No Beast So Fierce (20 page)

Jerry Shue's station wagon was parked ten feet from Mary's car. It was Jerry in the room. “Bastard motherfucker,” I cursed. If I'd been properly watchful I'd have seen the light and the parked automobile the moment I turned in from the street.

When I walked into the room I expected Jerry's eyes to widen at sight of the cockleburs in my hair and bedraggled appearance and to laugh with gusto at the story. Jerry neither noticed nor laughed. There was a redness in his eyes. His clothes were also unkempt; he needed a shave and his hair was messed.

“I slipped the lock,” he said, “I didn't want to wait in the car.”

“Man, you look bad. What's wrong?”

“Carol's got leukemia.”

“No. Man, goddam …” The awful statement left me without words. With eyes closed for emphasis, I shook my head in mute sympathy. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe it's a mistake.”

“No, it's something they call malo fibrosis—leukemia is part of it or it's a part of leukemia. I'm going to need money. I already owe eight hundred and she's going to have everything there is. If you still want me on that caper …”

“Man, I don't want you to decide when your mind's all fucked up. You're on the edge of hysteria.”

“I've thought about it and decided. I know what I'm doing.”

“Decide tomorrow. I want you with me—but—you know what I mean.”

“I don't want to go back to the apartment tonight.”

“Where's Carol now?”

“In the hospital.”

“Stay here, or get a hotel room.”

“What time is it?”

“Got no watch, but it's about one-thirty.”

“Let's get something to eat. I'm hungry and I feel guilty about it. If I'm moving around I feel better.”

Outside, he handed me the ignition keys. Summer was dying and the night air was chill. He inhaled deeply. Minutes later, as the automobile surged onto the freeway, he seemed less overwrought.

“Where to?”

“Doesn't matter.”

I headed toward Long Beach; it was good a place as any.

“She's taking it good,” Jerry said. “Either she's got unbelievable courage or she doesn't accept it.”

Over coffee we decided that I'd go with him to visit in the morning. We talked about what we were going to do. He believed he was returning to crime solely to assure that Carol had everything money could buy. It might have been true, but I'm inclined to think that somewhere in the psychological mosaic was a need to fight dilemma with blind aggression—to lash out blindly and get revenge. His best move would have been to bear witness and endure, for it was better for Carol to be in a charity ward of the county hospital than have him in jail or dead—and she'd then be in the charity ward anyway. None of these arguments persuaded him, and so as dawn neared and we turned back up the coast highway toward Los Angeles it was agreed that he'd go with me.

“When do we make the first score?” he asked.

“Whenever he gives the word. It could be tomorrow or the next day. There's another thing—I met some dude the other night who wants diamonds. I'm gonna check him out … see if he's for real.”

“I'm game for anything. Eight or nine grand will help, but not for very long. We've got no insurance … nothing.”

“We'll make money. If you've got enough guts there's money damn near lying on the ground.”

“Yeah, but the real good heists are where you can cut off that silent alarm and root around for fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“I know somebody who can do just that. He's up at a road camp and wants to duff. I'm going to pick him up pretty soon. He's black.”

“I don't care if he's polka dot if he's solid and can hold up his end—and I trust your judgment.”

When we turned in from the seacoast the eye of day was opening. Jerry had gone to sleep beside me.

Carol used a remote control switch to turn off a television set as the nurse ushered us into the room and faded away. Jerry had shaved and changed clothes.

Carol looked much better than at the apartment. I hadn't noticed her pallor then, but recognized it now from the change. Jerry looked more sickly than Carol.

“I thought you might like to see Max,” he said.

“Sure. Hi,” she said, wiggling her fingers to me and smiling. “Don't look so solemn.”

Her brightness made me feel worse, but I managed to smile. “How do you feel?”

“So good I can't believe I'm sick. All I needed was some fresh blood. I'm ready to go home.”

“Tomorrow, the doctor says,” Jerry said.

We stood at the foot of the bed, feeling uncertain. Jerry walked around and kissed her. She smiled and patted his cheek. “That's a good boy. Settle down. I'm not dying tomorrow. When the time comes you'll be tired of me. Sit down—both of you.”

Jerry pulled a chair beside the bed and sat down. I stood beside him, wanting to light a cigar and restraining myself.

“Mrs Johnson called me today,” Carol said. “She went by the apartment twice and you were gone. The chlorine machine is goofing and the pool is like poison gas. She was upset. She wants to know how long I'll be here. I told her I'd be home in a day or two. She didn't even ask what was wrong.”

“We'll start paying our rent,” Jerry said. “Fuck all that work. We wasted too much time for fun already. We'll get somebody in to do the housework.”

Carol's face, which had been radiant, almost joyful, turned to darkness. “The money. Where's the money coming from?”

“Don't worry about money,” Jerry said.

Carol turned to me with baleful accusation.

“I had nothing to do with his decision. I tried to talk him out of it.”

“You weren't sincere.”

“Every person does what they really want to do.”

“Jerry, don't,” she said to him. “Don't risk what little we have left.”

“I'm doing what I have to do. I might've done it anyway.”

“What if something happens?”

“Nothing's going to happen. We're both pros.”

“That's why you spent your life in prison—because you're a pro?”

“That's where I learned to be a pro. Carol, we owe a thousand in hospital bills right now. It's going to cost and cost. We need money and I'm going to get it.”

“I don't care if I die in a flophouse or right now this minute! I'd rather do that than see you locked up or shot down in the gutter.”

“None of that's going to happen.”

“It could with him. He doesn't care.”

The statement, made without anger, stirred a chord. Her words were close enough for me to blurt, “That's not true.” I wanted to argue, but who can argue with a dying person?

“Don't get on Max's case,” Jerry said. “Can't you see how I feel—what I've got to do to be a man in my own eyes?”

“We don't need it.”

“Yes we do.”

“Not that much. I'd rather stick my head in an oven.”

“If you were that cruel I'd be right behind you.”

They verged on tears and I did too. They stared at each other, both in anger and agony. “Do what you want,” Carol said. “It doesn't matter. I won't be here very long.” She spoke tonelessly, suddenly drained of fire. “Just don't tell me anything about what you're doing.”

When we left fifteen minutes later, the episode of wounding had been healed, covered with layers of small talk and tenderness. Both chose to withdraw rather than hurt the other. Jerry had held his ground, yet Carol's remonstrations hung in the background and the scars would be there. I was a detached bystander. Carol was friendly to me—and it was sincere. It was no modification of her opinion of me, but merely an acceptance despite that opinion. Maybe she really decided that because of death's proximity such intense concern was ludicrous.

Walking down the corridor, under the hard lights, Jerry sagged. All at once the powerful frame was gaunt (or I saw gauntness for the first time) and he reeled. His face was bloodless. The scene in the room had unnerved him, sapped the last reserves. He was like a man in a trance as we drove back toward the motel.

But the human mind, when it reaches the bottom of the abyss, must bounce back or disintegrate entirely. Filled with Scotch and Seconal, Jerry collapsed on a chair. Hours later, though groggy and stiff, he'd bounced back. After splashing cold water on his face, he grinned. “Why don't you give that Wop gangster a call and see what's happening? If I'm thinking about action I won't really be thinking. That's the way I want it.”

“I can dig it,” I said—and I could.

8

T
HE
next day, Saturday, in late afternoon Jerry was going to bring Carol from the hospital. It was better that she didn't see me, but I spent the morning with him at the apartment, doing chores that had been ignored. Full of cold beer and marijuana, we watered flowers, cleaned the swimming pool, raked leaves, and dusted the apartment. Jerry had risen out of his despondency. He seemed more the easygoing man I knew; it was not diminishment of loss of love, it was the resilience of someone accustomed to loss.

In the afternoon I went back to the motel, sat basking beside the swimming pool and watching college football on a portable television set that two middle-aged men brought out. It was a yellow-warm day, the sun gentle, though in late afternoon the air turned chill.

I drove into Hollywood to eat. When I returned at dusk a note was scotch-taped to the door: “Mr Johnny T. called and left message that the game is for 8:00 tonight.”

I'd been waiting with almost angry anticipation for this message. Now, holding it, the butterflies of imminent danger—a not totally unpleasant sensation—came to life in my stomach. I walked down to the motel office and used the pay telephone to call Jerry.

“It's tonight,” I said. “I'll call the guy about the guns.”

“We've just been here ten minutes. What'll I tell Carol?”

“She told you not to tell her anything. Just say you've got to go somewhere for a couple hours. You can't balk now.”

“What time is the move?”

“They're starting at 8:00. Give 'em an hour to get comfortable.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

Next, I dropped a dime in the slot and dialed Abe's club. He answered and said that Manny had taken the evening off. Abe thought he might be shacked up with a broad he'd met the night before. I hung up and dialed Manny's apartment in West Hollywood. I listened to the unanswered ringing for five minutes and hung up, cursing in frustration. I went back to my room and stood at the window, waiting for Jerry and watching the hillsides turn from orange to purple. When Jerry arrived, I went back to the telephone. Still no answer from Manny's apartment.

So instead of charging through a door and robbing a dozen semiracketeers (later joyfully counting fifteen or twenty thousand dollars on a bed) we spent the evening parked on a tree-lined street of apartment buildings in West Hollywood, waiting for Manny to come home. At 11:00 we realized the heist was a dead issue. Jerry laughed. I, too, saw the humor—but I also felt the burden of being a fool.

“Let's go home,” Jerry said. “I'm hungry.”

“We can kiss this one off for good. That dago isn't going to help us anymore. I suppose we could wait every night—but I can't wait very long.”

“Neither can I. Is anything else pending? I need to make a couple grand in the next week or two.”

“Just that jewel move and it's gonna take time to put together.”

“We could start looking for a jewel score. Make a list of all the first-class jewelers and start looking 'em over. You check Pasadena and the east side. I'll get Beverly Hills.”

“Yeah, but that's still a future thing. It'd take a month at least. Meanwhile you need a couple grand—and I've barely got gas money. What we should do is look at some banks. We can get that together in a week or two.”

Jerry was turning the key in the ignition when headlights sprayed through the back window. It was Manny's automobile. He got out, his movements indicating that he was slightly drunk. I stepped to the sidewalk and called him. He came over, grinned, and leaned over to see who was in the car. He didn't know Jerry. His grin sandpapered my irritation.

“Where the fuck were you?” I snapped, not intending such anger to show; it was just a goof. He wasn't supposed to spend his life waiting for my call.

“I been balling some freaky debutante at her pad at Laguna. What's up?”

“Nothing now. We wanted those guns—but it's too late. We fucked off a score because you weren't here.”

“It wouldn't have mattered. The dude picked up those guns yesterday afternoon. I was going to call you last night but I lost your number.”

What he'd said registered several seconds later. When it did, I looked at his flap-jawed grin and punched him without warning. The left hook landed on his eye, split the flesh open, and dumped him flat on his back. The follow-up right hand punch sailed over his head because he was on the way down.

“Hey! Goddam!” he yelped. “What's that for?” He was more frightened than groggy or hurt. He raised himself on an elbow and wiped the blood away from his vision.

“You asshole!” I said.

“Man, what'd I do?”

“Never mind.” The whole fiasco was aggravated beyond endurance by his casual failure to tell me about something so important as the man taking back the firearms. “Shitass, you were off sucking some broad's cunt when you should've been taking care of business. If we had known in time, Jerry could've brought a shotgun, and I still had the small revolver.” I drew back to kick him and he wriggled to get away. He stayed prone, believing himself safer on the ground than on his feet.

Jerry had run around the car; he was holding my arm and pulling me back. “You crazy motherfucker! Cool it. Somebody's gonna call the heat and we'll be busted for a chickenshit street brawl. There's no money in that.”