8 The Man Who Loved Women to Death

by David Handler

  Lulu took one look around and asked me if she could spend the rest of the evening in the car. I said no. We took a table. We tried to order a drink. We couldn’t find a waitress.

  Luz Santana turned out to be tawny and long-limbed and no more than twenty-three. She came with the preferred equipment package—the antigravity tits, fattened collagen lips, big Jersey hair dyed the color of butterscotch. Her lips and nails were bright orange, her G-string and spiked heels hot pink. Personally, I saw no resemblance to Julia Roberts whatsoever.

  Luz was not in the least bit happy to see Tuttle. Passed right on by our table, flaring her nostrils at him. Not that this fazed Tuttle in the least.

  He just grabbed her by the arm and said, “Join us.”

  “Like, ask someone else, okay?” Luz’s voice was somewhat screechy. It was not her best feature.

  “Aw, come on, baby,” he pleaded. “I want you to meet my oldest friend in the universe.”

  “If he’s anything like you I don’t wanna have nothin’ to do with him, okay? And I ain’t your baby.”

  Tuttle climbed unsteadily to his feet. “I’ve missed you, Luz,” he said, gazing deeply into her eyes. He could do this better than anyone, even drunk. Especially drunk. “I’ve missed what we had together.”

  Luz looked away uneasily. She suddenly seemed extremely young and very vulnerable. “Yeah, well, I didn’t like where it was headed, okay?”

  “You make it sound like the whole thing was my idea.”

  “Like, the handcuffs weren’t exactly mine, okay?”

  Lulu let out a low unhappy moan. Not her kind of conversation.

  Tuttle looked hurt now. “What, you’re saying it was no good for you?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying,” Luz admitted, softening. “Like, I’m standing here talking to you and it’s like my heart is beating so fucking fast. You got skills, honey. You got it going.”

  “You’re the one’s got it going.” His eyes were feasting on her plump, golden-brown breasts, thighs, drumsticks. “My God, look at you.”

  “No, Tuttle! Just … no. It’s over, okay?” She started away from him.

  He grabbed her by the arm again, harder this time. “No, it’s not okay!”

  “Let go of me!” she cried, squirming in his grasp.

  Instantly, a bouncer appeared.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you not to touch the ladies, sir,” he informed Tuttle politely.

  “Oh, really?” Tuttle tightened his grip on Luz’s bare arm. Splotches formed beneath his fingers. “Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to get out of my fucking face.”

  The bouncer moved in closer. He wasn’t any taller than Tuttle, but he was a whole lot wider. And calm. Really calm. “We like for everyone to have a good time, sir. But you have to behave yourself. If you’re going to bother the lady, you’re out of here.”

  Another bouncer appeared behind him now. Backup.

  “Tuttle, why don’t you go get us a couple of drinks at the bar?” I suggested, playing Mr. Peacemaker.

  “You get them, Doof. Me and Luz have to talk.”

  I tried it again, louder this time. “Go get us some drinks, Tuttle. Or we’re leaving.”

  Tuttle scowled at me. He seemed dazed and confused all of a sudden, like he’d just been thrown to the turf by an onrushing linebacker. I found myself wondering just how many tabs of Vitamin V he’d taken. “Oh, okay, Doof,” he said hollowly. “Sure. Whatever.” He released Luz, straightened his tie with exaggerated care and started across the crowded club toward one of the bars, weaving on rubbery legs. The bouncers watched him carefully.

  “Thanks, Eddie,” Luz said to the first bouncer.

  “Enjoy your evening, sir,” Eddie said to me. Then he and his backup headed off into the crowd.

  “May I have a moment of your time, Luz?”

  She tossed her head at me, rather like a palomino. “Want me to dance for you?”

  “Just talk.”

  She glanced longingly over her bare shoulder at the suits stacked four deep at the bar, then doubtfully down at Lulu, who was huddled between my feet. Finally, her eyes fell on the fifty in my hand, and that made her mind up, no problem.

  She sat. “Are you like a friend of his?”

  “We went to school together.”

  “You the one goes with Merilee Nash?”

  “Why, yes.”

  She nodded. “Sure, he talks about you all the time. Your name’s like Yogi or Bogie or—”

  “Close enough,” I said, my eyes getting used to the presence of her naked breasts across the table from me. And you do get used to them. Because you are so surrounded by them. And because it’s all so impersonal. “What does he say about me?”

  “That you was a very famous writer.”

  “It’s true. I was.”

  “No, no,” she said apologetically. “I don’t talk so good sometimes. I wasn’t saying you aren’t one no more. Like, I’m sure you are.”

  “I guess you don’t get many publishers in here.”

  A waitress appeared now. When a dancer sits they show. Luz ordered a cranberry juice and soda. I ordered a Rolling Rock. At the bar, Tuttle was still in line.

  At my feet, Lulu started sneezing furiously from all of the perfume in the air. She’s allergic to any number of them, especially anything musky or Calviny. I would regret this later. Her sinuses would clog up. She would sleep on my head. She would snore. Oh yes, I would regret this. I removed Grandfather’s silver cigarette case from my inside jacket pocket and offered her one of her allergy pills. They are small. They are for her own good. Usually, she will take one without a fight. Not this time. Stubborn? Unless you’ve spent time around a basset hound you don’t know the meaning of the word. I tried Plan B, the one where I pry her jaws apart, chuck the pill down her gullet and massage her throat until she swallows it. Nothing doing. She has an amazingly strong jaw. This called for Plan C—insert pill directly into right or left nostril of large black nose. Wait for her to schnarfle it back into my hand, relaxing her jaw in the process. Shoot pill down throat before she can clamp it tightly shut again.

  And everyone thinks she’s the brains of the outfit.

  “You okay now, honey?” Luz arched an eyebrow at me.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “How come you got your little dog with you anyway?”

  “She likes to party.”

  “I never heard of that. That’s so cute.”

  “Believe me, it gets old fast.”

  Our waitress returned now with our drinks. Luz reached for hers and somehow managed to grip it—her orange fingernails were at least an inch long. She took a sip. At the table next to ours, a hardworking little blonde was earnestly air-humping a middle-aged guy’s knee. She reminded me of a frisky cockapoo my parents had when I was a boy.

  “What happened between you and Tuttle, Luz?”

  She thought this over, running her tongue around the rim of her glass. “Like, we went out a few times, okay? And he seemed pretty nice and all, if you like older guys. Oh, hey, I’m not trying to insult you or nothing.”

  “I know you’re not, Luz. That’s the sad part.”

  “Huh?”

  “You went out a few times …”

  “Only I tol’ him to stop calling me, on account of it got weird, okay? If it was just the handcuffs, that woulda been one thing. Only he wanted to get rough, too.”

  “Rough, how?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “You know, where you tie a stocking around your throat and pull it so tight you almost choke. Makes it like a more intense orgasm.”

  “His or yours?”

  “Huh?”

  “Throat. His or yours?”

  “Mine, for damned sure.” She fingered it. It was a lovely throat, creamy and unlined. “You ever know a guy who liked to do punishment to himself?”

  “I guess you don’t get many writers in here either.”

  The little blond
e was done dancing now. She put her leg up on her customer’s chair. He put a twenty in her garter. There were a lot of twenties stuffed in her garter. Up on the stage, another stripper was at work. Same disco beat.

  “I tol’ him no way, okay?” Luz went on. “Like, I ain’t about that shit. And that’s when he gave me a black eye. I had to call in sick for three nights. And now I just want he should leave me alone, only he won’t. He keeps coming by, bothering me. He even …” She hesitated.

  “He even what, Luz?”

  “I feel like I’m being followed,” she blurted out. “I mean, I am. Like, he’s following me, okay?”

  A cold chill went through me. “Are you sure it’s Tuttle?”

  “Well, yeah. Who else would it be?”

  I looked around the room. It was crowded with restless men. Unhappy men. Salivating men. “Working in a place like this, I would think it could be just about anyone.”

  “Oh, no. Uh-uh. I’m real careful. We all are. You never tell him your last name. You never tell him where you live. Uh-uh. No way. It’s Tuttle. I know it is.” She glanced over her bare shoulder again at the bar. He was still there, ordering now. She leaned across the table toward me, our drinks all but disappearing beneath her silicone wonders. “Look, you seem pretty okay. And he kind of listens to you. Can I be straight here?”

  “You can.”

  “I’ve met someone else, okay? And he’s nice and he’s got a good job and it’s pretty serious. So I’m thinking I wanna get out of this. Not that I been deceiving him. He knows I’m an entertainer and everything. And he says it’s okay with him. Only, this life makes you kind of hard if you don’t get out in time. I got nineteen thousand saved up. I want to go to college, become like a nurse.” She looked across the table at me imploringly. “Y’know what I’m saying?”

  The stripper up on the stage finished her dance now to a smattering of applause. The throbbing disco died. Briefly, there was quiet.

  “Yes, Luz, I believe I do. You want Tuttle Cash out of your life.”

  “That’s right,” she said, relieved that I understood. “That’s it.”

  “He often has that effect on people—particularly women.”

  He had made his score at the bar. Four shots of whiskey cradled carefully in one big hand, four bottles of Rolling Rock in the other. Slowly, he started his lurching journey back across the club toward us. Only, he wasn’t going to manage it and he knew it, so he stopped to dispose of one of the shots. And then another one.

  I turned back to Luz and her swollen orange lips. “What kind of lipstick is that you have on?”

  “It’s Solar Sunburst by Maybelline. I do my whole look myself, y’know, on account of I got a flair for design.” She sipped her cranberry spritzer. “Why you asking?”

  “It’s most becoming.” If you like orange. Only it was the wrong brand of orange. The answer man was a Revlon man. What did that mean? What did any of it mean? Was Tuttle stalking her? Was she in danger?

  I looked around for him but he seemed to have disappeared. Possibly under a table somewhere. I took a sip of my Rolling Rock. I glanced at the tab and was suitably outraged. I reached for my wallet. And then I heard it:

  I heard Ethel Merman singing “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

  It’s true, The King was up there on the stage of Ten’s belting out his old dining hall showstopper at the top of his lungs. The man was singing it. The man was shaking it. The man was stripping it. Off came the jacket and tie, then the shirt. He flung them out into the audience.

  Luz gasped in horror. I guess Tuttle hadn’t shared all of his hidden talents with her. And you don’t find a lot of Ethel Merman fans anymore among the young.

  There were a few half-hearted snickers from the crowd. One guy called out, “Go for it, Tut!” Mostly, there was indifference. They had come to look at the babes, not some beefy ex-jock with too much booze in him. Mostly, Tuttle was just plain ignored.

  Except by the bouncers, of course. Three of them were on him before he could get his pants off. One of them was Eddie, who’d come to Luz’s rescue. They hustled him off the stage to our table. Tuttle was cackling with delight.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you gentlemen to leave,” Eddie informed me while the other two tried to wrestle Tuttle back into his shirt and jacket. “I warned you, we can’t tolerate any disturbances.”

  “I have no problem with that,” I assured Eddie pleasantly. “We were just leaving, as it happens. Come on, Tuttle. Let’s get out of here.”

  Tuttle stood his ground. He had that zonked, disoriented look on his face again. “What, you want to leave?”

  “I want to leave.”

  “Oh, okay. Sure, Doof. Whatever you say.” He was looking at Luz. He was smiling at her. She was not smiling back at him.

  Eddie grabbed his arm. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Tuttle’s eyes instantly turned to angry blue pinpoints. “Get … your … hands off of me.”

  “I said let’s go,” Eddie persisted, steering Tuttle toward the front door.

  “And I said get your fucking hands off of me!” Tuttle snarled. “Don’t you know who I am? I am The King.”

  One of the bouncers snorted. “Fucker thinks he’s Elvis.”

  “Actually, he is somebody,” said the other. “Played ball, I think.”

  Eddie moved in closer. “Let’s talk about it outside, Mr. Presley, okay? We don’t want any trouble.”

  Tuttle nodded his head obediently. “Oh, okay. Why didn’t you say so? You don’t want any trouble.” To me he said, “He doesn’t want any trouble.” To Luz he said, “Not a problem. I understand completely.”

  I saw the punch coming from a mile away. I don’t know how Eddie didn’t. Maybe good bouncers are hard to find these days. All I know is that Tuttle’s right caught Eddie flush on the nose, staggering him. Blood spurted from Eddie’s nose. A lot of blood. This made Eddie mad. A lot of mad.

  It certainly didn’t help that Tuttle was standing there laughing at him.

  One of the other bouncers pinned Tuttle’s arms back while Eddie rammed a huge fist into his belly. An animal groan came out of Tuttle. Then he went completely limp, his face ashen. They hustled him toward the door, his feet trailing along feebly behind him.

  “Well, I guess we’ll be leaving now, Luz,” I said. “Real nice meeting you.”

  “Nice meeting you, too, honey,” she said. “You got manners. You can come back anytime. I’ll show you my moves.”

  I gave her my card in case she ever needed to reach me. Friends of Tuttle often needed to reach out to each other. Then I strolled out with Lulu prancing along ahead of me. She was downright jolly now. She loves to get thrown out of places. Gives her something to brag on to the other dogs in the elevator of our building. Most of them lead boring, predictable lives.

  Tuttle was causing another scene at the front door. The man wanted his coat. They were having none of it. Just tossed him out onto the cold, wet sidewalk. They did it extra-rough, like he was a no-good, penniless, stinking bum.

  “Was that absolutely necessary?” I asked Eddie.

  “That crazy fucker hit me!” Eddie howled in response, fingering his bloody nose. He was big, but he wasn’t tough. “Don’t come back, mister. You aren’t welcome here anymore.”

  “I’ll try to mask my disappointment. May I have our coats?”

  “Gimme the tabs. I’ll have her bring ’em out.”

  Tuttle was on his hands and knees in the gutter, getting rid of his dinner. The cabbies who were standing around there waiting for fares were having a good, mean chuckle over it.

  Yes, the crowd was roaring, all right. With laughter.

  The girl who’d checked our coats came outside with them, Eddie standing watch in the doorway. I gave her a couple of bucks and put mine on. Then I helped Tuttle to his feet and she handed him his. My own turn to be stupid. I forgot what was in his coat pocket. He sure didn’t—went right for the Smith & Wesson and took dead aim at E
ddie with it. I dove for Tuttle just as he was about to fire, tackling him hard to the pavement. I didn’t stop him from getting off the shot. But I did mess up his aim. Instead of taking out Eddie he took out one of the smoked-glass doors. Pebbled safety glass cascaded everywhere. A security alarm wailed.

  I wrestled the gun away from him and pocketed it. And then the two of us did the only thing that proper, well-bred gentlemen can do under such circumstances.

  We ran, Tuttle limping noticeably on his bad knee. But the bastard was still faster than I was. And Lulu was faster than both of us. She was waiting for us at the Jag, Eddie and the other bouncer bringing up the rear by half a block, bellowing curses at us. We jumped in and sped off, Tuttle cackling again, happy as a clam.

  “I cannot believe this,” I said, when I’d caught my breath. “I tackled you to the ground. I actually brought Tuttle Cash down.”

  “Hey, put it back in your pants, rookie. I’m half the man I used to be.”