Pick-Up

by Charles Willeford

  “This’ll be your last meal here, Harry,” he said, smiling.

  “That’s the best news I’ve had since I got here,” I said. “Hank, I’m really sorry about not taking that drink you offered me yesterday. I was upset, nervous, and—”

  “It doesn’t bother me, Harry. I just thought you’d like a little shot.”

  “After a man’s been in this place a while, he gets so he doesn’t trust anybody.”

  “You’re telling me!” He opened the door and looked down the corridor, turned and smiled broadly. “I found out something for you, Harry. Last night I managed to get a look at your chart, and Doctor Fischbach is reporting you as absolutely sane. In his report he stated that you were completely in possession of your faculties when you croaked your girl friend.”

  “That’s really good news. Maybe Doctor Fischbach’s got a few human qualities after all.”

  “I thought it would make you happy,” Hank said pleasantly.

  “What about the Sanity Board you were telling me about the other day? Won’t I have to meet that?”

  “Not as long as Fischbach says you’re okay. He classified you as neurotic depressive, which doesn’t mean a damn thing. The Sanity Board is for those guys who have a reasonable doubt. You’re all right.”

  I tore into my breakfast with satisfaction. Now I could go back to the special block safe in the knowledge I would go to the gas chamber instead of the asylum. Hank was in a talkative mood and he chatted about hospital politics while I finished my breakfast, brought me another cup of coffee when I asked for it.

  “Now that I’m leaving, Hank,” I said, “tell me something. Why is it that I never get a hot cup of coffee? This is barely lukewarm.”

  He laughed. “I never give patients hot coffee. About two years ago I was taking a pot of hot coffee around the ward giving refills and I asked this guy if he wanted a second cup. ‘No,’ he says, so I said, ‘Not even a half a cup?’ and he says, ‘Okay.’ So I pours about a half-cup and he says, ‘A little more.’ I pours a little more, and he says, ‘More yet.’ This time I filled his cup all the way. He reached out then, grabbed my waistband and dumped the whole cupful of hot coffee inside my pants! Liked to have ruined me. I was in bed for three days with second degree burns!”

  I joined Hank in laughter, not because it was a funny story, but he told it so well. He finished with the punch line:

  “Ever since then I’ve never given out with hot coffee.”

  Hank lit my cigarette and we shook hands. He picked up my tray.

  “I want to wish you the best of luck, Harry,” he said at the door. “You’re one of the nicest guys we’ve had in here in a long time.”

  “The same goes for you, Hank,” I said sincerely. “You’ve made it bearable for me and I want you to know I appreciate it.”

  More than a little embarrassed, he turned away with the tray and walked out, leaving the door open. Smitty, another orderly, brought me my clothes and I changed into them quickly. Smitty unlocked the elevator and we rode down to the receiving entrance and I was turned over to a detective in a dark gray suit. I was handcuffed and returned to the jail in a police car instead of an ambulance. I was signed in at the jail and Mr. Benson returned me to my cell, my old cell.

  Wearing my blue jail clothes again and stretched out on my bunk, I sighed with contentment. I speculated on how long it would be before the trial. It couldn’t be too long, now that the returns were in; all I needed now, I supposed, was an open date on the court calendar. If I could occupy myself somehow, it would make the time pass faster. Maybe, if I asked Mr. Benson, he would get me a drawing pad and some charcoal sticks. I could do a few sketches to pass away the time. It was a better pastime than reading and it would be something to do.

  That afternoon, right after lunch, I talked to Mr. Benson, and he said he would see what he could do . . .

  NINETEEN

  Portrait of a Killer

  IT MUST have been about an hour after breakfast. The daily breakfast of two thick slices of bread and the big cup of black coffee didn’t always set so well. Scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of orange juice would have been better. No question about it; I had eaten better at the hospital. The two lumps of dough had absorbed the coffee and the mess felt like a full sponge in my stomach. Somebody was at my door and I looked up. It was Mr. Benson. He had a large drawing pad and a box of colored pencils in his hand. The old man was smiling and it revealed his worn down teeth, uppers and lowers. He stopped smiling the moment I looked at him.

  “I bought you this stuff outa my own pocket,” he said gruffly. “You can’t lay around in here forever doin’ nothin’.” He passed the pad and pencil box through the bars and I took them.

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Benson,” I said. “How’d you like to have me do your portrait? That is, after I practice up a little.”

  “You pretty good?”

  “I used to be, and you’ve got an interesting face.”

  “What do you mean by that!” he bridled.

  “I mean I’d enjoy trying to draw you.”

  “Oh.” His face flushed. “I guess I wouldn’t mind you doin’ a picture of me. Maybe some time this afternoon?”

  “Any time.”

  I practiced and experimented with the colored pencils all morning, drawing cones, blocks, trying for perspective. I would rather have had charcoal instead of colored pencils, I like it much better, but maybe the colored pencils gave me more things to do. The morning passed like a shot. I hadn’t lost my touch, if anything, my hand was steadier than it had been before.

  Mr. Benson held out until mid-afternoon, and then he brought a stool down the corridor and seated himself outside my cell. For some reason, a portrait, whether a plain drawing or a full-scale painting, is the most flattering thing you can do for a person. I’ve never met a person yet who didn’t want an artist to paint his portrait. It is one of the holdovers from the nineteenth century that enables artists who go for that sort of thing to eat. A simple drawing, or a painting should always be done from life to be worthwhile. But this doesn’t prevent an organization in New York from making thousands of dollars weekly by having well-known artists paint portraits from photographs that are sent in from all over the United States. If the person has enough money, all he has to do is state what artist he wants and send in his photographs. The artists who do this type of work are a hell of a lot hungrier for money than I ever was.

  I didn’t spend much time with Mr. Benson. I did a profile view and by doing a profile it is almost impossible not to get a good likeness. By using black, coral, and a white pencil for the highlights, I got the little drawing turned out well and Mr. Benson was more than pleased.

  “What do I owe you, Harry?” he asked, after I tore the drawing from the pad and gave it to him.

  “Nothing,” I laughed. “You’re helping me kill time, and besides you bought me the pad and pencils.”

  “How about a dollar?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Suit yourself.” He picked up his stool and left happily with his picture.

  Mr. Benson must have spread the word or showed his picture around. In the next three days I did several more drawings. Detectives came up to see me and they would sit belligerently, trying to cover their embarrassment while I whipped out a fast profile. They all offered me money, which I didn’t accept, but I never refused a pack of cigarettes. The last portrait I did was that of a young girl. She was one of the stenos from the filing department, well-liked by Mr. Benson, and he let her in. She was very nervous and twitched on the stool while I did a three-quarter view. I suppose she was curious to see what I looked like, more than anything else, but it didn’t matter to me. Drawing was a time-killer to me. I gave her the completed drawing and she hesitated outside my cell.

  “You haven’t been reading the papers have you, ah, Mr. Jordan?” she asked nervously.

  “No.”

  She was about twenty-one or -two with thin blonde hair, glasse
s, and a green faille suit. Her figure was slim, almost slight, and she twisted her long, slender fingers nervously. “I don’t know whether to tell you or not, but seeing you don’t read the papers, maybe I’d better . . .”

  “Tell me what?” I asked gently.

  “Oh, it just makes me sore, that’s all!” she said spiritedly. “These detectives! Here you’ve been decent enough to draw their pictures for nothing, and they’ve been selling them to the newshawks in the building. All of the papers have been running cuts, and these detectives have been getting ten dollars or more from the reporters.”

  “The reporters have been getting gypped then,” I said, controlling my sudden anger.

  “Well I think it’s dirty, Mr. Jordan, and I just wanted you to know that I’m going to keep my picture.”

  “That’s fine. Just tell Mr. Benson I’m not doing any more portraits. Tell him on your way out, will you please?”

  “All right. Don’t tell anybody I told you . . . huh?”

  “No, I won’t say anything. I’m not sore about them selling the pictures,” I told her. “It’s just that they aren’t good enough for publication.”

  “I think they are.” She gave me two packages of Camels and tripped away down the corridor. At first I was angry and then I had to laugh at the irony of the situation. Ten dollars. Nobody had ever paid me ten dollars for a picture. Of course, I had never priced a painting that low. The few I had exhibited, in the Chicago student shows, had all been priced at three hundred or more dollars, and none of them had sold. But anyway, no more portraits from Harry Jordan. The cheap Harry Jordan integrity would be upheld until the last sniff of cyanide gas. . . . Again I laughed.

  The following afternoon, Mr. Benson opened the cell door and beckoned to me. He led me through a couple of corridors and into a small room sparsely furnished with a bare scratched desk, a couple of wooden chairs and, surprisingly, a leather couch without arms, but hinged at one end so that the head of it could be raised. It was the kind of a couch you sometimes see in psychiatrists’ offices and doctors’ examining rooms. “What’s this?” I said.

  “Examining room,” he said, as I’d expected. I started to get angry. He left the room, moving rather furtively, I thought, and he shut the door, locking it on the outside. After a couple of minutes the door opened again. It was that stenographer.

  She walked in, her arms full of the drawing stuff I had left in my cell. The door closed behind her and I heard the lock click again, shutting us in. I couldn’t figure it out.

  She was looking at me, kind of breathlessly. She put the colored pencils and stuff down on the desk. “I want you to draw me again,” she said.

  “I don’t know as I want to do any more drawing.”

  “Please.”

  “Why in here?”

  “You don’t understand. I want you to draw me in the nude.”

  I looked at her. It was warm in the room, and there was plenty of light streaming in from the high, barred windows. The bars threw interesting shadows across her body. It was a good place to draw or paint, all right. But that wasn’t what she wanted. I knew that much.

  I sat woodenly. She laughed, kicked off her shoes, lay back on the couch. I could tell she was a little scared of me, but liking it. “I’ll be pretty in the nude,” she said. “I’ll be wonderful to draw.” She lifted a long and delicately formed leg and drew off the stocking. She did the same for her other leg. I could see that her thighs were a trifle plump. They were creamy-white, soft-looking, but the rest of her legs, especially around the knees, were faintly rosy.

  She flicked a glance at me, to see what my response was. I had not moved. I was just standing there, watching. She stood up, made an eager, ungraceful gesture that unloosed a clasp, or a zipper or something. Her skimpy green skirt fell to the floor. She hesitated then, like a girl about to plunge into a cold shower, but took a deep breath, then quickly undid her blouse. It fell to the floor with the skirt. Another moment and her slip was off, and the wisps of nylon that were her under-things. I smelled their faint perfume in the warm room. She lifted her arms over her head and pirouetted proudly. “See?” she said. “See?”

  I had not noticed before, even when I had been drawing her, how pretty she was. Maybe she was the kind of girl whose beauty only awakes when her clothes are off. I examined her thoughtfully, trying to think of her as a problem in art. Long legs. Plump around the hips and thighs. Narrow, long waist. Jutting bosom, a trifle too soft, too immature. Her face was narrow and bony, but attractive enough. The lips were full and red. Her corn-colored hair fell in a graceful line to her shoulders.

  “You fixed this up?” I said.

  She was tense and excited. “Me and Mr. Benson,” she said. “Nobody will bother us here.” She giggled.

  This would be the last time, I was thinking. I would never have another chance at a woman. Not on this earth.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “All kinds of things go on in a place like this. It’s just a question of how much money and influence a person has. You don’t have money, and neither do I—but I’ve got the influence—” She giggled again. Like a high school kid. Was this her first adventure with a man, I wondered.

  I sat down on the hard leather couch.

  “Come here,” I said.

  She sat down on my lap.

  I started by kissing her. First her silky hair. Then her soft parted lips. Then her neck, her shoulders, lower . . . “Harry,” she said. “Harry!”

  My arm was around her waist, and her skin felt creamy and smooth. I tilted her back, swinging her off my knees so that she lay supine on the couch. I stroked and kissed and fondled, slowly and easily at first, then faster and harder. Much harder. She began to breathe deeply. She was scared. I kissed her neck, at the same time taking her by the hair and drawing her head back.

  “Harry,” she said. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “You’re frightened, aren’t you? That’s part of the thrill. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To do it with a freak. A dangerous freak. And a murderer!”

  “I want you, Harry!”

  She was panting. She threw her arms around me, and her nails clawed my shoulders. It was my head that was pulled down now, and she was smothering me with lipstick and feverish kisses. This was the moment I had been waiting for. The moment when she would be craving ecstasy. I lifted my hand and, as hard as I could, slapped her in the face.

  But instead of looking at me with consternation and fear and disappointment, she giggled. Damn her, in her eyes I was just living up to expectations. This was what she had come for!

  In cold disgust, I hit her with my fist, splitting her lip so that the blood ran. The blow rolled her from the couch to the floor. For a moment I pitied her bare, crumpled body, but as soon as the breath got back into her she sprang to her feet. I was standing now, too. She flung her arms around me in a desperate embrace. “I can’t bear it. Please, Harry!”

  I knocked her down again.

  “Please, Harry! Now . . . Now . . . !”

  “You slut. I loved a real woman. To her, I was no strange, freakish creature. She didn’t come to me for cheap thrills. Get your clothes on!”

  I picked up one of the chairs and swung at the door with it.

  “Let me out of here,” I shouted, pounding the door. “God damn it, let me out!”

  Mr. Benson came, and shamefacedly opened the door. The girl, her clothes on, ran sobbing down the corridor. Mr. Benson looked at me.

  “I’m sorry, Harry. I thought I was doing you a favor.” I never did find out the girl’s name.

  The next day was Sunday. After a heavy lunch of baked swordfish and boiled potatoes I fell asleep on my bunk for a little afternoon nap. The jailer aroused me by reaching through the bars and jerking on my foot. It wasn’t Mr. Benson; it was the Sunday man, Mr. Paige.

  “Come on, Jordan,” he said, “wake up. You gotta visitor.” Mr. Paige sold men’s suits during the week, but he was a member of the Police Res
erve, and managed to pick up extra money during the month by getting an active duty day of pay for Sunday work. At least, that is what Mr. Benson told me.

  “I’m too sleepy for visitors,” I grumbled, still partly asleep. “Who is it anyway?”

  “It’s a woman,” he said softly, “a Mrs. Mathews.” I could tell by the expression on his face and his tone of voice he knew Mrs. Mathews was Helen’s mother. “Do you want to see her?”

  I got off the bed in a hurry. No. Of course I didn’t want to see her. But that wasn’t the point. She wanted to see me and I couldn’t very well refuse. She had every right to see the murderer of her daughter.

  “Do you know what she wants to see me about?” I asked Mr. Paige.

  He shook his head. “All I know, she’s got a pass from the D.A. Even so, if you don’t want, you don’t have to talk to her.”

  “I guess it’s all right. Give me a light.” He lit my cigarette for me and I took several fast drags, hoping the smoke would dissipate my drowsiness. Smoking, I stood close to the barred door, listening nervously for the sound of Mrs. Mathews’ footsteps in the corridor. And I heard her long before I saw her. Her step was strong, resolute, purposeful. And she appeared in front of the door, Mr. Paige, the jailer, behind her and slightly to one side.

  “Here’s Harry Jordan, ma’am. You can’t go inside the cell, but you can talk to him for five minutes.” I was grateful for the time limit Mr. Paige arbitrarily imposed. He turned away, walked a few steps down the corridor, out of earshot, beyond my range of vision.

  Mrs. Mathews was wearing that same beaver coat, black walking shoes, and a green felt, off-the-face hat. Her gray hair was gathered and piled in a knot on the back of her neck. She glared at me through her gold-rimmed glasses. Her full lips curled back, showing her teeth, in a scornful, sneering grimace of disgust. There was a bright gleam of hatred in her eyes, the unreasoning kind of hate one reserves for a dangerous animal, or a loose snake. She made me extremely nervous, looking at me that way. My hands were damp and I took them away from the bars, wiped my palms on my shirt. As tightly as I could, I gripped the bars again.