The Grifters

by Jim Thompson

For a while, she was even carrying a gun when she went to the bathroom.

  She stood at the bar, sipping a rum and cola, looking at the milling crowd with something approaching disgust. Where did they come from? she thought wearily. Why did they buck a stupid racket like this? Many of them were downright shabby. Some of them even had children with them.

  Mothers with kids…Men in cheap sport-shirts and baggy slacks…Grandmothers with cigarettes dangling from their mouths.

  Gaah! It was enough to turn a person’s stomach.

  She turned away from them, shifting wearily from foot to foot. She was wearing a sports outfit; a simple but expensive ensemble of fawn-colored slacks, blouse, and jacket, with flat-heeled buckskin oxfords. Everything was cool and lightweight, the most comfortable things she could put on. But nothing could compensate for her hours of standing.

  As the fifth and sixth races dragged by, as she moved back and forth from the betting and pay-off windows, the struggle between her growing tiredness and the never-ending need to be alert almost reached a stalemate. It was hard to think of anything but sitting down, of resting for at least a few minutes. It was impossible to think about it. Need and necessity fought with one another, pulling her this way and that, tugging her forward and holding her back; adding unbearably to the burden she already carried.

  There were seats in the grandstand, of course, but those were for yokels. By the time she got into the stands, she would be due at the windows. The effort of going back and forth would take more from her than it gave. As for the clubhouse, with its comfortable chairs and pleasant cocktail lounge, well, naturally, that was out. There was too much money floating around, too much heavy betting. The treasury boys loved the place.

  She set down her cup of coffee—her third in the last hour—and trudged away toward the mutuel windows. The seventh race, the next to the last, was coming up. It always drew some of the day’s heaviest play, and the yokels were rushing to buy tickets. As Lilly pushed her way through them, a sardonic thought suddenly struck her. And despite her weariness, she almost laughed out loud.

  Now, isn’t this something? she thought. Twenty-five years getting out of the mob, and I’m right back in it. Hell, I’ve never even been away!

  She collected a couple of bets on the seventh, disposing of the money as she hurried toward the parking lot. There was nothing in the last race that couldn’t be missed. By beating it out now, before the crowd swarmed down from the stands, she could avoid the last-minute traffic jam.

  Her car was parked back near the gate, in a space as near to it as a big tip would buy. A convertible, it was a very good car but by no means the most expensive. Not even faintly flashy. Its one distinctive feature was something that couldn’t be seen. A secret trunk compartment containing one hundred and thirty thousand dollars in cash.

  As she approached the car now and saw the man standing beside it, Lilly wondered whether she’d ever live to spend the money.

  9

  Bobo Justus had wavy, iron-gray hair and a deeply tanned, chiseled-looking face. He was a small man, short that is, but he had the head and torso of a six-footer. Knowing his sensitivity about his height, Lilly was grateful for her flat-heeled shoes. That was one thing in her favor at least. But she doubted that it would count for much, judging by his expression.

  He addressed her tonelessly, his lips barely moving.

  “You goddamned silly-looking pig! Driving a goddamned circus wagon! Why don’t you paint a bull’s-eye on it? Hang a couple of cowbells on the bumper?”

  “Now, Bo. Convertibles are quite common in California.”

  “Convertibles are quite common in California,” he mimicked her, weaving his shoulders prissily. “Are they as common as two-timing, double-crossing whores? Hah? Are they, you sneaky little slut?”

  “Bo”—she looked around quickly. “Hadn’t we better go some place private?”

  He drew back a hand as though to slap her, then gave her a shove toward the car. “Get with it,” he said. “The Beverly Hills. I get you alone, and I’m going to pop every pimple on your pretty pink butt!”

  She started the car and drove out through the gate. As they joined the stream of town-bound traffic, he resumed his tight-lipped abuse.

  Lilly listened attentively, trying to decide whether he was building up steam or letting it off. Probably the last, she guessed, since it had been almost three weeks since her blunder. Murderously angry, he probably would have taken action before this.

  Most of the time she was silent, making no response except when it was asked for or seemed urgently indicated.

  “…told you to watch that fifth race, didn’t I? And, by God, you really watched it, didn’t you? I bet you stood there grinning clear to your ankles while the dog comes in at a hundred-and-forty per!”

  “Bo, I—”

  “How much did your pals cut you in for, huh? Or did they give you the same kind of screwing you gave me? What the hell are you, anyway—a stud-horse with tits?”

  “I was down on the nag,” Lilly said quietly. “You know I was, Bo. After all, you wouldn’t have wanted me to bet it off the board.”

  “You were down on it, huh? Now, I’ll ask you just one question. Do you want to stick to that story, or do you want to keep your teeth?”

  “I want to keep my teeth.”

  “Now, I’ll ask you one more question. Do you think I got no contacts out here? You think I couldn’t get a report on the play on that horse?”

  “No, I don’t think that. I’m sure you could, Bo.”

  “That nag paid off at just the opening price. There wasn’t hardly a flutter on the tote board from the time the odds were posted.” He lit a cigarette, took a couple of quick angry puffs. “What kind of crap you handing me anyway, Lilly? There ain’t enough action to tickle the tote, but you claim a five-grand win! Now, how about it, huh? You ready to fly straight or not?”

  She drew in a deep breath. Hesitated. Nodded. There was only one thing to do now, to tell the truth and hope for the best.

  She did so. Justus sat turned in the seat; studying, analyzing her expression throughout the recital. When she had finished, he faced back around again, sat in deadpan silence for several minutes.

  “So you were just stupid,” he said. “Asleep at the switch. You think I’m going to buy that?”

  Lilly nodded evenly. He’d already bought it, she said, three weeks ago; suspected the truth before he was told. “You know you did, Bo. If you hadn’t, I’d be dead by now.”

  “Maybe you will be yet, sister! Maybe you’ll wish you was dead.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I laid out better than a hundred yards for a screwing. Just about the highest-priced piece of tail in history. I figure on getting what I paid for.”

  “Then you’d better do some more figuring,” Lilly said. “I’m not that kind of punching bag.”

  “Real sure about that, are you?”

  “Positive. Give me a cigarette, please.”

  He took a cigarette from his package, and tossed it across the seat. She picked it up, and tossed it back to him.

  “Light it please, Bo? I need both hands in this traffic.”

  She heard a sound, something between a laugh and a snort, anger and admiration. Then, he lit the cigarette and placed it between her lips.

  As they rode on, she could sense the looks he slanted at her, almost see the workings of his mind. She was a problem to him. A very special and valued employee, one whom he actually liked, had yet erred badly. It was unintentional, her one serious mistake in more than twenty years of faithful service. So there was strong argument for forgiveness. On the other hand, he was showing unusual forbearance in allowing her to live, and more hardly seemed to be indicated.

  Obviously, there was much to be said for both sides of the debate. Having forgiven so much, he could forgive completely. Or having forgiven so much, he need forgive no more.

  They were almost at the hotel before he reached his decision.

 
“I got a lot of people working for me, Lilly. I can’t have things like this happening.”

  “It never happened before, Bo.” She fought to keep her voice level, free of any hint of begging. “It won’t happen again.”

  “It happened once,” he said. “With me, that’s practically making a habit of it.”

  “All right,” she said. “You’re calling the shots.”

  “You got any kind of long coat in the car? Anything you can wear home over your clothes?”

  “No.” A dull ache came into her stomach.

  He hesitated, then said it didn’t matter. He’d lend her his raincoat. “Ought to be right in style out here. Goddamnedest sloppiest-looking women I ever seen.”

  She stopped the car at the hotel entrance, and an attendant took charge of it. Bobo handed her out to the steps, then courteously gave her his arm as they entered the building. They crossed the lobby, Bobo holding himself very erect, and entered the elevator.

  He had a suite on the fourth floor. Unlocking the door, he motioned for her to precede him. She did so, letting her body go limp, preparing herself for what she knew was coming. But you could never prepare for a thing like that—not fully. The sudden shove-blow sent her hurtling into the room, stumbling and tripping over her own feet. And finally landing in a skidding sprawl on the floor.

  As she slowly picked herself up, he locked the door, drew the shades, and entered the bathroom, emerging immediately with a large towel. Crossing to the sideboard, he took a number of oranges from a bowl of fruit, dropped them in the towel and pulled up its ends to form a bag. He came toward her, swinging it loosely. Again, Lilly tried to brace herself with limpness.

  She knew the oranges. She knew all such gimmicks, though never before had she been the victim of any. The oranges was an item from the dummy-chuckers’ workbag, a frammis of the professional accident fakers.

  Beaten with the fruit, a person sustained bruises far out of proportion to his actual injuries. He looked badly hurt when he was hardly hurt at all.

  But he could be hurt. If he was hit hard enough and in certain areas of his body. Without feeling much pain at the time, he could have his internal organs smashed. Used in just the right way (or the wrong way), the oranges produced much the same effect as an enema or douche of plaster-of-paris.

  Bobo drew closer. He stopped in front of her. He moved to one side and little behind her.

  He gripped the towel with both hands. And swung.

  And let the oranges spill harmlessly to the floor.

  He gestured.

  She bent to pick up the fruit. And then again she was sprawling. And his knees were in her back and his hand was against her head. And she was pinned, spreadeagled, against the carpet.

  A couple passed in the hallway, laughing and talking. A couple from another planet. From the dining room—from another world—came the faint sound of music.

  There was the click of a cigarette lighter, the smell of smoke. Then, the smell of burning flesh as he held the glowing coal against the back of her right hand. He held it with measured firmness, just enough to keep it burning without crushing it out.

  His knees worked with expert cruelty.

  The cigarette burned into her hand, and his knees probed the sensitive nerves of her spine.

  It was a timeless world, an endless hell. There was no escape from it. There was no relief in it. She couldn’t cry out. It was impossible even to squirm. The world was at once to be endured and unendurable. And the one possible relief was within her own small body.

  Scalding urine spurted from her loins. It seemed to pour from her in a flood.

  And Bobo stood up, releasing her, and she got up and went into the bathroom.

  She held her hand under the ice-water tap, then patted it with a towel and examined it. The burn was ugly, but it didn’t appear to be serious. None of the large veins were affected. She lowered her slacks and swabbed herself with a slightly moistened towel. That was about as much as could be done here. The raincoat would cover up her stained clothes.

  She left the bathroom, crossed to the lounge where Bobo was seated, and accepted the drink he gave her. He took out his wallet, and extended a thick sheaf of new bills.

  “Your five grand, Lilly. I almost forgot.”

  “Thanks, Bo.”

  “How you making out these days, anyway? Stealing much from me?”

  “Not much. My folks didn’t raise any stupid kids,” Lilly said. “I just clip a buck here and a buck there. It mounts up, but nobody gets hurt.”

  “That’s right,” Justus nodded approvingly. “Take a little, leave a little.”

  “I look on it this way,” Lilly said, shrewdly enunciating his own philosophy. “A person that don’t look out for himself is too dumb to look out for anyone else. He’s a liability, right, Bo?”

  “Absolutely! You’re a thousand per cent right, Lil!”

  “Or else he’s working an angle. If he doesn’t steal a little, he’s stealing big.”

  “Right!”

  “I like that suit, Bo. I don’t know what there is about it, but somehow it makes you look so much taller.”

  “Yeah?” He beamed at her. “You really think so? You know a lot of people been telling me the same thing.”

  Their amiable talk continued as twilight slid into the room. And Lilly’s hand ached, and the wet clothes burned and chafed her flesh. She had to leave him feeling good about her. She had to make sure that the score between them was settled, and that he was actually letting her off so lightly.

  They discussed several business matters she had handled for him in Detroit and the Twin Cities on her circuitous way to the coast. Bobo revealed that he was only in town for the day. Tomorrow he was heading back east via Vegas, Galveston, and Miami.

  “Another drink, Lilly?”

  “Well, just a short one. I’ve got to be running along pretty soon.”

  “What’s the hurry? I thought maybe we could have dinner together.”

  “I’d like to, but…”

  It was best not to stay, best to quit while she was ahead. She’d been very, very lucky apparently, but luck could run out on you.

  “I’ve got a son living here, Bo. A salesman. I don’t get to see him very often, so…”

  “Well, sure, sure,” he nodded. “How’s he making out?”

  “He’s in the hospital. Some kind of stomach trouble. I usually visit him every night.”

  “Sure, naturally,” he frowned. “Gettin’ everything he needs? Anything I can do?”

  Lilly thanked him, shaking her head. “He’s doing fine. I think he’ll be getting out in a day or two.”

  “Well, you’d better run along,” Bobo said. “A boy’s sick, he wants his mother.”

  She got the raincoat out of the closet, and belted it around her. They said good night, and she left.

  A little urine had trickled down her legs, making them itch and sting, and leaving an unpleasant sogginess in her shoes. Her underpants chafed and stung, and the seat of the slacks seemed to have soaked through. The ache in her right hand grew, spread slowly up into her wrist and arm.

  She hoped she hadn’t soiled Bobo’s lounge. She’d been very lucky, considering the amount her blunder must have cost him, but a little thing like that might spoil it.

  She picked up her car, and drove away from the hotel.

  As she entered her apartment, she kicked out of her shoes, began flinging her clothes from her; leaving them in a trail behind her as she hurried toward the bathroom. She closed its door. Kneeling, she went down in front of the toilet as though it were an altar, and a great sob shook her body.

  Weeping hysterically, laughing and crying, she began to vomit.

  Lucky…

  Got off easy…

  Boy, am I lucky!

  10

  At a few minutes before noon, Moira Langtry came out of the arched door of the hospital and crossed the street to the parking lot. She’d risen unusually early that day in order to turn herself
out with extra care, and the result was all that she could have hoped for. She was a brunette dream, a fragrant sultry-eyed vision of loveliness. The nurses had looked after her enviously as she tripped down the corridor. The doctors and interns had almost drooled, their eyes lingering on the delicate shivering of her breasts and the sensual swing of her rounded little hips.

  Women almost always disliked Moira. She was glad that they did, taking it as a compliment and returning their dislike. Men, of course, were invariably drawn to her, a reaction which she expected and cultivated but was emotionally cold to. Very rarely did they appeal to her. Roy Dillon was one of the rare ones who did. In her own way, she had been faithful to him during the three years of their acquaintance.

  Roy was fun. Roy stirred her. Man-wise, he was the luxury which she had clutched to herself no more than a half-dozen times in her life. Six men out of the hundreds who had had her body.

  If she could put him to practical use, fine. She hoped and believed she could do just that. If not, she still wanted him, and she did not intend to have him taken from her. It wasn’t, of course, that she absolutely couldn’t do without him; women who got that way over a man were strictly for the movies. But she simply couldn’t afford such a loss, its clear threat to her security.

  When things reached the point where she couldn’t hold a man, then she was finished. She might as well do a high brodie out of the nearest window.

  So today she had risen early, knocking herself out to be a knockout. Thinking that by arriving at the hospital at an off-hour, she could see Roy alone for a change and tease his appetite for what he had been missing. It was highly necessary, she felt. Particularly with his mother working against her, and throwing that cute little nurse at him.

  And today, after all the trouble she’d gone to, his damned snotty mother was there. It was almost as though Mrs. Dillon had read her mind, intuitively suspecting her visit to the hospital and busting her goddamned pants to be there at the same time.

  Smoldering, Moira reached the parking lot. The pimply-faced attendant hastened to open the door of her car, and as she climbed into it, she rewarded him with a look at her legs.