Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (27 page)

‘Will you please not drip water all over my new shirts?’ I asked.

She put the box down and looked at me. ‘Please don’t be sore at me,’ she said.

‘I’m not sore,’ I said. ‘Will you please fix some toast or soup or something? I’m hungry. Any milk here?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly.

I went out and into the kitchen and got a bottle of milk from the icebox and poured some in a glass. I was drinking it, my back to the door, and I did not know she was there until I heard her speak. She said: ‘Aren’t you going to ask me any questions?’

‘About what?’ I said, turning around. She wore only the towel, knotted at her hips.

‘About last night…’

I frowned as if I didn’t know what she meant. ‘Oh – you mean about where you were?’

‘Yes.’

I couldn’t help but think of how marvellous this was, yesterday’s situation being reversed, even to the towel. Was she aware of this? Probably not. ‘Why should I ask questions?’ I said. ‘That presupposes that I’m interested.’

‘You would be if you knew who I was with. …’

‘I know who you were with.’

‘Who?’

‘Reece.’

She did not seem surprised. ‘Who told you? Jinx?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He’s a little sneak,’ she said coldly.

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘You decided to take a walk and he decided to take a walk at the same time. Just a coincidence. He happened to see you. Just another coincidence. Will you please fix some soup or something?’

‘Don’t be sore, Ralph.’

‘Paul,’ I said.

‘Will you not be sore?’

‘Christ,’ I said. ‘I’m not sore. How can I be sore if I don’t give a damn? With you it’s just like hunger and you’re a dame with a big appetite. You can’t help it if you got a tapeworm. But of all people, a cop. And of all cops, that one …’

‘I had to find out, I
had
to find out,’ she said. ‘What you were talking about yesterday this set-up. I just couldn’t make myself believe it was as good as you thought. As fool-proof…’

How could she find out by going with that pig? ‘What does he know?’ I said. ‘He’s a goddamn flunky. …’

‘You’re making a mistake to think that,’ she said. ‘He’s a lot smarter than you give him credit for being. …’

‘I know, I know,’ I said. ‘Mandon tells me how smart Webber is and now you tell me how smart the stooge is. Well, how smart do you have to be to know that you got caught in a wringer?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he knows that now, and so do I. I want to tell you that I’m sorry I ever doubted you. I’ll never worry about it again…’

‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘Now will you please fix something to eat?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t think that anything happened between us. Nothing did.’

‘Oh, sure …’ I said.

‘I mean it. On my dead father.’

‘Nuts,’ I said.

She glanced at me grimly. ‘I wish I’d done it now,’ she said.

‘You couldn’t have found a guy with whom you’ve more in common,’ I said.

Her eyes flashed. ‘I’ll remember that next time. …’

‘You got more than that to remember,’ I said. ‘He chews toothpicks. Careful he doesn’t poke one of your eyes out.’

I went back into the bedroom and opened all the bundles. The shirts were not Brooks Brothers but they were a good imitation (until they were washed), and the ties were not Charvet’s and the insteps of the shoes did not lace together (this way in every few pairs they save enough leather to make an extra pair, but most Americans don’t know the difference anyway), and the socks were not Sulka’s or Solly’s, and the shorts stunk – but it was all new and clean, that much I had to say. The two suits I had bought off the rack had had to be altered slightly, but I had given the clerk a sawbuck and he had said they would be delivered this afternoon if the tailor could get through with them, and I had given the tailor a sawbuck and he had said he would.

‘Your soup’s on,’ Holiday said from the bedroom door. ‘You want it in here or in the kitchen?’

‘You mean I’ve got a choice?’ I said.

‘You certainly have,’ she said. She was very friendly again. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you got some service around here?’

‘I think it’s past time,’ I said. ‘And just for that, I’ll take it in the kitchen.’

‘Good,’ she said. That’ll give me a chance to clear off the bed so you can take a nap. Did you get any sleep at all last night?’

‘Not very much,’ I said. ‘Sleeping with Jinx is no way to sleep.’

‘Well you have your soup and I’ll see that you get some sleep.’

‘You overwhelm me,’ I said.

She stepped aside, smiling at me as I passed her, going to the kitchen.

The soup, mushroom, was boiling around the edges and I stirred it and watched the boil come back to the edges and I stirred it again and then poured it into a bowl and sat down at the kitchen table. Holiday had placed a knife and a spoon there, with several slices of bread and a glass of milk she had poured. I spooned the soup, wondering what the hell Reece could have said to her that would restore her confidence in me, that would make her see that I did have the City Hall in my pocket…

‘… that’s a nice lot of stuff you bought,’ she was saying.

‘It’s clean,’ I said. ‘I got a couple of suits too.’

‘You did?’

‘A brown one and a blue one. They’re sending ’em. …’

‘Today?’

‘Yes.’

‘Say, that’s pretty fast. …’

‘They didn’t have to be altered much. I’m not hard to fit.’

‘I guess you’ll be glad to get out of that stuff you’re wearing, all right.’

‘I sure will. If I throw this stuff in the corner, it would stand up by itself. But couple of days more, we can all have what we want. You can hold out for a couple of days, can’t you?’

‘That sounds like you and Mandon lined something up last night. …’

‘It was a big night,’ I said. ‘But before we pull it, we have to talk to Webber.’

‘When’ll that be?’

‘Right away, I hope. I’m waiting to hear from him now.’

She looked at me, smiling cosily, and I finished my soup.

‘More?’ she asked.

‘No, thanks. That’ll hold me till dinner.’

She took the plate and bowl and spoon and put them on the drainboard.

I drank some milk.

She came back and sat down. ‘Can you tell me about it?’

‘Webber has to okay it first. Nothing to tell till then.’

‘He’ll have to okay it if you want it okayed, won’t he?’

‘Naturally. But there’s some angles I have to talk to him about.’

‘Sounds big.’

‘It is big.’

‘When will it happen – if it happens?’

‘Tomorrow, maybe.’

‘More milk?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Then you’d better try to get some sleep now. …’

‘That’s what I been looking forward – to a bath and some sleep.’

I got up and helped her out of her chair. It was nice, being well-mannered again. She smiled at me politely. ‘This is just like being strangers again,’ she said.

‘I only hope we can keep it this way,’ I said.

‘
All
the time?’

‘Not all the time. Just some of the time…’

I let her precede me into the bedroom.

‘Would you like for me to fix your bath?’ she asked.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

She went into the bathroom and let the water run into the tub and I started putting my shirts and shorts in a drawer of the bureau. This stuff was genuine crap, the kind they over-power you with in color advertisements in the magazines. Well, pretty soon now…

I turned to get the other stuff off the bed and almost bumped into her at my elbow, holding the packages I had not heard her get from the bed: the ties and socks. She put them on the bureau, but kept in her hand a small bundle.

‘This feels like lead,’ she said.

‘Funny you’d say that,’ I said. ‘It is lead. They’re cartridges. I got ’em at a hockshop, and half a dozen new clips. With new springs.’

‘Springs?’ she said. ‘What do you mean – springs?’

‘You shouldn’t have asked that question,’ I said. ‘You give me a chance to show off my knowledge of criminal fundamentals.’

I took the package from her, opening it and taking out a new clip. ‘You see this little platform here? That’s the feeder. This keeps feeding a new cartridge into the firing chamber of an automatic whenever the blank shell is discharged. Now I’ll show you something.’ I loaded the clip. This spring’s now compressed to its full limit, all the way down. There’s a lot of tension on it. You understand that.’

‘Yes.’

‘Shove this clip in the gun and you’re ready. Right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, suppose you don’t use the gun now for a couple of weeks. All that time the tension’s still on the spring. Now. All of a sudden you do want to use it. You shoot it two or three times and everything works well – except you discover that two or three times wasn’t sufficient and you need some more shots. But after number three maybe they don’t come out right. Maybe the feeder won’t slam ’em into the chamber as fast as they’re ejected. You’re in trouble – and all because you kept that spring coiled at full tension all the time. That’s what makes an automatic jam – weak spring. If you intend to use a gun a lot, the springs ought to be rested or you ought to get new clips. An automatic is the finest, safest gun in the world if you know how to use it. Most people don’t.’ I looked at her. ‘Now, aren’t you impressed?’

‘I certainly am,’ she said. ‘I certainly am. But you told me once you didn’t know much about guns.’

‘Oh, you know I’m full of crap,’ I said.

She smiled.

I leaned down and kissed her on the throat and started undressing, moving into the bathroom, feeling the water for comfort, just right, and turned off the spigot. I went back in the bedroom and finished undressing, and then went and got into the tub.

She came in, holding my trousers. ‘Is this new too?’ she asked, spreading a gold chain on her fingers.

‘That’s new,’ I said.

‘So is this little medal,’ she said.

‘That’s no medal,’ I said. ‘That’s a key.’

‘Key?’

‘Yes.’

‘This?’

‘Phi Beta Kappa key. I got it at the hockshop with the chain. I had the guy put it on for me.’

‘Is it yours?’

‘It’s not my original key, no. But they’re all the same.’

‘Oh!’ she said, ‘so this is a Phi Beta Kappa key. …’

‘Didn’t you ever see one before?’

‘I might have. But it didn’t mean anything then.’

I stretched out in the tub and smiled at her modestly. I wouldn’t tell her what it meant or how good you had to be to get one or how the basis of my scholastic achievements recognition by Phi Beta Kappa was inevitable.

‘So you’re really Phi Beta Kappa. …’ she said.

‘Really. That was no crap,’ I said.

‘It’s something very special, isn’t it?’

‘You could call it something very special, yes.’

‘Did you go to Yale?’

‘No.’

‘Did you go to Harvard?’

‘No. There are Phi Beta Kappa’s who didn’t go to Yale or Harvard, but it’s pretty hard to make a Yale or Harvard man believe that. …’

She turned down the lid of the bowl and sat on it, holding my trousers in her lap. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m just finding out that I don’t know anything at all about you. Where did you go to college?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘You’re not ashamed of it, are you?’

‘I think the college might be. I’m sure my career doesn’t reflect too much credit on the school. It does prove one thing, though it proves that I came into crime through choice and not through environment. I didn’t grow up in the slums with a drunk for a father and a whore for a mother and come into crime that way. I hate society too, but I don’t hate it because it mistreated me and warped my soul. Every other criminal I know – who’s engaged in violent crime – is a two-bit coward who blames his career on society. I need no apologist or crusader to finally hold my lifeless body up to the world and shout for them to come and observe what they have wrought. Do you know one of the first things I’m going to do when I get some money? I’m going to have Cartier make me a little solid gold thing for my wrist, you know, that identification thing the army guys wear, on a solid gold chain and do you know what I’m going to have inscribed on it? Just this: “Use me not as a preachment in your literature or your movies. This I have wrought, I and I alone.” ’

‘You seem to have yourself doped out pretty well,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘I have,’ I said.

‘Your name’s not really Ralph Cotter, is it?’

‘It’s Paul Murphy.’

‘You just made that up today.’

‘Yesterday,’ I said.

‘You’re
real
name, I’m talking about.’

‘Would it make any difference?’

‘But what about your folks. You got any folks?’

‘No.’

‘You said you had a brother in New York.’

‘I have. I got a sister, too.’

‘In New York?’

‘I don’t know where she is. I lost track of her.’

‘Seems strange you’d lose track of your sister and not lose track of your brother. Seems it ought to be the other way around. …’

‘You don’t know my brother,’ I said.

‘I’d like to. I’d like to meet the most honest man in the world.’

‘That was one other thing that wasn’t crap too.’

‘He’d have to be – for you to trust him with that recording. What does he do?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘No reason. Just curiosity’

She took her eyes off me, looking at the wash basin.

I sat up in the tub. ‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked again.

She laughed, but the laugh sounded artificial. ‘Well, I’ve got a small interest in that record myself,’ she said. ‘I face a murder rap too – or have you forgotten what happened at the prison farm? I just wanted to know who he was and what he did so in case anything happened to you I could get in touch with him. …’

‘If anything happens to me you won’t have to get in touch with him. This thing’s rigged just like an alarm clock. …’

‘Can’t you even tell me what business he’s in?’ she asked.

‘You’re sweet,’ I said. Do you want the soup in the kitchen or the bedroom, I’ll see that you get some sleep, I’ll fix your bath, I’ll put away your new clothes, what was your school, what is your real name, what about your folks, what does your brother in New York do, to whom you sent the recording: so nice and affable and cosy, so goddamn nice and affable and cosy, so discreet and clever, building up, as they always do when they get in trouble or want something, the divine intimacy of domesticity, that or shaking The Last Resort in your face, the thing they always depend on to get you, which she’d been doing ever since I got here, and how long had she been sitting in the tub waiting for me to arrive, so that I could find her in a casual state of nakedness, how long? ‘You need more coaching, baby,’ I said. ‘You went too fast.’