lake that maybe we’d taken the wrong road and we were lost like Tom and Becky and I would have to save her from Injun Joe; then we came out on the lake.

  We could see the lights of hotels and cabins on the dark shores, and from the south, where the little village was, we could hear faintly voices, music, laughter. The wind moved on the lake and turned the reflected moon into wiggling quicksilver. The wind was chilly, and Darla shivered; I took my coat off and draped it over her shoulders.

  We walked a bit. We saw the lights of a boat out on the lake, then heard the low growl of its engine. I wondered if we were anywhere near where they found Doc Travis’s head.

  “Does it ever seem strange to you?” said Darla. “Just being alive? Why is there anything here anyway? The lake. The stars. You and me. The world would make a lot more sense if it just didn’t exist.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “Oh Danny. No you don’t.”

  “Yes I do.”

  Silence from Darla.

  “Don’t you like me a little? Sometimes I think you do.”

  “Sure I do. I like you a lot. That’s why I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I’m not gonna get hurt.”

  She stopped walking and we faced each other.

  “Listen, Danny. Take my word for it. You don’t wanna be with somebody like me.”

  “Why not?”

  “You just don’t. That’s all.”

  Darla was looking up at me, and I saw the glistening of her eyes in the moonlight; then it was like my heart stopped and the moment seemed to stretch on forever, her eyes in the moonlight on the shore of the lake atop the mountain. But when I moved a little closer to her, she immediately turned away and said firmly: “Time to go back.”

  We were walking back toward the road when we heard groaning. My first thought was somebody was hurt or sick; then we saw Teddy Bump.

  He was leaning up against a tree with his eyes closed and his mouth ajar. A guy was kneeling in front of him and his head was moving back and forth. They were into the woods twenty feet or so, but if they’d been looking to conceal themselves they’d picked a bad place since a shaft of moonlight hit them like a spotlight.

  Darla giggled. Teddy heard her and opened his eyes. He stared at us in horror, then the guy on his knees looked over his shoulder; he had a pug-nosed face, and I saw it was Schnitter’s guy Vic Lester.

  “We’ll leave you two lovebirds alone!” called Darla, then, both laughing, we walked away quickly.

  We were back on the road that led up to the hotel when we heard shoe leather cracking along at a great pace behind us. It was Teddy. He was walking so fast, arms pumping and hips rolling, that he looked like a contestant in a walking race. As he went by us he snarled: “Don’t either of yuz say a fucking thing!”

  “Or what?” said Darla.

  “Or else!” yelled Teddy.

  “Don’t threaten us, you bastard!” said Darla, then she grabbed my shoulder for balance and snatched off one of her shoes and flung it at Teddy. It sailed over his head and landed in the woods.

  Teddy, arms swinging savagely, disappeared around a bend in the road. Darla limped like me in her one shoe as we went over to look for the other one. It took us about five minutes to find it.

  Chapter 12

  I RETURNED TO my room, and fell asleep under the painting of the peaceful Indian village. Dreamt all night of massacres, and bugling, and scalping, and bodies floating down the river.

  At one point I woke up with a rockhard hard-on and the conviction that Janet Van der Eb was in the room. My heart was racing and I looked around wildly, then seemed to see her in silhouette, standing at the foot of the bed, gazing down silently at me. The silence should have been a clue it was all an illusion, and after a few seconds she melted back into the general darkness and I fell asleep again.

  When I woke up for good it was nearly nine. I felt exhausted, as though I’d spent the whole night doing calisthenics and running laps around the hotel.

  I shaved and brushed my teeth then went downstairs.

  Darla was in the lobby, sitting around a coffee table with Violet and Wendell Nuffer. Darla was writing a message on a picture postcard, Nuffer was reading the sports pages, and Violet was leafing through a Photoplay with Clark Gable on the cover sporting a roguish grin. They were all drinking coffee; Violet was also chewing gum and smoking a cigarette.

  “Good morning, my boy, how did you sleep?” said Nuffer heartily. He was wearing white trousers, white shoes, and a shimmering silk shirt with an orange
and green and yellow tropical fruit design. “I slept like a top myself. The mountain air, the mountain air!”

  “Anyone hungry?” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Danny, we all just finished breakfast. And what a breakfast it was!” He patted his huge stomach. “What did I have? Five trout and ten eggs? Or was it the reverse?”

  “I don’t know, Daddy,” said Violet, “but it was sure good.”

  Darla glanced up from her postcard. “‘Daddy’?”

  Nuffer squeezed Violet’s knee. “She likes to call me that.”

  “I’ll bet because you got the same name as her father,” I said. “Wendell.”

  “You have an excellent memory. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, Darla, but Danny was there at the very moment when Violet and I met. At that momentous moment, I might say. I know we’ve known each other only these few short weeks, but in the deepest depths of myself I feel as though I’ve known Violet forever. Her sense of humor, the joy she takes in the little things, not to mention of course her green eyes, her red hair, her fair form…it’s hard to imagine their absence from my life. It must have been a very impoverished life. But it all seems so long ago, I can hardly remember.”

  Violet beamed at Nuffer, smacking her gum rapidly. “I just love the way Daddy talks. Don’t you?”

  Loy Hanley came walking up. He was six-four, with a hard lean body, weathered reddish-brown skin, and high cheekbones over hollow cheeks and a thin straight line of a mouth. He was wearing a gray suit, black cowboy boots, and a string bowtie. He hailed, I’d heard, from Texas.

  “Me and some of the fellers is fixing to go fishing,” he said. “Any of y’all wanna join us?”

  Nuffer patted his stomach again. “No thank you, Loy. I’m too busy digesting fish to catch them.”

  “Danny?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t even think I know how to fish.”

  “Oh, there ain’t nothing to it. You just bait your hook and throw it out in the water.”

  “What are you gonna use for bait?” said Violet.

  “Minners.”

  “What’s a minner?”

  “Little bitty fish. ’Bout as long as your finger.”

  Violet took a drag on her cigarette and looked Loy over; the butt of the cigarette was stained red with her lipstick. “You gonna go dressed like that?”

  “Naw, I’m gonna change into my fishing britches. Where you from anyway, Violet? You don’t talk like you’re from California.”

  “Iowa.”

  “Iowa, huh? I used to do a little bi’ness up in Waterloo.”

  “I was Miss Iowa Pork Queen of 1933.”

  Hanley stared pointedly at Violet’s breasts. “Miss Pork Queen! I woulda thunk they’da made you Miss Cow Queen!”

  Violet giggled while Hanley guffawed and Nuffer chuckled uneasily and turned red.

  “Well, see y’all later,” said Hanley, and then his long black-booted legs carried him off across the lobby.

  “Don’t you think Mr. Hanley looks just like Gary Cooper?” said Violet.

  “More like Boris Karloff,” grumbled Nuffer. He made a show of returning to the sports pages, folding them noisily and then holding them up so they hid half his face.

  “Daddy?” said Violet.

  “Hm. Jigger Statz went three for four. He’s been on quite a tear lately.”

  “Daddy?”

  He continued to ignore her. She put her hand on his arm and made him lower the paper; then she pinched his fat pink cheek.

  “Smile, Daddy.”

  But he just gazed back tragically at her. She tickled him under the chin with her finger like he was a baby.

  “Smile, Daddy! Smile!”

  And suddenly he burst out in a great laugh and grabbed her and kissed her and then looked at us utterly happy like he’d just won the grand prize.

  “Isn’t she amazing?”

  Pretty soon after that they walked off to the elevator, holding hands.

  “I felt bad for Mr. Nuffer,” I said.

  “I feel bad for his wife and kids.”

  Darla licked a stamp and put it on the postcard. It had a picture of Birkenhead Manor on it, with the caption: “The Mile-High Paradise In The Pines.” I asked her who she was sending it to.

  “Dr. Ames and Mrs. Ames.”

  I was surprised. “You’re still in touch with them?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always felt guilty about how I just walked away without a word, so a couple of times a year I’ve been sending them a postcard. Just to let them know I’m okay. I don’t put a return address, so there’s no way for them to write me back. I don’t even know if they’re still alive anymore. They’d be in their eighties now.”

  “I’ll bet they’re alive. And they’ll be real happy to get this, and see you’re staying in such a beautiful place.”

  Darla gave me a sad smile. “You’re so sweet.”

  I went in by myself to the Big Boulder Dining Room, and had what Daddy had, the trout and scrambled eggs, called “world-famous” on the menu. On my way out I was walking through the hallway that led to the lobby when I saw Nucky and Goodlooking Tommy sitting at the shoeshine stand. The shoeshine boy was this old colored man named Timothy; he was the only Negro I’d seen at Lake Arrowhead.

  Goodlooking Tommy was reading The Racing Form while he waited for Timothy to finish up Nucky’s shoes. He saw me and motioned me over.

  “So what’s the word?”

  “What’s the word on what?”

  “On how it’s looking from Bud’s corner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hear Max and Loy ain’t getting along. And Bud’s been like a referee in a prize fight.”

  “You’ve heard more than me then.”

  “I thought you was always in the know with Bud.”

  “He hasn’t said ten words to me since we been up here.”

  Goodlooking Tommy looked at me skeptically.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Now Nucky was inspecting Timothy’s handiwork. “Looks real good, boy. A hell of a shine.”

  “Thank you, suh,” said Timothy. He had white curly hair like a lamb, and skin the color of milky coffee.

  Nucky dug in his pocket, and pulled out a silver dollar.

  “Here’s a nice shiny silver dollar. I think you deserve it. Don’t you?”

  Timothy smiled, revealing three or four snaggly teeth. “If you think so, suh.”

  “Well, I think so.”

  Nucky held out the silver dollar, and Timothy put out his palm; then Nucky gave Goodlooking Tommy and me a quick wink and moved his hand half a foot and dropped the coin. It clanged on the rim of a brass spittoon then vanished inside.

  Goodlooking Tommy laughed, then said low in my ear: “Nucky hates niggers.”

  “Yeah, I can see.”

  Timothy was staring at the spittoon; dripping brown spittle glistened around the rim.

  “Well ain’t you gonna get your dollar, boy?” said Nucky. “You don’t wanna hurt my feelings, do you?”

  Timothy looked into Nucky’s chicken eyes, then: “No suh,” he said slowly. He reached in the spittoon. His hand was just small enough to get in there. He fished around a minute, then pulled out the dollar.

  It, and his hand, were covered with a slime made of spit and tobacco juice and cigar and cigarette ashes. I watched Timothy reach for one of his red shoeshine rags to clean off the slime as Nucky and Goodlooking Tommy laughed. And then I walked away.

  Chapter 13

  “I’LL BET YOU think my name’s not really Vera Vermillion.”

  I shrugged. I held no opinion on the subject. She pulled a business card out of her purse and handed it to me.

  VERA VERMILLION

  “One in a Million”

  Actress • Singer • Dancer • Et Cetera

  THE MEL GOLDBERG AGENCY

  NOrmandie 3215

  It seemed like every girl came with some sort of motto or slogan up here. One i
n a Million. The Girl You Wont Forget. Best All-Around Woman.

  I started to hand the card back but she said: “Keep it. You never know when you might need an et cetera.”

  It was the middle of the afternoon. I was killing time till tonight when there was going to be a birthday dinner for Max Schnitter. I’d gone in the hotel bar looking for some company, but it’d been empty except for the elderly couple I’d encountered on the terrace last night. They smiled and nodded at me, and I smiled back and took a seat at the bar. I was drinking a beer, and hoping Bud wouldn’t catch me at it, when Vera Vermillion came in.

  She was a big girl, nearly as tall as me, with a little begirdled waist separating big shoulders and breasts from wide lush hips. She was wearing a clingy reddish-orange dress with matching high heels. An extravagantly colored feather boa was wrapped around her neck, and a little hat with more feathers was perched atop her thick auburn hair.

  She flounced across the room looking flustered and exasperated. She plopped herself down on a barstool and ordered something called a blue moon. It looked like a glowing blue martini. She slurped some down, and it seemed to hit the spot as she sighed and relaxed a little; then she noticed me.

  “I nearly killed a fucking deer,” she said.

  “Really? Why?”

  “Jesus, it wasn’t on purpose. I was driving up here and three deers ran across the road and I nearly hit one of ’em. Jumped right over the hood of my car, I nearly had a heart attack. I hate to drive in the first place. Usually Mel, my agent, he drives me. But we were driving down Melrose yesterday and a bee flew in the window and stung him right in the eyeball. Poor Mel, that kinda shit only happens to him. So he’s back in Hollywood in bed with an ice bag over his eye and I gotta drive up here by myself. Up in the goddamn mountains with deers jumping over my car like the cow jumped over the fucking moon. Whew! At least I made it.” Then she took another drink, and said: “Hi, I’m Vera Vermillion.”

  And I told her my name and that’s when she gave me her card.

  “So what did you come up here for?” I said.

  “I’m doing a show tonight.”

  “What kind of show?”