King of Hearts

by Stevenson, Jennifer

  At least his dick wasn’t limp as well as orange.

  Which reminded him.

  He went to the kitchen and scrounged the cabinets. No lard, of course. What the hell was lard, anyway? Some kind of cooking grease. He did have a tub of margarine. And an ice cold beer.

  Now you’re talking. Now you’re cooking with gas. I’m gonna give this ten minutes, a hot shower, and then I’m toast.

  Next day, King Dave and Bobbyjay threw stage weight on the rail at the Auditorium.

  The margarine had helped. Soap and hot water too, but he could only stand so much. He was afraid he might shrink in the hot water. Today he wore brand new clothes, right down to his skin, to counteract the demoralizing orange patch on his crotch.

  That didn’t work either.

  So when Bobbyjay ragged him about Nadine Fisher, King Dave’s nerve broke. He told part of the truth. “Tammy’s threatening to blacken my name all over the Local if I don’t pay up.”

  “Shit,” Bobbyjay said sympathetically. “You gonna pay?”

  “I already did!” he howled with anguish. “Went to Mom’s last night with Tammy’s enforcer, that damned snippy waitress.”

  “Oh.” Bobbyjay was way the smartest of the Bobby Mortons, not counting his uncle Rob the Snob, who used his brains solely to look down on other people. King Dave relied on Bobbyjay to talk sense and not need all the dots connected for him.

  “Gimme one-sixty in arbor two!” Weasel yelled from the deck.

  Silently they threw a hundred and sixty pounds of steel weight. Bobbyjay yelled down, “Loaded on arbor two!” and squinted. “So you’re dating her to, like, divide and conquer?”

  “Three hundred on five!”

  “The waitress?” King Dave finessed. “Man, is she tight.”

  “I believe you. Nobody’s got into her yet, that I know of.”

  “How long has she been working at Liz Otter’s?”

  Bobbyjay shrugged. “Nine, ten months? I remember Weasel tried for her when she first showed up, when Miss Saigon left. She turned him down flat.”

  “Huh.” King Dave threw weight. The two-foot chunks of steel clanked and sank in the arbor, nestled neatly on top of one another. “Weasel usually scores.”

  “Well, he flopped this time.”

  King Dave thought about Miss Nadine Fisher, Goreville Puritan and vice president of public morals. “She’s a tough nut. Loaded on five!” The two of them moved down the rail.

  “Okay, now three hundred on arbor twelve!”

  “What’s she got on you?” Bobbyjay said.

  King Dave felt his butt muscles tighten. He couldn’t tell the truth, not even to Bobbyjay. The Local was one big bathtub. Everyone slept with everyone else’s waitress sooner or later. “She don’t know nothing,” he said roughly.

  “Never mind, buddy,” Bobbyjay said. “I can imagine.”

  King Dave shot him a grateful look. “Arbor twelve clear!”

  “Six hundred sixty pounds on arbor thirteen!”

  “There’s really no guarantee the waitress won’t make trouble on her own, though, is there,” Bobbyjay said.

  King Dave tripped over a stack of weights and sent them crashing to the metal catwalk of the rail. “Ow! Shit!”

  “But you paid Tammy off, right?” Bobbyjay said.

  “Right. Nadine saw me bring the check around last night.”

  “So it’s over.”

  “That’s the theory.” Rhythmically, King Dave hoisted thirty-pound steel weights from the stack and handed them off to Bobbyjay, who stacked them into the arbor. They got a nice pace going and had their six-sixty loaded in no time.

  From the deck, the shout went up for mid-morning break. “I need coffee,” King Dave said, stretching his back.

  “Know what I think?” Bobbyjay said as they took the stairs to the deck and headed for the alley. “I think you got to get rid of this waitress.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  Chapter Eight

  At three o’clock Nadine stood in the back of Liz Otter’s, a piece of bright yellow paper in her hand, puzzled and alarmed.

  “What’s up, honey?” said Muriel, as she sat at their back table, adding more lipstick to her crimson mouth.

  “It’s a telegram,” Nadine said.

  “You’re kidding! This day and age?”

  “From home. My Daddy’s sick.” Her own tummy didn’t feel so good. She wasn’t ready to see Daddy again. But if things were so bad they were sending telegrams—!

  “What happened to the phone? They deliver it to your house?”

  “No, I got it here.” She turned the telegram over, feeling awful inside. She would have to go, of course. But she felt icky. Something was terribly wrong, if they’d figured out where she was, if they knew all along, and who was ‘they’ anyway? She read:

  PASTOR FISHER SERIOUSLY ILL STOP COME HOME IMMEDIATELY STOP

  “It’s unsigned,” she said wonderingly.

  “Let’s see.” Muriel pulled her rhinestone catseye glasses up on their chain and squinted. “It’s from Goreville, Illinois.”

  “Right. I’m from Goreville—wait, Illinois?” Nadine snatched the paper back. “Is there a Goreville, Illinois?”

  “Sure. My old auntie lives down there.”

  Nadine stared at the cryptic message, pressing her lips together. Why would she be getting a telegram about her Daddy from someplace with the same name as her home town?

  Then she remembered King Dave, threatening to hang an evil nickname on her. Her breath stopped.

  What shocked her most was the betrayal. It had seemed last night they had reached an understanding. Why was he doing this? He’d paid Tammy. Tammy would relent. Surely that was enough.

  Unless he didn’t trust her to keep shut.

  She crumpled the telegram in her fist. A telegram from Goreville, Illinois.

  “What’s the matter, hon?”

  “I’m from Texas,” Nadine said through her teeth.

  “Bully for you. Pass me my cigarettes?”

  Nadine handed it over, saying mechanically, “You ought to quit smoking.”

  “You look mad,” Muriel said.

  “Texans don’t get mad,” she said, and stuffed the telegram into her apron. “We get even.”

  So when King Dave came by for coffee later, with such a look of innocence that she smelled a rat, she was ready.

  “Jeez, Nadine, what’s with the black armband?” he said. Bobbyjay was right next to him, looking guilty as sin. Like she needed that roadmap.

  She sniffled artistically into a hanky. “My Daddy died!”

  They sat in her booth, glancing at each other.

  You dumbbells, she thought.

  “Died? That’s too bad,” he said. “You going to the funeral?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, sniffing into the hanky some more. The armband was a scarf she had borrowed from Mel, one of the nose-ring waitresses, who was always heavily accessorized. “Momma’s bringing the body up here.”

  “But I thought your Mom was—” He stopped and met her look.

  She quirked her eyebrow. “You thought?” With one hand she poured coffee. With the other she dabbed her perfectly dry eyes.

  His gaze travelled from her eyes to her hands. Her fingernails were painted bright, bright orange. Mesmerized, he watched her put the coffeepot back on the Bunn warmer.

  “That reminds me,” she said. “Here’s your OJ.” She slid the glass in front of him and escaped before her face could crack.

  King Dave stared after her poker-straight, smug, self-righteous, starchy-uniformed back.

  “Man, you’re white,” Bobbyjay said in an undervoice. “I take it we screwed up somehow.”

  King Dave sucked in air. His brain revved up to a quarter horsepower. “Her mother’s dead.”

  “Then why did she say that about her Mom bringing the body? Oh. Shit. She figured it out.”

  “She must have. We screwed up. Maybe your cousin didn’t send the
telegram from Goreville itself but, like, some town down the line,” King Dave said.

  “He said he didn’t. He’s in Carbondale, thirty miles away. That’s only twenty minutes from Goreville.”

  “Carbondale? Carbondale, Illinois?” King Dave rounded on him. “You dumbass, she’s from Goreville, Texas! You’ve heard of it. It’s where the Q-Drive training school is.”

  “Oops.” Bobbyjay watched Nadine, too. “That would explain how she sussed us. Shit, I’m sorry, King Dave.”

  King Dave flinched. “Never mind.”

  “Well, she’s sure got you twitching. Look, how about I go explain to her this was my idea?”

  “No!”

  “C’mon. It’s the least I can do.”

  King Dave sweated into his new jeans and White Stripes tee-shirt. “I dunno.” He was beginning to sense doom every time he spoke to this waitress.

  “C’mon, man, she’s got you buffaloed. Drink your orange juice. I’ll go fix this.”

  Bobbyjay bounded after the villainess of the piece. King Dave fatalistically sipped the orange juice. He needed energy.

  “It was all my idea,” the young stagehand pleaded to Nadine. He looked earnest and fresh-faced and altogether more wholesome and innocent than King Dave Flaherty.

  “He’s your best friend,” Nadine accused, narrowing her eyes.

  “Known him since we were kids. Our dads worked together at the Opera House,” Bobbyjay said.

  Then why is he so full of sin and you’re a nice kid?

  “He wouldn’t hurt you. No matter what you’ve done to him.”

  She’d never done anything! Something awful should happen to King Dave for this bogus performance.

  “It was my idea,” Bobbyjay repeated. “You and Tammy been putting the screws on him somehow and he was freakin’ out. He mentioned you come from Goreville and I thought, hey, get her out of town, help him out, and I got my cousin in Carbondale to send it. Swear to God,” he said, raising his right hand. “King Dave’s the squarest guy I know. Tammy’s got him figured wrong. I don’t know what she’s told you about him, but he’s a right guy.”

  Nadine declared, “She hasn’t said anything to me. Even if King Dave thinks she has.”

  Bobbyjay’s brow cleared. “So tell him. He’s convinced she’ll ramset his nuts to the wall. She won’t let him see his kid.”

  Nadine blinked. “His mother doesn’t want him to either.” The memory tore at her heart, that sad little face staring up through the screen door, saying, Daddy?

  “Mom Flaherty hated how FX used to bring King Dave to the Opera House when he was little, let him run loose backstage like we did. She’s scared to death he’ll make the kid a stagehand.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Nadine said flatly. Whatever else he did, King Dave loved that child. She’d seen it in his eyes.

  “Can we have some coffee over here?” demanded a loud voice.

  Nadine turned, remembering the coffeepot in her hand.

  A skinny guy with a handlebar moustache glared at her from booth two. The booth was full of skinny, simpering girls and skinny, self-conscious-looking guys. Actors, she guessed. Somebody in show business anyway. Nobody else was that scrawny. She brought the pot to them and poured, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll be with you in a minute, Bobbyjay.”

  “Don’t you know who I am?” demanded the handlebar-moustached grouch.

  She gave him a dispassionate look. Then she clapped a hand to her bosom. “Why, it’s you!”

  The grouch smirked.

  “Oh, my gosh! It’s Grover Cleveland! In my booth! My land, I’m so excited! I’d ask for your autograph, Mr. Cleveland,” she said, while the grouch slumped and his girls tittered. “Only I’m still on shift. Is there anything else I can get you right now?”

  The grouch turned his shoulder to her. She sailed back to Bobbyjay, who was making no attempt to hide his laughter.

  “You must have been a waitress all your life,” he said. “Man, you did that beautifully.”

  Nadine flushed with pride. “I love my work.”

  “So you’ll give King Dave the benefit of the doubt, right?” Bobbyjay said. “He’s a rough diamond, but—”

  “He’s a libertine and a cut-up and he doesn’t respect himself or anyone else,” Nadine said sharply.

  “Aw, that’s harsh.”

  “—But he has a right to see his own son. I don’t know why he insists I’m in league with his ex-wife. I only saw her twice. Once here and once,” she paused and, eyeing Bobbyjay, finished evasively, “later. I mean him no harm. But he’s got to get over this idea he can push people around like this.”

  Bobbyjay looked over her head, back toward the booth where he and King Dave had been sitting. “It’s FX’s fault. Do you know who FX Flaherty is?”

  “No, who? Grover Cleveland?” she said tartly. “I know he’s president of the Local. I’ve been working here quite a while, Bobbyjay. I know who your father is, too. I know all your cousins and uncles,” she added, to put him in his place.

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t around when King Dave was fifteen and getting extra work under the table when there were journeymen sitting at home. The old man gave him a lotta breaks. Covered for him when he fu—uh, messed up. Told everybody to treat his kid with respect. And they had to. FX found out you’d dissed his kid, you didn’t work for a week.” Bobbyjay shuddered, as if this were a fate worse than death.

  “So that’s why he’s King Dave.”

  “Well, the guys resented it,” Bobbyjay said reasonably.

  “He doesn’t seem to mind.”

  Bobbyjay raised his eyebrows. “It could be worse.”

  She remembered King Dave’s impassioned plea for mercy. “Dydee Grant.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I bet he enjoys the status, too. Don’t try to josh me about that.” Inwardly Nadine winced. She once enjoyed status like that. Of course she hadn’t used it as King Dave did.

  Bobbyjay said, “It’s convenient. His shit don’t stink. Uh, I mean—”

  “I know what you mean.” Nadine gnawed her lower lip and stared through Bobbyjay’s solid shoulder toward the booth where King Dave still sat. So King Dave was spoiled rotten and his only virtue was that he loved to work.

  She was pretty sure that power hadn’t corrupted him absolutely. “It wouldn’t hurt him to apologize.”

  “King Dave?” Bobbyjay laughed. “You’re asking for the moon, babe. Besides, this is my screwup, not his. Kick me if you want,” he said, turning around and bending over.

  “Stop that!” She grabbed the back of his undershorts and yanked. “Stand up,” she hissed.

  Bobbyjay stood in a hurry. She could see past him now. King Dave still sat in his booth, looking broody. His orange juice glass was empty.

  Her heart melted. Okay, he had two virtues. He loved to work. And he loved his little boy.

  “He needs a good talking to,” she said, thinking aloud.

  “You’re a brick, Nadine,” Bobbyjay said gratefully.

  Bobbyjay came back to the booth and sat carefully. “I owe you a wedgie.”

  “She mad?”

  Across the restaurant, Nadine served coffee and pie to some tourists. She looked, as always, tall and built and poised.

  “I talked her around,” Bobbyjay said modestly. “I’m not in your class, but I have my days.” He followed King Dave’s look. “Man, she put that actor in his place.”

  “She’s too young to be putting on airs,” King Dave said. “Makin’ like she’s fifty half the time and makin’ like preacher’s kid the other half. Somebody ought to take her down a peg.” He looked at the empty orange juice glass and grimaced.

  “What’s the move now?” Bobbyjay said.

  King Dave shook his head. She was getting the better of him. Insidiously she was eroding his control. Pretty soon everybody in the Local would see it, and then his prestige would be shot. Whether she blabbed about the spray paint or didn’t.

  “C’mon, don
’t give up,” Bobbyjay urged. He brightened. “I know. Hang a nickname on her. If she don’t like it, she can quit waiting table for stagehands.”

  “And what if she likes it?” King Dave eyed him with irony. “This one’s a tough nut.”

  “Okay. How about...Filbert?” King Dave stared at him. Bobbyjay spread his hands. “Or Brazil. A tough nut. Get it? We can call her Fil or Zilly for short.”

  “You read too much, Bobbyjay.” If it came to nickname-calling, she had him in a hammerlock. She could hold Day-Glo Dick over his head for the rest of his life. “No nicknames.”

  “Jeez, all right, okay. What, then? I think she’s soft on you, if it’s any help. You need an angle, that’s one I’d use.”

  King Dave stared after her. She moved gracefully for a woman with tits that big. She had good waitress hair, piled behind her head, but she didn’t tease it up. It was in some kind of braid that doubled back over itself. Classy. Straight blonde hair. He always was partial to blondes. He wondered how long that blonde hair was. If it stretched all the way down to her big curvy butt.

  “Yo, King Dave,” Bobbyjay said in a low voice.

  King Dave looked at him.

  “Waitresses are an occupational hazard for us guys.”

  “And your point is?”

  “You’re supposed to seduce her, not let her seduce you.”

  At four p.m., Nadine dragged two huge black bags of garbage out the back door of Liz Otter’s. Strictly speaking it was the cook’s job, but she was bigger than Miguel, and Miguel was busy. The back screen door banged her on the backs of her legs, and the bags were full of lead or corpses, and she stepped in something squishy on her way to the Dumpster, and her hair was coming down in her eyes and sticking to her sweaty face.

  And the Dumpster lid was closed.

  She let the bags slump to the alley bricks.

  “Let me give you a hand,” said that velvety voice in her ear.

  Her heart jumped into her mouth.

  She didn’t even bother to turn around. She stood still, letting the lake breeze cool her forehead, feeling prickles up her back because he had to be really close.