The Shark-Infested Custard

by Charles Willeford

  “Yeah. A lot of people don’t come until the second feature, which is usually the best flick.”

  “Maybe so. The point is, nobody was around us. ‘Hi,’ I said, ‘are you waiting for me?’ She just giggled and then she mumbled something.

  “’Who? I said, and then she said, ‘The man in the yellow jump suit.’

  “‘Oh, sure,’ I said, ‘he sent me to get you. My name’s Hank—what’s yours?’

  “‘Hildy’ she said.

  “‘Right,’ I said. ‘You’re the one, all right. I hope you don’t mind magenta instead of yellow.’

  “Then she asked me for some of my Coke. She thought I had a Coke because of the red paper cup, you see. So I gave her a drink from the cup and she made a face. Then she took my hand, just like I was her father or something, and I led her over to my car. It was dark as hell in there, Larry, and I swear she looked older—around seventeen, anyway.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference now,” I said.

  “I guess not. I wish to hell I had a drink.”

  “We can get one in your apartment.”

  The operation at Dade Towers worked as smoothly as if we had rehearsed it. I parked at the corner, ten feet from the door. Hank wrapped a beach towel around Hildy, an old towel he kept in the back seat, and Eddie opened the car door. The fire door to the stairway, which was rarely used, only opened from the inside. Don held the door partly open for Hank and Eddie, and they had carried her inside and up the stairs before I drove across the street and into the parking lot. After parking in Hank’s slot and locking the car, I shoved Hildy’s handbag under my T-shirt.

  I knocked softly at Hank’s door when I got upstairs. Don opened it a crack to check me out before he let me in. Hildy was on her back on the couch, with the beach towel beneath her. She was only about four-eight, and the mounted sailfish on the wall above her looked almost twice as long as she did. The sail’s name in yellow chalk, “Hank’s Folly,” somehow seemed appropriate. When I joined the group, Hank handed me a straight Scotch over ice cubes.

  The four of us, in a semi-circle, stared down at the girl for a few moments. Her brown eyes were opened partially, and there were yellow “sleepies” in the corners. There was a scattering of pimples on her forehead, and a few freckles on her nose and cheeks. There was a yellow hickey on the left corner of her mouth, and she didn’t have any lipstick on her pale lips. Her skin, beneath the smudges of dirt, was so white it was almost transparent, and a dark blue vein beneath her right temple was clearly visible. She wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her T-shirt; with her adolescent chest bumps, she didn’t need one.

  “She looks,” Eddie said, “like a first-year Brownie.”

  Don began to cry.

  “For God’s sake, Don—” Hank said.

  “Leave him alone, Hank,” I said. “I feel like crying myself.”

  Don sat in the Danish chair across from the TV, took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and then blew his nose.

  I emptied the purse—a blue-and-red patchwork leather bag, with a long braided leather shoulder strap—onto the coffee table. There were two plastic vials containing pills. One of them was filled with the orange heart-shaped pills I recognized as Dexies. The other pills were round and white, but larger than aspirins, and stamped “M.T.” There was a Mary Jane, a penny piece of candy wrapped in yellow paper, the kind kids buy at the 7/Eleven; a roll of bills held together by a rubber band; a used and wadded Kleenex; and a blunt, slightly bent aluminum comb.

  As I started to count the money, I said to Eddie, “Search her body, Ed.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Let me fix you another drink, Ed.” Hank took Eddie’s glass, and they moved to the kitchenette table. Don, immobilized in the Danish chair, stared at the floor without blinking.

  There were thirty-eight dollars in the roll; one was a five, the rest were ones. I emptied the girl’s front pockets. This was hard to do because her jeans were so tight. There were two quarters and three pennies in the right pocket, and a slip of folded notebook paper in the left. It was a list of some kind, written with a blue felt pen. “30 ludes, 50 Bs, no gold.” There was only one hip pocket, and it was a patch that had been sewn on in an amateurish manner. The patch, in red denim, with white letters, read, KISS MY PATCH. The pocket was empty.

  “There’s no I.D., Hank,” I said.

  “So what do we do now,” Eddie said, “call the cops?”

  “What’s your flying schedule?” I said.

  “I go to New York Saturday. Why?”

  “How’d you like to be grounded, on suspension without pay for about three months? Pending an investigation into the dope fiend death of a teenaged girl?”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Eddie said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “But that wouldn’t keep your name out of the papers, or some pretty nasty interrogations at the station. And Hank’s in a more sensitive position than you are with the airline, what with his access to drug samples and all. If—or when—he’s investigated, and his company’s name gets into the papers, as soon as he’s cleared, the best he can hope for is a transfer to Yuma, Arizona.”

  Hank shuddered and sat down at the coffee table beside me in the straight-backed cane chair. He opened the vial holding the pills that were stamped “M.T.”

  “Methaqualone,” Hank said. “But they’re not from my company. We make them all right, but our brand’s called ‘Meltin.’ There’re twenty M-T’s left in the vial, so she could’ve taken anywhere from one to a dozen—or more maybe. Four or five could suffocate and kill her.” Hank shrugged, and looked at the girl’s body on the couch. “The trouble is, these heads take mixtures sometimes of any and everything. She’s about seventy-five pounds, I’d say, and if she was taking a combination of Dexies and M.T.’s, it’s a miracle she was still on her feet when I picked her up.” He tugged on his lower lip. “If any one of us guys took even three ‘ludes, we’d sleep for at least ten hours straight. But if Hildy, here, was on the stuff for some time, she could’ve built up a tolerance, and—”

  “Save it, Hank,” I said. “The girl’s dead, and we don’t know who she is—that’s what we need to know. The best thing for us to do, I think, is find the guy in the yellow jump suit and turn her over to him.”

  “What guy in what yellow jump suit?” Eddie said.

  Hank told them what the girl had said, that she was waiting for a man in a yellow jump suit.

  “Do you think it was her father, maybe?” Don said.

  “Hell, no,” I said, “whoever he is, she’s his baby, not ours.”

  “How’re we going to find him?” Eddie said.

  “Back at the drive-in,” I said. “I’m going to get my pistol from my apartment, and then we’ll go back and look for him.”

  “D’you want me to take my pistol too, Larry?” Eddie asked.

  “You’d better not,” I said, “I’ve got a license, and you haven’t. You and I and Hank’ll go back. You’d better stay here with the girl, Don.”

  “I’d just as soon go along,” Don said.

  “No,” I said. “Somebody’d better stay here with the girl. We’ll go in your car, Hank.” I handed him his keys. “I’ll meet you guys down in the lot.”

  I went to my apartment, and changed into slacks. I put my pistol, a Colt Cobra .38, with a two-inch barrel, into its clip holster, and shoved the holstered gun inside the waistband of my trousers. To conceal the handle of the weapon, I put on a sand-colored lightweight golf jacket, and zipped up the front. Hank and Eddie were both in the Galaxie, Eddie in the back seat, and Hank in the driver’s, when I got to the parking lot. I slid in beside Hank.

  On our way to the drive-in I told them how we would work the search party. Hank could start with the first row of cars, going from one to the next, and Eddie could start from the back row. I’d start at the snack bar, checking the men’s room first, and then look into any of the cars that were parked close to the snack bar. I would also
be on the lookout for any new cars coming in, and I would mark the position of new arrivals, if any, so we could check them out when we finished with those already there.

  “One other thing,” I said. “If you spot the guy, don’t do anything. We’ll all meet in the men’s room, and then we’ll take him together. There aren’t that many cars, and we should finish the search in about five minutes.”

  “What if he isn’t there?” Eddie said.

  “Then we wait. I think he’ll show up, all right. My worry is, he might not be alone, which’ll make it harder to pick him up. But there aren’t that many guys wearing jump suits, especially yellow ones, so we should be able to spot him easily enough.”

  “Not necessarily,” Hank said. “He might be a hallucination, a part of the girl’s trip. Hell, she came with me without any persuasion to speak of, and she would’ve gone with anybody. She was really out of it, Larry.”

  “We don’t have to look for the guy, Hank,” I said. “If you think it’s a waste of time let’s go back and get the girl and dump her body in a canal some place.”

  “Jesus, Larry,” Eddie said, “could you do that?”

  “What else do you suggest?”

  “Nothing,” Eddie said. “But before we do anything drastic, I think we’d better look for her boy friend in the jump suit.”

  “That’s why we’re going to the drive-in,” Hank said.

  I took a five and a one out of my wallet, and had the money ready to pass across Hank to the girl in the box-office the moment Hank stopped the car. Hank had cut his lights, but I regretted, for a moment, not taking my Vega instead of returning in his Galaxie. The Galaxie, because it was leased by Hank’s company, had an “E” prefix on the license plate. But because there were three of us in the car instead of only one, it was still unlikely that the girl would make an earlier connection with Hank.

  We parked in the last row. The nearest car was three rows ahead of us. As we got out of the car, Eddie laughed abruptly. “What do we say,” he said, “if someone asks what we’re looking in their car for? Not everybody comes to this fingerbowl to watch the movie, you know.”

  “Don’t make a production out of it,” I said. “Just glance in and move on. If somebody does say something, ask for an extra book of matches. That’s as good an excuse as any. But look into each car from the side or back, and you won’t get into any hassles. Remember, though, if you do spot the guy, keep on going down the line of cars as before. Don’t quit right then and head for the men’s room. He might suspect something.”

  A few minutes later we met in the men’s room. I lit a cigarette, and Eddie and Hank both shook their heads. I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t expected to find any man in a yellow jump suit. In fact, I suspected that Hank had made up the story. And yet, it was wise to get all three of them involved. I had realized, from the beginning, that I would have to be the one who would have to get rid of the girl’s body, but it would be better, later on, for these guys to think that they had done everything possible before the inevitable dumping of the kid in a canal.

  “Okay,” I said. “To make sure, let’s start over. Only this time, you start with the first row, Eddie, and you, Hank, start with the back. It won’t hurt anything to double-check.”

  “If you really think it’s necessary,” Hank said.

  “We’ve got to wait around anyway,” I said.

  They took off again. It wasn’t necessary, but I wanted to keep them busy. They didn’t have my patience. These guys had never sat up all night for three nights in a row at a stake-out in a liquor store. But I had. I went around to the back of the snack bar, where it was darkest, and kept my eye on the box-office entrance, some hundred yards away. Two more cars, both with their parking lights on, came in. The first car turned at the second row and squeezed into an empty slot. The second car, a convertible, drove all the way to the back, and parked about three spaces to the right of Hank’s car. If you came to see the movie, it was a poor location, so far from the screen, and angled away from it. A man got out of the car, and started toward the snack bar.

  I caught up with Hank, and pointed the man out as he came slowly in our direction, picking his way because his eyes weren’t used to the darkness. “I think we’ve got him, Hank,” I said. “Go straight up to him and ask for a match, and I’ll circle around in back of him.”

  “What if he’s got a gun?” Hank said.

  “I’ve got a gun, too. Hurry up.”

  When Hank stopped the man, I was behind him about ten yards or so. He gave Hank a light from his cigarette lighter; then he heard me and turned around. I clicked the hammer back on my .38 as he turned.

  “Let’s go back to your car, friend,” I said.

  “A stick-up in the drive-in? You guys must be out of your fuckin’ minds,” he said.

  “Stand away from him, Hank,” I said. “If he doesn’t move in about one second, I’ll shoot his balls off.”

  “I’m moving, I’m moving,” the man said. He put his arms above his head and waggled his fingers.

  “Put your arms down, you bastard,” I said. “Cross you arms across your chest.”

  When he reached his car, a dark blue Starfire, with the top down, I told him to get into the passenger side of the front seat. Eddie, breathing audibly through his mouth, joined us a moment later.

  “Okay, Hank,” I said, “the same as with the girl. You drive on ahead, get Don, and have the fire door open for us. Eddie’ll drive this car, and I’ll watch the sonofabitch from the back seat. Okay, friend, put one hand on top of the dash, and pass over your car keys with the other.”

  “No dice,” he said. “If you guys want my dough, go ahead and take it, but I ain’t leavin’ the drive-in—”

  He sat erect in the seat with his arms crossed, looking straight ahead. He was wearing a yellow jump suit, and from the cool way he was taking things I knew that he was the right man. I slapped the barrel of the pistol across his nose. His nose broke, and blood spurted. He squealed, and grabbed for his nose with his right hand.

  “Cross your arms,” I said.

  He quickly recrossed his arms, but he turned his head and eyes to glare at me. “Now,” I said, “slowly—with one hand, pass over your car keys to the driver.” He kept his right forearm across his chest, and dug the keys out of his left front pocket. Eddie slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and took the keys.

  “Get going,” I said to Hank, who was still standing there. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  Hank walked over to his car. I climbed over the side of the Starfire, into the back seat, and Eddie started the engine.

  “Wait till Hank clears the exit before you pull out,” I said to Eddie.

  “Where’re you guys taking me, anyway?” the man said. “I got friends, you know. You’re gonna be sorry you broke my fuckin’ nose, too. It hurts like a bastard.” He touched his swollen nose with his right hand.

  “Shut up,” I said, “and keep your arms crossed. If you move either one of your arms again, I’m going to put a round through your shoulder.”

  Eddie moved out, handling the car skillfully. He drove to the extreme right of the row before turning onto the exit road, and without lights. There was a quarter-moon, the sky was cloudless, and we’d been in the drive-in so long by now that we could see easily.

  When we reached the fire door at Dade Towers, Don and Hank were waiting for us. I ordered the man in the yellow jump suit to follow Don, and Hank followed me as we went up the stairs. Eddie parked the convertible in a visitor’s slot across the street, and came up to Hank’s apartment in the elevator.

  While we were gone, Don had turned on the television, but not the sound. On the screen, Doris Day and Rock Hudson were standing beside a station wagon in a suburban neighborhood. She was waving her arms around.

  The man in the yellow jump suit didn’t react at all when he saw the dead girl. Instead of looking at her, he looked at the silent screen. He was afraid, of course, and trembling visibly, but he wasn
’t terrified. He stood between the couch and the kitchen, with his back to the girl, and stared boldly at each of us, in turn, as though trying to memorize our faces.

  He was about twenty-five or -six, with a glossy Prince Valiant helmet of dark auburn hair. His hair was lighter on top, because of the sun, probably, but it had been expensively styled. His thick auburn eyebrows met in the middle, above his swollen nose, as he scowled. His long sideburns came down at a sharp point, narrowing to a quarter-inch width, and they curved across his cheeks to meet his moustache, which had been carved into a narrow, half-inch strip. As a consequence, his moustache, linked in a curve across both cheeks to his sideburns, resembled a fancy, cursive lower case “m.” His dark blue eyes watered slightly. There was blood drying on his moustache, on his chin, and there was a thin Jackson Pollock drip down the front of his lemon-yellow poplin jump suit. His nose had stopped bleeding.

  Jump suits, as leisure wear, have been around for several years, but it’s only been the last couple of years that men have worn them on the street, or away from home or the beach. There’s a reason. They are comfortable, and great to lounge around in—until you get a good profile look at yourself in the mirror. If you have any gut at all—even two inches more than you should have—a jump suit, which is basically a pair of fancied up coveralls, makes you look like you’ve got a pot-gut. I’ve got a short-sleeved blue terrycloth jump suit I wear around the pool once in awhile, but I would never wear it away from the apartment house. When I was on the force and weighed about 175, I could have worn it around town, but since I’ve been doing desk work at National, I’ve picked up more than twenty pounds. My waistline has gone from a 32 to a 36, and the jump suit makes me look like I’ve got a paunch. It’s the way they are made.