Trash cans, battered by use, lined the curbs, waiting for dawn. These, too, had meaning, especially a deformed washtub heaped to overflow by wine bottles. Stark stopped abruptly, leaned far forward and narrowed his bloodshot eyes.
“I’ll be goddamned,” he said in solemn awe. “It’s a bloody avant garde masterpiece…” He laughed at his own ridiculousness.
A black and white prowl car slid to the curb, its bright headlights bathing him. It immediately broke his mood. A policeman, featureless beneath the bill of his hat, popped his head from the window, like a puppet from a box.
“What’re ya doin’ out here, buddy? It’s late to be roaming.”
“Just digging the crazy art.”
“What?”
“Bringing out the rubbish.” He knew the officer had stopped to see if he was a drunk. The hustler straightened himself. “They pick it up early. I work nights so I brought it out. Glad to see you on the job. It makes me feel safer leaving my wife home alone.”
“Okay, mister. Don’t work too hard.” He looked pointedly down at the numerous wine bottles. “And watch your ulcers.”
The police car slid away to prowl other places in the night. Stark watched it and sobered up. “Better be cool before this happy grass gets me locked up for laughing at the moon.”
He quickened his pace toward the Panama Club.
3
__________
Sounds of strident jukebox saxophone reached out to Stark as he neared the door of the Panama Club. A marine staggered out, shirt unbuttoned and hat askew, and stood wavering on the sidewalk as if debating which course his life should take. He was one of numberless servicemen who came from as far away as San Diego in search of liquor, laughter, and a lay.
Stark detoured around the drunk and slipped inside. Blatant light, screaming percussion, and the odor of cigarette and perfume assaulted his senses simultaneously. He loved it all. It was his turf. He stood in the shadows while his eyes adjusted to the glare. He scanned the large, pul-ating room — bar, small dance floor, the filled tables, crowded, though not as jammed as on weekends. Rock and roll boomed from the jukebox. A bleached B-girl and a rosy cheeked sailor were the only dancers.
Through the haze and movement, Stark saw Momo and Dummy at the far end of the bar, just where he’d left them. Dummy was sharply dressed as always, wearing a salt and pepper sports coat. His handsome face was unlined. Momo was just the opposite. He was hulking, drab, unpressed; as soon as he put on clothes his blobbish figure wrinkled them. His face was swarthy, pockmarked, and shiny with sweat. What a pair, he thought.
Stark moved smoothly between the tables, skirted the dance floor, nodded a hip hello to the barmaid, and arrived behind the two men.
“A little air,” he said to Momo, nodding to Dummy. Stark slipped between them, glancing at the profile of Momo Mendoza’s swarthy, acne-pitted face.
“Where’d you go?” Momo asked. “You’ve been gone a while.”
Before Stark could reply Dummy demanded attention in the hand language of mutes. He pointed to Stark’s head and made a motion as if turning on a faucet. The implication was clear. Stark grinned and winked, relieved.
Dummy nodded. He patted the lean-faced man on the shoulder, took a quarter from the stack of coins on the bar, and moved away. Stark turned once more to Momo.
“Where’d you go?” the Hawaiian repeated. “Somebody said they saw you get in a car.” Stark was stunned. Dummy must have spotted him. He cut his eyes to Momo’s black, expressionless pools and momentarily could not think. Instantly, he gained control of himself, but wondered if Momo suspected or had seen his reaction. He leaned toward the man in a ludicrous exaggeration of conspiracy: “Man,” he whispered, “that was Harry Anstetter, chief of the whole damn state narcotics bureau.”
Momo’s face cracked into a slight smile at the ridiculousness. A smile was not enough. Stark leaned closer, his mouth almost touching Momo’s ear.
“Don’t tell anybody, keep it cool, but old Harry didn’t come on business. The guy’s an undercover pansy… been in love with me for years.”
Momo’s smile grew to vulgar laughter, Stark’s fear dissipating with the sound of it. He flagged a bartender and ordered a glass of ginger ale. While waiting for it, he said off-handedly that he had gone to smoke some marijuana that a friend had given him.
“I didn’t think you liked pot,” Momo said.
“Now and then… I go for anything. He’s been bugging me to get some. Hell, that was my drug of choice, until you started giving me free rides of your shit. Now I got to have a couple of tastes every day. Like medicine. One in the a.m. and one in the p.m.”
Momo nudged him and gestured with a thumb toward the jukebox. Dummy had slipped there, leaning into the vibrations of the music. It was one of the rare times he saw Dummy smile. Stark snickered, but was not interested; more important things were on his mind:
“You got anything for my p.m.?”
“It’ll cost you a ten spot. And that’s my wholesale price.”
“I’ve got the dough. You got a couple of bundles?”
“Not here. It’s near my pad. It won’t take long to get to.”
“At your bargain prices, I should take a couple days’ worth.”
Momo nodded. “How soon do you need it? The club closes in another hour.”
“The sooner the better. This weed’s got my brain fuzzy as the jute mill in San Quentin.”
Momo nodded his head again, this time sympathetically. “Marijuana is for sex freaks. I don’t mess with it myself.” He lifted a shot glass of cheap bar whiskey and dumped it down his throat. On the way out, Momo paused at the jukebox to wave to Dummy. The mute nodded goodbye and stared at Stark, his eyes never leaving the two as they departed.
On the street outside, followed by the strains of music and surrounded by a light fog, Stark said, “Dummy makes me nervous. His eyes are scary. Even in the joint guys avoided him. He’s cold, man. You’d think after our doing time together he’d be friendlier.”
“He’s okay,” Momo said. “He’s reliable. And people don’t fuck with him. A little crazy, maybe. But reliable.”
“Does he work for you? How does he make his dough? Is he a stickup artist?” Momo ignored his questions, but smiled. “The dames seem to find him attractive.”
Both men grinned sardonically and entered the parking lot where Stark’s six-year-old Chevy wagon was parked. The vehicle was the remnant of his brief employment by a Los Angeles vending machine company. They’d provided the wreck. He kept it when they split. He’d had a nice little side racket going, before the cops nabbed him. He’d been skimming the machines and competing with them by selling owners and bartenders untaxed butts he brought in from Mexico. He hadn’t bargained on being caught by the cops before the Mob noticed a drop-off in sales. He was lucky that all he got was two years in the slammer and three years parole. It was not his first offense. Earlier, another foolproof scam had gone wrong, and he’d been caught. He was twenty-eight years old and had a total of five years in jail - including his juvie stretch. That was three years ago. A lifetime back.
The ride to Momo’s dump was brief and quiet. On the way, Stark found himself remembering a story he’d heard about Dummy. Seems like the first time he got busted, he and another kid had tried to hold up a gas station. The other kid was underage, Dummy was eighteen. When the attendant refused to open the cash register, Dummy made noises, which made the guy laugh, despite the gun Dummy was holding. “Go on home and give your pa his gun,” the guy cracked. This made Dummy mad, and he hit him on the side of his head with the gun, which went off. The two would-be robbers ran off with nothing. The attendant identified the kid, who lived in the neighborhood. The kid gave up Dummy. The kid went to juvenile hall, and Dummy went to prison. It was later reported that shortly after Dummy got out of prison, the kid was found stabbed to death.
And Crowley expects me to rat out this guy? Better Momo, a pal, than that killer.
At Momo’s addr
ess the two men went quickly up the creaking stairs and down the dreary hallway, lit only by a bare lightbulb dangling from the ceiling. Momo turned his key in the lock and nudged the door open.
“Wait inside,” he said, “I’ll go get the stash.”
“Make it quick, sport. I wanna geeze.”
“Just a few minutes. Make yourself comfortable.”
Momo went back down the hall. Stark heard the creak of stairs and moved into the apartment. It was one dark room with a bathroom and kitchenette. The only light was the wan rectangle from the hallway where he stood. It splashed out over a double bed. Stark was instantly aware that someone was sleeping in it. A glance around showed a dame’s clothes on the back of a chair. A foot, with carmine toenails, protruded from the mounds of sheets and blankets.
When Stark shut the door and found the light switch, the sleeper shifted around, face still hidden.
“Is that you, baby?” asked a husky voice.
“It’s me, baby, whoever I am. But am I the baby you’re talking about?”
The girl swam above the blankets, rubbing her eyes from sleep. When she stopped rubbing them, he could see her beautiful emerald eyes with their telltale pinpoint pupils.
“Who the fuck are you? How’d you get in?”
“Name’s Stark. Friend and associate of Momo. Sorry about waking you up. He just let me in. He’s gone to get something I need.”
“That’s no big thing. Traffic’s heavy here.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on a cluttered nightstand, found it empty, and with a sigh threw it, crumpled, onto an overflowing ashtray.
Silently Stark lit two cigarettes and handed her one. He wondered what this good-looking dame was doing, shacked up in a dump with a grub like Momo. If she was hooked, she was pretty enough to work as a call girl in the big leagues of the Apple or Hollywood.
“Have you got a name?” he asked, “or do I just call you ‘pretty’?”
“Call me pretty by all means, but Dorie Williams is my name.” She smiled. It lit up her entire face, especially those green eyes flecked with gold. For a brief moment she was a bright little girl with auburn hair and traces of freckles across her unpowdered nose. “And your name is… I forgot?”
“Stark.”
“Stark. That’s neat. Man of few words. I like that.”
“Action speaks louder than words. That’s me.”
Stark sat down in a straight-backed chair and tilted it back against the wall, stretching out his long legs. Dorie dragged on her cigarette and let the smoke curl from her wide mouth into her nostrils.
“Where’s Momo?”
“He went down the hall. He’s taking care of business.”
Dorie nodded. She was wide awake now and moved back against the headboard, her knees up, still covered to her neck by the sheet. She watched him closely, studying.
“How do I know you’re not a burglar or a rapo?”
“You can’t. I’m too smart to be a burglar, that’s not my racket. And as for being a rapo, why steal what’s available for sale?”
Dorie blushed for a moment, then threw back her head and laughed. “You talk just like Humphrey Bogart. I’ve only known you five minutes, and you think I’m for sale. That’s pretty cold,” she said, her voice mocking.
“You might call me that.”
They were momentarily silent, appraising each other. Dorie moved to mash out the cigarette and the sheet slipped away from her breasts, exposing full brownish-nippled whiteness. He wondered if the flash was on purpose.
“Where’d Momo find you?” Dorie asked.
“Find me?”
“Yeah, find you? Locate you? Meet you? Catch you?”
“You mean, he’s never mentioned my name? We’re old friends. I’ve just been away for a while.”
“Away? Prison? A guy like you? Too smart to be a burglar?”
“Hey, everyone makes mistakes. Even you. How’d you hook up with Momo? And why?”
“Same as you. Shooting up and going to hell. It’s as good a place as any. But for your information, Momo found me in a nuthouse.”
“I was going to guess that. Camarillo?”
“Yes.”
“You were taking a cure?”
“That and recuperating from a nervous breakdown. They fixed the last but not the first.”
“How long were you there?”
“Six months. It was a self-commitment.”
“And Momo was there to beat a felony charge. Now back in the twilight zone.”
“Yep. I’m what you might call real friendly with my connection. And it’s a ball. Real choice.”
“Whatever you like for kicks, I guess.”
“I like to try everything once.”
Stark fell silent, eyes flitting to the door, ears tuned for the first sound of Momo’s approaching steps.
“He should be back by now,” Dorie said. “It doesn’t usually take him that long.”
“Maybe he got busted. What’ll you do then?”
She shrugged. “You look promising… for a while.”
The statement was scarcely out of her mouth when the door knob turned. Dorie pulled the sheets up as Momo slipped in and fastened the nightchain.
“Sorry to hang you up,” he said. “It took a little longer than usual to get your order.”
“Where did you go?” asked Stark.
“The less you know the better.”
Stark grinned. “Cool by me. Can I fix here?”
“I guess it’s okay. I’m gonna fix myself. What about you, Dorie?”
“Never leave me out of that automobile ride, honey. I love it.”
Momo led them to the bathroom. He handed Stark one of the toy red balloons. They were tied at the top, making tiny asymmetrical balls. Within each was ten capsules of shit.
“Get the outfit, baby,” Momo commanded Dorie. Then he extended his hand palm upward to Stark. “That’ll be forty bucks for the bindles.”
“You’re sure a trusting soul,” Stark said, as he slipped him a few bills.
Momo grabbed the bills and stuffed them in his pocket, uncounted, in his impatience to get fixed. He stepped to the doorway, looking at Dorie. She was on the far side of the room, standing tiptoe on a chair by the front door, probing with eager fingers in a crevice of the moulding overhead.
“You gonna take all night to get the goddamn outfit?” Momo asked.
“It’s wedged in, honey. Be cool and I’ll have it in a second.”
Momo grunted unintelligibly and waited, watching her. She didn’t seem to be making progress. The sight of her ass trembling through her sheer negligee as she struggled somehow increased his impatience. He was moving forward to get it himself when she turned.
“Here it is,” she said. She came lithely down from the chair, extending the outfit. He took it wordlessly and spun back to the tiny bathroom.
Stark was beside the sink. He had taken the spoon from the medicine cabinet and it lay on the yellowed porcelain. In the spoon was white powder.
“Let me have it.” Stark said.
“Have what?” Momo asked.
“The fit.” He gestured to the spread-out paraphernalia. “I’m ready and I’m in a hurry. Let me go first.”
Momo looked at the spoon and shook his head incredulously. “You’ve got balls. This is my pad. I fix first. Ain’t that right, baby?”
Dorie smiled enigmatically and shrugged. She wouldn’t take sides.
“What the hell are you trying to pull?” Momo flared.
“Shouldn’t a good host let a guest, a paying guest, go first?” said Stark.
Momo’s face flushed. His jaws flexed and his lips pressed tightly. He did not like Stark’s thinly veiled sarcasm.
“Are ya lookin’ for a trip to the hospital?” Momo asked. He leaned forward in a challenge.
Stark saw the danger and shifted gears. He grinned widely and slapped Momo on the shoulder. “Man, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to pull a fast one, and I don’t want to hassle w
ith you. You’re my pal… and the best connection in town. And you ain’t no chump. I know that. It’s just that I’m in a hurry, got things on my mind.” He spoke fast, joshingly, with seeming sincerity.
Momo’s face softened. He looked down. “Okay, man, let it go. Forget it. I just lost my temper for a second.”
“You ought to apologize for threatening your friends,” Stark chided. “Instead, let me fix first and then I’ll know you’re sorry.”
Momo froze, blinked, and then guffawed. He waved a hand toward the sink. “Be my guest.” He turned to Dorie, who had watched intently. “This guy could sell chastity belts to prostitutes. But I like him, the bastard.”
“Yes, I know. He’s attractive, in a dumb kind of way. A real hustler.”
Stark brushed Dorie with a sharp glance. She had made several strange remarks in the brief minutes since he met her. She had a weird quickness of mind he liked but that could be dangerous. He would have to watch her, but damn it if she didn’t have his number.
“Do me a favor, baby,” he said. “Get me something to tie off with.”
“An old nylon of mine. How’s that?” Her eyebrows raised in mock coquettishness and her voice was affectedly husky, a little Veronica Lake. She, too, was a blonde.
“That’ll do it,” he said. He ignored the gambit.
Momo was too preoccupied in unwrapping the makeshift hypodermic kit to notice the exchange. He placed the needle and eyedropper next to the spoon, and then half filled a glass with water.
“Make it quick,” he said. “I’m next.” Stark ignored both Momo and Dorie. She left the bathroom to fetch the nylon. The shapely dame moved with the swift sureness of a priest performing a grotesque ritual. The needle was fitted onto the eyedropper, the tip of which was wrapped in black thread. Water was sucked from the glass through the needle to make sure it would not clog. A much smaller amount of water was drained into the powder-filled spoon. Several matches were lit simultaneously, the scent of burning sulphur rising up to churn Stark’s stomach with nausea. The spoon was moved over the flame and the powder dissolved, becoming a steamy clear liquid tinted faintly brown.
Stark: A Novel Page 2
