The Lime Pit (8 page)

I knew what he meant.

"One thing, though," he said. "I want
you to know, whatever it is you got to say, I've had a real fine
evening. And I thank you for it.

"I've had a fine evening too, Hugo."

His thin mouth trembled a bit and he sighed.

"If you want her back Hugo ..." I didn't
know quite how to say it, or maybe I just couldn't bring myself to
hurt him that way. "If you want to maximize the possibilities
... you're going to have to do what I say."

"What're you building up to, Harry?"

"Let's say the Jellicoes have hidden Cindy Ann
away somewhere. Maybe they've got her making movies. Maybe they're
hiring her out. I don't know exactly what the set-up is yet. That's
the first thing I've got to find out."

"How you going to do that?" Hugo said.

"I found out today that the Jellicoes may have
her working in Newport. I've got some friends on that side of the
river," I told him. "One man, in particular, who knows just
about every shady character in Kentucky. If the Jellicoes are running
any kind of independent porno game or if they've got a stable of
girls for sale, this friend will know about it."

"All right," Hugo said. "I take it he
ain't a friend in the strict sense of the word?"

I laughed. "No. Just a contact I picked up over
the years. Working with the D.A. and Pinkerton and so on."

"All right. What next?"

"They've got Cindy Ann. That gives them the hole
card as far as we're concerned."

"The whole deck," Hugo said glumly.

I shook my head. "Uh-uh. We've got the shoe box.
That's the joker. From what I learned today, the Jellicoes don't want
photographs like the ones you've got in circulation. Don't ask me
why, because I don't know that yet. But, if I can convince them that
those pictures of yours are valuable, maybe I can work a trade--what
I know and what you know for Cindy Ann."

Hugo sipped meditatively at his beer. "When I
was in the Corps they used to run us through a little exercise 'bout
once every other day. They'd station a machine gun up on a little
rise. And this gun would spray live ammo across a field. And in this
field there'd be rocks and logs and mud and standing water. And what
we was supposed to do was crawl across it whilst this machine gun was
firing over our fannies. It took a real nice sense of judgment to
know when to lift up and when to duck down. Too high and you'd get
your britches blown off. Too low and you'd just get stuck there
whilst the rest of your huddles crawled on by. Strikes me that what
you're proposing is a little like that exercise. You aim to convince
the Jellicoes that those photographs are valuable. Strikes me that
value can mean different things to different folks. You make 'em seem
too valuable and that tree of Laurie's is likely to topple over on
you. You make 'em seem not valuable enough and they're just likely to
brush you off like a fly."

I smiled at him. "You should've been a
detective, Hugo."

"I'd have been a good one."

"Yep."

"So where do I fit into this scheme of yours?"

I took a swallow of beer and said, "You don't."

At first, he didn't say anything at all. Just stared
off into space--cogitating, digesting it. After a second he turned in
the booth seat and looked me in the eye. "I want you to tell me
the truth. If you want me out of the way 'cause I'd just be in it
every other second, that's one thing. If you're trying to get rid of
me 'cause you're worried about something happening to me, that's
another. Now, which is it?"

"I work alone, Hugo. That's what I get paid for.
I'm not saying that you're less of a man than I am or that you can't
take care of yourself. But, with the stakes so high, I do it my way
Or I don't do it at all. And my way means you clear out. You go off
to Dayton and visit your son."

"For how long?"

"Until I need you to come back."

Hugo took a deep breath. "All right, Harry. I'll
leave tomorrow."

"Good," I said. "And no tricks, Hugo."

"Why, Harry!" he said. "Whatever made
you say a thing like that?"

We had another round of beers. Hugo seemed too damn
cheerful, and I began to wonder just how seriously he'd taken my
point. Around twelve, he said, "I been out too late." So I
stood up and took the check up to the bar. I was standing next to the
cash register when someone shoved me so hard that I knocked over a
couple of beer glasses.

I turned around and saw the back of Big Mike's head.
He was a fair-sized gent, Big Mike. My height, but a good fifty
pounds heavier than I was and at least a fifth drunker. Maybe it was
Terry and Morris Rich; maybe it was Abel Jones and the Jellicoes;
maybe it was Cindy Ann; or maybe it was the beer and the talk and the
sneaking suspicion that Hugo hadn't heard a word that I'd said. But
that angry little man inside of me had had his fill of nastiness for
one day. "I'm taking over," he said. And I was just too
tired and dejected to say, "No."

I tapped Mike on the shoulder and he turned slowly
around. He was in his cups, all right. But he was one of those mean,
deceptive drunks. His square, porcine face was flushed and sweaty;
but the liquor hadn't gotten into his eyes yet. And those eyes were
just aching for trouble.

"Hey, Mike!" I said, clapping him on the
arm. "You run down any more old men tonight?"

"What're you talking about?" he said in a
loud, gravelly voice.

"Hell, I'm talking about that two bucks you owe
me for those two beers of mine you drank."

Mike's bloodshot eyes narrowed. "I remember you.
You're the boy that was sucking around with that old faggot."

"That's it," I said cheerfully. "Now
how about my two bucks?"

"Go to hell," Big Mike said.

"Give the man the two bucks, will you, mister?"
Hank said from behind the register. "You took the beer. I saw
you do it."

"And who the hell are you?" Mike roared.
"You can't even have a drink in this faggot bar without some
fairy sucking up to you."

"Don't call me that," Hank said.

That was it. That was all big Mike had been waiting
for. He froze like a guard dog before he pounces and stared with dull
hatred at Hank. "What did you say to me, faggot?"

"He said not to call him that," I said.

Big Mike whirled with impossible quickness and threw
a deft right hand at my head. At the time you never know how
something so swift and violent can miss its mark. Either you move or
you fall--it's that simple. I moved, ducking in under Mike's right
shoulder. He was a little off balance, but he'd be squared around in
a second. And I wasn't going to wait. I threw a hard right jab and
caught him full in the solar plexus.

"Oh," Mike groaned and fell backward onto
the floor. As I started in after him, Hank slapped his arm across my
chest.

"Easy, Harry," he said. "He's had
enough."

"I want my two bucks," I said between my
teeth.

"Here," one of Mike's friends said. "Here,
I'll give you the two bucks."

"I want it from him!" I said, kicking Big
Mike hard in the ass.

"Harry," Hank said. Big Mike groaned.

"I'll get it for you," the one called Al
said. He bent over Mike and pulled his wallet from his trousers.
"Here," he said, tossing it to me. I pulled two singles
from the billfold and threw the wallet on the floor.

"Don't you ever bring that asshole in here
again," I said to Al. "You hear?"

"Goodnight, Harry," Jo cooed.

I walked down to the restaurant level, plucked Hugo
by the arm, and walked quickly into the warm night air.

"Boy," he said to me, as we turned for the
parking lot. "Looks like I picked me the right man."
 
 

8

MORNINGS AFTER are generally a bad time for me.
Either the blood sugars are too low or my heart isn't pounding
energetically enough or the dreamy rhythms of night are still playing
in my ears. For half an hour after I've opened my eyes, I blunder
through the apartment like a sleepwalker and try to fend off that
first uncensored rush of memories. But the dead faces, the maimed
ones, the friends whom violence has borne away, always crowd in. And
that Saturday morning was no different. Tough black Roscoe
Bohannon--dead three years-and beautiful Lauren Swift--dead
one--an enemy and a friend, were there when I opened my eyes. Night
travelers, lost in the daylight, they drifted like motes in the clear
noon sun and wouldn't be chased away until I'd lifted myself from bed
and plunged into a shower.

Then the routines began. The morning coffee on the
living room couch. The sound of the Zenith Globemaster, which I play
constantly so that I'll always be in earshot of a human voice. The
waxy feel and inky smell of newsprint. My half-hour passed, and I
found that I could make a sentence, the first of the day: Get in
touch with Hugo Cratz.

I walked over to the phone on the rolltop desk
beneath the living room window and dialed Hugo's home. The previous
night filtered back to me as I listened to it ring. The turquoise
blue discoloration of the first knuckle of my middle finger reminded
me of the fight with Mike. And then I remembered the pleasure in
Hugo's voice as we'd walked out to the car. He'd been too pleased,
too self-satisfied, too nonchalant. He was up to something, I was
sure of it. Formulating some scheme that would keep him from leaving
town. At first, it might delay him for an afternoon. Then a day. Then
a week. And, before I knew it, old Hugo would have manipulated me
into letting him stay on--to bully and cheer me as I jousted with
Lance and Laurie for the honor of Cindy Ann.

That wasn't going to happen. If I had to put him on
the bus myself and watch it leave and call like a worried mother when
he arrived, that wasn't going to happen. The truth was I liked the
old codger too much to see him hurt. And, if Coral was right, that's
what could happen.

He answered the phone on the twentieth ring, in that
high-pitched, hurky-jerky voice and, when I reminded him that he was
leaving that day, he said: "Yes. All right, Harry. Whatever you
think is best."

I half expected to find him gone when I pulled into
his driveway at half-past one that afternoon. But there he was,
sitting on the porch chair, shading his eyes with one hand and
gripping a straw valise in the other. I honked and Hugo walked down
the front steps, cracked open the car door, and slid onto the seat.

"What kept you?" he said cheerfully.

I gave him a sidelong look. His chin was bristling
again with salt-and-pepper stubble; and his nose took little swipes
at it when he worked his jaws, which he did with mechanical
regularity, as if he were chewing a wad of tobacco or talking to
himself. And those wet blue eyes, like eyes in a clear aspic, were
nervous and merry.

"Just what are you so cheerful about?" I
asked him, throwing the Pinto into reverse and backing out onto
Cornell. "Did you call your son?"

"Yep." He nodded. "Called him this
morning. He's been trying to get me to come up there for years. Said
he'd build a room addition for me if I promised to stay for good."

"Uh-huh," I said, guiding us onto Ludlow
and west to the expressway. "You call the bus station like I
told you to?"

"Sure did," Hugo said. "She leaves at
two-fifteen and arrives in Dayton at four-thirty. Ralph'll be at the
depot to pick me up."

"Uh-huh," I said. "Did you remember to
bring the key to your place and the shoebox?"

"Got 'em in my bag, Harry. Just like you told
me."

I bit my lip.

"You sure are nervous, Harry," Hugo said
placidly.

"I just don't want to forget anything, Hugo,"
I said, turning onto I-75 and heading south out of the Clifton
hillside along the sunny industrial flats on the outskirts of town.
"I don't want to give you any reason to show up on my doorstep
tomorrow."

"Aw, Harry," he said.

At two sharp we pulled up beneath the prancing neon
greyhound above the bus terminal entrance. I slipped a quarter
into the meter and Hugo moseyed toward the depot.

"Wait up!" I barked at him.

He stopped dead at the door and pretended to read the
schedules and travel posters in the display cases.

"You sure are nervous," Hugo said again, as
we walked out of the keen white sunlight and into the shade of the
terminal.

No matter how noisy a bus terminal gets--and on a
July Saturday they get pretty damn loud--you can always hear your own
footsteps echoing above the crackle of the loudspeakers, the hiss of
air brakes, the soft sigh of bus doors opening, and the amplified
roar of the diesels as they pull out of their loading docks. I don't
know how they do it, how they calculate the eigentones and reflecting
angles to bring the click of heels and shoe leather into such crisp
prominence. Nor do I understand why bus stations are always made to
look so dreary. Or why the people sitting on the hard blue-and-red
plastic benches are invariably as cheerless and sullen-looking as the
gaunt men and women in Walker Evans's studies of the rural poor. Even
the attendants and guards are seedy and impassive; and everyone looks
too damn bored to talk about it. If there's an urban hell, the bus
station must come pretty close to being it.