Epitaph For A Dead Beat

CHAPTER 27

There was a loose page in the Peters book. I stared at it without interest, leaning against a fender:

… digging it with Bennie and Jojo and those wild chicks (one of them an Arab, she had eyes like smothered stars) in the backseat of that broken down Chrysler Bennie had driven to Tampico and back and sold for forty dollars in San Diego and spent the money on a two-week fix and then swiped it back again, and all night long Jojo talking about the Mahayana transcendence of our friend Wimpy, the poet who did not wash except on the coming of the new moon and who was the new culture hero of our time and who once said: 7 dig Brahman and I dig The Bird but I do not dig housewives,” which became a creed: and all the while (younger then and my jeans too tight; I’d borrowed them from a tranquil Taoist midget Td met reading Lincoln Steffens in a public urinal in Times Square — ah, holy times, holy square!) pressing my hand against the knee of that swinging angel Arab lass and not minding the blood where I tore my skin against a broken spring in the seat, oh how I suffered, telling myself as soon as I make it with this chick I will hop a freight and very religiously ride the rails to Albuquerque to tell Herman (butfirst some detail here about Herman, a raw maniac hipster kid who…

That was all I needed. I wadded up the page and tossed it in the general direction of a passing cat, then let myself ooze wetly behind the wheel of the Chevy. I’d leaked water on the floorboards, coming over. I supposed it wasn’t any worse a crime than leaking prose.

I wasn’t sure I could make it uptown. Or maybe I just wanted recognition for all my successful missions. I drove back to Fern’s.

It was almost six, and it got light in the few minutes I was in the car. I leaned against the bell, feeling rotten about waking her. After a minute I heard a window being lifted. I went down a few steps, letting her get a look at me.

“It’s Harry, Fern—”

“Harry, what—?”

She disappeared inside, and a second later the catch released. I hauled myself up the one carpeted flight.

She was in the apartment doorway, wearing that short blue jacket again. Her hair was tousled, and light from the stairwell gleamed on her naked lovely legs. Her face slackened when she saw my own. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Harry—”

“Don’t take me out, coach.”

She extended a hand, but it didn’t look strong enough to support me. I gave her what I could spare of a smile, then went across to one of the leather sling chairs where my damp seat wouldn’t do any harm.

I sat for a minute with both arms crossed against my stomach, hearing the door close. When I raised my head she was kneeling in front of me.

Her fingers traced across my forehead, near the patch of gauze. “It couldn’t have been just Ivan—?”

“He led the cheering section.”

“You look worse than Dana did. Does it hurt badly?”

“Only when I laugh.”

“Oh, stop joking, it isn’t something to—”

“I’m okay, Fern. I shouldn’t have come. You’ve had enough for one night.”

“You can quit that also.” She had gotten up, considering me somberly.

“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” I asked her.

“Have I ever told you you’re a little crazy? Yes, I think I did, the other night. There’s coffee, Harry. I made some for Dana before, all I have to do is heat it—”

“Coffee would be swell.”

She shook her head, then went into the kitchen. I worked myself out of the soggy jacket. Bloomingdale’s better grade, eighty-seven bucks for the suit and I still owed them forty. Maybe the old Armenian tailor on my corner could salvage it. He was half blind from reading William Saroyan in the glare of his window all day, and he couldn’t sew a straight seam, but his Negro presser was fair. The Negro read Karen Horney and Erich Fromm.

“It won’t be a minute,” Fern said from the doorway. “Listen, Harry, why don’t—” She glanced toward the closed door to the second bedroom. “Good heavens, I’m not going to be coy. Dana will be asleep for hours with those pills. Get yourself inside and get undressed. There’s a big quilted robe in the closet if you want a hot shower—” She smiled. “Or is that what you tried to take already? Maybe you ought to just jump right into bed, you big oaf. I’ll bring the coffee.”

I grinned at her. “If you touch me, I’ll scream.”

“Go on, now.”

I left my jacket across one of the wings of the chair. A lamp on her bed table was burning, and the covers were flung aside. I gave my tie a yank, then growled at myself in a mirror over a dressing table. The wet knot was as tight as a wet knot.

There was a day-old Times in a magazine rack, and I spread it across the small bench before I sat. Maybe the raw-honed private cop would have more luck with his shoelaces. Not tonight, Napoleon. I bent forward about halfway, which was enough to make me dizzy again. Concussion, sure as shooting.

My elbow had nudged a book on the table. It was lying reverse side up. Fern’s picture was on the glossy jacket.

“Advance copy,” she said. She had come in carrying an enormous steaming white mug. “First one off the presses.”

“I never met a famous author before.”

She wrinkled her forehead, peering across her shoulder. “Who dat? Where he at?”

She looked wind-blown in the photo. The novel was called Go Home, Little Children. A sticker on the cover said that it was a book club selection.

She put the coffee near me. “Drink it before it gets cold. I thought I told you to get out of those wet things—”

“I would of, ma’am. ‘Cepting I need a scissors for my tie.”

“Oh, here, let me—”

She leaned down, working at it, and then stepped back and gave me an exaggerated scowl. “Maybe we’ll need a scissors at that. Or a—” She drew in her breath. “Oh, damn me anyhow, I was almost going to make a joke about a knife, when poor Audrey—”

She pressed a hand across her mouth, looking away. I reached out and pulled her toward me. She came yieldingly, going to her knees again, and my hands slipped beneath that jacket. Her head fell against my chest.

She was not wearing anything under there. The soft flesh of her shoulders was still bed warm. I held her.

“It’s as if it won’t end,” she said. “Three people dead. Dana’s right, things get so terrible sometimes—”

Her face lifted. For a moment I didn’t move. I didn’t even breathe. The muscles in my jaw had gone tight, and something began to twist inside of me — into a hot sickening node, like fear or like horror.

It wasn’t fear. The book thudded to the floor as I got to my feet.

“Three,” I said. “Three people dead—”

“Well, yes, aren’t—?”

“You couldn’t have known about the third, Fern, unless—”

“What—?”

She was still on her knees. Highlights glinted in her silken hair. Her face was as delicately etched as a dream that only time itself was ever going to exorcise.

“Why?” I said. “Dear God, Fern — why did you kill them?”