by D Keith Mano
“ Thanks,” I said.
“ Your brother didn’t kill R ita,” Berry said. She seemed so
certain that I had to assume she knew something. I said,
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“ Who did it?”
“ I dunno,” she said. “ But it wasn’t Tony Wilson.”
I think Berry reminds me of someone. An authority figure
maybe—maybe one of my teachers . . .
The dawn is well advanced outside. I ’m overtired.
But I want to record this while it’s fresh in my mind. It may
have some relevance. (I see relevance in everything, when I ’m
not seeing absurdity there.)
As I was leaving The Car, as I was unlocking my rented
Lincoln’s front door, a red Cadillac pulled up even with me.
“ Hey, Mike,” a voice said. It was Linese. “ Can y’gimme a
minute?”
“ I ’m tired,” I said. “ I don’t think we’ve got much t’talk
about.”
“ That’s not true—come sit with me a second. I ’d get out, but
with my gut, getting in and out is a major project.” His car was
blocking mine—he didn’t seem in a hurry to move. And I didn’t
want to order him away. I didn’t need a confrontation. “ Hey—
I ’m not gonna put a hit on you. Come sit where we can talk. ”
I walked around the Lincoln, around the Cadillac and got in.
It stank. Linese must have the only garlic-scented car freshener
in existence. Throughout our little talk, Linese belched: a kind
of punctuation mark, a comma of gas.
“ Yes?” I said.
“ First of all lemme apologize fm y unseemly behavior back
a couple nights. ’ ’ Unseemly—he said the word with relish. There
is a type of uneducated man who collects examples of elevated
language—and then uses them, not incorrectly, but with such
inordinate pride that they seem overemphatic and stupid. Linese
had never done anything unseemly in his life. To be unseemly
you must first be capable of seemliness.
“ Yes?” I said.
“ Well, you understand. We’re in competition up and down
this avenue. I get agitated sometimes.” Agitated: agitation was
a little too seemly for Linese. “ I lost my temper, which I shunta
done, because you, of all people, are not t’blame. If it’s any
satisfaction my bursitis is killing me from that night.”
“ Yes?” I said.
“ Look, Tony and me did not get along. Everything was not
copacetic between us. I will be the first t’admit Tony shook the
boulevard up. He pays more, that means we gotta pay more. He
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gives free lunch, we gotta do the same. He gets a beautiful girt—
we gotta bring free-lance chicks in, we can’t take just what
the agencies give us. I ’m General Motors, he’s Toyota. You
capiche?”
“ Yes?” I said.
“ Now look, do not misconstrue . . . ’’ He waited a moment,
he liked that word. “ . . .D o not misconstrue my purpose here.
But I understand somewhat of your problem. Tony is gone—for
however long we don’t know. I hope everything turns out all
right. I hope he’s in Acapulco gettin’ some rays. But, in the
meantime, you have your own agenda. A life t ’live, whatever
your ambition is. Ethel has got four children. Leonard is a disaster. So . . .”
“ Yes?” I said.
“ Should push come t ’shove some day—and you needta get
out . . . I would be willing t ’make a handsome, a handsome
offer for The Smoking Car. I know its worth. I would be proud
to own it.”
‘ ‘You’re talking to the wrong person. ” I opened the Cadillac’s
front door. “ I ’m just passing through.”
“ Do not underestimate yourself. You are a player. A major
player. Now, just between us and the lamppost, well, Ethel and
me are not on speaking terms. Some hard feelings in the heat
of battle. I may call on you t ’be a go-between.”
“ Good night,” I said. “ We’re not thinking of selling The
C ar.”
“ Have it your way, Mike. But after a month with Leonard
you may change your tune.”
And all the way back to my apartment I thought, Was that an
offer or a threat? Linese has a motive for wanting Tony dead and
gone.
In-fact Linese has a motive for wanting me dead and gone.
Good Lord, whatVe I gotten myself into? I ’m nervous as a
squirrel.
Fortunately, Pearl gave me some Valium. She’s been kind to
me since yesterday—by that I mean she’s used about half her
normal allotment of four-letter words. And she hasn’t teased
about my collar. But once this afternoon, unconsciously, I think,
Pearl said something that really stung me. She said:
“ You gave her a blessing, huh? You said words over Rita,
didn’t you?”
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But I hadn’t. I was too HORRIFIED to stay beside that mutilated, stinking corpse. And, yes, I was probably scared to betray my identity. So I short-changed a human soul. I ’ve lost
my instincts as a priest already. Next go my instincts as a human
being.
De profundis, Lord. De profundis.
THURSDAY, JUNE 30
I dreamed of fetuses last night. The Smoking Car was a—what
was it?—a frightful delivery room, I guess. But there were no
births—only miscarriages that pounded womb-contracting
rhythms out. And men tipped—as fetuses did or did not please
them.
I ’m no good at dream interpretation.
Then there was Ethel—wearing a hoop skirt—and the four
naked little girls around her. They each had a fetus cuddled
close. Barbie fetuses. Little knee-to-chest, unshaped Barbie
dolls. And I blessed them—even though I was in pain. There
was a swelling pressure in my belly. “ Indigestion,” I said. Everyone laughed as if they knew better. And Linese put his wide palm on my stomach very gently.
What does this mean? By their fruits ye shall know them?
The Gaucho was naked and I found him attractive. My nieces,
one by one, slipped under Ethel’s hoop skirt—they didn’t appear
again and Ethel was wearing leotards soon after. Pearl was on
stage. “ She’s too old, she’s too old,” the men chanted. And her
vagina opened—as if it were a trunk—and the fetal, tiny corpse
of Rita strangled lay there. “ For Mike,” someone yelled. “ It’s
for Mike. Get him a plate.”
I pushed away from the bar. I intended to run. Then I stumbled—I couldn’t walk. I was wearing baggy pants like those black rap singers affect. And something heavy and wet had
dropped inside the seat of my pants. “ I ’ve befouled myself,” I
thought. But the Gaucho came over to me. He had a baboon-
red erection. He wouldn’t let me pass. “ It’s m ine,” he said. But
he spoke with kindness.
I nodded yes when the Gaucho opened my fly.
The phone rang then. It was the Silicone Sisters and the impatient World of Real Things. S. and S. want an extra Saturday
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D. Keith Mono
in August because they got stuck with July 4th and—next to
&n
bsp; Good Friday—that’s the worst tip day, and, after all, they’re
around when I need them (they talk alternately on the same
phone), besides, they’re a specialty act, more an exotic act, and
they can make $16 an hour in New Jersey without taking their
clothes off and—
And I said, “ No! Goodbye. No!” And hung up.
Whereupon the phone rang back and I—without listening—I
said, “ I don’t care if y ’have four tits—you don’t get an extra
Saturday. ’ ’
And it was Kay.
Not the Silicone Sisters.
It was Kay.
“ Oh, h i,” I said. “ Listen I ’ve been up to my neck—”
“ Four . . . tits?” she said.
“ Kids. Four kids. I thought you were my busboy, Jako. He’s
got four kids—but they’re like 35, 36, 37, and 45 years old. I
feel no responsibility t ’feed them .”
“ I heard four tits.”
“ Kay. It’s kids. You misheard. Who has four tits, fer gosh
sake?”
“ Two women,” she said. Oh, I won’t need to worry about
fidelity if I marry this one. This one is Hawk-Lady. “ TWo
women,” she said. What an ESP performance that was. I ’dVe
been impressed, if I wasn’t so busy improvising away.
“ W ell,” I said. “ Good thinking. Two women. I was talking
t’two women at the same tim e.”
“ M ichael,” she says. Kay will use my full name when I ’ve
been bad. Otherwise, it’s Mikey. “ Michael. Listen. I can’t put
a straitjacket on you. I don’t wanna act as a policeman. I love
you. Even if I lose you to—to New York—I ’ll always love you.
You’re a grown man and a priest of God” —Yaaagh—“ you’re
old enough t’work out your own destiny. It isn’t that—”
She let her meaning dangle so I ’d have to say, “ What is it?”
“ It’s the anger in your voice. It’s ugly. I know that’s not you.
If you’re angry, then something terrible is bothering you. You
only get mad when you’re confused.”
Me? Confused? Nah.
Kay was, as usual, perfect. All good instincts and forbearance. And—woe is me—love. I return it. I need Kay now. I need her to be far away, but there. Yet she senses, I sense, that
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there is something I Ve got to work out first. And that something
may be dangerous to our love.
MEANWHILE, I live in unreality. Sur-reality. Kay says she’ll
visit me some time in late July. I can’t wait. I ’ll show her the
Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center and the inside of
Ihnya Suslov’s thighs. The complete tour.
I don’t want to lose Kay.
Evening
For the first time, I ’m actually writing this at The Car. I get
home so late it’s hard to concentrate—I thought I ’d use my time
here in an improving manner. Place topless in some sociological
context. (Anything to take my mind off what happened on Tuesday.)
The Smoking Car has more traditions than a Princeton ffat
house. All of them expensive.
It’s a tradition—Leonard tells me—to tip Mr. Hinkel $200.
Mr. Hinkel is the health inspector. He came in this afternoon
and said to Leonard, ‘ ‘The prick didn’t even offer me a free belt.
What’s going on, Leonard? I ’m carrying you guys—and I don’t
even get no appreciation.” That’s what he said. Leonard gave
him $200. We all deserve appreciation.
Then there is Sister Calvin of the Salvation Army. Bubbles
introduced me. Major Barbara this is not. Sister Calvin is 72
and sly. Gray hair pulled back into a door knob. The Smoking
Car is Sister Calvin’s turf (so designated by Tony). She comes
in twice a week—Monday, Thursday—and a half-naked girl
(Bubbles this time) takes her around to the customers. It’s a
splendid gig. Here she has four dozen guilty, secretive men with
dollar bills spread around them. Not much of a sales pitch required. Sister Calvin left with about $45, Bubbles said.
Not that we are a charitable institution. Yesterday this deaf-
mute came in and dropped a sign-language card on Leonard’s
knee. Wrong knee. Leonard grabbed him by the ear until he
yelled something very much like “ Owww.” A miracle. TeU
them that the blind see and the dumb have their speech restored
to them.
Bad idea, writing this. Everyone has gone self-conscious on
me. Leonard thinks I ’m writing a report for Ethel. One of the
customers left—his drink unfinished—because Friend behind the
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bar told him I was doing an exposé on topless for the New York
Post. And the girls: everything I do is interesting to the girls. I
told Bubbles I was writing a screenplay. Now everyone wants
to be in it. Or not in it. I ’m afraid to leave this anywhere.
I ’ll go play chess with Joe Solomon.
5 a.m.
Got a machine gun headache that goes pain-pain-pain in rhythm
with my pulse.-1 know it’s just stress and shock from Tuesday.
The music is so loud, and I ’m so preoccupied with my shield of
nonchalance—I get startled five times each hour. A voice
(howled) in my ear. A hand on my arm. Soldiers in the great
Huertgen Forest artillery barrage were driven to nervous collapse by the relentless bursts of sound. It’s just white noise to me: I don’t hear the music. The conversation isn’t worth listening to anyway. But the constant roar erodes nuance and grace.
I stand outside whenever I can.
Joe and I played two games of chess on the fender of my
rented Lincoln. I asked him about Tony.
Joe shrugged. Didn’t have any inside information. Pawn to
QB four: let’s change the subject. But I pressed him.
“ W hat’s your instinct? You were a cop for a long tim e.”
“ Mike—let it alone.”
“ H e’s dead. Right?”
“ I don’t know. He might be alive. But I don’t think you’ll
ever see him again.”
“ Why d ’you say that?”
“ Because he loved this place. He was the tit maven. The
maker of two-bit stars. He circulated, he glad-handed, he could
give his undivided attention t’six people at once. And he brought
the best-looking girls in New York t ’The Car. If he could be
here, he would be here.”
“ Did you know Rita?”
“ A little.”
“ D ’you think Tony killed her?”
“ She was very dependent on him. It was a real teacher-pupil
relationship. I don’t know. I don’t see Rita pushing Tony t’the
point of no return. She didn’t have the spine for it. She accepted
Ethel, everything.”
“ I—it’s awful to say this—but I haven’t been real close
t ’Tony . . . Could he have done it, killed her?”
“ What am I supposta say, Mike?”
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85
“ Just give me reading. A feel.”
“ He was human.”
“ By that you mean . . . ?”
“ Of course he could’ve killed her.”
I moved a piece and lost it. I stared at The Smoking Car. The
blue neon is fashioned to represent mo
vement, like the cartoon
dashes behind Bugs Bunny as he outzooms Elmer Fudd. Movement westward along Northern Boulevard toward Manhattan.
(Thwarted by that derelict dry-cleaning establishment in front
of it.) And I wondered if, you know, it stood for Tony. His
aspirations. The sum of his hope. The color of his soul. Tony
didn’t have the advantages I had. He wasn’t humiliated and broken at an early age, as I was. He thought he could rise, vault past the commonplace, without paying a price.
“ Take that move back,” Joe said. “ You were distracted.”
I did. It was a good positional game. Worth playing out.
“ You’re in the wrong line of work, kid. They’re too much for
you.”
“ I met the Gaucho.”
“ Listen—when I said there were drugs going down in The
Ca r . . . I didn’t mean f you t’run up against the Gaucho. I didn’t
mean that.”
“ I wasn’t confronting him, believe me. I know power when
I see it.”
“ No, you don’t. You think money is power. You think organization and hardware are power. N o.”
“ What is it: what’s power?”
“ Power—criminal power—lies in the ability t’break a moral
code when those around you can’t or won’t. You can’t kill. He
can. You might as well be different species. He has a license
fact that’ll always be denied you. The law might break him—
some day. Meanwhile he has privileges that only a high priest
in the temple can have. He can approach the high altar. Believe
me, it gives him a hard-on. He enjoys it.”
“ The Gaucho says he didn’t kill Tony.”
‘ ‘That could mean anything. Or nothing. Be sure—if he didn’t
kill Tony it’s because Tony was useful to him. ”
“ Does Leonard have the killing power?”
“ That’s yet t’be seen. Your move. Must be hot in Nebraska
this time of year.”
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D. Keith Mono
At which point the front door opened and out—out in bikini
bra and G-string—came Glenda, screaming. Just as a homeless
panhandler went past. He held out an empty coffee carton, as if
to borrow some of her monumental nakedness. And she said,
“ You think I got pockets in this outfit, asshole?”
Then, to me,
“ I ’ve been robbed, Mike. Some bitch took my watch.”
Glenda is, you understand, another tradition at The Car. She’s
