by Diane Munier
The deal was forming as they spoke. Jules would rent space in the back of Lou’s shop for radio repair. When he was caught up on legitimate customers, he could bring some of these broken radios in from the warehouse and try to get them going. He’d sell them around, split the money with Lou and have the cash to pay his shop rent, and maybe more. There were several hundred sets in this building. Lou had obtained them during the war as part of a promotion to stir up business. A broken radio meant a five-dollar savings on a new appliance.
Jules was already calculating how he’d get ten bucks apiece.
“Yeah, hell yeah,” Jules said. He shook hands with Lou. Opportunity was presenting itself as suddenly as a dead body in the trunk of a Buick had.
He was flying. Life...was interesting. Isbe. Work. He’d find a way through it all. After Europe, he’d be damned if civilian life would beat him.
In Lou’s store, he set to sweeping right away, organizing the space where he’d work. It was about ten by ten, cut off from the rest of the place by a counter. There were some shelves on the back wall, a decent work table, a lamp, even his own ashtray. He went back and forth to the warehouse and brought a dozen sets into his area, different manufacturers— cathedral styles, box types, all of them what they called All-American Fives—five tubes and a ballast.
According to Lou, Sal came on Fridays to do the books, so Jules should be okay working out in the open without this other duck leaning over his shoulder. He had no wish to get between Cain and Abel, but he’d help Cain screw Abel over if it meant he could make some dough.
He needed tools. There were some here, but they hadn’t been taken care of, and he wanted his own. But he made do cause he was itching to get busy. He started to take the first set apart.
He had two working radios when he left Lou’s that evening. He had them sold before he grabbed dinner, one to the waitress who asked about them sitting next to him in the booth, the other to the cookie in back. The waitress gave him cash, two dollars of it her tips, so his pockets were heavy and jingling, and the other eight she paid in singles. Cookie was letting him run a ten dollar tab. So he owed Lou all the cash.
He picked up his laundry and hoofed it to his room.
“Lover-boy,” Audie said, already in his room cause that Jell-O brain who ran the desk downstairs would let anyone come in here, “where you been?”
“Working,” he said, and it felt good to say it, but the look on Audie’s face—always some shit.
“Speaking about it—we got a delivery to make. I didn’t want to cut you and Bobby out.”
“What kind of delivery?”
“It’s a bag of potatoes. Burlap. And some blood,” Audie said.
“Did you look inside?”
“No. It was in the trunk—like always, the address pinned on the bag.”
“Where do we take it?”
“We throw it in front of a guy’s house—his front door. We shouldn’t be seen. It’s recommended.”
“How you know all this?” He was pulling off his shoes and socks.
“Phone call. Some moog with the Irish. He said not to mess with it.”
“What’s the address?”
“Nice neighborhood. East side. And that’s not all.”
Jules held his breath, and Audie reached into the front of his shirt and brought out a stack of money. Tens. He was grinning now. “Fifty apiece. And we get to keep the car.”
“For good?”
“For now.”
“Ape—primate, we earned that car.”
Audie shrugged. “Got to keep earning it is my guess.”
Jules reached out his hand, and Audie laid the money in it. “About time,” Jules said, but he was smiling. New tools. “You call Francis?”
“Yeah. I figure we go over there first. The pool thing is making a noise. We go in and fix stuff—you know?”
Jules liked the plan, but he had to laugh. Audie didn’t go to broads’ houses and fix stuff. “Afraid your mug’s too ugly to hold her?” he asked.
Audie laughed. “Just tightening the bolts.”
Tightening the bolts. “First, we swing by the hardware before it closes. I want to buy a few things.”
“Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah,” Audie said as Jules dumped his clean clothes on the bed so he could change.
Life was suddenly a cornucopia of goodness, and he was helping himself. There was work…and work. But all of it paid one way or another.
Things were turning around.
Seemed Isbe was still dressed from work. She had on a white blouse and a full skirt with big flowers. She had a belt at her waist. And her legs…nylons. And heels with this strap over her ankle. And her hair was down, a pompadour up top, and red lips. Damn.
Could anything be more adorable than this girl? Francis was class, and Little Bits was candy, but this girl of his sent out her own kind of radio waves, straight to his gut.
He had his hands in his pockets again. He had stuff to offer today. One day made all the difference, and from here on, he wouldn’t come hat in hand.
Dinner was over, grilled cheese and vegetable soup, but Jules had already eaten so he only ate one sandwich, fed to him in small pieces by Isbe. But Dorie had made another pie, and now Isbe was in the kitchen mixing ice cream on the stove. The bucket was on the back porch, on the picnic table, and they needed some big strong man to turn the crank, Isbe told him.
“That’s why we brought Audie,” Jules said, and Isbe swatted his arm. As soon as the others went outside, he put his arms around her waist and got that thrill he always got when he touched her. She was stirring that mixture, but she turned her face and kissed him.
“I missed you,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” He nuzzled her neck.
“Better not make me burn this,” she said. “Dorie has her heart set on ice cream.”
He moved her hair and kissed her neck. He was in a mood, always around her, and once he kissed her neck, he kept going to her shoulder and back up again to her ear.
She was breathing and squirming a little. “Jules,” she whispered.
“Should I stop?” he said, not stopping.
She groaned and switched off the burner. She kept stirring, and she hadn’t said he should stop.
The radio went on from outside. Bobby came back in for the tools he and Jules had left in the car. They both had new tools in new tool boxes, Jules’s for radio repair, Bobby’s for working with his uncle in construction. It was a start.
The tools weren’t in the trunk; they were on the backseat. The sack of bloody potatoes was in the trunk.
Before Bobby came back, while the others mingled out in the yard, Jules ran his hands up and down Isbe’s sides. He loved the way she was formed. It pleased him and excited him all at once.
“Jules,” she said again, this little voice, still not stopping him.
“I like this blouse and this skirt,” he said. “Those shoes. Those nylons.” Then he crushed her to him, “Those legs. Damn.”
He was bent over, his face buried in her neck. Her soft hair smelled so good. He asked her what it was, and she told him Breck shampoo.
Then he let her go and stood back, and she caught herself a little on the stove. She looked back at him, face flushed. “I think this is ready.” She meant the mix, but he was ready—more than ready—to go upstairs.
“Still got that clover?”
She giggled. “Yes.” She took the pan from the stove, and he moved a little so she could go to the screen and onto the porch.
“I’m gonna run upstairs and look.”
“You better not.”
“Under your pillow, right?”
“I said no.”
“You got something up there you don’t want me to see? Another guy?”
She opened her mouth and made a sound and pushed the screen with her hip. She went out, and he followed her out there…followed that skirt, those shoes. If she looked like this at work…no wonder those old bags were trying to shove their goofy sons at
her. Who wouldn’t want this china doll for a daughter-in-law? Heck with those grannies.
She asked him to get the ice and the bag of salt, and he went back inside to do that. Audie and Bobby were already taking the filter apart for the pool. Too many cooks in there. He wanted Isbe. He had shit to tell her, something to give her.
When he got back outside, Francis had Cokes and beers. This was peacetime shit. This was good… worth the fight. This was the life he wanted, and he hadn’t known what it was, but it was playing out before him. It was this.
They sat in two lawn chairs, knee to knee, and he had a beer, she drank a Coke, and Bobby had left off with the pump to crank the bucket. Dorie was talking his ear off, and Francis sat by Audie while he worked.
Isbe crossed her legs and Jules reached down and encircled her ankle right over the strap on that shoe. He could easily pinch his fingers around her ankle. He said so and slowly brought her leg up, the shoe in his lap. He hated to remove something so perfect as that shoe on this foot, but he did that, the little buckle on the strap coming loose in his capable hand. He slid that shoe off and set it carefully beside his chair, then put his hand out for the other foot, and keeping her skirt pulled over her knees all modest, she gave him her other foot, and he removed that shoe too; then he rubbed her narrow little stocking-covered feet with his big hands. He rubbed and rubbed, and she had her head tilted watching him, his hands, his eyes. “Oh Jules,” she said.
He checked that the others were busy, then he slowly let his hand glide up her leg, to her knee, then back down, letting the shape of her silk-covered calf, that sweet curve, grace his hand over and over, then doing the same to the other one.
Her legs were parted some now, her skirt bunched between them. If it was just the two of them, he’d go higher, past her knees, under her skirt, and feel the tops of her nylons, the garters. He’d be under that skirt, that petticoat. He wanted all of her. If he could kiss that soft skin on her thigh…
Stone-cold sober. He wanted the whole deal.
A freight train running through, this feeling. Want left in its tracks.
He forgot he was staring.
“Jules,” she about whimpered. “You turn those eyes on me…”
He looked down, at her legs, as he moved his hand slow, up and down.
“I like your legs,” he said, blunt.
She laughed a little, but the flames were in her cheeks.
Dorie announced that the ice cream was ready. While they ate, he told her about his job, most of it. And he gave her that little clover pin, that cheap thing he’d grabbed at the dime store while Audie gassed up. She got a kick out of it, said she’d wear it…pinned to her full slip…just for him…every day.
“Thanks,” he said.
Chapter 20
The cookie at the diner sold radios for Jules. He hiked the price to twelve, put three bucks in his apron pocket, and for a dollar a set Jules would eat, making his ten-dollar tab the beginning of a very good deal.
If the owner found out, they were screwed, but it was some old lady who lived in a hotel and never came to look. Her bookkeeper did, but what did that moog know? That’s what Cookie said.
So for now, smooth sailing, and they sold a set fairly regularly because Jules made sure the box looked good as new. The dough was trickling in—pennies from heaven.
That same week, he started to look for new digs, but he was never home anyway except to change his clothes and sleep. And he could sleep anywhere. He had. Long as he wasn’t getting strafed, it didn’t matter.
Except for this…he wanted a decent place to bring Isbe. She was hesitant to bring him upstairs at the house her father owned. But if he had a place…it would be theirs alone, no one to answer to but the crickets. Hell with Francis’s rules, her old man’s guilt, the wide-eyed wonder child Bobby couldn’t get enough of, and screw Isbe’s worry that he’d be taking what belonged to her future moog of a husband. He knew that guy, saw him every day in the mirror when he shaved. That chimp gave him a green light.
He needed his place. His bed. His woman. His rules.
Tossing the potatoes had netted twenty-five bucks apiece. He found this fascinating. A dead body fifty, potatoes twenty-five. They’d all three about pissed themselves laughing. Bobby held two corners, him the others. They swung that stinking sack hard, aimed at the poor bastard’s door and let it fly—boom! It hit like a bomb, and he and Bobby ran to the car like bank-robbing monkeys, laughing so hard while Audie peeled out.
And business was leaking into the shop he rented from Lou. He was a busy mother. An industrious ant, pencil behind his ear instead of a cigarette, screwdriver in his hand instead of a bottle of beer, or his weapon, or a grenade, one girl in his arms instead of various warm girls who let him run rough-shod over their attributes. Oh, he was a saint now. Almost.
But here’s the deal. He needed the chicanery they pulled in that Buick like an offset to everything that was normal. He wanted normal. It wasn’t bad. And he wanted Isbe. Wanted…and wanted. But he liked his secrets with the monkeys. Needed that dark-side shit. It felt just crazy enough to keep him sane. And the money wasn’t bad either.
Thursday evening he was in his room sprucing up, getting ready to take Isbe fishing. They were all going, but he and Isbe would have their own boat, and he’d make sure to put enough space between them and the monkeys for a while. He wanted that time with her. He couldn’t wait.
First thing he’d do is feel for that clover. If it was under her dress or blouse, he wanted to know it. All day he thought about it there; if a thought came he didn’t want, he’d think about that clover. It helped.
But it took forever to get her out on that water. Still, they had a good couple hours of light. He finally cast his line. This pole was new. He never went home to claim his shit after the war. He didn’t remember what had been so important he had to keep it anyway.
He let the current take the line, and he pulled back a little and let it drift again, working the bait. He wanted to impress the shit out of her and catch a big fish.
She wore shorts. Telling her…showing her how much he loved her legs had paid off. She didn’t want to fish; she wanted to watch him, so here she was, wearing these blue shorts and a blouse with little blue flowers, and it was sheer enough he could see that clover pinned on the strap of her brassiere. He had yet to touch it—the clover, the brassiere, or the breasts it covered—but future prospects were rosy as her nipples might be.
She wore her bobby socks and her saddle shoes, just like that first night. She had a wide-brimmed hat on, tied down with a scarf, and sunglasses. She looked like a movie star.
They heard Little Bits squeal from the boat she and Bobby shared a quarter mile away. She was standing, and he heard Bobby’s normally quiet voice loud enough as he told her how to reel it in. In no time, Bobby held a net with a good-sized wiggling fish.
“Oh, it’s on now,” Jules said to Isbe, and they laughed.
But if he weren’t keen to impress her, he wouldn’t care. He had no desire to clean fish. He did want a fish fry, though.
She asked about his work, and he told her all the things he could. God, he made himself sound like a shiny little shit-licker.
Then she told him he should ask about her day. That’s how it went—she asked—then he should.
“I figure you want me to know something, you’ll tell me. I’m all ears.”
She smiled. “Oh…if you ask…then I think you ‘want’ to know.”
Why was she telling him this? Had she talked to the girls about how ill-schooled they were in the secret knowledge of being real boyfriends? Or was it just him? Did she talk about him being a pig or something?
“I do something to make you think I’m not interested?” he asked.
She shifted a little, and he ogled her legs, and she didn’t know he’d had a flash all the way to her white underwear. That little sliver of white almost blinded him. Ho boy.
He was reeling in the line to check the bait and throw
it back out. “I just saw the stars and Mars,” he said, laughing a little.
She gasped and adjusted the legs of her shorts, rocking the boat some.
“I’m just teasing,” he said, seeing she was not laughing.
“No, you’re not. You’re not a gentleman, Jules. I didn’t mean for you to see that.”
“What?” he smiled, working his worm.
“The stars and Mars,” she repeated sourly, her legs tight together.
He couldn’t help but laugh. She wanted to kill him, and he’d always had the urge to laugh when he was in real trouble.
“I’ll recover,” he told her. “Don’t worry about me.”
“If I wasn’t trapped in this boat with you I’d storm off,” she said, lifting her chin.
“Lady Luck is on my side then,” he said. “Or again, I mean.” He smiled.
“You use that handsome face, don’t you? I guess you’re used to saying things you shouldn’t—getting by with it.”
He knew this was a minefield. But hell… “Most dames don’t find me as handsome as you do,” he lied.
“Pretty is as pretty does,” she said, like his schoolteacher.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I agree.” He raised his brows a few times.
“You embarrass me,” she said, looking away.
He reached for her then, her knee, since she’d folded her arms and made her hands unavailable.
“Hey…I’m joking…Isbe…look at me.” He was trying not to laugh. She was just so cute in that silly hat.
“I don’t want to,” she pouted. “You’ll put your spell on me again. Lady killer.”
He guffawed. “No…nah…I’m just a…”
“A chimpanzee,” she scolded, facing him again.
He took his hand away. “Whoa. All right then.”
Dorie and Bobby were squealing again. Dorie was pulling in another one.
“They must be over the magic spot,” he said, and she ignored him.
“I said...” he shifted, laying his pole in the boat and getting on his knees before her. She was looking at him like he was crazy, clinging to her seat because the boat was rocking wild, and he reached carefully for her sunglasses and pulled them off her beautiful face. “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peepers?” he said.