The Moonlight (14 page)

“Now see here, just who do you think you  . . .”

“Ah, fuck off,” I said.

That was when I clouted him.

I caught the guy right on the temple.  I don’t know whether he felt anything or not, but his face went kind of funny, like somebody ’d just pulled his guts out in one big coil.  Then he just sagged forward and went right over, hitting the deck head first.  I knew at once I’d killed him.

I can’t blame the blackjack, because I’d used it lots of times.  It was a high quality item, heavy black leather with about two pounds of nice, soft lead inside.  I must have gotten mad and swung too hard.

I reached down and touched the artery on the side of his throat, and I think I may have felt the absolute last beat of his heart.  He was gone.

“Is he okay?” the girl asked.

“Right as rain,” I answered.  “But I don’t suppose he’ll think so when he wakes up.”

And she believed me, too.  She was that stupid.

“Where’s his wallet?”

“In his pants.”

And that’s where it was, too.  I opened it up, and I could hardly believe my eyes—in hundreds and fifties, there was a good seven hundred bucks.  It was easy the biggest score I’d ever made in my life.

I also found a gold pocket watch in his vest that was probably worth another hundred.  And all the while the girl is watching me, like I’m sitting in front of a steak dinner and she hasn’t eaten in a week.

Back then a high-class whore like that got, what, maybe twenty bucks for the night.  I peeled a hundred-dollar bill off the guy’s wad and held it up to her.

“You want to earn this?” I asked her.

“What about him?”  She was interested, but she was scared.

“What
about
him?”  I looked down a Sugar Daddy, who was lying on the deck like he’d decided to take a snooze—except that I knew he was never going to wake up.  “Listen, if you ain’t here when he comes around, who’s he gonna complain to?  You think he wants the whole world to know he takes broads down here?  Nothin’ personal.”

“Okay.”

Well, she had me up on that bed and out of my pants before I knew where I was.  She was terrific.  She sucked me and fucked me and made more noise than a polecat.  It was one of the best pieces of ass I ever had, and sure as hell the quickest.

“How long is he gonna be out?”  She asked, looking over the edge of the bed at her boyfriend.  I was just putting my shoes back on.

“Oh, quite a while yet.  Don’t worry.”  And then I gave her a nice ratty smile.  “What was he like?”

“A pig, a total slobbering pig.  Jesus!”  She drew her arms around her, as if recoiling even from the memory of his touch.  I guess she didn’t much love him.  “I’ve had some bad ones in my time, but he was the worst.  What’d you hit him with?”

“With this?” I said, and tossed the blackjack in her lap—I was making like I wanted to impress her, but I couldn’t have cared less what she thought.  I’ve never cared what any broad thought.

Just like I knew she would, she picked it up.  She was really dumb.

“Jesus,” she said.  “Do me again.”

So I did, only this time it took a little longer.

And when we were all finished, and she had her clothes back on, I looked at the guy’s watch.  It was almost eight thirty.  I closed the watch and put it into the girl’s hand.

“A present,” I said, and then I clipped her one right on the ear, where it wouldn’t show.  You could tell she felt it by the way her eyes started to glisten—I wanted to give her another, but I didn’t.  “That’s just a reminder to keep your mouth shut.  Now get out of here.”

So she left, with her hundred bucks and her gold watch, leaving nothing but a nice set of fingerprints on my blackjack.  I would have to sacrifice the blackjack, which was a pity, but it couldn’t be helped.

You see, if you want to prosper as a crook you have to learn to make things easy for the cops.  They would find the blackjack when they found the body—with just one set of prints, because I’m not careless about stuff like that.  The guy’s name was engraved on the inside cover of his watch and, when the girl sold it, it would be traced back to her.  And when the cops caught up with her they wouldn’t be interested in any stories she had to tell them about me.  They wouldn’t believe her, because they would have their killer.  A whore who knocks off her client is nice and tidy.  They wouldn’t need me, so I wouldn’t exist.

I gave her about a five-minute head start, and then I got out of there.  It was still pretty early, and I didn’t think anybody saw me leave.  I didn’t
think
so.

Well, I had all day ahead of me and, for once, no shortage of cash.  I walked up to town and had a second breakfast at a little diner I found open across the street from the train station—in those days I was always hungry after I did somebody, which I guess was probably just nerves.  I paid the tab with my own money, because in a place like that people remember having to make change for a fifty.  I didn’t want to be remembered.

Then I went back to the train station and caught the next one going north.  I was in Old Greenley by nine thirty, on my way to the beach.

It was a long hike, close to a mile, but Jesus it was nice.  All those little saltbox houses with the weeping willow trees in their front yards—I’d hardly been out of New York City in ten years, and never to Connecticut, so it was like a different planet.  There’s a little cluster of stores right near the railroad station, and they probably depend on the Sunday visitors to stay in business, so I was able to buy an ice cream cone, strawberry, just like I’d promised myself.  I ate it while I walked to the beach.

When you live in New York you forget things, like the feel of the sun on your face or what grass looks like.  A rat gets used to his sewer; maybe he doesn’t know there’s anything else, but does he like it?  I decided on that walk, with the ice cream melting over my fingers faster than I could lick it up, that I didn’t much like New York.  It would be much nicer to live someplace out here.

But then there was always the problem of making a living.  I’d done pretty well for a morning’s work, but I wasn’t kidding myself I could pull something like that more than once.  It’s easier to get caught in the sticks, where you can’t lose yourself in the crowds.  I didn’t see any future for a heister out here.

The churches around here must not do a lively business, I figured, because even at ten in the morning there were a lot of people at the beach.  I liked that.  I like to have crowds around, so I can relax a little.  I took my shoes off and rolled up my trouser legs and went wading in the surf.

Some hustler had set up a grill out there and was cooking hamburgers and hotdogs to sell.  He also had lemonade.  Around noon I had lunch.  I would have loved a beer, since there’s nothing like a beer in the hot sun, but of course there wasn’t any so I had to settle for lemonade.  That was the law for you.  Rich creeps can drink champagne on their yachts, but a poor man can’t have a beer at the beach.

I felt great.  For the moment, I had no worries.  There were a lot of kids around, running up and down the beach and yelling their heads off.  I like to watch kids playing.  I’ve always found the noise kids make to be very comforting, although I’d probably feel different if they were my own kids.

It had already been a long day, and the food made me drowsy.  I found a shady spot and rolled my jacket up to put under my head—and also to make sure nobody made off with my wallet or gun—and I lay down for a snooze.

I don’t know how long I was asleep.  I woke up when I felt a shadow cross my face.

Some guy was standing over me.  He was short and broad, the kind to make a good shadow, and he wore a checked cloth cap.  He hadn’t shaved that morning.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said.

Two minutes later we were walking back towards where his car was parked.  I didn’t know what he wanted and I didn’t know whether I would let him live, but, whichever way it happened, the beach was too public.  He said, “come on,” and I did.  It was his funeral.

“I’m the boatman at the pier in Greenley,” he said.  “I was down there early because one of the owners wanted to take his boat out for the day and I had to get it ready.  I saw the girl leave, and then I saw you leave.  And then I went to check that everything was all right.”

“Curiosity killed the cat.”  I grinned at him, just to make him understand how much trouble he was in.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t owe Mr. Greyson anything.”

“Was that his name?”

“Yeah.  He lives in New York, but he keeps a place out here. You know, in five years he’s never taken that boat out—it’s just his fuck hutch.  I sold him the champagne.  What with tips, he was worth a good two bills a year to me.  Don’t worry, I didn’t touch anything.”

I shot him a quick glance, wondering how much he had figured out.  If he wanted a split of Greyson’s money, he was a dead man.

“I saw the blackjack,” he said.  “You have it set up for the girl to take the fall?”

“Yeah.”

“Pity—she’s a looker.”  He smiled comfortably.  “I’m a married man myself, so I don’t care anything for whores.  Still, she’s a knockout.

“I know Greyson always carried a heavy wad.  How much did you score off him?”

By this time we had reached the parking lot, and there was no one around.  I had no objections to dropping him right here.  I reached into my jacket pocket, where I kept my gun.

“Relax,” he said, as if he could read my mind.  “I’m not dumb enough to try shaking you down, and if I’d wanted to tell the cops you’d be talking to them now instead of me.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Maybe just to do a little business.  I can use someone like you, someone with guts.  Someone who can handle the rough stuff—I’m no good at that myself.  Besides, you just came into a little money.  I figure maybe we could be partners.”

Then he stuck out his hand to me, just like we’d met at the Bankers’ Club.

“By the way, the name is Patchmore.  George Patchmore.”

. . . . .

You see, the deal was this:  George knew a guy in Toronto who would sell him all the blended scotch he could use—the genuine article, with the label and everything, not some shit cooked up in somebody’s basement the day before yesterday.  The price was a dollar a bottle, with a dollar discount per case on orders over a hundred.  And he knew a guy here who would buy it for three dollars a bottle, and no discount.  All we had to do was hire a truck and drive the stuff over the border from Canada.

“I’m thinking of a big score,” he told me over beers at a place in Old Greenley I’d walked right by and never noticed—so you see, I got my beer after all.  “We each put in five hundred and buy fifty cases.  The discount will cover the truck.  Total profit for three days’ work:  a thousand each.”

“So why me?  Lots of guys can swing five hundred for something like this.”

“Because there are risks, and because the people we would be dealing with on a thing like this scare me and it probably shows.  I don’t want to end up sold to the cops, I don’t want to have my stuff highjacked, and I don’t want to be anybody’s patsy.  So I’m hoping they won’t scare you.  You’re my insurance policy, okay?”

“You try a thing like this in New York, the Dagos ’ll blow your head off.  They think they have a monopoly.”

“It’s easier out here,” George said, putting his hand on my arm and smiling like a car salesman.  “Things aren’t so organized.  There’s still room for the little guy.  You interested?”

Sure, I was interested.  Besides, if I said no I couldn’t trust this guy not to pitch me to the cops—which meant either I said yes or I killed him.  It was easier, and probably less dangerous, to say yes.  I figured I could always kill him later.

So that was how George and I got started together in the bootlegging business.  We hired a truck in Stamford and we were on our way.

When he got to Toronto, George introduced me to his source there and I had a little word with the guy.  When the truck was loaded with our fifty cases, I backed the slob up against a wall and pushed the muzzle of my gun into his face.

“Listen, pal,” I told him, “this can go three ways:  we arrive home safely and collect our money, in which case everyone is happy, or we get stopped along the way—the cops or the competition, it don’t make no difference—or we drive all that way and our buyer tells us we’re trying to sell him fifty cases of strong tea.  Now if it’s either one of the last two you better hope they kill me, because if they don’t I’m comin’ back here to put a bullet through your face.  You understand?  You got anything you want to say before we leave?”

It’s a funny thing, but people generally believe me when I say things like that.  There’s something very persuasive about looking down the business end of a .38 police special.

But we didn’t take any chances.  I got a map and figured out a route over back roads, and while George drove I rode next to him with a sawed-off shotgun across my knees.  We had no trouble, all the way back to Greenley.

The funny thing was that George’s buyer owned the Moonlight Roadhouse.  In those days it was a restaurant downstairs and didn’t serve anything stronger than seltzer, but the guy ran a kind of private service for the big houses around there.  If the Rockefellers were having a party and needed a little something to flavor the punch, they’d send a servant over in the estate wagon.  The restaurant lost money—I ate there once, and I can understand why—but he made a nice penny off the booze.