The Erection Set

XX

The local newspaper ran a special edition to contain the events of the previous night. The triple killings took precedence on the first page with four photos of the bodies where they lay and police mug shots of what they had looked like previously. Identification was immediate and positive. All three were members of the mob led by the Guido brothers but no motive for their deaths had been uncovered. At present it was suspected that, since the Guido crowd had been engaged in illegal strong-arm union tactics on the waterfront, they might have been in Linton to muscle in on union activities going on with the reactivation of the Barrin plant. Local police were working in conjunction with New York City departments and other state authorities and expected immediate results.

Balls.

Inside pages of the edition covered the activities of the S. C. Cable production crews setting up for the forthcoming Fruits of Labor picture, the society pages went all out on the party given for prominent local citizens and the picture company and the rest of the world news was sandwiched in the last section.

Even the New York papers were having a field day with the topic and even if Fruits of Labor hadn’t been a great book to begin with, it sure was getting one hell of a push with all the notoriety going on around it. Mona Merriman ran a full-column plug with details obviously supplied by Lee and the publicity department, another Hollywood columnist gave it two paragraphs and Dick Lagen hinted at a more sinister possible aspect and stated flatly that this was only the beginning of the unrest that was bound to come. If he did have anything substantial, either it wasn’t provable or he wasn’t ready to break it yet.

Chet Linden had listened while I told him what happened and told me to get lost.

I said, “Buddy, I’m getting highly pissed off and I don’t want any crap from you at all. I told you what could happen and you wouldn’t listen and if you feel like stranding me, old pal, I’ll blow the whistle on the whole damn shebang and bring it down on everybody’s head.”

His voice was flat and cold. “We don’t take that stuff, Dog.”

But I could be just as cold and a lot more deadly I had four more kills in my pocket to prove it and he damn well kept count too. “You don’t have any choice, Chet. Just do it.”

I heard him suck in his breath with disgust. “Okay, where’s the car?”

When I gave him the directions I said, “They have tire impressions from the area, so just switch shoes of the same type and the rental company will never notice it. Do the window, wash down the undersides, run it through the countryside a little bit to pick up traces of dirt other than that beside the hotel and leave it where you found it.”

“You think their labs can’t pick up something if they nail you?”

“They won’t have time. I’m not on anybody’s list yet.”

“You’re on ours now.”

“Come get me then. And, Chet...”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t try booby-trapping the car. I know all the gimmicks too... and you just might get some innocent slob killed.”

He didn’t answer me. He just hung up and I grinned because the choice was all mine. But from now on I had something else to look out for.

Rose was waiting for me at the back table of the Arcade Bar and Grill, a little place struggling for survival without seeming to care what happened. The couple who ran the place had aged along with the building and looked more like wooden fixtures than people. She had gotten there five minutes early and had ordered a hamburger, getting ready to bite into it when I arrived. I called for one myself and sat down opposite her.

She smiled a faint hello, but there was a cloud across her face that hadn’t been there before. I said, “How’d you make out, kid?”

“You picked a live one.”

“Any trouble?”

She shook her head. “He took me out for a snack and a drink, then dropped me off at the hotel.”

“You didn’t invite him up?”

“Let me play the johns my way. He wants to be the aggressor.”

I took my hamburger when it came and doused it with ketchup. “I may be wrong.”

“You aren’t wrong. I know the signs. I told you, I had it happen to me before.” She looked at me a few long seconds, the cloud still there veiling her feelings. “I thought I could handle this when I took you up on the deal. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why?”

“Dog... if this were just a badger game...”

“It isn’t,” I said.

“Your games are all for keeps,” she told me softly. “Like last night.”

“Last night?” I took a big bite out of the hamburger and watched her.

“Don’t be so damn cool, Dog.”

“See me in jail, Rose?”

“Maybe they haven’t caught you yet.”

“Let’s wait until it happens.”

I saw her eyes go past my head and she nodded. “Could be it’s about to.”

But I had seen Bennie Sachs in the mirror I was facing and was all ready for him when he walked up and gave a curt nod to both of us. I stood up, still chewing and offered to buy him coffee.

He said No, glanced at Rose, then back to me and said, “Can I see you alone, Mr. Kelly?”

I put the rest of the hamburger down, wiped my mouth and nodded. “Sure. Where?”

“They got a back room here.”

“Let’s go.”

“You first.” He pointed toward a door in the far comer. “Over there.” He kept his hand close to the police special on his hip and followed me through the door into a storeroom, then into a smelly toilet reeking of filth and stagnating water on the floor.

“Now what?” I asked him.

“Let’s see that rod of yours.”

I handed him the .45. He smelled it, checked the action, snapped out the clip then slammed it back in again. “Stand against the wall,” he said.

I shrugged and did what he told me. Bennie kept me in sight while he took the lid off the tank of the bowl. The water was low so he held down the float until it was brimful, then raised my .45 over one corner at an angle and fired. The damn blast nearly wrecked our eardrums and the burst of spray drenched us both. He let down the cocked hammer with his thumb, pushed the flushing lever and when the tank had emptied, spilling its guts out all over the floor because the drain was clogged, reached down and picked up the spent slug from the bottom barely getting his fingers wet.

“Neat,” I said.

“Consider yourself getting VIP status,” he told me.

“If you’d have asked I would have given you the piece to check out without all the fuss.”

“I like it better this way.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Mr. Kelly...”

“I know. Don’t leave town. Incidentally, if you want my car...”

“We’ve already impounded it. I called a cab to take you home.”

“Very efficient.”

“You should know cops.”

“That I do, my friend. Have my car delivered when you’re done with it.”

“I will.” His look was one of total inspection. “I have a feeling you’re a quick thinker, Mr. Kelly.”

“Sometimes you have to be,” I said.

He handed my .45 back, nodded again and this time he walked out ahead of me. He nodded to Rose too and I heard the door close behind him when I sat down to finish my hamburger. Rose couldn’t finish hers at all. Her lower lip was trembling and she had to lock her fingers together to keep them from shaking.

I said, “Come on, kid, he was showing me a gun trick. All sound and no fury.”

My tone was so complacent that she let out a nervous little giggle. It had all been so casual that she couldn’t see an angle to hook her fears on and she finally unwound her fingers and waved her hands at me with a disgusted grimace. “Someday, Dog, I hope you’ll tell me what this is all about.”

“Someday,” I said. “When do you see our boy again?”

“Tonight. He said he may call, so I did make an impression.”

“Okay, the setup stays as is. You know how to reach me.”

“Don’t worry.”

“I never worry when pros are involved. It’s the amateurs who give you trouble.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“My pleasure. Give me a few minutes before you leave.” I tossed a five-dollar bill on the table and got up.

Outside it was clouding up again and you could smell a mist in the air. A taxi stood by the curb, the engine turning over slowly. I got in, told him to take me to the Barrin plant where they were setting up the picture, had him wait in the parking lot with a twenty as a retainer and got out to find Lee.

The Fruits of Labor set was a self-contained community that looked like a hill of ants. Everything was in motion, but the seeming confusion was, in reality, controlled movement, totally organized, well planned and producing results.

I found Lee beside the wardrobe truck talking to a pair of reporters, let him finish, then said, “How’s it going?”

He jumped when I spoke, faked a smile and ran his fingers through his hair. “Good. Fine. At least they got plenty to write about.” His eyes crawled into mine when he made the last statement. I looked at him, knowing he had to ask it. “Dog... that business last night...” he let his words dwindle off.

I simply nodded.

“Why the hell did I bother asking you?”

“You kill or be killed, buddy. You should remember that from the old days.”

“These aren’t the old days. Shit.”

“Forget it. They’re checking me out now.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here!”

“I’ll come up smelling like roses.”

“Dog...”

“Who’s that bunch over there?” A crowd of about forty were standing in a knot sipping coffee from cardboard cups, watching the action with studied indifference.

“Extras. All locals. They’re going to pick up some exterior shots in about an hour.”

“Any trouble?”

Lee jerked a cigarette from a pack and lit it with a match that shook visibly. “Like from where?”

“Management.”

He blew the smoke into the wind and shook his head. “That McMillan character rode herd on everybody about not interfering with production in the plant. Hell, he just likes to toss his weight around, that guy. Those cousins of yours are doing their little dance for the photographers, but that’s all bullshit too. You know, I wish we’d never come to this damn place.”

“Baloney. You’re enjoying yourself. You’re in solid.”

“I was until you showed up. Now I keep waiting to hear the Klaxon go off and I’ll start heading for the bomb shelter.” He took a deep drag on the butt and flipped it off into the dirt next to the truck. “You see Sharon yet?”

“No.”

“Damn it, Dog, she’s worried sick about you.”

“No reason to be.”

“Quit giving me that crap. She knows more about you than you think she does.”

“Nobody knows anything about me at all, old buddy.” This time his eyes had a funny glint in them. “You’ll wake up one day. She’s over in the production office if you want to see her. Your cousin Dennison turned over a room inside for us to use.”

“Casting couch?”

“These days they do it anywhere.” I turned my head and looked at him a moment. He smiled and this time it wasn’t faked. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

“Not until I tell her so myself,” I said.

“You will, Dog. Then you’ll run home to your kennel for your bone. I just hope the cupboard’s not bare by that time.”

“Go fuck yourself, fly-boy.”

“Sure, Mother Hubbard. Buy me a dildo.”

I walked away and didn’t go in to see Sharon. I got back in the cab and told him where to go. Nobody followed us and we cruised for twenty minutes before we came to the house. It was almost done. We cruised some more, stopped and had a couple of beers and small talk before I had him drive me to see Lucy Longstreet again. Old Beth had found somebody who was willing to talk for a price and offer a piece of evidence for an even higher price. I gave her the amount plus something extra for her trouble and was about to call the deal off with Rose until I remembered that the bought stuff didn’t always work out and decided to let it go ahead anyway.

I paid the driver off outside the police building because my car was still in the driveway and when I went inside Bennie Sachs gave me a courteous hello and invited me to sit down. The first thing he did was hand me my car keys.

“You sure you’re done?”

“The lab’s still checking dust samples. That drive around the hotel was laid down with a composite from Maine and if there are any traces at all the lab’ll find it. Impossible not to. Microscopic examinations are pretty thorough.”

“All the better, Mr. Sachs. When I’m clear, I’m clear.”

“I figure you will be.”

Poker isn’t my game, but I know how to keep the face. “Why?”

“We checked the rental company. They keep a record of their tire numbers. They weren’t switched and the treads didn’t match up either. Yours had a lot more wear on them. Same brand, though.”

“Satisfied?”

“Almost.”

“How about ballistics?”

“Not your gun, although I recognize the possibilities of a barrel switch. Not everybody carries a .45, and those barrels are easy to replace.”

“Wouldn’t that be going pretty far?”

“Not when somebody’s a clever thinker, Mr. Kelly.”

“Left-handed,” I said, “but I’ll take it for a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

I got up and tossed the keys in my hand. “Well, good luck.”

“Mr. Kelly...”

“Yeah?”

“Would you surmise... that any more trouble would be forthcoming?”

“There’s always trouble, Mr. Sachs.”

I waved “so long” and went out to the car. I got in and tried to stick the key in the lock. It didn’t work until I turned it upside down.

Chet Linden wasn’t taking any chances. Somehow he had switched the whole car. Now when he had me killed all his tracks were covered. It was a real rabbit drive now. All the hunters were out and armed. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference who got the bunny as long as the bunny was got. The old jack had the rabies and could kill off the whole town if he wasn’t destroyed.

So run, rabbit, run!

SHEILA McMILLAN... REFLECTIONS

He knows. He knows more than he’s supposed to know and I can’t stop myself from thinking about him. He knew when he touched me what would happen, made sure of it, then let me do to him what I did and I came away feeling nice and good because there wasn’t any fear left or memory of pain with the horrible tightness inside my head that made my entire body tighten up into knots with the desire to scream and kick out in terrible vengeance from having been violated. The word was even distasteful now. Violated. When did I first hear it? I think it was when memory started without being remembered. No, that’s a contradiction. It had to be earlier where it’s dark and frightening with shadows that don’t want to come to life and only appear in the occasional dream or when I feel their hands.

Even knowing that he knows is a quiet, comforting feeling. Others knew, but their awareness was always deceptive and instinctive responses were ugly enemies, the little creepy-crawlies that became sheer tortures.

Why couldn’t they talk?

Why couldn’t they be passive?

Why did they have to demand the male prerogative of penetration?

The shadows were far worse than the realities. They LURKED. Awful word because they really did LURK. They beat at you with huge clubs and forced and forced until the unbelievable pain turned a scream into a tiny whimper and why you lived at all was a mystery of life. You writhe, you drown, you run away into the black and hope they never turn the light on you at all, but somehow you know the clubs are there, upraised and ready to beat. Big, soft, sturdy clubs that take away everything you know you’re going to want one day and all that is left is an inborn feeling of having been deprived and never knowing what you have been deprived of.

Sheila McMillan, wife of the greatest cocksman who ever lived. He told me so. Other women have told me so. Other men have confirmed the story. Sheila McMillan in love with a brawny, hairy-bellied cocksman who’s in love with her and she can’t give him any of that lovely stuff he wants unless she takes two of the never-remembers out of Dr. Elliot’s small plastic bottle and it all happens when she’s in never-never land.

You hate and vomit and go through the beautiful act with all the people who don’t know. Except now they suspect. Or they are sure. Men are funny. If they can’t get that they have to do something else, if they’re really in love.

Why couldn’t they talk?

Why couldn’t they be passive?

For once I’d like to hurt. Now, that was a strange thought.

But why did he have to know? Dirty Dog.

I wished the bastard would come back.

There was a knock on the door.

I said, “How do you feel?”

“Lonely. I’ve been doing too much thinking.”

“You’re in the right place for it. I was conceived in that bed. They must have done a lot of thinking too before they decided to beget me.”

“Unlikely. You probably were an accessory after the fact.”

“I doubt it. Those days it was a time for thinking first. I prefer to believe I was planned. Bastardly or not, I was planned for.”

She smiled, then suddenly changed the subject. “Was last night real?”

“You were there, Sheila.”

“Somehow, it seems more like a dream.” Her fingers toyed with the top of the sheet. “I have very odd dreams. My whole life is one terrible dream. Even when I’m awake I wonder if I’m really awake, because when I’m dreaming I think I’m awake and pinch my skin to see if I am or not and I believe I am.” She turned and looked toward the open shutters that sagged inward on their hinges. “I wish I could be sure.”

“You’re awake, kid.”

“I was thinking a long time before you got here.”

“What about?”

“Everything. Nothing. Then everything again. Maybe you you can help me.”

“Just ask.”

“No. I won’t do that,” she told me. The covers moved as she took in her breath, held it, then let it out slowly. When she turned her head and looked at me again there was something different in her eyes. “You put me to bed.”

“Somebody had to.” I couldn’t put my finger on what was different about her now. I picked a loose cigarette out of my pocket and lit it. “About last night...”

“There never was any last night,” she said. “There’s only from now on.”

“I appreciate that, kitten. I covered all the exits except you.”

“Would you have killed me too?”

“Nope. Women are for kissing, not killing.”

“You’re sexy,” she said, changing the subject again.

“Hell, I’m tired and I’m dirty.”

“Do you have a shower?”

“Sure, but all the hot water has run out.”

“I understand cold water has a depressing effect on the male physiology.”

“Somebody told you wrong. It’s only some males and only some times. Right now I’m hard as a rock.”

“Really?”

“No, I’m lying,” I said, “but if I keep talking like this I sure as hell will be.”

“You’re mean.”

“Certainly. I’m dirty too.”

“So take a shower with me,” she said.

The cigarette burned my finger and I squashed it out under my heel. It left a black smudge on the old wide pine planks. “Sorry, doll, I’m just a natural bastard, not the kind that makes himself into one.”

“Don’t fight with me, Dogeron. I told you I have been thinking. I don’t want any more of those dreams.”

“I’m not a doctor, either.”

“They haven’t been any help. Take your clothes off.”

“No.”

But there she was with me in the shower, slickery slick like Earle used to say, all soapy and turning around so I could swab her down a little better and when I was skiing all over her body with foam-filled fingers she laughed through the suds and said, “Could you really kiss me now, Dog?”

I kissed her, all right. A long, lovely, naked, tight-together kiss.

“You haven’t got a hard-on,” she accused me.

“I didn’t think I needed one,” I said.

“Really, you don’t.”

“Oh?”

“I bet you could do it soft.”

“The hell I could. Look, kill that water and let’s get dried off.”

“Coward.”

“Old,” I said, nice and flat. “Men aren’t padded with fat like you broads.”

Her hands fluttered around me and age stopped being years and started being a long time ago. I said, “At ease, young lady.”

“Pretty,” she said. She turned the faucet off and stepped back to look at me. “You’re larger than the ones in the British Museum.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” I threw a towel at her and stepped out of the shower. But I couldn’t stop her. She ran her fingernails down my back and pushed me around while I was trying to swab myself off and there was her face looking up at me with delicious, wet lips and wild exuberant titties all poked out with hard round nipples asking to be eaten and something crazy in her eyes. This time when her hand touched me there was a tremor in her whole arm that made me want to explode right there. But I knew I had to play doctor or she’d never get the chance again.

Her fingers squeezed. “I try hard,” I said.

“Try harder.”

The timing had to be just right. “Where will I put it, kid?”

It was like somebody dropped ice water all over her, then that look came back again, some inner determination forcing it on.

You can hate the dentist. You can fear the dentist. Then your tooth aches and you go to the dentist. It isn’t really so bad after all. You don’t fear, you don’t hate the dentist anymore. Or was it really that simple?

I said, “Didn’t you ever take a shower with a guy before.”

“Only Cross. Three times.”

“What happened?” I tossed the towel aside and reached for the economy-sized can of deodorant. I sprayed it under my arms and under the crack of my ass until it got too cold to stand, then recapped it and sprayed myself with something that smelled pretty damned good. At least they never had it in Europe where the girls wore spinach under their arms. And never thought to bleach their pussies.

“You’re nasty,” she said.

Now I knew where I was going. “How long have you been married?”

“Too long.”

“That’s no answer.” I had one pair of shorts left and was about to step into them.

“Don’t put them on,” Sheila asked me.

“Kid...”

“I know, Dog.”

“What do you know?”

“That you know. About me. I can see it in your face.”

“I’m trying to be professional about this, sugar.”

“Uh-huh.” And the smile was really real.

She let the towel drop and there was that beautiful naked body you read about with big, pushy breasts and a wildly triangular brunette snatch that hid the entrance to the root of evil with the slidy part skidding the way right into destruction’s hollow.

“Am I nice?” she asked me.

“Tantalizing,” I said.

“Get more descriptive.”

I covered up my stupid hard-on with my shorts and pulled on a T-shirt. “Fuck you,” I said.

“Why not?”

I looked at her then, and her entire body was a tingling, vibrating mass of muscular contortions and small undulations along the sides of her belly, but what she was telling me with her eyes was something entirely different and I took hold of her arm, led her into the bleak, dark bedroom where there was a big bed from a long time ago and whipped off my two pieces of clothing so only skin could touch skin and rolled across her so she could feel the initial slithery feel of bodies and held her close until her own mental anaesthesia could take hold and show in her eyes.

She didn’t have to tell me. She was right when she said I knew. I let the hours become minutes and minutes become microseconds, and compacted everything she had taken away a long time ago and lived with so long into a beautiful night of nearly total exhaustion. I listened to the words and the details of her being raped again and again, felt the pain with her and hated the act with her and tasted her desire for the thing she held repugnant and when she called her husband’s name at the height of orgasm without knowing what she was doing I knew she’d never have the dreams anymore.

Sheila looked at me, the moonlight crossing her face, emphasizing the wide, sleepy eyes. “Thank you, Dog,” she said.

I had to grin at her. “You’re not supposed to thank me, doll.”

“May I offer you money?”

“If you want a kick in the ass.”

“No, I wouldn’t like that, but since all this was for me, I’d really like to give you something too.”

“What’s to give?”

“Make me a three-way woman, Dog.”

“Hey, honey.”

“Please? We’ve done everything else. One more... injection?”

“You’re a hell of a patient,” I said.

“You’re a hell of a doctor,” she told me. Then she assumed the classic, pornographic position and said, “Deep, Dog. This should be your favorite way if you live up to your name.”