I knew I couldn’t detain her. But there might be another time, so I shook Becky’s plump, dimpled hand and held it and leaned over with my face inches from hers and said, “I’m glad you came, Becky. I like talking with you.”
“About what I said…?”
“I’ll consider it. Don’t worry. A man like Ben has a wife as unselfish and devoted as you, he’s bound to go places.”
“You really think so? I’m younger than Ben, you know.”
I leaned closer. Becky’s lips began to tremble. I felt like every kind of an unmentionable heel that never gets mentioned, but what the hell, I was playing for keeps. Becky took me off the hook, though, by spinning around and darting down the hallway despite her bulk. At the top of the stairs she turned and blew me a kiss. I showed my fangs and shut the door softly.
Becky had almost told me a lot. My actual take in serviceable information, however, was zero. I’d already guessed Vito was delivering something to Tolliver’s or taking something from Tolliver’s. Aside from the fact that an ambitious Becky was gunning for his job, I’d learned nothing.
Who or what in hell was the letter writer?
I thought and thought about what Becky told me and got nowhere, so I began thinking about Karen. This revealed a desire to return forthwith to Queens, the newly ordained garden spot of the universe.I think I’m falling in love with you, Karen. That’s what the man said. But was he? Three years ago, I’d decided to play the field after Allison. Such a stalwart display of will power. Go to hell, Gideon Frey. That’s where you’re heading anyway. The first broad you hook up with after doffing the khaki uniform makes you want to change your mind.
None of it helped. I slept.
I found King Kellum manhandling a boy in our penny arcade the next morning. I didn’t recognize the boy at first but I said, “Damn you, Kellum, cut it out.”
“Mr. Frey, am I glad to see you,” the boy wailed. It was my favorite clam digger, squirming and writhing while Kellum kept him pinned under one thick, muscular leg and swatted a heavy paw at the twisting face.
“Frey,” he said. “Say, listen. You people ought to watch this place more carefully in the future.” The Mickey Mouse voice probably masked lewd thought Mickey never would have dreamed of.
The kid said, “This big goon is nuts! I only came in because I wanted a job here, Mr. Frey. Right away he starts chasing me and doing all kinds of stupid things. Leggo, stupid!”
Kellum stood up and dusted himself off. “He was trying to steal something, Frey.”
The kid’s shirt was ripped almost in two, revealing red welts and discolorations on his chest and stomach. He snuffled back tears of rage and pain and said, “Am I gonna catch hell when my Ma sees this.”
“What was he trying to steal?” I asked coldly. “The cash is locked up.”
“Listen, Frey. Do you think I was trying to take something?”
“Kings go around looking for queens, you punk.”
“Say, listen…”
“No, you listen. Keep your nose out of this place. You can monkey around all you want in your steam room, see?”
Kellum’s big face twisted into a pout, like a woman whose virtue has been questioned. He was something unclean which crawled around holes in the ground and only came out at night. I slammed my open palm against the big face and rocked it.
The kid clapped his hands. Kellum bleated like some kind of female animal. He lunged at me and swung a haymaker which I ducked under. But I neglected to tuck my chin close to my chest and his left blurred up at me and slammed against my Adam’s apple. I gagged. To make matters worse, Kellum lifted me half off the floor with a knee. If I had any breath I might have screamed. The kid never would have forgiven me.
Kellum’s right fist floated toward me. Time seemed suspended. I couldn’t seem to avert my head. Something crunched and I went over backwards against a bowling game. I tumbled to the floor in a shower of splinters and Kellum leaped on me with a glad little Mickey Mouse cry. He pummeled me with one hand and tried to enjoy himself with the other. His lower lip hung slack and I grabbed it. I yanked and felt something give and the lip hung slacker than before. I’d torn something big because blood started gushing in a quick rich red stream. Kellum squawked and clamped a hand against his mouth while I twisted and squirmed out from under him. Bleeding mouth and all, the son of a bitch bit me in the shoulder as he rolled clear. I rapped him in the teeth once and stood up.
Kellum came after me, but he was done. His bleeding mouth bothered him. He tried too hard to protect it while I pounded his unprotected gut. I chased him back across the room and his head began to slump as if it were too heavy for the muscle-corded neck. He leaned back against a hockey game, his back arched across it. I drove my right fist against the point of his jaw and felt it up to my shoulder. Glass shattered as his head jerked back but his legs swung up and caught me coming in.
I bettered the world’s broadjumping record in reverse. I hurtled against two or three assorted penny games and a whole row of peekaboo movies. Everything crashed and clattered and so did I, but I caught Kellum’s bulk on the soles of my shoes as he came down and kicked up and over. Kellum shattered the glass front of our Gypsy Horoscope but got his fortune told. It said he was licked.
He climbed to his feet without much gusto and I hit him. He staggered to his feet and limped toward me and I hit him. He sat up and I kicked him in the teeth and he spit out a mouthful of blood before he subsided.
I asked the kid, “You want… a job… here as a… change-maker?”
“Gee whiz, yeah. Gee whiz, you sure won that fight.”
“Gee whiz,” I groaned, “I’m not so sure.” The floor prevented me from falling clean through to the basement.
CHAPTER NINE
THE FIRST THING Karen said, laughing, was, “Why don’t you fight with someone of your own sex, Gid?” The second was, “Are you all right?” She slopped a wet washrag on my face until I almost drowned. The third thing, not laughing, was, “Darn, it will cost us close to a thousand dollars to fix this place up. You’re going to be a mighty expensive employee, Gideon Frey.”
“Ow,” I said. “That hurts.”
“Good for you.” Karen was wiping the cuts on my face. “Mind telling me what happened?”
“It will disappoint you. Kellum got fruity with your new change-maker, that’s all.”
“With you?”
“With that kid,” I said, pointing. Orienting myself I found I was lying on the floor, my neck arched over one of Karen’s thighs and my eyes staring straight up at her thirty-sixes. “Let me up, will you, woman?”
I started to stand. Then I started to fall. Karen had climbed to her knees and caught me under the arms and eased me down.
“I’m a wee bit dizzy,” I admitted. “Where’s Kellum?”
“Soolpovar and someone else from the bathhouse carried him upstairs. They asked what happened and then if you would press any charges. Will you?”
“Why the hell not?” I wanted to know, propping myself up on one elbow and getting shoved back down.
“Because I know King Kellum better than you do, that’s why. You haven’t made an enemy, Gideon. You’ve made a friend.”
“You are crazy nuts.”
“Do you know anything about how perverts behave?”
“Not being one myself except when the moon is full…”