Boldt

by Ted Lewis

  “And talking about money,” I say to him, “this stuff don’t come cheap these days. What do you do to make the dough to keep yourself in the sauce?”

  Cassidy keeps on looking at me for a while and then looks at his glass and says, “I got a pension. I used to be a Navy man.”

  Murdock’s low laugh comes from the doorway behind me.

  “Yeah, I guess he’d float at that,” Murdock says.

  “I ain’t lying,” Cassidy protests. “I got a busted knee. Got it off the coast, Korea, that is.”

  “You got a busted knee?”

  “Yeah,” Cassidy says, finally putting the glass to his mouth and swallowing half the contents.

  “Show me,” I say to him.

  “Ask him,” Cassidy says. “Lewis’ll tell you. He sees the way I walk. I got a stick, look over in the corner.”

  “That’s right...” Lewis begins, but I tell him to shut up.

  “Show me,” I tell Cassidy again.

  Cassidy takes the other half of his drink and puts the glass down on the table, stretches out his arms behind him and begins to lever himself up off the bed. When he’s standing up he almost overbalances and I catch hold of one of his arms and straighten him up. Now he’s upright and his pants slip down to his ankles. One of his knees is sort of pushed to one side, as though he was a robot and somebody’d taken a hammer and just tapped him a bit to send the knee a little out of line.

  “You want to see how I walk?” Cassidy says.

  I tell him to sit down.

  “Yeah,” he says, and does that and then pours himself another glass, his trousers still around his ankles. Murdock comes into the room and begins to go through the drawers and the closets.

  “But even so,” I say to Cassidy, “a Navy pension. I mean, you got a bill for what you bought this morning?”

  I pick up the empty grocery bag from off the floor and feel inside it.

  “I don’t know,” Cassidy says. “Maybe. There may be one in there.”

  I shake my head.

  “No,” I say to him. “There doesn’t seem to be.”

  Cassidy shrugs. I drop the bag back on the floor.

  “Maybe you could tell us where you bought the stuff,” I say to him. “I guess they’d remember you, a regular customer with a gimpy leg.”

  “I don’t know what it’s called,” Cassidy says. “It’s a place just up the street. That’s where I go, mostly.” Murdock stops going over the room, looks at me and shakes his head.

  “That what you looking for?” Cassidy says. “A guy that knocked over a liquor store?”

  I look at him but I don’t say anything.

  Cassidy shakes his head and looks at his knee and laughs. “Man,” he says, “if it was me, I’d still be only halfway to the door, don’t you think?”

  “Come on,” I say to Murdock. “The Navy man’s got some drinking to do.”

  “I’d ask you to join me,” Cassidy says, “but I only got one spare glass, and I don’t like the taste of toothpaste.”

  We walk out of the room and close the door behind us.

  “Okay,” I say to the clerk. “Down the hall to your friend’s room.”

  “He’s out,” the clerk says.

  “That’s okay. We won’t mess anything up.”

  The clerk turns away and we follow him down the hall. He unlocks the third door down and we walk into the hustler’s room. This time we’re presented with a different kind of smell which, although it’s cleaner, turns my stomach almost as much as the last one.

  The clerk closes the door behind us.

  “Well,” Murdock says, looking around the room, “maybe it won’t get into Good Housekeeping, but it sure is sweet.”

  The room is a carbon of the last one except that it’s one hundred percent cleaner and the air is fresher and the bed is made complete with a couple of embroidered cushions decorating the bedspread that don’t come with the fixtures and fittings. There are other personal details like the poster of Brando on the motorcycle that’s tacked up on the wall, and the brand new cassette machine that’s within easy reach of the bed, and the stack of well-preserved old movie magazines placed neatly on a stool at the far side of the bed.

  I sit down on the bed and Murdock goes through the room the way he did the last one. It doesn’t take him long and the result is just the same as before. Murdock shrugs and I shrug and the clerk who is leaning up against the wall and watching us both says, “I guess I realize now what attracts somebody into joining the police department.”

  “Oh?” I say. “And what have you figured out?”

  “I figure out that it gives a guy lots of opportunities for jollies. You know, like reminding a crippled lush he’s a crippled lush.”

  I smile at the clerk.

  “What would you like me to remind you you are?” I ask him.

  The clerk doesn’t answer that.

  “Sure,” I say to him, “but you’re right. It’s easy to figure out. It’s like you say, we’re just pigs having fun. We do this, we spend our time in crummy rooming houses because that’s what we like to do best. It’s more fun than bowling. And we’d much rather talk to people like you and Cassidy than, say, going out on a double date with Raquel Welch and Jane Fonda. Isn’t that right, George?”

  Murdock moves slowly across the room and stands in front of the clerk, no more than a few inches away from him.

  “That’s right,” Murdock says. “Like you say, we’re just pigs having fun.”

  The clerk doesn’t say anything and he tries to avoid Murdock’s gaze which is very difficult considering the amount of space Murdock has left between them.

  “That’s right, isn’t it?” Murdock says again.

  The clerk tries to get into the wallpaper but Murdock closes up a little bit more.

  “Isn’t it?” Murdock says, but before anything else happens there is the sound of voices on the landing outside, and then the voices stop, and the door opens and we’re presented with our first look at the hustler and his new-found friend.

  The hustler is dressed in the typical stud outfit, the jeans and the denim jacket and the sweatshirt decorated with the dangling medallion. His hair is black and beautifully combed in the approved mid-fifties style, but it’s apparent that the blackness is achieved with a little outside assistance. Although I’m not close enough to tell, I’d take bets that there are some well-concealed crow’s-feet around the corners of his eyes because this hustler is no longer a young one; he’s closer to forty than he is twenty but like the rest of them he wants to look the eternal teenager.

  His companion is something else again. There’s no doubt at all about his age. He’s somewhere in his late fifties, wearing a panama hat, milk white above the ruddy complexion of a baby, nice soft striped shirt, beautiful grey suit, handmade shoes. Like Cassidy, he’s brought some groceries, clutching the bag against his middle, but unlike Cassidy’s, these groceries are to help things along not blot things out. The hustler’s companion lets the grocery bag slip a little, catches it then hugs it a little tighter to himself.

  “Oh Christ,” he says.

  The hustler looks at me and then at Murdock and then he sees the clerk around the corner leaning against the wall and he says to him, “What’s happening, Lewis?”

  The hustler’s voice is deeper than you’d expect also tougher, hard-edged.

  “I don’t know,” Lewis says. “These gentlemen are just doing their job.”

  The hustler looks at Murdock and me again.

  “You have warrants?” he says.

  “Come inside and close the door,” I tell him.

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said. Do what I told you.”

  The hustler’s companion puts the groceries down on the floor and cl
oses the door.

  “Now look—” the hustler begins, but this time it’s his companion’s turn to interrupt him.

  “Cliff, listen, okay? Don’t rock the boat. I—”

  “Sure, I know,” Cliff says. “You got a family, a wife. You all have.”

  “They—”

  “Shut up. This isn’t a bust, is it fellows?”

  “Oh?” I say to him.

  He shakes his head. “No,” he says, “this isn’t a bust.”

  “You tell us what it is.”

  “I hope you got plenty of dough in that fat little wallet of yours,” Cliff says to his companion. “You’re sure going to need it.”

  “What?”

  “Sure. You’re going to have to buy yourself out of this one. And don’t think it makes any difference we’ve just come in.”

  Murdock goes over to the hustler’s companion and says to him, “Could I see your wallet, sir? For identification purposes.”

  The companion stares at Murdock as if Murdock’s talking in a foreign language.

  “You do have identification?” Murdock says.

  This time the words get through and the companion fusses out his wallet and hands it over to Murdock who flips it open and takes out the companion’s driver’s license.

  “Joseph H. Nicholson,” Murdock reads. “1157 Bellevue Drive.”

  Nicholson doesn’t say anything.

  “Nice district,” Murdock observes.

  “Yeah,” I say, lighting up a cigarette. “Very nice.”

  Murdock digs a little deeper into the wallet and eases out some photographs.

  “This your wife?”

  Nicholson nods.

  “Nice,” Murdock says, passing the photograph over to me.

  “Yeah,” I say, looking at the picture.

  “Your daughters?” Murdock says, taking out another photograph.

  Nicholson nods again.

  “Beautiful girls,” Murdock says. “They in college?”

  “Yes.”

  Murdock hands the photographs to me.

  “Beautiful girls hey, Roy?” Murdock says, then to Nicholson, “I expect you’re pretty proud of them?”

  Nicholson looks at the hustler for some help but the hustler has walked over to the window and is inspecting the traffic flowing by outside.

  “They proud of you?” Murdock asks.

  Nicholson snaps his gaze back at Murdock.

  “They proud of their daddy?” Murdock says.

  I look at the photograph and I’m struck that the two girls smiling out of the picture could easily be the two girls who were accompanying Harold Schwarz early this morning, the same kind of bright smiles, the brilliant teeth, the fresh complexions.

  “They carry pictures of you in their billfolds, too?” Murdock asks. “Like having your dick sucked by guys like Cliff here?”

  “I’m telling you,” Cliff tells Nicholson without turning away from the window. “They’re going to shake you down. Just wear it and pay them all your money. You can afford it.”

  “What’s the matter, Cliff?” I ask him. “You’re talking yourself out of your hourly rate.”

  “I’ll get by,” Cliff says.

  “You bet your sweet life,” I tell him.

  Murdock counts the bills in Nicholson’s wallet.

  “You made a good score this time, Cliff,” Murdock says. “You know how much he’s carrying in here? He’s got almost three hundred bucks.”

  “Look,” Nicholson says to Murdock, almost whispering, as if he doesn’t want anybody else in the room to hear, “look, take it. The only thing I care about is getting out of here and nobody knowing, okay? Just take it, will you?”

  Murdock slams Nicholson up against the door and slaps him across the mouth with the billfold.

  “Listen, filth,” Murdock says. “Shut up, will you?”

  Nicholson’s eyes are wide with fear and incomprehension.

  Murdock looks at him for a minute or two then he slaps him twice more with the billfold and drops it on the floor.

  “Come on, Roy,” Murdock says to me. “Let’s leave these two motherfuckers to fix a price for the job.” Murdock pushes Nicholson out of the way, opens the door and goes out into the corridor. I jerk a thumb at the clerk and he goes out, too. When I get to the doorway, I turn around to Cliff who has already turned away from the window surprised at the way things have worked out.

  “Listen, sweetheart,” I say to him. “Those lips of yours, they’re your stock in trade. You’re lucky they’re still arranged the same way.”

  I close the door behind me.

  “I never could stand guys like that,” Murdock says. “They give me the fucking creeps.”

  “Well, you know what they always say,” the clerk says.

  “No,” Murdock says, looking at him. “What do they always say?”

  “Nothing,” the clerk says, looking away.

  “Good.”

  “That the empty room?” I ask the clerk, pointing to the remaining door.

  “That’s right,” he says.

  “Let’s take a look.”

  “What for?” the clerk says. “I already told you about that.”

  “Let’s take a look anyway.”

  “It’d be a waste of your time. The room’s empty.”

  I’m about to tell the clerk again when a small sound stops me saying what I was going to say. The sound comes from behind the door of the room which is supposed to be empty, and the sound is the sound of a man coughing, just once. Murdock and me look at one another and then at the clerk.

  “The key,” I tell him. “Which one’s the key?”

  The clerk selects a key and pushes the key ring at me. I take it off him and say quietly, “Okay, who’s in there?”

  The clerk shakes his head. I get a grip on his collar. “Who’s in there?”

  “I don’t know. Honest. I don’t know who it is.”

  “There somebody supposed to be in there?”

  The clerk nods his head.

  “Then who—”

  “Look, I don’t know. A guy called Newman. He paid me not to tell anybody about him, that’s all. I don’t know who he is.”

  “Okay,” I tell him. “All right, you don’t know anything about him. But you can go on right over there and unlock the door, okay?”

  “Listen—”

  “Just like you did the other times. It’s easy. You’re good at it.”

  “I—”

  “Do it,” I tell him. “Right now. Just unlock the door and push it wide open.”

  I give him back his keys and he has no choice but to go over to the door and do as I’ve told him. Murdock and me are right behind him. The clerk puts the key in the lock, we get either side of the door, the clerk turns the key and then pushes the door wide open almost falling over himself trying to get out of the way.

  Nothing happens. That goes on for a moment or two then I draw my gun and stick my head around the corner of the door to take a look.

  There’s nothing there but an empty room.

  I lean off the wall and stand in the doorway taking another look but the room’s still empty. I walk a couple of steps forward. Now I can see the bed and the bedside table and on the bedside table there is a pair of field glasses.

  I cross the room and look down at the field glasses. Murdock comes in after me and says, “What have you got?”

  A voice behind us replies.

  “So far he’s got the glasses, but up to now he’s overlooked me.”

  We both whirl around in the direction of the voice which has come from behind the open door. At first I can’t see who the voice belongs to or do anything about it if I have to, then Murdock mov
es and I see, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, a guy in a short-sleeved shirt. He’s a young guy, a sneer on his fresh face. We cover him and Murdock says, “Raise your arms, you mother.”

  The young guy shakes his head, unfolds his arms and says, “Ain’t no need. I mean, if I was who you were looking for, you wouldn’t be looking at me right now.”

  “Face the wall, just face the wall,” Murdock says.

  The guy shrugs and turns around.

  “Save a lot of trouble if you feel in my vest pocket.”

  “Shut up,” Murdock snaps, and goes over the guy. When he’s satisfied, he feels in the guy’s vest pocket and pulls out what looks like an I.D. wallet.

  “My gun’s on that chair over by the window underneath my coat,” the guy says.

  Murdock looks at the wallet while I go over to the chair and lift up the guy’s coat. Sure enough, there underneath it is a shoulder holster holding a piece of government issue.

  Murdock says, “This says this guy’s Secret Service.”

  “Let me see.”

  I take the card off Murdock.

  “Can I turn around now?” the guy says.

  “Shut up,” Murdock replies.

  “Oh, Jesus,” the guy says.

  I look at the card for a minute or two, then hand it back to Murdock.

  “Turn around,” I say to the guy.

  The guy turns around.

  “So,” I say to him. “The card says Secret Service. What did you do, send box tops for it?”

  The guy sighs. “You know I’m what it says I am,” he says. “Deep down in your heart of hearts you know it. But if you want to check it out, I’ll give you an extra few minutes before you have to admit you’re wrong.”

  “That’d be long enough for me to split your lip for you,” Murdock says.

  “Yes, I guess it would,” the guy says.

  “Oh, shit,” I say to Murdock. “Leave it. We’ll check it out, but we know the answer.”

  “Christ,” Murdock says. “Why don’t we ever get to know anything?”

  “You mean you couldn’t guess?” the guy says. “You couldn’t figure we’d have men covering a thing like this?”