“Honey, I can't do it.”
“Damn you, Marty, I'm not asking you for any dough. The joint is free and clear. I can raise a few grand on it from any bank. Hell, I can sell it any time I want for nearly forty thousand!”
“Flo, you don't understand. I'd go for the deal without any partnership, even put up the dough. The trouble is, it's too late for me.”
“What makes it...? Hey! Marty, you married, got kids?”
“Nope, you were the last Mrs. Bond. It's something else.”
“What else can it be?” Flo asked, making a bra out of my hands.
I didn't answer and she gave me a know-it-all smile, then reached over and picked up the perfume from the bed. She opened the bottle and put a few drops behind each ear, then pulled her dress off her shoulders. “I go with the house, too, Marty. You know that. This time it will be for keeps. I still have time to try for a kid, if you want.”
The damn perfume smelled like lilies of the valley, the flowers they have at funerals. I lifted Flo off my lap, sat her on the bed—the sure smile was still on her face.
The perfume stink gave me the creeps, like death was following me around. I felt the box of goof balls in my pocket, headed for the door. “So long, Flo, it was nice seeing you.”
“Marty!” She came running across the room, grabbed my coat. “Marty, what's the matter, what did I say wrong?”
“You said everything right. It's a good offer, so is your bed. And we'd make a go of the hotel, probably be very happy leading a nice slow life, grow old gracefully, and all that slop.”
“Why is that slop?”
“It isn't, it's great, only I can't make it.” Taking her hands off my sleeve, I opened the door. “I'll be dead by Saturday. 'Bye, Flo.”
Walking down the hall to the elevator I wondered why I had to be such a dramatic ham. I felt lousy. And it would be good out there with Flo, away from crummy hotels, the smell of insecticide, watching people. We'd have a station wagon and I'd meet the trains, maybe tend the desk, and knock off for a few hours of surf fishing anytime I wanted. It was a great buy—for a healthy joker.
I stood outside the hotel for a while. It was a bit cooler.
I walked over to Broadway, stared at all the cheap gaudy lights, the hicks—from out of town and in town—walking up and down the Stem, enjoying all this phony sparkle, the tough kids in jeans and black leather windbreakers who needed a belt in the slats—or something to do. At one time Broadway used to give me a bang, now it looked like a freak show.
I stopped and had a couple of hot dogs, a coconut drink, then walked uptown. I kept looking around like a stranger, feeling terribly dramatic and sorry for myself—and knowing I was enjoying every second of it. It was like there were two of me—one guy saying, “Look around, get a full whiff of this.” And the other saying, “Cut it, there's nothing left but to go to the hotel room, take the sleeping pills and you've had it.”
I stared into each passing face, hoping I'd see somebody I knew. Maybe a jerk from the army, a... I suddenly remembered Art. At least I ought to call him. I reached him at his home and he started bawling me out, adding, “He'll soak you double now for missing your appointment. What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“I've been calling you at your hotel but...”
“Thanks for being interested. Art, but I'm not going to that specialist.”
“You're not? What do you mean by that?”
“I've become a Christian Scientist—I'm not going to let any doc monkey with my belly.”
“You must be crocked. Listen to me, Marty, this isn't anything to clown about. I advise you to...”
I tried to laugh. “Why not clown about it, Art? Told me yourself it was nothing to worry about. Tumor-shumor. Look, kid, don't worry about me. I'm taking care of it another way.”
“Have you been to another doctor?”
“No, you're my doctor. I'm trying an old-fashioned remedy. Thanks for everything, Art. And don't worry about me.”
“Marty, stop acting like a thick-headed ...”
I hung up, bought a paper and took a cab uptown. It gave me a queer feeling to realize I wouldn't need the sixty-odd bucks I had in my wallet, could throw them out the window if I wanted.
There wasn't much in the paper. They had already started the life story of Cocky Anderson, and some broad had come forward and said she was his wife and they had a baby boy. There was a picture of a plain-faced woman named Pollard who had backed her husband against a wall—with a Chewy. Somehow her face looked familiar and I read the whole piece. They'd had a spat and he'd run to her mother's—he was one guy who was on the best of terms with his mother-in-law. Mrs. Pollard was driving by when she saw him leaving and he tried to duck into the driveway, so she wouldn't see him. She swung the Chewy into the driveway and chased him down to the dead-end wall of the garage door. She said she didn't know “why I did it. But I feel relieved now.”
Her face still looked like somebody I knew, but I couldn't place it. I looked through the paper to see if they'd caught Mr. Mudd, the amateur stick-up artist, but he'd faded from the news.
There was a column about past baseball greats who hadn't made the Hall of Fame and an editorial about crime followed by another hash about New York City gangsters lolling around Miami. Bochio's alibi was perfect. Not only did he claim he'd been in his hotel room for two weeks, but the Miami police had a two-man guard on his room twenty-four hours a day during those weeks.
Several minor hoods had been picked up and questioned. There was the usual statement from Homicide about “waiting for a break in the case... any hour now...”
I turned back and looked at the snap of Mrs. Pollard. She had nice eyes. Had they looked so nice when she was bearing down on hubby with the Chewy?
We reached the hotel and I gave the cabbie a dime tip, wondered why I didn't hand him all my dough, or at least a buck.
Up in my room I undressed to my shorts, lit a cigarette, and decided there wasn't any point in horsing around. I dropped all the pills but two into a glass of water, hoped they wouldn't have a bad taste.
I never found out.
For an hour I sweated as I tried to lift that little glass to my mouth, but it was like a great weight—I couldn't get it off the table. It was exactly like with the gun, when I didn't have the strength to squeeze the trigger. I moved my arms, my hands, but not when they were holding the glass. I strained and I sweated and cried with shame, yet nothing helped—I didn't have the guts to take my life.
I couldn't understand it; I'd never lacked the old moxie before. Even in the ring, when I started going against some of the real pros, the dancing masters, who cut and hacked at me for ten rounds while I kept moving in, waiting for one shot—even then when I knew I was outclassed and being stupid-brave, still I had the guts to keep going.
I tried and tried lifting the glass, then I finally knocked it over trying to lift it with my teeth, and my muscles loosened up. I sat down, staring at the wet spot on the rug for a long time, thinking of nothing, of everything. I could practically see my arms bone thin as a doc hunted for a spot to stick the intravenous-feeding needle.
I stared at the rug so long I got a bit slappy; I suddenly saw Mrs. DeCosta screaming at me, heard the shrill “You thug with a badge!” I saw the blood streaming from her nose, a tiny pink trickle.
Closing my eyes made her go away, and then I had the runs and forgot about everything. I was sweating pretty badly and was very weak as I sat on the side of the bed and smoked a butt—for three puffs. As a kind of experiment I took a single pill and was able to swallow that. However when I started reaching for the second one, the last one, my arm wouldn't move. It was so damn uncanny I nearly started praying.