“Lemme call her, Rick,” begged Champ. He worked his muscular hands, making the cords jump and quiver in his forearms.
“Cutting cards is the only fair way,” Julio objected. Like Rick, he was afraid that Champ would foul up the call if he made it. It was Tuesday night, and they were back in Heavy’s garage again, with its grease-stained floor and mingled odors of metal and oil and gasoline.
Heavy was sweating profusely; the shirt was plastered over his seal-like body. “I don’t see why we gotta cut cards,” he whined, watching Rick shuffle. Then, seeing the look in the others’ eyes, he went on lamely, “Well, I mean, Champ wants to and all, and...”
“And you’re chicken. We cut cards, like I said. Low man.”
“I’ll go first,” said Champ eagerly.
Rick put the deck on the workbench, under the extension light that hung from a nail in the rafter above. Their hands, arms, and chests were in the glaring light as Champ cut; their faces were just pale blobs in the dimness outside the circle of illumination.
“Aw, hell, a seven. That ain’t very low, is it?”
Rick shuffled again without answering. His fingers were smeary when he touched the deck, and he knew he didn’t want to make the call. There was something... well, uncool, in threatening a little kid. Even when it was necessary. So he blew out a breath of silent relief when he got a jack of clubs; but he turned to Heavy with only sarcasm in his voice. “Let’s see what the crybaby gets.”
It was a ten. Heavy, who had been eating a candy bar, left smears of chocolate on the cards. He didn’t bother to hide his relief. Julio, in his turn, cut an eight.
“Wow!” exclaimed Champ, “that means I win, huh, fellows?”
Rick said carefully, “Ah, Champ, maybe we ought to, ah, like make it three out of five, or...”
Champ’s face puckered like that of a baby about to cry. The thick muscles swelled in his throat. He looked from Julio to Rick and back again; they were the ones he had to convince. Heavy, he knew, wanted him to have the fun of calling.
“I know you think I ain’t smart enough to do it right,” he said earnestly, “But I can do it. I know I can. Why, I already...”
He already had made those other two calls, the ones to Nancy Ellington. She was seventeen or something, and went to one of those fancy Catholic girls’ schools run by the nuns or somebody. This long black hair, see, and a round real serious face, and sometimes she would talk to him when he was working in the garden at her folk’s place.
One morning she was off from school for a saint’s birthday or something, and he was going by her bedroom window, real early it was, and there she was bare-ass, so he saw her tits and everything.
“You already what, Champ?” prompted Julio.
“I... ah... nothin’. I just... I got a right to do it...”
That Saturday he’d called up with his handkerchief over the phone like he’d seen on the TV, just to tell her what he wanted to do to her but she’d busted out crying. He’d called the next day, too, but old Mr. Ellington answered and said the police were tracing the call, so he’d hung up, real quick, and hadn’t ever called again.
Rick sighed. “Okay, Champ, you got a right to do it. We’ll call right now, while Heavy’s old man isn’t home.”
“Aw, Christ, Rick, from here?” Heavy’s chins trembled. “What if they trace the call or something, and—”
“They can’t trace through all the electronic equipment they use now,” Rick scoffed. “Not unless they’re all set up ahead of time.”
So they clustered around the bootlegged phone extension while Champ dialed. The woman picked up on the third ring. Not even Rick could find any fault with Champ’s performance; in fact, at the end of the two minutes he was sweating. Some of the things Champ said would happen, not only to the boy but to the woman herself, if anybody talked to the police about that night by the golf course, made him, in fact, feel sort of sick. When he glanced over, Julio looked the same way.
But Heavy, once the phone was back in its hook, seemed to feel only a slightly lascivious excitement and sense of power. “What’d she say, Champ, huh? What’d she say when—”
“She started to cry there at the last,” said Champ happily.
Chapter 10
Curt came from the tin-lined shower in the locker room, his skin flushed red from the needle spray of water, and began toweling off vigorously. He felt better than he had for a long time, at least physically. The scales told him he had broken two hundred pounds for the first time in several years, and the mirror told him that the workouts were beginning to make a difference in his appearance, also. It was just a little after noon of a Thursday — June 12th — and the warm summer air brought the minor rumble and squeal of Los Feliz traffic in through the locker room windows. Summer. There was the real trouble. Commencement was on Sunday; what in God’s name would he do with his time from now on? There was not even the hope of arrests of the members of the gang to carry him along any more.
Dressed, he started across the gym floor. Preston was just locking up the Dutch doors of the office. His face lighted up when he saw Curt. Sometime in the seven weeks Curt had been coming to the gym, they had graduated to first names.
“Hey, old buddy, you got time for a sandwich and a beer?”
Curt hesitated. He had been worried about filling up his days; this was one way. “Sure, why not, Floyd? We can even use my car.”
Preston directed him to the Pigskin Club, a small bar and restaurant which faced an access road off Bayshore Freeway. Only one car was parked in front.
“Al doesn’t serve lunches,” Preston explained. “But he’ll make us a couple of salami sandwiches.”
The heavy front door was leather-padded and brass-studded on the inside; Curt paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the interior dimness. Directly in front was a small dining room with a dozen white-clothed square tables set for the supper trade; to the right was an archway leading into the taproom. The bar had red vinyl fronting and red-topped stools with chromium legs.
“Curt, I’d like you to meet Al Ferrano. Al, Curt Halstead.”
Ferrano was a short dapper man with bright eyes in a swarthy face. At first glance he was forty; a closer look suggested a very well-kept fifty. He wore a white apron over his shirt and slacks.
“You must work out at the gym,” he said as they shook hands.
“I just started a few weeks ago.”
Ferrano shook his head; he had a quick ready smile. “This bar keeps me too dimmed busy. I only get up there twice a week, so all I do is arm and shoulder work.”
He had flipped the caps from three bottles of icy beer while he talked; he set them, beaded and glistening, on the bar, and busied himself with French rolls and mayonnaise. He had singularly heavy forearms.
“I gotta work out for arm-wrestling, would you believe it? My main trade in here is working guys, and after a few beers the construction boys always wanna arm-wrestle.” He gestured expansively with the broad-bladed French chef’s knife. “Well, what the hell could I do? You don’t wrestle ’em, you’re a shit-heel and they don’t come back. You do, you lose all the time, you’re giving the house away. So I started working out at Floyd’s gym.”
Three men came in, nodded to Ferrano, and settled at the back end of the bar. Ferrano set the sandwiches in front of Curt and Preston.
“Now, thanks to Floyd, guys come in just to try and beat me. Win or lose, they’re good for a few drinks, so it’s done wonders for business. Excuse me, huh, fellows?”