Legs - William Kennedy

by William Kennedy

  "So get lost."

  "Shut up, you dumb cunt."

  "Oh! I'm tellin' Jack. "

  "Just right. And tell him I want my money and tell him he shouldn'a done what he done to Charlie Northrup."

  "He didn't do anything to Charlie Northrup."

  "You dumb cunt, what do you know? You think he's a nice guy, wouldn't hurt anybody? I wanna tell you what a nice guy your boyfriend is and what nice guys he's got workin' for him. You ever hear of Joe Rock? Your boyfriend's pals took him up inna woods, and when he said he wooden pay off the ransom, Murray the Goose pulls himself off inna cloth and rubs it in Joe's eyes and ties the rag on the eyes and Joe goes bline because The Goose has got the clap and the syph, both kinds of diseases, and that's your. boyfriend Jack Diamond. I tell you this because Joe Rock was a business associate of mine. And after your boyfriend burns up Red Moran inna car over inna Newark dump and finds out Moran's girl knows who done it, he ties her up with sewer grates and dumps her inna river while she's still kickin'. That's your boyfriend Jack Diamond. How you like your boyfriend now, you dumb cunt?"

  "Oh, oh, oh!" said Kiki as Joe left the room.

  * * *

  After we heard her story Jack shoved a fifty into my hand with the suggestion: "How you like to take a pretty girl out to dinner?" He called somebody and went out with word to us that he'd be back in a few hours and was gone before I found the way to tell him we were quits. I can't say the idea of Kiki's company repelled me, but I was intimidated. I've talked about her beauty, and it was never greater than at that moment. She'd been primping for Jack, calling up all her considerable wisdom of sex and vanity, and had created a face I've since thought of as The Broadway Gardenia. It was structured with eyebrow pencil, mascara, an awareness of the shape of the hairline and the fall of the loose curl. It was beauty that was natural and artificial at once, and the blend created this flower child of the Follies. No carefree Atlanta belle, no windblown, wheat-haired Kansas virgin, no Oriental blossom, or long-stemmed Parisian rose could quite match her. Beauty, after all, is regional. I remember the high value the Germans put on their rose-cheeked Frauleins. And to me the cheeks were just blotchy.

  "Are you leaving me alone?" Kiki said as Jack kissed her.

  "I'll be back." He had sobered considerably in less than ten minutes.

  "I don't want to be alone anymore. He might come in again."

  "Marcus is here."

  That's when he gave me the fifty and left. Kiki sat on the bed looking at the door, and when she decided he was definitely gone, she said, "All right, goddamn it," and went to the mirror and looked at her face and took out some black wax I've since learned is called beading and heated it in a spoon and dabbed it on her eyelids with a toothpick. Her eyes didn't need such excess, but when she looked at me, I saw something new: not excess but heightening.

  Magic beyond magic. I've never known another woman in the world who used that stuff and only one who even knew what it was. It was an object out of Kiki's mystical beauty kit like all her other creams and powders and soft pencils and lip brushes, and as I looked at the bottles and jars on the dressers, they all illuminated something central to her life: the studied passivity of being beautiful, of being an object to be studied, of being Jack's object. Her radio was on the dresser and exaggerated the passivity for me—lying there waiting for Jack, always waiting for Jack, and letting the music possess her as a substitute; the pink rubber douche equipment on top of the toilet tank—more proof of Kiki as Jack's vulnerable receptacle.

  She stood, after she finished her eyebrows, and lifted her dress over her head, a navy-blue satin sheath with silver spangles on the bodice—Jack loved spangles. Her slip went part way up, and there flashed another view of some of the underneath dimension, to which I reacted by saying, memorably, "Whoops." She laughed and I stood up and said, "I'll meet you in the lobby."

  "Why?"

  "Give you a little privacy."

  "Listen, I'm all fed up with privacy. Stick around. You won't see half what you'd see if I was in one of my costumes. I'm just changing my dress."

  She moved around in her slip, sat down at the dressing .table and combed the hair she had mussed, then turned quickly, faced me, giving me a full central view of upper, gartered thigh, and I thought, oh, oh, if I do what I am being tempted to do, I will end up with very substantial trouble; thinking also: vengeful concubine. But I was wrong there.

  "You know," she said, "I don't know why I'm here."

  "In this room or on this earth?"

  "In this room waiting for that son of a bitch to come and see me whenever he goddamn feels like it, even after I tell him a story like I told him about Jimmy Biondo."

  I sensed she was talking to me this way because she had taken her dress off and felt powerful. She was a sexual figure without the dress and merely a vulnerable beauty with it. Sitting there giving me an ample vision of her hinterlands was a gesture of power. Tenors shatter glassware. Strongmen bend iron bars. Sexual powerhouses show you their powersources. It reassures them in the place where they are strongest, and weakest, that they are significant, that the stares that automatically snap toward that sweet region of shadow are stares of substance and identification. With this stare, I thee covet. Desirable. Yes, yes, folks, see that? I'm desirable and everything is going to be all right. Feeling powerful, she could talk tough.

  "Do you work for him all the time now, Mr. Gorman?"

  That "Mr." destroyed my fantasy of being seduced. A disappointment and a relief.

  "I've done some things for him."

  "Do you remember Charlie Northrup from that day up on the mountain?"

  "I do indeed."

  "Do you think Jack really did something to him? Hurt him?"

  "I have no firsthand information on that."

  "I don't think Jack would kill him like that Biondo man said. And what he said about that man's eyes and that girl in the river. Jack wouldn't do that stuff."

  "I'm sure he wouldn't."

  "I couldn't stay with him if he did that stuff."

  "I understand."

  "I'd leave right now if I thought he did that stuff. You think I could love a man who could do something to somebody's eyes like that?"

  "Didn't you say it was Murray who did that?"

  "That's what Biondo said, but he said Jack knew about it."

  "Well, you can't believe Biondo."

  "That's just what I think.

  "I know Jack liked Charlie Northrup. When he spit that beer at Jack up on the mountain, Jack told me that night, 'If I didn't like that guy, he'd be in a lot of trouble.' Everybody thinks Jack is such a tough guy, but he's really sweet and gentle and never hurts nobody. I never even saw him pop the guts on a fly. Jack is a gentleman always and one of the tenderest, sweetest human persons I've ever come across, and I've come across my share of persons and they're not all human, I'll tell you that. I saw him with Charlie Northrup up in the mountains, and they were talking together and walking around the front yard. So I know Jack wouldn't hurt him. It's a bunch of lies what's in the papers because I know what I saw."

  "That happened after that day we were all on the mountain?"

  "Five days after. I counted the days. I always count the days. At Biondo's farm up there. Jack said staying up on the mountain was too far away for me, and he moved me down to the farm for a few days."

  "What about dinner?"

  "Jesse cooked for me. The old nigger man who runs the still."

  "I mean now."

  "Oh, now. All I have to do is put my dress on."

  She closed her gates of power and stood up.

  "You know," she said, "I like you. I could talk to you. Don't take this the wrong way now."

  "I take it as a statement of friendship."

  "That's just what I mean. Some people you talk to them and ka-zoom, it's a pass, just because you said something nice."

  "You like me because I didn't make a pass?"

  "Because you wanted to and didn't and yo
u had such a good chance."

  "You're a perceptive girl. "

  "What's that mean?"

  "You see inside people."

  "I see how they look at me, that's all."

  "Not many people see that much."

  "You see, I knew I could talk to you. You don't make me feel like a dumb bunny."

  * * *

  The night I went to dinner with Kiki, Tony (The Boy) Amapola was shot through the head and neck four times and dumped outside Hackensack. The papers said he was a close pal of Jimmy Biondo's and that Biondo was Capone's man in town, which wasn't true. Another victim of another beer war, was the consensus, but I suggest he was a victim of Jimmy's bad manners toward ladies.

  I sat talking with Kiki that night until Jack came back around midnight, and then I drove to Albany without telling him I was all through. A call from Jesse Franklin was waiting for me when I got to the office the next day, asking me to come and see him. I don't think I'd have remembered him if Kiki hadn't mentioned him as her cook at the farm the night before. I called him back and got a hotel which turned out to be a flophouse for Negroes in Albany's South End. I told him to come and see me, but he said he couldn't, and would I come to see him? I never met a client in a flophouse before, so I said I would.

  It turned out to be the ground floor of an old converted livery stable with a dozen cots, two of which were occupied: one by a man wheezing and ranting in a drunken, mumbly wine coma, and the other by Jesse, who sat on his cot like a bronze sculpture of despair, a weary old man with nubby white hair, wearing ratty overalls and staring downward, watching the roaches play around his muddy shoes. He hadn't been out of the flop in three weeks except to go to a corner store and buy food, then come back and sleep and wait.

  "You remember me, Mr. Gorman?"

  "I was talking about you with Kiki Roberts only last night."

  "Pretty lady."

  "That's her truth all right."

  "She didn't see nothin' what I seen, what I wants to tell you 'bout. Nobody seen what I seen."

  "Why do you want to tell me about it?"

  "I got some money. I can pay."

  "I would expect it."

  "I sent my boys away but I don't wanna go myself, don't know where to go. Only one place to go I know of is back to the farm and work for Mr. Jack, but I don't wanna go back there. Can't go back to that old place after what I seen. I fear 'bout those men. I know the police lookin' for me too 'cause they askin' Mr. Fogarty 'bout me before he go to jail and I don't want no police, so I highfoots it up to Albany 'cause I know they got coloreds up here plenty and nobody know me, and then I know I gonna run out of money and have to be on the road and I gonna get picked up sure as Jesus. So I been sittin' here thinkin' 'bout what I gonna do and I remember Mr. Jack got a lawyer friend in Albany. I been sittin' here three weeks tryin' to 'member your name. Then yesterday this old bum he fall right in front of me, right there by them little roaches, and he got a newspaper in his pocket and I seen your picture and Mr. Jack's picture and I say, that's my man all right, that's my man. Man who runs this place got me your phone number all right. I gets picked up you goin' help me?"

  "I'll help you if I can, but I've got to know what this is all about."

  "Yep. I gonna tell you but nobody else. No how. What I see I don't want no more part of. I see it when I just about finished at the still for about five hours, sun goin' down and I throwed down my head to sleep off the miseries when I heerd this automobile pull up in front of the barn. I sleeps in the back of the house, so I look out and see Mr. Fogarty openin' the barn doors and other fellas Mr. Jack have around him all the time in the car and they drives right inside. Now I never did see this before. Mr. Jack use that barn for storage and he don't want no automobiles drivin' in and out of where he keep his beer and his whiskey 'cept for loadin' and that ain't no loadin' car I see. But Jesse ain't about to tell them fellas they can't use Mr. Jack's barn.

  Bye 'em bye, Mr. Fogarty he come in the house and then he and Miss Kiki go out with Mr. Jack. I spies out the window at the gay-rage and I sees the light on there. I don't see nobody comin' or goin' out of that old place so I figure it ain't none of Jesse's business and I tries to go back and sleep. Bye'em bye, I hear that car again and it's dark now and in a little bit Mr. Fogarty comes in and gets some old newspapers and calls up to Jesse, is you up there and I say I is and he say Mr. Jack say for me not to go near the still tonight and I say okay by me and I don't ask why because Jesse ain't a man who asks why to Mr. Jack and his friends. Mr. Fogarty carries them papers back out and about twenty minutes go by and I heerd that car again and I sits right up in the bed and says, well they's done whatever they's done and I look out the window and they's no light in the gay-rage and I call down the stairs to Mr. Fogarty, but he don't say nothin' back and nobody else does neither, and I know my boys won't, 'cause they sleep like fishbones on the bottom of a mud pond, and so I think of what they been doin' in the gay-rage and I can't figure it out. But I say to myself, Jesse, you ought to know what's goin' on hereabouts since this is where you livin' and maybe they up to somethin' you don't want yourself fixed up in. So I takes my flashlight and I spokes quiet like down them stairs and out into the backyard and they's no light in the gay-rage so I sprites 'r0und by the back in case somebody pull up. And inside it's the same old gay-rage, a couple three newspapers on the floor 'longside the wheelbarra. Coolin' room's the same as usual and Mr. Jack's tahger's on the back wall's the same as usual and all the tools on the bench. I can't see no difference nowhere. Then I see in the corner of the coolin' room a big piece of somethin' all wrapped up and I knows this wasn't there before and I knows what I think it is soon as I sees it. And I shines the light on it. It look like a rug all rolled up 'cept it ain't no rug. It's canvas we throwed over the beer barrels first time the roof leaked. And I goes over and touches that canvas with my toe and it is solid. It feel just like I 'spect it to feel. And Jesse beginnin' to worry what gonna happen if he caught here with this thing alone. But I got to make sure it's what I think, so I puts my wholefoot on it and feel how it feels, and it ain't exactly like what I 'spect, so I touches it with my hand. And that ain't exactly like I 'spect either and so I opens one end of the canvas to peek inside and see what is this thing that ain't like what it ought to be like, and out come this here head. All by itself. It roll out just a little bit, and I tell you if I ain't 'lectrified dead now, I don't know why I ain't. And I highfoots it out of that barn and back into the house and up them stairs and back to my own room and under the covers so's I can think by myself what I ought to do. And I thinks. And I thinks.

  And I don't hear nobody comin' back. Then I say to myself, Jesse, if somebody do come back, you is in mighty trouble. Because that head ain't where it ought to be and they is goin' to know somebody been out peekin' into that canvas. And first thing, they comin' back in here and say to you, Jesse, why you foolin' around with that head out in that barn? What you say then, old man? So bye'em bye, I sits up, and gets up, and goes downstairs and out to the gay-rage and what scare me now ain't that head, but them lights of the car if they come shootin' back in the road. But I say to myself, Jesse, you got to go put that head back where you got it. So I goes back in the coolin' room and shines the light down and sees the old head lookin' up at me three feet out from the end of the canvas where it rolled.

  And I gets a good look at that face which I can't reckonize and maybe nobody on this earth gonna reckonize over again, because it been beat so bad it ain't no face at all. It just a head full of beat-up old flesh. I feels sorry for that poor fella 'cause he got his. No doubt 'bout that. But I say, Jesse, feel sorry for this man when you gets back to your bed. Right now, get yourself busy puttin' that head back in with the rest of him. Now I don't like it nohow, but I pick up that old head and opens up the canvas so's I can put it back in and, oh God A'mighty, there's two hands and a foot side by side like the Lord never intended nobody's hands and foot to be put together. And I opens up the canvas wider and oh God
A'mighty, they ain't one whole piece of I that poor fella no more. He is in ten, fifteen pieces, oh my Jesus, I gonna die. I put that head back where it used to be and fold that canvas up the way it used to be. Then I look around on the floor for any little blood drippin's I might of spilt, but I can't see none. I can't see none they might of left either, so I guess they got it all mopped up with them newspapers Mr. Fogarty picked out. Oh, sweet Jesus. And I go back out of the coolin' room then, and back into the house. I ain't worried now whether they gonna find me out there, because they ain't. It just like it was before I seen it the first time. Now I'se worryin' about somethin' else, which is how I gonna get myself and the boys out of this here butcher shop. I sure can't do it right away or they gonna know I knows more'n I s'pose to know. So I lays there thinkin' 'bout how long it'd be before it be right for me to go my own way and take my boys with me. And wonderin' where we gonna go, 'cause we ain't had no job good as this in mighty a year. But I ain't worryin' now 'bout no job. I worryin' 'bout the jailhouse gettin' me, and what my boys gonna do then? I'se still thinkin' 'bout this when I hears the car pull into the yard and I looks out and there comes Mr. Murray and somebody I can't see and they pulls in the gay-rage again but with one of Mr. Jack's trucks and stays 'bout five minutes and they back out and close the door. Then good-bye. They gone. I know the canvas and the head and the rest of the pieces of that poor ol' boy done gone too, but I don't move, 'cause it's daylight just beginnin', and ain't nobody gonna see Jesse Franklin in that barn today. Not any of those fellas, not Mr. Jack, not any stranger, not Jesse hisself. Jesse is gonna stay clear of that ol' gay-rage till somebody come who got business to do in it. And when it all simmer down, Jesse gonna take his boys and he goin' waaaay 'way from here. These is bad people, cut a man up like that. How he gonna make it all back together again come judgment time? Bad people, doin' that to a man. "

  * * *

  It was Fogarty who told me how Charlie Northrup got it, told me later when he was figuring out where his life went, still drunk, still ready to muzzle any pussy that showed itself. He never changed and I always liked him and I knew all along why Jack kept him on—because he was the opposite of Murray. He was Fogarty, the group's nice guy.