by Ted Lewis
“Yeah.”
All the time he’s been talking, I’ve been rolling the cigarette around in my fingers waiting for him to stop because I’ve no more matches left in my book. So I ask him if he has a light and that’s a mistake because he tells me he doesn’t smoke.
“I had to cut that out,” he says. “With one thing and another, I found it better not to. And I was lucky. I never tried before; I guess I figured I wouldn’t be able to, but when I did, no sweat. I smoked the last of my pack, threw the pack in the trash can and an hour later I’d forgotten I was trying to give them up. After that I never looked back. I mean, some guys give up a week, two weeks, maybe three months sometimes, but in the end they take it up again because really, they know they’re going to; while they’re not smoking they’re just passing the time until they start up again only they don’t admit it to themselves. Me, I figured that and that’s why I guess I beat it.”
“I guess you’re right,” I tell him, hoping to Christ that my agreeing with him will shut him up.
“You’re right,” he says. “And that’s one thing I’ve got over my old lady. She’s never going to give up. And so if she ever figures on getting snotty about some of the things she don’t like about me, I get in these little remarks, you know, like about how many packs is that she’s gone through today already, and, by the way, I don’t think we can afford the deposit on the violin Joanne wants to practice with for the school orchestra, that kind of thing.”
I nod my agreement and the cab driver makes a right, and in a couple of merciful moments we will be at where I live.
“Mind you,” the driver says, “sure I can afford a violin; if the day comes I can’t afford something like that for my kid, I’ll turn this hack in and shoot myself. But Christ, imagine a ten-year-old kid let loose on a violin around the house...”
“Just over there,” I interrupt him. “The apartment building on the left.”
“Sure,” the cab driver says, and swings over.
I get out and pay the fare and the cab driver takes it without a word. It’s as though he’s never spoken to me, as if the monologues he’s been delivering were for his ears only. He drives off and I cross the sidewalk, climb the stairs to the second floor and walk down the landing. I stop outside my door, put the key in the lock and push. Inside I take off my jacket and drop it on the table in the hall then walk through into the living area, go over to the table in the corner and pour myself a vodka. I cross to the window and look out into the dusty evening air and take a long drink.
The apartment is full of dead air so I put my glass down on the sill and raise the window which lets in the dust and the sounds of the traffic and the smells from the restaurant on the ground floor. I drain my glass, go back to the table and make myself another drink then I lie down on the divan and shake off my shoes, balance my glass on my chest and close my eyes. But though I’m still tired now I’m able to sleep, the sleep won’t come, so I give up and get up and go into the kitchen and begin to scramble eggs. While I’m doing, that the phone rings. I go back into the living area and lift the receiver.
“Yeah?”
“Listen,” the voice at the other end says. “It’s Pete.”
“Who?”
“Pete.”
“Yeah, I know it’s Pete, I can hear. Pete who?”
“Pete Foley for Christ’s sake.”
“Right.”
I wait for him to go on.
“You there?” he says.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well listen, you asked me to phone you, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, that’s what I’m doing. I may have something for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Listen, I could just as easily put the phone down and go back to my beer, you know that?”
“Get on with it.”
There is a pause then Pete says, “Well, look, there’s somebody in town maybe you don’t know about.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m damned sure you don’t know. In fact, except for interested parties, I guess I’m the only guy apart from those people that knows, know what I mean?”
I nod my head, but really I feel like shaking it. From the kitchen comes the smell of burning eggs.
“So we got to meet and talk, don’t we?” Pete says.
“Pete,” I tell him, “say what you’ve got to say now, okay?”
“Jesus,” he says. “Look, you’re crazy, you know.”
“Okay, Pete,” I tell him. “Let’s forget it, right?”
“Listen, listen,” Pete says. “You forget it, you’ll regret it. Believe me. This got something or nothing to do with what you said, it don’t matter. You’ll want to know it anyway. All sorts of people going to want to know this anyhow, and I call you up first, okay?”
The smell of burning is getting worse.
“Where are you?” I ask Pete.
“Shit!” Pete says. “Where I am going to be approximately another fifteen seconds; I been here too long already. You say a place but make it safe, will you, not on the steps of City Hall or something.”
“Why not come here?”
“Are you crazy?”
“All right,” I tell him. “Up at the Point. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes. Will you?”
“I’ll be there,” Pete says, and hangs up.
I put the receiver down and go into the kitchen. When I’ve scraped the eggs out of the pan and put the pan in the sink, I open the fridge and take out a grapefruit. I cut it in half, sugar it and leave it while I take off my clothes and shower. When I’ve showered, I shave and put on fresh clothes and after that I sit down and eat my grapefruit wondering what in Christ’s name Pete Foley can possibly tell me that’s going to make my life any easier for me.
I sit in my car, looking at the evening city and listening to its sounds. From where I am, perched on the top of the Point, parked among the sweet clean-smelling bushes, the city looks nice and clean, too, like an architect’s model does without people and cars and all the different kinds of dirt to fuck up the nice new surfaces.
The sun is low now distorted and larger than life through the thick hanging haze, its rim dirty in the bottom quarter as though some kid has wiped his sticky fingers over it.
A faint breeze ripples through the leaves of the Point’s bushes and I remember when I was a rookie spending most of my night shifts up here shining my flashlight in the backs of the parked cars and wondering each time I caused some couple to scramble back to a semblance of decency, what the fuck I was doing when in most cases, I’d have liked to have been the guy in the back feeling up the girl. But at this time of a summer’s night there are no cars up here, just mine, so I light a cigarette and throw the match out of the window. As I do that, I hear the sound of a car slowing down and then the sound stops, a door slams and a couple of minutes later the image of Pete Foley appears in my driving mirror, parting the bushes, looking as if he’s just scaled Rushmore. He walks over to the car and gets in.
“Hello, Pete,” I say to him.
He takes his cigarettes from his coat pocket.
“Give me a light, will you.”
I give him a light and he inhales, leaning back in the seat.
“So,” he says, “you don’t think I’ve got anything for you?”
“Pete, I’m here,” I tell him. “Just give me the message.”
“Well,” he says, “you’ll know what I’m talking about when I give you a name and that name’s Styles.”
I don’t say anything. Pete shifts his position slightly, pleased to have some effect.
Albert Styles. A hit man, a craftsman, but without one conviction, and he’s been responsible for at least a dozen hits I can think of around the country, and Christ knows how many more ther
e must be that nobody knows about.
“Okay,” I say to Pete. “Albert Styles. Now how is that supposed to interest me?”
Pete’s mouth falls open and he stares at me. Eventually he says, “Listen, you know what Styles is. I mean, you do know?”
“Yeah, I do know.”
“Then what are you saying? Styles is a hit man. Your brother’s been sent a letter, a proposition. He’s in line for being whacked. And here’s Styles.”
I look out through the windshield. The evening is getting darker now and the city’s dust haze is mingling with the gathering dusk. Some of the cars on the freeway over in the east already have their lights on.
“And so,” I say to Pete, “Albert Styles is in town and in his pocket he has a contract on my brother.”
“Well,” Pete says, “Christ, he’s in town, after all.”
“And it’s obvious, this great hit man, this great asset to the organization, he’s going to whack my brother after, of course, sending the department a note telling us all about it just so’s we’ll know who to pick up. The only thing about it all that surprises me, Pete, is that in the note Styles didn’t tell us how he’s going to carry out the contract and where he’s going to be afterward so that we don’t have to waste time looking for him.”
Now it’s Pete’s turn to be quiet for a while.
“Pete,” I tell him, “I know you need the dough, and in one way, it’s useful for the department to know that Styles is in town but, seriously, in your heart of hearts, you know that no way could a hit man like Styles be involved with a thing like this.”
“I guess you’re right,” Pete says. “Looking at it logically, that is. I agree hit men and politicians, they don’t mix, but that’s only so far. There’s got to be a first time for everything. Now supposing—”
“Supposing you leave the speculative work to me, Pete, and just give me the details of what you’ve told me, and then I can go away and you can go away and I can get on with what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Details?”
“Like if he’s here yet, where he is, where he’s going to be. Christ, Pete, you know, details.”
“I don’t know no details, Mr. Boldt,” Pete says. “Jesus, you know better than to ask me if I know any details.”
“All right, all right,” I tell him. “Just tell me this--- is he here already or not?”
Pete shakes his head.
“I don’t know. My source don’t know. All I know is, if he ain’t here already, then he’s going to be here inside of twenty- four hours.”
I don’t say anything.
“Look,” Pete says. “I can’t tell you anything else. I mean, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But if he’s here or when he comes, he’s going to have to be somewhere. Now can you tell me that, Pete?”
Pete shakes his head. “I’ve told you what I know,” he says. “There’s no more I can tell you.”
“Okay,” I say to him. “That’s fine. You’ve been a great help, Pete. From this point on, I’ve got no more worries. Everything’s virtually sewn up. I’m going to get a promotion for this one and believe me, I’ll remember the part you played in the whole business. I really will. Now just run along and when I get my share of the reward, I’ll be in touch, okay?”
Pete turns to look at me and opens his mouth but before he can speak, I say to him, “That’s all, Pete.”
His mouth stays open so I reach across him and open the door on his side of the car.
“That’s the way out, Pete.”
Pete’s mouth snaps shut then he shuffles along the seat and climbs out. He thinks about slamming the door then decides against it and closes it quietly, but what he does do is stick his head back in through the open window and he says, “You’re a bastard, Boldt,, and I want you to know this: if I ever hear there’s a contract out on you, then I’ll find out who’s going to carry it out, and I’ll tell them to take the day off and take the money, and I’ll do the job for them for free.”
I nod my head. Pete stays the way he is for a moment or two more then jerks his head back through the window and walks off toward the bushes. I take out another cigarette and light it from the butt of the last one then throw the butt out of the window. There is a faint rustling of leaves behind me and I look in the mirror; Pete Foley has gone.
The bar at the Chandler Hotel is altogether different at this time of the evening. The cocktail hour crowd is spilling into the pre-dinner crowd which is being augmented by the crowd that don’t bother about dinner at all. All the stools at the bar are occupied so I sit down in an empty booth and wait for Murdock to come down. I manage to grab a waiter who’s working very hard at trying to avoid catching anybody’s eye and I get him to bring me a vodka and while I’m waiting for that important event to happen, my attention is focused on the girl I had the brush with earlier in reception. My memory has done her no service because she’s even better than the picture I’ve been carrying in my mind.
She’s wearing different clothes for one thing. Now she’s dressed all in cheesecloth, white—a white sleeveless top and a long white skirt. The material is almost thin enough to see her underwear through it, but not quite, and the effect it has is to keep you looking, just in case. Tonight she’s wearing her hair up, kind of Roman style, and that doesn’t do her any harm either because it shows off the grace of her long neck and although she’s too far away from me to smell her perfume, I know it’s going to smell fresh and innocent and at the same time be enough to have guys jumping out ten-story windows.
While she’s looking around for some place to sit, everybody else in the bar is looking at what she sits on and all the other places of her anatomy that provide some kind of equally in-teresting function. Now that interesting point about the situation is this: all the stools at the bar are taken, and all the other booths except mine are crowded. Now no doubt she could make her way to the bar and there’d be seven or eight guys who’d not only be willing to give up their stools for her, they’d be prepared to rush out and get the tools and the wood and run up an extra stool if it came to that. Also, although the booths are crowded, there isn’t one she couldn’t squeeze into with one of the current occupants. But, as I say, mine is the only one with only me in it and she looks around the bar and takes in all the situations, including mine, and then turns quickly, her body expressing the suddenness of her choice and she makes for my booth. As she approaches there’s no pretense in her face that she doesn’t really take in the fact that it’s me sitting here; in fact, just the opposite; she looks me straight in the eye and resumes the expression she’d been wearing the last time we met. She slides into the booth, opposite me, and her perfume is precisely how I’d imagined it would be. This time the waiter’s by the end of the booth almost before the cheesecloth hits the seat and she doesn’t fuss; she just orders rum and Coke and the waiter sprints off to fulfill the order.
Then the girl takes a pack of foreign cigarettes from her purse and lights one and as she blows out the smoke she says, “You must have had a long, hard day of it.”
I just carry on looking at her and not saying anything.
“I mean,” she goes on, “it must be tiring working at it all day with nothing to show for it.”
I still don’t say anything.
“Or did you give a chambermaid a few dollars for a handjob?”
I shake my head. “No, the ones I approached were already booked. I can come back tomorrow though,so they tell me.”
“That’s good,” she says. “That’s something at least. But how are you going to hold out till then?”
“Oh, I’ll manage,” I tell her. “A few of the gay crowd get in here later in the evening. I should be able to make one of them.”
“I guess you should,” she says, and leans back in her seat smoking some more and looking at m
e.
“You waiting for someone?” I ask her.
“There you go,” she says.
“Just interested,” I tell her. “Just passing the time.”
“Sure.”
I shrug.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” she says. “It’s none of your fucking business.”
“I agree,” I tell her. “You’re right.”
She nods and leans back in her seat again. The waiter comes back with her rum and Coke and the ice cubes clink in the glass as he sets it down in front of her.
“Madam,” the waiter says, almost creaming his Jockeys.
“What’s this?” she asks.
“Madame?” he says.
She pings the glass with her fingers. “What’s this? In the glass?”