It Takes Two (12 page)

When Bud didn’t say anything, Carmen turned to me, pulling his voice down into a Joan Crawford growl. “He doesn’t know I’m a star—a star in temporary eclipse. The sand dunes were my downfall.”

“Bigger than Garland,” Wanda said. “Bigger than Olivia de Havilland.”

“Sand dunes and spike heels are a tough combination,” Lucille said sympathetically.

“I can do Olivia doing Melanie Wilkes,” Carmen replied, still using the south-Texas drawl. “I can do Judy. But Carmen Veranda is bigger.”

Conveniently—or maybe he overheard some of this—Tommy Carpenter swung into a torch version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Framing his face with his hands, gazing soulfully at imaginary spotlights, Carmen sang along with the piano for a couple of bars.

Grinning appreciatively, the women pantomimed applause. The men at the card table didn’t seem to notice. “Why, oh, why,” Lucille sang back, fumbling the rhythm in a good-natured way, “can’t I have a refill on this scotch and soda?”

Catching the next tune in Tommy’s Broadway medley—or maybe he knew what was coming—Carmen danced a couple of shuffle steps, then picked up “I’m Just a Boy Who Can’t Say No.” Bud wasn’t smiling. He hadn’t touched the coffee and was standing with his arms at his sides, obviously uncomfortable at the impromptu drag act.

Carmen moved to fill the drink order, pouring with one hand and, with the other, snapping his fingers in time to “Doing What Comes Nat’churly.”

Nudging Bud and pointing across the room, I suggested that he carry our drinks to a table while I ordered sandwiches. Bud nodded, said goodbye to the women, picked up the coffee cup and beer and moved away.

I motioned Carmen down to the far end of the bar. “Do me a favor,” I said. “Ask the kitchen to put together a couple of club-house triple-deckers and maybe a relish tray. On the double.”

“Excellent,” Carmen replied, now all business, pulling an order pad and pencil from under the bar. “With chips and slaw?” “Whatever you think will be quickest,” I said.

“What I think,” Carmen said, the breathless Conchita accent gone, “is that your friend is wearing a G-man’s brassiere under his coat. He also knows the, how you say, corpse-cutter. Is he a cop?”

When I answered that Bud was just a friend of mine, Carmen wouldn’t let it rest. “Are we in trouble, Danny? Break it to me gently. You know I can’t stand shocks.”

“They put us on a committee,” I explained, saying more than I needed to. “Over at the Legion Hall. I took him fishing a couple of times. I don’t know anybody in this town, except people I work with.”

“People who work for you,” Carmen corrected primly. “So J. Edgar’s not going to arrest anybody? Or take down names? You sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”

“Not tonight. He’s my guest. He’s definitely off duty. He needs a sandwich.”

“I’ll tell you what he needs: a couple of sessions with Wanda’s sandwich—hold the lettuce and tomato. He looks like he swallowed a set of handcuffs.”

“He’s hung over, which is why I need you to run back to the kitchen and put in the order. On the double, like I said.”

“He must have been quite a T-bone before his neck got branded and his hair went to seed. Maybe one of Hirohito’s rancheros got to him?”

“Carmen, why aren’t you on Broadway?”

“Hope that scar doesn’t run too far south.”

“No idea,” I said. “The sandwiches?”

“I’m practically there, Danny.” Carmen batted his eyelashes and twirled away.

“He’s a freak,” Bud said as I sat down. “A fruitcake. Makes my skin crawl.”

“Carmen’s OK,” I said, aware that Bud lacked backstage experience. Bud hadn’t had an older friend to show him the ropes at Boy Scout camp. Nor even a helpful uncle with a YMCA membership. He still needed considerable man-to-man education. It looked like I was going to have to be his counselor as well as his coach.

“He works hard,” I said. “Manages all my food and drink business. He used to be a singer, that’s all.”

“He acts like a girl,” Bud protested. “How do you put up with it?”

I emptied my beer before answering. “He puts in a ten-hour day,” I finally said. “His books balance. He never runs short on supplies. Personally, he doesn’t appeal to me any more than Wanda does. I’d just as soon go to bed with Brian Rooney out there, if I was forced to pick one of the three. But people seem to think he’s funny. Most of the guests do. There’s been exactly one complaint about his behavior, and that was from a bullying asshole who insulted him, said he ought to get casts for those limp wrists and asked if he’d had his balls removed when his foreskin was cut, creepy shit like that. Carmen told the sucker to go fuck his hat.”

“Up to me,” Bud answered, “I think we both ought to get outta here, go to the Fowler Street Diner. Can’t talk in this place, not with that fairy flitting around like some kind of ballerina, and Doc and his wife sitting right there wondering what the fuck I’m doing here.”

“Why do you think they’re wondering anything?”

“Well, it’s natural, ain’t it? Wondering what two guys is doing together on a Sunday morning and then again on Monday night? Two guys that don’t work together, that ain’t related and that didn’t serve together or go to school the same place.”

I looked over at Doc and the card players, then at the two women drinking at the bar, then at Tommy Carpenter who was artfully weaving a set of slow, jazzy notes into a shimmering pattern of variations on “I’ll be Seeing You.” Every one of the six other people in the room seemed to have forgotten that Bud and I existed. We might as well have been a hundred miles away.

“What we’re trying to do,” I said, “is make this club the one place in town where anybody is free to say or do exactly what he wants. The only real rules are that you don’t talk about what goes on to outsiders. The members and guests have to be screened. Within reason, though, anything goes.”

Bud’s eyes followed mine around the room. “Anything? Bull puppies.”

“Within reason, like I said, and as long as there’s no shouting or fighting or insults.”

My words sounded stiffer than a wire brush. But I wanted to get the meaning right. “Drinks and card tables are just the means, Bud, not the ends. ‘We all risked our skins to save democracy,’ the boss once told me, ‘not only from Hitler and Tojo but also from the Mrs. Grundys, Cardinal Spellmans and Bible-thumping Senator Bilbos of the world.’ That’s why he and his syndicate bought the hotel and founded the club—that and to make a profit.”

Bud sipped his coffee thoughtfully. When he spoke again his voice stayed low. “All these people are breaking the law—playing cards for money, buying mixed drinks, and that’s just to start. And you’re telling me that you and the fruit bartender are selling them the drinks and providing the card table? You’re keeping what the statutes would call a disorderly house? And I’m supposed to say, ‘Well, pin a medal on you, Lieutenant, and welcome to Lee County’?”

Turning in my chair so I could look straight into Bud’s eyes, I said, “This is where I work. Running this place is what I do— what I know how to do and what I was hired to do.”

“And maybe I don’t want to know nothing about it,” he answered. “Why’d you bring me in here anyhow? You gonna ask me to dance in front of Doc and his wife? That what you mean by anything?”

I shook my head. “Like I said, it’s because this is what I do seven days a week. And because of what you and I do off duty. The thing between us is getting complicated. It’s getting to be a lot more than just a good fuck. When the Norris woman almost shot me, you protected me with your body, and then went home and got plastered. Only just before you passed out, you threatened to cut me off for good, said we just ought to be pals. Bull puppies on that, Sarge.”

And did Bud take all this as it was intended—as a declaration of, well, not love exactly, but of some kind of commitment and trust, of letting him know who and what I was? Hell, no. Not at first, anyway. He took it as the preface to a brush-off.

He cut his eyes down, then back, shooting arrows in my direction. The red tracks on his eyeballs were gone. “Sounds to me like all you want is a regular ass to plug. Maybe you better head back to the Legion Hall and pick up somebody else. Like I told you, only you won’t listen, I’m going with this girl. And maybe the whole thing between you and me does need to stop once and for all. No bull.”

I wondered if it had been a mistake to bring him into the club, tonight anyway, when he was hurting and embarrassed. But we were into it now, and there was nothing to do but keep going. “We’re starting to care about each other,” I said. “That’s why I wanted to go with you yesterday morning. That’s why you shielded me when the Norris woman pointed the murder weapon at me—and why you’re so scared of something happening to me you want to run away.”

At this point Carmen arrived with our triple-decker club sandwiches—the turkey and bacon freshly cooked, the mayonnaise cool and lush, the toast warm, the lettuce crisp, the sliced tomatoes cold and tart. Each sandwich was cut into quarters, the wedges held upright with frilled toothpicks. Around each sandwich platter, Carmen arranged smaller dishes of French fries, Cole slaw, dill pickles, ketchup and sliced onions. After setting down napkin-wrapped silverware and a set of salt and pepper shakers, he stepped back. “Anything else, gentlemens?”

“Another beer,” I said.

“And a refill on that coffee?” Carmen said, lifting the lid of the pot.

“Better not,” Bud said. “Gotta get some shut-eye sometime. One of those beers maybe.”

“A pleasure,” Carmen said, turning away.

“The beer’s not particularly illegal,” I said, picking up a sandwich wedge and biting into it.

Bud gathered up a handful of French fries and fed them into his mouth one by one between sentences. “The bourbon and water and the martini cocktails are definitely covered by the local-option statute. The card game in a place that sells booze—whatever kind of license you have, and I’m assuming you have one—that’s a misdemeanor for sure, or maybe a felony. Running a mixed-race staff, much less employing that fairy queen bartender you’ve got, you’re asking for the governor and the whole state supreme court to blast in here and cart you off to the poky. And me? Just being seen in a place like this could cost me my county job. Good fries, though.”

I laughed, maybe a little too loud. Hell, I was nervous. A lot was riding on this conversation.

Doc must have heard me because he looked over, tossed a handful of poker chips onto the table and threw me a thumbs-up. I waved back, a two-fingered V-for-Victory salute.

Bud got the point right away. “Doc’s got ten years’ seniority on me,” he growled. “And with his professional rank he can do what he wants to.”

“And that’s what the club room is for,” I said, wondering how the hell the argument had tied itself up in such a neat bow. “Just harmless fun. We’re not doing coat-hanger abortions. Meyer Lansky and his Mafioso pals don’t have a dime in the place. I resigned my commission to come work here because I know Bruce Asdeck is an up-and-up kind of guy. Come on, Bud. I don’t want to have any secrets from you.”

Reaching under the table, his action shielded by the tablecloth, he squeezed my knee, then ran his hand up and down my thigh a couple of times before withdrawing it. “Here’s my secret,” he said quietly. “Fact is, aside from my girl, you’re the only, ah, person I been with in two years. Course I’ll take my share of responsibility for what we been doing. Only you’re throwing a lot at me at one time. I’m a cop and a jarhead and I’m trained to think in a straight line. You run in pretty fast company—admirals and all, college scholarship, commissioned officer. And you’re telling me some of the laws don’t matter.”

“They matter,” I said, “because they get in our way—in Doc’s way, when he wants to play cards; in Mrs. Doc’s way if she wants a mixed drink in public.”

“And I’m sworn to uphold the law,” Bud said. “And not to pick and choose between straight and crooked.”

“Only you do,” I said. “Every time you get naked with me, it’s some kind of felony in this state, and you’re risking a trip to Raiford Penitentiary.”

Bud glanced at me, then up at Carmen, who had silently arrived with two beers. Without a suggestion that he’d heard what I’d said, Carmen opened the bottles, set them on the table and went away.

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” Bud answered. “Haven’t you?”

I squeezed him back under the table. “Guess you’re worth it,” I said. “Anyway, when they start racking up charges on me, sodomy’s gonna be way down the list.”

He cocked his head back and looked at me quizzically.

“You just added them up, Sarge. Mixed drinks, card games, racial integration—and that’s probably not the half of it.”

He shook his head, picked up a fork and went to work on his bowl of slaw. “Didn’t see a thing,” he said, throwing me a smile and a wink. “Never been here, in fact. Don’t even know how to spell the word
sod-o-my-whatcha-callit
.”

Brian had admitted several more people to the club room. Tommy took a break and then started playing dance music. Bud finished his slaw, fries and sandwich and started on what was left of mine.

Betty Harris, Wanda Limber’s housemate, entered the club and came over to the table to say hello. Also a war widow, she was a good-time girl and a part-time whore, and worked as a secretary in a broker’s office. I introduced her to Bud and when he stood up to shake hands she asked him to dance. He accepted and away they went.