The Kind One

by Tom Epperson

  Something startled the sparrows, and they whooshed away. Dulwich gave me a wan smile.

  “More plonk?”

  Chapter 21

  DICK AND I drove out Sunset to the ocean then up the Coast Highway to Malibu then onto a little dirt road that took us up into the brown hills. It was hot but we were drinking cold beers and listening to the radio and it was a pleasant ride. We passed some dilapidated cottages and a couple of house trailers and a viciously barking dog chased us for a while till Dick threw his bottle of beer at it, then he pulled over and parked in the shade of a stunted oak tree.

  You had some view from up there; the ocean was wrinkled near the shore then got smoother and smoother and you wished you were an arrow shot from the bow of an infinitely strong archer and you were flying away from Malibu into the endless blue.

  We walked away from the road and up a little draw. We took some beer with us plus a paper sack filled with empty beer bottles.

  Dick unzipped his fly then delivered himself of such a massive amount of piss it was a wonder his skinny frame had had the space to store it. Then he took six of the beer bottles and lined them up in a row. Then we took a position about twenty-five feet away.

  I’d gone to a store on Alvarado called Andy’s Guns & Ammo and got a new Smith & Wesson .38 to replace the one the Mexicans stole; we’d come up here so I could try it out.

  “I’ll take the three on the left,” said Dick.

  “Okay.”

  Dick took his own pistol out of his waistband, then we took turns firing. The noise disturbed a crow that flapped away, peevishly cawing, and I didn’t blame it a bit. It would’ve been ideal to have three arms so I could’ve put a finger in each ear as we blazed away.

  It took Dick four shots to shatter his three bottles, but after I’d emptied my gun of bullets my three bottles still stood sassily upright, gleaming in the sun.

  “Hard to believe I was ever any good at this,” I said as I reloaded.

  Dick coughed, and lit up a cigarette.

  “You’re right, kid. It is hard to believe.”

  PART THREE

  Chapter 1

  BUD CALLED. HE said Darla had a pain in her back, and he wanted me to pick her up in the morning and take her to a chiropractor.

  “Okay,” I said. “What time?”

  “Her appointment’s at six-thirty. Address is 418 Grand. The doc’s name is Brunder.”

  It seemed like a strange time to see a chiropractor, but I didn’t ask any questions. I was at Bud’s house about a quarter to six. Bo Spiller’s shotgun and smashed-raspberry face greeted me at the gate.

  Darla came out of the house, a scarf over her hair and her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. She managed to look pale even through her tan. She didn’t say anything to me when I said good morning. As he opened the gate for us, Spiller gave her his best imitation of a suave grin, but unfortunately it turned into the leer of a maniac.

  We drove south on La Brea through the slowly awakening city. Darla lit up a cigarette. I said: “How’s your back?”

  “It’s fine,” she sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with my back.”

  “But—Bud said—”

  “Oh Danny, can you really be that dumb? Maybe the fellas are right about you.” She was silent, and then: “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I feel lousy. This is a lousy day. I’m having a baby. Except I’m not.”

  She looked at me for the first time; at least I assumed that behind the black glasses pointing at me her eyes were looking at me.

  “Well—say something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m a cheap tramp and I’m going to hell.”

  “Whose idea is this? His?”

  “It’s mine too. We agree on something for once. He doesn’t want a kid ’cause he says two’s company and three’s a crowd. And I don’t want a kid ’cause, well, what girl in her right mind would wanna have Bud Seitz’s baby? It’d probably be a monster, just like him. It’d probably have two heads.”

  “But Darla, isn’t it wrong? Isn’t it just like killing?”

  “You are a killer, Danny. That’s what you do. So you don’t get to judge me.”

  I checked my rearview mirror. Didn’t see any sign of my buddies in the red Buick.

  “Look, let’s just go. Now. You and me. I’ll be its father. It won’t have two heads. We’ll be happy.”

  Darla exhaled a weary plume of smoke.

  “We’d be lucky to make it to the city limits.”

  “This car goes fast. Real fast.”

  “Forget it. I told you. He’s gotta be dead first.”

  “What do you expect me to do? Turn around and go back to the house and kill him? What about all the guys he’s always got all around him? You expect me to kill Nucky and Nello and Willie the Coon and that new guy with the thing on his face too?”

  “I don’t expect you to do anything anymore, Danny. Except to shut up. And leave me alone.”

  Grand was downtown. It wasn’t much of a downtown; none of the buildings were more than ten or twelve stories high. The directory in the lobby of 418 Grand said Dr. Rudolph Brunder’s office was on the eighth floor. The eighth-floor hallway was empty. The pebbled-glass door to Brunder’s office was locked. I looked at my watch. We were a few minutes early.

  There wasn’t any place to sit down. Darla smoked. I leaned against the wall with my hands in my trouser pockets—rattled the change there until Darla gave me a dirty look and stopped me.

  In a little while the elevator down the hall opened, and a short, dark man headed our way. He had a carefully trimmed red moustache and was wearing a black homburg hat. He glanced at us as he unlocked the door and his mouth twitched in a smile-like fashion.

  “Good morning,” he said, with some kind of foreign accent. “I hope I am not late?”

  I didn’t like him. I shrugged. He ushered us into a small, stuffy waiting room; there was a sofa in a putrid-green color and a coffee table with some magazines and a glass jar of lollipops on it and a tall potted plant in the corner that looked like it was hanging on to life by its fingernails.

  “Please have a seat,” said Dr. Brunder. “Help yourself to the lollipops. My assistant should be here shortly, and then we will get started.”

  Brunder twitched his lips at us again then disappeared through another door. We neither had a seat nor helped ourselves to the lollipops. Darla lit up another cigarette and walked over to the window, while I just stood there in the middle of the room, a sort of human version of the potted plant.

  The door to the hallway opened, and a woman came in. She was very fat in a particular kind of way, fairly normal at the top but getting fatter the farther down you went. Either one of her thighs was bigger around than all of Dick Prettie.

  “Hi, I’m Polly,” she said with a warm smile. She waddled over to the window Darla was standing at and lifted it open. “It’s going to be another hot one,” then she looked at Darla.

  “You ready, honey?”

  I saw Darla’s gaze move from Polly back to the open window, and my heart gave a sickening lurch as for a fraction of a second I thought she was about to jump, but all she did was toss out her cigarette; then she followed Polly.

  Polly held the door open for her, and she passed through it and out of sight. Now Polly smiled back at me.

  “Help yourself to those lollipops, honey. That’s what they’re there for.”

  I wanted to say who cares about your fucking lollipops and you oughta be in a circus you’re so fat but I didn’t say anything and went over to the sofa and sat down; it was very soft, and I sank down into its putrid-green embrace and closed my eyes. It wasn’t that I was sleepy; I just wanted to block from sight the dog-eared magazines from last year and the year before that and the poisonously orange and yellow and red and green lollipops and the dying plant. But the problem with closing your eyes is, it tends to awaken your mind’s eye. I saw Doc Travis standing on the balcony during a rain storm and sticking his han
d out and watching the rain patter into his wrinkled black palm, and Sophie waiting all by herself to board a bus to nowhere, and Vera Vermillion’s glowing blue moon, and Bud killing Tommy with a bottle of Bacardi rum, and Dulwich’s gappy grin under his Mexican hat, and the cold eyes of the nurse on the train, and Darla standing by the lake under the moon and looking up at me as I thought we were about to kiss, like any regular guy and girl might kiss in such circumstances. By a lake. Under the moon.

  I heard a pleasant soft burbling—opened my eyes and saw two pigeons on the ledge outside the window. I wondered if the pigeons ever flew inside, then I had a sudden memory: a panicked bird flying around inside a room, and my mother laughingly chasing it with a broom. She wasn’t trying to hurt it, was just trying to guide it back toward the window it had come in through. Lacy curtains hung in the window, they billowed in a luminous breeze—

  The door to the hallway opened a foot or two, and a girl peered in. She saw me—looked alarmed—but came in anyway.

  She sat down on the sofa as far away from me as possible. I suppose to her I was just part of the awfulness of it all. She had a small, turned-up nose, and looked sweet and pretty and not more than eighteen. I wondered who the cad was who got her in trouble and why he wasn’t here with her.

  I tried to get back to the memory of my mother with the broom, but it was all gone now, as if it had escaped back out the window with the bird.

  I’d heard that when women got abortions it was like torture and they screamed like damned souls and I was straining my ears for any sign of that but, except for the cooing of the pigeons and the crinkling of the cellophane that the girl removed from one of the lollipops, everything was quiet as a tomb.

  At last the door opened and Polly came out. She beamed at us.

  “Susannah? We’re ready for you now.”

  Susannah put down her magazine and left the sofa.

  “What about Darla?” I said.

  “She’s doing just fine, honey. It’s all over. She’s resting now. She’ll be out soon.”

  I tried reading one of the magazines, but the world it described of movie stars and politicians and sports heroes and kings and queens seemed unreal and boring. I went over to the window. The pigeons, heads bobbing, walked away from me down the ledge. Traffic noise floated up. The building across the street was being increasingly lit up by the rising sun.

  I had one of my headaches, for the first time in a while. I went out to a water fountain in the hallway, but then discovered I hadn’t brought my aspirins. I was about to drink some water anyway, but only the barest trickle was coming out. I thought of all the germy horrible mouths that must have been down there. I hesitated.

  “Danny?”

  Darla was standing just outside the chiropractor’s office, leaning against the door frame.

  “I thought you’d left,” she said. “Without me.”

  I hurried down the hallway to her.

  “Course not. How do you feel?”

  “Like shit.”

  She looked like it too. We walked slowly toward the elevator. She seemed a little woozy. Then she put her hand over her mouth.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “I saw a ladies’ room. Down this way.”

  We started moving fast. We got to the ladies’ room and she tried the door. It was locked. She rattled the glass doorknob and wailed: “Oh fuck!” Then she leaned over and threw up.

  I watched her helplessly as spasm followed spasm. The elevator opened, and two well-dressed guys with briefcases came out. They stopped and gaped at the sight of the beautiful vomiting girl.

  “Get the fuck outa here!” I yelled.

  They looked scared, and headed the other way.

  Darla seemed through now. I handed her my handkerchief, and she wiped her mouth off.

  “You okay?” I said. “You wanna go back and see Dr. Brunder?”

  “You kidding me? Just get me outa here.”

  We took the elevator down. It was already hot, even down at the bottom of the shady canyon between the tall buildings. As I helped her in the car, she winced and sucked her breath in.

  “You okay?”

  “Quit asking me that.”

  I got in the car and drove her out of downtown. She curled up in the seat with her back to me. I was wondering what Dr. Brunder had done to her. I saw other people in their cars on their way to work and I envied them because their faces seemed normal and calm like this was just another morning and their lives weren’t all screwed up and everything wasn’t falling apart.

  “It hurts,” said Darla in a small, tight voice, and then I saw the blood. It was very red against the black leather of the seat. It was like somebody had tossed a bucket of it on Darla’s lap.

  Darla sat up and took off her sunglasses and looked at her lap and then looked at me.

  “Oh God!” she screamed. “Am I dying?”

  Chapter 2

  WE WEREN’T FAR from Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. I drove up Vermont honking my horn and running red lights then turned left on Fountain and went a couple of blocks and we were there.

  By now, Darla’s head was lolling around and her eyes were rolling up and showing white. “I’ll be right back,” I said, but she didn’t answer me; she’d passed out or was on the verge of it. I jumped out of the car and ran inside the hospital, yelling for help. Two orderlies grabbed a stretcher on wheels and rolled it out. A Polly-sized nurse lumbered along behind them.

  A black Pontiac had pulled up behind my Packard. Two guys were inside. They watched as the nurse and the orderlies got Darla out of the car and on the stretcher. Their white uniforms got splotched by Darla’s blood; it occurred to me people in their line of work should dress in red. As they trundled her inside, the nurse asked me what had happened to her. I figured the best thing for Darla was just to tell the truth.

  Darla disappeared behind swinging double doors. The nurse wouldn’t let me go with her. I realized I was shaking all over; I tried to stop myself, but couldn’t.

  The two guys from the Pontiac came in. Both squat, blubbery-lipped, and ugly. They walked up to me like they knew me.

  “What’s going on?” said one of them.

  “What’s going on with what?”

  “The broad. Darla. What’s the matter with her?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “We work for Seitz,” the other said. “Like you. So what’s up with the broad?”

  “You guys must be the assholes in the red Buick.”

  “We’re in a black Pontiac, moron.”

  I walked away.

  “Hey!” said the first guy. “Where you going?”

  I ignored him. They followed me. I found a phone booth and called Bud. He came walking in fast ten minutes later, with Nucky and Willie hurrying along with him.

  “Where is she?” he said.

  “They took her through there,” and I pointed toward the swinging doors.

  Bud headed that way.

  “I don’t think we’re allowed back there,” I said.

  “Fuck that,” and he shoved through the doors. Nucky and Willie and I were right behind him.

  We moved down a short hallway then into a room with a lot of beds with curtains around them. Bud went over to the first bed and jerked the curtains back. A nurse was putting a thermometer in the mouth of an old lady. They stared at us in surprise and horror like they thought we were about to murder them.

  “Who are you?” said the nurse. “What do you want?”

  “Sorry,” muttered Bud, “I’m looking for somebody,” then the nurse with Darla’s blood on her uniform came running up.

  “You’re not allowed back here! Not allowed!”

  “I’m allowed any fucking place I wanna go, you fat cunt! You know how much dough I give this joint?”

  “Nurse! Nurse! Everything’s all right. I’ll take care of it.”

  A middle-aged doctor came walking up. He was short, with broad shoulders, an unnaturally large head, and a
handsome mass of wavy, prematurely gray hair. He looked familiar.

  “Dr. Swan,” said Bud. He seemed relieved to see him. He even shook his hand.

  “Good morning, Mr. Seitz. I know why you’re here. I recognized your friend as soon as they brought her in. I saw her sing once at your club. She was unforgettable.”

  “Yeah, doc, that’s great, but how’s she doing?”

  “Dr. Zamsky has located the source of the bleeding and stopped it. You remember Bernie Zamsky, don’t you? She couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “So she’s gonna be okay?”

  “Barring infection, which is always a risk in this kind of case, she ought to be just fine.”

  Bud let loose a big sigh. “Thank God, doc. That’s great news. See that she gets anything she needs. The best of everything.”

  Dr. Swan was looking at me curiously. “Don’t I know you?”

  Bud laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder.

  “That’s Danny, doc. Remember? He got beat up by them guys at Ocean Park last year.”

  “Danny. Of course. Well, you’ve certainly changed. What a tremendous recovery.”

  “That’s ’cause of the great doctoring you guys gave him. So when can I see her?”

  “It shouldn’t be too long. Why don’t you wait in the lobby? I’ll come get you when it’s time.”

  Out in the lobby, I filled Bud in on what had happened with Darla.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “I’ve sent girls to this Brunder guy before and there hadn’t ever been no problems. Then when I send him over a girl I really give a shit about, he carves her up like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

  “You want me and Willie to pay him a visit?” said Nucky.

  “Yeah,” said Willie. “We’ll get you a fucking refund.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Bud.

  I watched Willie and Nucky strut their way out the door.

  “What are they gonna do to him? Throw him out the window?”

  Bud laughed. “I gotta be careful these days, Danny. They’ll throw me in the sleazer for spitting on the sidewalk. Nah, they’ll just do like Willie said. Get a refund.”