I lit a cigarette and surveyed the street below. Like rats appearing when darkness falls, the street was becoming active. Elderly ragged men and women came shuffling down the steps of the various tenement blocks in search of a bar.
Then I saw the Negress. She was leaning against the rusty railings, swinging her large handbag and I then knew what she was — a prostitute.
I knew her room was immediately below Spooky’s pad. Here was my chance. Maybe I could get confirmation that Rhea was up there.
I thought of the Negress as I had seen her dancing, half naked, in her room. She was pretty and beautifully made. I hadn’t had sex since I had met Judy: that seemed a long, long time ago.
Pushing back the chair, I stood up, groped my way across the dark room to the door and moved out into the smelly corridor.
On my way down the stairs I met no one. Mrs. Reynold’s door was shut. Through the thin panels came the sound of a TV set. I lounged down the steps into the cement-dusty night. The street’s flotsam — youths, girls, drunks and old people — swirled around me. I looked across the street at the Negress who had spotted me. She was looking towards me. I waited until two beat-up cars had roared past me, then crossed the street.
She was moving towards me as I reached the opposite side walk.
‘Hi, honey,’ she said softly, her white teeth gleaming in the lamp light. ‘Lonely?’
I stood by her, looking at her. Her skin was the colour of milky coffee. Her ironed-out black hair framed her face. Even the importance of finding Rhea and silencing her went out of my mind. I had to get this repression that had built up in my body purged.
‘You can say that again,’ I said huskily. ‘Let’s do something about it.’
She surveyed me, her big, black eyes probing.
‘It’ll cost you ten bucks, honey,’ she said. ‘You got ten bucks?’
I thought of my offer to Rhea of five hundred dollars.
‘I’ve got it,’ I said.
‘You don’t look as if you have two bucks.’ She smiled at me. ‘You’re new around here, aren’t you?’
I dug into my hip pocket and showed her a ten-dollar bill. Her slim brown fingers snapped the bill out of my fingers the way a lizard nails a fly.
‘Let’s go, honey,’ she said. ‘It’s all action from now on.’
She led me into the tenement block that smelt worse than my block. She wriggled her bottom at me as she climbed the stairs with me just behind her. It was a long climb and by the time I reached her landing, I had a hard-on that really hurt.
She acted up to me and it was good. In the past when I couldn’t be bothered to chase after some girl, I had taken a tart. I had never had value for money. Usually they lay staring up at the ceiling, some even smoking, most of them giggling but this little Negress did an act that made me feel I was stirring her, although I knew I wasn’t.
When it was over and I had rolled away from her, she didn’t do what most of them did — slide off the bed and begin dressing. She lay by my side, reached for a pack of cigarettes, lit two and gave me one.
‘You certainly wanted that, honey,’ she said, cupping her breasts in her hands.
Yes, I had certainly wanted it. Now I felt completely relaxed as if a boil that had been tormenting me had burst. I dragged smoke down into my lungs and stared up at the dirty ceiling. Then I became aware of footsteps overhead. I had been in such a state before I had laid this girl everything had gone out of focus. Now I heard these footsteps... click-click-click of a woman’s heels, pounding over my head. Then I remembered Rhea and why I was in this sordid little room with a young, naked Negress lying by my side.
I listened.
Backwards and forwards this woman walked above my head: non-stop. Click-click-click.
The Negress crushed out her cigarette.
‘I’ve got to get back to work now, honey,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good time?’
‘What goes on up there?’ I said and pointed to the ceiling.
‘Why should you worry?’ She sat up and swung her long legs off the bed. ‘Up on your feet, honey. I have to go to work.’
I put my arm around her slim waist and pulled her against me.
‘No hurry... another ten dollars buys me your time.’
She spread her warm body down on mine.
‘You mean that?’
‘Want the money now?’
‘Always now, honey. I have to live.’
I got off the bed, went over to where I had left my pants, found another ten-dollar bill and handed it to her. As I laid down, she threw her leg across me and began to nibble at my ear. I let her work on me while I listened to the footsteps moving across the ceiling.
‘What goes on up there?’ I asked. ‘Sounds like a marathon.’
‘A nutter.’ The Negress began to stroke the back of my neck. ‘She drives me crazy. Day after day, night after night, she walks. If it wasn’t for Spooky, I’d go up there and bawl her out, but she’s Spooky’s piece and he’s a big noise in this crap-house.’
‘Have you seen her?’
She lifted herself on her elbow and stared down at me, her big, black eyes quizzing.
‘Why the questions, honey? Let’s have some action.’
All the time she was speaking, I could hear the footsteps.
‘Spooky’s girl?’
‘You know Spooky?’
‘I know him for the bastard he is.’
She relaxed and lowered herself on me again.
‘They’re in trouble up there. He’s hiding her from the fuzz,’ she mumbled, her lips against my neck. ‘She’s been holed up there for two weeks — never goes out: just walks the goddamn floor and drives me crazy.’
I now knew all I wanted to know. I had found Rhea!
Back in my own sordid room, I lay on the bed with the light off and the curtains drawn back. The street lights gave me enough light to see. I was relaxed: this sexual experience had been something I had really needed. Sadie — the Negress had told me her name when I was leaving — had done a thorough therapeutic job on me.
I now knew that Rhea was in Spooky’s pad. As long as she remained alive my own freedom and my inheritance from Sydney were in jeopardy. If the police caught her, she would talk, implicating me. I had to silence her — but how?
Then an alarming thought dropped into my mind. Had she told Spooky about me? If I silenced her would Spooky then appear on my horizon to blackmail me? Had she told him she had a diamond necklace worth, as she imagined, over a million dollars? Would she give a slob like Spooky such a dangerous piece of information? This was something I had to find out. If she had told him then I would have a double killing on my hands. I would have to silence both of them. I didn’t flinch at the thought. I felt neither Rhea nor Spooky had any right to live. To me, they were dangerous animals and I the hunter, but if I could avoid a double killing it would be easier and safer for me.
Still thinking, still planning, I dozed off, but around two o’clock the first of the bugs arrived. I spent the rest of the night sitting on a hard backed chair, my head on my arms, across the table.
Soon after 03.00, the silence of the night was split by the roar of a motorcycle. I stood at the window and watched Spooky swagger up the steps and to his pad.
After eating a poor breakfast the following morning, I went along to the public baths. The rest of the morning I spent wandering the streets, keeping away from the centre of the town. I was fearful of running into Jenny. I bought a box of anti-bug powder and returned to my room to prepare a lunch of canned beef and canned potatoes. After smothering the bedding and the mattress with the powder, I lay down and went to sleep.
I woke at 19.00. Going to the window, I looked across the street to see a light showing behind the curtains of Spooky’s pad. Sadie, in the room below was cooking something at her stove. Looking down at the street, I saw the Honda was gone which meant Spooky had gone out.