Killing Them Softly

15

The black girl, lanky, arched her spine and bent her arms behind her to fasten her bra.

“The first one?” Mitch said. “She wasn’t bad. She wasn’t good but she wasn’t bad, either. She was all right. Seemed like she was in an awful hurry, though.”

“Well, after all,” Cogan said, “it was probably pretty short notice for her and all.”

The black girl adjusted her breasts in the bra cups. Then she walked up behind Cogan’s chair on the apricot rug and used the heel of her left hand to touch his right shoulder. “My dress, honey,” she said, “you’re sittin’ on my dress.” Cogan moved forward without turning his head. The black girl pulled the white dress out from under him. She put it on over her head, her feet splayed on the rug.

“Shit,” Mitch said, “its not that. It’s the same thing as it is with everything else. Nobody does anything right any more.”

Cogan laughed.

“I mean it,” Mitch said. He picked up the glass on the end table next to his chair. “This’s empty,” he said, looking at it. “Want one?”

“Too early for me,” Cogan said.

“Early?” Mitch said. He stood up in his tee shirt and shorts. “After noon.”

“Still too early,” Cogan said. “You go ahead if you want, though.”

“I’m gonna,” Mitch said. He went into the bathroom.

The black girl arched her back again to zip the dress. “Honey,” she said, walking around in front of Cogan and stooping, back-to, “could you zip me up?”

“No,” Cogan said.

Mitch ran water in the bathroom. “Screwing’s no different’n anything else,” he said.

“You bastard,” she said, straightening up. She turned and looked at Cogan. “I thought you were kidding.”

“I never kid,” Cogan said. He inclined his head toward the bathroom. “Get your trick to do it.”

Mitch came out of the bathroom, the glass full of dark Scotch and water. “Nobody gives a good shit any more,” he said. “You ask somebody to do something and you’re willing to pay for it, and they say they’ll do it and then they about half do it.”

The girl backed up to Mitch. “Zip my dress, honey,” she said. “Your nice friend there wouldn’t do it.”

Mitch zipped the dress. “They still want all the money, though, bet your ass on that. No half money, no sir. All the money.” He went back to the chair, sipping from the glass. “Half the job. Pisses me off.”

The black girl sat down on the bed and put on her red shoes.

“For a guy that’s been having himself a regular party for three days or so,” Cogan said, “you sure bitch and moan a lot.”

“I’ve been paying for it,” Mitch said. “I been paying for it myself. I can bitch about it if I want. You know this broad, this Polly?”

The black girl stood up and straightened her dress. She looked at Mitch. “Honey?”

“Onna bureau,” Mitch said. He drank. “Wallet’s onna bureau.”

The black girl walked across the room, rotating her hips.

“Everybody knows Polly,” Cogan said.

“That’s what the broad you sent up said,” Mitch said.

The black girl picked up the wallet.

“There’s a hundred and seventy-three bucks in that,” Mitch said. “When I get up I wanna find a hundred and forty-eight, got that?”

“Oh-kay,” the girl said. She removed currency, counted it and put some back in the wallet. She put the wallet down. She picked up the shiny red shoulder bag from the bureau, opened it and put the money in. “No tip, Honey?” she said.

“No tip,” Mitch said.

“Because you know, Honey,” she said, “I got to give all this to my man. Girl needs something for herself now and then.”

“No tip,” Mitch said.

“You’re the original sport,” Cogan said.

“Fuck her,” Mitch said. He drank again. “This’s afternoon. She’s, this one’s gravy, right, Honey?”

“It’s better’n filing,” the girl said.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Mitch said. “I never did no filing.”

The girl walked toward the door. “Well,” she said, “it’s not much better’n filing, some times. But it’s, it’s mostly better. Some times, you know, you get an old guy, and then it’s just faster.” She opened the door.

“You know, Honey,” Mitch said, “some day some old bastard you just milked, he might decide to carve you up some, talking like that. How’d you like that?”

“Jesus,” the girl said in the doorway, “I don’t know. You think I’d come?”

“If you could, you might,” Mitch said. “Probably not, is what I think.”

“Fuck you,” the girl said closing the door.

“Which,” Mitch said, “is pretty much what I had in mind when I had her come up here. Christ you got some funny gash in Boston. I hadda practically talk her into it. That Polly, there? Same thing. Nothing but french. ‘For Christ sake,’ I say, ‘I wanna get laid. Isn’t that what you do?’ ”

“No, it’s not,” Cogan said. “Any guy you asked could’ve told you that. I could’ve told you that.”

“You didn’t, though,” Mitch said.

“Well, you didn’t ask me,” Cogan said. “Wasn’t me that had her come up here. That broad I sent, she was all right, I assume? The guy said she’s all right.”

“No more’n that,” Mitch said. “I couldn’t get over it. I said to her: ‘Whaddaya mean, french? I happen to like fucking. Who’s hiring who, here?’ Didn’t make no difference at all. You can feel her up, you can finger-fuck her, but you can’t fuck her. For Christ sake. A fuckin’ blow job.”

“It’s supposed to be a great blow job,” Cogan said.

“When you wanna get laid,” Mitch said, “there’s no such thing as a great blow job. She’s telling me, guys spend two, three hundred a night for what she does. Is that true?”

“I guess it used to be,” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Mitch said, “well, you know what I think? I think you’re all nuts, letting broads get away with that.”

“She’s supposed to be afraid of the clap,” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Mitch said, “well, okay. That line of work, I don’t think you oughta be able to say like that, but I didn’t have no luck with her. She, she still didn’t fuck anybody that I could tell you about. Her teeth fall out, boy, she’s gonna be the hit of the world. But not me. You know something? I’ll tell you something.” Mitch finished his drink. “I haven’t had a real piece of ass since I was in Florida.”

“That was one fine-lookin’ broad you had down there,” Cogan said.

“Sunny,” Mitch said. “That was Sunny. I suppose you fucked her too, after I was gone.”

“Mitch,” Cogan said, “when me and Dillon got there that night, she was with you. When we left, you’re still there and, wasn’t she still with you? You’re there, what was it?”

“Three weeks,” Mitch said.

“Three weeks,” Cogan said. “And I was there five days, inna middle. How the fuck’m I gonna do that?”

“I dunno,” Mitch said. He picked up the glass. “Empty again.” He got up. “Sure you won’t join me?”

“Not late enough yet, either,” Cogan said.

Mitch went into the bathroom. Cogan heard ice go into the glass. He did not hear water running. “Sammy did it,” Mitch said from the bathroom.

“The guy from Detroit,” Cogan said. “Sharp-looking little ginzo.”

“Sammy’s Jewish,” Mitch said.

“Okay,” Cogan said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“No trouble,” Mitch said. “He looks like a ginzo. I wished he was. But he’s Jewish. All the years I known that guy, he still did it. The son of a bitch.”

Cogan heard water running in the bathroom. Mitch emerged with a dark Scotch and water. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his left hand. “It’s my own stupid fault,” he said. “The night before I’m leaving, we’re having dinner and he comes over, I introduce them and everything. I don’t know why this bothers me, you know that?”

“No,” Cogan said.

Mitch sat down. He put the glass on the end table. “I mean, I know. When I’m there, I’m there and she’s with me. When I leave, you’re there, and she’s with you.”

“She wasn’t with me,” Cogan said.

“I didn’t mean you,” Mitch said. “I mean: any guy. Anybody that’s there, she’s with him. You leave, she’s not with you any more.”

“Oh,” Cogan said.

“See,” Mitch said, “that’s what I mean. I know that. I give her, well, last year, I’m down there, I was only there two weeks. No, three weeks. Anyway, that’s how many nights?”

“Twenty-one,” Cogan said.

“No,” Mitch said, “ah, anyway, I had her all signed up. It was fourteen nights. You know what that cost me? Three thousand dollars.”

“Now,” Cogan said, “that really oughta do it. I wouldn’t pay no broad three thousand to do anything. I wouldn’t care what she could do. I wouldn’t pay it.”

“I didn’t care,” Mitch said. “I was still with the union then, and the guys that had the jobs, they were always very nice to me. You didn’t have no wildcats or anything, well, see what I mean? I didn’t care. So it’s a lot. I’m not in love with the girl, right? I only give her for when I’m there.”

“She’s still a great-looking girl, though,” Cogan said.

“She is,” Mitch said. “That fuckin’ Sammy. The night you saw her, what’d she have on?”

“Tell you the truth,” Cogan said, “I didn’t notice what she was wearing, so much’s what she was wearing it on. Some yellow thing or something. You could see quite a lot.”

“There’s quite a lot to see,” Mitch said. “The night Sammy comes by, right? She’s got this gray thing on. It’s like silk, and it’s gray, and there isn’t any back on it and she’s got these mammoth tits, she’s really something. I could’ve beat up five guys with the horn I had on, and I, I had her all them other nights, right? So Sammy comes up and I introduce them, and how long am I there for and how long’s he there for, and I’m not really paying attention or anything, we’re having some wine and so I asked him to sit down. And pretty soon I got to go to the Men’s. So I go, and I’m gone a pretty long time, because I got this huge prong on and I gotta practically stand on my head if I wanna piss in the hopper and not in my own fuckin’ mouth, and still, I wanna be careful with it, you know? It was really big. I don’t think I could’ve blinked. I don’t think I had no skin left. She’s good, Sunny’s good about that. Sunny can’t get you up, you’re probably dead. But this’s the last time, and she’s not gonna have to. Because I’m all ready to go, I can ever get through dinner. My friend, I don’t care what you say, I seen every kind of ass there is, you know that?”

“You’ve seen it this week,” Cogan said. “You been here, what, three days, what I hear you had a look at most of the ass there is in Boston.”

“I like it,” Mitch said. “That’s what it is, I like it. It’s like, it’s a hobby with me, you know? I never do nothing when I’m home. Nothing. But that’s why, I go the races. Once a year, I go to the races, and I get laid. Only this year, probably I’m not goin’ the races.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Cogan said. “I’d get all fucked out. You, I think you’re probably in good shape. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t fuck for three days, is all. I couldn’t do it.”

“I was your age,” Mitch said, “I felt exactly the same way.”

“Sure,” Cogan said. “I got work I got to do.”

Mitch drank from the glass. “I used to think the same way,” he said. “Then, I dunno when it happened, I dunno why it happened. I just started doing it. I went down there, the very first time I went down there, I got the suite. I was having a terrible time with Margie, and she finds out about it and she’s giving me all kinds of hell about it, you asked her and she’d tell you she drinks because I go down there. Well, it was her or me. But I can tell you, boy, you want ass, get yourself a, there’s no ass inna whole wide world like a young Jewish girl that’s hookin’.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Cogan said.

“That broad,” Mitch said, “she was in Oberlin, she was in college, right? And she quit. Whaddaya think of that?” He drank.

“You’re gonna be all right,” Cogan said, “tomorrow or the next night?”

“I’m all right, right now,” Mitch said. “Christ sake. Lemme alone, willya? Well, she quit. And she took up hookin’. Now you get a broad like that, they really go right to work on it, you know? And they get so, they really know their fuckin’ business. That broad, Sunny, she’s not, she isn’t half my wife’s age and she knew things which, if Margie knew them she’d go down the station and turn herself in. She really would.

“So, I come back the table,” Mitch said. “I finally get rid of that wine without pissing on my own fuckin’ chin and they’re both there and Sammy’s being very polite and all, and finally he leaves and then we finish and I thought to fuckin’ God, I can pole-vault up to the room with just what I got of my own, and we go up there and I want to tell you, three thousand bucks, it’s not cheap and I don’t care whether you got it or not, it’s fuckin’ expensive, but it’s worth it, it was honestly worth it. I give her three for the whole time and that night alone, it was worth it all. Only, I don’t tell her that, of course.”

“Mitch,” Cogan said.

“So the next day I get up,” Mitch said. “I also get up, but I hadda twelve-thirty plane so it’s just a quickie. Just a quickie with Sunny’s about nine times better’n a whole fuckin’ date with another broad. And then I go down and I get some steam, and I come back up and I got to give her the rest of the money. See, you give them half when you get there and then when you’re through, down there, you give them the rest. So I say, I tell her, I really appreciate it, I know what this means, all that time right out in one chunk and all. And she tells me, see, she’s out of circulation and everything, she tells me: ‘It’s all right,’ there isn’t any problem, and I give her the money and everything, and she’s leaving, and, well, she’s gonna stay with Sammy the next two weeks and he’s hitting her four for it. That cocksucker.”

“Look,” Cogan said, “this after, I’m supposed to meet a kid, all right? I think I got a guy that can take you around and all.”

“I can’t go out,” Mitch said.

“I didn’t mean fuckin’ around,” Cogan said. “You come up here to do something. For that. I was gonna talk to him and then if I’m satisfied, he can do something without having his brother hold his hand all the time, I was gonna bring him up here and talk about it with you.”

“It’s all right with me,” Mitch said.

“Well,” Cogan said, “I’m glad to hear that. Only, it’s not all right with me. Because you’re not gonna be able, be able to make it tonight, and I don’t want this kid thinking about things too long, he’s liable to go tell his brother.”

“Aw right,” Mitch said, “where the fuck is he? Get him up here and we’ll set the guy up.”

“You,” Cogan said, “I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do, right? You’re goin’ to bed.”

“I’m not tired,” Mitch said.

“You sure as hell look tired to me,” Cogan said. “You go to fuckin’ bed. And, it’s two-thirty now, you shit. I’m gonna call you at seven-thirty and I better wake you up, because if I don’t, I’m gonna drop a dime on a couple cops I know and they’ll take you back where you’re supposed to be.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said.

“No ass,” Cogan said, “no more booze, no nothing. You get yourself a shower and go to bed and I’ll wake you up and tell you where you gotta be, right?”

“I don’t take orders from shits like you,” Mitch said.