EQMM, September-October 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I wanna talk to her."

  "I told you once, Jason. Get out of here. I knocked you on your ass once. And I can do it again."

  "No, you can't."

  Two steps led up to the trailer floor. I was about to set my right foot on the second step when he came at me. My mind had time to register that he was wearing jeans, no shirt, no socks, and he had a whiskey bottle in his hand.

  He tackled me and drove me all the way to the ground. He meant to hit me with the whiskey bottle, but I had the advantage of being sober. He smelled of puke and booze and sex and greasy food, maybe a hamburger.

  As the bottle arced downward, I rolled to the right, moving slowly enough to slam my fist hard into the side of Bill's head. The punch dazed him, but not enough to keep him from trying to get me again with the bottle. This time I didn't have time to move away from it. All I could do was grab the wrist and slow the bottle as it descended. It connected, but not hard enough to knock me out. Or to stop me from landing another punch on the same side of his head as before. This one knocked him loose from me. His straddling legs loosened enough to let me buck him off. He went over backwards. He was drunk enough to be confused by all this happening so quickly. Now it was my turn to straddle him. I just wanted to make his face bloody. I hit him until my hands started to hurt, and then I stood up, grabbed him by an arm, and started dragging him to his motorcycle.

  "Go get his stuff from inside, okay?” I said to Spence.

  He nodded and ran over to the trailer. He didn't need to go inside. Michele was in the doorway, dropping Bill's shoes, socks, shirt, and wallet one by one into Spence's hands. She wore a white terrycloth robe. She had a cigarette going. “You stay with me for a while, Jason?” she said.

  "Sure."

  By now, Bill was on his motorcycle, roaring it to raucous life. Spence handed him his belongings.

  Spence said, “Looks like her nose is busted, man. You do that?"

  "Shut up, Spence,” Bill said. Then he made his bike louder than I'd ever heard it before. Bill glared at Spence for a long time and said, “I don't know what I ever saw in a pussy like you, Spence. Don't call me anymore."

  "You beat her up, man. You don't have to worry about me callin’ you."

  He roared away, grass and dirt churning from beneath his back wheel. He got all the way down the block before I said anything. “I'll just walk home later, Spence."

  "Wait'll you see her, Jason. He beat the shit out of her."

  He walked back to the street and drove away.

  The light was on in the front part of the trailer now. She was gone from the door. When I sat down at the small table across from her, she pushed a cold can of Bud my way. I thanked her and gunned an ounce or two. My head hurt from where Bill got me with the bottle. She'd fixed up her trailer just the right way—so that you forgot you were in a trailer.

  Her delicate nose didn't look broken, as Spence had said, but it was badly bruised. She had a black eye, a bloody, swollen mouth and her left cheek was bruised.

  "Maybe you should go to an ER,” I said.

  "I'll survive.” She made an effort to laugh. “I let him sleep with me but that wasn't enough for him."

  "What the hell else did he want?"

  "Well, he slept with me, but I wouldn't take my bra or my blouse off. I said I had my reasons and I wanted him to respect them. In some weird way, I'd started to like him. Maybe I was just lonely. I never could pick men for shit. You should've seen some of the losers I went out with in L.A. My girlfriends always used to laugh and say that if there was a serial killer on the dance floor, he'd be the one I'd end up with for the night."

  "So you made love and—"

  "We made love. I mean, it wasn't the first time. The last couple of weeks, we'd been sleeping together. And he tried real hard to deal with me not taking my top off. I wouldn't let him touch my breasts.” She smiled with bloody teeth. “My scream-queen breasts.” She shook her head. Or tried. She was halfway through turning her head to the left when she stopped. She had a bad headache, too, apparently. “It was building up. His thing about my breasts. And tonight, afterwards, he just went crazy. Said if I really loved him I'd be completely naked for him. I liked him. But not enough to trust him. You know, with my secret."

  She lighted a cigarette with a red plastic lighter. She looked around a bit and then back at me and said, “It's why I left L.A."

  "What is?"

  "I don't have breasts anymore. I had this really bad kind of breast cancer. I had to have both of them removed.” She exhaled through bloody lips. “So how would that be? A scream queen known for her breasts doesn't have any anymore? I went to Eugene, Oregon to get the diagnosis. I kind've suspected I had breast cancer. I didn't want anybody in L.A to know. I paid cash, gave a fake name, they didn't have any idea who I was. I had the double mastectomy there, too. I had some money saved and I used it to disappear. I just couldn't've handled all the publicity. All the bullshit about my breasts inspiring all these young boys—and then not having them anymore. You know how the tabloids are. And then do a couple of weepy interviews on TV. So I've just been traveling around. And I'll be doing more traveling tomorrow. Because I know Bill will call some reporter or tabloid or somebody like that. I just don't want to face it."

  She said, “C'mere, okay?"

  I stood up and walked over to her. My knees trembled. I didn't know why.

  She took my right hand and guided it to her chest and then slid it inside the terrycloth so that I could feel the scarring from the mastectomy. I wanted to jerk my hand away. I'd never felt anything like that before. But then a tenderness came over me and I let my hand linger and then she eased my hand out of her robe and kissed my fingers, as if she was grateful.

  Then she started sobbing, and it was pretty bad, and I said everything I knew to say but it didn't do any good so I steered her into bed and just lay with her there in the darkness and we held hands and she talked about it all, everything from the day she first felt the tiny lump on the underside of her left breast to being so afraid she'd die from the anesthetic—she'd had an uncle who died while being put under, died right there on the table—and how she went through depression so bad she lost twenty-five pounds in three months and how that then turned around and became the opposite kind of eating disorder, this relentless urge to gorge, which she was battling now.

  In the morning, I helped her load her car. She didn't have all that much. I told her I'd pay the rent off with the money she gave me and return the key. She kissed me then for the first and only time—the kind of kiss your sister would give you—and then she was gone.

  The story hit one of the supermarket papers three weeks later. She'd been right. The story dealt with the irony of a girl who'd been made into a scream queen at least partly because of her beautiful breasts losing them to cancer. A minister somewhere said that it was God's wrath, exploiting your body for filthy Hollywood money, and then getting your just desserts. You know how God's people like to talk.

  As for me ... tomorrow I'm flying to L.A. My dad has a friend out there who owns a video company that produces training films for various companies. Not exactly Paramount pictures, or even Roger Corman. But a start. My folks even gave me five thousand dollars as seed money. They're pretty sure that in a year I'll be back here. And maybe they're right...

  It's funny about Michele. I watch her old videos all the time. That's how I prefer to remember her. It's not because of her breasts. It's because of that lovely girly radiance that was in her eyes and her smile back in those days.

  I still watch them and I'm sure Spence does, too. He got a job in Chicago and moved there a couple months back. Bill joined the Army. I wonder if he still watches them.

  But most of all I wonder if Michele ever watches them. Probably not.

  Not now, anyway. But maybe someday.

  (c)2007 by Ed Gorman

  * * * *

  ERRATUM: In the June 2007 EQMM, in the introduction to “The Robber's Grave,” the author byline,
Paul Halter, was said to be a pseudonym. It is in fact the author's real name. The introduction also omitted mention of a new book of Halter stories, The Night of the Wolf (Wildside Press), which is now available in English.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  A CHANCE TO GET EVEN by Lawrence Block

  * * * *

  Art by Mark Evans

  * * * *

  Lawrence Block, novelist and short story writer par excellence, was also the editor, in 2006, of one of Akashic's city-themed titles, Manhattan Noir. Said Book-list: “The volumes are uneven, but when the right editor sits at the desk, the results can be well worthwhile, as is the case here.” Mr. Block's latest novel is Lucky at Cards (Hard Case Crime).

  A little after midnight, Gordon Benning, a balding gastroenterologist with a perpetually dyspeptic expression on his long face, announced as he dealt the cards that his next deal would be his final hand. Several players indicated their agreement, and one, a CPA with a propensity for stating the obvious, said, “So this is the last round."

  And so it was. Richard Krale (Dick to his friends, Richard to his wife, who reserved the diminutive for a specific portion of her husband) would have preferred it otherwise. He wished the game could go on for another three hours, so that he might recoup his losses, or that it had ended three hours earlier, when he'd been briefly ahead. Now he had, what? Six, seven hands to get even?

  The game was dealer's choice, and ninety percent of the time the choice was seven-card stud. The dealer anteed a buck for the table, the limit was five dollars, ten dollars on the last card. (The same betting rules applied in five-card stud. In draw poker, the bet was five dollars before the draw, ten dollars after.)

  Krale was the host, as well as being the evening's big loser. In the latter capacity more than the former, he suggested doubling the betting limits for the final round. That was all right with Mark Taggert, who had a mountain of chips in front of him, but the other players shook their heads dismissively, and that was that. It was by no means unusual for someone, generally the biggest loser, to make this suggestion; it was always voted down.

  And that was just as well for Krale, as it turned out, because his luck was no better in the last round than it had been for the preceding three hours. It was worse, if anything, because desperation led him to play hands he'd have been well advised to fold at their onset, and to stay to the end in hands where he should have cut his losses. When Benning dealt the last hand of the evening, Krale chased flush and straight possibilities, backed into two pair, queens over fives, tried to buy the pot with a raise, and lost to Taggert's three sixes.

  "Hey, the night's a pup,” he said. “No reason to quit now."

  No one even bothered to respond. They were all counting their chips and figuring out what they had coming, and in turn they announced their totals and waited for Krale to pay them. He'd set aside the cash they'd all bought in with, and when that was gone he still had two players to pay off—Norm McLeod, who had $120 coming, and Taggert, who'd had a very good last round.

  He dug out his wallet, counted out five twenties and a pair of tens, and paid McLeod, who looked almost apologetic as he pocketed the money. Taggert, who looked not at all apologetic, announced that the chips in front of him came to $538.

  "Stick around,” Krale said. “I'll have to write you a check."

  * * * *

  The others left, and Krale shook their hands and wished them well. Then he took his time finding his checkbook.

  "Some run of cards,” he said.

  "You caught a lot of second-best hands,” Taggert said. “Nothing much you can do when that happens but wait for the cards to turn."

  "They never did."

  "There's always next week."

  "I hate to wait that long,” Krale said. He'd uncapped the pen but had not as yet touched it to the check. “You in a rush to get home?"

  "You want to play some more?"

  "I wouldn't mind."

  "Heads up, you mean? Just the two of us?"

  Krale made a show of looking to his left and right, then at Taggert. “I don't see anybody else here,” he said, “so I guess we're stuck with each other."

  Taggert thought about it. “I'll just keep these chips, then."

  "Right. And I'll help myself from the bank.” He did so, stacking the chips in front of him, giving himself a bigger bankroll than Taggert's. That would help psychologically, he told himself. The player with fewer chips was at a disadvantage, doomed to play with a loser's mentality. This way he could feel like a winner, and it was only a matter of time before he'd be one.

  Taggert didn't seem awed by Krale's chips. He rearranged his own stacks, and for some reason the new arrangement made it look to Krale as though there were more of them.

  "Same rules?"

  Krale nodded. “Except we can forget about the three-raise limit,” he said. “Since there's just the two of us."

  "Makes sense."

  "How about a drink before we get started?"

  "Good idea,” Taggert said.

  Krale went to the bar and poured a brandy for each of them. They sat with their drinks, and he suggested they cut for deal, and then his wife walked into the room. She said, “Hi, hon. I hope it went—” and stopped in midsentence when she realized her husband had company.

  "Hello, Tina."

  "Mark,” she said. “I'm sorry, I wouldn't have come in if I'd known you were still here."

  "What's the matter, don't you love me anymore?"

  She grinned. “I know better than to interrupt you boys. Poker's a serious matter."

  "Oh, it's not all that serious,” Taggert said. “We just pretend it's serious so that we can keep up our interest in it. Like war or business."

  "I see."

  "Mark's the big winner,” Krale said, “and he's giving me a chance to win some of my money back."

  "You'll probably win it all back,” Taggert said, “and then some."

  "Not unless the cards turn."

  "They always do, sooner or later."

  "Well,” Tina Krale said. “Is it all right if I wish you both good luck?"

  When she left the room, Taggert's eyes lingered on her retreating form. This did not go unnoticed by Krale.

  * * * *

  They cut cards to determine who'd deal the first hand, and Krale was high.

  "Look at that,” Taggert said. “The cards are turning already."

  But his tone was ironic, and it was clear to Krale that he didn't believe it. Taggert expected to go on winning for as long as Krale sat across the table from him. As though it wasn't a matter of luck, or cards, or the breaks of the game. As though it was all predetermined by the character of the players, and winners won while losers lost, and he was a winner as sure as Krale was a loser.

  A loser with a big house and a going business and money in the bank. A loser with a beautiful wife.

  But a loser all the same.

  The big house was mortgaged to the rafters. The money in the bank came to less than the outstanding bills. The going business ... well, it was going, all right. Going broke, going to hell in a handbasket, going, barring a miracle, out of business. Going, going, gone.

  And the beautiful wife?

  Krale took a deep breath and dealt the cards.

  * * * *

  Half a dozen rounds in, Taggert dealt and Krale looked at a deuce and six to go with the ten he had showing. Different suits, of course. “Check,” he said, and Taggert shook his head.

  "Oh, right,” Krale said. They'd changed the rules to avoid hands that got checked to excess, and whoever was high had to make a first-round bet. “Bet,” he said, unnecessarily, and tossed a chip into the pot.

  His next card paired the six. This time he was entitled to check, and did, but Taggert bet, and the pair of sixes kept him in the hand. He kept having enough to call, and the ten he caught on the river gave him two pair, and he knew his tens up were beat but called the last bet anyway, because he had so much in the pot already, an
d Taggert had kings up and won the hand.

  He gathered up the cards, shuffled them. “Maybe we should raise the stakes,” he suggested.

  "Sure,” Taggert said. “What do you say we make the raise retroactive?"

  "Very funny."

  "I've got a better idea, Dick. Why don't we call it a night?"

  "I thought you were going to give me a chance to get even."

  "At this rate, that'll take awhile."

  "So we'll raise the stakes."

  "To what?"

  "We've been playing five and ten. Let's up it to ten-twenty."

  "Fine with me,” Taggert said.

  * * * *

  At first he thought raising the stakes was the charm. He won three small pots in a row, got out of a fourth hand with an early fold, and then, after staying in too long with an unmade hand, caught the king of hearts for a flush while Taggert, who'd held three queens all the way, failed to catch his full house. He bet the hand, too, and pulled in a handsome pot.

  "Well played,” Taggert said. Krale glowed, even though he knew he hadn't really played the hand well. He shouldn't have stayed long enough to catch that king, and he'd had no business betting into Taggert at the end. He'd been lucky, lucky to catch the king, lucky that Taggert hadn't filled.

  But wasn't that as good as playing smart? In fact, wasn't it better? Because it meant that the cards were turning, that his luck was returning, and that he could get even and then some. Wouldn't it be nice if the evening ended with Taggert writing a check to him instead of the other way around?

  Taggert yawned. Because he was tired? Or because he wanted to appear tired, so he'd have an excuse to end the game?

  "Hang on a sec,” Krale said.

  He left without an explanation and came back a few minutes later with a glass of brandy for each of them. “A little pick-me-up,” he said. “And how do you take your coffee? Tina's making a fresh pot."

  "I don't like to drink coffee after dinner,” Taggert said. “It screws up my sleeping."

  "I find they smooth one another out,” Krale said. “The coffee and the brandy. Keeps you awake while you're at the table, then lets you sleep like a baby when you get home."