Up in Honey's Room

“I can make you a baloney sandwich,” Honey said. “Or an egg and baloney, with a slice of onion?”

“That’s what you eat? I saw cheese and crackers in the other room, I’ll gorge on that.”

Honey offered a martini, several anchovy olives crowding the bottom of the stemware glass. Vera came over for it and held up the martini, staring at it as she said something to herself-Honey watching her painted lips move-and finished the martini in one motion, then paused and poured the olives into her mouth, catching each one to chew and swallow, and now she was lighting a cigarette.

“Another?” Honey said.

“Please,” Vera said. “I’ll sip this one. Tell me how Walter’s behaving.”

“He’s drinking doubles,” Honey said. “He’s louder than I’ve ever heard him and being very cagey. Only he doesn’t know how to do it. He wants us to think he took some part in the president’s death.”

Vera nodded. “Because he wanted so much to be his assassin. Poor Walter. What he knows how to do is cut meat.”

Honey poured Vera’s second martini and watched her pick it up and finish the drink in two swallows.

“You didn’t get olives that time.”

“It’s all right. I’ll have one more,” Vera said. “You can tell me how you’re doing with the Hot Kid.”

“We came close, but now it’s cooling off.”

“You’re losing interest? I see Carl as a prize, if you can subdue him.”

“I’m pretty sure I could get him to fall in love with me,” Honey said, “if he isn’t already. But I don’t want to break up his marriage, be the other woman nobody likes. That’s a drag.”

“You don’t lack confidence,” Vera said.

“And I want to stay alive,” Honey said. “His wife’s already shot two guys trying to mess up her life.”

Vera said, “What about Jurgen? You could go for him?”

“He’s at the top of my list,” Honey said. “He’s the best-looking guy I’ve ever met, he’s kind, he’s thoughtful for a Kraut. He takes his clothes off-now there’s a picture you want to keep.”

“I can imagine. I actually can,” Vera said. “Oh, you could have done so well in a job like mine. I can see them telling you whatever you want to know.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” Honey said. “Aren’t the police looking for Bo?”

She watched Vera deciding how to answer, her makeup overdone but it was Vera and it worked for her. Now she was starting to smile. “Who told you that?”

“Carl said Bo took after him with a machine gun.”

“Bo? No, it must be someone else has it in for Carl.”

“What’s Bo got against him?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Bo has only met him I believe once.”

“Carl sent the Detroit police after him.”

“That’s who it was,” Vera said. “The police came to the house, I told them Bohdan was up north with his friends. They go in the forest, usually at the time of the equinox. They dance-Bo calls it a rites of spring celebration.”

“You’re putting me on,” Honey said.

“Really. Bo asked me to come along. I told him I’m not much on pagan rituals.”

“You’re changing your story,” Honey said.

“Am I?”

“You said you haven’t heard from Bo and wish he’d call.”

“Only to keep it simple,” Vera said. “Otherwise you’d want to know if the police believed me, what they said. One of them asked me, ‘Oh, they do the dance of the fairies up in the woods?’”

“Do they?” Honey said.

Earlier that evening Bo had thought of taking one of Dr. Taylor’s pills, but wasn’t sure which way to go, up or down, wide wide awake or loose as a goose. He had a few belts of ice-cold vodka before they left the house, Vera saying in the car, “Can’t you wait?”

“For what?”

“Until we get there.”

“You want to socialize first? Have a couple of drinks and say, ‘Would you all form a line here, please, against the wall?’ Darling, I’m going to walk in and hose the fucking room. Whoever’s there will be lying in a pool of blood as we amscray.”

“Please, not Jurgen,” Vera said.

“Yes, Jurgen. We agreed, anyone who knows what you’ve been doing. Unless you want to clean the prison shithouse for twenty years. Anyone with style, that’s the job you get. You have to realize, Vera, Jurgen is not fundamental to our future. He could fuck up our ability to stay out of prison. So I told the feds where to find him.”

Vera said, “You didn’t-”

“Thinking they’d scoop him up and Jurgen would be out of the way. But nothing happened and now he’s at Honey’s. I can’t help that. I prayed to the Black Madonna asking that only certain ones would be present. The Hotshot Kid I’m hoping for. Walter, we don’t know what’s become of him. Perhaps he’ll make up for not getting to Roosevelt in time and assassinate Harry Truman.”

The car was packed for their getaway: suitcases in the trunk, personal items and Vera’s shoes in cardboard boxes on the backseat. She had deposited Joe Aubrey’s check for fifty thousand in a new account; later on they’d see about making withdrawals.

Bo pulled into the no-parking space in front of Honey’s apartment building. He said to Vera, “If you don’t have the stomach for this, don’t watch. But once they’re down we strip them of money, anything we see of value, and we’re off to Old Méjico humming ‘La Cucaracha,’ unless you know the words. Oh, once she buzzes you in, use something to jam the door open.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Anything, a box of matches. How I get in, Vera, is crucial. You take the elevator to the apartment. Honey’s waiting at the door. You greet her, give her a kiss. And push the button to unlock the door. Can you do that?”

“All you have to do is knock. Don’t you think she’ll see who it is?”

“Vera, will you please unlock the fucking door? I want my entrance to be a complete surprise. ‘Good God, where did he come from?’” For several moments he was quiet, thinking. He said, “You brought the umbrella.”

“In the trunk.”

“I place the Schmeisser in the umbrella-”

“You like calling it that, don’t you? I wonder why?”

“With the stock removed,” Bo said, “and come up the stairway, so I don’t run into anyone. I enter the apartment-”

“With the burp gun still in the umbrella?”

“What did I tell you?” Bo impatient now, his nerves irritating him. “I insert the magazine while I’m in the hall, before I make my entrance.”

“You come in shooting.”

“Yes, and it’s done, all she wrote.”

“I wonder,” Vera said, “if one ever says it’s all he wrote?”

“I’ve only heard it’s all she wrote,” Bo said. “But I don’t think the she refers to a particular person. But you know what? I should say something as I come in.”

Vera said, “You are pointing der Schmeisser at them. What’s there to say?”

“I want to get them all looking at me.”

“How about Achtung?” Vera said.

“Or I say, ‘You know what this is for?’”

“Let them each take a guess?”

This time Bo grinned. “Yes, each one has a turn. Come on, what do I say to get them looking at me?”

“‘It was nice knowing you’?”