Number Ten was a small room, but a cut above the ordinary, with deep carpet, wood furniture, long blood-scarlet curtains that framed the same moon he'd seen in Sharon's garden, but higher, now, in the sky. And a large, brilliantly polished brass bed.
"Nice room."
"You've seen lots like it, ain't you."
Again he caught the edge of contempt. She hadn't even called him "sir." His self-control snapped. He pinioned her arms, shook her, then threw her onto the bed, which creaked dangerously. "I'll have proper respect from you," he said, standing over her. "Let's not forget your place."
She stared up at him. Her eyes were dark and had nothing for him but hate. But she said nothing more, only lay watching silently as he unbuttoned his tunic and unbuckled the Sam Browne and the holster and hung them carefully over a chair back, smoothing the wrinkles from the tunic. When he stepped out of his boots she got up reluctantly and let her dress fall.
"So, what does the Major desire?"
"Don't be sullen, girl. Just do your job."
"My job," she repeated, and the bitterness was still there, though it no longer seemed directed against him. All right, bitch, he thought. I don't care what you think as long as you keep your mouth shut.
When they were both naked he pushed her back down on the bed. He lay beside her for a moment, running his hand over her breasts and the soft mound of her belly and the warm wiry thicket between her legs. She lay motionless, head turned away, but he felt her shudder as his fingers slipped inside the damp.
"Does the Major want some dope?"
"Some what?"
"Mary jane. Jimson weed. Dope."
"They have that here?"
"It's mine. Not the House's."
"I'll pay," he said.
She seemed a little friendlier as she got up and searched in some arcane pocket in her dress. He watched, feeling his blood rise as she bent naked and then came back to the bed. An image of his fiancee as she might be nude rose unbidden to his mind. He suppressed it instantly. Not here, not with this colored whore, this servant of his animal pleasure.
"You smoke this before, Major?"
"On post out West. It gets up there from Mexico."
"Is it cheaper there?"
"Well, there seemed to be a lot of it around. I suppose it was."
"They say it's illegal up in the Union."
"I wouldn't doubt it. They're even down on tobacco now. The puritans never knew how to live. It took the cavaliers for that."
"You a cavalier?" she said. "You from some high and mighty old family, Major?"
"Don't talk about my family."
"Sorry." She licked cigarettes together expertly and placed one between his lips. She lit it and then her own.
She smoked steadily, sucking it deep, burning the herb recklessly. He smoked more slowly, wondering if it were true that the stuff was illegal up North. They were down on amateur whiskey, too. He felt suddenly glad he was free and Southern, not some dull citified Northern bourgeois.
Her breasts were cool as he stroked them. She lay back, still smoking, as he rolled over onto her and forced her long legs apart with his knee. Her eyes were going glassy. As he slid himself inside, gasping with the pleasure of her, she blew a ring of liquid smoke over his shoulder into the cool dark moonlight.
When he was done he lay on his back and looked at the moon. It was red and shimmering. Already he wanted her again, but he remembered Sawyer downstairs and that he had to be back at the fort at eight. He struggled up and pushed his legs into his trousers.
Dressed, he turned. She was still lying there, legs apart, as he'd left her. A drop of his moisture gleamed on the inside of her thigh.
"You're not getting up?"
"I'll lie here a minute."
"What do I owe you?"
"Five for me. Two for the grass. Plus — oh, fuck it. That's all you owe me, Major. Major Cavalier."
He thumbed ten dollars from his wallet and laid them beside her. Money and her musky smell mixed with his. The pink-and-gray bills curled noiselessly over the endless space of a second. He turned to go, but stopped at the door. She lay dark in the moonlight, a pool of shadow in the tumbled sheets.
"What's your name?"
"I'll be here, Major. I work here. Remember?"
"What if I like you? Want to see you again?"
The shadow moved slightly. She'd put an arm over her eyes, as if to block out the world, to block out him.
"Ask for Vyry," she said.
FOUR
She’d left again, and he was alone. Alone in her bed, staring at the flies circling the ceiling and pacifying the ache in his leg with an occasional pull at the bottle, which was now close to empty.
"Shit," said Johnny Turner to the four dingy walls.
He was bored. And on edge, in a remote kind of way. He was safe here at Vyry's, he knew, unless the po-lice made a house-to-house search. And even then, if they tried that through the whole West Main area of the city, he'd be seventy years old before they ever got to him.
But he didn't like being cooped up.
Around noon thirst moved him and he got up carefully, easing most of his weight to the good leg, and hobbled into the kitchen. He drank a glass of cold water, staring out the edge of the window.
He stiffened as someone rapped at the door.
Three knocks. A pause. Two knocks. A pause. One.
It should be all right. That was the Railroad knock. But if the white law had captured one of them in the wild flight from downtown… he limped quickly to the sideboard and selected one of Vyry's kitchen knives, a serrated six-inch meat blade with a sturdy pressed-wood handle. He approached the front door warily, standing to the side in case they fired through it.
"Who there?"
"Hey, it's Bo, Johnny, lemme in."
He slid off the chain, but kept the blade ready until the small black man in the faded green work clothes was inside and the door had been locked again. Then he lowered it, and they looked at each other and clenched their fists and touched them.
"How you doin', Johnny?" said Bo Finnick.
"Oh, jus' middling. How you?"
"Jumpin' to whitey's tune, brother."
"Not for much longer. Somethin's got to give."
"Well…" drawled Finnick. He had a twisted, wiry, beaten-looking face, and thin whitish hair, though he was only about forty. He could be a clown. On the docks, he could turn the toughest longshoring job into a lark with his shanties and his wry mocking jokes behind the white supervisors' backs. At the same time he could act the perfect Tom. He was the smallest man on Turner's crew — but he could be, with the proper leadership, a killer.
"What's happenin'?"
"Come to tell you about a meeting," said Finnick, looking at Turner's leg. "But I guess you be out of it for a while."
"What, this? This just be a little gnat bite. What meeting? Where? Here, sit down, man. I got a little of this corn left—"
Finnick looked into the cracked cup, sniffed at the liquor, and downed it with a quick jerk of his head. "That's good," he said, licking his lips.
"Want 'nother?"
"Nah. I got to go. I got me a hidey-hole till night. Then I'm going down to the meeting."
"Where is it?"
"You know the R R Smith warehouse, down the Elizabeth? Where they unloads them little German cars, puts 'em on the Norfolk and Western spur?"
"Yeah."
"We're meeting round the back, on the river side. Word is they's a man from higher up goin' to be there."
He stared, and Finnick nodded. "Must be pretty fuckin' important to send a man down here in the middle of a crackdown," said Turner.
"Hear tell it is. Well, man — if you can make it in on that leg we sure do need you."
"I be there, I said."
"Take care then, bro'."