The Heavenly Table

50

IN THE MEANTIME, Chimney had settled his horse at Kirk’s Stables, four blocks over from Jonson’s, and given the livery man an extra two dollars to keep his Enfield safe for him. In the saddlebag he slung over his shoulder were two Smith & Wessons and a box of shells. One of the Remington.22s was stuck inside his grimy overalls. He watched the man lock the rifle in a cabinet, then walked uptown to the Warner, the hotel Cane had written on the piece of paper.

The desk clerk was reading a book when Chimney walked in. “Can I help you?” he asked. His name was Roland Blevins, and, with the exception of the black ink stains on his fingers, he was what his mother proudly called “the most fastidious and upright young man in southern Ohio” whenever she sensed that she might be talking to someone with an unwed daughter or sister. He brushed his woven black suit three or four times a shift, and not a single strand of hair on his rather pointy head was out of place thanks to the creamy gobs of Fussell’s Hair Restorer he applied every morning. Everything about Roland pointed to clean and careful living. He wished he worked at a better establishment, one that didn’t cater to riffraff like the boy standing before him, but so far he hadn’t been able to get his foot in the door at any of the other hotels. Someday, though, he’d be the day manager over at the McCarthy. His mother was sure of it.

“Need a room,” Chimney said.

“That would be two dollars a night,” Roland replied.

“You got one with a bathtub?”

“Those are three dollars a night.”

“I’ll take one of them.” Chimney pulled out a twenty-dollar gold piece and laid it on the counter.

“How many days do you plan to stay?”

“Not for sure yet. At least a couple.”

The clerk opened the guest registry and told Chimney to sign his name. His stomach roiled just a little when he saw the new guest make two sloppy X’s. Since he was a small child, Roland’s hobby had been penmanship, and though he should have been hardened to it by now, encountering someone this early in the day who couldn’t even print his name was almost too much to take. Just last week, a group of wealthy widows had asked him if he’d give a talk about the Palmer Method at one of their monthly soirées. By the end of the current century, he had predicted during the question and answer session that followed, typewriters and other gadgetry would make artful handwriting obsolete. His pronouncement practically sucked all the oxygen out of the room, and two of the oldest ladies had to be revived with smelling salts and tiny dabs of sweet sherry on their dry, crinkled lips. Mrs. Grady, the hostess, had gently admonished him for his negativity, but what he’d said was true all the same. Why, he doubted if even the bare rudiments of cursive would be taught in the classroom in another fifty years or so. He handed the boy his change and a key. “Room thirty-one, on the third floor.”

Chimney started for the stairway, then came back to the desk. “Any idy where I might find me a whore?” he asked.

Roland already had his nose buried in the book again, an introduction to French grammar. He looked up with a startled expression on his face, as if he had been caught in some embarrassing act, which was nearly the case. If the old widows who had practically swooned over his talent with pen and ink had known to what depths he had recently sunk, he wouldn’t have been allowed on their property, let alone to sit with them and sip tea from a dainty cup all afternoon. Though his wages at the Warner barely kept him afloat, he had taken out what was for him a substantial loan and visited the Whore Barn several times over the past few weeks to lay with a young trollop who spoke French. Peaches had taken his virginity away from him while whispering “très bien” over and over into his ear, and now he was infatuated with her. He covered the book with his hand and quickly said to Chimney, “I don’t know anything about that.” That was the bad thing about falling in love with a whore; anyone with four bits in their pocket was a potential rival. It was driving him crazy, the number of men he imagined rubbing their rough beards and dirty paws over that pale, beautiful body. His plan to win her over by mastering the language of love had seemed brilliant at first, but it was proving more difficult than he’d expected. He had tossed and turned all last night worrying about it, finally deciding, just before his mother called him down to breakfast, that if he hoped to make sense out of the verb conjugations, he was going to have to hire a tutor. It didn’t occur to him until later that morning that if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to afford to fuck Peaches anymore — that is, unless maybe he got another loan. To be in love, he was beginning to realize, meant being mired in one goddamn mess after another.

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Roland said. He looked around nervously, then offered Chimney a handbill from a stack on the counter. “Here, if you need something to do, go over to the Majestic and see the Lewis Family.”

“What’s the Majestic?”

“Only one of the finest theaters in the Midwest,” Roland said. “Right up the street and around the corner.”

“What do they do, this family you’re talkin’ about?”

“Sing, dance, tell jokes, you name it,” the clerk said. “Good clean fun. They come through here at least three or four times a year. Just seeing Mr. Bentley is worth the price of admission.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s the monkey,” the clerk said.

Chimney studied the picture of the five grinning stooges and the primate dressed in a little sailor suit. Unless that monkey was putting out, he wasn’t interested, but it sounded like something Cob might get a kick out of. Hell, he’d probably go nuts over such a thing. He thought about the pet squirrel they’d kept for a week or so that summer they picked cotton in Alabama, and how Cob had bawled like a baby when he woke up one morning to discover Pearl frying it up in a pan. Wouldn’t even eat breakfast he was so upset, which was the first time that had ever happened. “Mind if I keep this?” he asked.

“Go ahead.”

Chimney stuck the paper in his pocket and went on up the stairs. After taking a glance about the room, he hid the two Smith & Wessons under the mattress and walked down to a store called Burton’s that sold men’s clothing and accessories. He bought a pair of soft black-and-gray-striped trousers and a lavender shirt and a derby and a new pair of shoes, along with a pair of long johns and some soap and a bottle of rosewater. On the way back to the hotel, he stopped at a barbershop called O’Malley’s and got a shave and a haircut for a quarter. An old man, bald as a turtle, sat in a chair by the window, half asleep. “Any idy where I might find me a whore?” Chimney asked as the barber lathered his face.

“Jesus Christ, son, just look around,” the barber said as he began scraping some peach fuzz off the boy’s skinny neck. “The world’s crawling with ’em. I ought to know. I married one, didn’t I, Jim?”

The old man by the window jerked up with a startled expression on his face. “Who? What? You mean Nancy? Aw, she’s not so bad.”

The barber laughed bitterly. “That’s my father-in-law,” he whispered low in Chimney’s ear, the sour smell of his breath nearly making the boy’s eyes water. “He don’t know shit.”

“What’d ye say?” the old man asked.

“Nothing,” the barber said. “Not a goddamn thing. Just talkin’ to my customer here.”

“I’m serious,” Chimney said. “Where can I find one?”

The man wiped the remaining lather off the boy’s face with a towel and turned to pick up a pair of scissors. “There’s two taxis that park down here on the corner every evening after six o’clock. Either one of them can show ye.”

Now he was getting somewhere, Chimney thought. Then the barber turned him in the chair, and he saw an automobile drive past the window. “They a place around here sells cars?” he asked.

“Jesus, what’d ye do? Rob a bank?”

“What’s that ’sposed to mean?” Chimney said, laying his hand on the butt of the little Remington stuck in his pants.

“Well, first you asking about buyin’ whores, and now automobiles. Sounds like he’s got money to spend, don’t it, Jim?”

“I don’t know,” the old man muttered. It was obvious that the crack about his daughter had hurt his feelings.

“Oh, don’t be mad, Jim,” the barber said. “I was just kiddin’ about Nancy. You know that.”

“Well.”

“Besides, it shouldn’t be nothing to you anyway. Hell, I’m the one stuck with her now.”

“Clarence, you shouldn’t talk like that. Nancy’s all right.”

“Best place to go look at cars is Triplett’s,” the barber said, turning back to Chimney. “Just make a left when you leave and another left at the first street. You’ll see his lot a couple blocks down. I’d go with ye and buy one myself, but that all right bitch I’m married to keeps me in the poorhouse. Ain’t that right, Jim?”

Chimney got out of the chair and studied himself in the mirror for a moment, then paid the man. Picking up his bundle of new clothes, he walked back to the hotel and took a hot bath. As he soaped himself up, he thought about the barber and his wife, wondered if she was really as bad as he’d let on. She must be, otherwise why would the bald-headed father-in-law put up with such insults? Christ, the slut was probably bent over a chair getting fucked by someone right now. His hand went down between his legs as he tried to imagine what she felt like. By the time he finished, he had water splashed all over the floor around the tub. He hurriedly dried off, then put on his new clothes and went down the stairs and out the door onto the street. The weather was fine, the sky a soft, cloudless blue. Walking past the hotel where Cane and Cob were staying, he entered a joint called the McAdams. It was the first time he’d ever been in a bar, but he sat down on a stool and nonchalantly ordered a beer and a steak sandwich like he’d hung out in them all his life. He made small talk with the keep while he ate, then went on down the street looking for the car lot.

Chimney knew absolutely nothing when it came to automobiles, but there were at least a dozen parked on the gravel of various years and models. He was walking around looking them over when a man in a pair of greasy coveralls came out of a garage and introduced himself as Tom Triplett. “You looking for a car?”

“Could be,” Chimney said. “Ain’t decided yet.”

“Well, take your time,” the man said. “It’s probably the most important purchase you’ll make in your lifetime. You from around here?”

“No,” Chimney said.

“What brings you to Meade?” Triplett asked, wondering, as he looked at the customer’s clothes, if he might be a carny, or another one of those entertainers the fruitcake over at the Majestic was always bringing in. Most of the acts he’d seen there over the years weren’t worth the quarter admission fee, though he would admit that goddamn bunch called the Lewis Family did put on a hell of a show once they got wound up.

“Oh, nothing much. Thought maybe I’d buy me a whore.”

Triplett didn’t bat an eye. Ever since the pimp and his women appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago, half the men in Meade had whores on their mind, one way or another. He didn’t approve of them for the most part, but that most part was because Blackie kept sending his bodyguard over with IOUs for services they had provided to his son, Jeffrey. “Buy ye one of these and you won’t have to pay for it,” he told Chimney.

“What do ye mean?”

“Hell, son, ain’t nothing gets a woman hotter than ridin’ around in a nice car.”

“That right?” Chimney said.

“As God is my witness,” Triplett said. “Why, my boy, Jeffrey, he…” The salesman felt his stomach begin to fizz, and he clapped his mouth shut. Talking about his son would just set his ulcer on fire again. The lazy sonofabitch had slithered home again this morning past dawn, all scratched to hell and stinking drunk, looking like an animal that should be shot and put out of its misery. He’d fuck anything with two legs. “Take this car, for example,” Triplett said to Chimney, pointing at a shiny red Packard. “Why, I guarantee you, you drive this car uptown tonight, you’ll have to fight the women off. Let me ask ye something. How is it ye get around now?”

“Horse,” Chimney said.

“Horse!” Triplett laughed. “No wonder you have to pay for it. Ain’t no young modern woman wants to be seen on a horse these days.”

“I don’t know how to drive,” Chimney said.

“Shoot, there’s nothing to it. I can show ye everything you need to know in a couple hours.”

“How much?”

“Well, depends on what you want.”

“Which one’s the fastest?”

“That’d be the Packard. It’ll go sixty miles an hour on good road. I could let you have it for two thousand, including the tax. She’s the same as brand-new.”

“No,” Chimney said, shaking his head, “I can’t afford nothin’ like that.”

“Well, how much can ye afford?”

The boy looked around, then pointed at a black Ford touring car. “How much for that one?”

Triplett rubbed his chin. A man from Clarksburg had traded it in two weeks ago, complaining that it was cold-natured, but he hadn’t had time to check out the problem yet. “That one I could let go for two-fifty. She’s got a few miles on her, but she’s been taken good care of.”

“And you can show me how to drive it?”

“Sure, I’ll take ye out today if you want.”

They went into the office and Chimney counted out the money. The man started scribbling in a receipt book. “What’s your name?”

“Hollis Stubbs.”

“How do ye spell that?”

“I don’t know. Nobody ever showed me.”

Triplett made a guess at it, then handed over the receipt. “Always keep this with you so you got proof you own it.” Then he shucked off the coveralls and put on a pair of goggles and a long duster. “I’ll show you how to start it first,” he told Chimney. He proceeded to explain pulling out the choke lever and priming the engine with the crank, then setting the throttle and the spark advance before giving it one more crank to fire it up. He went through the whole procedure twice, the first time slowly, the second time quickly. The car started up fine both times, and he wondered, first, if the man from Clarksburg knew what the fuck he was talking about, and second, if he should have charged the boy a little more for it. “Think ye got it?” he said.

“I think so,” Chimney said.

“Good,” Triplett said, hopping in on the driver’s side. “Once we get out of town, I’ll put you behind the wheel.”

—

BACK AT THE McCarthy, Cane was sitting in the room trying to make sense out of the first act of Richard III when he glanced out the window and saw two men drive by in a black automobile. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, as he was telling Cob again to take it easy on the doughnuts, that he realized the dandy sitting in the passenger’s seat wearing the purplish shirt had been their little brother.