A Bullet for Cinderella (12 page)

“I think I see what you mean.”

Donna sensed she’d made some sort of tactical error. She smiled broadly and said, “Don’t take me serious, that about parlaying it into stocks and bonds. I’m not that type girl. I like a few laughs. I like to get around. My boy friend is away and I got lonesome tonight so I thought I’d take a look around, see what’s going on. You know how it is. Lonesome? Sure you wouldn’t want to see if you’re lucky?”

“I guess not.”

She pursed her lips and studied her half-empty glass. She tried the next gambit. “You know, at a buck a drink, they must make a hell of a lot out of a bottle. If a person was smart they’d do their drinking at home. It would be a lot cheaper.”

“It certainly would.”

“You know, if we could get a bottle, I got glasses and ice at my place. We could take our hair down and put our feet up and watch the teevee and have a ball. What do you say?”

“I don’t think so.”

“My boy friend won’t be back in town until next weekend. I got my own place.”

“No thanks, Donna.”

“What
do
you want to do?”

“Nothing in particular.”

“Joey,” she called to the bartender. “What kind of place you running? You got a dead customer sitting here. He’s giving me the creepers.” She moved over two stools and wouldn’t look at me. Within fifteen minutes two heavy, smiling men came in. Soon she was in conversation with them. The three of them went upstairs together to try the tables. I hoped her luck was good.

After she was gone the bartender came over and said in a low voice, “The boss gives me the word to keep her out of here. She used to be a lot better looking. Now she gets drunk and nasty. But when he isn’t around, I let her stay. What the hell. It’s old times, like they say. You know how it is.”

“Sure.”

“She can sure get nasty. And she won’t make any time with that pair. Did you dig those country-style threads? A small beer says they don’t have sixteen bucks between the pair of them. She’s losing her touch. Last year this time she’d have cut off their water before they said word one. Old Donna’s on the skids.”

“What will she do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know where they go. She can
always sign for a tour.” He winked. “See the world. See all the ports in S.A. I don’t know where they go.”

I wandered back to the Aztec. My bartending friend told me that Toni Raselle was out in the casino in back, escorted by a general. He said she was wearing a white blouse and dark-red skirt, and had an evening scarf that matched her skirt.

I tipped him and went out into the casino. I bought chips through the wicket just inside the door. The large room was crowded. It was brightly, whitely lighted, like an operating amphitheater. The light made the faces of the people look sick. The cards, the chips, the dice, the wheels were all in pitiless illumination. I spotted the uniform across the room. The general was big-chested. He held his face as though he thought he resembled MacArthur. He did a little. But not enough. He had three rows of discreetly faded ribbons.

Antoinette Rasi stood beside him and laughed up at him. It was the face of the high-school picture, matured, not as sullen. Her tumbled hair was like raw blue-black silk. She held her folded
rebozo
over her arm. Her brown shoulders were bare. She was warm within her skin, moving like molten honey, teeth white in laughter against her tan face. Wide across the cheekbones. Eyes deep set. Nose broad at the bridge. Feral look. Gypsy look. A mature woman so alive she made the others in the room look two dimensional, as though they had been carefully placed there to provide their drab contrast to Toni’s look of greedy life.

They were at the roulette table. I stood across the table. The general was solemnly playing the black. When he lost Toni laughed at him. He didn’t particularly like it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. I had twenty one-dollar chips. I began playing twenty-nine, and watching her instead of the wheel. I won thirty-six dollars on the fourth spin. I began to play the red, and kept winning. Toni became aware of my interest in her. So did the general. He gave me a mental command to throw myself on my sword. Toni gave me a few irritated glances.

Finally the general had to go back to the window to
buy more chips. They didn’t sell them at the table. As soon as he was gone I said, “Antoinette?”

She looked at me carefully. “Do I know you?”

“No. I want a chance to talk to you.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Antoinette Rasi. Through Timmy Warden. Remember him?”

“Of course. I can’t talk now. Phone me tomorrow. At noon. Eight three eight nine one. Can you remember that?”

“Eight three eight nine one. I’ll remember.”

The general came back, staring at me with bitter suspicion. I went away, taking with me the memory of her dark eyes and her low, hoarse, husky voice.

I drove back through the night to Hillston. It was well after midnight when I got there. I wondered if they would be waiting for me at the motel. But the
No Vacancy
sign was lighted and my room was dark.

I went to bed and went to sleep at once. An hour later I awakened abruptly from a nightmare. I was drenched with sweat. I had dreamed that Grassman rode my back, his legs clamped around my waist, his heavy arms around my throat. I walked down a busy street with him there, asking, begging for help. But they would scream and cover their eyes and shrink away from me. And I knew that Grassman’s face was more horrible than I had remembered. No one would help me. Then it was not Grassman any more. It was Timmy who rode there. I could smell the earth we had buried him in. I woke up in panic and it took me a long time to quiet down again.

I
called her at noon and she answered on the tenth ring just as I was about to give up.

Her voice was blurred with sleep. “Whozit?”

“Tal Howard.”

“Who?”

“I spoke to you last night at the Aztec. About Timmy Warden. You said to phone.”

I could hear the soft yowl of her complete yawn. “Oh, sure. You go have some coffee or something and then stop around here. I live at a place called the Glendon Arms. Give me about forty minutes to wake up.”

I wasted a half hour over coffee and a newspaper, and then found the Glendon Arms without difficulty. It was as pretentious as its name, with striped canopy, solid glass doors, mosaic tile lobby floor, desk clerk with dreary sneer. He phoned and told me I could go right up to Miss Raselle’s apartment, third floor, 3A. The elevator was self-service. The hallway was wide. I pushed the button beside her door.

She opened the door and smiled as she let me in. She wore a white angora sleeveless blouse, slacks of corduroy in a green plaid. I had expected her to be puffy, blurred by dissipation, full of a morning surliness. But she looked fresh, golden, shining and clean. The great mop of black hair was pulled sleekly back and fastened into an intricate rosette.

“Hi, Tal Howard. Can you stand more coffee? Come along.”

There was a small breakfast terrace with sliding doors that opened onto it from the bedroom and the kitchen. The sun was warm on the terrace. We had coffee and rolls and butter on a glass-topped table.

“Last night was a waste,” she said. “He was a friend of a friend. A stuffed uniform until drink number ten. And then what. He goes with his hands like so. Zoom. Dadadadadada. Gun noises. Fighter planes. I’m too old for toys.”

“He had a lot of ribbons.”

“He told me what they were for. Several times. How did you track me down, Tal Howard?”

“Through your sister.”

“Dear God. Anita has turned into a real slob. It’s that Doyle. Doyle allows that the sun rises and sets on Doyle.
The kids are nice, though. I don’t know how they made it, but they are. What’s with Timmy? He was my first love. How is that cutie?”

“He’s dead, Toni.”

Her face lost its life. “You certainly didn’t waste any time working up to that. How?”

“He was taken prisoner by the Chinese in Korea. So was I. We were in the same hut. He got sick and died there and we buried him there.”

“What a stinking way for Timmy to go. He was a nice guy. We got along fine, right up into the second year of high school, and then he started considering his social position and brushed me off. I don’t blame him. He was too young to know any better. He left me to take a big hack at the dancing-school set. My reputation wasn’t exactly solid gold.” She grinned. “Nor is it yet.”

“He mentioned you while we were in camp.”

“Did he?”

“He called you Cindy.”

For a long moment she looked puzzled, and then her face cleared. “Oh, that. You know, I’d just about forgotten that. It was sort of a gag. In that eighth grade we had a teacher who was all hopped up about class activities. I was the rebel. She stuck me in a play as Cinderella. Timmy was the prince. He called me Cindy for quite a while after that. A year maybe. A pretty good year, too. I was a wild kid. I didn’t know what I wanted. I knew that what I had, I didn’t want. But I didn’t know how to make a change. I was too young. Gee, I’m sorry about Timmy. That’s depressing. It makes me feel old, Tal. I don’t like to feel old.”

“I came back and tried to find a Cindy. I didn’t know your right name. I found a couple. Cindy Waskowitz—”

“A great fat pig. But nothing jolly about her. Brother, she was as nasty as they come.”

“She’s dead, too. Glandular trouble of some kind.”

“Couldn’t you go around wearing a wreath or singing hymns like Crossing the Bar?”

“I’m sorry. Then there was Cindy Kirschner.”

“Kirschner. Wait a minute. A younger kid. Teeth like this?”

“That’s right. But she had them fixed. Now she has a husband and a couple of kids.”

“Good for her.”

“She was the one who remembered the class play or skit or whatever it was. And the name of the eighth-grade teacher. Miss Major. She couldn’t remember who played Cinderella. So I found Miss Major. She went blind quite a while ago and—”

“For God’s sake, Tal! I mean really!”

“I’m sorry. Anyway, she identified you. I went out and saw your sister. I came here hunting for Antoinette Rasi. The way your sister spoke about you, when I couldn’t find you, I tried the police. They told me the name you use. Then it was easy.”

She looked at me coldly and dubiously. “Police, eh? They give you all the bawdy details?”

“They told me a few things. Not much.”

“But enough. Enough so that when you walked in here you had to act like a little kid inspecting a leper colony. What the hell did you expect to find? A room all mirrors? A turnstile?”

“Don’t get sore.”

“You look stuffy to me, Tal Howard. Stuffy people bore me. So what the hell was this? A sentimental journey all the way from prison camp to dig up poor little me?”

“Not exactly. And I’m not stuffy. And I don’t give a damn what you are or what you do.”

The glare faded. She shrugged and said, “Skip it. I don’t know why I should all of a sudden get sensitive. I’m living the way I want to live. I guess it’s just from talking about Timmy. That was a tender spot. From thinking about the way I was. At thirteen I wanted to lick the world with my bare hands. Now I’m twenty-eight. Do I look it?”

“No, you really don’t.”

She rested her cheek on her fist. She looked thoughtful. “You know, Tal Howard, another reason why I think I
jumped on you. I think I’m beginning to get bored. I think I’m due for some kind of a change.”

“Like what?”

“More than a new town. I don’t know. Just restless. Skip that. You said this wasn’t exactly a sentimental journey. What is it?”

“There’s something else involved.”

“Mystery, hey? What’s with you?”

“How do you mean?”

“What do you do? You married?”

“I’m not doing anything right now. I’m not married. I came here from the west coast. I haven’t got any permanent address.”

“You’re not the type.”

“How do you mean that?”

“That information doesn’t fit you, somehow. So it’s just a temporary thing with you. You’re between lives, aren’t you? And maybe as restless as I am?”

“I could be.”

She winked at me. “And I think you’ve been taking yourself too seriously lately. Have you noticed that?”

“I guess I have.”

“Now what’s the mystery?”

“I’m looking for something. Timmy hid something. Before he left. I know what it is. I don’t know where it is. Before he died, not very many hours before he died, Timmy said, ‘Cindy would know.’ That’s why I’m here.”

“Here from the west coast, looking for Cindy. He hid something nice, then. Like some nice money?”

“If you can help me, I’ll give you some money.”

“How much?”

“It depends on how much he hid.”

“Maybe you admitted too fast that it was money, Tal. I am noted for my fondness for money. It pleases me. I like the feel of it and the smell of it and the look of it. I’m nuts about it. I like all I can get, maybe because I spent so much time without any of it. A psychiatrist friend told me it was my basic drive. I can’t ever have too much.”

“If that was really your basic drive, you wouldn’t say it
like that, I don’t think. It’s just the way you like to think you are.”

She was angry again. “Why does every type you meet try to tell you what you really are?”

“It’s a popular hobby.”

“So all right. He hid something. Now I’ve got a big fat disappointment for you. I wouldn’t have any idea where he hid something. I don’t know what he means.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I
do
know and I won’t tell you because I want it all. Honestly, Tal, I don’t know. I can’t think what he could have meant.”

I believed her.

“This sun is actually getting too hot. Let’s go inside,” she said. I helped carry the things in. She rinsed the dishes. Having seen her the previous evening I would not have thought she had the sort of figure to wear slacks successfully. They were beautifully tailored and she looked well in them. We went into the living-room. It was slightly overfurnished. The lamps were in bad taste. But it was clean and comfortable.