“He sent me and Wilber over to Oklahoma City to have a talk with her. She was most inconsiderate. Not unlike the lady there with the revolver. Very rude. Very … how shall I put it. Very … Go Ahead. Well, our orders were simple. Either she came through, or we eliminated her and set something up new for Jim. She didn’t come through. In fact, she tried to shoot the both of us with a derringer. That didn’t work out. She missed. Wilber disarmed her and held her down and I strangled her with a stretch of piano wire strung between two wooden knobs. It sounds exotic. Almost secret-agent-like. But it’s really a messy instrument. They say a gun is messy, but I must tell you on authority this isn’t true. I suppose a bullet makes a kind of mess, but it’s from afar if you want, and if you get a good shot in, and you don’t shoot your target in your living room, you just walk off.
“Not so strangling a colored woman who I would judge tapped out at about three-fifty and could tie a good-sized hog in a knot with her bare hands. Wilber had to sit on her, and I had to hold her head in my lap and use the piano wire on her throat. Very messy. Gets all over you.”
“Yeah, and she shit herself,” Wilber said.
“Yes,” said Red, “there was that. Defecation. Most unpleasant. I was reminded of the chimpanzees I used to work with.”
“Had on a muumuu,” Wilber said. “It ran down her legs. Got on my hands, all over my pants and shoes. Had to throw them away. The pants, not the shoes. Shoes cleaned up all right.”
“It took us a good part of a half hour to finish her,” Red said, “and I bet that piano wire cut all the way to the bone, and still she struggled. I’ve never seen anything like it. The woman was a regular Rasputin.”
“And she just shit all over everything,” Wilber said.
“You said that,” I said.
“Seemed the more I tightened that wire, the more she fought,” Red said. “Wilber there, big as he is, couldn’t hold her down. When it was over, we were both exhausted. It was quite a rumble tumble.”
Red looked at Brett to see what effect he was having. Brett’s face held no more emotion than the revolver in her hand. I could see a flash of disappointment roll over Red’s face, but he covered it with a puff of his cigar. A cloud of dark tobacco smoke rolled up and gathered about his red head like smoke above a forest fire. Red leaned over and thumped his ashes in an ashtray on the nightstand next to the bed.
“You telling this so we’ll know how tough you are, or just because you like to hear yourself tell it?” I said.
“Both,” Red said. “And Maude has to do with Tillie, and that has to do with Jim, and finally with us, then you. I’m wanting you to know too, that though Wilber and I have had our disagreements with Jim, I think Jim is one heck of a good fella.”
“Ain’t no one nicer to niggers,” Wilber said. “He’s got lots of niggers work for him, and Indians, and that’s more than can be said for folks down this way.”
“Jim is quite advanced when it comes to equal opportunity employment,” Red said.
“He’s got some old niggers work for him too,” Wilber said. “He’ll hire an old nigger fast as a young nigger. ’Course, just for certain jobs.”
“Frankly,” I said, “Jim’s work relations don’t interest us all that much.”
Red nodded. We were all close friends now. “Big Jim does have his problems, however. Gambles too much.”
“He’ll gamble on anything,” Wilber said. “I’ve seen him bet on how long a guy’s dick would be. And that fella had to get it out too, and Big Jim, he could guess a thing like that.”
“But he isn’t homosexual, or anything like that,” Red said. “He just likes to gamble, and the wilder the gamble, the more he likes it. Always pays up when he loses too. ’Course, he don’t lose much. Big Jim’s a character. All in all, you couldn’t ask for a nicer more honest employer in this type of business.”
“Tell us about Tillie,” Brett said.
“Well, Tillie worked for Maude. She was one of Maude’s girls, you see. When we did Maude in, we put the old reprobate in a piano crate with about three hundred pounds of rocks to keep her company, drove her all the way to Arkansas and dropped her hefty self in a lake. We made it a kind of holiday, stopping to see scenic markers and points of interest along the way, though we drove over there faster than we drove back. She started to acquire an aroma about the time we got to the Arkansas line. When we completed the chore, we returned to Tulsa to see Jim. Jim was so pleased, he put me in charge of Oklahoma City and sent Wilber with me as a kind of enforcer.
“Let me say that the two of us merchandised more tail than Maude had sold in her lifetime. She had been holding out on Jim, but she hadn’t been doing anywhere the business she could have. We set up little safaris, had girls hauled across state lines, doubled our truck stop business, and set up new houses in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. We even had a traveling trailer we drove about Oklahoma, hitting the high spots. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to slip a girl into a rest home to help some old codger enjoy his last days. They’ll blow six months’ snack allotment for one good night with a woman. Some who hadn’t had an erection in years were astonished to discover they could manage quite nicely with the right stimuli.
“I’m sure our girls hastened a few deaths that way, but considering the alternatives, I doubt the old fellas really minded. Besides, when you’re seventy-five or so, after a full-course dinner and a slice of young tail, what else you got to look forward to?
“ ’Course, you got to bribe lots of interns and nurses and stuff, so it’s not quite as profitable as it should be.”
“About Tillie,” Brett said.
Red nodded. “The traveling trailer was, in many ways, our busiest little sideline. Your daughter was part of that recreational tour from time to time, Ms. Brett.”
“Then you were Till’s pimp these last few years?” Brett said.
“I suppose you could say that,” Red said, “though it doesn’t have quite the professional ring I prefer. I like to think of myself simply as a businessman, and Wilber here as the pimp.”
“Yeah,” Wilber said. “I’m the pimp. I keep the girls in line. I take care of the johns don’t want to pay, and if shit goes on some place I ain’t, we got … had … fellas took care of things for us.”
“We were doing quite well selling women,” Red said. “So we were able to give Jim almost double what Maude had been giving him, and still there was money, and, well, I hate to admit it, but greed got the better of us. We thought since Jim was making double what he was making before, he’d be happy, and not realize we were making almost as much as he was.”
“But he found out,” I said.
“I’m afraid so,” Red said.
“Man,” said Wilber, “we fucked up a sweet business.”
“Yes, we did,” Red said. “It became necessary that we depart. Some of Jim’s men paid us a visit, and but for the grace of the devil they would have killed us, but Wilber here fought dynamically, disposing of a couple of the hoodlums with his bare hands. I shot two of them to death, but not before I was roughed about quite a bit. My suit shows the activity. And you can see the damage to Wilber’s face. A rumble tumble on the same par as that with the colored woman. Perhaps brisker.
“Preparing to depart, we discovered we were financially embarrassed. We made a lot of money, but we spent a lot of money. This suit alone, designed to my specifications, cost six hundred dollars. Can you imagine that? There’s not enough actual material here for a good-sized throw rug. But, we had no money, so we had to ask the girls for money.”
“You asked?” Brett said.
“Well, we actually persuaded them it was good idea. Guess what? They had very little. Considering Jim and ourselves took a nice chunk of their earnings, and allowed them to spend the bulk of the remainder through us for supplies, well, whores are not very rich. Your daughter, however, had managed to save some money and she offered it to us without any persuasion. It was only five hundred dollars, but with the rest we had
from the other girls we acquired just short of a thousand. Not a lot for men who normally spent that in a day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Your daughter gave us the money and said if we would come here and tell you that she wants out, and that she needs help to get out, you would give me another five hundred dollars.”
“You did this for five hundred dollars?” I asked.
“McDonald’s pays considerably less a week for tossing burgers, sir,” Red said, “and at the moment, every little drop helps. If we can scam out on this motel bill before they realize our credit cards belong to a colored man we mugged in Amarillo out back of a barbecue joint, we can start rolling promptly, steal a car closer to the Mexican border. We might just manage to elude anyone Jim sends after us. Once in Mexico, five hundred dollars becomes two or three thousand, you use it right. Then we can have some breathing room. Perhaps run some whores down there. There’s always some sort of enterprise going on in Mexico, though much of it seems to involve the use of knives and guns.”
“You ought to be used to that,” I said.
“The degree of excitement is higher down there,” Red said. “I’ve lived there before. Shortly after I departed the circus. Unlike Americans, Mexicans—though short-tempered and fond of sharp weapons—seem to appreciate a midget.”
“Where is Tillie?” Brett said.
“I’ve written the location down,” Red said. “May I reach in my pocket?”
“Carefully,” I said.
Red brought out a piece of paper and handed it to me. I took it and opened it and looked at it. “You could just be picking up five hundred dollars,” I said. “This could be a Laundromat.”
“Could be,” Red said. “But it isn’t.”
“It isn’t even Oklahoma City. What the hell is Hootie Hoot?”
“I know how it sounds,” Red said. “But it’s a real town. It’s a little burg outside of Oklahoma City. We actually found it to be quite a refuge, and it provides easy access to the city, and frankly, most men who wanted to purchase sex didn’t want to pay for it in a place they thought there might be law. This burg, cops were paid off. They liked a little regular tail themselves, see. We get the five hundred dollars or what?”
I looked at Brett. Brett stood up and tossed me Wilber’s gun. I caught it and dropped it on the bed between my legs. Brett lifted her dress and took five hundred dollars out of the end of the thigh holster. We all checked out the thigh holster and what it was strapped to. In the light I could see little freckles on Brett’s thigh, like the blush on a strawberry.
Brett put the revolver in the holster. The five hundred was folded. She unfolded it. She stood next to the table lamp where Wilber sat and counted it out aloud, dropping each bill on the table.
“How does it look?” Red asked Wilber.
Wilber picked up the money and thumbed through it. “Like five hundred dollars.”
“Good,” Red said. “Good.”
Wilber sniffed the money. “And it smells like a woman’s thigh.”
“Even better,” Red said.
“You said Till was in trouble,” Brett said. “Besides being a whore in Big Jim’s stable, how’s she in trouble?”
“It’s my guess the other girls will tell that she helped us willingly, to help herself get out. Big Jim doesn’t like that sort of thing. He’ll have a special work plan for her.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means she won’t like it,” Red said. “As for what he’ll have in mind for her, I can’t say. Maybe he’ll put her on the street in Tulsa. Some other place not even that nice.”
“Then this address could be meaningless?” I said. “Probably is by now.”
“It’s the last address where she was,” Wilber said.
“Correct,” Red said. “That’s all we know.”
“That’s not worth five hundred dollars,” I said. “That’s worth a sack of dog shit.”
Red looked at Brett. “Ma’am.”
“Keep the money,” Brett said.
“All right,” I said. “This is where our association ends. I don’t want to ever see either one of you again. I do, I might not like it.”
“Suits me,” Red said. “I haven’t found either of you particularly sociable.”
“I ain’t scared I see you again,” Wilber said. “I think you ain’t near tough as you think you are.”
“You’re the one with the broken nose and the fucked-up teeth,” I said.
Red laughed.
“Yeah,” Wilber said, “but wasn’t you did it.”
“That’s true,” I said, and moved quickly and shot my foot out and hit Wilber in the mouth. His head went back and hit the wall and he came out of the chair charging. I sidestepped and brought my gun down behind his ear. He fell down and I kicked him again. A tooth slid under the bed and I could see a piece of another in my tennis shoe with a bloody spot around it.
It wasn’t really necessary, but I bent over and hit Wilber one more time behind the ear with the revolver. “That’s because we heard Till’s pimp beat her. And if you weren’t the one, my best apologies.”
Wilber moaned, rolled over on his back. “Bastard,” he said. “I might want to see you again sometime.”
“Your choice,” I said. “But I don’t recommend it.”
Red recovered his matches and was relighting his cigar, which had gone out. The only thing he had done during the action was raise his feet a little. He said, “Now you got the news on Tillie, might I suggest you forget it. Taking one of Jim’s whores is not a good idea. He frowns on all manner of business tampering, and we are living proof of that, and the fact that we’re living proof is rare. The whores, they do what they’re told, and they stay where they’re told, and they don’t want to do that … Well, they still do it.”
“I’d like to see you tangle with Big Jim,” Wilber said from his position on the floor. “I’d like you to tangle with me when I’m ready.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
Brett opened the door. I took hold of Wilber’s automatic and popped out the clip. I wiped the automatic with my shirt, threw it on the floor. I put the clip in my shirt pocket. I held my gun next to my leg and Brett and I walked out of there and closed the door and went along the walk quickly, down the stairs, out to her car.
I took Wilber’s ammunition clip out of my pocket, wiped it with my shirttail, and dropped it into the parking lot.
When Brett was behind the wheel and I was beside her, she looked at me, said, “Surreal.”
“Yeah,” I said. “What now?”
“A light lunch. Sex.”
“With me?”
“Unless you can suggest someone else.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Don’t think so. Nobody comes to mind, anyway. We could check the want ads, you like.”
“Nah, you’ll do.”
5
On the way to Brett’s house, I felt her mood go dark. She had suddenly realized just what kind of people her daughter was involved with. It’s not that she hadn’t known before, or hadn’t tried to convince Tillie to give it up, but now, with Tillie wanting out, and her seeing scum like Red and Wilber, she knew the world of her daughter firsthand. It’s one thing to wave at the devil from afar, quite another to shake the bastard’s hand.
Brett didn’t say a word about how she felt, but I could feel the change in her, tangible as the taste of a stinkbug in your last spoonful of custard.
And speaking of which, the lovebugs were worse. They came at the car like bullets, splattered and spurted their grease across the windshield until it was impossible to see. Brett had to pull over at a serve-yourself filling station. I got out and pumped gas and tried to clean the windshield with the water hose and a paper towel, but it wasn’t a very good job. The water just mixed with the bug goo and spread itself over the windshield like film over a dying eye.
Back in the car, I said, “How about that light lunch?”
“Sure,” Brett said, then
she began to cry. I slid over and put my arm around her and kissed her cheek, which was wet with tears. She said, “I know now she’s in trouble. Hell, I’ve known that all along. Why didn’t I do something?”
“You tried to talk her out of it.”
“I should have gone up there and got her.”
“She wouldn’t have come.”
“She wants out now.”
“That’s now,” I said.
“She could be dead.”
“No reason to think that. Guy like this Big Jim, he doesn’t kill his stock over something like that. Meat on the hoof is how he sees it. It’ll probably be like Red said. A punishment of some kind. Hooking where she wouldn’t want to hook.”
“I can understand fucking,” Brett said, “but for money, and with anybody, and with someone telling you what to do. And all kinds of disease. Some of the men …”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe I’m boo-hooing like this. It’s embarrassing.”
“Shouldn’t be.”
“But it is.”
“Hell, I cry, Brett.”
“Does it mess up your eye makeup?”
“Absolutely.”
She smiled, said, “I could call the cops, and maybe do something there, but a hooker, I don’t think they’re going to be all that concerned. They were, this Big Jim wouldn’t be doing business like he’s doing.”
“Some cops are concerned,” I said. “Most. It’s just not that simple. Guys like Big Jim know how to do bad business and have people know it’s bad business, and still get away with it.”
“Then I’ve got to go get her. Hap, I have to.”
“I know.”
The light lunch was at Brett’s place, a tunafish sandwich with sweet apple slices in it, ice tea with lots of ice and no sugar, potato chips, and sweet pickles forked from a jar. We sat at the kitchen table and ate slowly and talked awhile, tried to figure what to do.