Mitchell Smith

by Daydreams

  “She’s fine.”

  ,:Good. She’s very bright, isn’t she? -A lawyer?”

  That’s right.”

  “Well, she likes you a lot-if she was a man, you’d be all I set.

  “What do you mean by that, Mother?”

  “Time goes by, you know. You think you have forever, but you don’t.

  -That job you have, Eleanor, running around with a lot of men with a gun in your purse, is all right for a young woman, you know. They probably look out for you. It won’t be so hot when your looks are gone, and you’re just some hard-looking old woman with no family, no kids. Nobody will want you around, then.

  Thank God I’ve got Tony and Gordy. -You just remember I warned you about it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “I won’t…

  Ellie went to the kitchen, the conditioned air cool around her legs, trying to think of something she wanted for dinner. Mayo, tired of crying for his food, now sat enraged, silent, still as an Egyptian statuette, staring at the space under the kitchen table where his food should have been, while she searched the right side cabinet for a Puss

  ‘n Boots tuna for him. There were several livers-no tuna. She opened one, spooned the stuff onto a saucer, put that down under the table, and threw the can into the trash.

  The Siamese looked at his food, but stayed sitting where he was.

  “Starve,” Ellie said, opened the refrigerator and took out a small jar of olives. “The caviar of the poor,” Klein had called them, and used to eat them by the spoonful.

  Ellie ate several, then put the jar back in the refrigerator, and looked for something else. She’d left the herring and cream cheese in Leahy’s little cooler. It would have to be peanut butter, blackberry jam.

  She heard the saucer move under the table while she was making her sandwich beside the sink. Mayo could hold out only so long…. He forgot his grievance after a few minutes, she supposed, then was puzzled trying to remember it-then went about his business.

  She put her sandwich on a small plate, took a can of Sprite from the refrigerator, turned off the kitchen light, and left Mayo alone, finishing his dinner in the dark.

  In the bedroom, Ellie put her food on the bedside table, turned on the lamp, pulled down the covers, piled the pillows up, and climbed into bed in her bathrobe. She lay there, her plate on her lap, took a bite of the sandwich, popped open the soft drink, and thought about the day.

  It was the first time, in almost two years working with him, that she had seen Tommy let any serious perp take a walk. That was one thing…

  and not the worst thing.

  She had let people go before… was sure Tommy had, too, if it wasn’t serious. But this, today, was serious. And the worst thing was, it hurt Tommy so much to do it.

  Ellie cleaned peanut butter from the roof of her mouth with her tongue.

  Blackberry seeds.

  Donaher … that fucking old thief. The young one even creepier. -it was the shittiest luck. The worst luck they could have had. Poor Tommy. -He’d looked scared to death while that thief was begging him.

  Known he was going to let them go, was what that was….

  The Puerto Rican up in the Bronx had looked asleep.

  It didn’t seem like an awful death-go flying through the air like that.

  She thought about Sally Gaither. -Sally would rather have died that way; that was for sure. And Tommy up there, giving those old farts a hard time …

  making up, Ellie supposed, for letting Donaher go. Poor, quiet Classman. -To be killed by some morons like that just by accident. His mother, too. -Just as well, though, she went with him, if she was as far gone as Serrano said.

  No one to take care of her anymore….

  Ellie finished her sandwich, drank the last of the Sprite, and thought of calling Clara in Chicago … maybe read a little, then call later.

  Or not. If Clara wanted to talk to her, she could call. She hadn’t called earlier, hadn’t left any message. . . . Susan Margolies could probably tell them both all about it. Probably had lots of dykes and queers paying her for advice-coming around trying to get cured. Or coming to her to get talked into being happy about it. -The old bag probably showed them around her apartment.

  Ellie got out of bed, went out to the hall, took her revolver from her purse, and brought it back to the bedside table.

  Why the hell she hadn’t thought of asking Margolies about Audrey What’s-His-Face … needed to do that, needed to get some kind of print report from Fingerprints, needed to call the M.Us office for the stuff from the autopsy, needed to call those people in Detroit-just in case Mr. and Mrs. Crowell were cuter than they seemed.

  Just in case Mrs. Crowell, for example, had decided to do something drastic about her husband’s two-hundred dollar visits. -And then the both of them showing up with that lawyer … playing it very cute.

  So-they had to call Detroit; maybe Tommy could call tomorrow evening.

  She heard Mayo scratching in his litter box in the bathroom, got up to take her sandwich plate and softdrink can to the kitchen, wash the plate and put it away, and found the Siamese lying alongside her pillow when she came back to the bedroom. When she got into bed, Ellie leaned over, resting on her elbow, and gently stroked Mayo’s small, taut, rounded belly-cream-furred, soft as a breast.

  “Did you have enough to eat?”

  Mayo stared away across the room as she stroked him.

  In profile, his muzzle was unexpectedly pointed, almost fox-like-the jeweled eye set like radiate-streaked topaz, split by the black vacancy of his narrow pupil-a funnel down which the world of light fell into the mazes of his brain. Ellie thought of painting cat’s eyes as huge structures … light eaters … beneath which a dying mouse, bleeding at the ear, fenced by small, damp, white stakes of fangs, was minor.

  “You’re a fucking monster,” she said to Mayo, and bent to put her ear to his belly to see if she could hear digestion-Puss ‘n Boots liver.

  Instead, she heard only the neat, slight, rub-a-dub of his small heart.

  Smelled from his fur his faint, bestial odor.

  Ellie wondered whether she was glad that Tommy had done what he had …

  was not as strong as he’d seemed.

  She lay back on her pillows, and wondered whether things would be different working with him, as time went on….

  Her reading glasses on, now-never worn on the job, not admitted to-Ellie was reading a Regency romance when the phone rang, and was annoyed. It would be Clara.-It was almost the end of the fifth chapter, and she’d meant to turn out the light and get to sleep. Now, it would be time on the phone.

  “El?”

  “Hi.”

  “I’m sorry to call so late. -I just got in from the most monstrous dinner … every single legal jackass in Chicago was there, and each one blew cigar smoke in my face.”

  “How’s the conference going?”

  “Oh, they’re just cutting up territory they haven’t agreed to any indictment pattern, grand jury scheduling, jurisdictions, nothing. It’s been bullshit, bullshit, all the way.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “I know you really hoped there’d be something for you………

  “Oh, there will be, sweetheart. -I’ll get a piece of the action. If there is any action. Brave Henry has assured me of that. Said he would definitely talk to Halevy about our task force.”

  “And you’re going to head it………

  “So Brave Henry says. It’s not easy to believe that guy.”

  “You’ll get it, Clara-you’re just a natural at that.”

  “I regret to say, you may be right. -A natural nasty bitch prosecutor type, is what you mean.”

  “No-I don’t mean that. I mean you’re good. You’re very good at what you do, Clara.”

  “Well . . . what this natural prosecutor would like to do right now, is to commit various offenses against several state codes with you.”

  “I know.

  But do you care . . . ? Improper q
uestion-let me rephrase. I hope you do care, because I certainly do care for you. . . . You know, darling, two extremely unpleasant realizations have been clarifying for me, lately-no pun intended. Am I—,do you need to get to sleep, sweetheart?”

  “No,” Ellie said. “-I’m fine.”

  “Well . . . how’s that major case going? The homicide.”

  “It’s tough,” Ellie said. “Nobody wants to come forward in a prostitute’s killing-everybody’s ducking and dodging-and we’re getting shit for support from the Department………

  “Just the same,” Clara said, “-I’d bet on you and your attendant beast.

  You make a formidable team.”

  “Well … we may work it out.”

  , ‘I think so…. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go to sleep?”

  “No. Really.”

  “Well … two extremely uncomfortable things…. I hope you’ll forgive me-this telephone thing is not…

  it’s strictly the coward’s way. First, I’m really terrified to admit that I think I’m in love with you. Not just loving you-I’ve always loved you. And-let me get this over with fast-a little bird tells me that you are feeling no such thing about yours truly.”

  Ellie didn’t say anything.

  “I see,” Clara said.

  After a few moments more, she said, “Well-then I won’t trouble you with it.”

  Ellie’s heart was beating thump-a-thump, as fast as Mayo’s had.

  “Were you watching TV?” Clara said. “Reading?-I know that brute of a job wears you out. -Would you just like me to hang up? We can talk another time.”

  “No . . . no; we can talk.”

  “A safer subject, then,” Clara said. “What were you watching . . . ?”

  “I was reading.”

  “O.K. —one of those god-awful Regency things?”

  “That’s right,” Ellie said. Her heart was beating more slowly.

  “Tell me about it,” Clara said. “-Do you need to go to sleep? -If you do, just tell me-“

  “I don’t . . . I don’t.”

  “O.K. -If you don’t mind, just tell me about the book.”

  “Well, it takes place in 1814.”

  “Right.”

  “In the western part of England, near the sea.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m only about halfway through.”

  “That’s O.K.,” Clara said. “-Go ahead.”

  “Well, an American from Kentucky-a frontiersman-“

  “Um-hmm.”

  “He was the grand-nephew of a rich English squire in the West of England; and in America, he heard-a lawyer from New Orleans came and told him he had inherited this estate in England. -And it was good news, because he had gambled all his land away. He was upset by the war.”

  “What war?”

  “The war of 1812, with the British.”

  “Right. I got it.”

  “He’d been a big hero, a cavalry officer in that war.

  He fought at the battle of New Orleans with Andrew Jackson.”

  “Right. -Cotton bales. I got it.”

  “So, now, he’s in England with this old trapper friend of his, and they’re riding through the West Country to go claim his estate-and the English are still angry about the war.”

  “Um-hmm.

  “Do you really want to hear this?”

  “Damned right I do,” Clara said. “-Just go on.”

  “Well—he and his friend go to an inn to get some food, and to have some ale-they have a little dog with them, and the dog gets into a fight with another man’s dog. And then there’s some trouble with one of the other men-the American has a fight with this young gentleman, and beats him up. And the man challenges him to a &6-“

  “Does this young gentleman have a beautiful sister?”

  Clara said.

  “Yes.”

  “She lives next to the estate the American guy is inheriting?”

  “Did you read this … ?”

  “No, sweetheart, but it’s sort of a classic kind of situation…. I’m going to let you go to sleep.”

  “That’s O.K.”

  “No-go on. Go to sleep. I’ll call you in a couple of days. And, fisten-when I said I loved you, I meant it. -I just get the feeling, sometimes … well, I get the feeling I’m supposed to be the dark, evil one in this relationship-you know, seducing little Nss White Bread . .

  . and, if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t do that kind of stuff. Is that true … ? That isn’t the way you feel about me, is it, El? Just a sort of creep, who’s handy when you want to do something dirty?”

  “No,” Eflie said. “-Never. I don’t feel that way about you. I really don’t.”

  “I hope to God you don’t,” Clara said. “Please, please don’t feel that way about me.”

  “I don’t. I really don’t.”

  “Well-I apologize for running on here, begging for a word of love. -It is goddamn humiliating, I can tell you that.”

  Ellie heard Clara start to cry. She’d never heard Clara cry before, and it was frightening. Clara was a hard crier.-She would try to stop and say something, but the sounds seemed to force their way out of her, as if her mouth were made of rusty iron, forced apart so she could cry.

  “Give me a minute,” Clara said, sounding like someone else. “Give me a minute. . . . Jesus Christ!” The sobbing, the gasping for air began again. “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” she said, “I’m so sorry……

  “Clara,” Ellie said, “-please don’t do that. Please don’t!” and began to cry, herself.

  They wept together over the phone for a little while, then Clara blew her nose, said, “I just blew my nose on the sheet,” and began to laugh.

  She stopped laughing, said, “Gee whiz . . .” and started laughing again. She caught her breath. “-Sophisticated gay woman, hard as nails.” She blew her nose again. “A two-hundred-dollar a-night handkerchief,” she said.

  Neither of them said anything for a few moments, then Clara said,

  “Stormy weather . . . I love you. I’ll do anything you want . .”

  and hung up.

  “I love you, too,” Ellie said. Late.

  CHAPTER 7

  Maureen Lacey almost never went with blacks. Brucie had given her that little lesson in spades-and he was black as the ace, himself.

  “Usually-they got no bread. Jus’ bullshit. Usually, they nothin’

  special with white chicks anyway-got too much ridin’ to get it up. An’

  usually, they so pissed off they got to beat on something-an’ honey, you going’ be the something’! “

  Sweet Brucie was upstate right now, doing three-and hadn’t run Maureen anyway, not for a long time-but his advice was out and free and right on the street.

  Maureen, who didn’t like to, was working the tunnel entrance with a black girl named Rosalie; lady cops were staking their regular block for a couple days, playing pussy, and had asked the girls to give them room.

  This evening, Maureen had turned two before ten O’clock, then had been flashed over by this black guy in a Dodge with rental plates. Big dude-bigger than Brucie, even-and wore glasses. Maureen took one look, and motioned him off on Rosalie; Rosalie would go with anything-had to go with anything because she had a coke hole through the middle of her nose, inside, that whistled when she breathed with her mouth closed.

  Except for that, though, she was nice-looking. But this big guy smiled and shook his head, and gestured Maureen over.-Maybe a cop, after all, Maureen thought.

  “Listen,” he said to her across the car seat, “I’m not a creep, I’m not a pervert-and I’d never hurt a nice working girl. -What I am, is a decent guy just in town from Cleveland looking for a little sugar-pussy for an hour. -What do you charge, darling?”

  Probably he reminded her of Brucie, a little. A real intelligent nigger. Big dude. Nice clothes. Rosalie was making a face at her-my meat.

  What the fuck. “-It’ll cost you a hundred.”

  Big
laugh out of the guy on that one. “-And I bet you’re worth every penny,” he said, “but fifty’s all I got.

  Tell you this, honey-you’ll be safe with me. I won’t hassle you-and nobody else will, either.”

  What the fuck … Maureen gave Rosalie the finger, and jumped in the guy’s car. When they were in the tunnel, the guy dug in his jacket pocket, brought out money, thumbed through it while he drove and handed it over. Seventy-five bucks. “Split the difference-O.K.? I don’t like to see women worried about money.”

  He took her over to Jersey, drove down to one of the container docks over there, then took her out of the car and over to some crates, under the lights. Maureen said she didn’t want to do anything out there like that, because they have guards there, but the guy just said, “It would be a sad sucker would interfere with me,” and right there pulled this real big boner out of his pants, balls and all-and she thought what the fuck, and got on it, right there. She couldn’t take it all, but she took what she could, and got it as wet as she could, so it wouldn’t hurt her.

  He was really nice-but it sure as shit was no short time. She was lying on a crate under those bright lights for an hour, it felt like, this big nigger on her just humping away like he paid a thousand. He had a gun on him; she felt the butt against her right breast, sometimes. -A cop after all, or a runner or something. “Ooohh,” he said-and about time.

  “Ooohh-ooh!” and came in her about a quart, it felt like. That stuff went all over. Ran down her legs when he got up off her and let her off the crate and she stood up, still blinking from looking up at those lights.

  “Clean me up, please, honey,” he said, and she got down on her knees to get that done-licked some stuff off his pants, too-and when she got up, he gave her another twenty-five bucks, and said, “You are a special little lady-a professional. You’re a person. Don’t ever let anybody treat you like shit, just because they call you a name.”

  Drove her back to New York, no problem-she’d had to blow her way back in some truck more than once shook her -hand and wished her luck when he dropped her off.

  “Well, motherfucker. Rosalie said, looking a little pissed (she was supposed to get all the niggers), “I thought you didn’t go with bloods!”