The Forty-Two

by Ed Kurtz

  He shouted, “Oh, come on baby!” But she just kept on walking.

  She was wearing a black miniskirt and a halter top with what looked to Charley to be a man’s white dress shirt hanging slack over it. Her heels click-clacked on the pavement as she strode east on Forty-Second, probably heading for the IRT. He dropped a dog-eared paperback called She Begged to Be Whipped, and he walked east, too.

  He stayed three or four yards behind her, mostly obscured by the throng of thrill-seekers who still littered the sidewalks and upset the traffic by zigzagging between the cars on the street itself. From behind she didn’t look like anything but a woman, any woman, but he couldn’t get that smile out of his head. It was extraordinary how much she looked like the poor kid who’d got knifed the night before in the middle of Slaughter Hotel. If that stripper wasn’t Elizabeth’s doppelganger then Charley thought he must be going crazy, and pretty soon he would be seeing her face on every woman he came across. But that was bullshit. She looked like Elizabeth, all right. Exactly like her.

  The girl hit the intersection of Eighth and Forty-Two and stopped even though she had the walk sign. Charley stopped too, right in front of the Roxy Twin where four smash hits of licentious delights were promised to passers-by. She looked up Eighth one way and then down the other, like she was trying to make up her mind. Then, just as the walk sign changed to warn her to Don’t Walk, she crossed and continued straight down Forty-Second. Charley had to dodge a Chrysler that almost clipped him as he rushed to keep up with her. The guy laid on his horn and screamed an unintelligible string of insults. Charley ignored him and kept on.

  The girl zipped past the Anco (Scavenger Hunt and The Fury) and the Empire (Hammer of God, Kung Fu: Punch of Death and Thunderkick—Charlie made a mental note of this one). When she bore down on the Liberty, she spun on her heel and hurried right inside. Charley gaped, amazed at the turn of events. The clock over the New Amsterdam read eleven-thirty; she’d be lucky to catch the last reel of the second feature. But then that couldn’t have been why she ran in there so fast. She knew she was being tailed and she’d gotten frightened.

  Damn it.

  He headed inside.

  The narrow lobby stretched a hundred feet straight back. He skittered up to the ticket counter, which was situated in an ornate vestibule in the lobby under an impressive dome done over in gold gilding and aluminum. After he bought his ticket he went directly to the auditorium, forgoing his routine trip up the steps to the balcony. Inside everything was patriotic and apple pie with eagles and Liberty Bells in gilt circling, crowding the domed ceiling. A massive proscenium arch framed the screen, on which a pretty girl was presently impaling some old cowboy with a pitchfork. He recognized the picture, Nurse Sherri, and thought about Andy’s pitchfork hijinks earlier in the day, how he’d almost killed Carla. If he had, Charley thought, he would probably have been delighted to get it on film.

  He scanned the auditorium, searching for the girl. There were at least a thousand seats in the house, but less than a hundred people were scattered among them. The Liberty was one of the nicer grindhouses on the Deuce, or at least among the least repellent and hazardous. Unlike the Anco or the Harris, folks generally came here to actually enjoy the movies rather than to shoot up or score in the back rows. Accordingly, almost everyone was awake and attentive, permitting Charley to see their faces when the scene on screen was lit well enough to illuminate them. His eyes moved rapidly from one row to the next until he finally caught sight of her just as she was making for the rear exit. She’d spotted him, not that he made it difficult for her. Sneaky surveillance clearly wasn’t his strong suit.

  All the theaters along either side of the Deuce were essentially interconnected by labyrinths of concrete and leaky pipes into which every back door opened. It was dark and damp, and it smelled like piss and shit and blood. It was a hell of a risk heading into that maze, which was usually done only for a quick, unseen escape. Charley had observed his share of underage male hustlers and chain snatchers whisking away into that labyrinth, seeking to evade the cops or whomever they’d just ripped off, but he had never dared venture back there himself. He dared now.

  Once the Liberty auditorium’s rear door slammed shut behind him, it became too dark for Charley to see an inch in front of his face. He considered turning back, giving up this reckless pursuit, but then he heard the hurried click-clack of the girl’s stiletto heels growing fainter as she rushed down the way. Other sounds fought for prominence, mostly the scuttling of tiny rats’ feet and the monotonous dripping of the deteriorating pipes, but the lack of light allowed him to focus in on the fleeing feet of his quarry. He followed the sound, hunched over and keeping his hands out in front of him in case he knocked up against something—or someone—in the darkness. He tried to mimic her pace; for every click and clack he strode two paces, sure that his longer legs would have him catching up with her in no time.

  Momentarily the darkness gave way to a dim and flickering bulb swinging above a large metal door. The door was just catching against the jamb, and the sound of the girl’s heels was gone. Charley was sure she’d gone through that door, but when he tried the handle it wouldn’t budge. Obviously these back doors only opened from the inside, which meant that someone must have let her in. He’d lost her.

  He patted the door with the palm of his hand like he was conceding his defeat to it. There was nothing more he could do tonight, but he was going to seriously consider hitting up Love Connection again soon. Really soon. He couldn’t let something like that go.

  He turned to head back down the way he came, hoping the weird inner city cavern would drop him off somewhere near Broadway, when he slammed right into somebody in the shadows. Before he could squeak a mild “pardon me,” a massive pair of hairy hands dug fingers like bratwursts into his shoulders, and Charley found himself thrown against the sticky wall. All of the air in his lungs rushed out with a pained groan, and for a couple of seconds he couldn’t suck any back in. Then a rough-looking face with a week’s worth of stubble and a broad nose shaped like a backward S shot out of the dark and grimaced darkly.

  “What the hell you doing?” he roared. Charley gaped. “What you want with Eve, huh? You leave her alone, you un’nerstand? You leave Eve alone or I’ll break your goddamn neck!”

  Charley was about to ask the guy who Eve was when one of those canned ham fists flew back and soared at his face. There was an explosion of white light and then Charley felt the ground hit him on the back of the head. It was wet and warm. He moaned.

  “I’ll kill you!” the guy yelled as he lumbered off, leaving Charley on the ground in a puddle he really didn’t want to think about. The light bulb swayed in a wider arc now, creating a strobe effect that didn’t make the increasing agony in his head feel any better. All he wanted now was to sleep it off, which he might have been willing to do right there in that hellish back alley were it not for all the curious rats that were getting braver in their chittering curiosity. He tried to sit up, and hot pain shot up his spine and burst like a firecracker in his brain. He cried out and went back down.

  When the blackness began to creep over him, he did not resist it. It was a relief when he passed out.

  Chapter 5

  It was not necessarily the slap across his face that snapped Charley out of it, but it helped. He gradually fluttered his eyelids until they stayed open for longer periods than they stayed closed. Someone was hovering above him, all of the distinguishing features obscured by the shocking brightness of the bulb behind her.

  Was it so bright before? He didn’t think so.

  He could determine the stranger was a woman, at least, by the massive mound of peroxide blonde curls that burst out of her head. The denim jacket with the tassels on the sleeves and the fishnet stockings were pretty good clues, too.

  “Jesus Christ, honey,” a husky female voice whispered. “Are you all right?”

  He groaned and steeled himself for the inevitable pain he was going to experience the se
cond he moved his head. He strained the muscles in his stomach and lower back and forced himself into a sitting position. Sure enough it felt like he’d been run over by a truck. Twice.

  “Shit, you must have been rolled but good. They get everything?”

  He frowned, rubbed his chin. It didn’t appear to be broken, which was good. He was afraid to check his teeth. He resolved to do that later. He narrowed his eyes and cupped a hand over his brow, trying to make out the Good Samaritan who was checking up on him.

  “I didn’t get robbed. Just beat up.”

  “Back here? What the hell for?”

  “Help me up, would you?”

  He raised his hands and she took them in hers, which were small but rough and calloused. She hoisted with a grunt and Charley launched up to his feet. White spots sparked in his eyes, and he had to lean against the wall to keep from falling over again.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly.

  “Come on,” his benefactor rasped. “Let’s get you out of here before some more creeps come around for a piece of you.”

  He would rather have declined the offer but he thought he could really use the help. Sometimes you just didn’t question a helping hand, even if most of the time the other hand was going for your throat.

  She led him through the mostly dark labyrinth until they reemerged on the street via an equally dark and dank alleyway. It was Eighth again, porno theaters and sex shops ad infinitum. Under the burning brilliance of the Deuce’s billions of portico bulbs, Charley could finally have a look at the strange woman who rescued him back there. She wasn’t ugly.

  Her eyes were large, feline; brown and wide. She wore a strong, angular jaw that sloped to a rounded chin, and her lips seemed to permanently smile. She was an uncommonly tall woman, and slender despite her jutting bust. Charley found himself charmed.

  “I’m Ursula,” she said, extending her hand.

  Charley accepted the shake and said, “Charley. And thanks again.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Ursula said. “Just stay out of the backways, okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  Ursula gave him a sad kind of smile and started to walk off, but then she stopped and turned to face him again.

  “Look, if you’re hurt you can come back to my room. I’m at the Hotel Carver. It’s just around the corner. I’ll fix you up.”

  Charley swallowed. What a night he was having—first he stalks some poor stripper because she looks like a girl he didn’t even know, then he manages to get knocked out by a gorilla in a dangerous back alley. Now the loveliest woman on the nastiest block in town was inviting him back to her room. It was all so absurd he almost started laughing. And then it hit him. Hotel.

  “Oh my god,” he gasped.

  “What? What is it, Charley?”

  “I was supposed to be at work almost two hours ago! Christ, what was I thinking?”

  Ursula pursed her lips and frowned.

  “Okay,” she said sternly. “I get it. But just for the record, I wasn’t trying to fuck you or anything—not for free, baby. I was just trying to be nice. See where that gets me?”

  “No, seriously—I’m really late for work. I can’t believe this. Jesus, I’ve gotten myself so screwed up over this…”

  Ursula’s frown turned to a startled look of bewilderment. She cocked her head to one side and arched a well-plucked eyebrow.

  “Well, I hope they don’t shit-can you. In any event, I’ll be right over there if you ever need a friend. Hotel Carver, room three-twenty-five. No hustle, just being friendly.”

  And, with a flip of her hand that jangled the thin wire bracelets on her wrist, Ursula flipped around and glided around the corner to Forty-Second, due east. Charley ran his fingers through his hair while he watched her disappear into the crowd.

  Christ, he thought. What a night.

  The Rose Hotel was managed by a fat German called Sol who yelled everything he said and always seemed angry. Charley was fond of him, not the least because he’d given Charley such a break when he first got to the city. He’d managed to make rent for the first week with no problems, and after that he scraped by for the second, but when time came to pay up at the end of the third week he was flat busted. Most anybody else would have thrown the kid out on his ear, but Sol felt sorry for him and put Charley to work at the front desk when the regular night guy failed to show. When Sol discovered that the guy had gotten pinched for chicken-hawking in the Square, the job went to Charley on a permanent basis. You could never tell by looking at his mean as hell scrunched up face, but the truth of it was that Sol was a softy at heart.

  Charley hated to let him down. But here he’d failed to show up for his shift, just like that pervert had almost two years before. He hoped Sol didn’t fire him, but he wouldn’t have blamed him if he did. He just prayed the old guy didn’t think he had been cruising for young stuff on the Deuce. Charley raced for the subway around the corner from the New Amsterdam and tried to will the train to go faster as he gradually made his way down to the hotel.

  The Rose was in the East Village, a nasty four-story flophouse with wasted burnouts lounging on the steps. Like the Harris there was a bathhouse next door and whenever the hustlers had had enough or made enough, they more often than not crawled over to the Rose for a place to sleep it off. The official word from Sol was that so long as nobody made any trouble, everyone was welcome. Trouble was loosely defined. In the year and a half Charley had worked for Sol, he’d had to toss out his fair share of switchblade wielding queens and freakout addicts, and there were at least five ODs and a particularly nasty suicide that made the Post. Charley did not think of that now, but if he had he would probably have considered how often he skirted the periphery of front-page items without ever actually being included in them. He would also have hoped he never did, since no news generally is good news, as they say.

  Charley bolted out of the IRT at Astor Place and raced across to the hotel. From the street he could see right through the open front door to the desk. Sol was there. That wasn’t good.

  After stepping over some awful-looking dude with pustules all over his face, he skipped into the cramped, smoky lobby and gaped open-mouthed at Sol. The German grimaced under the sign that sternly informed all potential residents that checkout time is ten AM and that means ten AM, his glistening, beefy arms folded over his chest.

  “Sorry,” Charley panted, surprised at how out of breath he was. “Jesus, Sol. I’m sorry.”

  “Da fuck is dis shit, Chahley?” Sol growled. “Why you do dis to me? I got cards wit my brudder-in-law tonight, don’t you know dat? I should be a hunnert dollars richer right now.”

  “I know, Sol. Jesus, I’m so sorry.” Charley pointed to his own spinning head, hoping some sign of his alleyway adventures showed. “I got rolled, man.”

  “Rolled? You get beat up, Chahley?” Now Sol’s temperament altered dramatically. He was still raging, just not at Charley anymore. “Someone beat you up? Who did dis? Who beats you up, Chahely? Goddamn it, I rip out his throat!”

  Some guy in a gray trench coat and a shiny bald head wandered in from off the street then, grinning from ear to ear and mumbling to himself. He staggered up to the counter, but Sol didn’t even look at him.

  “Ten,” he grumbled. The guy dug out a wad of damp one-dollar bills and counted them out slowly. “What you do to him, anyways?”

  “Nothing. Really, I didn’t even know him. He just got the drop on me and I was out on the pavement for a while.”

  “On the pavement!” Sol exclaimed. Then, to the mumbling guy, “Three-oh-one. Top of de stairs and down the hall. Dere’s a shower in de bathroom next to de room. Jesus, Chahley, why you spent so much time up dere in dat place? Someday dey don’t roll you. Someday dey kill you.”

  The new tenant accepted his key and stumbled forth to the stairs. Neither Charley nor Sol paid him any mind.

  “What can I say, Sol? I’m in love with the place. It’s a disease, maybe.”

 
; “Maybe you need vaccination, den.”

  Charley laughed a little but Sol didn’t. He had resumed his poise with the arms across his chest.

  “And I thought it must’a been a girl. I should knock you in de head was it a girl make you not come to work, Chahley.”

  Charley raised his brows and made a nervous smile.

  “Honest to God, Sol. This guy was a gorilla. I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “Then maybe you learn. Stay away from dem nasty movies and all the nasty people what go there. Dere is plenty of nice movies anywhere else in the city. I saw nice adventure at the Elgin wit Michael Caine in it. Ashanti or something like dat. You should go see dat next time. No more sleazy pornos and horror movies for you, Chahley.”

  “You might as well tell a junkyard dog to quit barking, Sol. Now get out there and go play your card game. I’ll take over and work any extra hours you need.”

  Sol sighed and shook his head.

  “No, not tonight. Too late to get in good now and I don’ want to go home to Stella.”

  Charley nodded solemnly.

  “Screaming again?”

  “Like a witch, she is. No, it’s better here. Go home and clean up yourself, my friend. Sol isn’t angry wit you. Not dis time. Go home and be sure you’re not late next time or I squeeze your neck!”

  Sol made like he was wringing a neck with his hands to illustrate the point.

  Charley followed Sol’s orders and went back to the Astor Place stop and began his trek back to his walkup in Alphabet City. It was either working in this awful place or going back home to his own hellhole. Any way he looked at it the worst places in the city were like magnets to him. He dozed a little on the subway, but he was awake enough to idly wonder if Ursula’s flophouse on the Deuce was any better than the Rose. He very seriously doubted it.