Gentleman Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation Page 22

  (He got up, then, and went over to my hi-fi and shook out an Australian Jazz Quintet side and laid it on the turntable. Then he took it off before it could play, and got out an Eric Dolphy thing, “Outward Bound,” and laid it on. We sat there for about two minutes, digging the slow, new stuff of Dolphy’s horn and he started in again.)

  It was a rough row at first (he wet his thin lips) but after I hit with Con at the Vanguard it all looked cool. I cut one for Bethlehem and Hentoff said it was swinging. They had Feather do the liner notes, and it looked like I was on my way. Then Con found Rose somewhere and she started to sing with the combo.

  (I could tell it hurt him to talk about her.)

  Man, I want to clue you, this Rose item was it. She had green eyes, and they looked Oriental, you dig? Her skin was like some kind of china or something, so clear and smooth. And her hair was auburn almost bloody when the spots dug her. I wanted her so bad, you’ll never.

  For a while I thought she dug me, too. We made it together pretty often, you know. Like she wasn’t a tease, and she had this great body, man. Then one day, she came up to my pad while I was practicing, and she put the eye on me, and finally got to the pitch which was Derry would you mind letting this friend of mine who’s a pianist try a few sets tonight with Con, so I gave her the nod, and she brought in this kid from Hollywood who had a name out there, and next thing I knew he was sitting on the bench, and I was hoisting ’em from the floor.

  Derry Maylor finished his story, and I stared at him, because I knew who he meant. The kid was now voted high in the Down Beat and Playboy polls for ivories, and the chick—Rose, I couldn’t even remember her name, she hadn’t been much good vocally, really—had cut her own throat; she’d built this new kid and he’d tossed her like she’d tossed Derry.

  I felt sorry for the Tiger, but it was a dying hurt now. It was going away like the sounds of the blues when it’s fade-out time. I gave him some bonded sauce, and when he conked, padded him for the dark.

  I knew he’d be okay. He’d spilled his gut and now it was clear. I liked the kid…don’t ask why, except maybe it was my kid brother Pete who’d gotten it from a semi when he was thirteen. Maybe, but I don’t know.

  Trouble wore a sheath, and had a pair of cans like the headlights on a fire engine. She was waiting for me at Brioni’s, a little espresso house I beat the drum for occasionally. She was sitting with Eddie Brioni at one of the chess tables, a cappuccino in front of her, and I glommed her immediatest because she had green eyes.

  Like slitty green eyes.

  Like this had to be a Rose.

  Oh no, I dug inside, oh no!

  “Hey, flack-artist!” Eddie Brioni stood up as I approached. “Got a little lady here says she wants to meet you.” I walked up to the table, her eyes locked with mine, and stared down at her. God, was she gorgeous. It made my belly muscles tight just to see her. The Tiger had put the make to her proper, she had this great body, and her face was all shadows and green, slim eyes.

  Brioni was still bubbling. “And this is Miss Pardo. Miss Rose Pardo.” He introduced us again, as if it hadn’t taken the first time, and said he’d move out because we probably had but lots to talk about. Brioni’s a nice guy, even when he isn’t overcharging, but sometimes I’d like to flatten him.

  I sat down, making sure the creases were right in my Continentals. She was sizing me. I was big and I knew it. Now there were two of us who knew it.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Pardo,” I asked.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said slowly. Her voice was butter on a stack of hotcakes. It rated five stars in Down Beat. It was the seventh wonder of the Western world. I dug. It was easy to see a guy like the Tiger blasting his beret over a twist like this. What but sweet type of music we could have made together, but I dug a memory of what she’d done to the Tiger, and I knew this kid was a green bottle with a death’s-head on it.

  “Oh?” I played it cool.

  “Yes.” I had never heard it like that before. Made my feet feel funny…and other parts of me, too. “I hear you handle Derry Maylor.”

  She didn’t waste any time.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “The Stem,” she answered, waving a slim hand out toward the darkening street. “Some of your clients told me I might find you here. I’ve been waiting.”

  I knew what Lindbergh felt like with all of Paris waiting. It must have been the same. She breathed, and the bodice of her sheath did tricks. I yelled to Eddie for a cup of espresso. I had to do something.

  “So. You’ve been waiting. Something I can do for you?”

  She nodded, and the dim lights played over her auburn hair. Bloody wasn’t the proper word. Try ruby. Not that either. Something, but not that.

  “I want to see Derry again.”

  I gave her a look that would have made a cigar-store Indian join a union for protection, and fed her a flinty “No!”

  She leaned across the little chess table, and what her breasts did as they scrunched against the black and red squares made me feel checkmated. “I’ve got to see him, don’t you understand?”

  “No!”

  “I love him.”

  “No!”

  “I want to set things right with him.”

  “No!” Eddie brought my coffee.

  So I took her to see the Tiger, naturally.

  So I’m a weak character. It was those goddam green eyes.

  I hadn’t realized it, but The Hedonist Union had become a very hip spot. It was mostly Derry Maylor, of course, and not my public relations work, but Frank Sullivan wasn’t sure which it was, so he had kept us both on, and Derry was pulling down three Cs a week now. The Union was drawing big crowds every night, and Sullivan was thinking of adding another dining room, if he could purchase the wrought iron goods shop on the other side.

  I hadn’t realized how big it had gotten, but apparently Rose Pardo had. She moved in against Derry like a blotter to a puddle of ink. And she soaked him up in the same way; I got to call it a spade, the chick had coolth. Almost more coolth than anyone I’d ever seen. She wound that guy around her painted fingers like he was saltwater taffy. But he liked it, and that was what counted.

  I didn’t say anything, even when he set her up in a pad in my building. She spent most of her time around our joint, cooking for us, and not doing much of anything; when they wanted to ball I either checked out or they went up to her apartment. It seemed like a sweet little set-up, and as long as she didn’t try to hurt the kid, it was okay with me.

  So I sounded like a big brother, so what? So sue me.

  The night it all came down, Chicken Little, was like any night. Derry was at the Union, and I was alone trying to figure a new angle for The Girl with the Educated Crotch now that she was out of the cooler on that holding rap. I’d told Lulu a hundred times to stay off the junk or I wouldn’t handle her any more, but she was hooked, and once a hophead always a hophead, no matter how good they peel.

  The doorbell rang and I got up to answer it.

  Rose stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of jeans and one of Derry’s white button-down shirts, tied in a bow at her bare midriff. I stepped back and she came through. It made me feel like I had a case of dandruff all over. She was something, even in jeans; especially in jeans. I could see every muscle on her.

  “I want to talk to you,” she said. She had stopped right in the middle of the room, with the lights behind her, giving her a halo of sorts.

  “So talk.”

  “I want a job singing at the Union.”

  She didn’t beat around it any. I had an idea in the back of my weak brain that it had been something like that all along, but this was the first she’d said about it.

  “So go apply. Frank Sullivan does the hiring.”

  “He’s married.” The way she said it made it sound dirty.

  “Last I heard, that ain’t no crime.”

  “I can’t get to him. And I’m not that good to make it on talent alo
ne.”

  I was rocked; I’d heard about chicks who laid it on the line, but this broad was just too much. She didn’t even seem to mind facing the truth that she didn’t have the wherewith to make it on her own.

  “So you came to me. I’m supposed to get you in.”

  “Sullivan’ll listen to you. He always does. He’s a grateful slob.”

  This kid was sweet but deadly. Like a box of poisoned chocolates. My eyes must have been wide.

  “So why should I do it for you? Far as I’m concerned you can rot.”

  “Because if you don’t, flak-man, I break your Tiger. I break him inside like a cheap dish, like I did the last time. Only the last time I suckered myself; I know better now. I’ll do it right this time.”

  “You know something, girl,” I asked her.

  “What?”

  “You stink!”

  She chuckled then, deep in her throat, like a cat that knows it’s got a special deal and has ten lives, not just nine. “I can be nice, too, flak-man.” She started to undo the knot at her belly.

  “Hold it, sister,” I said. “Nothing you’ve got can make me change my mind.”

  She got it undone, saying, “I always like to pay a man for his labors.”

  “I’m not going to do it.”

  “You want to see Derry a stumblebum again, mugging lushes in the Village for doughnut dough?”

  “You bitch you. Lousy stinking…”

  “Listen, mister,” and her tone dripped blood, “I know what crap is. I was born lying in it and it’s been in my smelling ever since. I’ve got very little to trade on besides my shape and my voice. My voice isn’t so hot, but my backside is! You have to lie down with a lot of old dogs in this life to get what you want. I’ve been lying down for a long time now, mister, and I’m weary. I’m just weary enough to ruin your little piano player for good. I tagged onto him once as a meal ticket and got straight-armed by a bastard when I thought I was on the way up.

  “But it isn’t gonna happen this time.”

  Now what happened next is my fault, I know it.

  There was such red-hot hatred in her voice, she became the most appealing witch I’d ever dug. And she’d been unbuttoning that white shirt all along, it was open and you know she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  I don’t even remember grabbing her, but the next thing I had her mouth and she was plastered against me and we went over onto the sofa. The slammer went bam against the wall and there was the Tiger standing in the doorway.

  “Rose, why’d you call me to come—”

  He stopped, and the growl that came out of him was half-human. I tried to get free of Rose, but she had her damned legs twined around me, and I was stuck! The Tiger came at us, and grabbed my collar and ripped me off the sofa. I was twice as big as him, but I’d never met anyone who wanted to kill more than him.

  He caught me one straight in the right cheek and I sailed back against the wall. I slid down the wall and just sat there for a minute, too stupid to do anything.

  He went after her, then, and picked her right up by the neck. I saw what she’d wanted to do; to break us up. If she could split us, she could move in on me and get an in at the Union. But it hadn’t worked that way. The Tiger had picked up his guts somewhere, and now he was kill-mad.

  He had her by the throat, and he was banging her auburn head against the wall, while her tongue came out of the side of her mouth…she was dying.

  “Tiger!” I yelled, and got up from my Little Jack Horner corner.

  I grabbed him and pried his thumbs off her jugular. Then I spun him around and took him out with one solid bolo to the mouth. He collapsed against me and I let him slide down my body.

  Rose was able to move around by now, and she was dragging herself to the kitchenette. I was too stunned by the arm Derry had laid on me, too knocked out by the events of the past few minutes to know what she was doing.

  But when she stood over him with that butcher knife in her goddam hand, I knew what she was thinking, what she wanted to do. The girl was off her nut; she wanted to make it so bad, she didn’t care who got drug in the process.

  “Kill him!” she said, and pushed the knife into my hand. I stood looking at him for a moment, at the kid who reminded me of my dead brother Pete, and the talent he had all boiling in those hands, and the way this woman would stop nowhere to get what she wanted, and she said, “Go ahead, you big bastard! Go ahead, for us!” and she jammed her hot body against me, so I used the knife.

  It’s all in having coolth, the way I see it. There are some people who got to get somewhere, even if they don’t know where that somewhere is. And there’s others who aren’t meant to get at all. Those are the kind that brodie when the gaff gets too thick. You dig?

  I mean, some people are just meant to take a blade in their gut, and others are meant to take the blame. So that something worthwhile can go on.

  The Tiger’s playing at Basin Street this week, you said? See what I mean…he’s got it. He’s got the talent, and that’s more important than one flak-man named Brenan.

  That’s Brenan with one “n” in the middle.

  The warden gave me a record player and a couple of the Tiger’s sides with Trane as a last request, you know. I thought that was kind of sweet of the old guy. He and I had quite a few gab sessions about Bix and the old days.

  He’s a good joe.

  I don’t think I dig this haircut, though. I never liked a baldie—even if it’s just in one circle on the back of my head. And look what that razor did to my Continentals. These slits’ll never catch on, man.

  That’s Brenan with one “n” in the middle.

  I guess I’m just a flak-man at heart. Any publicity is good publicity, like they say.

  So stay cool, man, I gotta split.

  I got a date. A hot date.

  RFD #2

  8 May 1975

  Talmadge Services, Inc.

  545 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Dear Sirs:

  A friend of mine, whom I prefer not to name, has told me that your organization might be helpful. I am given to understand that your company has certain added services to offer, in addition to the useful private investigation.

  There is a person I am very much interested in having located. He is a rather troublesome person, and if you have any service that might (I hope you’ll pardon my frankness) put him off me, I would be very glad to have all particulars.

  I do not know if you have such an added service, but if you do, I would be most happy to send you any information you might need about this person.

  It is quite a problem to me, and I worry about it continuously. I hope you will be able to do something for me.

  I will wait impatiently to hear from you.

  Yours very truly,

  (Miss) Loretta Parish

  May 10th, 1975

  Miss Loretta Parish

  RFD #2

  Stimson, Ohio

  Dear Miss Parish:

  In reply to your letter of May 8th, we are not quite certain what you mean by an added service, but since Talmadge Services is equipped to handle all business of this type, from location of missing persons to detective work, I’m certain we can offer some help in this matter.

  We are always ready to aid a client. If you wish to send us the particulars in this matter, please send them airmail, first class, in a sealed envelope. You will hear from us soon, at which time we can more readily discuss remuneration.

  Hoping we may be able to assist you, we remain, most respectfully yours,

  Harrison Talmadge,

  for Talmadge Services, Inc.

  HT: lt

  12 May 1975

  Talmadge Services, Inc.

  545 Fifth Avenue

  New York 17, New York

  Dear Mr. Talmadge:

  I have your letter of May 10th, and am herewith enclosing particulars concerning the man I wish you to find. Frankly, I’m not so concerned about locating him as I am in making
certain that he does not trouble me again. The man’s name is Philip Grademan, and his last residence was Taunton, Massachusetts, where he was employed in the service of a Mrs. Margaret Constable.

  Mrs. Constable, now deceased, was the widow of Leonard Constable, the restaurant man. She was a wealthy woman, and very fond of books; Mr. Grademan was a rare book expert who was employed to maintain and catalog Mrs. Constable’s library. I was also employed at that time by Mrs. Constable as a confidential secretary.

  Philip Grademan and I worked for Mrs. Constable for two years and our relationship was always cordial. However, when Mrs. Constable died of acute enteritis, he accused me of falsifying her will. If you wish to learn the true facts of this affair, I am sure you will be able to unearth them in the inquest proceedings of her death, February 14, 1975, Taunton. It was a case of pure envy, since Mrs. Constable favored me in her will with a bequest of $60,000, and gave Philip Grademan only a very fine set of books.

  Nevertheless, Philip was very incensed about what happened, and made several wild threats to me after the inquest. When a series of suspicious accidents began to occur to me, I was certain that Philip intended me harm. I did not take my suspicions to the police, and do not wish to do so now, as I have a horror of becoming involved in a public scandal. I’m sure you understand. Instead, I left Taunton and changed my name (if you check the court proceedings, you will find it listed as Elizabeth Fernig).

  I am very happy here in my new surroundings, and have purchased a fine home, and would be completely content with my lot if it weren’t for Philip Grademan. I have no real evidence that Philip is actually looking for me, but I am convinced that he is, and that he means to do me harm. I can never be really happy until I know that Philip Grademan will let me live my life in peace. I am not a well woman. My heart is weak, and I suffer from high blood pressure. It is impossible for me to flee this man, and this sense of uncertainty makes life difficult.