“You did, eh?” Steve was saying. “You got here late, eh? So what?”
The big man was very polite. He looked down at Stevie and said, “I was wondering if...” Then he saw the girl behind the counter and turned to her with a smile. “I’m waiting for Miss Moore. She hasn’t gone yet, has she?”
The girl winked slyly at Stevie. “I’m sure I don’t know. Do you know, Mr. Jordan?”
“Sure she’s gone,” Stevie said. “She checked out early with a case of double pneumonia. It’s the clothes she doesn’t wear.”
The man smiled again, absently. “You’re Mr. Jordan, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Jordan, the wit.”
“Marcella talks about you. She thinks you are very funny.”
Stevie stared at him. “Yeah? She does, eh? Well, I’m glad to hear it.”
“If she’s still here, will you tell her I’m waiting? My name’s Heath.”
“O.K., Mr. Heath,” Stevie said. “I’ll do that.”
He told her. He went back and told her in a flat, bored voice because suddenly it didn’t matter much one way or the other.
After that he went outside by the back door. Some of the girls were there waiting in the alley for their dates to show up. Mamie Rosen was waiting with them, just for company. She was a Polish Jewess with very blonde brittle hair and sad dark eyes. She had been living with Murillo for years, ever since Stevie first knew her, but she was still intense about him and frequently cried when he was away, which was most of the time.
When she saw Stevie she followed him out to his car and got in beside him. She was still sniveling.
“Tie a rag around it,” Stevie said.
“Yeah, but you don’t know, Stevie. He didn’t even say good-bye, just walked off and maybe I won’t see him again for months.”
“That should save trouble,” Stevie said, “and money.”
“You get kinda used to waking up in the morning and having somebody there next to you.”
“Sure. I guess you can get used to sleeping with anything, even a cobra, especially if you’re another cobra.”
“He’s not...”
“You know the one about the skunk? A skunk sat on a stump. The skunk thunk the stump stunk and the stump thunk the skunk stunk. Now you say it.”
“Oh, gee, I can’t!”
“Go on. Say it.”
“A skunk sat on a stump. The skunk thunk the skunk... God, that’s a scream, Stevie.”
“Yeah, isn’t it,” Stevie said.
Neither of them smiled.
Stevie swung the car through the broad alley and came out on Bloor Street. He saw a long yellow roadster just pulling away from the curb in front of the club. Without turning his head he knew Mamie was looking at the roadster too because it was the kind of car people like Mamie and himself and their friends always looked at and thought, “What’s he done to deserve a car like that?” or “Some day...”
Mamie let out a sigh that was soft but spiked with envy.
“Same guy,” Stevie said, “but a different car.”
“What?”
“The other car was wrecked, the one I remember him driving.”
“What other car?” She frowned at him. “Say, are you plastered?”
“It was blue,” Stevie said. “I went to see it at the garage where they were trying to fix it up. A lot of people went to see it. There was no admission charge but you had to tip the garage man a quarter. So I went. To see the blood, I guess. I guess I’m a morbid guy. When I got there I saw the blood but it wasn’t hers, it wasn’t where she’d been sitting.”
“I don’t know what...”
“Geraldine.”
“Geraldine?” She frowned again, pretending she was trying to remember, but Stevie knew she knew.
“You took her place as singer,” Stevie said. “Now you remember?”
“Now Stevie, you quit, you stop that. I got enough on my mind. I don’t want to think about things like that.”
“So Joey took you out of the line and let you sing, the night she didn’t show up because she was dead.”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” Mamie said shrilly.
“Hell,” Stevie said, “neither do I, come to think of it.”
So they drove off in silence for a time. Mamie huddled in the corner as far away as she could get, stroking the collar of her coat for comfort. It was a fine collar, real genuine silver fox. Tony had bought it for her a couple of years ago with the proceeds of a fantan game in Elizabeth Street. Later on a Chinaman came to the club and demanded the coat, but she’d hung on to it. Tony had left town for a couple of months after that and when he came back he had some scars over his chest which seemed to indicate that the Chinaman had caught up with him.
“But I still think it’s funny,” Stevie said at last.
She stirred impatiently and tweaked out a silver fox hair. “Yeah, what’s funny?”
“Heath.”
“Heath.” She repeated the name, thoughtfully, as if she recognized it and it meant something to her.
“That’s the name of this guy,” Stevie said, “the one who calls for Marcie, the one who called for Geraldine two years ago.”
“Well, what’s so funny?” Mamie said. “A lot of these big bugs go for that kind of girl.”
“What kind?”
She twisted her hands in her lap. They were nice strong-looking hands but they never seemed quite clean.
“My kind,” she said. “You know. Easy, I guess you call it.”
He looked at her deliberately. “Marcie is no slut.”
“Well, all right, who cares? We all gotta live our lives and if one girl likes it and another one don’t, well, so what!”
“Where do you live?”
“You know damn well where I live. You make me sick, Stevie.”
“Me too,” Stevie said. “I thought maybe you’d moved.”
He didn’t say any more about Geraldine until he stopped in front of Mamie’s boardinghouse on Charles Street. He leaned across her to open the door and said, “There were some others in the car too, but Geraldine was the only one who got killed.”
She tried to get out but he held her back with his hands.
“There was a girl,” Stevie said. “A long time afterward some guy tried to cheer me up about Geraldine by telling me the other girl got blind. Worse than being killed, being blind.”
“Let me go,” Mamie said. “The other girl was his sister. I remember reading about it in the papers. Thanks for the ride.”
“Listen,” Stevie said, holding her arm hard. “Don’t tell any of this to Marcie.”
She glanced at him and away again. “Well, I wouldn’t. Hell, I’m no blabber.” She was already planning how she’d tell Marcie but her face didn’t change expression. “Why not, though?”
“She thinks I don’t even know his name. Can you beat it? Me not know his name when all I see in the middle of the night is his face, so I got to get up for a drink.”
“Hell.” She pushed him away. “You’re plastered. Forget it.”
“No,” Stevie said. “And every time I walk around a corner I think, maybe this is the corner he’ll be behind and I can hit him. Only I wouldn’t hit him. I’d run.”
“You might hit him,” Mamie said cheerfully. “Sure you might. Though why in hell — well, good night, Stevie.”
He didn’t answer so she slammed the door behind her and went up the steps of her boardinghouse.
“Listen, Mamie,” Stevie said. “I didn’t hit him.” But the car windows were closed and his voice wasn’t loud enough.
He sat there behind the wheel and closed his eyes. Whenever he closed his eyes lately something came up at him, something black like a velvet curtain distended by a wind. He opened his eyes quickly and reached for the gears.