Trick Baby (26 page)

Then at the instant of the leaping explosion, the beautiful fiend twisted and scooted from beneath it. I grabbed at her as she scrambled off the bed. I lay there panting, sweating with frustration. A
flash of lightning lit her up. She stood beside the bed looking down at me with a joyful smirk on her face.

She said, “What a pity that Camille had to spank. You hurt me terribly when you threatened to leave me. I had to trample my pride so to speak and beg you to forgive me. I know you won't ever do that again. I can tell.”

She went to the bathroom and shut the door. I lay there loving her and hating her. I wondered if I shouldn't get up and chastise her with my belt.

Then I remembered how Blue had driven Midge away with a belt beating. I didn't want to drive the Goddess away. I wanted to make her love me. Then I would change her the con-smooth, sweet way.

Sucker that I was, I didn't know the smartest thing I could have done was cut her loose that very night.

She came out of the bathroom. She flipped a switch on the wall. The ceiling light burst on. She walked over to the bed and sat on the side of it. I flinched as she dabbed gently at my stained crotch and thighs with a hot damp towel.

She said, “Sugarkins, don't look so unhappy. You're breaking my heart. I'm a complicated woman. As time goes on, you'll learn to appreciate me. We'll have the most divine relationship.

“Now, please, don't be hurt by my next remarks. This hotel, this room, this section of town, the whole setting was all wrong for our first adventure. I won't ever meet you again in Coon Town. It sets me on edge and depresses me horribly.

“Perhaps, that's precisely why I've been less than angelic tonight. There are lots of cheerful Loop hotels for our meetings. Promise me, Sugarkins, you will never request me to come to a Southside bed again.

“And I'm going to tell Daddy how attractive and charming you are. I'm sure he'll make a position for you. You're very important to me. I want you to work and live in the best possible of atmospheres. It's just so ridiculous to chase deadbeat paupers for a living. It has no
future, Sugarkins. It's selfish of me I know. Because I realize that the happier you are, the happier you will make me.”

I said, “Camille, I appreciate your concern for me. But I'm not leaving this side of town. And I'm not changing jobs. I'm crazy about what I'm doing now.

“I'll go along with the change of scene for our meetings. Tell me, is it wise for me to call you at your bedroom phone at night? By the law of averages, your husband is a cinch to make it an awkward situation one night.”

She threw her head back and guffawed cutely.

She said, “You can't apply the law of averages to Allan and my bedroom. I shut him out more than ten years ago.

“Darling, during the first ten years of our marriage I suffered through his abominably crude sex act. Our marriage was not really made in heaven. But rather in a bank, his bank. He was in fresh and naive possession of a quarter of a million dollars from the sale of a Montana sheep ranch left him by his father.

“Daddy was dreaming of the bearing manufacturing company. So a month after I met the sheepherder's son at a bash, given incidentally by my best friend, Cordelia Concannon, I married him.

“Needless to say, I took immediate and complete charge of the money. Some crooked wretch would have bilked him for sure. I turned it over to Daddy, and we civilized him, polished him, and stenciled vice president on the door of his office in the firm.

“It was a traumatically inequitable transaction I had made. But then there were new elegant friends, the chic clothes, holidays abroad. And of course there was the physical escape from Cicero to further cushion my dilemma.

“I approached my sexual problem with him in a practical way. I bought Doctor Van de Velde's book,
Ideal Marriage
. I gave it to Allan and suggested that he study the section dealing with the genital kiss. Three nights later I lay optimistically in bed beside him as he began his customary mauling.

“I said, ‘Well, Allan, what did you think of the good doctor's book?'

“He snatched his hand away and pressed the back of it to his forehead in confused agony. Then he gingerly patted my thighs and kitty. He had a disgusting Mortimer Snerd tone to his voice when he said, ‘Ha, ha. That damn book said I ought to kiss all around here and here. But if you're going to kiss all around there, you just might as well kiss right there. That doctor is tricking the public into debauchery with that hokum. I'm not violating my principles as a man on his wild quackery.'

“Then I realized that he was hopeless. So, I opened myself to fortunate men like you, who have discovered how ineffably delicious and fragrant an immaculate kitty can be.

“As I said before, I shut him out completely ten years ago when I could no longer endure his drunken, brute pile driving. He was very difficult at first. But now he's as innocuous as the carpets. He's made whiskey his mistress, and I'm ecstatic about that. So, my Irish dream, I hope it's patently clear to you how desperately I need you to love me.”

She leaned over and tenderly kissed my navel. She got to her feet and put on her brassiere and panties. I got up and helped her with her boots and coat. I put on my shorts.

She stood silently at the side of the bed looking down at the crushed rose petals and their pink stains on the sheet. She pulled the coat's hood up over the platinum cloud.

As we walked to the door I said, “Should I wait for another rainstorm to call you?”

She smiled and said, “Of course not. I just wanted it that way the first time. Call me any time and at least once a day.”

I opened the door and kissed her hard.

I said, “Shouldn't I slip my clothes on and take you to your car?” She said, “No, that won't be necessary. My protection is the storm.”

I stood in the open door and watched her go down the hall. Several yards away, she stopped and turned toward me.

She said, “Sugarkins, it was thrilling wasn't it to see how cruelly our bodies crushed the blood from those rose petals?”

I nodded my head. She turned and walked to the elevator. I put the light out and lay on the bed in the darkness. I had seen her go down the hallway. She was a Goddess all right and I was bewitched. I reached for her. Her body was gone.

But she was still there in the sweet meld of the raw odor of our lovemaking. She was there in the delicious scent of the platinum cloud on the pillow.

Perhaps she was half-Goddess and half-witch. How else could it be that she had been married for twenty long years, and yet have the face and body of a young beautiful girl.

I shuddered when I remembered her awful tongue-lashing at my remark about her precious rainstorm. And I remembered her standing at the side of the bed with evil glee as I lay with my crucified joy spewing from my spastic guts. I probably felt like a chump who had taken his first jolt of H.

I knew she was dangerous. And my first taste of her was powerful pleasure riddled with pain. But I knew I had to try her again.

I lay there sleepless until nine
A.M
. I sponged off and started to dress. I put on my aqua shirt with French cuffs. One of the miniature drum cuff links that Blue had given me for a Christmas present was missing.

I searched the tops of the tables and dresser. I got down on my hands and knees and frantically searched the carpet. I couldn't find it. I loosened my sweaty collar and searched the bathroom. It wasn't there.

I was in a panic. I went out into the hallway and covered every square inch of carpet to the elevator. I came back to the room and stood in the middle of the floor with my temples pounding. I called the desk. It hadn't been turned in.

I had to find it. I glanced down. The corner of my eye snared a faint glitter. I became dizzy with relief. I hadn't lost the tiny drum. It had fallen into my trouser cuff.

I started out the door, then I came back to the bed. I picked up one of the crushed petals. I put it into my wallet and went to the street.

The storm was over and the valiant sun was struggling to escape through a steel gray mesh of clouds. I decided to walk the several blocks home.

I smelled the limey odor of the damp concrete. I stuffed my lungs with the new morning air. There was still the faint scent of the valley of the Goddess clinging to my nostrils.

Then suddenly the sun shot through its gray prison like a golden cannonball. I discovered I was happy. My joyous feet flailed the sunny sidewalk.

I felt the blood rioting inside me. I had walked a hundred yards past home before I realized it.

I
unlocked the front door and walked into the house. I smelled coffee and Blue's cigar. I wondered why he was up so early. It was Sunday, our day off from the con. I went to the kitchen. Blue was sitting at the table sipping coffee with a grin on his face.

He said, “Good morning, stranger. That must have been a helluva pussy you laid. Your eyes are sparkling like a sucker's who is on the send. Has she got a twin sister?”

“No, I'm afraid not,” I said. “She's not just pussy, Blue. Like I told you before, she has almost nothing in common with other broads. Why are you up so early? Don't tell me you were worried about me. You know I can take care of myself out there.”

He said, “Hell no, I wasn't worried. I always know you'll call me if you get into a jam. You know old pappy will rush to your rescue.

“Folks, I've got good news. I got a call from Pocket a few minutes before you walked in. He gave me a rundown on a Spook mark for the rocks con. He's a muscle man for a Harlem numbers-racket operator. He's stopping at the Grand Hotel at Fifty-first Street and South Parkway.

“The bird is no idiot. He'll have to be given a velvet play. Pocket got the line on him from Old Man Mule. Mule tried to take him
off with cheap white stones mounted in sterling. He took one quick gander, kicked Mule in the ass and laughed him out of his face.

“But he's got a solid yen for the quill if he can get it. He must have a source in New York where he can turn over hot mounted stuff at a big profit.

“Pocket says he must be carrying at least eight grand and a magnum pistol. We're not going on the heist for the right grand so the pistol doesn't excite us. Pocket said that Buster Bang Bang, that's the mark's name, is not afraid of anything. He puts great trust in his magnum.”

I cut in and said, “Buster sounds dangerous. You haven't forgotten that drag mark, Percy Ridgeway, have you?”

Blue shoved his palms through the air and said, “That's a silly question. How in the hell can I forget a mark like Percy? Believe me, Folks, I wouldn't play the drag for Buster. But with the rocks, it's different.

“Buster's not going to be blown off empty-handed like in the drag. He'll have merchandise in his mitt. Fake, but still tangible.

“We'll have to play him with high-class flash. I figure we should go to the old Jew's shop at Wabash Avenue and Congress Street to get our stock. We'll need ten to a dozen blue-white zircons ranging from five to eight carats.

“Our mark is foxy, so to cinch him we should get the zircs mounted in gold. A seven-fifty outlay should do it. What do you think now?”

I said, “It still sounds less than wonderful. Buster's moniker makes me uneasy. He didn't get it with a permanent lock on the safety of that magnum. That mark must be leery and jumpy as hell after Mule tried to sting him.

“It's going to be hard to take him off just on the authentic appearance of our stuff. He's New York underworld. Will he go for the same version of the rocks that we've been playing on hay-shakers?

“I'm not yellow, Blue. But let me remind you that a magnum
pistol ain't no BB gun. Explain how the blowoff for him goes. And relieve my mind as to how you convince him our stuff is real. Do that, and I'm ready for Buster Bang Bang.

“Oh, yes, I forgot, how do you cut into him after Mule's blunder? Walk up to him and tell him we've got hot rocks for sale?”

Blue twisted his face in outraged mental pain. He rolled his eyes to the top of his head like the movie comedian, Oliver Hardy, did when his partner, Stan Laurel, did something stupid.

I thought sure he'd whack me on the top of my head and say, “Now! Folks!”

Instead Blue said, “When is the best Nigger con man in the country going to get some respect from his partner? I had those petty particulars figured out five minutes after I talked to Pocket.

“Of course, we can't blow off a street-wise mark like Buster in the usual way. Neither can the partnership gimmick be used with him.

“Say we bought your hot rocks in partnership in the usual way, I'd either have to slip away from him here in Chicago or later when we went to New York to get my end from the sale of the fake stuff.

“Maybe something would make him suspicious right after we gave you our dough. Then he wouldn't let me shake him until he got the stuff appraised. Wouldn't that be a bitch, tied to a dynamite mark that woke up? He'd wake up even faster if I told him I'd trust him with my half of the rocks until he sold them, and I'd get in touch with him later to get my end.

“His street experience would tell him I wouldn't trust him unless something was mighty rotten about the deal. In fact, Buster can't be blown off with the partnership angle.

“The key to the proper blowoff is in the way I'm going to cut into him. I'm going into him as a dope dealer just out of the joint with no bankroll, but with a million buck contact for H. Then, I'll ease in a rocks crack that he can latch onto. H won't open his nose, but rocks will.

“Tomorrow morning we'll go to Madison Street and rent a room
for you. Just as always, you're the hot white heist man with even hotter rocks. But for Buster, we'll have a slight refinement.

“Now this is the tale I'll tell him after I cut into him. You're blind. You got that way from a brain operation that failed. A sliver of a Detroit cop's bullet ricocheted into your skull as you and two of your hoodlum brothers were escaping a jewelry store heist. Your oldest brother drove—”