The Shark-Infested Custard

by Charles Willeford

  But this guy in the yellow jump suit was slim, maybe 165, and he was close to six feet in height. The poplin jump suit was skin tight, bespoken, probably, and then cut down even more, and he wore it without the usual matching belt at the waist. It had short sleeves, and his sinewy forearms were hairy. Thick reddish chest hair curled out of the top of the suit where he had pulled the zipper down for about eight inches. He wore zippered cordovan boots, and they were highly polished.

  “What’s the girl’s name?” I said.

  “How should I know?” he said. “I never seen her before. What’s the matter with her, anyway?”

  “There’s nothing the matter with her,” Don said. “She’s dead, now, and you killed her!” Don started for him, but Hank grabbed Don by the arms, at the biceps, and gently pushed him back.

  “Take it easy, Don,” Hank said. “Let Larry handle it.” When Don nodded, Hank released him.

  “Step forward a pace,” I said, “and put your hands on top of your head.” The man shuffled forward, and put his hands on his head. “Here, Don,” I said, handing Don the pistol. “Cover me while I search him. If he tries anything shoot him in the kneecap.”

  “Sure, Larry,” Don said. His hand was steady as he aimed the .38 at the man’s kneecap.

  “I’ll hold the pistol, Don,” Hank said, “if you want me to.”

  Don shook his head, and Eddie grinned and winked at me as I went around behind the man in the jump suit to frisk him.

  “Leave him alone, Hank,” I said. “Why don’t you fix us a drink?”

  I tossed the man’s ostrich skin wallet, handkerchief, and silver ballpoint pen onto the coffee table from behind. He didn’t have any weapons, and he had less than two dollars worth of change in his front pockets. He had a package of Iceberg cigarettes, with three cigarettes missing from the pack, and a gold Dunhill lighter.

  At his waist, beneath the jump suit, I felt a leather belt. I came around in front of him, and caught the ring of the zipper. He jerked his hands down and grabbed my wrists. Don moved forward and jammed the muzzle of the gun against the man’s left knee. The man quickly let go of my wrists.

  “For God’s sake, don’t shoot!” he said. He put his hands on top of his head again.

  “It’s all right, Don,” I said.

  Don moved back. I pulled down the zipper, well below his waist. He wasn’t wearing underwear, just the belt. It was a plain brown cowhide suit belt, about an inch-and-a-half in width. I unbuckled it, jerked it loose from his body, and turned it over. It was a zippered money belt, the kind that is advertised in men’s magazines every month. If he had been wearing the belt with a pair of trousers, no one would have ever suspected that it was a money belt. I unzipped the compartment. There were eight one-hundred dollar bills and two fifties tightly folded lengthwise inside the narrow space. I unfolded the bills, and counted them onto the coffee table.

  “That ain’t my money!” the man in the yellow jump suit said.

  “That’s right,” Eddie said, laughing. “Not any more it isn’t.”

  “I’m telling you, right now,” the man said, “that dough don’t belong to me. You take it, and you’re in trouble. Big trouble!”

  I sat down at the coffee table, and went through his wallet. Eddie sat beside me in another straight-backed chair. Hank set scotches over ice in front of me. He held an empty glass up for Don, and raised his eyebrows. Don shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off the man in the yellow jump suit. Hank, with a fresh drink in his hand, leaned against the kitchenette archway, and stared at the man.

  There were three gas credit cards in the billfold: Gulf, Exxon, and Standard Oil. The Gulf card was made out to A.H. Wesley, the Exxon to A. Franciscus, and the Standard card was in the name of L. Cohen. All three cards listed Miami addresses. There was no other identification in the wallet. There was another eighty dollars in bills, plus a newspaper coupon that would entitle the man to a one-dollar discount on a bucket or a barrel of Colonel Sanders’ fried chicken. There was a parking stub for the Dupont Plaza Hotel garage, an ivory toothpick in a tiny leather case, and a key to a two-bit locker. Bus station? Airport? Any public place that has rental lockers. And that was all.

  “I’ve never seen a man’s wallet this skimpy,” I said to Eddie.

  “Me either,” Eddie said. “I can hardly fold mine, I got so much junk.”

  “Which one is you?” I said, reading the gas credit cards again. “Cohen, Franciscus, or Wexley?”

  “I don’t like to use the same gas all the time, man,” he said, then he giggled.

  I got up and kicked him in the shin with the side of my foot. Because I was wearing tennis shoes, it didn’t hurt him half as much as he let on, but because he was surprised, he lost some of his poise.

  “Look, you guys,” he said, “why don’t you just take the money and let me go. I haven’t done anything—” “What’s the girl’s name?” I said. “I don’t know her name. Honest.”

  “What’s her name? She told us she was waiting for you, so there’s no point lying about it.”

  “Her name’s Hildy.” He shrugged, yawned, and looked away from me.

  “Hildy what?”

  “I don’t know, man. She worked for me some, but I never knew her last name.” “Doing what?” I said.

  “She sold a little stuff for me now and then—at Bethune.”

  “Mary Bethune Junior High?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you drop her off, earlier tonight, at the drive-in?” “No. I was supposed to collect some dough from her there, that’s all.”

  “Do you know how old she is?”

  “She’s in the eighth grade, she said, but I never asked how old she was. That’s none of my business.”

  “So you turned her on to drugs without even caring how old she was?” Hank said. “You’re the lowest sonofabitch I’ve ever met.”

  “I never turned her on to no drugs, man,” the man said. “She was taking shit long before I met her. What I was doing, I was doing her a favor. She lives with her mother, she said. Her mother works at night, over at the beach, she said. And her father split a couple of years back for Hawaii. So Hildy asked me if she could sell some for me. She was trying to save up enough money to go to her father in Hawaii. That’s all. And the other kid, a black kid, who used to sell for me at Bethune, he took off for Jacksonville with fifty bucks he owed me. I needed someone at Bethune, and I told Hildy I’d give her a chance. She needed the bread, she said. She wanted to live with her father in Hawaii. So what I was doing, I was doing her a favor.”

  He ran down. We all stared at him. Beneath his heavy tan, his face was flushed, and he perspired heavily in the air-conditioned room.

  “I ain’t no worse’n you guys,” the man in the yellow jump suit said. “What the hell, you guys picked her up to screw her, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you?”

  “You mean you were screwing her, too?” Don said.

  “No—I never touched her. She might’ve gone down on me a couple of times, but I never touched her.”

  “What do you mean, ‘might have’?” Don said. “Did she or didn’t she?”

  “Yeah, I guess she did, a couple of times. But I never made her do it. She wanted to, she said.”

  Don fired the pistol. It was like a small explosion in the crowded room. Hank, standing in the kitchenette archway, dropped his glass on the floor. It didn’t break. Eddie, sitting beside me, sucked in his breath. The man in the yellow jump suit clawed at his chest with both hands. He sank to his knees and his back arched as his head fell back. The back of his head hit the couch and his arms dropped loosely to his sides. He remained in that position, without toppling, his face in the air, looking up at nothing, on his knees, with his back arched and his head and neck supported by the couch. Don made a funny noise in his throat. There was a widening red circle on the man’s hairy chest, as blood bubbled from a dark round hole. I stood up, took the pistol away from Don, and returned the gun to my belt holster. The man in t
he yellow jump suit had voided and the stench filled the room. I crossed to the TV and turned up the volume.

  “I didn’t-” Don said. “I didn’t touch the trigger! It went off by itself!”

  “Sit down, Don,” Hank said. He crossed to Don, and gently pushed him down into the Danish chair. “We know it was an accident, Don.”

  “Eddie,” I said, “open the windows, and turn the air-conditioning to fan.”

  Eddie nodded, and started toward the bedroom where the thermostat was on the wall. I opened the door to the outside hallway. Keeping my hand on the knob, I looked up and down the corridor. A gunshot sounds exactly like a gunshot and nothing else. But most people don’t know that. I was prepared, in case someone stuck his head out, to ask him if he heard a car backfire. The sound from the TV, inside Hank’s apartment, was loud enough to hear in the corridor. I waited outside for a moment longer, and when no heads appeared, I ducked back inside and put the nightlock on the door.

  “Larry,” Hank said, “d’you think I should give Don a sedative?”

  “Hell, no,” I said. “Let him lie down for awhile on your bed, but we don’t want him dopey on us, for Christ’s sake.”

  Don was the color of old expensive parchment, as if his olive tan had been diluted with a powerful bleach. His eyes were glazed slightly, and he leaned on Hank heavily as Hank led him into the bedroom.

  Eddie grinned, and shook his head. “What a night,” he said. “When I opened the damned window behind the couch, I accidentally stepped on the guy’s hand. One of his damned fingers broke.” Eddie looked away from me; his mouth was twitching at the corners.

  “Don’t worry about it, Ed,” I said. “You and I are going to have to get rid of him, you know—both of them.” “That figures. Any ideas?”

  Hank came back from the bedroom. “I’m treating Don for shock,” he said. “I’ve covered him with a blanket, and now I’m going to make him some hot tea.”

  “Never mind the fucking tea,” I said. “I’m not worried about Don. We’ve got to get these bodies out of here.”

  “I know that,” Hank said. “What do you suggest?”

  “We’ll put them into the back seat of the convertible, and then I’ll drive his car over to the Japanese Garden on the MacArthur Causeway. I’ll just park the car in the lot and leave it.” I turned to Eddie. “You can follow me in my Vega, and pick me up.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said. I gave Eddie my car keys.

  “I’ll go with you, if you want,” Hank said.

  “There’s no point, Hank. You can stay here after we load the bodies, and make some fucking tea for Don.”

  “Wait a minutes,” Hank said, “you don’t have to—”

  “I don’t have to what?” I said.

  “Cut it out, you guys,” Eddie said. “Go ahead, Larry. Get the convertible and park it by the fire exit. I’ll bring the girl down first, but it’ll take all three of us to carry him down.”

  “All right,” I said. “Except for the money, put the girl’s bag and wallet and all their other stuff into a paper sack.” I pointed to the stuff on the coffee table. “And we’ll need something to cover him up.”

  “I’ve got a G.I. blanket in the closet,” Hank said.

  Taking the car keys to the convertible from Eddie, I left the apartment.

  While Eddie and I wedged the girl between the back and front seats on the floor of the convertible, Hank held the fire door open for us. We covered her with the beach towel, and I tucked the end under her head.

  “Shouldn’t one of us stay down here with the car?” Eddie asked.

  “No,” I said. “He’s too heavy. It’ll take all three of us to bring him down. It won’t take us long. We’ll just take a chance, that’s all.”

  On the way back to Hank’s apartment, we ran into Marge Brewer in the corridor. She was in her nurse’s uniform, and had just come off duty at Jackson Memorial. She was coming toward us from the elevator.

  “I’m beat,” she said, looking at Hank. “A twelve-hour split shift. I’m going to whomp up a big batch of martinis. D’you all want to come down in ten minutes? I’ll share.”

  “Give us a raincheck, Marge,” Hank said. “We’re going down to the White Shark and shoot some pool.”

  “Sure,” she said. “‘Night.”

  We paused outside Hank’s apartment. Hank fumbled with his keys at the door until she rounded the corner at the end of the corridor.

  “Go inside,” I said. “I’d better pull the emergency stop on the elevator. You can take it off after we leave, Hank.”

  They went inside. I hurried down the hall, opened the elevator door, and pulled out the red knob. There was an elevator on the other side of the building, and the residents who didn’t want to climb the stairs could use that one.

  Hank and I, being so much bigger than Eddie, supported the man in the yellow jump suit between us. We each draped an arm over our shoulders, and carried him, with his feet dragging, down the corridor. If someone saw us, it would look—at least from a distance—as if we were supporting a drunk. Eddie, a few feet in front of us, carried the folded army blanket and the sack of stuff. It was much easier going down the stairs. I went down first, carrying the feet, while Hank and Eddie supported him from behind. After we put him on top of the girl, in the back of the car, and covered him with the G.I. blanket, I got into the driver’s seat. The fire door had closed and locked while we loaded him, so Hank started down the sidewalk toward the apartment entrance.

  “Look, Eddie,” I said. “Drive as close behind me as you can. If I’m stopped—for any reason—I’m going to leave the car and run like a stripéd ass ape. And I’ll need you behind me to pick me up. Okay?”

  “No sweat, Larry,” Eddie said, “if you want me to, I’ll drive the convertible. I’m a better driver than you.”

  I shook my head. “That’s why I want you behind me, in case we have to run for it in the Vega. Besides, I’m not going to drive over thirty, and when I cross the bridge, before the Goodyear landing pad, I’m going to throw my pistol over the side. It’ll be a lot easier to throw it over the rail from the convertible.”

  “Move out, then. I’m right behind you.”

  I got rid of the gun, leaving it in the holster, when I passed over the bridge, and a few moments later I was parked in the Japanese Garden parking lot. There were no other cars. The Garden itself was closed at night, and fenced in to keep the hippies from sleeping in the tiny bamboo tearoom. But the parking lot was outside the fence. Sometimes lovers used the parking lot at night, but because most people knew that the Garden was closed at night, they didn’t realize that the parking lot was still available. Eddie pulled in beside me and cut his lights.

  I got some Kleenex out of the glove compartment of my Vega, and smudged the steering wheel and doors of the convertible. I did this for Eddie’s benefit mostly; it’s almost impossible to get decent prints from a car. Then I got the G.I. blanket and the beach towel and the paper sack of personal belongings. As we drove back toward Dade Towers, I folded the blanket and the towel in my lap.

  Eddie said: “What do you think, Fuzz-O?” “About what?”

  “The whole thing. D’you think we’ll get away with it?” “I’m worried about Don.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Don,” Eddie said. “Don’s all right.”

  “If I don’t have to worry about Don,” I said, “I don’t have to worry about anything.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Don,” Eddie said. “Good. If you don’t scratch a sore, it doesn’t suppurate.” “Hey! That’s poetry, Larry.”

  “That’s a fact,” I said. “When you hit Twenty-seventh, turn into the Food Fair lot. I’ll throw all this stuff into the Dempsey Dumpster.”

  When we got back to Hank’s apartment, Don and Hank were watching television. The color was back in Don’s face, and he was drinking red wine with ice cubes. Hank had found an old electric fan in his closet, and some Christmas tree spray left over from Christmas. The wi
ndows were still open, but the pungent spray, diffused by the noisy fan, made the room smell like a pine forest. I turned off the TV, fixed myself a light scotch and water, without ice, and sat in front of the coffee table. I counted the money, and gave two one-hundred-dollar bills each to Eddie, Hank, and Don, and kept two of them for myself. I folded the remaining money, and put it into my jacket pocket.

  “I’ll need this extra money to buy a new pistol,” I said. “I got rid of mine—and the holster.”

  “What did you do with it, Larry?” Don said.

  “If you don’t know, Don, you can’t tell, can you?” I looked at Don and smiled.

  “What makes you think Don would ever say anything?” Hank said.

  “I don’t,” I said. “But it’s better for none of you guys to know. Okay? Now. If anybody’s got anything to say, now’s the time to say it. We’ll talk about it now, and then we’ll forget about it forever. What I mean, after tonight, none of us should ever mention this thing again. Okay?”

  Hank cleared his throat. “While you and Eddie were gone, Don and I were wondering why you had us bring the girl here in the first place.”

  “I was waiting for that,” I said. “What I wanted was a make on the girl. I figured that if I could find out her address, I could call her father, and have him come and get her. Either that, or we could take her to him after I talked to him. That way, he could’ve put her to bed and called his family doctor. That way, he could’ve covered up the fact that she died from an O.D., if that’s what it was.”

  “That wouldn’t have worked,” Hank said.

  “Maybe not. But that was the idea in the back of my mind. You asked me why I brought her here, and that’s the reason.”

  “It would’ve worked with me,” Don said. “I wouldn’t’ve wanted it in the papers, if my daughter died from an overdose of drugs.

  “Okay, Larry,” Hank said. “You never explained it to us before, is all. I just wonder, now, who those people were.”

  “The papers will tell you.” Eddie laughed. “Look in the Miami News tomorrow night. Section C—Lifestyle.”

  “Don?” I said.