Ralph’s voice rose to a higher pitch than hers: “An apology?”
“Well, am I or am I not your girl?”
Ralph took the crook of her elbow and started to walk her again. “Let me explain something, Margie. That wasn’t personal, see. Leo’s gone off his rocker.”
“If I was a man I’d give him a good horsewhipping.”
“That wouldn’t do any good. He’s not responsible for his actions, you see. He’s more to be pitied than censored, like the fella says.”
“That’s an easy out. Neither is an ax-murderer.”
He sensed it would be useless to continue the argument. He might even sour her against himself if he did. Therefore he said, after a pause: “I guess you’re right at that. Tell you what I’ll do: I’ll get hold of him tomorrow and by God, unless he apologizes, I’ll beat him within an inch of his life.”
Margie pulled him against her. She was amazingly strong for such a small girl. “Don’t do anything foolish, Ralph. He may be dangerous.”
Ralph could handle women, yet they often bewildered him. The next thing that Margie did was to lead him across the street into the park. Under a tree that kept dropping seeds that had a funny, not unpleasant stink, he kissed her with closed lips. She forced her tongue into his mouth and pressed her hard belly against his erection. He went into the bodice of her dress and with some difficulty among all the straps there, though with no resistance from her, he found that her breasts were indeed padded with what felt like toilet paper. He could toy there at will, but when, ablaze, he reached down and started up under her skirt, she pulled away and slapped at his face.
“If you want that, try Imogene Clevenger!”
Ralph kissed her again. “Maybe I’m in love with you.”
“Then try to act like it,” said she, pulling her clothes in order.
“I apologize.”
“Accepted,” said she. “It might interest you to know I’ve been crazy about you since the seventh grade. But I have my self-respect.”
“And you’ve certainly got a right to it,” said Ralph. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
The journey proved longer than anticipated, Margie turning out to be a monologist on inconsequential subjects--spats with her mother about the possible indecency of flaming lipsticks and nail polishes; thefts by her brother, twelve going on thirteen, from her supposedly secret cache of Mars bars; the ten-o’clock curfew imposed by her father and piously defended by her as “strict but fair”--family stories of the type in which Ralph himself never dealt and which he found tedious to hear unless told by Horse Hauser, whose examples were disgraceful, violent, hilarious. It seemed better taste to an outsider if a family was mocked by one of its members than if represented humorlessly.
When they finally reached her neighborhood, well beyond Bigelow’s store in a westerly direction though not apparently bordering Darktown--he was somewhat disoriented by night and by her presence--Margie announced she was just about home, stepped behind a curbside tree, and beckoned to Ralph to join her.
Nodding at the nearest bungalow, he asked: “That your house?”
“Up the street.” She gestured vaguely.
No doubt her folks, who emerged as puritanical in her long-winded account, were not supposed to know she was out with a boy without permission. But Ralph believed parents were quite right to take precautions against the Lester Hausers of the world. At the proper time he must go to Mr. Heppelmeier, Margie’s father, shake hands, and introduce himself. He must get a haircut and shine his shoes, so that his clean-cut, hard-working character would be evident.
“Well,” said Margie, leaning against the tree, hands behind her. She wore a thin, superior smile in the light from the streetlamp just across from them. “In the morning I am always grouchy, so if we see each other before class tomorrow, be prepared. But I’ll be in my usual good mood by noon, so I can meet you in the cafeteria. Go there as soon as you can after the bell and get a table for us before they’re gone. I might be a little late, because I generally have some things to discuss with the teacher. If so, just wait--no, if they’ve got cheese fondue and carrot-‘n’-raisin salad, get a tray for me. And milk, and layer cake. Not pie. Don’t get pigs in a blanket though. Stew is O.K., or chicken a la king--”
Ralph said quietly: “I go home at noon. I live only three blocks from school.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Margie. “I live way over here. It’s too far to go home, and I don’t like to eat by myself. It’s not fair.”
He threw up his hands. “What can I do about it? I can’t afford to pay for lunch every day.”
“I didn’t mean for you to buy mine!” she cried. However, he suspected her excessive indignation was due precisely to the fading of that hope. “Besides, you’ve got all those jobs of yours. What do you do with your money?”
“I don’t make that much,” said Ralph. “And what I make, I don’t mind telling you I salt away.”
Margie quizzically closed her lips in the center, but opened them slightly on either side to show the tips of her canines. It was a sort of trick expression, which Ralph would have been hard put to characterize, except that it made her look about forty.
“What do you salt it away for? Maybe you’re just stingy.”
She hit the target. He knew himself for a miser. Looking at the sum in his savings book, with the flanking interest payments in red--money born magically, not by work but from the copulation of one dollar with the next in the dark vaults of the bank--he enjoyed a swelling erection of soul. But he would have assumed that as his girl she could admire and not condemn that passion.
“Oh yeah?” said he. “Maybe I’m saving up for a ticket to New York. I’m not staying in this tank town forever.”
That threw a scare into her. She brought her hands across her stomach and said feebly: “You’re only fifteen.”
“I didn’t say it would be tomorrow. It’s just something I’m keeping in mind.”
“You’re sure ambitious, Ralph…I’m sorry I said you were stingy. I guess one day you’ll just think I’m some hick. You’ll drive through here in a limousine and won’t even recognize me.” She looked as if she might cry; though, true, without her glasses she tended to look that way anyhow. He much preferred her when she was being vulnerable and not critical or demanding. However, he had begun to suspect that her quick changes of style were not altogether involuntary, that she would take as much as she could get after trying for all. He must stay on guard at all times. She was indeed a worthy opponent. Her yielding was valuable in that it represented a resistance momentarily overcome but not destroyed: it would be back to keep him keen.
Therefore he did not give her elaborate reassurances now. He did not say that his fortune consisted of $19.77 and that he would need at least a hundred before moving East. He said merely: “There’ll be a lot of water under the dam before that happens.”
He placed his hands not on her shoulders but on the rough, cold bark of the tree just above them, leaned forward at the waist, and kissed her partially opened mouth with his own closed lips. Result: no bone-on.
She tried to pull him closer but failed. She sensibly accepted the situation, as he had known she would.
“I might walk you home after school tomorrow,” he said in compensation.
“Ralph,” said she, dropping her arms from his neck, “there’s something I have to tell you.” Her back still against the tree, she moved around to the shadowed side of the trunk. He too, feeling stranded, got out of the light. “My brother comes home the same way. So what that means is if he sees us he will find out who you are, and tell.”
“So?”
“So, my father doesn’t like your father.”
“For heaven’s sakes, why not?” asked Ralph, who had never heard his own father speak ill of anyone.
“Don’t ask me,” said Margie. “He just hates his guts. He’d never buy a used car from him, that I know.”
“What’s your father do?”
&nbs
p; “He’s a bookkeeper at Universal Playing Card.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, Ralph, that shouldn’t make any difference with us. Did you ever see Romeo and Juliet, with Norma Shearer?”
He shook his head. “Leslie Howard was in that, wasn’t he? I like Englishmen like Errol Flynn and even Ronald Colman in an action part, but Leslie Howard’s sort of a sissy.”
“Their parents had a feud, so they had to meet on the sly,” said Margie. “I saw that when I was about twelve. My mother took me. She likes love stories, the sadder the better. I didn’t understand it all, but it was sad. We both cried.”
“Maybe we’ll have to read it in English,” said Ralph. “I’m not looking forward to it, I’ll say that. I don’t go much for poetry. I prefer modern writings: adventure, stuff like that. Also history, about real people and events.”
He wanted to get off the subject of their fathers, but Margie wouldn’t let it go: “So we’ve got to watch our P’s and Q’s.” He detected a certain excitement in her voice. “If my father knows about you, he’ll slay me. So if you call me at home and I’m not there or if I’m taking a bath, just say ‘Ralph.’ If they ask ‘Ralph who,’ make up another last name, and I’ll know it’s you and call back soon as I can.”
Ralph was himself appalled at the thought of such a sneaky association. Besides, if their fathers were on the outs, it might be because his had caught hers in some criminal enterprise: for example, fiddling with the books he kept for the playing-card company.
“Better forget about the telephone altogether,” he advised her. “Your name might be mud at my house too.” Having recaptured the initiative, he decided to escape before her next offensive. “See you in school.”
Margie refused to say goodbye, holding him there with her silence. Maybe she wanted to be kissed again, but he was determined not to be aroused.
“Well, I guess I’ll say so long,” said he, resting one gym shoe on its snub toe and lifting a hand into the light outside the shadow. “I better get on my way.”
“I think it’s because my father thinks your father was fooling around with my mother,” said Margie at last.
Ralph brought his hand into the darkness and replaced his foot flat upon the earth.
“I heard them fighting once,” Margie said. “My folks, I mean. It was really awful.”
Ralph was on the sidewalk now and moving in the direction of home.
Behind him she cried: “There might be some mistake!” Then, as he put more distance between them: “I’m crazy about you, Ralph!”
But after that, he having broken into a run, she would have had to shout to reach him, and it was a quiet neighborhood and she a discreet daughter. He heard no more. He wondered whether her mother’s first two names were Mary Joy.
chapter 16
LAVERNE TOOK HER OLD STOOL at the short end of the bar, against the wall and near the door, and when Vinnie waddled up unwittingly, she said: “I never let a day go by. I stop all Italians.”
His eyes disappeared and his peg teeth went on display. “I din’t reckonize yuh! Holy hell. Laverne!” He put a set of hairy knuckles across the bar. “Kid, you look like a million onna hoof.”
“See you still walk like you got a load in your pants,” Laverne said, affectionately fondling his warm fat paw.
He winked, looked around stealthily--a lone morose man sat at the other end of the long side of the bar, and a quiet couple occupied the rearmost booth--took back his hand and grasped his crotch. “It’s the load I carry here,” said he. “I got enough for three men.” He was already tentatively wheezing, but reserving the big belly laugh for her comeback.
“Yeah? Well, your old lady tole me you was two hundred and fifty pounds of dynamite with a two-inch fuse.” His shoulders began to heave. “She says it looks like the neck of a balloon.”
He gave a great roar, at the sound of which the solitary drinker looked sourly towards them and the couple, sitting on the same side of the booth, stared in brief alarm.
Vinnie said, eyes full of water: “What I can’t figure is where she’s getting it. Bread in the oven again.”
“How many’s that make now?”
“Shit sake, seven,” said Vinnie in proud exasperation, hooking a thumb on one pocket of his black satin bar vest.
“Boy, it is a long time since I seen you,” said Laverne. “You had only five then. The ice man’s been mighty busy.” She made a sober face and began to count her fingers. “Dom, Connie, Treese, John, and Marie.”
“What a memory you got, Laverne,” Vinnie said, shaking his blue jowls. “I couldn’t name-um no faster. So last spring, Rocco.”
“I gather you never heard of the Rhythm, Vinnie.” The man at the end of the bar drained his glass, then just sat there staring bleakly into it.
“Rosie’s got the book, with the archbishop’s imprimer in it and all, but we never been able to figure it out. I ain’t got no head for numbers unless it’s dollars and cents.”
“Yeah,” said Laverne, “you got enough money you don’t need to count anything else.”
“I always say I’m working on my own ball team, you count the girls.”
“You gotta keep your eye on Catholic girls though,” said Laverne. “Get-um married quick or in the convent.” She was sorry she said that. Vinnie wasn’t terribly amused and neither was she. “Hey”--she leaned over--“Hot Dan the Mustard Man down there could use a refill. Get out and earn a dollar. You go broke talking to old Laverne.”
Vinnie’s wide body moved down the slot. He resembled Two-Ton Tony Galento. She hadn’t seen him since Joe Louis slaughtered Tony, so when he came back she would crack him up by saying: “I see the jigs got you back for Ethiopia.” Being in Vinnie’s affectionate presence brought out her sense of humor, which had gone unused for too long.
He poured a fresh one for the guy and then came back with a bottle of Four Roses in one hand and a Seven-Up in the other.
“He’s buying,” said Vinnie.
Laverne made a moue. “He ain’t hardly looked at me.” She had to get fortified by the time she started to work, so she threw down the first jigger in one swallow, had a sip of Seven-Up, the bubbles stinging her nose, and then took the refilled shot glass in two gulps.
“That one’s on me,” Vinnie said.
“Now I’ll pay for one,” Laverne said, and he poured a third. She lifted the little vessel between thumb and middle finger, crooking the index to salute Cock Robin down there, but still he wasn’t looking.
“So where you been all my life?” asked Vinnie. “I ain’t seen you since Hector was a pup.”
“I been hauling it elsewhere.” All of a sudden Laverne felt like crying on his shoulder, but she restrained herself. “Hey, you heard this one? I know a girl who can speak English and French at the same time?” She leaned back until her throat was vertical and dumped the booze down it.
Vinnie’s face was swarthily concerned. He pushed the Seven-Up glass towards her. “Take a little chaser, willya?”
“I don’t want to get drunk.” This was true: diluted whiskey went more quickly to the brain; she wanted to keep it warm in the belly. She took a five-spot from her purse and leaned forward. “You hang on ta that,” she said to Vinnie. “You buy a rattle for little Rocky from his Aunt Laverne.”
“Awww…” Vinnie was touched.
“C’mon,” Laverne said, forcing the bill into his big mitt. “One of these days the world’ll be all wops, and I wanna keep on their good side.” She got up and went around the corner of the bar and along to where Herman Hotdog was chewing his cud and climbed on the next stool beyond him, where she could watch the door for the bulls or better prospects.
He was long and skinny and dark. It was the curve of his nose where it met his lips that gave him the sour feature. He wore a pale-gray fedora like Dick Tracy.
“Much obliged for the free juice,” said Laverne to his inscrutable profile.
“My pleasure,” he said, lifting his glass and dri
nking from it, slitting his eyes towards the blue mirror behind the bar.
“Please to meet you,” said she. “I’m June. Who are you?”
His hat slowly turned. He had the palest eyes in a murky, lined face. He seemed about forty. He looked like the kind of bird who would show his cock to a Campfire Girl in the park. Laverne could handle him.
“Doc Savage,” he said.
“I seen your name on a book.”
“You bet. The one and only.” He produced a crumpled bill from his pocket and carefully smoothed it on the polished wood, thumbs traveling away from each other. “I’m gonna get on my horse. The silence here is deafening.”
“Maybe you just got coffee nerves,” said Laverne.
“I’m going down the morgue for a few haha’s,” said he. He wore a gray suit and a gray tie, and his sideburns matched his gray hat.
“I been called funny as a crutch,” said Laverne. She slid her hand along the bar and asked levelly: “Did you want a giggle?”
“I dunno,” said Doc Savage. “Depends on what you got, sister. But”—he looked critically at her hand—“don’t touch me unless you love me.”
Vinnie was futzing around at the other end of the bar, watering his stock or something, and Laverne’s back was to the couple in the booth. She lowered her hand and finger-walked up the inside of his left thigh until she touched the lump.
He said immediately: “O.K.,” and rose. She tucked her purse under her arm and followed, ignoring and ignored by Vinnie.
Doc’s car was parked nearby. It was an old heap, an Auburn or something, so old she worried he might be a piker, so after he got in the driver’s side, leaving her to wrench at the corroded handle of the passenger’s door, she thought she’d better get the price settled pronto.
The upholstery felt ripped as she slid her ass on it. She asked: “Five O.K.?”
He started up the engine, which sounded like a wash machine, then stared at her angrily.
She wrinkled her nose. “We better get this straight,” she said. “I ain’t a pickup. I’m a prostitute.”
He snorted. “Congratulations.” And eased away from the curb, drove four blocks, and glided to a stop just beyond the twin green lights that flanked the doorway of a police station. He let the engine idle and showed her his badge.