The Predators (2 page)

“I’ll manage, Uncle Harry. But thank you, anyway.”

Aunt Lila came over and hugged me. She started to cry again. “You’re a brave mensch,” she said softly.

“Don’t cry anymore,” I said to her. “I love you both.”

Harry grabbed my hand tightly. “You’re a good boy.” He shook his finger at me. “And just remember, don’t smoke,” Uncle Harry said in a fatherly way.

“C’mon, Uncle Harry,” I said, and wondered if he had smelled the cigarette smoke when he came in.

He turned to Aunt Lila. “Let’s get home to bed. We all have a very busy day ahead of us.”

2

I closed the door and shoved the bolt and locked it tight. I walked over and sat down at the table. I pushed my homework papers to the floor. Fuck it, the hell with it. I lit another Twenty Grand cigarette. The smoke felt good in my lungs. I needed a good drag. I studied the Twenty Grand package on the table. The drawing of the great Kentucky Derby winner on the front of the package was really a beauty. That was one of the reasons that I bought Twenty Grands. They also cost less than Luckys or Camels or Chesterfields. But for some reason tonight I couldn’t even taste the smoke in my mouth or nose. I stared blankly ahead at the white-papered kitchen wall. I remembered when my father and I had tried to roll that wallpaper on ourselves, but it was a mess. He finally got fed up trying to figure it out and hired the super to do the work. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard another knock at the door.

“Hold on, Uncle Harry,” I hollered for the second time, pinching my cigarette butt and throwing it out the kitchen window.

“It’s me,” Kitty called through the door. “Hurry up, will you? Someone might see me.”

I opened the door and Kitty breezed in by me in a thin pink robe. I closed the door and snapped at her. “Are you crazy or something? Your dad will kill you if he finds you dressed like that up here in my apartment.”

“My father is fast asleep, and he thinks that his baby girl is in dreamland.” She grinned. “I came down the fire escape and through the hall window.”

“Kitty, I think you oughtta—”

Kitty was talking ninety miles an hour. “I thought I was a goner when your aunt and uncle showed up. I was just about ready to come in the kitchen window to bring you my present. I had to sneak back upstairs until they left.”

“Kitty…” But I had a hard time finding my voice.

“At first I thought it was your folks, which would have ruined everything, but when I saw it wasn’t them…” She stared at me finally. “Hey baby, what’s the matter?”

I still had a problem finding my voice. I rubbed my sleeve across my cheek to stop the tears.

“What’s the matter, Jerry?” she asked. A real concern had come into her voice.

“They’ve…” I reached for the kitchen towel to dry my tears on my cheek. “They were killed tonight in an accident on the Jersey Turnpike coming back from Atlantic City.” By then I really was crying.

“Oh, my God.” She pulled me to her. “You poor kid.”

“I’m not a kid—you’re only two years older than me.” A sob made me shudder. I struggled to get myself together. “I’ll be all right.”

“Of course you will,” she said softly, holding me tightly and stroking my forehead. A terrible pain seemed to engulf me as I cried.

I tried to pull away, but she still held me close until finally I was able to get my voice back. I looked at her. She was bare-assed naked under that little robe.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked. “You can’t live here by yourself.”

“I don’t know. I’ll probably have to move in with my aunt and uncle.” I started to reach for my package of cigarettes from the table, but my hand caught accidentally on her robe and pulled it open. “Damn!” I said. “What the hell are you doing, Kitty? I can see everything that you’ve got!” I wasn’t able to move my eyes from her nipples, which were sticking out.

“That’s what the surprise was. That’s why I sneaked down here,” she said.

“Damn,” I said. “We did it twice before dinner.”

“Yeah, well I thought it’d be nice to do it again. After all, we don’t get that many chances to be alone where we don’t have to sneak around.” She rubbed her hand against my fly.

“Cut it out, will ya?” I growled.

Still trying to open my fly, she nuzzled my cheek and whispered. “You’re sad, and nervous. Maybe I could relax you a little bit and you’d feel better.”

I pushed her away. “What kind of schmuck do you take me for? Don’t you get it? My parents were just killed in an automobile accident.”

She kept right on and got my fly open and slipped her hand inside my pants and held my cock tight. “Better tell him. He’s still standing and hard.” She pulled it out and she was right—it was standing at attention. “What do you call that?”

“I got a nervous reaction.”

“That’s bullshit,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “I call it a hard-on and my pussy is aching for one more time.”

I pulled her hand off of me. “It’s not right. Besides, I can’t really do anything right now.”

Kitty stared at me persistently. “Don’t be stupid,” she said almost angrily. “How do you think we’re going to make out when you’re living with your aunt and uncle? Don’t break my heart. This might be our last time.”

I shook my head and pushed my prick back inside my pants. I felt stupid. My hand was soaking wet from my leaking pecker.

She started crying. “I just want to help you. C’mon, grab one of the Ramses from your dad’s top dresser drawer.”

I took her by the hand and led her to the kitchen table. “Let’s sit down a minute. I’m not feeling that great.”

One more time she reached for my hard-on. “I know I can make you feel better.”

“You can only help by taking your hand off of my cock,” I said. “Give me a few minutes to figure things out. I gotta figure out what to do next.”

She pulled her robe around her tightly, and she sat down at the kitchen table opposite me. I took out a cigarette and offered her one. She took it and I gave her a light. She took a drag and then made a funny face. “I don’t know how you smoke these cheap cigarettes.”

I dragged some smoke through my nostrils. “I like them. And besides”—I picked up the pack and showed her the picture on the front—“I like the horse.”

We both laughed. It helped.

“What do you want to do?” she asked. “Did your folks leave any money around the house for you?”

“My father left me a fiver for the weekend,” I said. “He left his briefcase too, but Uncle Harry told me to give it to him and he took it home.”

“What was in it?” she asked.

“Money and betting slips,” I answered.

She stared at me. She was a pretty clever girl. She was nineteen years old, two years older than me. She was a sophomore at Hunter Business College and I was just in my senior year in high school. She had always been a horny little bitch from the day we moved in. Last year she had lifted her skirt almost over her panties when I was walking behind her up the staircase. She turned around on the step above me and smiled down at me. “You like that black curly pussy?”

I nearly fell down. I couldn’t believe what she had said. That was last year and I was only sixteen and the only thing I had ever done was jerk off all the time.

“You’re a big boy for your age,” she said. “I have to get together with you.” She paused and turned around to face me fully. “I wonder if everything you have is big,” she said as she put her hand on my fly. She laughed and turned to go up the stairs. “I think you’ve really got a big one, Jerry. When can we start working it out?”

I was dumbfounded. I stared at her. “How did you know my name?”

“My name is Kitty,” she said, ignoring my question. “Pretty soon you’ll find out I know about everything that goes on in this place. My father is the owner.”

She lived a story below me, and before I could even say anything more, she went inside her apartment. A second later the door to her apartment opened and she stuck her head out. “Don’t forget to get yourself some rubbers,” she whispered into the hall. “I’m not planning on getting knocked up.”

Then she closed the door again and I went upstairs. It wasn’t long before I learned that her father had bought the apartment house only about a month before we moved in. The next thing I learned was that her father was away at work all day in his real estate office. Two afternoons later Kitty called me to come down to her apartment and she screwed my brains out.

I kept on dragging on my cigarette and looking at her. It was hard to believe that I had been screwing her for a year. Suddenly I came back to reality. I really couldn’t believe either that I had no parents. They were gone. I had no idea what I was going to do. My world had disappeared.

“What are you thinking?” Kitty asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Everything has changed. I’ve gotta get my parents’ clothes out for the funeral tomorrow. I want to put them out on their bed. Then I have to get my own suit out.”

“I’ll help you,” Kitty said. “Don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I guess we better get started.”

I felt peculiar when I stepped into my parents’ room. The choking in my throat began again. I began to feel a little dizzy. Kitty held my arm tightly. “It’s all right,” she said quietly. “It’s all right. Everything will be okay in time. Why don’t you let me get your mom’s clothes out for you.”

I looked at her. She made me feel better. “Thank you,” I said. I pointed at the closet near the dresser. “My mother’s clothes are in there.” I moved over to the other closet on the other side of the dresser. “I’ll get my dad’s clothes out of this one.”

She nodded and moved to my mom’s closet. I decided to take out my father’s good holiday suit. He always wore it for Rosh Hashanah and for Yizkor at the synagogue. I placed it carefully on a good hanger. Then I looked up on the top shelf, where he kept his hats. I also saw a cardboard shoe box. I took it down thinking that it was his patent leather dress shoes. I was wrong. The box was stuffed with rolls of bills. A roll of fivers, then a roll of tens, then twenties and a few hundreds on the bottom of the box. I looked up at Kitty, who had come over to see what I was doing. We were both speechless.

“Where did your father get that kind of money?” she asked, her mouth half-open.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I know my father has worked for Uncle Harry for a long time. But he was only a runner picking up bets. Uncle Harry is the big-shot bookie. He handled all the connections with Frank Ericson, who is the boss.”

“How much money is there?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered, trying to figure out where my dad got this money. “Let’s check it out.” We split the rolls of bills and counted them.

After we had finished counting, I looked over at Kitty. “How much?”

“I’ve counted twenty-four hundred,” she answered. “How much have you got?”

“I’ve got three thousand,” I said.

“What are you going to do with the money?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll turn it over to Uncle Harry to keep for me.”

“Don’t be a schmuck,” she said. “He’ll only tell you that it was his money that your father held out from him.”

“My father wouldn’t do anything like that,” I answered indignantly.

“It doesn’t make any difference,” she snapped. “It’s money isn’t it? And I bet your father would want you to have it. If you give it to your Uncle Harry, you’ll have to fight for it. He’s a bookie and my father has told me all about bookies. They keep every dollar that they can get their hands on. You’ll never see a cent of it if you give it to your uncle.”

“What should I do, then?” I asked.

“Put it in the bank,” she said.

“I can’t do it,” I said. “I’m only seventeen. I’m not old enough without one of my parents with me. I’m fucked. I’ll have to give it to my uncle.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I’ll put it in a safety-deposit box at my bank. After you turn eighteen, I’ll take the money out of the box for you and you can open your own account.”

“I won’t have any time tomorrow to help you. I’ll be busy all day with the funeral. My uncle will be here at six-fifteen in the morning.”

“I’ll hold it for you,” she said as she watched me. “That is, if you trust me.”

I lit another cigarette and stared down at the money.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “It’ll be like sticking it in my pussy and whenever you want to make a withdrawal you’ll know what to do.”

Kitty had only one thing on her mind. “You’re crazy,” I said.

She leaned across the bed toward me. “The only thing I’m crazy about is your cock, and every time you stick it in me, it’s like making a deposit in the bank.”

“That’s a romantic thought,” I said sarcastically.

“There’s nothing romantic about money or fucking, Jerry.” She grinned and raised her hand. There was a Ramses between her fingers. “Sure you don’t want to make a deposit right now?”

“Damn!” I said. “My parents haven’t even been buried yet and all you want is—”

She interrupted me. “I’m sorry, but they are dead now, and nothing that anyone can do will bring them back. They can be buried a week, or a month, or a year from now and they will still be dead. But you’re not dead. You’re alive and you have to keep on living. You’re a man now. You have to start thinking about your own life, not theirs.”

I lay back on the bed. It was all crazy. I was getting dizzy from the accident, the money, and Kitty. I took a deep breath and sat up. I took her hand and led her from my parents’ room to mine. Quickly, I opened my fly and my prick sprung out like a javelin. She dropped to her knees and covered my prick with her mouth.

3

The coroner’s assistant took us downstairs in the morgue. He led Uncle Harry and myself into a room that held corpses. He opened the door of the refrigerated case, and pulled a body covered in a sheet out and pulled the sheet down so I could see the face. “Is this your father?” he said without expression.

I could hardly answer him. I was so nauseous. I just nodded.

He then opened the door of the next refrigerated case. He pulled the sheet down. “Is this your mother?”

I nodded and then threw up. The coroner was experienced—he held a pail under my mouth before I could let it go. Then he gently placed his arm around my shoulders. “I’ll get you some smelling salts,” he said softly.