"I asked you to get us some food over here," Cecil said,
"I don't see food anywhere."
"It's coming," Grape said, "I got you garlic shrimp."
"I don't like the garlic shrimp."
"Yeah, you do. You get it all the time."
"I used to get it, I don't get it anymore."
"I'll get you something else," Grape said.
Cecil looked at Hutt. Hutt hadn't noticed he was back. He had the girl down in the booth. The girl didn't like it, but Hutt didn't care.
"I forgot about the shrimp," Grape said. "I remember you saying, we was over to Wan's, you don't like it the shrimp."
"Forget it. Forget about the shrimp."
"What you want me to do? He's going to nail her right there."
"What I'm going to do is nail him. I'm not taking a partial, that asshole don't know it yet. Leave him alone; give Alabama a twenty from me."
"There he is, there's the guy again," Grape said.
"There's who?"
"The clown, the dude called your guy a fag."
Cecil looked where Grape was pointing. "That guy's got a brown jacket. You said a black."
"No, sir. I believe I said brown. Short hair, brown jacket like the aviators wear."
"I think you said black."
"I think I said brown," Grape said.
"I'm pretty sure you said black."
"It's fuckin' dark in here, I coulda said a black."
"I think that's what you did."
"Whatever," Grape said.
"The food gets here, I'll get you somethin' else. The Moo Goo and hot and sour soup."
Moo Goo's fine," Cecil said. "Gimme a eggroll, forget the fucking soup."
Chapter Four
The way the deal worked, Ortega was the waiter at Wan's, and a cook sometimes if Ahmed got high and couldn't find his head. Ortega waited tables, and hauled dishes back from out front or across the way at Piggs. The dishes and the pots wound up in Jack's sink.
The washing wasn't bad, Jack didn't mind that. The other part was what he didn't like. Cecil didn't care if the dishes got clean. Food Reclamation, that was Cecil's thing. A guy leaves half an eggroll, toss out the fried part, save the inside. Save all the rice except the part soaks up a little sauce. Save all the meat because meat costs a lot–even though Cecil buys cuts Tex Savallo couldn't give away to anybody else.
Rhino ran Wan Lee's for Cecil, and Rhino kept his eye on Ahmed, Ortega and Jack. If he didn't, Ortega and Ahmed would steal the place blind. Jack wouldn't steal, but Jack dumped scraps down the sink. Cecil wouldn't stand for that. Rhino thought Cecil was nuts. He was also plain terrified, and he did what Cecil said.
Jack couldn't stand the floaters. Floaters made him sick. A little Hunan bobs up, Jack's sure he's got to barf. It wasn't like that, before he went down for five to ten. He only did three, but that was enough to do him in. Huntsville soured him inside and out. Now he had irritated bowel syndrome and gastro- this and that. He used to eat chili and barbecue and pizza twice a week. Now white rice was a culinary treat. Jack looked in the mirror sometimes, certain his eyes were slanting up at both ends. He dreamed about salsa and Habenero peppers, and woke up sweating with a fire in his belly that he couldn't put out. Sometimes, early in the morning, the dreams got better than that. Sometimes he was back in Oke City, driving down Western in a Park Avenue, some babe on the leather there beside him, a babe with legs up to here. Her name escaped him now, he'd never been any good at that.
Rhino came through the swinging doors and said, "Couple garlic shrimp, lemon chicken, egg rolls, hot and sour soup. No scraps or nothing, this is for Cecil, this ain't for out front."
"Is okay I spit in somet'in," Ahmed said, "you got a problem wi' dat?"
"No it ain't okay, raghead, it's okay with me you fuckin' die, that's what's okay with me. Jack, you take it over. Don't goof around, get it there hot."
Jack blinked. "I got dishes. I got stuff to do here."
"Uh-huh. Now you got stuff to do there."
"I don't want to, man."
"You don't wanta, you don't wanta what?"
"I don't want to. Let Ortega go."
Rhino closed one eye. The eye disappeared in fat.
"Ortega's the waiter, Ahmed's the cook, I'm the fuckin' maitre d'. You're what I tell you to be, you got any problem with that?"
"Hey, I don't want to, man."
Ahmed snickered. A snicker, not a laugh. A snicker and a leer he'd brought over from Iraq.
Rhino gave him a look. Turned back to Jack. "Take the stuff over. Don't mess around, get your ass back."
Rhino disappeared. Ahmed tossed a handful of shrimp in the wok. The wok hissed and sizzled in a cloud of peanut oil. Ahmed wore a turban that used to be white. Sweat squeezed under and wandered down his brow. Hid in his beard, then dropped in the wok.
"Hey, Cecil like you a lot," Ahmed said, "you a pretty locky guy, you know dat? What I t'ink, Jhack, I t'ink Cecil he got hees eye on you. I t'ink you in line for a very big jhob roun' here..."
Ahmed couldn't finish. His shoulders shook, and his cheeks exploded like a runaway balloon.
Jack wanted to jump the little shit, break a rib or two. Ahmed was five-two, eighty-eight wet. What he'd like to do, he'd like to ram Ahmed's head down in the wok. Hold him there till it got a good crust, till you couldn't tell Ahmed from the shrimp. He used to hand out a lot of hurt, liked to knock a guy around. But he wasn't two-ten anymore, he was one-fifty-five. His gut was screwed up and it hurt too much to hurt anybody else.
"He sees me, he'll clobber me or something," Jack said.
"He don't like me going over there, he likes me stayin' here. Fuck, Rhino knows that. He's going to get me killed, that's what he's gonna to do."
"I t'ink you very wrong about Cecil," Ahmed said. "Cecil like you, Jhack." He blew a wet kiss in the air. "He maybe goin' to give you a ring, sometin' like dat."
"All you got, you got this one fucking act," Jack said. "Why don't you take a day off, try and work up something else."
Ahmed rolled his eyes, like he'd seen Arabs do on TV. Whipped a herd of shrimp around the wok, gave them a squirt of chili oil. Slid them on a plate. Started all over. Cooked a batch of chicken. Gave everyone a scoop of pasty rice, egg rolls he'd never used at all.
"Here you go, man. Lemon chick'n, garlic shrim'. What you t'ink Cecil having, hah? I am guessin' shrim'. Gotta be de shrimp, man. I can't spit on everyti'ng at once."
The throughway from Wan's to the back door of Piggs was an open alleyway. Wan's walls were brick, painted whorehouse red. Piggs' walls were corrugated tin. In between the two was a Dumpster full of smells. Smells from the Orient, smells from the West. Chinese cabbage, onions and shrimp. Beer, whiskey, and petrified chips. Jack could hardly stand the smells fresh, he couldn't tolerate them dead.
The stench was stupefying in the dreadful heat of day. The smells didn't go away at night. At 11:22, the temperature in Mexican Wells was just under ninety-eight.
Jack knew how to hold his breath, Jack could hold his breath for some time. He had held it for three whole years in the Huntsville pen. Held it in the cells, in the crowded corridors, held it in the john. Never took a breath in the big mess hall. A little sniff there would make him sicker than a dog.
He thought about Ahmed. He wished he had the nerve to do something bad to Cecil's plate. Jack hated Ahmed, but Ahmed had guts, you had to give him that. Ahmed had grown up in the desert. He'd shown Jack where on a map. All he had to eat was ants, Ahmed said, he didn't have any shoes or socks. No wonder he wasn't scared of anything at all.
Jack stopped, halfway through the alleyway. He heard this sound, like a pipe had maybe broken, like someone had left a faucet on. He looked to his right and saw it wasn't that at all. Some asshole was standing in the dark, pissing on the wall.
"Hey, cut that out," Jack said, "goddamnit, we got rest rooms for that."
The guy kept pissing, he didn't look at Jack. Jesus, Jack thought, he must've been in Pi
ggs all night.
"I'm not telling you again, just stop it right now. I can send people out here, you know."
"Fhugga you..." the guy said in the dark.
"Okay, that's it. You've had it, pal–"
With that, Jack forgot what he was doing, forgot he was talking, and took a deep breath. Kung Po chicken, Szechuan pork, Margaritas past their prime. Jack bolted for the door, shut it behind him, sucked in a breath, grateful for the stale and smoky air of Piggs.
Light assailed his senses, music blasted from the worn-out speakers on the wall. On the main center stage, a very tall and naked girl writhed in an agony of need, squirmed in a fever of unrequited lust. The message, from the fire in her eyes, from her damp and parted lips, said all she really wanted was a night of sweaty love. Love with a loser, love with a bald guy dreaming of her crotch. Plumbers in workpants, lawyers in suits, adenoidal boys. Guys who drove Jaguars, guys who drove Fords.
Jack, though, knew they didn't have a chance. The girl in the hot pink light was Gloria Mundi, the loveliest woman Jack had ever seen, ever imagined in his dreams. A woman, Jack knew, from personal encounters with Gloria herself, who possessed an inner beauty that even surpassed the outer part.
Jack was next to certain they would marry in the spring. Or possibly the summer, or maybe in the fall. Or, if not, possibly after that.
Chapter Five
"Take it back," Cecil said, "get it out of here."
"Do what?" Jack said.
"Take it back, I don't want the fucking shrimp."
"You don't want it."
"You heard him," Grape said, "He says he don't want it, you listening or what?"
"Okay," Jack said.
"Okay, what?"
"Okay I'll take it back."
"That's terrific," Grape said, "I'm glad to hear it, Jack. Mr. Dupree'll be glad you can handle this for him, he appreciates that."
Cecil had forgotten he was there. He was off somewhere, his mind on something else. Jack picked up his plate. Left the other shrimp for Grape. Set the lemon chicken in front of a man he'd never seen before. When he set the plate down, he spotted Alabama Straight. Alabama was busy down in the guy's lap.
"This any good?" the guy said.
"Yes sir, it is," Jack said.
The man speared a piece of chicken and sniffed. Jack saw he wore a tie. His shirt was blue but his collar was white. He wondered if the collar came off. They did that in Westerns sometimes, he didn't know they did it now.
Jack felt a little itch, turned and looked behind his back. Grape was where he always was, but the Cat wasn't there. He didn't miss Cat Eye, Cat wasn't anyone you'd miss. Still, if you knew where he was, you wouldn't be thinking he'd jump out at you, scare you half to death.
The girl came up for air. The guy in the tie ate his hot and sour soup. Jack got Cecil's tray and took off.
Cecil said, "Jacko, where you going with that?"
Jack stopped. Cecil was looking in his beer, he didn't look at Jack.
"Taking stuff back," Jack said. "You said take it back."
"I didn't tell you take it back."
Jack took a deep breath. "See I thought you did. I thought you didn't want the shrimp."
"You are mistaken, Jacko, I didn't say that."
"Mr. Dupree, he just told you," Grape said. "Why you want to aggravate the man?"
"No, sir. I wouldn't do that."
"Then put it down," Cecil said, "you think you can manage that?"
"I'll leave it right here," Jack said, "I'll just put 'er right down."
He set the plate down, backed off fast, felt his gut tighten up again. Wondered why he was too slow to get it, too slow to see it coming every time.
"I think you might have a hearing loss," Cecil said. "You might want to see about that."
"I think that's what he's got," Grape said.
"It seems to me he does."
"You go up to Austin," Grape said, "they got a good man up there. Minnie got a thing put in; you can't even see it in her ear."
"You go and do it," Cecil said. "Get something in your ear."
"Yes, sir," Jack said. He wondered where this was going, if he'd maybe have to stand there all night. It could happen easy, Cecil had made him do awful stuff before. Cecil and Grape one night, drunk and betting twenty dollar bills, betting on how much water Jack could drink before he had to pee. Cat Eye standing there, interested or not, you never knew for sure, maybe still back in l966, stuck in Round Two.
And Jack, recalling this event, was too slow again. Cecil looked up from his beer, turned around and caught Jack looking right at him, looking at his face.
"What you think, Jacko, I look okay to you?"
The pain in his belly nearly took him down.
"Yes sir, Mr. Dupree, you look fine to me."
"I'm pleased I do, Jack."
"Yes, sir," Jack said, and wished he hadn't said it twice.
"Well good. We got it all settled now?"
"Yes sir, Mr. Dupree."
"Then get this goddamn Chink food out of here and get the fuck out of here yourself. I would like you out of my fucking sight."
Jack didn't answer, Jack knew better than that. He picked up the shrimp, looked across the table at the guy in the blue and white shirt. The guy was trying hard to be anywhere else. It was clear that he didn't care for Piggs. He liked what the girl was doing fine, but he didn't have to drive up to Texas for that, they could do that in New Orleans.
Jack went straight to the john and flushed the garlic shrimp. Stuck his head in the sink and turned the water on. Blotted his face with paper towels, ran his fingers through his hair. The guy in the mirror looked back. Whoever it was, it wasn't him. No big surprise. The dope in the mirror hadn't been him for some time.
Jack McCooly had never had Hollywood looks, but he wasn't the ugliest boy in town. He knew, though, he was maybe the toughest, which worked out fine in Shawnee, Oklahoma, for a flat-nose Choctaw-Irish kid. He'd had the weight then, and the muscle tone as well. Jack could take care of himself, handle any trouble, anyone that came along.
Huntsville prison had taken care of that. The ache in his gut had taken off the weight. Black dudes and skinheads had taken off the tough, shown him what tough was all about.
Nothing had ever shaken Jack like that. Not even his daddy leaving when he was ten. Before they locked him up, Jack would have crippled an asshole like Grape. Back then he would've plowed into Cat. Cat would have killed him, but Jack would have never backed down. Now, all he had was a hollow inside, a gut full of anger and rice. They'd taken something from him that was hard to get back.
He'd do it, though, he was certain of that. Work out, get himself in shape. Get a haircut, a nice pair of pants. Get a good sport shirt, a yellow or a red.
In his head he had a four-fold goal: Get his gut in shape, get his body back. Get some real money somehow. Kill Cecil and Grape, possibly the Cat. And Four, pull it off so you didn't get caught. That was a must, because he sure as shit wasn't going back inside again.
He had to pull it off. Gloria was special, she wasn't some bimbo off the street. You had to prove yourself to a woman like that. A woman like that, she wouldn't give her body and her heart to any wimp. You want the very best, you got to be the best yourself...
Chapter Six
Minnie Mouth was coming off, Wilda Hare was going on. Minnie would move to pole two. Laura Licks would go to three.
Which meant that Gloria was in the dressing room. Which wasn't a dressing room at all, just four by eights slapped together off the ladies' restroom.
Jack knocked, didn't wait for an answer, opened the door and went in.
"Jesus, Jack, we are naked in here!" Maggie Thatch glared, plucked a Kleenex and covered up her parts.
"You maybe didn't notice," Jack said, "but you're naked out there."
"That is professional naked, that is the entertainment portion of my life. It is personal time back here."
"I'm not looking."
"He
ll you're not, you're looking right now."
"You smell like garlic," Gloria said. "I wish you wouldn't bring it in here."
"I had to see you. Before you got off."
"I don't ever get off. What for?"
Jack looked at Maggie. "Forget it," Maggie said, "I'm not going anywhere, just pretend I'm not here."
Maggie Thatch wasn't Jack's ideal. Jack didn't like girls with shitty attitudes. She billed herself as a Brit, but got off the bus from Fort Worth. Short, sassy, redhead all over and wiry as a squirrel, she took it all off except a tiny Union Jack, which somehow emerged at the end of her act and began to wave about, Maggie, meanwhile, standing on her head, the music shifting from Tom T. Hall to God Save the Queen. She did this six times a night, and it never failed to bring the house down.
"Jack, you don't look good," Gloria said, leaning in close to the mirror, sketching a tiny red line at the corner of her mouth. "You feeling all right?"
"Cecil, you know how he gets, he's got a business guy. He's got a guy in, he's got a deal going it gets him upset."
"Cecil isn't upset," Maggie said. "Cecil is crazy as shit, babe."
"He said, Jacko, take the food back, then he said don't, leave the food here. You said take it back, I said. He said, I never said that. I'll tell you what, I'm tired of putting up with this crap. I had a mind to toss that shrimp right in his face."
"Ho-ho, you wish," Maggie said.
Gloria gave her a look, painted another little line at the other corner of her mouth. She was wearing a robe, a sheer black number you could nearly see through. Most of the girls brought ratty robes from home, robes that looked like old bedspreads, but Gloria had more class than that.
That was how she danced, too, in the classic style, no dumb gimmicks like Maggie and her flag, or Whoopie LaCrane, who hopped around the stage till her feathers came out. That wasn't Gloria's style. Gloria got up there and danced. Danced like a whisper, flinging her long hair about, letting it wash across her body like a spider web veil, closing her eyes like she wasn't even there, like the dance was all a dream.
PIGGS - A Novel with Bonus Screenplay Page 2
