Hot Shot (14 page)

One afternoon a little after five o’clock I went into a cocktail lounge called the Gay Gander that was a pretty fancy place with a thick carpet and big pots of green stuff here and there and soft light coming out of a little trough that went all around the room up near the ceiling. I was sitting by myself at a table, because all the stools at the bar had roosters on them, and all of a sudden this guy with slick black hair stepped out with a little microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, here she is,” just like any damn fool ought to know who
she
was, and I guess most of them did, even if I didn’t, because they started to clap in the quiet way they do it in joints like that, and another guy came out and sat down at a piano, and this doll followed him and leaned against the piano and began to sing. She was wearing a black dress that was made out of thin stuff that showed the black slip underneath, and it came down to just below her knees at the bottom and down to damn near below her knockers on top, and her hair was black, too, and cut short and sort of shaggy on purpose, and I’d like to describe the rest of her, just the way she looked, but I damn sure can’t, and no one else could, either.

Well, it was this Candy Caldwell I mentioned, and she sang these little songs that weren’t dirty in exactly what they said but were damn sure dirty in what they meant, especially the way she sang them, and everyone in the place just ate it up, including me. As a matter of fact, I never had a doll get to me the way she did, not even old Marsha, and I sat there and watched her for all the half hour she was on and wished it was longer. When she’d finished and gone, a waitress came up to my table and asked me if I wanted another drink, which I did, and I asked her the name of the doll who sang the songs, and she said, “Why, that’s Candy Caldwell,” and she said it with this snotty look like she thought anyone would have to be pretty damn ignorant not to know who Candy Caldwell was, and I said, “Well, I’d sure like to have her sing some of those songs to me personally,” and she said, “You and a million others, sonny. Give it up. She’s got connections, and she comes high,” and that just showed how damn ignorant this snotty waitress was herself, because she didn’t even know that I was a big basketball star with connections of my own, which was just as bad in its way as not knowing who Candy Caldwell was. Anyhow, I asked her if Candy Caldwell was going to sing any more songs later, and she said yes, a hell of a lot later, about nine o’clock that night as a matter of fact, and I made up my mind right then and there that I’d be back at nine o’clock to see her do it, and I was.

The second time was even better than the first time, and she was dressed in a white dress that came all the way to the floor at the bottom, instead of just below her knees, but came down to about the same place as the black one at the top, which was about as far down as it could go without being nothing but a skirt. She sang for a half hour again, all these little songs that meant more than they really said, and when she quit I decided I might as well take the God-damn bull by the horns and called a waitress over and told her to go tell Candy Caldwell that Skimmer Scaggs would like to meet her, and it cost me a lousy fin to get the waitress to go. I sat there and waited for a while, and pretty soon someone came up to my table, but it wasn’t Candy Caldwell. It was a tall guy with blond hair brushed straight back over his head with the scalp showing through, it was so God-damn thin, and he had a kind of narrow, mean face with a little smile on it that didn’t help much. I thought at first maybe he was going to throw me out on my ass for trying to get to meet Candy Caldwell, but it turned out he was friendly and said, “Are you Skimmer Scaggs, the basketball star?”

I said I was, and he said, “Sure glad to meet you, Scaggs. I’m Hershell Goans. I manage this place,” and I said I was glad to meet him, too, which was just a way of speaking and not particularly true because the only person I really wanted to meet was Candy Caldwell, and he must have read my mind because he said, “I understand you’d like to meet our little singer.”

I said I sure as hell would, and he laughed and said, “Well, a lot of guys would like to do that, and she usually doesn’t give any house to strangers, but I’m pretty sure she’d be willing to make an exception of a famous athlete like you. I’ll tell you what. You just sit here and take it easy, and I’ll go back and see if she won’t come out and have a drink with you.”

He went away to get her, and I sat there waiting, and they didn’t come for so long that I’d just about decided they were only making a God-damn monkey out of me, but then they came, and this guy Goans said, “Skimmer, meet Candy Caldwell. You’re in luck, boy. It just happens Candy’s quite a fan of yours,” and I stood up and said, “No bull?” and she laughed and said, “That’s right, Skimmer. I was just too excited when Hersh told me you were out here and wanted to meet me.”

She sat down, and I did, too, and Hershell Goans called a waitress over and said anything we wanted was on the house, and I couldn’t help wishing it was the snotty bitch who’d waited on me in the afternoon, but it wasn’t. Candy ordered a martini, and I said I’d have the same, and Goans said, “You kids have fun,” and went away, which was the best thing he could have done as far as I was concerned. I tried to think of something fancy to say, but damned if I could think of a thing, and to tell the truth, I was too busy looking things over right at first, anyhow, and it seemed to be all right with her. She was still wearing the white dress she’d worn to sing in, and she sat there smiling a little and fiddling with the stem of her martini glass, and pretty soon she said, “Well, you like it?” and I said, “What?” and she said, “What you’re looking at,” and I said, “What you mean, it? There are
two
of them,” and as a matter of fact, it just slipped out, and I was afraid at first that I’d fouled the nest, but she thought it was funny and said, “My God, you’re
really
a fast worker, aren’t you?”

After that I felt as loose as ashes, and I started talking about basketball and asking her questions, because this Hershell Goans who managed the place had said she was a fan and I thought she’d be interested, but the truth is, she didn’t seem to know a damn thing about basketball, and I decided that maybe she wasn’t exactly a fan of the game but was just a fan of mine personally. The way it turned out, though, she wasn’t really any kind of fan at all, and after a while she laughed and said, “Look, honey, don’t get sore about it, but I don’t know a damn thing about basketball and care less and I’ve never seen a game in my life. The way it was, I looked out and saw you sitting here, and I thought you were cute, and all that stuff about being a fan was just an angle. You know how it is.”

I said sure, I knew how it was, and as a matter of fact I wouldn’t have been a fan of the God-damn crazy game myself if I hadn’t got to playing it by accident. She asked me how I got started, and I told her about the time old Bugs bet me his lousy two-bits that I couldn’t hit two out of ten, and how I went on after that and became the best player in the state and got an athletic scholarship to Pipskill, and how I was thinking about going ahead and getting on a pro team after college, because I’d heard that was a good racket, too. She said I must really be good, and I said I sure as hell was, and she said she liked men who were good at things, no matter what they were, and I said she might be surprised how good I was at certain things
besides
basketball, and she laughed and patted my hand and said, “Jesus Christ, what a
busy
little man you are. Always in there trying.”

We had a couple more drinks after the first one, and I asked her if she’d like to go somewhere in my Crosley, and she said, “In your what?” and I said, “In my Crosley, God-damn it,” and she said, “You mean one of these little tiny cars?” and I said, “Well, it’s pretty small, all right, but it’s a red one-seater, a kind of sports car, and all sports cars are supposed to be small,” and she said, “Oh, a sports car! I love sports cars. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got to go on for another half hour spot at eleven, but if you’ll hang around until after that, I’ll let you take me home.”

I said I’d hang around, all right, and I did, and we kept on sitting there and talking and having a fresh martini every once in a while, and about a quarter to eleven she got up and said, “I’ve got to get ready for my next spot now, honey. Don’t go away,” and that was a God-damn laugh because you couldn’t have drug me away from there with a team of mules, and I’ll admit that the gin was working on me pretty good and I had about three sheets in the wind. Candy came on and sang her songs, and she picked out the most suggestive one of all to sing right to me, and everyone could tell what she was doing, and a few people started to laugh and clap a little, and I sure didn’t give a damn. The song was one where some doll was in a hot spot with some guy, and she kept saying don’t and stop, and pretty soon she got to saying them so close together that it sounded like she was saying don’t stop, and I thought, Well, you can just bet your pretty tail I won’t.

When she’d finished singing, she disappeared for a while, and I had another martini on the house while I was waiting for her to show up, and when she came she was in a street dress instead of the long white one she’d been wearing, but I was so fogged up with gin by that time that I don’t remember just what it looked like except that it was enough to knock your eye out, just like all the other dresses she wore.

“You ready to go, honey?” she said, and I said I was and stood up and damn near fell on my face, and she laughed and said, “Who the hell’s taking who home?”

She took my arm, and we went out, and when we passed this guy Hershell Goans, he laughed and said, “Take good care of our basketball hero, baby,” and Candy said, “Oh, I’ll take care of him, all right,” and then we got outside on the sidewalk and walked down to where I’d parked the Crosley, and she said, “Well, isn’t it cute! Does it have an engine, or do you pump it with your feet?” and I said, “You just crawl in the God-damn seat, and I’ll show you if it’s got an engine or not,” and she said, “Nix, honey, I’m too young to die. You just crawl in like a good boy, and I’ll drive this gadget myself.”

I argued about it a little, but she said I’d damn well let her drive or we’d just call the whole thing off, and so finally I got in the seat and she went around and got under the wheel and drove us to the apartment house where she lived. It was a medium fancy place with one of these awning things running from the front entrance to the curb for you to walk under, and Candy pulled into a parking space at the curb just below the awning and cut the engine and said, “Look, honey, you’re in pretty bad shape. I’ve got an electric pot and some coffee upstairs. You want to come up with me, I’ll fix you up,” and I said, “Is that a promise?” and she laughed and patted my cheek and said, “My God, you’re about the
busiest
sophomore I ever ran into,” and I said I wasn’t any God-damn sophomore, but a junior, and she said, “Okay, Junior, come along,” which I did and had intended to do, anyhow, coffee or no coffee.

We went up in the elevator and down to her apartment and inside, and it was a nice place with some modern-looking furniture standing around on black wrought-iron legs. She was holding me by the arm when we went in, and as soon as the door closed behind us she swung around in front of me and put her arms up around my neck, and I put mine around her down where it counted for more, and we started kissing, and that went on for a while, and then she stepped back and laughed this shaky laugh and said, “Well, well, Junior, you’re not only cute, but talented. Maybe this caper will turn out to be more fun than business.”

I started to grab her again, but she put her hand against my chest and held me off and said, “Let’s build it up as we go along, Junior. It’s better that way,” and I thought I might as well play it by her rules and let her go, and she walked over toward a door that led into a bedroom and said over her shoulder, “Sit down and take it easy, honey. I’ll be back in a minute,” and it wasn’t much longer than that before she was, and I sat on a sofa and waited and thought about all the stories I’d read, especially about private eyes, how the doll walks off to the bedroom saying something like that and comes back pretty soon naked or in a God-damn thin robe or something, and I wondered if that was the way it was going to be with Candy, and hoped it was, but it wasn’t. She still had the same dress on and hadn’t done a damn thing to herself as far as I could see, and she walked over to a chest and took out a couple of bottles and glasses and mixed drinks and carried them over to me and handed me one and said, “Since you probably won’t be driving home tonight after all, we can just skip the coffee, can’t we?”

Well, I guess I was pretty tight, but I was still able to tell when I’d had an invitation, and I took the glass and said we sure as hell could, and she sat down beside me real close and said, “Tell me all about yourself,” and I couldn’t see a hell of a lot of use wasting time on it and said so, but she took a swallow of her drink and said, “For God’s sake, Junior, don’t push it so hard. We got all night.”

I took a big swallow of my drink and damn near choked to death, it was so damn strong, and my head got to going around and around all of a sudden, and I tried to think of some good lies to tell her about my family and who I was and everything, but I couldn’t seem to get going on it, and then I had this feeling that there wouldn’t be any percentage in telling lies about it to Candy, anyhow, because it wouldn’t make any damn difference to her at all like it might have made to old Marsha, and so I just told her the truth about everything, about the old man and the old lady and how I’d pushed the ladder over with Gravy Dummke on it, and she laughed and laughed and thought it was funny as hell. When I was finished I thought it might make me some points if I acted like I wanted to know everything about her, too, not that I cared a hell of a lot about it, and so I asked her to tell me all about her God-damn life and stuff, and she said, “Junior, I haven’t had any life. I just started to live when I met you tonight.”

This was bull, and I knew it, and she said, “Is your name really Skimmer?” and I said it sure as hell was and was her name really Candy, and she said, “Christ, no. Who the hell ever named a kid Candy?” and I asked her what her real name was, then, and she said it was Myrtle, if I wanted to know, but she’d changed it to Candy because who the hell would come to a cocktail lounge to hear a girl named Myrtle sing songs? I said as far as I was concerned I’d come to hear her sing if her name was Mud, and she said that was a sweet thing to say, and it got us started on a pretty good tussle that led from one thing to another, and pretty soon she stood up and said, “Let’s go in the other room,” meaning the bedroom, and I stood up to go and fell on my lousy face. She laughed and helped me up and into the bedroom and told me to sit down on the bed and she’d be right back. I sat down and heard her in the bathroom, and my head was going around this way, and I remember lying down on my back for just a second until she came, and damned if I didn’t pass out and not come to until the next day, which was the damnedest thing I ever did.