by A. W. Gray
Spook held the cab’s door open for Carla, then whacked Bino on the shoulder. “You’re okay in our book, whitefish,” Spook said. “We don’t hold no grudges. Next time you’re in town, look us up.”
Bino nodded and climbed silently in alongside Carla. The two roughnecks whooped it up, nudging each other and hee-hawing as they went back inside the honky-tonk. Carla gave the cabbie the Hyatt Regency’s address, then snuggled against Bino as the taxi pulled onto Spencer Highway. “Well, shut mah mouth,” Carla said. “Rough day on the trail, huh?”
Bino’s lips were swollen and bleeding. “Next time,” he said, “why don’t you try, ‘I don’t care to fuck, sir, thank you just the same.’ Something like that, Carla, okay?”
• • •
“You see the look the bellman gave you?” Carla said. “God. Hold still, now.” She tilted the bottle to soak a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol. She pressed her tongue against one corner of her mouth as she dabbed at Bino’s eyebrow.
“Ow. Jesus Christ.” He jerked away and conked his head on the headboard.
“Big baby. Come on, it’s good for you. Concentrate on my boobs, it’ll make it easier.”
She sat on her haunches, clad in pale blue bikini briefs, bending over him on the king-size bed. He was propped against the headboard, her nipples bobbing in front of his face like inquisitive pink lambs’ noses. Bino was shirtless and had taken off his shoes. She moved in closer and dabbed once more at his eye.
He said, “I wish the bastards would’ve let me take ’em on one at a time.”
The lambs’ noses moved up and down. “They did, remember? The redheaded guy went first and the other one watched. The Injun Joe type never even got in action.”
“Oh,” he said. The alcohol stung like hell. He touched his eyebrow.
“But don’t let it bother you,” she said. “I’ve never gone for the he-man type, anyway.”
“Now wait a minute. I’m not exactly a pansy.”
“There.” She capped the bottle and bent over him to place it on the nightstand. One nipple brushed his chest. “I didn’t say you were a pansy, egomaniac. Men. How’s that feel, Nurse Pease got you fit as a fiddle?”
He ran his finger over his swollen lip. “That your last name? It’s the first time I’ve heard it.”
“I know. Pretty imaginative way to slip it in, huh? That’s so if you have to introduce me to someone you won’t be stumped. Besides, if we’re going to be screwing regular … ”
“Please don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
She twisted around to sit beside him. “Pease is okay, it’s the name I was born with. I had an agent once that wanted me to be Carla Starr, but I go, Nope, that sounds like a stripper. One year in high school they elected me Sweet Potato Queen.
I was coming out of the girls’ room and this big dumb football guy, Eddie Fields, he yells, ‘Hey, goddam, Queen Carla pees.’ I thought I’d die.”
He held the corners of his mouth to keep from grinning as his shoulders heaved. “Sweet Potato Queen?”
“Some title, huh? Actually, in Kaufman that was a pretty big deal. That’s sixty miles east of Dallas, by Cedar Creek Lake.”
“I know where it is,” Bino said. “I grew up in Mesquite.”
“That’s the big city compared to Kaufman. We had like two hundred in the whole school.” The crease along the inside of her thigh deepened as she hugged one knee. “Actually my name isn’t Pease any more. It’s Carnes. I got married once.”
“I did, too,” Bino said. “To a cheerleader, no less. Hey, Carla Carnes isn’t bad for a singer. C.C., for short.”
“Two C.C.’s. He was Chris.” She reached to the nightstand for her glasses, then picked up the remote and switched on the TV. On-screen, Alan Ladd leaned against the bar, coolly regarding Jack Palance. Brandon deWilde peered under double barroom doors. Bino knew the lines by heart. Ladd: What’d he say, Wilson ? Palance: He said you were a lowdown, yella dog, Shane. Palance went for his gun; Ladd drilled the bastard before he could clear leather.
Bino said, “Local Kaufman boy?”
“No, I’d left the sticks by then. I met Chris at North Texas U. He had a group, you know, ever since the Eagles got together at North Texas everybody’s got a group up there. I was Chris’s singer, but what I mainly did was stand around shaking my ass and rattling mariachis. We took off to find the footlights and all that. Found each other for a while. It was neat until Chris got on coke and speed.” There was a catch in her voice. It was the first time Bino had seen her in a serious mood. He supposed that everyone had their moments.
“Ever hear from him?” Bino said.
“Not lately. I still toot a line now and then, but I can take it or leave it. Not Chris. He had some real talent, but stuffed most of it up his nose. The last letter I got from him had a
string of numbers after his name. Federal Prison Camp at Lompoc, California. God, I hope he gets his act together.”
Impulsively, Bino squeezed her hand. On TV, Alan Ladd rode into the distance while the music built to a crescendo and Brandon deWilde followed at a dead run. The bedside phone rang.
It took a couple of seconds to register, Bino sitting on a posh hotel king-size nursing a fat lip, Carla’s bare firmness beside him, warmth radiating from her body, the scent of her perfume in his nostrils like honeysuckle. The theme from Shane for background, and suddenly the jangling of the phone. The ringing seemed far away. He checked the digital clock on the bedside table. Two-thirty in the morning. He picked up the receiver and said hello.
The television was too loud for him to make out what the excited female on the line was saying. He said, “Hold on.” Then, swiveling his head, “Turn it off, please, Carla.” Carla pressed the mute button. Bino said hello again.
“Turn what off?” Dodie said into his ear. “The vibrator?”
“No, the ... Hi, Dode.”
“Wow, I’ve called about ten times. Robert thinks I’m crazy, making all these calls.”
“Who the hell is ... ? We … I’ve been out,” Bino said. Spook had landed a solid haymaker on his right ear, and Bino winced—picturing Hurricane Calhoun, an ex-pug client who had a cauliflower ear—as he shifted the phone to the other side of his head.
“I assumed you were,” Dodie said. “Rusty Benson is in the Harris County Jail. They’re holding him without bond. Capital murder.”
Bino probably should have been surprised, but wasn’t. He pictured Fuller, the Houston detective, leaving the courtroom that morning with Marvin Goldman. He said to Dodie, “Did you talk to him?”
“He called collect from the jail just as I was leaving the office. It’s all over the news. You need to see Rusty early in the morning, there’s some kind of hearing in court down there at ten.”
The television movie was over and a rerun of the ten o’clock news was on. Carla stirred and brushed against his arm. Bino said, “Yeah. It’ll be a bail hearing. Let’s sign off, Dode. Something’s coming up that I want to see.”
“Wow, I’ll bet.” Tone on the line like cracking ice.
“No, Dode, on television. Oh, and Dode. Thanks for keeping after me, I hope it didn’t mess up your evening.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said. She disconnected.
He took the remote from Carla and clicked on the sound. The program lead-in consisted of some aerial shots of downtown Houston, of Intercontinental Airport, and of the Astrodome sitting beside the freeway like a giant upside-down cereal bowl. Then came a commercial, a fast-talking guy in overalls named Honest Fred Homer who wanted to sell a cream puff of a used Toronado. Finally there was the anchor-person, a peppy black female who chanted the story lead-ins like come-hither rock tunes. The first item had to do with Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire addressing a group of gay libbers. Rusty’s arrest was next.
Carla gasped when the video clip of Rusty, handcuffed and hustled along betw
een two burly deputy sheriffs, flashed on the screen. The story was brief, a rehash of what Dodie had already told Bino over the phone. The on-the-spot newsperson was another black female. She closed by saying that she was Karen Porter at the Harris County Jail as Rusty and his escorts disappeared behind sliding, hissing steel doors. The no-bond bullshit will never stand up, Bino thought. A guy like Rusty was a lead-pipe cinch to be granted bail. The Harris County cops would understand that as well, but would want to hold Rusty overnight for a few little chats. Bino was just about to shut off the TV when another item came on, once more riveting his attention. There he was in living color. Bino Phillips in the flesh.
Actually there was only a brief glimpse of the side of his face and his snow white hair as he stood outside federal court, followed instantly by a close-up of the rugged bunch of Moun-tainites as they chanted the Twenty-third Psalm. Judge Edgar Bryson looked even paler than Bino remembered, the tall, silver-haired man keeping his dignity as best he could as a gang of U.S. marshals escorted him past the Mountainites and hustled him into his chambers.
Carla stiffened abruptly. “I can’t believe it. He’s a judge?”
“Yeah,” Bino said absently. “Edgar Bryson. That’s Big Preacher Daniel’s trial. Didn’t you see me? I was—”
“It’s him, Bino. The guy I mistook you for when I first met you at Arthur’s? Gee, that’s him.”
11
MANCIL ADRIANI HELD UP ONE LEG OF THE RUMPLED KHAKI chinos, aligned the seams, flattened the trouser leg across the padded board, and reached for the iron. Steam hissed as Adriani smoothed the fabric into wrinkle-less perfection, with straight firm creases. “The steam’s the secret,” he said. “First time I tried it, I used starch. No good, the cloth gets so stiff it’ll wrinkle before you got ’em on fifteen minutes.”
A man with graying razored hair balding at the temples sat nearby on a kitchen stool. He wore a blue pinstripe Hart Schaffner & Marx along with polished black shoes. He glanced out the window at pairs of headlights going back and forth on Telephone Road. “They will?”
“ ’Course they will,” Adriani said. “That suit you got, you think the dry cleaner uses starch? Hell, no, the dry cleaner knows better.” Adriani moved the smoothed-out leg upward
and applied steam to the still-rumpled portion. “You want to know why I’m doing this?”
The man looked Adriani over, burly forearms beneath a cutoff sweatshirt, receding forehead with thinning strands of hair combed back on a glistening scalp. “Doing what?” the man said.
“Ironing these fucking pants, doing what. What else I’m doing?”
“I don’t suppose I’d thought about it,” the man said.
“Well, you ought to. I got a sixty-thousand-dollar Mercedes parked out there, that stand-up big-screen Magnavox set me back twenty-nine hundred bucks, those sculptured horses on the coffee table cost me four hundred simoleons apiece. I got a maid coming five days a week, and I’m standing here ironing these fucking pants. Don’t you want to know why?” Adriani carefully stroked the iron.
The man checked his gold Piaget. “I’ve got an early meeting.”
“Yeah?” Adriani’s voice was hoarse, a slightly breaking alto. “Well, now you’re having a late meeting. You’re going to sit around awhile and shoot the shit, pick up what, couple of thousand? Then you’re on a plane back to Sunny Southern, be copping z’s beside your old lady out in Westwood tomorrow night. All that shit ain’t nothing. This meeting here’s what’s important, if I’m reading you right.”
“I still can’t afford to stay all—”
“This ironing’s a reminder. About this one fuckup cost me four years federal, you know? Doing the time I got to iron my own clothes. The hack’s and the warden’s, too, this was in the camp at El Reno, Oklahoma, and kind oflaid-back. Wasn’t that bad, I keep the warden looking spiffy I get some extra furlough consideration. Point is, that little federal beef I done ruined it for me. Now I can’t go home no more. I’m living in this hotass Houston fucking Texas and can’t even walk around my old neighborhood. So I iron—”
“The man I want to talk to you about follows pretty much the same routine . . “
“—these pants … shut the fuck up about routines for a minute. That name on my mailbox, Charles Dorrell? That’s a pseudo, case you ain’t figured it out. My real name’s—”
“Now I don’t want to know … ”
“You’re going to know, if we do anything,” Adriani said. “Mancil Adriani, that’s me, and don’t you forget it. And I iron my own pants because it reminds me, no more fuckups.” He switched off and laid the iron aside, then got two glasses down from the cabinet. “So you want a drink? Got Chivas, you name it, Perrier or fresh-squeezed OJ. I don’t drink alcohol myself. Fucks the head up, but a man thinking about what you’re wanting to do might need a buzz on.”
The man’s thin lips trembled. “Nothing for me.”
Adriani raised one eyebrow. “Suit yourself, but I’m the one needs a clear head. You can get blasted if you want to.” He opened the refrigerator, poured orange juice, led the way into the living room, and sank down on the sofa. In addition to the sweatshirt he wore army pants with big pockets. The man followed, sat in an easy chair, and wiped his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief.
“This witness protection program,” Adriani said, “is the pure shits, but it’s got its advantages. Long as certain people don’t see me, you know? So how’s the airplane parts business, Whitley?”
The man lowered his head. “Good God.”
“Yeah, I know all about you. You’re Whitley Morris and your coolies make a quarter of the wing parts sold. Aside from this Houston bank, you’re on the board of directors for six other companies. You sit on a guy’s board, he sits on yours, right? Allows you people to trade dollars. Your old lady is named Mimi. She’s Old Lady Number Two. Did a few commercials for you, right? I like the miniskirt scene where she’s riding the wing on the 747 and the wind’s blowing her skirt up around her ass. Old Lady Number One lives out in Beverly Hills and ain’t too happy about being traded in for some young pussy. This man that referred you to me couldn’t testify to shit, ’cause he’s not acting as any middleman. But I had him check you A to Z.”
Whitley Morris firmed up his posture. “I think I should go.”
Adriani took a pull of orange juice and set the glass on a coaster. “Maybe you should. But you go hanging around some sleazebag bar looking for somebody, you’ll wind up dealing with John Law. This way you know you’re talking to the real thing.”
“I hadn’t expected it to get so personal.”
“Getting somebody offed is personal as shit, Whitley.”
Morris vacantly bit a knuckle.
“Where I fucked up,” Adriani said, “was in dealing with a bunch of go-betweens. Longer the chain, the weaker the links. What I did was, I arranged to hit this guy—”
“Please,” Morris said. “I feel the less I know about you—”
“You can feel that way all you want to,” Adriani said. “But that ain’t the way it works.”
“I thought if you were going to whack someone,” Morris said, “you’d prefer to remain anonymous.”
“Whack? Whack? You been seeing too many picture shows, Goodfellas and all that. Nobody ever heard of whack before, but you know what? You’re not the only one, there’s guys in the business going around talking about whacking people now. The expression catches on.”
“Well, murder someone.”
Adriani pointed a finger. “That’s the first intelligent thing you said. ’Cause that’s what it is, murder. I think people going around talking about whacking, they believe they’re cool using the lingo, and that don’t sound as bad as calling it what it is. You’re here because you want a guy murdered. Your partner or something.”
Morris bent over and hugged himself. “It’s scary as hell.”
“You bet it is. This guy I done in Baltimore was going to be a federal witness against some money laundering guys. Guys sort of like you, Whitley, people that screw each other in business deals but ain’t got the cods to look at somebody and make them dead.
“So they go,” Adriani said, “to the only real convict any of ’em know, guy used to like it up the ass at Joliet prison in Illinois. The guy comes to me and arranges things. The murder goes without a hitch because that’s the way I do things. But the fucking go-between, two years later he takes this fall on a dumbass stickup, and first thing you know he’s talking to the federals to get his own ass out of a crack.
“So thanks to that asshole I got to take the snitch route my ownself. That stand-up guy bullshit is just that, Whitley, once you got the death penalty staring you in the face. So I testify against those money laundering guys, which serves them right, do my four, and now I’m sitting in this federal witness program. Can’t go home. Can’t be Mancil Adriani no more, got to be Charles fucking Dorrell.”
“Look,” Morris said. “Can’t we just talk business? I’ve done everything you said.”
“You ain’t done everything,” Adriani said, “because I ain’t finished saying. I know who you are and you know who I am. Now if somebody says something about this, can’t be no doubt who’s talking, right? Then the talker gets fucking dead himself, which is the best insurance I know to keep people’s mouths shut.”
A thin dribble of fear ran from the corner of Morris’s mouth. He finally said, “Maybe we shouldn’t make a deal at all.”
“You gone too far for that, Whitley.”
Morris shivered. “Good God.” Then he murmured “Good God” again, and looked resigned as he said, “You can make the whole thing appear accidental?”
“I can make it appear,” Adriani said, “any way you want it to appear. The guy can just vanish. I know ways nobody ever finds the guy. Take ’em on an airplane ride over the ocean, dump that body in the Atlantic and let ’em hunt. That’s the safest way.”