Trick Baby (33 page)

I went out to the Buick and remembered I had no money. I went back and raised the rug beneath the nightstand. I stuffed the roll of bills into my overcoat pocket.

I drove the Buick to the Brass Rail. I sat in a booth until nine P.M. guzzling Scotch. Then I got a brilliant idea. Hadn't Cordelia said that the Goddess drove to Cleveland? Wouldn't the Goddess have classy friends? Of course she would.

Cleveland was like any other big city. All the classy whites lived together in colonies distant from niggers and poor white trash. Goddamnit, I'd go to Cleveland and do a Dick Tracy in whatever exclusive section of Cleveland she was in.

I had to find the Goddess and win her back. It shouldn't be hard to spot that white Jaguar. Yes, I'd find her. She'd melt and rush into my arms at the sight of me.

She couldn't have forgotten how close we'd been. I knew she couldn't forget how I had kissed and thrilled her from the top of her heavenly head to the tips of her sugary toes. She had to be aching for more of my all-out lesbian-type lovemaking. We couldn't do without each other.

I got up from the booth and went to the liquor store on the corner of Calumet Avenue and Forty-seventh Street. I got two-fifths of Cutty Sark Scotch and drove to a filling station. I got a tankful of gas, oil and a road map. I drove frantically toward Cleveland and the ineffably precious Goddess.

I
jabbed the whining Buick through blurry time and space and screeching near collisions. At two
A.M
. I found myself registering at the desk of the Majestic Hotel on Fifty-fifth Street in the heart of Cleveland's black belt.

I went to a clean, neat third-floor room overlooking the main drag. I had a fifth of cheap Scotch in a paper bag. I didn't remember why I'd bought an off-brand.

I had forgotten to bring the sleeping pills. I'd fall apart without them. I wouldn't be up to the search for the Goddess unless I got some rest. I had to make a connection for sleeping pills. Now!

I looked in the dresser mirror at the haggard red-eyed stranger. I shrugged and turned toward the bed. I collapsed across it and picked up the phone from a table beside the bed. Five minutes later, I went to the door. A fat, big-eyed, black bellboy, bulging in a drab monkey suit stood in the hall.

I said, “Are you familiar with Cleveland?” For a moment he looked puzzled.

Then he said, “Yeah, Jack, I'm hip to the scene. You want one for all night, or just a quickie?”

I said, “I don't want a broad. I want to know where I can find the most exclusive white section in town.”

He said, “Shaker Heights is where most of the rich cocksuckers crib. For a paddy, you sound like a down stud. So I'm going to yank your coat. Don't try no hustle out there, unless you're a freak to making the joint scene. The Heights is lousy with heat. They'll bust a strange paddy as fast as they will a boot.”

He took the deuce I held out and started to walk away.

I said, “I'll sweeten that deuce with a sawbuck if you could score for a few yellow jackets.”

He whirled around like a pygmy ox doing a pirouette.

He looked up at me slyly and said, “Uh-huh, Jack, I cop the yellows for you. Right? Then later I cop some reefer. Right? Then you bring a pal on scene. He's got to have H. Right? I catch a double dime in the joint, with no broads, no nothing. Then you make a joy-scene with some fine, hot-ass bitch and a case of sauce to celebrate that you crossed me into the joint. Right? I ain't no dealer of nothing. Thanks for the deuce.”

I stood there in the open door watching him walk away down the hall. I thought, “I really screwed that up. What can I do now? I've got to have some pills. I've got to get a night's rest.”

I was just at the point of calling him back to hike his fee to a C-note when he turned and shambled back to me.

He snapped his fingers and said, “Jack, you're lucky. I just remembered, my sick old man is got some red devils from a script at his pad. But the pad is way out on Hundred-and-six Street and Massie Avenue.

“A cab out there and back would run at least a double sawbuck. I'd miss a fin or so in tips here in the hotel while I was on a long trip like that. Aw, forget about it. You don't want them that bad, do you, Jack?”

I said, “If your sick father can part with at least two dozen devils, I'll part with half a C-note. But I want you to hurry. I have to get some sleep. I've got important business in the morning.”

He said, “Righteous, Jack, righteous.”

I shut the door and sat in a mustard-colored easy chair at the window. I saw a big, black guy decked out in sharp clothes go into a barbecue joint across the street. He reminded me of Blue.

I thought, “It was lousy of me not to leave a note for him. But it shouldn't take more than a day or so to find the Goddess. I'll be back in Chicago, happy and on the mend before he really gets worried about me. I won't call him. I'm too shaky to hold still for a lecture.”

I sat there and drank the cheap bottle of Scotch three-quarters empty. I was afraid to lie down. I didn't want to risk that fractured nude scene with the Goddess.

I wasn't a bit surprised to see the fatso bellboy lumbering out of the barbecue joint, toward the hotel with a stack of orders in his hands. I could only hope that he wouldn't stretch his phony con trip for the Seconal until daybreak.

I looked at a calendar on the wall across the room. It was the fourth of December, Nineteen Forty-five. It seemed like only weeks ago that the war had ended, and the fabulous cripple in the White House had croaked and made the haberdasher from Independence, Missouri, a member of the most exclusive club there ever was.

I heard a rap on the door. I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty
A.M
. The slick bellboy was probably back from his mythical trip.

I opened the door. He was huffing and puffing and wiping his brow with his sleeve. I gave him the half a C-note and took the tiny glassine-wrapped wad.

He bared his gold teeth and chortled, “Righteous, Jack, righteous.”

I undressed and showered. I stuck the back of a chair under the doorknob. The fat boy might get a yen to visit my bankroll with a pass key.

I raised the blue carpet and shoved the nearly a grand roll of bills underneath it. I took two red devils and lay down. I was trying to remember the license plate number of the Goddess's Jaguar when the red devils' sneaky forks of oblivion plunged into my thrashing brain.

A banging at the door opened my leaden eyes. It seemed ages before my dopey brain tipped me off that I was in Cleveland.

I hollered hoarsely, “Who is it?”

A muffled broad's voice said, “The maid, sir.”

I looked at my watch. It was eleven
A.M
.

I shouted, “Come back in an hour. I'm going out.”

I lurched to the bottle at the window. I drained it dry and fell into the chair. Thuggish winds were slamming lacy snowflakes against the windowpane. The stark whiteness of the tenement rooftops teared my inflamed eyeballs.

Finally the whiskey brushed away enough of the fog and weakness so I could get to the bathroom to wash up. I looked at my watery eyes in the cabinet mirror. My face was puffy and gray pallored. My hair was shaggy at the nape of my neck, and I had a five-day dirty yellow shadow of bristly beard.

I still ached from the bouncing I had done on Lake Street. I sponged off and dressed. I got my bankroll from under the carpet, picked up my key, and walked out to the hall.

I heard loud phonograph music as I went by the open door of the room next to mine. I glanced inside. I paused. A chubby middle-aged guy was in his doorway with a friendly smile on his ebony face.

He said cheerfully, “Good morning, neighbor. I'm George Washington Jackson.”

He stuck out his hand. I smiled and shook his hand.

I said, “I'm Bill Flanagan.”

He said, “Bill, how about a little taste of gin?”

I said, “No thanks. Maybe some other time.”

I moved down the hall to the elevator. I dropped my key at the desk and paid two-days rent. I went through the lobby to the street. I walked uneasily on the skiddy snow-clogged sidewalk.

I went into a bar on the other side of Fifty-fifth Street. I had a fast three double shots of Cutty Sark. Then I went five or six doors down
from the bar and got a haircut, shave and massage. Then I went to a restaurant on the same block. I forced down beef stew and a glass of milk.

I only felt half bad when I went to the Buick parked at the rear of the hotel. I drove to a filling station for gas and directions to Shaker Heights.

I cruised through a winter wonderland of stately trees, sparkling with puffs of ermine snow and jeweled with glittery icicles.

Marshmallow shrubbery swayed around the palatial mansions that lined the wide streets. My eyes searched every street, every driveway for a glimpse of the Goddess or her Jaguar.

At five
P.M
. I stopped my search. I drove back to the rear of my hotel and parked. I went to a liquor store and got two fifths of Scotch. I went to my room to drink and think.

At ten
P.M
. I heard someone knock. I went to the door and opened it. It was George Washington with a big smile on his face.

He said, “Bill, I hope I'm not disturbing you. I got lonesome, so I thought I'd drop over for a chat.”

I stepped aside and said, “No, you're not disturbing me. Come in and have a drink with me. That is, if you can drink Scotch.”

He went to the easy chair at the window. I washed a glass and put a bottle on the windowsill beside him. He poured three fingers and leaned back in the chair.

He said, “I don't know what I'm going to do with myself until my next run. I'm a cook on the railroad. The only time life means anything is when I'm working. It's not much of a life with no relatives, no love in your life, nobody to care whether you live or die.”

He bent my ears until midnight with his troubles. He was a likeable, old, bald-headed, square John. And I felt sorry for him.

But I had tuned him out so I could worry about my own problems. He was talking, but I wasn't really listening. I went to the bathroom and took a Seconal to start letting down. I'd take the second one after I got rid of crying George. I took off my shoes and
undressed down to my shorts. But old George didn't take the hint. He poured himself a drink and jabbered on.

I yawned and lay across the bed in deep thought. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have x-ray eyes? Then I'd be able to see through the walls of all the mansions I cruised by in Shaker Heights.

What a thrill to spot the Goddess. And then I'd run like hell to ring the doorbell. A flunkey would open the door. And before I could speak a word, the Goddess would see me. She'd knock the flunkey flat on his ass as she rushed into my arms. I would—

The crippled train of thought limped into a black tunnel. Then slowly came a rising awareness, a caressing sensation of hot, moist erotic pull at the rigid root of me. I giggled.

Through a smudgy veil, I saw a comical black shiny ball doing a funny bobbing dance between my thighs. It reminded me of the frisky dot that pranced above the words to old songs on the screen at the Tivoli Theater long ago when Midge and I went to all the Charles Boyer and Robert Taylor movies.

The veil drifted away. And the black ball wasn't funny any more. I blackjacked the gleaming bald head with my fist and rolled away.

The naked old guy looked at me piteously and pleaded, “Billy, sweetheart, please don't mistreat Mother Jackson like this. I got you ready, darling. Please! Please! Put it in and thrill this old girl's soul. You won't ever need to work. I'll take care of you, beautiful sweetheart.”

The filthy freak was lucky I picked up my shoe instead of something heavier. I pounded his head and shoulders all the way to the hall. I snatched up his clothes and flung them after him.

I stood sweating and panting in my doorway as he fled into his room and slammed the door. I shut my door and fell into the easy chair at the window. I sucked dry the half bottle of Scotch on the windowsill.

I looked out at the whores and drunks parading in and out of the
joints across the street. I thought, “There are two things I have to do fast. Find the Goddess and stop this stupid drinking.”

What if that horny bastard had been a sex fiend like Leopold and Loeb? I had been helpless. He could have butchered me like Bobby Franks. I've got to stop this sucker drinking.

Well, anyway, my bankroll had been fairly safe. At least I'd had enough sense to punch a hole in the pocket of my overcoat so I could drop the roll through to the hem of the lining at the bottom of the coat.

I got up and took the second red devil. I stretched out on the bed and found that black tunnel again.

For the next two days I followed a set routine. I'd wake up in a dopey fog from the red devils I had taken the night before. Then I'd drink the cobwebs away.

I'd go to the greasy spoon across the street and at least force down a bowl of soup. Then I'd go to Shaker Heights and search for the Goddess.

I couldn't let dusk catch me out there because I remembered the warning from Fatso, the bellboy. In my shape, all I'd need to really fall apart was a Cleveland jail cell.

I'd get a bottle after each search and come back to my room. I'd sit at the window and drink as I tried to figure angles to straighten out my problems.

On the third day, after the Mother Jackson thing, I was cruising Shaker Heights in late afternoon. I was passing a white stone mansion when I saw the Goddess get out of a chauffeured Cadillac limousine in the driveway!

I made a frantic U-turn and speeded back. It was the Goddess all right, going up the steps to the front door. I'd know that platinum hairdo and torso-slinging walk anywhere.

I gunned up the driveway to a stop behind the limousine. I pulled my emergency brake and leaped out of the Buick. I raced across the snow-covered lawn toward the Goddess.