by Day Keene
For a guy who had started out with good intentions, I sure was still a hell of a long way from Hibbing, Minnesota.
I was back at the Purple Parrot. I knew that. I remembered Corliss crying when we’d checked out of the hotel in Tijuana. I remembered the hot Mexican morning sun. I remembered bouncing a Mexican cop off a brick wall when he had intimated I was too drunk to drive.
Still more of the night and day just past came back. I remembered Corliss giving the cop money, a lot of money, my money. To smear on his pride, no doubt. I remembered Corliss promising the cop she’d drive, vaguely, as in a dream. I remembered her face white and set, her long honey-colored hair streaming out behind her in the wind as she drove with the top down. To sober up her bridegroom.
I remembered her asking me, “For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you, Swede? Why did you have to get drunk last night, of all times?”
I threw the empty bottle at the wall. To hear it smash. Then I rolled off the bed onto the deck and crawled into the head on my hands and knees, barely making seaway. I was too drunk to stand under the shower. I filled the tub with cold water and lay in it, letting the water run, rubbing the cold into my scalp and flesh. I wanted desperately to get sober. So I could walk up to the bar and tie on a real one this time.
I lay in the water a long time. I was debating getting out when the spring on the screen door screeched. The door banged shut again. High heels clicked across asphalt tile. Whoever it was was in a hurry.
“Mr. Nelson.” The voice was urgent, feminine, familiar.
I got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around me and walked out in the living room. It was Mamie, with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand. I fastened the towel more securely. “What’s the big idea?”
She looked at me the way she had the first morning. As if she liked what she saw. Then her lips twisted as if she were going to cry. She didn’t. Instead she offered me the mug.
“Drink this, Mr. Nelson. Please.”
The black coffee tasted good. I drained the mug and set it on the dresser. Next to what was left of my money. “Thanks. You’re a good girl, Mamie. But I asked you a question.”
“What?”
I wiped my lips on the back of my hand. “What’s the big idea?”
Mamie looked over her shoulder at the night outside the screen door, then back at me. Her firm young breasts rose and fell with her rapid breathing. She was either frightened or she had hurried.
She looked back at me. “You won’t laugh at me?”
“I won’t laugh at you.”
“You’re in danger here, Mr. Nelson. Please believe me. Please get dressed. And leave.”
It was the third time she’d pulled the same gag. I picked my shorts from a chair and slid them on, under the towel. “What sort of danger?”
She played the same old record. “I don’t know.”
“Who says I should leave?”
“I do.”
“Just you?”
“Just me.”
I put on my pants and combed my hair. I still felt naked without my cap. I put it on.
Mamie’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “That’s right. Cock it over one eye. Look tough. Act tough. When you’re a pushover inside. Show them that no one or nothing can hurt you. That you don’t give a damn for God or the Devil.”
I grinned at her. “What’s the matter, kid? Jealous of Corliss?”
Mamie thought that one over. “No. I don’t think it’s that.”
I tucked my shirt into my pants and knotted my tie. “Now can I ask you a question?”
There was a breathless quality to her voice. “I don’t see why not.”
“How come a pretty girl like you married a fellow like Meek? If I’m not being too personal, it seems to me that you could have done better.”
Her smile turned even wrier. “That’s because you weren’t born in a small South Dakota town that had three girls to every boy.”
“You were?”
“I was. In a family of four girls.”
“All of them as pretty as you?”
The compliment pleased her. “You do think I’m pretty?”
I took my uniform coat from its hanger. “I think you’re very pretty. I think you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever met.” I meant it.
Mamie was still naïve enough to blush. “Thank you, Mr. Nelson.”
I was generous. “Call me Swede.”
“Swede, then.”
I slipped into my coat and buttoned it. “But you still haven’t told me why you married Meek.”
She said, “To get out of Murdock, South Dakota. To get a few pretty clothes. To see some new faces. To go somewhere besides a movie on Saturday night and church on Sunday and Wednesday. You were born in a small town, too. But you’re a man. You’ve been all over the world. You’ve done interesting things all your life. You don’t know what it means to be so bored that you jump at the chance to marry the first carnival barker who asks you. Just to get out of a town you hate.”
That explained Meek. He looked like a carny. But what he was doing working as a gardener was beyond me.
“You love the guy?”
“We’re married.”
I gave her a bit of advice. “If you want to stay married, you’d better get out of here. He threatened to stick a knife in me if he even caught us together.”
Mamie lifted her head. “He wouldn’t dare. He’s afraid of you. I heard him tell Wally so. He said, ‘I’m leery of that guy Nelson.’ž”
I didn’t get the play. I gripped Mamie by the shoulders. “Look. So something funny is going on. So I’m in danger here. Why should you give a damn?”
Mamie looked me in the eyes. “I know it sounds funny. I’m nothing to you. I’m just a girl who manages a tourist court that your wife owns. But maybe you’re something to me. Maybe you’re part of a dream I dreamed a long time ago. Back in Murdock. Maybe you’re the kind of man I used to dream I’d meet.”
“You’ve told me that before.”
“Before I knew you were going to marry Corliss. And it is just as true now.”
This going around the pin was making my head ache. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to stop thinking. I wanted a slug of rum. I wanted a lot of slugs. I tilted her chin. “What do you know about Corliss?”
“Nothing. I never saw her before we came here to work.”
“Then what’s this danger business?”
Mamie met my eyes. “I don’t know. I just know you are in danger. There’s something awfully wrong about this court.”
“In what way?”
“I can’t explain. It — it’s just a feeling.”
“In other words, womanly intuition.”
“I suppose you could call it that.”
I straightened the set of my coat. “Well, thanks a lot for the coffee. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date. With a bottle.”
Mamie barred the way to the door with her body. “No. You’ve got to listen to me, Swede. She’s hurt you already, hasn’t she? Somehow she’s made you bitter.”
“Who?”
“Corliss.”
I gripped Mamie’s wrists and tried to pull her hands away from my lapels. “Let’s leave Corliss out of this.”
Mamie got hysterical. “This is still a free country. I’ll say what I please. About anyone.”
I tightened my fingers on her wrists. Mamie screamed. Not loud. In her throat.
“You’re hurting me, Swede.”
I looked at her wrists. There was a nasty burn on one of them. “How did you get that?” I asked her.
Mamie said, “On the iron.”
“What iron?”
She began to cry softly. “The one I used the first day you came here. To press your uniform and iron your shirt.”
I pushed her away from me. The edge of the bed struck the back of her knees. Mamie sprawled on the bed on her back, her circular skirt flying up as she fell.
“Now I know you’re lying,” I said. “You’r
e just trying to make trouble between us. That’s what you are. A troublemaker. Corliss washed and ironed my shirt and pressed my uniform.”
Mamie raised herself on one elbow. “Corliss told you that?”
“She did.”
“In bed with you last night in Tijuana, I suppose?”
I shook my head. “No. In her car the night before. After she got me out of jail.”
Mamie’s eyes turned sullen. Her lower lip thrust out. She reminded me of Corliss. “You don’t believe a word I’ve said, do you?”
“You haven’t said anything.”
“I told you there was something wrong about this court.”
“Sure. There’s something wrong about all tourist courts. They charge too much.”
Mamie wet her lips with her tongue. The sullen look left her face. Color began to creep into her cheeks. “You think I’m pretty, don’t you, Swede?”
“I’ve told you so several times.”
“Have I a pretty body?”
I looked at her exposed thighs. “You have a very pretty body.”
The color in Mamie’s cheeks deepened. “Will you believe I really think you’re in danger and get out of here if I do something I’ve never done before?”
“What?” I asked flatly.
“Cheat on my husband,” Mamie said.
I lighted a cigarette. “When?”
She licked her lips again. “Right now.”
I laughed at her. “You’d be afraid to. Meek would kill you.”
“I wouldn’t care.”
“You’re kidding.”
Mamie began to have trouble with her breathing. “If you think so, close that door.”
I closed the door. To see how far she’d go. When I turned back to the bed she’d already slipped her dress over her head and was trying to unhook her bra. Mamie meant what she said. She was willing to sail the full distance.
I walked back to the bed and sat beside her. By the time I sat down she had her bra off. She was as lovely as Corliss. Possibly even more so. There was a fresh, almost virginal quality to her body. Just looking at her excited me. It made me a little sick to think of her being married to a man like Meek. There was no telling how he abused her.
I put my hand over hers. “Uh-uh honey,” I said. “I’m married to Corliss. You’re married to Meek. Remember?”
Her breath was sweet and hot on my cheek. “What difference does our being married make?”
I admitted, “In most cases it wouldn’t mean a thing. In this instance, quite a bit. If you and I had just been married, you wouldn’t want me to sleep with Corliss, would you?”
Mamie snuggled her cheek against my chest and began to cry. I tranferred my hand to her back and held her the way I might have held my kid sister, if I’d had one.
“Look,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong. God knows I’m not one of His angels. I’d love to. I know it would be very wonderful.”
She sniffed, “You — you wanted me the other morning. You told me to either come and get in your bed or get out.”
I stroked her back. “That was the other morning. Now it wouldn’t be right for either of us. And no matter how wonderful it was, neither of us would be very proud of ourselves, would we?”
Mamie snuggled her cheek even closer to my chest. “You are nice, Swede. You’re good. And fine. And decent. That hard-boiled act of yours is all an act. You’re just as nice as I knew you would be.”
I tilted Mamie’s chin and kissed her wet lips. “O.K. So I’m in danger. I believe you. Can you be more definite?”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t.”
I thought a moment, then risked the question. “What do you know about Jerry Wolkowysk?”
Mamie wiped her eyes with a lock of hair. “He’s a bartender at the Beachcomber who tried to make headway with Corliss, and couldn’t. Then to get even he told it all up and down the beach that she was bad, that she would do it with anyone for twenty dollars.”
“Would she?”
Mamie was fair. She shook her head. “No. In the two years I’ve been here I’ve never known Corliss to allow any man in her cottage. Except Wally on Wednesday nights. And now you.”
“Wolkowysk never came here?”
Mamie bobbed her head. “Quite frequently. He was here just the night before last. That is, in the bar. He was drunk, nasty drunk. And when I tried to close the bar at two, he cursed me. Something awful. In Polish, or whatever he is. So I had to keep the bar open until ten minutes after two.”
“What happened then?”
“Wally came back from checking the books with Corliss and put him out. Why?”
I rested my head against hers a moment. Then I asked if she would do me a favor.
Mamie said, “Of course.”
“Forget that I mentioned his name.”
Then I got out of the cabin fast. Before I reverted to normal and stopped being so goddamn noble.
Chapter Twelve
I walked the long way around the court to the bar. The “No Vacancy” sign was flying. There was a car in every port. Cars from Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Missouri, Texas, Wyoming, Illinois, Rhode Island.
Meek was setting out pansy plants around the bole of one of the spotlighted palms. The guy got to his feet as I neared him, his job more important than his wife.
His voice was a rat-tailed file rasping across my nerves. “Good evening, Mr. Nelson.” He was making an obvious effort to be nice, but his lined face looked somehow sinister in the spotlight. “May I offer my congratulations on your marriage to Mrs. Mason? I hope you both are very happy.”
I said, “Thank you,” and walked on, ignoring his hand.
I liked the guy better when he’d been nasty, threatening to stick a knife in me if I didn’t let Mamie alone. I hoped she’d be gone by the time I got back to my cottage. I liked the kid. But that was all that it ever could be. I had a wife now. I loved her. I’d dropped my hook. I was anchored.
The bar and restaurant were doing a good business. There was a line of out-of-state cars parked under the neon parrot. I smoked a cigarette under a palm, listening to the pound of the waves. I almost wished I were in Hibbing, somewhere in the Sulu Sea, anywhere but where I was, having to go in and face Corliss.
So why had I got drunk? All right, I was willing to bite. Why had I?
Corliss had been sweet. She hadn’t denied me a thing. She loved me. She wanted to marry me. We had been married. She had been very happy about it. She had repeated her “I do’s,” with all the fervor of a drowning woman snatching at a life preserver.
It could be I was wrong. It could be she was fine and good. It could be I had been so keyed up in Tijuana that I had mistaken a desire to please me for professional practice. It could be that sex didn’t mean as much to her as it did to me, that she had to be abnormally excited emotionally before she reacted physically. That would explain her passion on the cliff the night we had dumped Wolkowysk. It could be she had an emotional block of some kind. I wiped the leather sweat band of my cap.
God almighty. What if I had to kill a man every time I wanted to really arouse her?
I flicked my butt into the night. Sparks skittered along the highway. Then I walked into the bar and sat on a chrome-and-leather stool between two tourists.
Wally set a bottle of rum in front of me. “Congratulations, Mr. Nelson. Miss Mason — that is, I should say, Mrs. Nelson — tells me you were married last night in Tijuana.”
I half filled the old-fashioned glass he’d put on the wood. “That’s right.”
Wally didn’t offer to shake hands. He didn’t hope we’d be happy. I drank my drink and poured another, wondering where Corliss was, afraid to ask.
The tourist on my right finished his chicken-in-a-basket and walked out. I lowered the bottle another inch. It was a funny feeling. I felt as if I were running, sitting still. Wally, Corliss, Wolkowysk, the Purple Parrot were shadowy figments in a dream. Only the rum was real.
I started to pour another dr
ink and the heavy-set waitress who’d served my breakfast the morning before set a sizzling steak in front of me.
“Doctor’s orders, Mr. Nelson.”
I asked, “What’s your name?”
She smiled. “Cora.”
“Where’s Corliss, Cora?” I asked her.
“Mrs. Nelson’s in the kitchen,” she said.
She picked the chicken basket and a butt-littered coffee cup from the wood. I picked at the steak. A few moments later Sheriff Cooper came in, alone, and walked up to where I was sitting.
I scowled at him over another filled glass. “Now what?”
Cooper sat on the vacated stool, “Don’t be so touchy, Nelson. No one’s trying to push you around. A complaint was made. A warrant was sworn out. I had to make an arrest.”
I ate a few bites of the steak.
The white-haired sheriff lighted a cigar. “In fact, I just dropped in to tell you that I’ve located one of the avocado ranchers you mentioned as witnesses to your fight with Tony Corado. A fellow by the name of Hayes.”
My drinking was compulsory. I didn’t want another drink. I poured one. “So?”
“So Hayes says that even if Tony should die, it was self-defense on your part. He said Corado came at you with a sap and all you did was defend yourself.”
“I told you and Farrell that the night you arrested me and made me make bond.”
“So you did,” Cooper agreed.
I sipped at the rum I had poured. Then, hoping my voice sounded casual, I asked, “What does the barman say? What was his name — Jerry?”
Cooper puffed at his cigar. “I haven’t been able to locate Wolkowysk yet. He hasn’t shown up for work for two days.”
I finished the rum in the glass. It failed to melt the lump of ice in my stomach. “Funny,” I said. “Funny.”
Cooper didn’t seem perturbed about it. “He’s probably on a binge. The lad who owns the Beachcomber says that Wolkowysk is a periodic drinker.”
It was a break I hadn’t expected. It could be a few days, possibly even a week or two, before Wolkowysk would be thought of as “missing.”
Wally leaned on the bar. “What you drinking, Sheriff? On the house.”
“You know better than that,” Cooper said.