plant. Yup, your lucky day. This one’s a demo, let you have it half price, okay? You want me to fit it for you now? Just takes a second, even I know how to — there, how’s that look? Okay that’s thirty-eight no nineteen hundred plus tax plus city tax, comes to twenty-two oh six eighty-five, cash I hope?’
‘Ma I can’t see out of it.’
A bandaged hand patted Roderick on the head. ‘Nice little talker you got there, ma’am, kit-built is he? Never seen anything like — no look, I don’t know what kind see-see-em or what you got in there but usually these eyes take a while to get warmed up — not warmed up exactly but see they gotta compatiblize with the other stuff, look you wanta leave him here for an hour, see how it pans out?’
The man with bandaged hands set Roderick on the blistered paint of the counter. From there he could turn his good eye one way to see Ma leaving, or the other way to see the man going into a back room. Roderick could see a table back there, and a pair of hands turning pages.
‘…seems in order, we might even take some of the damaged stock here on page three, but of course I want my boy Franklin to go over this…’
‘Yes sir of course sir, you know I think you’ll find this is your lucky—’
The door closed. But not before Roderick glimpsed a heavy gold ring mounting a single pinball.
No one at Larry’s Grill noticed just when the little machine came in, but there it was, sitting up on a barstool listening to the chatter of the regulars.
‘You wouldn’t think it to look at me…’ said the woman in purple lipstick, holding herself steady as she raised a brimming shot-glass. ‘You wouldn’t think it to look…’
‘At’s right Lena, you tell ’em.’ The taxi driver, who considered that his Irish ancestry gave him the right to a brogue and the gift of story-telling, went on with his story about the Baltimore Mets. ‘See they went to Japan to play this exhibition game, and one night they all went down to this—’
‘Think I heard this,’ said the swarthy used-car salesman. ‘I hear every damn thing, that’s the trouble in mind, Oh!—
Tourette’s syndrome they call it, I calls it like I sees it, grab it when I can get it—’
‘No but listen one night they all went down to this special kind of geisha—’
‘No spitting on the floor,’ said Larry to the man in the red hunting cap, who was glaring at the three newcomers, youths in red Digamma Upsilon Nu sweatshirts. ‘Boys if you got ID, welcome.’
‘College boys!’ muttered the spitter, while beside him two truck drivers argued money.
‘You think you’re broke? Betcha I’m ten times as broke as you.’
‘Yeah? Betcha you got more money in your billfold right this minute than I got in my whole — life. My whole billfold.’
‘Hell I couldn’t even afford that brassy blonde over there.’
The woman he could not afford had discovered Roderick. ‘Hey, you want a peanut? Here boy! Cute little bastard ain’t he, I mean with one green eye one blue—’
‘You wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I used to be a Paris passion, fashion model.’ Another drink passed purple lips. ‘Paris, France.’
‘I’m so broke—’
‘Where the hell is Dot today, she’d like this, have a peanut boy?’
‘—doesn’t want a damn peanut, what the hell’s the matter with you? You can see the thing’s a machine, what’s it gonna do with a peanut, vend it? Anyway Dick, listen they get to this geisha place—’
‘Who belongs to this thing anyway?’ Larry leaned over the bar to look at it. ‘Anybody belong to this thing?’
‘Probably came in with them college boys,’ said the hunter, and spat on the floor.
‘Goddamnit Jack, behave yourself.’
‘Parish fashion model, you believe that?’
The used-car salesman turned. ‘Ignore Lena boys, she used to be a plaster of Paris model only now she’s just plas — ow, Jesus Lena can’t you take a joke?’
‘Okay that’s a bet. Larry counts the money in both our billfolds, and whoever’s got less gets all the money. Larry come here, we got a bet—’
The taxi driver’s brogue deepened desperately. ‘Will ye listen? Now the lads get to this special geisha place only it turns out—’
‘Sure he wants a peanut, don’t you my little sweet-urns? Come on boy, sit up for — he won’t sit up.’
Larry, holding two billfolds, spun around to catch old Jack spitting again. ‘That’s it, Jack. Out. I told you about that, now out!’
The old man’s earflaps stood up like the ears of a fox terrier. ‘All of a sudden the place is too classy for me, all of a sudden it’s a classy college-boy place, eh? Well I’m goin’. I’m goin’.’ He deliberately spat again and ambled out.
‘I’m a-comin’, I’m a-comin’,’ sang the used-car man. He tapped his feet on the brass rail, threw a peanut into the air and caught it in his mouth, winked at the blonde and made a face at Roderick. ‘Howdy doody little robot. How’s all your nuts and bolts?’
‘Bejesus will you listen man? They get to this geisha place and it turns out that all the girls are just inflatables!’
‘But no really, I was a Parish, a Paris, a mannequin.’
‘Inflate me,’ sang the used-car man, ‘my sweet inflatable—’
‘I’m very well thanks,’ said Roderick. No one seemed to hear, which was just as well because he was not quite telling the truth. In fact he felt strange and dizzy, and a peculiar pulse was building up behind his new eye. A pair of purple lips swam by, saying:
‘To look at me, be honest, you wouldn’t think…’
Larry transferred all the money from one billfold to the other and handed them back. ‘You win, Eric.’
‘Hey wait a minute, that ain’t a fair bet. He only had six bucks there, I had over twenty!’
‘Yeah well that was the bet, who had less—’
‘Yeah but I mean I’m risking twenty against six, what kinda odds is that?’
The expensive blonde said, ‘Larry, forget them geeks, willya? I wanta buy my little friend here a drink, I wanta buy him a Shirley Temple. You get him a dish so he can lap, my little sweet-ums!’ She patted Roderick’s metal cheek. ‘Soon as I get back from the little girls’ room, honey, you and me can have a drinky, okay?’
‘Her little robottoms,’ said Dick, and winked at no one. ‘Hey little robottoms, what’s your name?’
‘Roder-ick Wo-od.’ Roderick lurched and nearly fell from the stool. One of the fraternity boys caught him.
‘Wow, HE TALKS! Crazy, you see that boys? Shoo-be-do, Pow! Zap! She’s a transistor sister with a… and what was that name? Woody? Howdy Woody, how’s the old wood pe—’
‘Shut your gob will you? The point is, they all slept with this little inflatable geisha see? And they all came down with a dose!’
‘Okay Eric, how about double or nothing?’
The money changed billfolds solemnly as one of the fraternity boys said, ‘Doubles hell, we’re drinking triples here, by God!’ They had indeed been drinking so much that it seemed a good idea to take Roderick with them, just as it seemed a good idea to leave their car (since none of them could remember where it was parked anyway) and steal another.
The two men in the back of the Rolls-Royce sat so close that, had passers-by been able to see them
