A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

5

It’s nice, Walter Withers thought, that there’s a place you can still go to hear someone do a Hart tune and not butcher it. Or do a Hart tune at all, for that matter.

Ah, New York, New York. Sitting in a dark room, listening to a smoky piano behind a chanteuse, sipping on quality scotch with a beautiful woman at the table beside you.

All right, maybe Gloria is not exactly beautiful in the modern anemic fashion, and perhaps she is a bit… bed-worn… a woman of experience, one might say. Perhaps the blond hair comes from a bottle. So many good things do. Perhaps her makeup is a tad thick. A woman of a certain age is entitled. Perhaps she smokes incessantly. She came to maturity in the age of black-and-white films, and besides, it allows me to light her cigarettes for her. Perhaps she is a drunk. I have been buying her drinks.

To loosen her tongue, among other things.

He leaned over his glass and peered through the smoke into her eyes.

“You look lovely tonight, darling,” he said.

Gloria took a demure sip of her fourth martini and said, “Let’s go back to my place.”

“Check, please,” Withers said.

She saw his eyes light up and said, “Walter, if you think I’m giving you so much as a hand job, you’re fooling yourself. It’s late and I’m expecting an important phone call, if you know what I mean.”

Walter knew what she meant. He paid the tab and gave the doorman a five to hail a taxi.

Gloria lived in a huge drab building on West Fifty-seventh Street. A blue plaque outside the main door claimed that Bela Bartok had once resided there.

Withers didn’t particularly care for Bartok.

Her apartment was big, a testament to rent control. Withers plopped himself down in one of her old overstuffed chairs in the living room.

“You want a drink, Walter? What a dumb question,” she said. She went into the kitchen, found a bottle of scotch, and poured a straight shot.

“Why are you doing this?” Withers asked as she handed him the glass.

“Does it make a difference? Look, I’m like an older sister to the kid. I love her. But she’s never going to beat Jack Landis in court and she’s never going to make it on her brains, so she might as well get something out of this mess.”

“Posing nude for a magazine?” Withers asked.

“Marilyn Monroe… Jayne Mansfield… Mamie Van Doren…” she said, counting them off on her fingers. “Look what it did for them.”

“These will be pretty graphic shots, I think, Gloria.”

She looked at him as if he was a dope, shrugged, and said, “You sell what you have to sell.”

“Apparently,” he answered.

Neal snuggled up against Karen. “What do you think?” he asked.

She rearranged the blanket so that it covered both their shoulders and said, “I think she’s telling the truth.”

“You do?”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s your problem, Neal,” she said. “You don’t trust people.”

“Occupational hazard,” he answered.

“That’s part of it,” Karen said. “You really don’t trust women.”

Skip the rest of it, Neal thought. I’ve already heard it. How my father never showed up and my mother was a junkie hooker and so I never really had a chance to be a kid and learn to trust and yadda-yadda-yadda. It might be true, but I still have to get up mornings.

“I trust you,” he said, “and you’re a woman. Singular. You get trust combined with collective nouns and you’re right. I don’t trust women, and I don’t trust men, for that matter.”

“You trust Graham.”

True, he thought.

“What about Landis?” he asked her. “He says he never touched her. Do you trust him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s lying,” Karen said.

“And you know this because she’s telling the truth.”

“Right.”

“Try this out,” he said. “Suppose they had an affair, which I agree they probably did. One night he says he wants sex; she says she doesn’t. He thinks she’s playing and forces the issue. To him, it was a game; to her, it was rape. Which is it?”

“Rape.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said.

“It’s just that simple,” she insisted. “The difficult question is, why does Polly have to become Audrey Hepburn before she can be believed?”

“Let me remind you that just this morning all Polly Paget was to you was a Jacuzzi on the deck,” Neal said. “It doesn’t make us all that different from the newspapers, the magazines, or the TV shows. We all have an economic interest in that commodity known as Polly Paget, who is now asleep on the bed in our study.”

“Ouch,” Karen answered. She snuggled up a little tighter. “You’re right, but she’s still a person, and I like her.”

“So do you want her to be Polly Paget and lose or Audrey Hepburn and win?”

Karen thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “I want her to win.”

So do I, Neal thought. At least I think I do. The question is, how?

Walter Withers was asleep in the chair when Gloria’s phone rang.

She kicked his ankle and said, “Hey, Sam Spade, wake up.”

Withers came to and looked at his watch.

Three o’clock in the morning, he thought. How long have I been out?

He heard Gloria say she’d accept the charges.

“Is that you?” Gloria said a couple of seconds later.

“Sorry I’m calling so late,” Polly whispered, “but I had to wait until they went to sleep. Did I wake you up?”

“I was having a nightcap,” Gloria said. She motioned Withers to stay still in his chair. “How are you? Where are you?”

“I’m in the middle of freaking nowhere with some English teacher and his girlfriend. She’s nice, but he’s kind of a grouchy nerd. He’s supposed to teach me how to talk.”

“Honey, that’s the last thing you need.” Gloria laughed.

“Talk right, I mean, so I sound like a lady.”

“Well, la-di-da,” Gloria said. “Who set you up with these people?”

“My lawyers. And it’s supposed to be a top secret kind of thing, so don’t tell anyone. I just had to call you because I’m lonely and I’m scared.”

“Scared? Sweetie, of what?” Gloria asked.

“It’s just so weird. This place is so, you know, out there.”

“Out where?” Gloria asked.

Yes, Withers thought. Out where?

“Austin, it’s called.”

Withers heard Gloria say, “You’re in Texas!”

“I don’t think so,” Polly answered. “I think we’re still in Nevada. We are, because they had a slot machine in the gas station. Gloria, I can’t stay on the phone for long. I just wanted to hear your voice and tell you where I am in case something happens to me.”

“Honey, why should anything happen to you?” Gloria asked.

“I gotta go, Gloria,” Polly whispered.

“You have a phone number?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Polly read the number off the phone. “But hang up if anyone but me answers. No one is supposed to know I’m here.”

“I got it, kid,” Gloria said. “Take care of yourself. I love you.

“Love you, too,” Polly said.

Gloria set down the receiver and looked at Walter. He was rumpled and bleary-eyed. His old Brooks Brothers suit was wrinkled and his shirt was stained. He was an old-school gentleman in a world that didn’t have much use for old-school gentlemen.

“She’s in Austin, Nevada, sport,” Gloria said. “Wherever that is.”

Withers groped for the briefcase at his feet, set it on his lap, and fumbled with the combination lock. When he got it open, he counted out five thousand dollars and handed it to Gloria.

“Are you going to offer me a nightcap?” he asked.

“Yeah, at the Blarney Stone. You can beat closing time if you get a cab now,” she said. “Put it on my tab.”

Withers pulled himself out of the chair.

“It’s been a lovely evening, my dear,” he said.

She found a scrap of paper by the phone, wrote “Austin, Nevada” and Polly’s phone number on it, and stuck it in his pocket.

“In case you forget,” she said. “And Walter, take care of that money. Stay away from the bookies.”

“Gloria,” he said with some surprise, “you have maternal instincts.”

She pushed him out the door.

When she heard the elevator door open and close, she picked up the phone.

A tired male voice answered. “It’s about time.”

“She’s in Austin, Nevada.”

“Where the hell is that?”

“How would I know? Get a map.”

“Did you send your boy on his way?”

“I did my job, knuckle-dragger,” Gloria snapped. “Do yours.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Gloria cradled the phone in her neck and poured herself a drink. “And tell your boss this settles my debt. The account is closed.”

“Well, that’s between you and him.”

“Just tell him.”

Gloria hung up the phone. She sat down on the sofa and knocked back the drink. It would be tough getting to sleep tonight, tougher than usual. Maybe she should have let Walter stay. But he was lousy in bed, lousier when he was drinking, and he was always drinking these days.

You’ve been going at it pretty hard yourself, kiddo, she thought. Especially since Joey Foglio bought out your debt from Sammy Black. You knew even then that something bad was going to happen.

Chick nudged Sammy Black awake and pointed across the street at Walter Withers getting into a taxi.

“About time,” Sammy said. They’d been sitting in the car on Fifty-seventh since following Withers back from the Plaza.

“You think he got lucky?” Chick smirked.

“Walter never gets lucky.”

Chick smiled at him.

“What?” Sammy asked.

“Aren’t you going to say, ‘Follow that cab’?”

“Drive the car.”

Sammy had confidence in Chick’s ability to follow the cab. Helen Keller could follow Walter Withers at three in the morning. All she’d need would be directions to the Blarney Stone.

“Don’t get too close,” Sammy said as Chick turned left on Third Avenue, behind the cab.

“You slammed her a few times, didn’t you?” Chick asked.

“Who?”

“Gloria.”

“No,” Sammy lied. “I wouldn’t have if I could have, which I could, because she owed me a bundle.”

“Why did Joey Beans want the book on her, anyway? He wanted to slam her?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t ask,” Sammy said. “When someone big as Joey Foglio-and don’t you ever call him Joey Beans again-reaches out all the way from Texas and wants to buy a piece of your book, you sell, not ask. Here we are.”

Chick pulled the car over and they got out just as Withers finished paying the cabbie. To Sammy’s relief, Withers still had the briefcase. It would be just like him to leave it sitting at Nathan’s or someplace.

“Walter!” Sammy called. “Hold on! Can I have a word?”

Withers looked startled.

“I’ll do you one better, Sammy,” he said. “I’ll give you a word and a drink.”

“Not in there with Arthur ‘The Mouth’ Rourke,” Sammy said. “We need privacy.”

But Withers had beat them to the doorway.

“No problem,” Sammy said.

He stepped inside. Arthur was wiping the bar with a wet rag. Withers was already on his usual stool. He was the only patron. Big surprise.

“Arthur,” Sammy said. “You got to go pee.”

“I don’t have to pee, Sammy,” Arthur said.

“Yes you do.”

Dumb harp.

Arthur stopped the rag for a second and thought. It was an exhausting process.

“I guess I do got to pee,” he said finally.

“Yeah, a long one, okay, Arthur?”

Arthur stepped out from behind the bar and walked into the men’s room in the back.

Sammy sat on the stool next to Withers. Chick took the one on the other side.

“Now, Walter,” Sammy said. “I want that money.”

“I paid you your money, Sammy.”

“I mean the rest of that money,” Sammy said, pointing to the briefcase. “In there.”

“But it doesn’t belong to you.”

This is a robbery, you dumb drunk, Sammy thought. Jeez, I have to draw you a picture?

“Walter,” Sammy said, trying to keep his temper, “you know and I know that you’re just not capable of holding on to that money. You’re going to lose it to someone, and that someone should be me rather than some stranger. After all, I’ve put up with a lot of shit from you. So give it to me now so I don’t have to tell Chick to hurt you.”

Withers considered this for what seemed like a long time.

Then he said, “No.”

Chick started to laugh. Sammy gave him a look threatening enough to reduce him to giggles instead.

“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” Sammy said. “Let’s pretend you made a bet with that money. And you lost. I won’t even charge you the vig.”

Walter Withers shook his head. He looked so confused that even Sammy had to laugh this time.

“Walter?” Sammy asked. “Walter? Are you still with us?”

Withers looked at him seriously. “The game just isn’t played this way, Sammy. When I lose, I pay. But I didn’t lose.”

“Yeah, you did,” Sammy said. “You lost, Walter.”

Chick stood up and loomed over Withers.

Withers nodded slowly. Then he set the briefcase on the bar, opened it, and walked away.

Sammy and Chick stood up and leaned over the briefcase.

“Holy crow, Walter,” Chick said.

Sammy grabbed the money and started to count it.

Withers turned around, pulled his revolver from his jacket, and shot Chick in the back of the head. Sammy whirled just in time to the see Withers pull the trigger into his face.

Arthur ran in at the sound of the blasts, then stood frozen in the middle of the room. Withers took the bar towel, wiped the blood off the briefcase, carried it to the far end of the bar, and sat down.

“Am I too late for last call, Arthur?” he asked calmly.

“No,” Arthur answered, staring at the bodies slumped over the bar stools. He let himself behind the bar, shook a shot of Jameson’s in a glass, and slid it to Withers.

“The damnedest thing just happened, Arthur,” Walt said.

“What’s that, Walt?”

“Some guy just walked in here and shot Sammy Black and his goon.”

Withers swallowed his whiskey and smiled mildly. Then he put a thousand dollars on the bar and walked out.

Overtime was thinking about the night he died.

It gave him a lot of pleasure. Few other men, and no one he knew, could have jumped off the Newport Bridge into the swirling currents of Narragansett Bay and survived the impact, never mind swim to shore and then walk twenty miles before morning.

To be reborn as “Overtime.” He didn’t even know who had given him the nickname. It had to have been one of his clients, maybe an island dictator who had hired him to eliminate a political rival, or a security chief who needed plausible deniability. Probably it was one of the dons who needed an absolutely guaranteed clean hit.

Overtime prided himself on working clean. Nobody took pride in their work anymore. It was one of the reasons the country was going downhill so fast. People were content to do sloppy work and customers were prepared to accept it.

Overtime was the proud exception. He worked quickly and cleanly: one shot, just in, just out. Professional.

Not for him the showy hit in a restaurant, spraying bullets all over the place and leaving behind pools of blood and posthumous photo opportunities. Not for him the bomb in the car with its innocent bystanders. Overtime killed only what he got paid to kill. If the client wanted innocent bystanders, the client could pay for them. No group rates, no discounts. This philosophy had made him rich-cash in his pocket, and a bank account in Grand Cayman.

What he didn’t have was a woman.

Overtime was lying in his bed in an expensive hotel room in New Orleans and feeling the disquieting stirrings of lust. Not that he was going to indulge in a woman, although one phone call would have sent the cream of a very creamy crop up to his room. Comped, on the house, whatever he wanted-black, white, yellow, all of the above. Anything for Overtime.

But he never indulged in a woman when he was on the job. Women talked. Women could identify you.

Problem: sexual tension.

Analysis: said tension is a distraction.

Solution: auto-gratification.

Overtime pulled the plastic cover off a copy of Top Drawer magazine and flipped through the pages, looking for a sufficiently erotic photograph. Self-sufficiency was one of the foundational tenets of Overtime’s life, something he shared with Ralph Waldo Emerson. It would be nice to get back to the beach and read some Emerson.

Overtime never carried the same author around with him for more than one trip. That would be a pattern, and patterns, like women, could identify you. And he hadn’t jumped off that bridge to be defeated by a paperback book.

He found a picture: a tall, thin brunette with tight features and a cruel, intelligent mouth. He hated the stupid-looking blond cows that overpopulated these magazines. The brunette looked smart. She would do.

It’s silly, he thought as he developed a stimulating mental image, how some men balked at killing women: such a sexist attitude. If women have the right to play, they have the right to lose. The downside potential of liberation. The Equal Last Rites Amendment.

Overtime was an equal-opportunity button man. A Title Nine killer. The first person he had ever killed, and the last person he had ever killed for free, had been a woman. But she had been his wife, and that was personal, so it didn’t count.

And a very unprofessional job it was, he thought with some chagrin. He had slashed her maybe a hundred times, maybe more. Sloppy, emotional. Messed it up so badly that he’d had to drive his car to the bridge, leave the suicide note, and do a perfect forward, twisting one-and-a-half gainer into the bay.

“Med student kills wife and self. Film at eleven.”

The phone rang. He picked it up but said nothing. The voice on the other end sounded nervous.

“Uhhh, we think we got it locked.”

You think?

“Call me when you know,” Overtime said. “Where’s the staging area?”

“Vegas.”

Not good news. Overtime hated Vegas. There was nothing to do but gamble, and Overtime didn’t gamble. Basic mathematics precluded an activity in which the odds were against you.

“Is the dog in yet?” he asked.

“He’s on his way.”

“I want pictures. Current ones, please.”

Overtime hung up and turned his concentration back to the photograph. He needed to achieve release. Sexual tension was a distraction. Not that he had much to do but wait. Let the dog catch up to the bird. The bird worries about the dog, and doesn’t think about the hunter.

Then bang.

One shot, just in, just out. Professional.

Release.