Urge to Kill

53

“…and they didn’t know if the parrot was saying everything he was saying, or if he was saying everything the parrot was saying.”

The crowd in Say What? thought about it, then with a growing rush of applause decided they liked that one. They cheered and hooted as Jackie Jameson waved his right arm over his head in a circular motion, dipped low in his exaggerated bow, and trotted off the stage.

Mitzi and Rob (he had finally told her his name—Rob Curlew) were seated at the table Rob preferred. It was barely large enough for two, so they wouldn’t attract unwanted company. It was also at the very edge of the crowd, and not far from one of the side exits. Not only could they look out over the audience so Mitzi could judge crowd reaction to particular jokes, but when the night of comedy and near comedy ended, they could easily slip outside and get away without having to talk to anyone Mitzi knew. Rob valued his privacy. Mitzi understood that and accommodated him.

Tonight was different, however, because her boss Ted Tack was holding her check from last week, and Mitzi needed the money. The rent was past due, and the landlord was pesky.

Jackie Jameson had been the final act, so Mitzi and Rob waited for the applause to trail off, then stood up from their table.

Mitzi started toward a side aisle so she could make her way to the stage and office. Rob closed his hand on her arm.

Mitzi explained that she had to pick up her paycheck.

“I can carry us till next week,” Rob said.

Mitzi aimed her big smile at him. “In case you haven’t noticed, you carried us all this week. You wouldn’t want me sleeping with the landlord. I need my money, baby.”

“You mean your independence.”

“Up the rebels! Whatever it is they’re against.”

Rob smiled and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be waiting right outside.”

“It’ll only take a few minutes for Ted to pay me or for me to punch him out,” Mitzi said. She waved a small fist. “He always pays.”

“Remember I’m nearby,” Rob said, “in case there’s any trouble.” As if she was serious.

Mitizi wondered sometimes if he was serious, some of the things he said. Or maybe it was because he was normally so smooth that any slightly out-of-kilter remark seemed even more so.

As she moved away through the crowd that was gradually making its way outside, she wondered what kind of job Rob had, that he worried so little about money. Something to do with investments, he’d say, whenever she inquired, then he’d begin explaining things to her she didn’t understand. There were lots of acronyms, but they all meant money. So maybe he was rich as well as handsome.

I am makin’ out with The Man.

Somebody or something tugged at her right earlobe, and she turned, ready to cut some poor bastard off at the knees if she could figure out who’d been the tugger.

I better know you as a friend.

She did. Jackie Jameson was jammed up against her by the press of the crowd.

Her momentary anger was gone. She grinned at him. “Nice set, Jackie.”

“Yours, too.” He cupped his hands over his chest. “Wanna go lift a few, Mitz? Talkin’ drinks here, not boobs.”

“Sorry, Jackie, I’m going out with Rob.”

Jameson made a big thing of looking all around. “So where is he?”

“Waiting outside.”

“What is this guy, some kinda secret agent? You helping him hide?”

“He likes privacy, is all.”

“Then he should like you. You’re sure keeping him a big secret.”

“I kinda enjoy that, him and me together, nobody around to applaud or boo.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’d applaud, Mitz.”

She grinned again. “I gotta go, get to the office before Ted makes his escape with my paycheck.”

“Maybe Rob’d like to have a drink or two with us,” Jackie said, as Mitzi was moving away in the general direction of stage and office.

“Oh, yeah, we’d both love having you around. In case conversation started to drag.”

“I’m jealous, Mitz. You noticed?”

“Of me?”

“Of him,” Jackie said. “I’m better for you, Mitz.”

“It’s illegal in this state for two comics to be that way with each other,” Mitzi said.

“Is he prepared to be your love slave, like I am?”

“You’re more a love jester, Jackie.”

She was immediately sorry she’d said it. He turned away to hide the pain on his face.

When he turned back, he was smiling.

She bit her lower lip. “That was a horseshit remark. I didn’t mean it, Jackie, honest.”

“Sure you didn’t.”

“Will a blow job make it up?”

“I get the point,” he said, “you say things you don’t mean. Just be careful, Mitz.”

“Of what?”

“Banana peels, that kinda thing.” He gave her a wave and turned his back on her.

“Hey! Hey, Jackie! Don’t go away mad!”

Even that had come out wrong. Just go away hung in the air. Two comics. Maybe it was a good law.

Jackie probably hadn’t heard her anyway. He was deep into the crowd that was massing toward the street doors. She could just make out his dark head of hair with its bald spot, then he was gone. Hurt and gone, like so many people in her life.

Why am I always hurting people, or getting hurt?

Feeling paper-edge high, Mitzi continued her way to the stage steps and the office. She knew she’d deeply cut Jackie, maybe her only true friend and one of the last people in the universe she was willing to hurt, and she vowed she’d make it up to him. She wouldn’t apologize—that would only remind him of what she’d so thoughtlessly said and embarrass him some more. What was needed here was a kind of indirect apology, giving away a piece of herself without it being obvious. Mitzi was good at that. She’d been doing it since she was a little girl.

Ten minutes later, her check in her purse, she met Rob outside in front of the club, beneath the lighted marquee. Nobody looks that good in all that bright light coming from overhead, she thought. Not even me. She clutched his arm, turning her head slightly away from him and the sickly light, as she led him out farther down the sidewalk.

They walked a few blocks to a small, dimly lighted sports bar they frequented. There were booths toward the back, where serious drinkers and lovers sat, leaving the front booths to the sports nuts who sat hypnotized by taped ball games while raising the alcohol level of their blood.

“You seem kind of down,” Rob said, when they were settled in with their drinks. She had an apple martini, he a scotch on the rocks.

Mitzi told him what had happened with Jackie.

“I feel kind of sorry for him, too,” Rob said. Then he smiled. “But I don’t blame him for being jealous.”

They sat for a few minutes in silence, sipping their drinks. There was cheering from the front of the bar.

“Home-run volume,” Rob said.

“Maybe,” Mitzi said. “I don’t know how they can get so into it. Both the Mets and Yankees games have been over for hours. They already know who won.”

“They like to pretend, like everybody else.”

“What are you, running for political office?”

He gave her his hooded-eyes smile, melting her down. The bastard was into her even deeper than he knew, making her vulnerable. Vulnerability was something she loathed. “Mitzi, Mitzi…always the tough front.”

She shrugged. “I’m just pretending, like everyone else.”

“You should cheer up, sweet. You’ve got a birthday coming up next week.”

“How’d you know that?”

Does he know how old I’m going to be? Twenty-five. Holy Christ! How’d that happen? Twenty-five already, and at a place like Say What? She didn’t even have top billing

“You must’ve mentioned it,” he said.

“Not me.”

“Somebody else, then. Or maybe it was on your Web site.”

“There is nothing true on my Web site.”

He laughed. “I know that’s your photo.”

“It’s my mother when she was my age.”

“Can’t you ever be serious, Mitzi?”

“Only when I’m being funny.”

“We should celebrate your birthday.”

“Day of mourning,” Mitzi said. “Don’t even think of buying me a present, Rob, really.”

“No whoop-de-do?”

“Not even whoop.”

He studied her over the rim of his glass. She couldn’t read his eyes, so dark in the dim lounge, but with pinpoints of light or something else in their centers.

“Okay,” he said. “But maybe I’ll bring you flowers.”

“That could work,” she said.