The Neon Jungle

by John D. MacDonald

  “It’s swell, Mr. Varaki.”

  “No mister. I am Pop. I am Gus. I am no mister. You unpacking, then no work today. Look around. Take a look at the neighbor houses. Tomorrow is work quick enough, you bet anybody.” Gus stood for a moment and Paul saw his eyes go dull as he seemed to look into distant places. The life seemed to drain out of the man.

  “This is fine, Gus,” Paul said.

  “Er? Oh, sure. Hope the boy likes. Plain food here. Plenty of food, you bet anybody.” He jabbed Jimmy in the ribs. “I take you buying in the morning. Still dark. You learn something new, eh?”

  “Sure.”

  “Come down now and meet my Teena. Home from school today. Not feeling good.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t bother her now, then,” Paul said. “Is not bother.”

  They followed him down the hall on the floor below and he banged noisily on Teena’s door. “Teena! Come meet new boyfriend, Cheemee.”

  They heard her faint answer and soon the door opened. She stood, unsmiling, in the doorway. It had been many weeks since Paul had seen Teena and the look of her shocked him. It took only a moment before the second, much greater shock hit him. He had seen a lot of it. The dull look of the oversized pupils of her eyes. The graininess of skin, the dullness of hair, the sleepwalking look. It seemed incredible that Gus could not see it. Yet he supposed she had changed slowly while Gus was lost within himself, lost in the endless mourning for his son. He knew at once that he had to do something, and do it quickly.

  “Teena, this is Cheemee Dover.”

  “Hello,” she said tonelessly.

  “Hi,” Jimmy said, unsmiling.

  “You need new boy to go to movies with, eh?” Gus said, reaching out and awkwardly, playfully knuckling his daughter in the ribs.

  “Cut it out!” she snapped, her voice going thin and shrill. She whirled and banged the door in their faces.

  Gus moved uneasily down the hall, trying to smile and saying, “Today is not feeling good, I guess.”

  Paul turned and saw Jimmy still standing, staring at the closed door. There was an odd thoughtful look on his face.

  “Jimmy!” Paul said.

  The boy seemed to shake himself, like a dog coming out of water. He turned from the door and came down the hall toward the staircase. Paul said, “Go on upstairs and unpack, Jim. I want to talk to Gus.” The boy went up a few stairs, then stopped and turned when Paul said, “I’ll have to be running along after that, Jim. Good luck.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Darmond.”

  Gus was silent on the way down to the front hall. He went into the living room. Doris had left. “Talk in here?”

  “Fine, Gus. Sit down, will you?”

  “Sure. I think he is a good boy, that Cheemee.”

  “This is something else. How has Teena acted lately?”

  “Young girls, they get nerves, maybe. Not smiling much. Lot of dates. Popular, I think. Gets too thin and Anna worries about not eating.”

  “You haven’t been keeping close track of her, have you?”

  “No. Not too close. But why? Is a good girl. I … I do not watch enough, I guess. After Henry is killed, I …” He spread his hands in a helpless gesture and let them fall heavily to his thighs.

  “Gus, she’s in trouble.”

  Gus stared at him, wearing an apologetic smile, his eyes puzzled. The smile slowly faded away and the big hands closed into fists. “Trouble! You mean is having baby? You mean some boy is—” He began to stand up.

  “Sit down, Gus. Worse trouble than that.”

  Gus sat down and the half-shy puzzled smile returned. “Worse? Paul, what is worse? You make a joke, eh?”

  “She’s a drug addict, Gus.”

  The smile grew strained but it remained on his lips. “What big fool tell you that kind of lie, friend Paul?”

  “Nobody told me. I could see it when I looked at her. Anybody who has had any experience with them could see it.”

  “No, Paul. Not my Teena. No. Good girl.”

  “Yes, Gus. It’s the truth. There’s a hell of a lot of it in the high schools. There’s a lot of it among the girls. More than there ever was before. There’s a lot of it coming into this section. They got on it and they have to get the money to keep buying it. Teena is a user, Gus. God knows what else she is if you haven’t been keeping track of her.”

  Paul watched the man’s face. He saw the look of stone that came over it. Gus got up and walked to the front windows and looked out across the porch into the street, his hands clasped behind him. Paul went over to him, put a hand lightly on his shoulder.

  “Dirty,” Gus said softly. “So dirty.” He turned just enough so Paul could see his wet cheek. He raised one knotted fist. “I find who sells, and I kill.”

  “That doesn’t help Teena.”

  “I know where the money comes from. I watch. Something is wrong in store. Same business, same prices, not so much money. This thing, it makes her steal from me. From her own pop, eh?”

  “They’ll do anything in the world to get the drug once they have the habit.”

  The old man turned around from the window, his face bleared with tears. “Tell me what I do, Paul. Tell me what I do now. My fault. All the time think of Henry. Henry is dead. Better I should be thinking of Teena.” His voice broke. “What I do now, Paul?”

  “I wouldn’t want her turned over to the county authorities for the standard cure. The best place I know of is Shadowlawn Sanitarium. I know Dr. Foltz, the director. They do a good job out there. It’s about fifteen miles out. It’s expensive, Gus.”

  “Money anybody can have. Not daughters.”

  “She isn’t going to go willingly. If she finds out what you’re planning to do, she’ll leave here. God knows where she’ll go or what will happen to her before we can pick her up. Like all the rest of them, she won’t talk about her connections until her nerves have had a chance to heal. Then she’ll talk. And they’ll clean up one more little group, and while they’re cleaning it up, two more will be starting.”

  “I go up there with a strap. I make her talk, you bet anybody.”

  “Now settle down. You’re not going to whip her. That won’t do a damn bit of good. We’ll try to keep this as quiet as possible. I’ll let them know at the school, and maybe they can turn up a lead, the kids she was hanging around with. I’ll check with Rowell and he can see that her friends are investigated.”

  “Not him, Paul. No. The shame!”

  “I’ll tell him to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Just like he talk with Bonny, maybe?”

  “I’m sorry about that. I want to talk to her.”

  “Everything is go to hell, Paul.”

  “So we’ll fix everything, Gus. Now make sure she doesn’t leave the house. I’ll phone Foltz and see if he wants to have somebody pick her up, or if he wants me to take her out there.”

  “Not from store.”

  “I’ll go down the street and phone.”

  Paul went down the street and shut himself in a drugstore booth and phoned Dr. Foltz.

  “Doctor, this is Paul Darmond. I’ve got a patient for you.”

  “Which kind this time, Paul?”

  “Dope. Just a kid. A girl seventeen. Daughter of a friend of mine. I’ll vouch for him as far as the fees are—”

  “You don’t have to say that. Is she willing?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it. I happened to spot it just a few minutes ago.”

  “How does she look physically?”

  “Pretty beat. Thin as a rail. Her name is Christine Varaki. Her father runs a market on Sampson Street.”

  “We’re getting too many of them, Paul. It’s rough on my people. They generally make at least one attempt to kill themselves the first week. Can you bring her out?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Bring someone else along to help. Somebody husky. They look frail but they move fast. If she gets suspicious, she may try to grab the wheel.”

  “O.K. How long w
ill she be out there? I want to tell her father.”

  “Depends on the strength of the habit and how run down she is. Tell him two months. That’s a fair average. If he wants an estimate of how much it will cost, tell him twelve hundred. That ought to cover everything. She can’t have visitors until she’s been here two weeks. I’ll mail him a form to fill out and sign and return. No, I can give it to you.”

  Gus was still sitting in the living room when he went back. He gave him the information.

  “I’d like to get going as soon as I can, Gus. I have to take somebody with me. You want to come?”

  “I … do not want to see what …”

  “I understand. I ought to take somebody. Walter?”

  “Better he should not know yet.”

  Paul remembered how Jimmy Dover had stood outside Teena’s closed door. He said quickly, “How about the new boy? Is that all right with you?” It was an impulsive suggestion, he realized.

  Gus frowned. “All right, I guess. Maybe she likes better some boy the same age, almost.”

  Jimmy Dover was sitting on his bed, staring out the window. He turned quickly as Paul came in. He blushed. “I was getting up my nerve to go downstairs, Mr. Darmond.”

  “Are you good at keeping things under your hat?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I need your help, Jim. You noticed how strange Teena acted?”

  “I sure did. I don’t know. It bothered me.”

  “We’ve just found out she’s a drug addict.”

  Dover whistled softly. “A junkie!”

  “I’m taking her right away to a sanitarium outside of town. She might make quite a fuss. I’ll have to drive and I may need somebody to hold her.”

  “Me? You want me to help?”

  “Don’t you think you can hold her?”

  “Sure. But it just seemed …”

  “You know where I parked the car. You go down to the car. I’m going to see if I can get her into some clothes and downstairs without a fuss. The trouble will start in the car, when we head the wrong way.”

  Paul walked down the second-floor hallway to Teena’s door and rapped softly.

  “Who is it? What do you want?”

  “Paul Darmond, Teena. Police headquarters just located me here. They want me to bring you downtown.”

  “What for?”

  “They’ve picked up a girl on a charge of theft. Saturday night. The girl claims she was with you. They want you to go down and make a statement.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “She hasn’t given them her name.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “They didn’t say. She says she’s a close friend of yours.”

  There was a long silence. “I’ll get dressed and be down in a minute.”

  Paul went down and told Gus to go back to the market, to get out of sight. He was afraid Gus’s face would be a giveaway.

  Three minutes later Teena came slowly down the stairs, sliding her hand down the railing.

  Ten

  PAUL GOT BEHIND THE WHEEL and Teena got in the middle. Jimmy got in and pulled the door shut.

  “I think it’s a girl I know named Ginny,” Teena said.

  Paul started the car. “A good friend?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Were you with her Saturday night?”

  “I’ll tell them down there when I know who it is.” Paul saw her give Jimmy an oblique glance. “Why’re you coming too?”

  “I got to go down there anyway. It saves a trip.”

  “You just got out, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. Fresh out. Why?”

  “I was just asking.”

  Paul turned off Sampson onto Crown Avenue and followed Crown east. He had to stop for a red light. Teena was staring straight ahead, her hands in her lap. Paul looked across her and gave Jimmy a quick nod. Jimmy casually moved his hands a bit closer to hers.

  When the light changed, Paul turned right. For a moment Teena did not react, and then she straightened up. “Why’re you going this way? Downtown is straight ahead.”

  “I have to make a stop,” Paul said easily. “It isn’t far out of the way.”

  She leaned back. “Oh.”

  She was silent while the blocks went by. They reached the city line and went on. She sat forward again. “There’s something fishy about this. What’s going on? Where are you taking me?”

  “Just take it easy, Teena.”

  “What do you mean, take it easy?” Her voice was getting more shrill. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To a place where they’ll take care of you, where they’ll make you well.”

  She sat still for at least three seconds and then exploded with a startling violence. Jimmy managed to clap his hands over her wrists. She drove her teeth down toward the back of his hand, but he managed to get his elbow under her chin in time. She was grunting and straining with the effort. She jabbed her left foot over toward the pedals and Jimmy hooked his big foot around her leg and yanked it back.

  “Can you hold her?”

  “I got her, Mr. Darmond.”

  “I won’t go there! I won’t stay!” She struggled again, so strongly that she nearly broke Jimmy’s grasp, and then suddenly she lay back, panting. “I’m going to say you both got me in the back seat and attacked me. I’ll swear it. On Bibles.”

  “Attack a junkie?” Jimmy said harshly. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. It makes me sick having to hold on to you.”

  “Easy, Jim,” Paul said.

  “Easy, hell. After this I’m going back and take a hot bath. Get a cure and maybe you’ll be worth looking at. The way you are, kid, you stink!”

  She crumpled forward, doubling over her imprisoned hands. Hard sobs shook her. Jimmy winked blandly at Paul across her thin shoulders. Suddenly he yelped as she bit his hand. He snatched it free and she leaned across him and grabbed for the door handle. He cuffed her and grabbed her wrists again. She called them both foul names for the next few miles, then became silent.

  By the time they reached the sanitarium, there was no more resistance in her. They drove through wrought-iron gates and up a steep graveled road to the main building. People walked in twos and threes around the wide green lawns.

  They took her to the receiving desk and the large woman there smiled and said, “Christine Varaki? Hello, dear.”

  Teena spat.

  The woman’s smile did not change. She picked up her phone and called an extension and said, “Dorothy? Are you ready for the Varaki girl?” She listened and hung up. “There’ll be a nurse right down, dear. You look like the first thing you need is a good scrubbing and a shampoo.”

  “The first thing I need is a fix, Fatty.”

  “Mr. Darmond, the forms are in this envelope. Dr. Foltz said to tell you he’s sorry he’s tied up.”

  A solid-looking redheaded nurse with a pugnacious jaw came clacking down the echoing hall. She looked intently at Teena. “Golly, kid, they told me you were going to be a bad one. You got a lightweight habit. Come on.”

  Teena walked away with her with surprising docility. Only when she was forty feet down the hall did she look back. Her pallid face looked small, and she looked drab and thin beside the white confidence of the nurse.

  They went back out to the car. When they turned out onto the highway Paul said, “Pretty rough, weren’t you?”

  “A guy did it for me once.”

  “Did what, Jim?”

  “The first week I was up there. I was a hot charge. I was wired. Hard, man. One boy named Red took me off the strut. Caught me behind the laundry. Cuffed hell out of me. Proved to me I was a punk. A sixteen-year-old punk. It gives you a better look at yourself. I was doing the same thing. I hope it wasn’t too much.”

  “I don’t think it was.”

  They rode in silence for a few miles. Jimmy said, “Does the city bus come out this way?”

  “There’s a bus that comes out.”

  “I won
der if anybody’d kick if I came to see her, after they get her quieted down.”

  “I don’t think they’d mind.”

  “Her friends are probably on the junk too. They wouldn’t go within nine miles of that place. Somebody ought to go see her. Besides her family, I mean.”

  “Do you think it will help?”

  “She was pretty, I bet.”

  “Very.”

  It wasn’t until he parked in front of the store that Jimmy spoke again. He laughed and said, “It’s crazy.”

  “What is?”

  “That’s the first girl I’ve had a chance to talk to in two years.”

  “This is going to be called a nervous breakdown, Jim.”

  “Sure. I understand.”

  They went in and Paul looked up Gus and told him there hadn’t been any trouble, and gave him the papers. Gus said he had decided to tell Walter, and Walter could help him with the papers.

  Paul knew that Walter would tell Doris. And Doris would, with a delightfully superior sense of her station, suck hungrily at this new horror, seeing not the tragedy of it, seeing it only as a distortion of her own environment, a new flaw that could be used to point up her own purity, using it as a little hammer to drive home more neatly the sharpened tacks that held firm the endless ribbon of her conversation. In a week the whole neighborhood would know what had happened.

  Bonny was behind the counter, wearing a pale cardigan and gray slacks. There was no one nearby when he went over to her. She looked up into his face. “Yes?”

  “I wonder if I could talk to you. I’ve got an errand that shouldn’t take long. I’ll be back in three quarters of an hour. Maybe you’d let me buy you a lunch?”

  “You all move in at the same time, don’t you?”

  “It isn’t like that, Bonny.”

  “What do you think it’s like? Didn’t they give you a badge you can show me?”

  “I want to talk to you,” he repeated stubbornly.

  “Actually I don’t have any choice, do I?”