Handsome Harry (14 page)

See what I mean about John and broads? It’s one thing to have fun with them, it’s another to get so dippy you let your guard down.

When Indiana got word of the arrest, Matt Leach took a bunch of eyewitnesses to Dayton and they identified John as one of the guys on the Indytown bank job. Leach wanted to extradite him, but John refused to sign the papers, and Ohio anyway wanted to prosecute him for the Blufton robbery. He was being held in the Allen County jail in Lima, where he would be tried. Pearl said it would be at least two weeks, if not longer, before his case went to court.

Fat Charley was from that part of Ohio around Allen County and he knew the jail John was in. He said it was a cracker box. No doubt John had thought so too, and that was why he’d chosen to stay there instead of letting Leach take him back to Hoosierland.

I said of course that was why. He knew if we busted out of M City we’d sure as hell come for him, and he was trying to make it as easy for us as he could.

B
ut first things first.

Like Mary said, her friend’s house was nicely isolated. I cut off the headlights as I turned onto the driveway and drove around to the rear and parked next to her friend’s DeSoto. It was after one o’clock in the morning and the house was completely dark. Mary and I went to the kitchen door and knocked until a light came on inside. The curtain in the door window drew back and a guy in a shiny red robe gawked out at us.

Mary said It’s me, Ralph, open up. Until then I’d assumed her friend was a woman.

Who’s with you, he said, and she said A friend, now let us in.

As he opened the door I gave a little whistle and the others came out of the car. Ralph said something I didn’t catch and backed away fast as the guys hustled to the door and tramped through his kitchen and into the parlor, filling his house with loudness and bad smells. He had the smoothest-looking skin I’ve ever seen on a man. He must’ve recognized the prison issue and he gawked at the gun in my waistband. He looked on the verge of panic. There was a dining room between the kitchen and the parlor and I told him to sit down at the table and take it easy. Mary saw how scared he was and hurriedly introduced us—his name was Ralph Saffell. She explained things to him, saying she was sorry for the intrusion but we’d had nowhere else to go. She said we needed a place for the night and would be leaving in the morning.

I told Ralph there was no need to be scared, and he nodded and cleared his throat and said All right, okay. I thanked him for his hospitality and told him not to touch the telephone unless it rang and we said he could answer it, in which case one of us would be right at his ear, listening along with him. He nodded and said All right, okay, you bet. He was so eager to please that if I’d told him the moon was made of green cheese he would’ve said he always thought so too, you bet.

I tried calling Pearl but there was still no answer at her house and
she hadn’t been back to the Side Pocket. Mary had informed Margo where we were going, so that if Pearl phoned or showed up there she’d know where to find us.

My mother would’ve heard about the break by now and I knew she’d be worried about me, but I thought it best not to phone her until some of the dust settled and I had a better idea of what my next move would be. Russell felt the same way about contacting his girl. He said Opal was a good soldier and knew he’d be in touch as soon as he could.

Red found two quarts of beer in the icebox and we divvied it up in tumblers, including one for Mary. Ralph said he didn’t care for any, thank you. It was common knowledge that Prohibition would be repealed before the end of the year, and Russell said he couldn’t wait to step up to a bar again and buy himself a Blue Ribbon and a bump. I raised my glass and said To Ralphie boy, our generous host and a jolly good fellow. Fat Charley said Hear hear. We all touched glasses and Mary said Welcome back to the world, boys.

I drained mine in two swallows, and oh Jesus I still remember it. It was so nice and cold and stung my tongue and I felt it all the way up in my sinuses, in my eyes. Red said Oh man, and smacked his lips. Charley sighed and gazed into his glass like it was a picture of a long-lost love. I’ve never been a hard drinker or cared to work with those who are—in our trade you always need your wits about you—but I’ve always appreciated a glass of cold beer. That first taste at Ralph’s after nine dry years was unforgettable.

Mary went to the kitchen to make sandwiches and Shouse said he’d help and went with her. The rest of us bunched around the radio and scanned it for more news about the break. Most of the reports now had it right and knew there were only ten of us. Dietrich and the others were also still at large and apparently still had that sheriff with them.

We were talking about where they might be when we heard what sounded like a slap in the kitchen and Mary said I
told
you quit it!

I went in there. Shouse was smiling stupidly and rubbing his cheek, and Mary was glaring. They must’ve seen something in my face, though, because she quick said It’s nothing, it’s over with, and Shouse’s smile sagged and he said Hey man, it was just a friendly pat, nothing to make a federal case about.

Touch her again, I said, I’ll break your fucking arms.

What the
hell,
Pete, he said, shrugging big, playing the puzzled pal. He was about to say something more but I pointed a finger at him and said I didn’t want to hear it. He half-raised his hands and said Okay, okay, and eased past me and went back to the parlor.

Goddamn weasel. If half of Indiana hadn’t been looking for us at the time, I would’ve kicked him out of the bunch right then and there. And if I’d done
that
…

Ah, bullshit. If, if, if…

Mary said there was no reason for me to get so tough about it. She said she knew how to deal with fresh guys and it was only a pinch on the behind and who could blame him after so long in prison. And didn’t anybody ever tell me it was impolite to say fucking in front of a lady?

I apologized and said I didn’t usually talk that way. She said she already knew that, in case I’d forgotten. If I really wanted to be of help to her, she could use a hand with the sandwiches.

While I was slicing tomatoes and she was carving bologna off the roll, neither of us saying anything, a funny thing happened: She suddenly seemed like somebody I barely knew. Not that she didn’t
look
familiar—her eyes and smile were the same as ever, her voice, her gestures. If anything, she’d grown prettier, rounder in all the right places. But it suddenly dawned on me how many years had gone by since she’d been the young girl who so often got naked with me but refused to go all the way, how long it had been since we’d last seen each other without a wire mesh between us. Now she was a woman whose husband I’d beat hell out of for hitting her, who’d touched my fingertips through the visiting room screen and said Baby, how I
wish. And yet, at that moment in the kitchen, she struck me as a stranger.

Without looking up from the sandwich she was putting together, she said it was funny, wasn’t it, how you could look forward so much to seeing somebody you’ve been missing for years and you have all these things you want to say, and then you see the person and you don’t know what to say or how to act or anything.

She cut her eyes at me and said That ever happen to you?

I shrugged and said yeah, I guessed so. I asked how long she’d known Ralph and she said a few weeks, and why did I ask.

Just wondering, I said. I thought I was being pretty casual about it but she gave me a look and said
Oh?

I said I guessed she and him had been out on dates, and she said yeah, to the movies one time and then earlier that night they’d gone to a dance.

I said You and him were on a date
tonight?

That’s right, she said, what of it? Something wrong with that?

I became aware that the radio had been turned off and the living room was dead silent. I could picture the guys stifling their giggles and winking at each other as they listened in on us.

I didn’t say anything was wrong with it, I said, trying to keep my voice low.

Oh yes you did, she said, not holding her voice down at all. You just didn’t say it out loud.

Oh I see, I said, now you’re a mind reader. You ought to go on stage, you could make a million bucks.

You’re jealous, she said. You’re jealous to beat the band.

I said was she kidding?
Me,
jealous? Ho ho, that was rich.

The truth is, brother, she had me cold.

Not that it was any of my beeswax, she said, but she and Ralph hadn’t done anything more than kiss, and they’d done that exactly one time. She hadn’t done more than that with anybody ever since her lowdown husband went to prison. Not that she
couldn’t
have
done more than that if she’d wanted to, because she
could’ve,
with
anybody
she wanted to, because
nobody
was the boss of her, did I get that?

Yeah yeah, I said, I got it. I was thinking how everybody in the house probably got it.

She looked at me like I was some hopeless moron. What the hell did I have to be jealous about, she said. Sweet Jesus, if I’d ever given her a reason,
one
reason, not to see other men, she never would’ve even…. She didn’t bother to finish, just shook her head again and gave me one of those looks women use that mean men are
such
dopes.

Is that so, I said.

Yeah,
she said, that’s so.

I pulled her to me and kissed her. It took her a second to catch up, but then she grabbed me tight and started doing her share. I was getting a stiffie and she pushed herself against it and made a low sound and slipped her tongue in my mouth.

I don’t know how long we were like that before somebody said Ahem from the kitchen door and we broke the kiss to see Russell smiling at us. He looked back into the living room and made the OK sign with his fingers and we heard a round of applause.

Listen you two, he said, nobody wants to be a spoilsport, but how long’s a man have to wait for a damn sandwich around here?

A
fter we ate we took turns in the shower. I was the next-to-last to use it and by the time I had my turn the bottom of the tub was coated with grime and the hot water was long gone. But the dirty tub and the gooseflesh were worth it to feel clean again. Charley had dug through Ralph’s closet and found a wraparound smoking jacket large enough for him, and Russell and I made do with a couple of Ralph’s terry-cloth bathrobes. The hems didn’t reach to our knees and the sleeves ended between our wrists and elbows. We took a lot of ribbing about the way we looked, even from
Mary, but I would’ve gone buck naked before getting back into those filthy prison clothes.

It wouldn’t be long before daybreak and we all needed some sleep. I gave Jenkins the first watch at the window, then Shouse would spell him. Red laid claim to the sofa and Charley and Russell each curled up in armchairs. Shouse made do with a pillow on the floor. Ralph’s fatigue had got the better of his fright and he was dozing with his head on his arms on the dining table.

It seemed understood that the only bedroom in the house was mine and Mary’s, and we went in there and closed the door. I took off the robe and sat on the edge of the bed and she stood in front of me and I undressed her. Women’s underpants had changed in the time I’d been away. She was wearing the sexiest I’d ever seen—baby-blue and silky and they fit her like a second skin. I slid them down her legs and she put a hand on my shoulder and stepped out of them, each thigh rising in turn, her private hair almost in my face and fragrant with her musk. I thought my erection was going to have a heart attack. I’d been nine years without a woman and it was too much to take. She didn’t know how close I was, and when she bent to kiss me she took me in her hand. I tried to say No, wait…but
bang,
there it came. She looked down and caught a shot under the eye and another in her hair. Before she thought to release me, it was over and done.

I was almost in tears, but she laughed and threw herself on me and we fell back on the bed, tangling arms and legs and rolling this way and that, kissing whatever parts of each other presented themselves, fondling everything that came to hand.

She licked my ear and whispered, Don’t worry baby, I’ll bet anything that rascal will be up on his feet in no time.

She took hold of me again. Oh look! He’s on hands and knees already.

We’d been worried I might hurt her, but our difference in size turned out not to be a problem. She drew a deep breath as I eased into
her…then sighed and grinned up at me and dug her heels into the backs of my legs and said Oh boy!

Oh boy indeed. As Fat Charles once put it, what a pliant marvel is a woman.

We made love for the next couple of hours, giggling and gasping and groaning and whispering a lot of silliness, pausing now and then to have a smoke and let the rascal rest between rounds. We heard Jenkins singing “What’ll I Do?” softly in the parlor. Mary thought he had a sweet voice and that it was nice of him to serenade us. I said it was a tribute to his talent that nobody out there told him to shut up or else.

I wasn’t aware of the daylight showing along the edges of the window blind until there was a knock on the door and Russell said Pete, the Elliott woman’s here.

W
hen I got out to the parlor Pearl had already introduced herself to everybody. She grinned at my undersized robe and said Handsome as ever, Harry, but that’s not the nattiest get-up I’ve ever seen you in.

She gave me a peck on the corner of the mouth and I took a look over my shoulder at the bedroom door. She said Hey, pal, I’ve met her and I know—she’s the one in a million and she’s crazy for you. You better treat her right.

She’s sure been treating
him
awful right for the past coupla hours, Shouse said, trying for a laugh. Pearl only rolled her eyes at him and I gave him a look that wiped the smirk off his face.