Shella

by Andrew Vachss

  “You calling a shot?” the guy asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Out of a full rack … you calling a shot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one? Corner ball?”

  “Head ball in the side, two rails.”

  “Twenty says you don’t make it.”

  “It goes about every five times,” I told him.

  “You want five to one?”

  “Okay.”

  He put a pair of fifties on the table rail. I put down a twenty.

  “The five ball?” he asked, making sure. “Five ball in the side?”

  “Your side,” I said, stepped to the table.

  I drove the cue ball past the rack, hard against the back rail, spinning off, cracking into the rack from behind, right between the corner ball and the next one over. The five ball flew toward me, hit the left-hand long rail, banked into the short rail right where I was standing, and dropped into the side pocket like it was ducking out of sight.

  “Holy shit!” the guy said. I put the money in my pocket.

  He stood there, shaking his head. “You’re here to see Monroe, right?”

  I swept the balls off the table, put them back into the plastic tray.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He followed me over to the front desk, where I paid for my time on the table. There was a door behind the desk. The red-haired guy knocked, stood there a minute. I heard bolts being turned, and we went inside.

  It was a big room, eight-sided poker table in one corner, four men sitting there. Monroe was at the table, back to the wall.

  A thick guy put his hand on my shoulder, like he was going to pat me down.

  “Don’t bother,” Monroe said.

  I walked over, stood looking at him.

  “Ghost! My man! Haven’t seen you in years. You haven’t changed a bit, huh?”

  “Neither have you,” I told him. His black hair was thinner—I could see pale scalp. And his face was heavy, jowly. But I meant what I said.

  “Sit down, sit down. You want a drink?”

  “A glass of water,” I said, sitting down. The guy to Monroe’s left laughed. Nobody paid him any attention.

  “Man, you should see this guy play, Monroe. Like a fucking machine,” the red-haired guy said.

  “I’ve seen him play,” Monroe said, looking up at the redhead with his little eyes. “You wouldn’t like it. Go get him his glass of water.”

  The redhead went away.

  “So what’s up, Ghost? This a social call?”

  “No,” I said, glancing around me. Meaning I didn’t want to talk in front of a crowd. Monroe never asked my name—always calls me Ghost. I never asked why.

  “Take a walk,” Monroe told the others.

  I waited a couple of beats. The redhead came back with a glass of water. I thanked him. He didn’t say anything, just went away again.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I told Monroe.

  He held up his hands, like he was pushing somebody away. “I don’t get involved in other people’s business.”

  “It’s not for that,” I said. “A woman. My woman. I lost track of her, last time I was locked up. She’s a dancer. I figure, maybe you could ask around, reach out … help me find her.”

  “It’s not business?”

  “No.”

  “What’d you have?”

  “Her name is Candy. Big girl, late twenties, early thirties. Real light blonde hair, about my height.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “A blonde named Candy, dances topless … There’s a thousand girls fit that description.”

  “She’s got real light eyes, like a gray color. And a little dot, a beauty mark, just over here,” I told him, touching the spot on my face. “And a long thin scar, like a wire-mark, on her right thigh, all around the outside.”

  “What else?”

  “She won’t turn a trick. She’ll B-drink, dry hustle, strip. But she won’t sell pussy. Not out of a bar anyway.”

  “They all will, the right guy comes along.”

  “She won’t have a pimp.”

  “She’s a lesbo?”

  “No. I don’t know, maybe.… It doesn’t matter. She won’t give her money to anyone else.”

  “Okay. You know her righteous name?”

  “No.”

  “She got people anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “She could be dead, in jail, whatever. Could be married, have a couple of kids. Those broads, they can’t strut the runways forever, you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He took a long aluminum tube out of his jacket pocket, unscrewed the cap. It was a cigar, wrapped in dark paper. He clipped off the tip with a little round knife, cracked a wooden match, got it going. “You want this as a favor?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Same old Ghost. Nothing for nothing, huh?”

  “Right.”

  “So what you got?”

  “Money?”

  “How much?”

  “How much do you want?”

  “No money. I got money. How about you do what it is you do for money … for me. One more time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just like that, huh? It don’t matter to you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll start tonight, looking. You come back, say, Friday night, same time, okay? Maybe I’ll have something for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And I have your word, right, Ghost? You’ll do this other thing for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, leaning forward to shake hands.

  Misty got back to the hotel just after I did. She should have been tired from working a shift, but she was all bouncing around, excited.

  “I made even more money tonight, baby. It’s really good here. We’re doing good now, right? Could we, maybe, get an apartment or something? So we didn’t have to live in this one room. It’s like a prison cell.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I told her.

  “I didn’t mean like actually, honey. But, if we have a place of our own, we could have … stuff, you know? Our own furniture, maybe. So we could eat a meal inside once in a while, not all this take-out. Could you just think about it, okay?”

  “I told you, I don’t think I’ll be staying here long.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’ll know soon, all right?”

  “All right, baby. Whatever you say.”

  The next couple of days, I stayed inside. Practicing. I can make myself invisible, kind of. Slow down everything inside of me, so slow I can feel the blood move in little streams through my chest. I go somewhere else in my head. Not far, I’m still me. But someplace closed off. Where I don’t feel things. It just happened one day, when I was a kid—when they were hurting me. Now I can do it when I want to.

  One afternoon, Misty asked me to come to her club.

  “I’m on television, honey.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look at me like that—I don’t mean like on real TV. In the window. It’s a new thing. Couldn’t you please do it? Just once. I’d really like you to. I mean, you’ve never seen me … work. I’m real good, everybody says so. That’s why I’m in the window.”

  “Is anybody leaning on you?”

  “It’s not that, baby. Please?”

  I went the next night. It was just like she said. The club was just a narrow doorway with a little window on one side. They had a TV set suspended from wires hanging there. Black-and-white, like you can rent in cheap rooms. One long loop, the same stuff. Over and over. I stood there and watched until Misty came on. You couldn’t tell where she was, like in a dressing room or something. She had a regular dress on. The camera watched her pull it over her head. She had a slip on. She took it off. Then she was in a bra, panties, high heels, and stockings. She kicked off the shoes, unrolled the stockings, bending over with her back to the camera. She unhooked the bra from
behind, dropped it on the floor. She was just rolling the panties down over her hips when the tape looped to some other girl.

  The barker was a greasy little guy in a blue jacket. He didn’t yell and scream like the other ones on the block, just waited for someone to stop and watch the TV, whispered to them.

  “They go all the way inside, pal,” is what he said to me. “No cover, no minimum.”

  I went through the door. Dark place, the air stung my eyes. I ordered rum and Coke. Don’t mix them, I told the sagging topless waitress. Like I was worried about watered drinks. She gave me a wink like I was a smart guy, knew my way around. I drank a little bit of the Coke, poured the shot of rum into the glass. The waitress came back a little later.

  “You don’t like the Coke, huh?”

  “Just for a little taste,” I told her. She brought me another. I did the same thing, left her enough of a tip so she wouldn’t make a fuss … but not so much that she’d think about working me for more.

  A Puerto Rican girl with a blonde wig was on. There was music, but she wasn’t really dancing. Just shaking her body parts with the music around her. People threw money on the bar. She’d kneel and pick up the bills. When she got enough, she rolled them all into a little tube, held it up so the watchers could see it, kissed the little roll, stuffed it deep inside her G-string. Every once in a while, she’d pull down the G-string real quick. The money was gone. Inside her, someplace. The men applauded, like she’d done something good.

  Misty was different. She really danced, like she was moving to the music. The men didn’t clap real loud for her until she got on her hands and knees, crawling the length of the bar, still moving to the music. She took a glass from in front of one man, put one hand inside her G-string, like she was playing with herself, sipped from the glass. Then she poured some of it right on the bar, put her face down, wiggled her butt real hard while she lapped it up. They really cheered for that. Men put money on the bar—Misty crawled over to the ones who put up the most, let them spill their drinks on the bar so she could lap them up again. She crawled off the stage when her number finished, looking back over her shoulder.

  When Misty got back, she looked tired. I was watching TV with the sound off, trying to figure out what people were saying from the way they moved. She just said a quick hello, went in the bathroom. I heard the shower.

  She came out with a towel around her head, still a little wet.

  “Honey?”

  “What?”

  “I thought you were coming tonight.”

  “I did.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “I was there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “I didn’t say that, honey…. Don’t be mad.”

  “Come here.”

  She came over to me slowly, her face down. Got on her knees beside the chair. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “On the TV screen, in the window, it was black and white, showed you taking off your dress and all. Everything but your pants. Inside, you were dancing to some song … ‘Fever,’ I think it was called. You crawled around on the bar, licking up drinks they spilled.”

  “You did come!”

  “Yes. You were very good. Dancer, I mean. Much better than the other ones. You move real nice, like a real dancer.”

  There were tears on her face. She took the towel off her head, held it in her hands, twisting it like she was trying to get the water out.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked her.

  She put her head in my lap, her hands behind her back. I felt her teeth on the waistband of the pajamas I was wearing. She pulled the string loose, put her mouth on me. I patted the back of her head, sleek from the water. When I got close, I pulled gently back on her hair but she just sucked harder until I went off in her mouth.

  Friday night, I went back to the poolroom. They gave me a different table this time. Three tables away, a bunch of Chinese guys were playing, but not really, something else was going on. I watched them the way I watch the TV without the sound. Somebody was buying, somebody was selling. I couldn’t tell what.

  The red-haired guy came over to my table. “You want to try that shot again?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “How come? I’ll give you the same odds.”

  “It won’t go on this table. The short rail’s too stiff.”

  “So we’ll take the table you had before.”

  “I’m here to see Monroe.”

  “Yeah, so what? It’ll only take a minute.”

  “I’m here to see Monroe,” I told him.

  We went through the same door. Monroe was at the table alone this time. I sat down across from him. I could feel the redhead, pushing against a cushion of air just off my left shoulder.

  “What?” Monroe said, looking up at him.

  “This guy has my money. He hustled me with some trick shot last time he was here. I asked him to do it again, same deal. He wouldn’t do it. I should get a chance, get my money back.”

  “How much did you lose?” Monroe asked him.

  “A yard.”

  Monroe took out a roll of bills, peeled off a hundred, tossed it on the table. “Get lost,” he told the redhead.

  “I want it from him,” the redhead said, not moving.

  A crackle in the air, all around me. I could feel watchers, like prison. I didn’t move.

  Monroe leaned forward. “Don’t be stupid,” he said.

  The redhead was so close I could feel the air from his mouth. “I could do it,” he said. “You don’t need some outside shooter, do this job. Way I figure it, it’s a big contract, this guy’s taking my money.”

  “Go over there and sit down,” Monroe said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Hey, come on, Monroe. This guy don’t look tough to me.”

  “Cancer don’t look tough either. You’re out of your league. Now, do what I tell you.”

  “Hey, fuck you, Monroe.”

  Monroe looked at me. “You want to fuck this guy up, Ghost? Little favor for me?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t do favors for friends?”

  “I don’t fuck people up.”

  Monroe started to laugh then, a thin, crazy laugh. It sounded like that glass cracking in my hand. Nobody laughed with him.

  “What’s so motherfucking funny?” the redhead said.

  “You don’t get it, do you, kid?”

  The redhead backed away, making a triangle out of me and Monroe with him at the tip.

  “Get up,” he said to me.

  I didn’t turn around, watching Monroe. “What’s the going rate for assholes, Ghost?” he asked me.

  “It’s the same for anyone,” I said.

  He laughed again, more juice in it this time. “Okay,” he said.

  I got up. The redhead was right in my face. He was staring hard. I moved my eyes around his face, getting his picture. His size and shape, the set of his body.

  I sat down again. “Okay,” I told Monroe.

  We went out the back door to a fire escape, climbed metal stairs to the roof. Everybody came up there. One of the other guys brought a metal folding chair. He opened it for Monroe.

  City lights all around us, but the roof was dark. Flat, just an electrical shack to one side, big skylight on the other. The door to the shack opened, a man stepped out. It must lead downstairs, be locked from the inside so nobody could burglar the place.

  I took off my jacket. I was wearing a sweatshirt. Extra-large. It was baggy on me, loose and comfortable. I pulled it up to my neck, taking the T-shirt with it, holding it like that so they could see I didn’t have a gun. I walked around a few feet, feeling the roof under the thin soles of my gym shoes.

  The redhead took out a knife. A big one, brass knuckles around the handle, little teeth along the top edge of the blade.

  One of Monroe’s guys stepped forward, a short piece of rope in his hand.

  “You want to rope dance?�
�� Monroe asked the redhead.

  “No, fuck that. Just give him a blade—let’s get it on.”

  The guy stepped back. Everybody took out money, whispering in the black corners.

  “Okay?” Monroe asked the redhead.

  “Yeah. Do it!”

  Monroe nodded. “You okay, Ghost?”

  I nodded, watching the redhead. He came in like a crab, in a crouch, the knife in his right hand, holding it underhand, blade facing in. He took a swipe—I stepped to one side, watching. He was making a noise to himself, like a hum from a generator. Each time he came in, swiped, stepped back. Closing the line, coming nearer every time. I moved my left hand to my right wrist, slid back the cuff to the sweatshirt, let the car antenna slide into my hand. I snapped my wrist and it came out, telescoping to about five feet. I whipped it across his left hand before he saw what it was. He made a noise as I brought it around in a stream, slashing an X across his face. His hands came up, blood sprayed around them, and the knife fell. I kicked it away, moved in on him, giving him time, pulling the cuff off my left wrist. He grabbed for the antenna. I let him take it, raking the sharpened can opener I had taped to my left wrist across his face. I locked it in deep, pulling against the muscles. It caught near his mouth as he hit the ground, me on top. I pulled it free. He was screaming then. I chopped at the side of his neck until I felt it go.

  I used the front of his shirt to wipe off the can opener and the antenna. I could smell where one of the guys had thrown up on the roof.

  We all went downstairs. Some of the guys paid money to Monroe. I saw the money on the table. Monroe separated some of it, gave it to me. He saw I was looking at the money that was left.

  “That’s the difference between you and me, Ghost,” he said. “Don’t ever forget it.”

  I didn’t say anything.