15
IT WAS IN THE NEWS the next afternoon. Frank went out for beer and brought back a paper. He read the story through, twice, and had a beer open for Stick when he came out of the shower and sat down in his striped shorts.
Stick lit a cigarette first and drank some of the beer. He was anxious, but at the same time he wasn’t sure he wanted to read it. Maybe it would be better not to know anything about the two guys.
“Nobody saw us?”
Frank shook his head. “Uh-unh. I figure we were in the cab before anybody found them.”
“It say who they were?”
“Read it.”
Stick looked down at the paper.
“Man, you did a job,” Frank said.
There was a quiet tone of respect in his voice Stick had never heard before.
The one-column story referred to it as “The Northland Slaying” and related how Andrew Seed and Walter Wheeler, both residents of Detroit, had been found shot to death in the parking lot of the shopping plaza, victims of an unknown assailant. Police were proceeding with an investigation, though there were no witnesses to the shooting or apparent motive other than attempted robbery. Both victims were known to the police.
Seed had been arrested several times on charges of robbery, felonious assault, and rape, and had served time in both the Detroit House of Correction and the Southern Michigan Prison at Jackson. Wheeler had a record of narcotics arrests and a conviction in addition to a list of assault and robbery charges. Both were also described as having been outstanding athletes while in high school, seven years before. Both had won All-City basketball recognition, first team, and All-State honorable mention.
“I knew it,” Stick said. “It was a funny feeling, the way they moved or something, I knew they’d played and I wondered, What’re they doing out here trying to hustle somebody?”
“You played,” Frank said. “What were you doing, trying to steal a fucking car?”
“I wasn’t that good, All-City. Those guys made All-City, All-State honorable mention.”
“You were good with the Smith,” Frank said. “Jesus, I couldn’t believe it. Bam, bam—that’s it, no fucking around. I wish I could’ve seen their faces. They’re going to pull this easy hustle in a parking lot. Guy comes along with a bag of groceries, going home to Mom and the kids. Yeah? That’s what you think, motherfuckers. Man, next thing they know, they’re fucking dead. That time just before, that few seconds, that’s what I’d like to have seen. You should’ve waited for me. I’d have helped you.”
“You could’ve done the whole thing,” Stick said. “Any time. Listen, I think about it, I don’t even believe it happened. I see the guy running away, I can still see him—this light-colored sweatshirt on with the sleeves cut off—I yelled at him to stop and I shot him, I mean I killed him.”
“Because he wouldn’t stop,” Frank said. He sounded a little surprised. “What were you supposed to do, let him get away? He’s got our twenty-three hundred, forty-eight bucks. Guy’s a fucking thief.”
“You don’t kill somebody because he steals something.”
“Bullshit, you don’t. What do the cops do? They shoot you, man. You don’t stop, they shoot you.”
“I don’t know,” Stick said. “This is different.”
“He was taking our money. You’re supposed to let him take it? Sure, go ahead, any time. Bullshit, you’re protecting our property.”
“Frank, we stole it.”
“Right, and that makes it ours. They weren’t taking it from the store, going to all that work and getting their nerves stretched out, no, they think they’re taking it from some meek, defenseless asshole who isn’t going to do anything about it. Well, they made a mistake. And one’s all you get.”
Stick drew on his cigarette. He could see the skinny black guy running with his shoulders hunched. He should have gotten in between some cars, but he ran instead, already with one bullet in his side. The guy had nerve. He was holding all that money and he was going to keep it. Stick wondered if the guy was married and had a family. He wondered if he’d be listed in the death notices and if there’d be a funeral and if many people would attend. The two guys must’ve had friends. They’d gone to school in Detroit. He imagined a lot of black people at a cemetery. He thought about his little girl for some reason and wondered what she was doing.
“Maybe we ought to rest awhile,” he said to Frank.
“What’re we doing?” Frank said, “We’re sitting down, we’re resting. I was thinking we ought to have a party.”
“I mean knock it off for a while,” Stick said. “Make sure they don’t have something on us.”
“The police? How could they?”
“They said there weren’t any witnesses, but they wouldn’t say if there were, would they? I mean maybe there’s a way we can be traced.”
Frank shook his head. “No way. No car, no gun. We got the cab at least, what, a mile away from there. Nobody saw us or even knows it was two guys, right? And if there’s no way they can even begin to trace us, we’re clear.”
“We’re clear,” Stick said, “but I still killed two guys.”
“You sure did,” Frank said. “Man. Listen, forget everything I said, we were talking in the bar, I said maybe you weren’t ready for this thing I had in mind? I take it all back. You’re ready.”
“In the bar—you mean just before?”
“I told you I’d been working something out?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Couple of days we’ll know.”
Stick wasn’t sure he was following. He hadn’t slept very well. All night he kept waking up and hearing the .38 going off and seeing the two black guys, not dreaming it but thinking about it, especially seeing the one who’d tried to run.
“Couple of days we’ll know what?”
“Whether or not we can set it up. It’s going to take a little doing.”
“We,” Stick said. “You mean more than just you and me. You mentioned in the bar, you said, since I was in a nice, open frame of mind—”
“That was a little smart-ass of me,” Frank said. “I take it back. Forget it. But yes, there would be a few other people involved, because of the nature of the job. Couple of helpers, guys to watch more than anything else. And one on the inside. She’s already there. In fact, it’s because of her I got the idea. We’ve been talking it over.”
Stick was listening, paying close attention now. He knew Frank was serious.
He said, “You mean one of the broads lives here?”
“No, no, those broads, Christ,” Frank said. “This one’s got it together and she likes the idea. You understand, she wouldn’t be in on it, involved directly, so to speak, but she’d give us all the inside information we’d need.”
“If she doesn’t live here—” Stick said. He stopped then. “You mean the colored broad? What’s her name? Marlys?”
“That’s right, you met her. I forgot,” Frank said. “Very smart and grown-up for her age.”
Stick could see her again, in the white bra and panties. Cute little black girl, yes, very grown-up.
“She said, I think she said she worked downtown, in an office.”
“She works at Hudson’s,” Frank said. “Up on the fifteenth floor.”
Stick frowned. “That’s a department store.”
“You bet it is,” Frank said. “The biggest one in town.”
“You’re crazy,” Stick said, “Jesus,” and shook his head.
Frank waited.
“You’re out of your fucking mind. Hudson’s.”
“The J. L. Hudson Company,” Frank said. “You know how many cash registers they got in the store?”
“I don’t want to know,” Stick said. “I don’t give a shit if they got a thousand.”
“You’re close,” Frank said.
16
AT ONE POINT IN THE evening there were fifteen people in the apartment. Frank found most of them; others dropped in. They’d come and go.
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The way it started, Frank went out for a couple of hours in the afternoon—Stick didn’t ask where—and when he got back he brought four of the career ladies up from the pool, Karen, Jackie, Mary Kay, and Arlene, and started making them drinks. Stick got out the grapefruit juice for the Salty Dogs and Arlene came over to help him. Even Mary Kay said she’d have one. It was strange to see four girls sitting around the apartment in swimming suits. Frank said they dressed up the place. Stick thought it looked like a Nevada whorehouse, the way he imagined one would look. Frank had had a few—wherever he’d gone—and was already a little high. He told Stick to come on and quit moping around. Stick decided, Why not? He’d have some fun and quit thinking about the two colored guys.
Then Frank told him Marlys was going to try and stop by later, and winked, and Stick thought about the two guys again. He wondered if Marlys knew them.
A little later Stick asked Mary Kay, didn’t she have to go to work? And was surprised when she told him she was going to call in and say she was in bed with the curse. It was amazing, one and a half Salty Dogs.
Still a little later Frank went down to the ice machine, ran into Barry Kleiman in his white belt and white loafers talking to Sonny the Model and one of the young married couples, the Kaplans, and got them to come up. Frank went in and put on his safari jacket and wore it with a chain he borrowed from Arlene, no shirt. Barry Kleiman said, Hey, cool.
They weren’t sure when Donna, the dental hygienist, and her boyfriend came in; but they were there and after a while seemed like they’d always been there. Donna’s boyfriend, Gordon, was working on his PhD in something that had to do with clinical psychology and he spent a lot of time with Karen.
Every time Stick looked around, Arlene seemed to be watching him. That was the feeling he got. Like he was committed to her. She seemed to want to talk and finally steered him toward the balcony. But when they were out there, he spotted three of the junior executives down on the patio drinking beer and yelled at them to come up and be sociable.
The junior executives came in cautiously, like gunfighters in their tight Levi’s, and slouched around awhile; but pretty soon they were mixing it up with the others and Stick was glad he had invited them. It didn’t hurt to be friendly. He told Arlene to be nice to them. The poor assholes were giving their lives to IBM and the Ford Motor Company and they deserved a little fun.
They were good-looking young guys with families in Bloomfield Hills, two of them named Ron and one named Scott. Ernest Stickley, Jr., could see them jogging through life in their thirty-dollar Adidas, never knowing it was hard. But he didn’t hold it against them. He didn’t give a shit, one way or the other, what they did.
One of the junior executive Rons went down to his apartment and brought back a Baggie of grass and a pack of yellow cigarette paper. He said it was Nicaragua Gold, which impressed Karen and Jackie. Karen named a couple of other kinds she had smoked. Ron got a few joints going and pretty soon everybody was taking drags. Stick tried it. It was all right, but he didn’t feel anything from the two drags and he didn’t like the smell at all. Frank said, Man, you know what we used to call this, this kind of scene? Reefer madness. Ron, rolling the joints, said you could call it anything you wanted, but why get mad? Stick asked him if they let you smoke grass out at the Ford Motor Company. Ron looked at him and said, Ford Motor Company? I’m with Merrill fucking Lynch, man. How’s your portfolio?
Frank was cruising on Scotch and reefer. He’d poke Stick and say, “Hey, are we having a party or we having a party?” Like he was celebrating something. Stick would say yeah, they were having a party.
Arlene was following Stick’s instructions, being nice to the junior executive named Scott. She looked small and frail sitting next to him on the floor. Scott was studying the hammered silver pendant that hung between her breasts. Arlene told him it was a Navajo love symbol or else a sheep spirit, she’d forgotten which, and Scott was nodding, showing his interest in primitive art.
Stick went over to the eight-hundred-dollar hi-fi and put on a Billy Crash Craddock while he picked out a Loretta Lynn, an Olivia Newton-John, and a brand-new LP by Jerry Reed, the Alabama Wild Man.
Mary Kay said, “You like that music?”
He looked up to see her standing close to him with a smudged empty glass in her hand, blue eyes looking at him that he bet were blurry inside. Nice, clean-looking girl letting go. Why did that surprise him? Or what did clean-looking have to do with it?
Stick put the LPs down, took Mary Kay by the arm, and said some of the words along with Billy Crash Craddock, telling her perfect love is milk and honey, Captain Crunch, and you in the morning.
Stick said, “To answer your question, it’s not one of my top ten favorites, but I guess I like it pretty well.”
Mary Kay said, “I think it’s a bunch of shit. Perfect love, milk and honey, and all that. It’s a lot of bullshit.”
A voice told Stick to get out, quick. If he hesitated, she’d tell him how she was the oldest girl in a family of ten kids and how she had to do all the housework and pay her own way through Blessed Sacrament because her dad drank and sat around the house in his undershirt reading paperbacks, and how she went to Mass regularly, prayed for a vocation, worked hard, always did what she was told, and now she was a registered nurse with her own apartment, a savings account, and five doctors who wanted to get her in bed. If he didn’t listen to the voice, he’d ask her, What’s the problem? and she’d say, What’s the problem? What good was all the hard work and being good? This? Then they’d get in a half-assed discussion about the meaning of life and maybe he’d get her in bed and maybe he wouldn’t. Talk about bullshit. Mary Kay was just learning.
Stick said, “Listen, let me get back to you, okay? I think we need some ice.”
He got out of that one, for the time being, but missed the scene with Frank and Sonny, which he’d have gotten a kick out of.
Sonny had had a glass of milk all evening; nothing else, no potato chips and dip or Pinconning cheese. She was out on the balcony with Barry Kleiman and one of the junior executives, the quieter of the two Rons. He and Barry were standing with their fingers in their tight pockets, posing with the poser, very cool and serious about it.
Frank had nothing personal against Sonny. He kind of liked her style, the fashion model put-on and all that. He liked it even though it pissed him off. Look at her. She was skinny, no tits to speak of; bony hips; long, thin, dumb-looking hair she liked to get out of her eyes with a lazy little toss of her head. No personality, no real person in there Frank could see. She stood around with her box pushed out like she was daring anybody to make a grab for it. That’s what got him the most.
When Frank walked up to them Sonny handed him her empty milk glass.
“How about another one?” he said. “If you think you can handle it.”
“No thanks.” She didn’t look at him. She turned to Barry and said, “I’ve got to get going,” like it was his place and he was the host. “Have to be at the studio by seven tomorrow. I think we’re doing some Oldsmobile stuff.”
“Listen,” Barry said, “what we were talking about. How can I help you? Tell me.”
She gave him a little shrug. “I don’t know. Talk to your agency.”
“I mean it,” Barry said, “you’d be terrific. I don’t mean behind the counter, one of the broads there in the uniform. I mean a customer . . . high fashion, a very chic chick. You bite into this quarter-pounder. Your eyes are saying mmmmm, great. And here’s the part. You get some mustard right here, on the corner of your mouth. Jesus, you’ll have every guy watching TV wanting to lick it off.”
Sonny was nodding, picturing it. “That’s earthy,” she said. “Or how about, just the tip of my tongue comes out?” She demonstrated. “In a tight close-up.”
“Ter-rific.”
“With kind of a down-under look.” Sonny lowered her head slightly and gazed up with a sleepy, bedroom look in her eyes. “What do you think?”
 
; Frank said, “You mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Sonny made it seem an effort to turn and look at him. “I think not, if it’s all the same to you.”
“What do you mean, all the same?”
“If you don’t mind, then.”
“But I mind. That’s why I want to ask you something.”
“All right, what is it?”
“You ever been laid?”
Sonny’s composure held. She said, “Have you?”
“A few times.”
“Good for you.” She looked at Barry again. “You mind walking me down?”
“Do I mind? Does a bear—no, strike that.” Barry held out his hand to Frank. “Man, it was fun, I mean it.”
Frank said, “You going to try your luck?”
Barry frowned, a quick expression of pain. “Hey, come on, let’s keep it light, okay?”
“He’ll be right back,” Sonny said. “Unless he’s going home.”
Frank looked at the quiet, good-looking Ron with his big shoulders and golf shirt.
“You following this?”
“Am I following it?”
“What’s going on. The principle involved. The great truth. You know what it is?”
The quiet, good-looking Ron shook his head. “I guess you lost me.”
“It’s called,” Frank said, “the myth of the pussy.”
“Hey, what?” Barry was grinning. “Come on. The myth of the—what?”
“The myth of the pussy,” Frank said again, solemnly. “It seems like a simple little harmless thing, doesn’t it? Something every broad in the world has. But you know what? They sit back on their little myth and watch guys break up homes over it, go in debt, mess up their lives. It can make an intelligent man act like a little kid and do weird things . . . this idea, this myth that’s been built up. Girls say, You’re bigger and stronger than we are, buddy, but we got something you want, so watch it. They use the myth to get you to open doors and give them things and pick up checks. And some use it more than others.” He looked at Sonny. “Some think it’s really a big deal, and you know what? They don’t even know what it’s for.”