Salamanders
by Pete Murphy
Chapter
3
The Kids
You played by rules. Nobody got hurt. Having fun was important, but
hurting some kid's feelings was at once both accidental and something to feel
sorry for. It was only a game.
I was yelling now.
"It's only a game, Billy! Zack, tell him it's only a
game."
Zack smiled, let out a muffled "No, Oliver. It's Louie."
"What?"
"It's Blue-eyed Louie," he explained. "They decided
earlier, before you got here. It ain't Billy. It's Blue-eyed Louie. Freddie is
Gyp-the-Blood." He grinned, stared at the silo.
Gyp-the-Blood and Blue-eyed Louie were holed up in Baker's feed
warehouse. We were in the milo field behind the
building, crouched in the tall weeds. We could see them at the upstairs window.
They had a hostage. Either we let them escape or they'd shoot Greek Annie and
throw her into the corn silo. This of course meant Connie, alias Greek Annie,
would be out of the game, sentenced to go sit with Curtis sulking over in
no-man's land, his gray eyes staring at the sky. But Gyp-the Blood had an escape plan of his
own.
Gyp-the-Blood told them he saw a rat near Billy's foot. This
understandably shook the piss out of Blue-eyed Louie.
He'd peed his pants. It was time to retreat.
#
The
Buddies
Arnie, the little olive-skinned guy with the bulging eyes, kept
bouncing his knee and thinking how boring it had all become.
Now we gotta sit in a hotel lobby, he thought, watchin' people smile
at each other. On a Sunday. Just too much. Not that it's
hard work, really, just too much of it lately. Need to be back in the poolroom
in Camden, still two games ahead of Steamy in the run-offs, waiting to prove it
to the guy, show the guy who he's playing with. Arnie's the best. You don't
beat Arnie. You just don't do it. There's no getting ahead of Arnie. Show the
guy that.
He looked at his partner, Bags, the big guy sitting at the other end of
the couch staring at the elevators, a rubber plant limb hanging in front of his
face. Bags'd been playing with his upper plate, letting it fall, catching it
with his tongue, pushing it back up, up and down like that for twenty minutes.
A little saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth onto his powder-blue suit.
He pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his mouth, folded the handkerchief
neatly, and stuffed it back into the pocket at his chest. He broke off a branch
of the rubber plant that seemed especially bothersome then settled himself
again deep into the couch and went back to bouncing his teeth, like he was
chewing gum, staring at the elevators.
Y'need some Poli-Grip, Bags, Arnie was thinking. Playing with your
teeth like that in a public place. Got no couth. It's this goddamn waiting does
it to you. Too much of it. Business is business, but this is the fourth call
this week, f'rcrissakes. Three last week. Ain't like a regular job. I
coulda stuck with fixing air conditioners, been better off. No Sunday work.
Least if I got tired or bored with it, I could take off, go to the beach like
everybody else, take a vacation in the summer, let somebody else fix the fucking
air conditioners. Y'need Poli-grip, Bags. Fucking Super-Glue.
Arnie had forfeited a crucial game to Steamy four days ago and today
was the runoffs. He was thinking about it now, still pissed.
They'd been sitting like that for almost half an hour: Arnie with his
knee bobbing up and down, watching Bags play with his teeth, Bags staring at
the elevators, both of them watching a bunch of people taking their dogs for a
walk across the street to Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square, some just coming
down to sit in the lobby and smile hello to anybody who would look at them, all
dressed up, not going anywhere.
"Bags, we need to quit this business a while. We get our money
from this Pilot guy tonight, we retire. Go sit on the beach, watch d'fat people
blister. Watcha think?"
A blonde long-legged woman with gold earrings and tan Polyester slacks
stepped out of the elevator, a red
"M" stitched onto the pocket of her white frilly short-sleeved
blouse. A white and tan Pekinese skittered along beside her on a leash. The little
dog scurried proudly at her feet, its nose in the air, paying no attention to
anyone. She smiled and waved to the desk clerk across the room as she headed
for the revolving doors.
"Have a good walk, Miss Beck," he called to her, and went
back to what he was doing: standing there with his hands on the counter
smiling, nodding.
Have a good walk my ass, Arnie thought. Make sure you pick the poop up.
Bags nodded to him and they got up and strode to the elevators.
An old woman with blue hair rode up with them in silence, keeping her
eyes off Bags bouncing his teeth. They watched the floors flick past on the
panel next to the door. The old woman got off on the eighth, leaving them
alone. They went up to the tenth and walked down the stairs to the ninth and down
the hall, checking the numbers on the doors.
"Fuckin' Sunday. Man calls us on a fuckin' Sunday. We need a day
off, Bags."
Bags was silent, walking a little ahead of Arnie, turning into another
corridor now, knocking on 917. A young man in a red towel answered the door
splashing English Leather onto his face. Bags pushed past him and strode into
the room as if the guy wasn't there, Arnie right behind him.
The young man stayed at the open door. Bags plopped down in the plush
white sofa and wiped his face with a handkerchief. Arnie checked things out on
the coffee table, picked up a little silver Dunhill lighter.
"You guys got the right room?"
"This 917?" Arnie asked.
"That's right."
"Right room."
The guy just stood there, Arnie looking at him.
"You proud of something? Standin' there like that with the door
open?"
The guy didn't move.
"Shut the door. We come from Pilot. Called us this morning. Said
for us to come see ya."
The guy relaxed, shut the door, smiled. "Well," he said.
"All right, then. I've got something for him. You brought something for
me?"
"That's why we're here."
"Well, business has been really good lately. You can tell him
that." He went to a bookcase in the corner, pulled open a drawer.
"Real good. Tell Pilot...Do you see Pilot? Has anybody ever seen him?" Grinning.
Bags stared at him. Arnie played with the lighter, flicked it on and
off, on and off. Just squeeze it a little. Shit. Don't even have to use your
thumb.
"Well, if you see him, tell him business has been real good. Seems
like a lot of people have been dropping out of the business lately. Here. This
should be the right amount. I keep good records."
He held an envelope out to Arnie. Arnie shook his head. The guy walked
around and handed it to the big man. Bags stuck it into his inside coat pocket
and yawned. His plate dropped down to his lip. He pushed it back up with his
tongue, watched the man wearily.
"You gotta work on Sunday?" Arnie asked, still flicking the
lighter.
"Well, you know. Business never stops. Look, my girl's coming back
shortly and we've got a little outing planned. You guys can help yourself to a
drink if you'd like one, but I need to get dressed. You have something for
me?"
"You got a outing planned?"
"Yes. With my girl, Mella. So if you please..."
Arnie watched him from the corner of his eye, held the lighter out at
arms length, toward the wall behind Bags, and flicked it, grinned. Like pullin'
a trigger. He saw the guy's red towel spin away from him. Arnie turned.
"Yeah. Oh. We got something for ya."
The guy swung around, looking really tired of this now.
Arnie stuck the lighter in his pocket, reached into his jacket.
"Yeah," he said absentmindedly. "You'll be dropping out of the
business now too." He pulled out a Dan Wesson .38 revolver and shot the
young man once in the forehead and watched him fall. He pulled the lighter out
of his pocket and flicked it again, watched how fast it flicked.
Just squeeze it a little. Shit.
That's when the door opened and the Pekinese came running in, the
long-legged woman right behind him, rushing in, slamming the door.
"Honey, I got.."
She froze, her mouth still open, looked down at her man sprawled on the
white wall to wall in front of her, then at Arnie standing over him, then at
the gun at the end of the arm hanging by his side. Her mouth opened wider.
Arnie grinned.
"Decided he didn't want to go on no outing," he said, and
shot her almost in the same spot, a little to the left. Mella Beck collapsed at
Arnie's feet.
"Sunday. Imagine." Arnie said as they waited
for the elevator. When it arrived he unscrewed the two inch barrel from his
revolver and dropped it through the little crack between the elevator and the
door and waited for the triple echo it made back up the shaft. They stepped in
and watched the door close and stared quietly at the numbers flicking on the
panel.
"Imagine," Arnie said again as they stepped into the lobby,
"Man calls us on a Sunday. We go
get our money now, right Bags? We go find it, take a vacation. Go to Atlantic
City? Yeah. Watch the seagulls crap on the beach. You'll love it."
#
Chi-Chi
Chi-Chi liked Emma. Good old broad. A little heavy on the pancake and
the Estee Lauder, but a good body for her age. Strong legs. And she wasn't
sagging anywhere too much, either. One of his biggest wholesalers, too. They'd
been doing business for what, four years now, and had a lot of good times
together, down at the Boardwalk when they could take a little time off. Let him
stay here as often as he wanted, too. Lousy cook, though. Cooked like a
plasterer, everything all mixed up in one pot. Said it was Hungarian. Sheetrock
mud with peas in it. That's what she was doing now, beating something up in the
pot, making him breakfast. He watched her from the bed.
"Mashed potatoes good for you," she said. "Vegetables.
Meat. You need it. You too skinny. Fatten you up."
He thought of the time she rescued him, when they first met, when he'd
been backed into the trash cans in the alley behind her little used-clothing
shop over on Eighth, trying to explain to those smart-assed fuckers they had
the wrong guy, that he didn't know any chicks named Charlotte, f'rcrissakes,
getting ready to explain to them - his right hand in his back pocket - that
they really were about to find out
they had the wrong guy when out she comes, yelling something in Hungarian or
Polish or some other goddamned lingo, reaching behind the door and coming out
with that baseball bat and running at them swinging in a wide swoop so they
couldn't really get close to her and not even giving them time for any real
selection about it anyway till they decided to just get the fuck out of there.
She invited him in and closed up shop and took him home with her. Poor little
skinny man. Fix him up real good.
He smiled, remembering that. He liked Emma.
She got his tray ready, a clean little towel on it and a fresh flower
in a tiny cup. She scooped a big helping into a bowl and placed it in the
center of the tray. She set a big spoon beside the bowl and carried it in to
him. He sat up against the pillows and she placed the tray over his lap, then
rubbed his feet for a little while and watched him, smiled at him as he ate.
Neither of them spoke. Another nice thing about Emma. She didn't waste
time talking a whole lot. If she didn't feel she had anything important to say,
she didn't open her mouth. Not like all the other girls, always yapping about
something or other, their clothes or their hair. Pains in the asses. Emma was
business.
She sat at her desk, opened the ledger. Chi-Chi poked the big spoon
into the bowl and watched it stick there, pointing at his nose. He didn't have
half the customers he used to have. Didn't need them, since he met Emma. And he
didn't need to fuck with those street freaks anymore. Strictly wholesale.
"Don't touch those other people," she'd said. "Get you dirty.
Too much issue with those people."
Issue. People walking around with too much issue.
She was counting her money, spread out in front of her now on the desk.
Little piles of it. Stooped over making tiny marks in the ledger.
"The shop is doing good, huh Emma?"
She giggled. "The shop. Uh-huh. Shop doing good."
"You ever think about closing it up? Taking off? Going
someplace?"
"No. I don't think that. Eat you breakfas'. No talk right now.
Business. Do my figures now."
He
thought of her sitting next to him in the chair by the bed when he'd got the
fever. Caught some shit from one of the other girls. She knew it, but she still
sat up watching over him, nursing him back. Three days, wiping his face,
helping him into the bathroom, cleaning up after him. His own mother never even
did it. You catch something outside, you take it back outside and leave it
someplace else. Then come home if you want. Not Emma. Emma liked taking care of
him. Poor little skinny man.
She finished her business at the desk, put everything away, and came
over to him.
"You not eating."
He smiled and she took the tray and carried it back to the kitchenette.
"Maybe later." she said.
"Yes. Maybe later."
He stretched out again, elbows up, his hands behind the pillow beneath
his head, watching her. She covered his bowl with waxed paper and covered the
pot and washed his spoon. She put the little cup with the flower on the
refrigerator, folded the towel carefully and put the tray back into its place
at the end of the counter. She came back and crawled next to him on the bed. He
smelled her perfume.
She rubbed her feet against his and brushed the hair from his forehead.
He smiled at her and closed his eyes. He felt her making little circular
drawings on his chest with the tips of her fingers. She put her nose up into
his ear and nibbled at the lobe. He felt her breath and the makeup brushing off
onto his cheek. He pulled his hands from behind the pillow and let her head
settle into the crook of his right arm. He smelled her hair at his nose, felt its
stiffness. He opened his eyes.
"Well..." he said.
"Well what, my little skinny man?"
"Pilot says you should close up shop now."
"Who is Pilot?" she said, snuggling her face further into the
crook of his arm.
She said that just before he stuck the tiny knife into her neck with
his right hand, just in front of the ear under the jawbone, and he did it
quickly, making a little bending movement with his wrist, careful not to move
any other part of his body. Her blood spurted only a little onto his hand and wrist,
but soaked the sheet near her neck and shoulders. He held her until the legs
stopped flopping. Her eyes shot open, then closed slowly.
A shame.
Chi-Chi liked Emma.
Lousy cook, though.
#
Arnie and Bags on a mission
"C'mon, Bags. You're holding up traffic."
Arnie waited in his green Ford van. Bags stood in the one‑way
street with the door open, draping a clean sheet over the passenger seat. He
finished, climbed in and pulled the door shut. The traffic resumed. The passing
drivers cursed at them.
"Need a new car," Bags said.
Arnie backed up, got ready to pull away from the curb. "Had this
van for years, Bags. Ain't gettin' rid of it."
"Leakth oil." Bags shoved his teeth back up.
"You tell me dat every day, Bags. At least once every day. And
it's quarts of oil, Bags. Not gallons. Gallons is gas. We get new clothes and a
nice apartment you right away think we need a new car. We going through this
again?" He pulled out into the traffic.
"We can af..CLICK..afford it."
"Yeah? Then why we gotta go find our money, Bags? Huh? How come
this guy Pilot don't go find it and bring it, huh? Tell me dat."
"I don't care about him. I want to find it. It'th our money."
"Okay. We get our money, take a vacation. Right?"
Bags didn't answer. Arnie circled City Hall and headed out Benjamin
Franklin Parkway.
"Your mom'd get it."
"What?"
"Your mom if she was alive, she'd get it. Go up there and beat
that guy with her broom till he gave it up."
Bags laughed.
"Yeah, Bags. Like she did us when we got outta line. Wow! She
could get mad. Wham! Chase us all over Camden. Look us up, come right in the
poolroom and whack us with her old broom screaming 'You shouldn't've done this!
This will never do! This will never do!'"
They both laughed.
Arnie swung past the Azalea Gardens and onto Kelly Drive. He slowed his
old van for the curves, hugged the cliff‑side at his right to keep clear
of the faster traffic in the other lane heading back to center city. He gripped
the steering wheel hard and leaned forward in the tighter curves. The wide Schuylkill
river crawled at their left. Traffic built up behind
them.
After a while Arnie said, "How long we gonna do this, Bags?"
"What."
"Kill people for this Pilot guy. Clean up his mess. He got himself
a mess, huh? That's why we do it?"
"I don't know about his problems. We did it for the money. We're
done. You don't like the money? Your new clothes?"
"Yeah, I like it. Like it better when we get it all." Arnie
glanced at him, then jerked his head back to the road. "After we get our
money we gonna quit, right Bags? Even if he gives us more names?"
Bags didn't answer.
"I mean, I don't mind killing them, Bags. They're scum. Druggies.
But we done more than six for the guy, us and Chi‑Chi. That's enough,
huh? We get our money we'll be rich? Ready to retire?"
Bags chuckled.
Arnie said, "Alright. You got the map?"
"Yeah."
"You been here before, without me?"
"No. I looked at the map after he called."
"Oh."
Bags pointed and Arnie drove onto Ridge Pike.
"Our money's up here, Bags?"
"No. Juth.. the guys who stole it."
"We'll get the money today?"
"We'll find out where it is and go get it."
Arnie glanced at him. "You pissed, Bags?"
Bags took a deep breath. The big chest heaved. "Yeah. I guess.
It's our money. They shouldn't have done this."
"Bags, don't kill nobody. You get mad, you kill people. Let's get
our money first. Then we kill them. What's this place we're going?"
"An icehouse up here in the country. Find out where our money is.
Get it back."
"Take a vacation?"
Bags didn't answer.
"Bags, don't kill nobody we don't haff to."
Bags didn't answer.
#