“So your name is Madge Allen, hey?”
“Well, it’s really Kramer, but I took my own name again after my husband died.”
“Well listen Madge Allen, or Kramer, or whatever you want to call it, I’ve got a little proposition to make you.”
“Yes?”
“What do you say we turn this thing around, point her south, and you and me take a little trip for about a week?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I just couldn’t, that’s all.”
“You like me?”
“Sure I like you.”
“Well, I like you. What’s stopping us?”
She started to say something, didn’t say it, and then laughed. “I own up. I’d like to, all right. And if it’s something I’m supposed not to do, why that don’t mean a thing to me. But I can’t. It’s on account of the cats.”
“Cats?”
“We’ve got a lot of cats. And I’m the one that takes care of them. That’s why I had to get home.”
“Well, they got pet farms, haven’t they? We’ll call one up, and tell them to come over and get them.”
That struck her funny. “I’d like to see a pet farm’s face when it saw them. They’re not that kind.”
“Cats are cats, ain’t they?”
“Not exactly. Some are big and some are little. Mine are big. I don’t think a pet farm would do very well with that lion we’ve got. Or the tigers. Or the puma. Or the three jaguars. They’re the worst. A jaguar is an awful cat.”
“Holy smoke. What do you do with those things?”
“Oh, work them in movies. Sell the cubs. People have private zoos. Keep them around. They draw trade.”
“They wouldn’t draw my trade.”
“We’ve got a restaurant. People look at them.”
“Restaurant, hey. That’s what I’ve got. Whole goddam country lives selling hot dogs to each other.”
“Well, anyway, I couldn’t walk out on my cats. They’ve got to eat.”
“The hell we can’t. We’ll call up Goebel and tell him to come get them. He’ll board the whole bunch while we’re gone for a hundred bucks.”
“Is it worth a hundred bucks to you to take a trip with me?”
“It’s worth exactly a hundred bucks.”
“Oh my. I can’t say no to that. I guess you better call up Goebel.”
I dropped her off at her place, found a pay station, called up Goebel, went back home, and closed up. Then I went back after her. It was about dark. Goebel had sent a truck over, and I met it coming back, full of stripes and spots. I parked about a hundred yards down the road, and in a minute she showed up with a little grip, and I helped her in, and we started off.
“You like it?”
“I love it.”
We went down to Caliente, and next day we kept on down the line to Ensenada, a little Mexican town about seventy miles down the coast. We went to a little hotel there, and spent three or four days. It was pretty nice. Ensenada is all Mex, and you feel like you left the U. S. A. a million miles away. Our room had a little balcony in front of it, and in the afternoon we would just lay out there, look at the sea, and let the time go by.
“Cats, hey. What do you do, train them?”
“Not the stuff we’ve got. They’re no good. All but the tigers are outlaws. But I do train them.”
“You like it?”
“Not much, the real big ones. But I like pumas. I’m going to get an act together with them some time. But I’ll need a lot of them. Jungle pumas. Not these outlaws you see in the zoos.”
“What’s an outlaw?”
“He’d kill you.”
“Wouldn’t they all?”
“They might, but an outlaw does anyhow. If it was people, he would be a crazy person. It comes from being bred in captivity. These cats you see, they look like cats, but they’re really cat lunatics.”
“How can you tell it’s a jungle cat?”
“I catch him in a jungle.”
“You mean you catch them alive?”
“Sure. They’re no good to me dead.”
“Holy smoke. How do you do that?”
“Well, first I get on a boat and go down to Nicaragua. All the really fine pumas come from Nicaragua. These California and Mexican things are just scrubs compared to them. Then I hire me some Indian boys and go up in the mountains. Then I catch my pumas. Then I bring them back. But this time, I stay down there with them a while, to train them. Goat meat is cheaper there than horse meat is here.”
“You sound like you’re all ready to start.”
“I am.”
She squirted a little wine in her mouth, and gave me a long look. They give it to you in a bottle with a long thin spout on it, and you squirt it in your mouth with the spout. That’s to cool it. She did that two or three times, and every time she did it she would look at me.
“I am if you are.”
“What the hell? You think I’m going with you to catch them goddam things?”
“Frank, I brought quite a lot of money with me. Let’s let Goebel keep those bughouse cats for their board, sell your car for whatever we can get, and hunt cats.”
“You’re on.”
“You mean you will?”
“When do we start?”
“There’s a freight boat out of here tomorrow and it puts in at Balboa. We’ll wire Goebel from there. And we can leave your car with the hotel here. They’ll sell it and send us whatever they get. That’s one thing about a Mexican. He’s slow, but he’s honest.”
“O.K.”
“Gee I’m glad.”
“Me too. I’m so sick of hot dogs and beer and apple pie with cheese on the side I could heave it all in the river.”
“You’ll love it, Frank. We’ll get a place up in the mountains, where it’s cool, and then, after I get my act ready, we can go all over the world with it. Go as we please, do as we please, and have plenty of money to spend. Have you got a little bit of gypsy in you?”
“Gypsy? I had rings in my ears when I was born.”
I didn’t sleep so good that night. When it was beginning to get light, I opened my eyes, wide awake. It came to me, then, that Nicaragua wouldn’t be quite far enough.
CHAPTER
14
When she got off the train she had on a black dress, that made her look tall, and a black hat, and black shoes and stockings, and didn’t act like herself while the guy was loading the trunk in the car. We started out, and neither one of us had much to say for a few miles.
“Why didn’t you let me know she died?”
“I didn’t want to bother you with it. Anyhow, I had a lot to do.”
“I feel plenty bad now, Cora.”
“Why?”
“I took a trip while you were away. I went up to Frisco.”
“Why do you feel bad about that?”
“I don’t know. You back there in Iowa, your mother dying and all, and me up in Frisco having a good time.”
“I don’t know why you should feel bad. I’m glad you went. If I’d have thought about it, I’d have told you to before I left.”
“We lost some business. I closed down.”
“It’s all right. We’ll get it back.”
“I felt kind of restless, after you left.”
“Well my goodness, I don’t mind.”
“I guess you had a bad time of it, hey?”
“It wasn’t very pleasant. But anyhow, it’s over.”
“I’ll shoot a drink in you when we get home. I got some nice stuff out there I brought back to you.”
“I don’t want any.”
“It’ll pick you up.”
“I’m not drinking any more.”
“No?”
“I’ll tell you about it. It’s a long story.”
“You sound like plenty happened out there.”
“No, nothing happened. Only the funeral. But I’ve got a lot to tell you. I think we’re goin
g to have a better time of it from now on.”
“Well for God’s sake. What is it?”
“Not now. Did you see your family?”
“What for?”
“Well anyway, did you have a good time?”
“Fair. Good as I could have alone.”
“I bet it was a swell time. But I’m glad you said it.”
When we got out there, a car was parked in front, and a guy was sitting in it. He got a silly kind of grin on his face and climbed out. It was Kennedy, the guy in Katz’s office.
“You remember me?”
“Sure I remember you. Come on in.”
We took him inside, and she gave me a pull into the kitchen.
“This is bad, Frank.”
“What do you mean, bad?”
“I don’t know, but I can feel it.”
“Better let me talk to him.”
I went back with him, and she brought us some beer, and left us, and pretty soon I got down to cases.
“You still with Katz?”
“No, I left him. We had a little argument and I walked out.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Not a thing. Fact of the matter, that’s what I came out to see you about. I was out a couple of times before, but there was nobody home. This time, though, I heard you were back, so I stuck around.”
“Anything I can do, just say the word.”
“I was wondering if you could let me have a little money.”
“Anything you want. Of course, I don’t keep much around, but if fifty or sixty dollars will help, I’ll be glad to let you have it.”
“I was hoping you could make it more.”
He still had this grin on his face, and I figured it was time to quit the feinting and jabbing, and find out what he meant.
“Come on, Kennedy. What is it?”
“I tell you how it is. I left Katz. And that paper, the one I wrote up for Mrs. Papadakis, was still in the files, see? And on account of being a friend of yours and all that, I knew you wouldn’t want nothing like that laying around. So I took it. I thought maybe you would like to get it back.”
“You mean that hop dream she called a confession?”
“That’s it. Of course, I know there wasn’t anything to it, but I thought you might like to get it back.”
“How much do you want for it?”
“Well, how much would you pay?”
“Oh, I don’t know. As you say, there’s nothing to it, but I might give a hundred for it. Sure. I’d pay that.”
“I was thinking it was worth more.”
“Yeah?”
“I figured on twenty-five grand.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No, I ain’t crazy. You got ten grand from Katz. The place has been making money, I figure about five grand. Then on the property, you could get ten grand from the bank. Papadakis gave fourteen for it, so it looked like you could get ten. Well, that makes twenty-five.”
“You would strip me clean, just for that?”
“It’s worth it.”
I didn’t move, but I must have had a flicker in my eye, because he jerked an automatic out of his pocket and leveled it at me. “Don’t start anything, Chambers. In the first place, I haven’t got it with me. In the second place, if you start anything I let you have it.”
“I’m not starting anything.”
“Well, see you don’t.”
He kept the gun pointed at me, and I kept looking at him. “I guess you got me.”
“I don’t guess it. I know it.”
“But you’re figuring too high.”
“Keep talking, Chambers.”
“We got ten from Katz, that’s right. And we’ve still got it. We made five off the place, but we spent a grand in the last couple weeks. She took a trip to bury her mother, and I took one. That’s why we been closed up.”
“Go on, keep talking.”
“And we can’t get ten on the property. With things like they are now, we couldn’t even get five. Maybe we could get four.”
“Keep talking.”
“All right, ten, four, and four. That makes eighteen.”
He grinned down the gun barrel a while, and then he got up. “All right. Eighteen. I’ll phone you tomorrow, to see if you’ve got it. If you’ve got it, I’ll tell you what to do. If you haven’t got it, that thing goes to Sackett.”
“It’s tough, but you got me.”
“Tomorrow at twelve, then, I phone you. That’ll give you time to go to the bank and get back.”
“O.K.”
He backed to the door and still held the gun on me. It was late afternoon, just beginning to get dark. While he was backing away, I leaned up against the wall, like I was pretty down in the mouth. When he was half out the door I cut the juice in the sign, and it blazed down in his eyes. He wheeled, and I let him have it. He went down and I was on him. I twisted the gun out of his hand, threw it in the lunchroom, and socked him again. Then I dragged him inside and kicked the door shut. She was standing there. She had been at the door, listening, all the time.
“Get the gun.”
She picked it up and stood there. I pulled him to his feet, threw him over one of the tables, and bent him back. Then I beat him up. When he passed out, I got a glass of water and poured it on him. Soon as he came to, I beat him up again. When his face looked like raw beef, and he was blubbering like a kid in the last quarter of a football game, I quit.
“Snap out of it, Kennedy. You’re talking to your friends over the telephone.”
“I got no friends, Chambers. I swear, I’m the only one that knows about—”
I let him have it, and we did it all over again. He kept saying he didn’t have any friends, so I threw an arm lock on him and shoved up on it. “All right, Kennedy. If you’ve got no friends, then I break it.”
He stood it longer than I thought he could. He stood it till I was straining on his arm with all I had, wondering if I really could break it. My left arm was still weak where it had been broke. If you ever tried to break the second joint of a tough turkey, maybe you know how hard it is to break a guy’s arm with a hammerlock. But all of a sudden he said he would call. I let him loose and told him what he was to say. Then I put him at the kitchen phone, and pulled the lunchroom extension through the swing door, so I could watch him and hear what he said and they said. She came back there with us, with the gun.
“If I give you the sign, he gets it.”
She leaned back and an awful smile flickered around the corner of her mouth. I think that smile scared Kennedy worse than anything I had done.
“He gets it.”
He called, and a guy answered. “Is that you, Willie?”
“Pat?”
“This is me. Listen. It’s all fixed. How soon can you get out here with it?”
“Tomorrow, like we said.”
“Can’t you make it tonight?”
“How can I get in a safe deposit box when the bank is closed?”
“All right, then do like I tell you. Get it, first thing in the morning, and come out here with it. I’m out to his place.”
“His place?”
“Listen, get this, Willie. He knows we got him, see? But he’s afraid if she finds out he’s got to pay all that dough, she won’t let him, you get it? If he leaves, she knows something is up, and maybe she takes a notion to go with him. So we do it all here. I’m just a guy that’s spending the night in their auto camp, and she don’t know nothing. Tomorrow, you’re just a friend of mine, and we fix it all up.”
“How does he get the money if he don’t leave?”
“That’s all fixed up.”
“And what in the hell are you spending the night there for?”
“I got a reason for that, Willie. Because maybe it’s a stall, what he says about her, and maybe it’s not, see? But if I’m here, neither one of them can skip, you get it?”
“Can he hear you, what you’re saying?”
He looked at me, an
d I nodded my head yes. “He’s right here with me, in the phone booth. I want him to hear me, you get it, Willie? I want him to know we mean business.”
“It’s a funny way to do, Pat.”
“Listen, Willie. You don’t know, and I don’t know, and none of us don’t know if he’s on the level with it or not. But maybe he is, and I’m giving him a chance. What the hell, if a guy’s willing to pay, we got to go along with him, haven’t we? That’s it. You do like I tell you. You get it out here soon as you can in the morning. Soon as you can, you get it? Because I don’t want her to get to wondering what the hell I’m doing hanging around here all day.”
“O.K.”
He hung up. I walked over and gave him a sock. “That’s just so you talk right when he calls back. You got it, Kennedy?”
“I got it.”
I waited a few minutes, and pretty soon here came the call back. I answered, and when Kennedy picked up the phone he gave Willie some more of the same. He said he was alone that time. Willie didn’t like it much, but he had to take it. Then I took him back to the No. 1 shack. She came with us, and I took the gun. Soon as I had Kennedy inside, I stepped out the door with her and gave her a kiss.
“That’s for being able to step on it when the pinch comes. Now get this. I’m not leaving him for a minute. I’m staying out here the whole night. There’ll be other calls, and we’ll bring him in to talk. I think you better open the place up. The beer garden. Don’t bring anybody inside. That’s so if his friends do some spying, you’re right on deck and it’s business as usual.”
“All right. And Frank.”
“Yes?”
“Next time I try to act smart, will you hang one on my jaw?”
“What do you mean?”
“We ought to have gone away. Now I know it.”
“Like hell we ought. Not till we get this.”
She gave me a kiss, then. “I guess I like you pretty well, Frank.”