by Craig Rice
“Maybe we can make a deal with that contract of yours,” Cullucio said. “I want you to be happy here.”
“I know I would, Mr. Cullucio.”
“Call me Frank.”
“Frank,” I gulped.
Mother and the sheriff returned to the table. The orchestra had gone into a conga, and they were both a little out of breath from dancing.
“Tomorrow, then, Evangie?” the sheriff whispered as he helped Mother into her chair.
“Tomorrow, Hank,” Mother said.
The air was certainly full of June.
Hank took his hat from the chair and held it in his hands. “So long, folks,” he said.
“See you tomorrow,” Biff said from the dance floor. He hadn’t heard Mother and the sheriff make their little date, so he didn’t understand the sheriff’s blush.
Mother picked up her purse and fumbled around for her asthma cigarettes. The conga had been too much for her, I knew. The instant she put it to her lips, Cullucio was on hand with a cigarette lighter. The lighter matched the pen, only it was even heavier and more ornate. Mother inhaled the pungent smoke. As she exhaled, her breathing became easier.
Cullucio leaned over the table and watched her intently. The overhead lights, reds and blues, made his hair shine like a rhododendron leaf that’s just been sprayed with miscible oil. His face seemed darker, his teeth whiter. He dipped the end of his cigar in his liquor before he put it to his mouth, but he didn’t light it. Instead, he suddenly got to his feet, turned on his heel, and left.
I watched the padded white shoulders as they traveled through the crowd. When they arrived at the door with OFFICE-OFFICIO written above it I lost sight of them.
“Well,” Mother said, “if he isn’t rude. You’d think he’d have said good night or something.”
I was thinking too hard to answer her. I wondered what I had said to anger him. After all Biff’s trouble trying to sell Cliff and Mandy, after my hours of playing knees, and after drinking that terrible liquor, I had to say something to spoil things! But what had I said? I couldn’t for the life of me remember.
Biff and Mamie danced by the table. The rose on Mamie’s hat was hanging down over her thin shoulder. As she bounced around with her own version of the conga, her dress flopped around her frame grotesquely, but she looked as though she were having herself a time.
Mother’s cubeb smoke was getting heavier. It was a sticky, sweet-smelling smoke like …
“Like Benny, the trumpet player,” I said aloud.
“Who?” Mother asked politely.
“Nobody,” I said. “Nobody at all.”
The noise of the saloon was reaching a crescendo. The conga line raced madly around the small dance floor. I was dizzy from watching them, dizzy from remembering.
Without realizing what I was doing, I took the cubeb from Mother’s fingers and ground it out in the ash tray. Mother looked at me as though I had gone mad.
“What in the world’s the matter now?” she asked.
I couldn’t tell her about Gee Gee and the marijuana. I couldn’t tell her that her cubeb smelled exactly like a reefer. Suddenly I knew why Cullucio had been so rude. He thought Mother was smoking a marijuana!
“No wonder he was upset,” I said. “He thought you were smoking a marijuana.”
“A marinello?” Mother gasped. “Have you lost your senses?”
I shook my head. “No, Mother, I just had a flash. I think I know why Biff wants Cliff and Mandy to play The Happy Hour saloon. He wants an excuse to hang around.”
“Biff doesn’t need an excuse,” Mother said haughtily, “not when there’s a bar in the place.” Mother put another cubeb to her lips and lit it. “I don’t like this club at all,” she said between puffs. “I don’t like the manager, either. Trying to tell me I didn’t know those two men.”
“He didn’t say that exactly,” I said. “He just said they didn’t go into his office.”
“Whatever he said, I didn’t like his attitude when he said it.”
“Well,” I said. “He isn’t a beauty boy, but maybe he means well. If he puts Cliff and Mandy to work I’ll be grateful to him, attitude or no attitude.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We were at the door marked OFFICE-OFFICIO at eleven-thirty the next morning. Corny, bleary-eyed but determined, knocked. Dimples set her mouth in a big personality smile, and I braced myself for the meeting with Francisco Cullucio.
There was no answer.
A heavy odor of stale liquor and cigar smoke filled the dimly lit room. It hadn’t been a pleasant odor the night before. In the morning it was worse. A strip of white sunlight from the open door splashed across the littered floor. The chairs were piled on the tables. The red-and-white tablecloths were stained and dirty.
“What d’ya want,” an unfriendly voice asked from the back of the saloon.
“We had an appointment with Mr. Cullucio,” Biff replied.
“He ain’t here.”
That was obvious, but Biff, being in a jovial mood, didn’t mention it. Instead he opened the door wider.
The pockmarked waiter emerged from the shadows. He held a broom in his hand.
“Hey, close that door,” he shouted. “Want the place full of customers before we can serve ’em?”
Biff closed the door. “Perhaps you know where …”
“He’s at the store. Can’t miss it. Name’s the Emporium. Two blocks down the street.” The waiter stood leaning on his broom. If Biff had been intending to question him further, the man’s attitude discouraged it.
“Thanks,” we said, almost in unison.
The waiter was right when he said we couldn’t miss the Emporium. We could see the sign from the saloon: FRANCISCO CULLUCIO in letters a foot high, THE EMPORIUM in letters a bit smaller. A canvas banner stretched across the street. On it was written: PERFUMES. LINENS. FINE LIQUORS. CUT PRICES. A large, painted red hand pointed to the store.
Before entering we looked in the windows. Cullucio dealt in more than just linens, perfumes, and liquors, judging by the variety of articles displayed. Men’s riding boots were shown beside English electric razors and German cameras. Chinese kimonos were folded with the golden dragons showing. Beside them were Japanese lacquer boxes. In the back were Hudson Bay blankets, bath towels, tablecloths.
Cullucio sat at a teakwood desk in the back of the store. He still wore the white suit, but he had changed his shirt to a bright-yellow silk. It made his face almost saffron. He scowled over a piece of paper he held in his hand.
Dimples and I stopped at a counter of Mexican novelties while Biff and the two comics walked over to the desk.
“Well, here we are, bright and early,” Biff said.
Cullucio glanced at him, then went back to reading the letter.
“Sorry we had to leave before we got a chance to say good night,” Biff went on, as though he had the man’s complete attention. “It was because Evangie, that’s Gyp’s mother, got an asthma attack. We had to fill her full of that stinking medicine she smokes and it was makin’ her sicker than the asthma.”
I peeked at Cullucio from over a small fan with NOGALES printed on it. He had stopped reading. His eyes were still on the paper but they didn’t move. I crossed my fingers for luck. Biff and I had sat up until daybreak trying to figure out a story that would clear us with Cullucio. When I told Biff about the cubeb, he nodded as though he knew all about it.
“Why do you think I was trying to get the guys a job?” he asked me.
I told him about Cullucio offering me a job, too. Biff said later that it didn’t sound like a job for him; it sounded like a position.
Now he went on talking to Cullucio. “She’s had asthma since she was a kid. Suffers awful from it. Asked me to tell you she was sorry she had to break up the party.”
Cullucio put the paper in a little wire basket on his desk. He smiled at Biff.
“Hello, hello. Sit down.” He indicated a leather chair near him. Then he picked up a corner of
the letter. “People all the time trying to sell me something.”
Biff nodded to Corny and Mandy. After the handshaking was over they settled down to business. Biff got Cullucio to up the money from thirty to forty a week each. Then he called to Dimples and me.
Dimples settled for forty, too, with tips. Biff bought a pair of Chinese slippers for Mother. Cullucio gave him a discount, and we left.
Once outside, we all sighed deeply. Biff and I for relief, the others because forty a week is forty a week.
“Let’s get one beer before we go home,” Dimples said.
Three hours later we arrived at the trailer.
I was feeling my beers. Rye makes me happy and wide awake; beer puts me to sleep. So does champagne, but that’s beside the point. While Dimples went through the steamer trunk for her music and wardrobe, I stretched out on the bed in the bedroom. I felt as though Biff and I had accomplished something. The sheriff, thanks to Mother, was on our side. Cullucio was unsuspecting. Our friends were working. It looked as though things were going along nicely.
“Now that Corny has a job he can move to the hotel,” I said. It had been in the back of my head all the time. Saying it aloud gave me assurance.
“Uh-huh,” Dimples replied. She had a stack of music and photographs on the floor and was going through them slowly.
“Do yo think I oughta open with Blue Prelude or my cigarette-number?” she asked.
“Both,” I said.
She put the scores to both numbers aside. Then she started rummaging through the trunk for her costumes: chiffons, crumpled and faded, shiny velvets, feathers, and rhinestones. She piled them in a heap next to the music. She selected three or four G strings, several net brassières and placed them with the wardrobe. Frayed satin shoes and a garter belt with limp lace were the end of the collection. Dimples never went in for an extensive wardrobe. She figured that no one was interested in what she had on. It was what she took off that counted.
After she rolled the things in a suitcase and left the trailer I dozed off. It was dark when I awakened. I must have slept for hours, but instead of jumping up I lay still and quiet.
Something had startled me. I thought it was Rufus, the monkey. Then I heard him snoring. The dogs were with Mother, I knew. They were visiting. Dimples should be rehearsing; she was called at five. But there was someone in the trailer with me, someone in the front room.
I heard a stealthy footstep, the sound of a drawer being opened. I tried to keep my breathing even, as though I were still sleeping. Someone touched the door to the bedroom. When I went to sleep it had been open, but it was closed! My eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness, and I saw the brass handle to the door move.
I called out softly, “Who is it?”
The brass handle fell into place.
I jumped up from the bed and threw open the door. I snapped the button for the light. Nothing happened. Someone had pulled the plug that connected with the electric outlet.
“Who is it?” My voice sounded hollow.
There was no answer. A warm breeze from the front of the room told me the door was open. I felt my way along in the darkness until my hands touched the kerosene lamp. With trembling fingers I lifted the glass hurricane globe and placed it to one side. I found a match and lit the lamp.
The room was empty. The door was open, as I suspected, but there was no one there. The screen door was also open. I looked outside. Flickering lights came from the surrounding trailer windows. Someone’s radio was playing quietly. That was all.
I closed the screen door and looked around the room. Everything was in order. No, not everything. The door to the pantry was open. Before I closed it, I looked inside to see if things were disturbed. The half loaf of bread was untouched, the coffee can in its place. The sugar bowl, the tea, the soda crackers, Mother’s supply of asthma powder; nothing was misplaced.
I sat on the daybed. My legs were still weak. I felt I had to sit and quickly. Had I dreamed it, I wondered.
“I didn’t dream the screen door open,” I said aloud. “I didn’t dream the doorknob turning, either.”
A voice from outside spoke suddenly. “Well, you’re up.”
I couldn’t place the voice or the face at the screen door. I must have screamed. It all seems so silly now, but at that moment I was as frightened as I’ve been in my whole life. Frightened by my own mother!
“Why, Louise!” she said. “You’re as pale as a ghost.” She opened the door and called the dogs into the trailer. She had a bundle under her arms and she tossed it on the stove.
While the dogs jumped around whining for their dinner, I told Mother about someone opening the drawer, leaving the screen door open, rummaging through the pantry. Mother cut up the dogs’ meat with a pair of scissors and listened to me.
“It must be your imagination,” she said when I had finished.
“But the lights,” I said. “They wouldn’t go on. When I pushed the light switch nothing happened.”
“It isn’t the first time someone has kicked the extension loose,” Mother replied. She put the dogs’ meat in separate little piles on a newspaper and watched them eat. Then she opened the bundle that was on the stove.
“The neighbors gave me these beautiful bones for the babies.” Mother held up four rib bones. I didn’t think they were beautiful, but the dogs did. The monkey was fed his seeds, the guinea pig his carrot. Mother sat back and relaxed.
“Do you know, Louise, I’ve been thinking,” Mother said. Her pause didn’t frighten me; she looked too serene. “I’m not sure that saloon is a good place for Dimples to work. That man who runs it, I don’t trust him, dear.”
I went over and put my arms around her. Her hair smelled so clean and fresh, like new-mown hay.
“Neither do I,” I said. “But Dimples can handle herself and, well, there’s a reason.”
Mother looked up at me sharply.
“You and Biff aren’t getting yourselves inveigled into anything, are you?” she asked.
“It’s a little late for inveiglement,” I replied. “And, anyway, Biff has a plan. He’s going to …”
“He’s going to what?” Mother asked. Her shoulders had become taunt under my hands. I could hear her catch her breath in a tight gasp.
“He’s going to charge them ten per cent agent fees,” I said. I tried to laugh. It was no go. I reached in the pantry for the bottle of rye instead.
“Have a hot toddy while I have an old-fash?” I asked.
Mother nodded, and I put on the water to boil. I was glad to have something to occupy my mind, something to make my head stop pounding so. Pounding with unanswerable questions. Why had Mother been so anxious to bury the body? Why hadn’t she told me about buying the gun? Why hadn’t she given it to the sheriff the day we were in the woods? Why had she waited until Joyce forced her into telling him about it? Why had she changed so in the last few weeks?
A familiar noise disturbed the silence. It was the loud knocking of a car that had burned out its bearings. The headlights cast a beam on the door of the trailer.
“Hey, come out and see what we got,” Biff shouted.
“We’re in the wood, coal, and ice business as of today,” Dimples yelled happily.
I went to the door and opened it. Biff was driving a truck. Dimples sat in the front seat with him. In the back sat Corny and Mandy. It was an open-stake-bodied truck, the same truck they had carted the corpse away in.
“No!” I shouted. I ran down the steps and reached Biff’s side as he jumped down from the seat. “Not this car, Biff!”
“It’s the only thing in town we could rent,” he explained, squeezing my arm gently. “Ain’t it a beaut? Ten bucks a week.”
“Well,” I mumbled. “The price is right. Does it go?”
Mandy and Corny climbed down from the back. Mandy was limping painfully.
“Damn right it goes,” he said. “Right back to the guy that rented it to us.” He limped over to a chair under the lean-to tent and
fell into it.
“We’ll put a hammock back there for ya,” Dimples said laughingly.
Corny was silent. He stepped into the trailer and closed the door loudly.
“What’s eating him?” I asked.
Dimples and Mandy laughed.
“Biff told him to get out. Said as long as he had a job he could move to hell away,” Dimples said. “So help me, Gyp, I think that’s the reason Biff tried to get us all a job, so he’d get rid of us.”
“Not you, Dimples,” Biff said. “You’re as welcome as the flowers in—Say, where’s everybody?” Biff asked suddenly.
He walked over to the trailer and peered in the window. “Hey, Evangie, we’re home. Where’s Mamie?”
Dimples chipped some ice and dumped it into a bowl. Then she got the glasses from the outside cabinet. “Soup’s on!” she yelled as she placed them on the table.
“Mamie is visiting, I guess,” I said. I spoke casually. Not casually enough, though.
“What’s happened?” Biff said.
I told him. It didn’t sound like much. Even less than when I told Mother.
“And that’s all,” I finished lamely. “All besides the pantry door being open. The catch on it isn’t good, anyway, so maybe it …”
Biff hadn’t waited for me to finish. In two strides he was up the steps and in the trailer. He pushed Corny aside roughly and made a beeline for the pantry. First he looked at the catch. It was loose. Then he began taking the groceries from the shelves and placing them on the stove top.
“What is all this?” Mother asked. “First Louise acts like an idiot, now you. I can’t stand all this excitement. It’s not only bad for my asthma, but I don’t like it anyway. Corpses under your bed …”
“Corpses under …” Corny stopped in the middle of his packing and let out a long, low whistle. “So that’s what it was you were carting off to the woods. Well now, isn’t that just dandy. A corpse, eh? Anyone I know?”
“I wouldn’t be a damned bit surprised,” I said.