The Brass Cupcake Read online

  “Pick her up,” Tony said with enormous weariness.

  I got one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. Her head fell back as though her neck was broken, and I let her slide a little so that my right arm partially supported her head.

  “Pull her dress down over her knees, Tony,” I said.

  I followed him down the hallway to a small bedroom. He pushed the buzzer, and a few moments after I had put her on the bed and straightened out her limp body, a sturdy maid in a starched uniform appeared. She didn’t change expression as she saw the unconscious girl.

  “Undress her and put her to bed, Clara. Make her as comfortable as you can. Lock her in and leave a note for her to buzz you when she feels well enough to leave.”

  “Yes, sir,” Clara said stolidly. We left and she closed the door quickly.

  “She’s had about all she can take,” I said. He nodded absently.

  “Keep me up to date, baby,” he said, and I left to call a cab from the desk.

  11

  I HAD THE CAB drive me slowly by the Coral Strand. The Chevvy was back on its wheels and I guessed that some of the crowd that gathered had made themselves useful. There were still about twenty people standing aimlessly around, gawking at the scene, plus a pack of kids. They were in two groups, one around the greasy landlady, who was still talking so animatedly that her jowls vibrated in the sunshine, the other around a self-appointed guide, who was pointing at the hedge.

  The cab driver said, “Wonder what the excitement is there.”

  “Murder number three, maybe.”

  “Geez, don’t say that. I got orders not to even talk about the first two with the fares. Funny how a guy changes. There I am hackin’ in Philly and another hatchet killing is just something in the paper, like the weather. Down here I get nervous. You’d think it was my head they been beatin’ on.”

  “That’s just public spirit.”

  “You think so? Maybe I’m beginning to like this crummy town, you mean. The wife had to come down to a hot climate, so here I am. Give me a rainy night in Philly with the fares beatin’ on the hack windows any time. Here you are. Western Auto.”

  Saturday. A hot quarter after five. The office was closed. Letty had marked me. I didn’t want to walk down the alley. The manager of the Western Auto, my landlord, came out and cut me off. He had a bleak look.

  “Mr. Bartells, I want to tell you that I didn’t like this morning’s occurrence.”

  “No?”

  “There were several customers in the store. It upset them.”

  “It upset me too, Mr. Rourke.”

  “Where is that person? Is there any danger of her trying again?”

  “They’ve got her over in the women’s ward at the county lockup. If they let her out, I’ll tell her to try again after store hours.”

  “Mr. Bartells, I don’t think this is a time for levity.”

  “You should have seen me giggling and scratching myself while that cannon was going off in my face.”

  He softened a little. “It must have been pretty frightening. I don’t mean to be difficult about this, but…”

  “All I can say is that I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

  “That’s very fair of you. You realize, of course, that I’ll have to bill you for the splintered step?”

  “Of course.”

  We bowed and beamed and backed away from each other like a pair of Japanese diplomats. He was a nice enough little guy, once you learned to overlook his tendency to take himself seriously.

  As he reached the door of the store he called, “By the way, that little girl from your office was here twice. She told me to tell you she’ll be back.”

  That was a new angle. Heretofore Kathy had avoided my apartment with all the determination and most of the grace of a torero staying clear of the horns, while still making it look to the public at large as though the horns were, in truth, exceedingly close to the embroidery. It had become a game of maneuver, with me outclassed from the start.

  I climbed the steps and unlocked the door, too dulled with fatigue to give much of a damn. I told myself that even if I found Kathy asleep on my bed, I’d drop just inside the door.

  I closed the door, stripped off my clothes, and took a shower. There was still a jail stink clinging to me. I scrubbed until I realized that it was the sort of odor that doesn’t come off with a brush. It comes from inside.

  It was no good trying to plan what to do about Trumbull. My mind wouldn’t function. As a concession to Kathy I put on a pair of lurid pajamas before tumbling into the sack. I wondered vaguely when the heat would break. Sleep was a black sloping tunnel and I was sliding down it, head first, faster and faster…

  … Horace had a toy Cadillac a foot long in his hand and his face was all screwed up and he was crying the way a child cries as he hammered me over the head with it. I couldn’t make him stop because I was holding a full stein of beer in each hand and there was no place to put them down and I couldn’t spill any, or Letty would find out and tell Melody. Melody was above my head somewhere, calling to me…

  The dream split across the middle and blew away like smoke, and I was sitting up on the studio couch listening to a determined banging on my door, hearing Kathy calling, “Cliff! I know you’re in there. Cliff!”

  The world outside had the purply color that comes with the last of dusk, the first of night. I blundered up, reaching for my robe, smashing my toes against a chair leg, yelling, “O.K., O.K.!” I found the floor-lamp button and squinted my eyes against the brilliance.

  I opened the door and found what she had been hammering with. She was just slipping the moccasin back onto her foot. She straightened up and looked with mock horror at what showed of the pajamas under the bottom edge of the robe. She laughed nervously. “I’m glad I found out about that in time.”

  “Come on in. Wait a minute while I wake up.”

  She walked in with every imitation of boldness. What spoiled the effect was the way she had gone back to her place after the office closed and changed from her office costume into a pair of copper-riveted ranch-type blue jeans and a light blue T shirt two sizes too large for her. She looked about thirteen, except where the jeans were the tightest. I wanted to laugh at her, and I wanted to kid her about the false sense of security a bunch of copper rivets were giving her, but I guessed that it was neither the time nor the place.

  She sat down on my straight chair, her knees close together and her hands folded in her lap, as demure as the first day in junior high. I left the door open on a hunch and went back into my midget-sized bathroom, let the water run cold, caught it in my cupped hands, and scrubbed my face with it. Sleep was driven further back into my mind, but it was still there, with all the potential of a boulder balanced on a cliff edge. I ran a comb through my wet hair and went back out. I gave her a cigarette.

  “Now, is this so bad? Door open and everything?”

  She ignored me. “Please forgive the way I look, Cliff. I’m a fright, I know. But I was so afraid of missing you that I didn’t want to go back and change again.”

  She leaned forward as I held the match for her cigarette. As she exhaled the first breath she leaned back in the chair, then sat bolt upright again, as though to lean back were an offer of weakness.

  “That woman didn’t hurt you, Cliff?”

  “She missed me. It wasn’t her fault. She hid behind the car. I was a damn fool not to think of that.”

  “By the time I found out about it they’d already taken you to jail. I tried to see you, Cliff, but they were horrible to me, and they told me that ridiculous story about maybe you killed that Franklin man. I told them it was a lot of stupid nonsense. Arthur had gone home and I got him on the phone. I went back to the office and used my key and called him from there. That little worm!”

  “You expected Arthur to help me? Weren’t you being a little naïve?”

  “I guess I was. He coughed and mumbled and coughed, and I could almost hear him jigging
and dancing away in his hall. Then I said to him that he better make up his mind fast whether he was going to help you or not, and he said that I ought to be able to see what his position was and they wouldn’t listen to him anyway. I hung up on him. I don’t even know if I’ll have a job Monday morning.”

  “You will. That’s a promise.”

  “Cliff, that isn’t what I came to see you about. Just as I let myself out, I heard the phone start ringing. I unlocked the door again and it was that same man calling from Tampa. He said it was very important for you to call him and he’d wait for your call and I should try to find you and give you the message. I went back to my place and changed and then I went to the police station again. They still wouldn’t let me see you. So I went and ate and came back and tried again. Nobody would tell me anything except that you’d left with that tall blonde girl. She is pretty, Cliff.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I could tell by the way she looked at you at the hotel that she likes you. A lot. They say she’s going to have an awful lot of money.”

  “Word gets around fast, doesn’t it? Now that you’ve got it all set, how many children do you think she and I’ll have?”

  “I didn’t mean that! I just said that she likes you.”

  “Didn’t you get off the track?”

  “I came back here to see if you’d come here with her and you hadn’t and then I had to try to find out where she lived to see if you’d gone there. It took me a long time to find out that she’s over in that awful little tourist trap. The one who told me was Bobby Gilman. As usual, he tried to date me. He acted funny, you know?”

  “I’ve got a few plans that may have him acting even funnier.”

  “Don’t, Cliff. He’s really bad. He was two years ahead of me in high school here, you know, and I know what he’s like. There was terrible trouble when he was in high school. He went to a dance place and cut a boy in the face with a broken bottle. If he hadn’t been the best player on the football team, I think they might have done something to him. He and Nick De Rider are…”

  “They had their fun with me today, kitten.”

  “Cliff! Did they hurt you?”

  “Not badly. Go on with the history.”

  “I got out there just when the ambulance did. Those two sissy boys that work at the Kit-Kat were hurt. Somebody tried to tell me you ran over them on purpose with Mr. Lavery’s car.”

  “I did.”

  “What! Cliff, what a dumb thing to do! Well… maybe you had a reason. Nobody had any idea where you’d gone. I came back here and waited for a long time, sitting on your steps, and then I got hot and thirsty and went down and had a root beer at Martin’s and read a magazine and then came back, and Mr. Rourke was just leaving and he told me you were up here. I guess you didn’t wake up until I started hitting the door with my shoe.” She stood up. “Now that you’ve got the message, I better…”

  “Honey, I’m so dead on my feet I’m harmless. Sit tight while I call my friend. Maybe I’ll have an errand for you.”

  “But I…”

  “Be domestic. Bourbon’s on the second shelf on the left. Glasses over the sink. Ice in the tray.”

  I dialed the operator and gave her Johnny Alfrayda’s number in Tampa. As I waited I could hear Kathy working the lever that loosens the ice cubes, hear her dropping them into the glasses.

  “Hello?”

  “Johnny? Cliff.”

  “It took you a hell of a long time. Look, boy, you know that item you wanted me to tell you about if I happen to see one?”

  “How can I forget? But…”

  “Leave off the buts for a couple minutes. Look, I found the item just like you want. And the guy is real anxious to sell. Let me think how I word this, Cliff. I’ll just say that the retailer is a guy I can’t vouch for because I’ve never done business with him before, but he had the right references.”

  “What! How would a guy like that get…”

  “You sound like you know him, boy.”

  I wrapped my fingers around the cool glass Kathy handed me. “I think I do. But go ahead.”

  “He called me today at quarter after twelve and…”

  “He what?”

  “Cliff, boy, if you keep stopping me every two words, this is going to be one hell of a phone bill for you.”

  “I’m sorry. It just startled me. You see, I had a guy in mind, and I know for sure that my guy was in no position to call you at twelve-fifteen.”

  “So it was his partner. So now shut up, please. I’m sure this merchandise is exactly what you’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean that his retailing ethics are going to be so good. He got the word that you are all right to deal with, but he says that he’s very anxious to go out of business and leave this part of the country. It’s for his health, I think. He told me he’ll bring the merchandise there rather than you coming up here. He wants to know if Monday night will be all right.”

  “Monday night, as far as I know, will be O.K.”

  “Now look. You come over tonight. I want to talk to you about this purchase. I’ll tell you the rest of what he said.”

  “I can’t, Johnny. I can’t do it. I’m too bushed. I’ve had a bad day.”

  I could almost see his shrug. “O.K., so tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Johnny.”

  “The references were O. K., or I wouldn’t do anything. You understand that.”

  “I understand it.”

  He hung up. I set the phone over on the table and sipped the drink. Kathy sat across from me on the straight chair.

  “Strong enough, Cliff?”

  “Huh? Fine, fine, Kathy. Yours looks a little weak.”

  “It is. It’s plain water.” She laughed nervously.

  I scowled at her. “You’re as edgy as a child bride. For heaven’s sake, calm down. You’re giving me the jitters.”

  “I better go, Cliff.”

  “Then go. Stop up again sometime. Carry a knife the next time you drop in. Your apprehension is flattering, but it gets tiresome.” I bit each word off hard, knowing as I spoke that I was taking out on her a heavy anger that she had not caused.

  She stood up as meekly as a punished child and said, “Good night, Cliff.”

  I let her walk alone to the open door and then remorse hit me. I got to the door and caught her gently by the shoulders just as she stepped out onto my landing.

  I turned her around gently and she looked up at me through those long lashes, the same stunt she had pulled in the hotel grill.

  “Kathy, I’m seven kinds of pig. I’m sorry. You’ve done me a good turn and that’s no way to repay you.” I pulled her slowly in through the doorway and moved her to one side so that her shoulders were against the wall. She held both palms flat against my chest as though ready to push me away as I kissed her. Her lips were like warm marble under mine, still and motionless, hard. She seemed to be holding her breath. The air had a hot stillness. And then I heard the distant grumble of thunder, like a giant that stirred restless in the east.

  A wind, wetly cool, brushed our faces. It strengthened and, as the blue-white of lightning flickered distantly, the gust strengthened, catching the open door beside us, swinging and slamming it shut with pistol-shot violence. A startled cry came from her and she took a half step to the side. The room went dark and I knew that she had inadvertently kicked the wall plug loose.

  Then her lips came alive, moving under mine, and her hands, flat against my chest, slowly curled, the stiff fingers digging into me. I slid my hands down from the firm shoulders to the tight slim waist, feeling the play of muscles there as, with her shoulders still against the wall, she thrust her hips forward.

  We made blind, stumbling steps across the room, and then she was on the couch beside me, facing me. She had gone, in the space of seconds, beyond thought and beyond coherence, beyond plan, beyond everything except a twisting, contorting, consuming violence, a vast unthinking impatience, a demand as clear as though it were written in letters of fi
re across the room’s shadows.

  I rose with her on the wave crest of a thing long denied, only vaguely conscious of reaching between us and thumbing open the buttons of the jeans, then sliding my hand around her and peeling the jeans down over the twin convexities of alive plum-tautness, dimly conscious of the thud as the moccasin fell at the end of the couch, of her breath that was like the beating of a wing against my throat, of the infuriating intricacies of robe belt, of the twin alivenesses hard under the blue T shirt, of the whole urgent mounting need of her, as vivid as a scream.

  And then the lightning made a long-sustained flash, touching her face and the dark tangle of her hair. In that moment that the lightning lasted I thought of how we had been to each other, and of the office joking, and of the game we had played, and how now, in a few moments, the heart would go out of that game and it would no longer be a game, ever again, but something else in which there would be a sadness, and she was a girl who would not let the sadness show, no matter how it hurt, no matter how far from her it placed that ever present dream of marriage.

  And as the lightning ceased I fought against that voice in my mind that told me it was too late to stop. I rolled to the side and I thrust her away from me, thrust her so hard that she struck the wall and cried out.

  I went into the bathroom and turned on the light and slammed the door and ran cold water in the sink. I thrust my face into it and then took a big towel and scrubbed my face hard. I pulled the belt to the robe tight, found a cigarette on the shelf, lit it, and sucked the smoke deep with a shuddering breath.

  When I went back out she sat in the dark on the edge of the couch.

  “Decent?” I asked. My voice sounded too loud.

  “Yes.”

  I found the floor plug and worked it back into the socket. She sat on the edge of the couch, her arms resting on her knees, her hands hanging limp from the slim brown wrists. It seemed an oddly pathetic touch that she should be wearing one moccasin, the other at the foot of the couch resting on its side.

  She raised her head and gave me a weak smile. Her lips were swollen and her eyes were heavy-lidded. I kicked the missing shoe over to her. “Here. Put it on.”