Satan’s Angel

Chapter Three Dress Up for Death

Eric Norstram still snored. His forehead didn’t seem so hot. At dusk I went out and brought him back a bowl of soup. I turned on the lamp, set the soup on the table and shook him gently. “Eric! Eric!” I said.

“Uh? What you want?”

“Wake up, Eric.”

The light shone across his gray face. He opened blue startled eyes and looked up at me. A puzzled took crossed his face. “Who are you?” he asked weakly.

“Never mind that. Here. Sit up and drink this. If you’re too weak I’ll feed it to you.”

He squirmed into a half-sitting position. He still looked puzzled, but he reached for the spoon. I held the bowl while he spooned the soup into his mouth with a shaking hand. When it was gone he sank back with a grateful sigh.

“Cigarette?” he said weakly.

I lit one for him, handed it to him. He sucked hungrily at it. “Tastes funny,” he said.

“It should. You’ve been sick. Had a fever. You’re full of sulpha.”

“I feel hot.”

“The fever isn’t as bad as it was.”

The blue eyes fastened on me again. “Say, who are you?”

“Just a girl who care of you while you were the sickest.”

He looked around the room. “This your place?”

“It’s a room in the Barton on River Street.”

He looked at me with a funny expression. “Oh!”

“Maybe you’ve been sick for days without knowing it. Maybe you were sick as long ago as, say the fourteenth.”

“Fourteenth? Of what month?”

“This month.”

“Look, I got a vague idea this is 1948. Don’t pin me down to months.”

“Where do you live?”

He rubbed a shaking hand across the colorless stubble on his cheek. “Got me there, too. For a while I had a bed for two bits a night on Willis Street, but that seems like a long time ago. A guy let me sleep sometimes in the watchman’s cabin on a freight dock, but I don’t know whether that was before or after the flophouse. Where did you find me, sister?”

“On your face on the sidewalk.”

“That’s called the Norstram position, sister.”

“The name is Lorene Vernon.”

“Okay, Lorene. What’s the angle?”

“Does there have to be an angle?”

“Isn’t there always? I’m a bum, Lorene. I don’t kid myself about that. I haven’t got a dime. So why spend your time taking care of me?”

“Maybe I’d take care of any sick thing. A sick cat even.”

He looked at me for long seconds. “Hey, maybe you would. Maybe you would.”

“Gloria would have, wouldn’t she?”

He jumped as though I had stuck a pin in him. “What do you know about Gloria?” he asked hoarsely.

“Oh, you talked about her a lot. You’ve got the idea you killed her or something.”

“I did.”

I curled my lip as I looked at him. “If you want to be a lush, I suppose self pity is as good an excuse as any.”

I thought for a moment he was going to get angry. He sank back on the pillow. “I don’t fight with anybody,” he said softly. “Is there a drink in the house?”

“No.”

“Will you go get a bottle?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll go get one.”

“In the first place you’re pretty weak. In the second place I took your clothes out and stuffed them into a trash barrel.”

For the first time he smiled. “How nice of you!”

“Tomorrow I’ll buy you some more.”

“Thank you, Lady Bountiful.”

“Shut up!”

Lady Bountiful! Bountiful with death, my lad. Ashamed to send you off to be killed in your sad rags. She salves her conscience by buying you a new cheap suit and a new cheap shirt. Maybe she’ll spend a few minutes picking out a blue figured tie. Blue to match your eyes. A tie to die in, chump. A pretty tie to match your dead blue eyes.

I walked over to the window, stared across at the brick wall which grew more dim as the dusk became heavier. When I turned, he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling. When I spoke he wouldn’t answer. His mouth had an odd set look.

I paused at the door and said, “I’m going out to eat. The cigarettes are on the bureau. The shower I shoved you into last night only washed some of the dirt off. A scrubbing wouldn’t hurt you. I’m locking the door on the outside. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” I yanked the door shut, locked it, and stuffed the key with board attached into my big purse.

After I ate, I went back to my own apartment, put the phone back on the cradle, took a long hot bath, scrubbed the makeup off and drifted off into dreamless sleep.

In the morning, disguised again, I took a bus downtown, ordered a breakfast to go, and took it to Eric at the Barton. He was still sullen, but the shakes weren’t as bad. There was even a bit of color in his sallow cheeks under the beard.

“I’ll get you some clothes. Better give me the sizes — so they’ll fit,” I added.

Making allowances for the weight he had lost, he gave the sizes and I wrote them down on the back of an envelope.

Just as I left, he said, “Why are you doing this, Lorene?” He was propped up on one elbow, his expression earnest, his eyes on mine.

“How should I know? You were sick. Now you’re better. I’ll buy you some clothes. Maybe you’ll take me out tonight. Big date.”

I caught the puzzled look in his eyes as I pulled the door shut.

Twenty-two fifty for a gray suit. I gave them the inseam measurement and waited while they fixed the trousers. Thirty cents for socks. Five-fifty for shoes. One eighty-five for a white shirt. Sixty-five cents for a blue figured tie. A dollar for shorts, a dollar six for razor, blades and shaving cream. Ten cents for a comb.

Dress up for death, Eric. You want to look good on that slab. Maybe I was silly. I bought him a wallet for two dollars, spent another dime for a nail file and forty-five cents for a decent handkerchief.

Loaded down with bundles, I got back to the Barton at noon. He had moved from the bed over to the one chair. He sat with the cotton blanket wrapped around him, smoking and staring out the window. He turned quickly as I unlocked the door. I dumped the pile of bundles on the bed. I managed to give him a cheery smile. “Your wardrobe, sire.”

I saw a dull red flush under the colorless beard. “It’s money tossed into a hole in the ground, Lorene.”

“I can stand it.”

“I’m shot, Lorene. Inside and out. I’ve been sitting here thinking.”

“That’s the way people get into trouble. Thinking.” He could think and I couldn’t. If I stopped to think, I would see him dead. He would be dead soon.

“Pretty yourself up, Eric. I’ll be back to see you again in about an hour.”

I went to the drugstore and phoned Sam. “This is that girl again. Delivery okay tonight?”

A few seconds silence. “Yeah. Can do. Southwest corner of River and Gardener at two in the morning. It’ll help if the package is loaded. You know what I mean.”

“Yes I do. And what about — our friend?”

“He’ll be back in town by ten tomorrow morning.”

I hung up. I had no appetite for lunch. I walked through the gray warm day and everyone in the city, everyone in the world, was a stranger to me. I wondered how executioners feel the day before they must release the trap, pull the switch, swing the gleaming axe. Do they fasten a loose smirk on their lips and say to themselves, ‘We all got to die sometime?’

I walked with blind eyes and a heart that beat slowly. When I passed the places that made the air rank with the smell of greasy food, I tasted quick nausea in my throat. The timid angel. The faltering hand of death. Hold still, sir. This hurts me more than it does you. Hold still for death. Assume the angle.

But it was for Johnny. Bold Johnny with a laugh like a shining note of silver, eyes that are mad and wonderful. The kid brother. Take care of him, Ellen James. Take care of your brother. You are your brother’s keeper.

Eric Norstram turned from the bureau mirror as I walked into the room. His face was flushed with shame and pleasure. He stood awkwardly in his new clothes, with the weakness of one who has been ill. He looked as though he had recently been discharged from a hospital. His clean-shaven cheeks and jaw were sallow-white, his hair combed neatly. The suit hung on him in folds, but fit perfectly across the shoulders.

“You look wonderful, Eric!” I said. Fit for death, my love. Dressed to meet the fates.

“I’ve been staring into this mirror for fifteen minutes,” he admitted guiltily. “I’ve been wondering if it’s me. Inside me a voice keeps telling me that if I keep the suit pressed, I can put the bite on a lot of old friends for a few bucks. I keep telling the voice to shut up.”

“Are you being virtuous?” I asked scornfully. “Brother, in ten days those clothes will look like the ones I stuffed in the barrel.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re a pretty hard kid, aren’t you, Lorene?”

“I don’t kid myself.”

“Once a bum always a bum. Is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“I’m hungry. Can you stand the fee for a steak?”

“For as many as you can eat, Eric.” Be nice to him, Ellen. The condemned man ate a hearty meal. Anyway, Eric, they won’t come in and shave your leg and the back of your head to make a good contact for the electrodes. You won’t know a thing about it.

He staggered from weakness as we turned into the small diner. For a moment he rested heavily against me, then took his hand away hurriedly and said, “I tripped.”

We sat at the counter. While I had coffee he had two orders of steak and french fries, apple pie and ice cream. He ate with steady determination, the muscles at the corner of his jaw bunching with each measured bite.

Over his coffee he said, “I was a pretty solid guy when I blacked out, Lorene. This morning I was looking at my legs. They look like I was half sparrow. I got a lot of weight to get back.”

I smiled. “Is that what you were doing? I thought you were laying a firm foundation for the next binge.”

For a moment he looked as though I had slapped him. “I can’t figure you, Lorene.”

“What is there to figure? If you want your head patted and if you want somebody to tell you that you can stop drinking, go to a clinic. I’m no reformer. I’m just setting you up for the next bout.”

He stared down into the dregs of his coffee. “You’re a funny one,” he said.

“I’m a scream,” I said.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked.

“Well, since I’ve put you back together, bit by bit, you can return the favor by being an agreeable escort for the rest of the day.”

He smiled ruefully. “I’ll need a nap in the middle of the afternoon.”

“Favor granted.”

“You know, Lorene, you don’t talk like—”

“Like a gal with a room at the Barton?”

“Something like that. I got the way I was when you — found me, because, well, life gave me a pretty rough deal. Something on the same line must have happened to you.”

I looked away. “Mr. Norstram, our delicate friendship is based on not getting involved in serious conversation. It makes my head hurt.”

I paid the check. He took my arm as we left. His hand was surprisingly strong and firm. Out on the sidewalk he yawned. “I’ve got to collapse for a time, Lorene.”

We went to the desk and I handed him the key. We moved away from the desk and he said, “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Why not? Go get your sleep.”

“What will you do?”

“How does that concern you?”

I watched him go through the arch, headed back to my room. I knew he was angry with me because the back of his neck was red. I made a mental note to give him the money for a haircut. But what did it matter? Is there any rule of procedure for hair length on a corpse?

I went to a cheap double feature. I didn’t know the names of the pictures when I walked in, and I still didn’t know them when I came out three hours and twenty minutes later.

Instead of the screen, I saw a car with Eric struggling in the back seat. Two men held him. I stood and watched the car drive away. The scene shifted. A prowl car stood, engine running, by a deserted lot. The spotlight shone on a body. A cop kneeling by the body said loudly, “A roll of bills and a sap. He was shot in the head. Call Homicide.”

I knocked on the door. The key grated in the lock and Eric opened it. His eyes were puffed with sleep. He looked cross and upset.

He reached out, caught my wrist and pulled me toward him. Through tight lips he said, “What the hell are you doing in a setup like this?”

I yanked my hand away. “Is that your business?”

“Can’t I make it my business?”

“You’re a lush. You can’t stop thinking about liquor long enough to have any other business.”

His shoulders sagged. “Okay, okay. I’m wearing the clothes you bought. You’re the boss.”

“Let’s go. I need a drink.”

He pulled on his suit coat and I looked the door behind us.