Swag (12 page)

STICK DIDN'T KNOW WHY HE
expected her to be different. He realized now the person in there, behind the calm expression, was predictable and he'd met her before, many times. She wasn't a mystery person at all; she was really kind of dumb. She had never heard of Waylon Jennings or his hit record
Midnight Rider
. She hadn't even heard of Billy Crash Craddock or Jerry Reed, the Alabama Wild Man. She liked Roger Williams and Johnny Mathis. She also liked Tab with Jack Daniel's. Stick was disappointed, then relieved. He fixed himself some greens with salt pork and ring baloney and Jiffy Corn Bread Mix, fell asleep watching the late movie, woke up, and went to bed. He didn't know what time Frank got in.

The way he knew he was home was seeing the colored girl in the kitchen the next morning.

He got the paper in and came into the kitchen in his striped undershorts, scratching the hair on his chest, reading a headline about Ford and not sure which Ford they were talking about. A pan of water was boiling on the range. The colored girl was looking in the refrigerator. She had on a bra and panties, that's all, and was barefoot.

She looked over at him and said, “I don't see no tomato juice.”

Stick saw her as she spoke and maybe he jumped, he wasn't sure. It was pretty unexpected. Good-looking colored girl standing there in her underwear, he walks in the same way, like they were married or good friends. He felt funny, aware of his bare skin.

“What'd you say?”

“Tomato juice.” She was relaxed, like she was in her own kitchen.

“In the cupboard,” Stick said, “if we got any.”

He watched her open the cupboard, look over the shelves, and reach for the gold can of Sacramento: slim brown body and white panties very low, legs stretched, on her tiptoes. He really felt funny. He didn't know if it was because she was black or because she was in her underwear. He tried to seem at ease and sound casual.

“You the maid?”

“Yeah, the cleaning lady,” the girl said. “But I don't do floors or any ironing.”

“LaGreta,” Stick said. “Are you LaGreta?”

The girl turned and looked at him. “You know somebody that name?”

“I don't know her. I think I heard of her.”

“Uh-huh. Where's your opener, love?”

“In the drawer there.”

He watched her get it out and pry two holes in the top of the can.

“You and him work together, huh?”

“You left me,” Stick said. “I thought we were talking about LaGreta.”

“She's my mother.”

“Oh.” Stick nodded.

“You see it now?”

“Well—not exactly. You might think we're somebody else you heard about, I don't know.”

“Yeah, that's it,” the girl said. “You're somebody else.”

“You and . . . my friend, you meet each other at Sportree's, I bet.”

“Hey, baby, don't worry about it. Just tell me where I can find the vodka.”

“I'll get it.” Stick went out to the bar, still holding the newspaper in front of him, still not at ease talking to the girl. Young little colored girl, and he felt awkward. He came back in with a bottle of vodka. The girl was lacing a glass of ice with Lea & Perrins and Tabasco.

“He like it hot?”

“Probably.”

“I hope so. It's the only way I fix it.” She took the vodka bottle, poured in a couple of ounces, and filled the glass with tomato juice.

“You work with your mama?”

“I told you I was a cleaning lady.”

“Come on, really. What do you do?”

“I suppose you'll learn sooner or later anyway,” the girl said. “I'm a brain surgeon.” She moved past him with the Bloody Mary.

Stick watched her tight little can cross the living room and go into the hall, then heard her voice.

“Come on, sport. Time to open those baby blues and face the world.”

Stick made bacon and fried some eggs in the grease.

When the girl came out again she was dressed in slacks and a blouse and earrings, a jacket over her arm. She didn't care for fried eggs, asked if they had any real coffee and settled for freeze-dried instant. Stick got up the nerve to ask her a few questions while she drank her coffee and read Shirley Eder and Earl Wilson. Her name was Marlys. She was twenty years old, not a brain surgeon, she worked in the office of a department store as a secretary.

Marlys grabbed her jacket and purse, yelled into the bedroom, “See you, sport,” and was gone.

When Frank came out in his jockeys with the empty glass, looking like he'd been through major surgery the night before, Stick said, “What's Rule Number Nine?”

Frank said, “For Christ sake, lemme alone.”

He looked terrible first thing in the morning, his hairdo mussed up and needing a shave, sad, wet eyes looking out of a swollen face. Stick could understand why the colored girl was anxious to leave. Frank's bedroom probably smelled like a sour-mash still.

“Don't feel so good, uh?”

“I'm all right. Once I have some breakfast.”

“You throw up yet? Get down there and make love to the toilet bowl?”

Frank didn't answer. He turned the fire on under the pan of water.

“Rule Number Eight,” Stick said. “Never go back to an old bar or hangout. You go to Sportree's.”

“An old hangout. I've been there twice, three times.”

“Rule Number Nine. Never tell anyone your business. You pick up a broad, her
mother
knows what you do.”

“She doesn't know me,” Frank said, “not by name. We never met.”

“Never tell a junkie even your name,” Stick said. “The place is a dope store, full of heads. Rule Number Ten—you want another one? Never associate with people known to be in crime. Your friend Sportree—into many things, right? beginning with dope—and probably everybody else in the place.”

Frank jiggled the pan of water to make it boil faster. “The guy's a friend of mine. I talked to him for a while, then Marlys came in, we been getting to know each other.”

“Marlys,” Stick said. “I thought you went out with Karen.”

“I went out with Sonny, since we're keeping records. I ran into her coming in, waited an hour while she changed into an identical outfit, and we went out, had dinner.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah what?”

“What happened?”

Frank looked over from the range. “It's a long, boring story. For your record, Sonny doesn't kiss and hug on the first date. Maybe not on the second or third or fourth, either. Maybe she never does. Maybe not even if you married her.”

“What'd you do, try and rape her?”

“I bought her dinner. Forty-eight bucks with the tip. She takes a couple of bites of filet and leaves it. We come back here, it's nighty-night time, that's it.”

“What'd you talk about?”

“Her. What do you think? She's in a couple of Chevy ads, you'd think she was a fucking movie star. I told her I'd been there already, used to take out a girl was in the movies. She isn't even listening. You tell her something, she's thinking about what she's going to say next about herself. It's not worth it. Forty-eight bucks—I say, You want to go somewhere else, hear some music? No. How about, I know a place we can see some interesting characters. No.”

“So you went alone.”

“I couldn't find anybody and it was just as well I didn't,” Frank said, “since I ran into Marlys.”

“She must be pretty good.”

Frank looked over again as he took the water off the fire.

“Buddy, it's all good. Like chili, when you're in the mood. Even when it's bad it's good.”

“I guess so,” Stick said. “Matter of degree.” He waited a moment, then said it. “I never done it with a colored girl.”

“Or a Jewish girl, as I recall,” Frank said. “Only White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.”

“No, my wife was a Catholic at one time, when we first got married. There was another girl I used to go with when I was about eighteen, she was a Catholic, too.”

“That's interesting,” Frank said. He poured a cup of instant and took it over to the table. “You certainly talk about interesting things.” Stirring the coffee, he began looking at the morning paper.

“You want to see something interesting,” Stick said, “page three. Another guy shot knocking down a liquor store.” He watched Frank turn the page.

“Where?”

“Down near the bottom. Bringing the total to six in the past week. You see it? Six guys shot, four killed, in attempted robberies. What does it tell you?”

Frank was looking at the news story. “The cop, it says Patrolman William Cotter, called out, ‘Freeze! Police officer!' The suspect, Haven Owens—a jig,” Frank said, “you can tell by the name—pointed his revolver at Patrolman Cotter, then turned and attempted to run from the store. He was shot three times in the back . . . wounds proved fatal . . . pronounced dead on arrival at Wayne County General. I like that wounds proved fatal—hit three times in the back with a fucking thirty-eight.”

“What does it tell you?” Stick said. “Doesn't come right out and say, but the cop's waiting there, isn't he?”

“Of course he is. I know that. Christ, a little kid'd know it.”

“So you go in a place now, since they're cracking down,” Stick said, “how do you know it isn't staked out?”

“Because we don't work in Detroit. These suburban places, Troy, Clawson, for Christ sake, they don't have cops for stakeouts.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Hey, have we seen any? I don't mean feel it, as you say, imagine it, like the A&P. Have we actually seen any stakeouts?”

“All we need is one,” Stick said. “We won't see any more for ten to twenty-five years.”

13

THE BRIGHT-GREEN REPAINTED CHEVY
Nova stalled three times before they were out of the shopping center.

“The idle's set too low,” Frank said. “I don't want to seem critical but how come, all the cars, you pick this turkey?”

“I think what sold me was the key on the visor,” Stick said. “It's just cold.”

“
Cold
? It's seventy degrees out.”

“It was probably sitting there all day. Belongs to some kid works in one of the stores.” When they were stopped at a light and the engine stalled again, Stick said, “Or else the idle's set too low.”

It was eight twenty now, almost dark. Stick turned onto Southfield and eased over to the right lane, in no hurry, the store would be waiting.

Frank said, “You go any slower, this thing is going to roll over and die.”

Stick didn't say anything. Maybe he was putting off getting there and that's why he didn't mind the car stalling. They were both stalling. He'd watch the approaching headlights, then shift his eyes to the rearview mirror. Police cars were black and white with blue-and-red bubbles. Oklahoma State Police were also black and white. And Texas. Texas Department of Public Safety. Black and white with three flashers on top—count 'em, three—in case anybody didn't know they were cops. He thought of something else, what an old boy from Oklahoma had said. “Do you know why there's a litter barrel every mile going down the highway in Texas?” “No, why?” “To dispose of all the shit they hand you in that state.”

In Missouri they were cream-colored.

They drove past the bank, parked on the dark side of the Chinese restaurant, and walked across the alley to the Food Lanes supermarket.

Stick went in the front entrance and took a shopping cart as he moved along the aisle past the checkout counters—only two of them busy with customers. He'd circle through the store before coming back to the checkouts.

Frank went in the side door. Past the magazine rack Stick had mentioned, he looked toward the brightly lighted produce department, then glanced over at the cashier's enclosure and saw two heads, one bald, one a tall blond beehive.

Frank walked through the empty produce department to the back of the store, to the double doors with the little glass windows, and looked into the storage area. A couple of stockboys were loading cases onto hand trucks. By the time Frank got back to the front, Stick was at one of the checkout counters with a few grocery items in his cart, waiting behind a customer. A man in a sport shirt was standing at the magazine rack. He picked out a copy of
Outdoor Life
as Frank walked past him, to the cashier's window.

Frank looked over his shoulder. The guy was leafing through the magazine. He turned to the window again and the blond girl with the beehive, a two-hundred-pounder, was waiting for him.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, you can,” Frank said. He took the Python out of his safari jacket and rested it in the opening. “You can unlock the door if you will, please, and let me in.”

Stick watched him go around, wait by the door a moment, then slip into the enclosure. He could see three heads in there now, the blond one higher than Frank's and the bald one. No one else seemed to have noticed Frank. The two checkout girls looked tired and probably wouldn't give a shit if the place caught fire, long as they got out.