by Julie Smith
It was a crowded store so I spoke in a whisper: “I don’t even live in the neighborhood. Here’s my driver’s license.”
The guy didn’t take the hint. “Rebecca Schwartz,” he shouted. “Oh sure. Anyone can pick a pocket. Or write a bad check, either. Sure you’re Rebecca Schwartz of Green Street. Yeah, and I’m Perry Mason.”
I was astounded, and not a little appalled that he was shouting my name up and down Leavenworth Street. “You know who I am.” Still whispering.
Now he whispered, too. “Yeah. I know who you are. You’re Marilyn Martin who hasn’t been in here for four months and for good reason. You picked the wrong pocket, you know that? Because Rebecca Schwartz happens to be somebody I just read about in the Chronicle. She’s going to be mighty interested to know who has her license. I’m calling her first thing in the morning. I’m calling the cops right now.” Chris shouted, “Run, Rebecca!” and blocked his way. “Get her!” the guy yelled. I ran out of the store and halfway down the block, but not a single person followed. I figured the guy wasn’t too popular even in his own neighborhood. I waited for Chris, wondering if our cover was blown. But Les no doubt had about as many friends as the store owner; unless he’d actually been in the store, we were probably all right.
By now, though, it was 1:15. The bars would close at 2:00 and so would everything else. After that, there’d be nothing to do—no way to help Rob, no hope. I was frankly terrified; we still had ten or twelve more stores to cover.
A lot of store owners were Chinese who pretended they couldn’t speak English when asked anything other than a price; but they probably wouldn’t have known Miranda anyway—or any of their customers. The great majority were Arabs. Arabs owned corner groceries all over the city and were usually extremely solicitous. But they treated Chris and me, in our bumout suits, like warty toads. The only people who were nice to us were old people so lonely they’d pass the time of day with the likes of us—and young guys who wanted to flirt. It was one of these who finally said at 1:52 A.M., “Miranda? Sure. Comes in all the time. I know why you ain’t seen her around, too.”
“Why?”
“She’s with Mean-Mouth now. Treats all his girls like prisoners. I mean, live and let live, you know? But Mean-Mouth’s something else.”
“He’s a pimp?”
“You ain’t heard of him?”
I shook my head.
“Yeah. He’s a pimp. Never has more than two girls at a time; but, man, do they work.”
“Poor Miranda.”
“Lotta turnover. Sooner or later they all run away or he stops ’em runnin’ away—if you know what I mean. Something tells me Miranda’s going to be mighty glad to see you.”
“Where do I find her?”
“Right across the street.” He pointed out a run-down flophouse about on a par with the Bonaventure Arms. “But I wouldn’t go in unarmed.”
“You wouldn’t know Mean-Mouth’s other name, would you?”
“Nope. Nobody does. But you ain’t thinking of asking for him by name, are you? Take my advice and don’t.”
We went outside and conferred. Clearly, we needed reinforcements. We could have called the cops then—and in retrospect, certainly should have—but we decided not to until we knew whether Rob was really in the building. Our judgment, frankly, was somewhat impaired by excess adrenaline.
We crossed the street and went into the flophouse. There was no lobby—nothing but a filthy corridor with a lot of forbidding doors on it. We walked up and down the corridor until we saw one partly open. I knocked, Chris standing slightly out of the way to back me up. “Yeah? Come in.” A gruff voice.
Stepping in somewhat gingerly, I saw that it belonged to an unshaven black man, probably about three hundred pounds, lying on a bed in his underwear. He was sipping a beer and poring, by the light from an unshaded bulb, over a racing form. “Are you Mean-Mouth?”
“Look what the Good Lord’s gone and sent me. Come in, sweet thing.”
“I’m looking for Mean-Mouth.”
“I’ll tell you where he is if you’ll give old Ralph a little sugar.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars.” I took out a ten-dollar bill and moved in close enough to make the offer seem serious.
“Ten dollars and a little lovin’.”
“Twenty dollars.” I produced another ten.
“What you want with Mean-Mouth?”
“I owe him some money.”
Old Ralph guffawed. “You payin’ me to find Mean-Mouth so you can pay him? Sweet thing, you a cop?”
“Do I smell like a cop?”
“Come closer and I’ll tell you.”
“Do you want the twenty or not?”
“Yeah. I’ll take the twenty.” He did, starting something like an earthquake in the bed just by sitting up.
“I’ll give you another ten to tell me what he looks like.”
“I thought you knew him.”
I sighed. “Okay, I’m a cop.”
“You ain’t no cop.”
“Okay, I’m not. Another ten or not?”
“Twenty.”
“First tell me where he lives.”
“Third floor, fourth door on the left. Okay?”
I handed over another twenty.
“Mean-Mouth looks like me.”
“Are you related or something?”
“Brothers, in a manner of speaking. Mean-Mouth’s the biggest, blackest, meanest dude I ever saw in my life.” We made Chris the lookout. Here was the plan: I’d go up and explore while Chris stood on the second floor. If I got in trouble, I’d whistle and she’d scream, run for help, whatever seemed appropriate. If Mean-Mouth came up the stairs, she’d whistle. Not a bad plan at all. If I got assaulted, then we’d certainly call the police. And hope they got there before Mean-Mouth turned me into fertilizer.
I found the right door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again and heard a noise from inside. Something like: “MMmmf.” I heard it in stereo—a male “mmf” and a female one.
I said, “Is anyone home, please?”
The male noises got louder. I opened the door to full light—and the sight of my sweetie in a double bed with Miranda. They were fully clothed, tied to the bed, and gagged. Quickly, I removed Rob’s gag: “You recognized my voice.”
“Voice! I recognized your knock.” He looked at me in a way he never had before. I liked to think that sometimes he looked as if he loved me, even admired me for my mind. But this look had a new respect in it; and gratitude as well. It came to me that I was rescuing him—and that if I weren’t, he had a good chance of dying. On impulse, I bent to kiss him. “Watch out,” he whispered.
I turned around quickly, heard footsteps, saw a man come into view. With relief, I noted that it wasn’t a giant black dude, but a scrawny, wiry white one—not Mean-Mouth at all. So why was Rob shouting another warning? “It’s Mean-Mouth!”
It hit me suddenly: I’d been had. Old Ralph’s description was his idea of a joke; if ever anyone didn’t look an iota like him, it was Mean-Mouth. But Ralph, I suspected, had been accurate in one particular—if Mean-Mouth wasn’t the meanest dude in the Tenderloin, you couldn’t tell it by his face. He had no lips to speak of and no chin—just a nasty little point bereft of jaws for backup. His eyes were so small you couldn’t tell what color they were. His nose would have been normal except that it was red—like the rest of his face.
I froze, as one does in a nightmare. Mean-Mouth came in quickly, slammed the door, reached in his pocket, and pulled out a switchblade.
When he pulled the knife, my mental processes thawed like the snowpack at Tahoe. If I hadn’t been able to think before, suddenly I couldn’t stop. It occurred to me to tell Rob I loved him before I died. Then it occurred to me to save my breath. Then I remembered to whistle—and then to do it again and still again—but with the door closed I didn’t think Chris could hear me.
Several possible plans of action came crowding in at once, including the notion of jumping out th
e window.
But it was closed and besides, the bed was between me and it.
One plan stood out from all the others; but there were serious flaws in it. And yet—was it really impossible? If I could time things right, maybe not.
Mean-Mouth stepped toward me. As he did I dropped and rolled under the bed.
“Come out or I cut him.” I imagined Mean-Mouth holding the knife at Rob’s throat, and it was far from a pretty picture, but I could bear it—the thing just didn’t have the impact it would have if I’d actually been watching. I took time to fumble in the Sportsac for the two things I needed, put one between two fingers so it couldn’t be seen, and put the other in my jeans’ pocket.
Then I rolled out from under the bed on Miranda’s side. She stared at me with terrified eyes. I didn’t dare look at Rob. Mean-Mouth said, “Come over here.” Which was exactly what I wanted to hear. I walked around the bed, making as wide a circle as I could so that, when I reached the foot, I was also near the wall with the door—and the light switch.
With my left hand I turned the light off, at the same time reaching in my pocket with my right. I pulled out the switchblade comb Rob and I had bought at the magic shop, brandished it, and pressed the button, praying there wasn’t enough light to give me away. Mean-Mouth tensed and moved toward me. It looked as if I’d gotten away with it—so far. I backed away from Mean-Mouth, crouching a bit and trying to look fierce.
Rob spoke quietly: “Circle, Rebecca. Keep moving on his left side—stay away from the hand with the knife.”
I started circling and so did Mean-Mouth, throwing his knife back and forth between his left and right hands. I didn’t know if the gesture was meant to intimidate, or if it served some other purpose, but it did succeed in making my scalp prickle. I had the sudden sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to pull this off.
“If he comes at you, parry with your left hand.”
What the hell did parry mean? I decided that asking would create a poor psychological effect. I kept circling.
Mean-Mouth struck. Instinctively, I blocked him with my left arm. “Good,” said Rob, but it wasn’t that good. I had a nasty cut on my arm. I wondered if I’d need stitches, and if the cut would leave a scar, which was probably all to the good—it kept me from realizing I might be too dead to care sometime in the next five minutes.
I didn’t have the nerve to strike at Mean-Mouth. If I tried—especially if I tried for the only part of his anatomy that was vulnerable to a comb—he’d get me in the ribs or the back. So I kept circling, hoping for an opening. I had another worry, too. My eyes were getting accustomed to the dark, which meant that his probably were, too. Any second he might figure out that I had no weapon at all.
Could I trip him? I couldn’t see a way. But I had to get him off-balance. I figured I had exactly one ploy available—the realization made me wonder why I hadn’t thought of it before. I was in a hotel full of people and I was being attacked. I could yell for help. But then I had second thoughts. If I yelled, Chris would probably come running, and I was afraid that, unarmed, she’d get hurt.
My left arm was bleeding badly and beginning to hurt. So when Mean-Mouth struck again, I stepped back instead of parrying. In retrospect I shudder to think how my survivors would have felt if I’d caught the blow—there was so much force behind it that, deprived of his target, Mean-Mouth stumbled. It was the opening I’d been waiting for. I squeezed the thing between my fingers—one of the blood capsules from the magic store—and used the comb to jab him in the eye as hard as I could. With a sound like “arrr;” he fell back.
I covered his face with my hand, leaving him with simulated blood all over it. Then, as his left hand went to his eye, I jumped up on the bed, stepping on Miranda’s leg, but remaining somehow upright, and shouted my own “arrr.” Without a word or a sound—but also without dropping the knife—Mean-Mouth ran from the room. I hoped Chris was in the clear, but didn’t dare yell for fear she’d step into the open just as he reached the second floor.
Instead, I chased him. Down the corridor, down the stairs to the second floor. But I stopped there. “Chris?” She stepped from the shadows. There wasn’t a sound from anywhere in the flophouse. I supposed the denizens laid low when they heard a fight.
“Omigod,” said Chris, looking at my arm, and then, seeing my face, “Jesus! Lie down.”
I didn’t have to be told. I’d suddenly started feeling very queasy indeed. I started to sink, looking forward to passing out, but remembered that Mean-Mouth would soon figure out he wasn’t badly injured. I sat instead of lying, put my head between my knees, and closed my eyes. The last thing I saw was Chris pulling off her T-shirt. She was starting to wrap it around my left arm when I heard an army coming up the stairs. The cops, I thought, not knowing how they’d got the word, but grateful, anyhow. I opened my eyes. Old Ralph from downstairs, now wearing a pair of pants, was charging toward us. “Sweet thing, you all right?”
“You almost got me killed, you elephant.”
“That ain’t no way to talk, sweet thing. I s’pose I did wrong to tease you, but I figured you’d find out what Mean-Mouth looked like when you found him.”
Chris said, “That was Mean-Mouth? The guy you were chasing?”
I nodded. She spoke to me, but looked straight at Ralph: “I could have warned you if I’d known what he looked like.”
“Yeah,” said Ralph. “We were just discussing that.”
I said, “Rob and Miranda are tied up upstairs. We’ve got to get them out of here before he comes back.”
Ralph said, “I’ll take care of Mean-Mouth. I guess I owe you that.”
“That,” I said, “and twenty bucks.”
He didn’t respond, just settled his blubber on the stairs.
By now, I had a fresh surge of adrenaline; I went back upstairs with Chris. Ungagged, Miranda said, “There’s a knife under the mattress.” After I’d assured Rob I wasn’t badly hurt and he’d congratulated me on the rescue, Chris and I cut their ropes with Miranda’s knife and the four of us got the hell out, silently. We were back on the second floor in about forty-five seconds, Chris wearing Rob’s jacket over her bra, Rob and me dragging Miranda.
Ralph was still standing guard—or rather sitting it—but he heaved himself to his feet to see us out. “No sign of him,” he said. “But you be careful, hear?”
“Thanks for the help.”
“I left the second twenty in my room. You come back and get it, okay?”
“Oh, never mind.” I figured I owed it to him for sentry duty but I was too peeved to be gracious about it.
I guess Miranda had been conscious for most of the excitement—she’d certainly seemed fully awake when she told us where to find the knife—but now she could barely stand. Rob and I had her propped between us, and every now and then she’d manage a step or two, but we had to carry her, more or less, to the Volvo. Once in it, we assessed my wound, which had stopped bleeding and was already starting to close. So I declined medical assistance in favor of a thrilling morning at home. Spent, Chris declined any more thrills, so we dropped her at her place. Then the rest of us headed for Green Street, Rob occasionally reaching over to touch my knee, Miranda snoring in the back seat.
We settled her on one of the white sofas while I made coffee and pasta and Rob took a shower. It was 3:00 A.M. when he joined me in the kitchen and tucked into some fettucine carbonara—his first decent meal in days.
Then I went to wash the Thunderbird off. Standing under the shower, I had a momentary feeling everything was going to be all right. But moments later, when I looked in the mirror, I knew it wouldn’t. The makers of the platinum spray were charlatans and liars—my client had worse than a fool for a lawyer. He had a green-haired one.
20
I now had less than six hours to figure out what Miranda knew and get to court. But where to start?
“What choice have we got?” said Rob. “Let’s let her sleep for a while.”
So we set the a
larm for 6:00 and went to bed. At 5:30, Miranda staggered into the bedroom: “What the hell is this? Who’re you?”
Rob said: “I found you at your hotel last night. Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head.
“I couldn’t wake you up, but your friend came in drunk and jumped to conclusions. God knows what he was planning to do with us.”
“Oh, yeah. Then the next thing I remember, this lady was there.” She was quiet a moment, remembering. “What the hell’s this all about?”
“Why don’t you take a shower?” I said. “We’ll get dressed and tell you about it.”
She nodded and staggered out. In a moment, we heard the shower running. Rob put on some clothes he’d left at my house, and after getting into a robe, I went out to the kitchen to put on more coffee. While Rob made toast, I found some clothes for Miranda and knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. I knocked louder and yelled. Still no answer. I tried the door, but found it locked.
Rob said, “Let’s try a credit card.” I don’t know where he learned to do it, but somehow he made it work. Miranda was naked on the bathroom floor, out cold once again. The bathroom was so steamy we could hardly see. Rob bowed out while I turned off the shower and bent over Miranda. I shook her and her eyelids fluttered, then opened: “Who the hell are you?”
“I found you last night. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” She shut her eyes again.
“Miranda. Miranda, wake up.”
“How do you know my name?”
“You told me. Your friends call you Miranda Warning.” This time the eyes flipped wide open, and she sat up, flinging an arm that hit mine, right where Mean-Mouth had cut it. “Ouch.”
“What the hell is this?”
“If you’ll come into the kitchen, I’ll tell you.”
“I feel awful. Me and Mean-Mouth tied one on last night.”
“Let me get you a robe.”
I was afraid to leave her, thinking she might pass out again, but she was washing her face when I returned. She said: “Is your hair supposed to be that color?”