“Or at least his parents do.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
His moon face tightened into a sneer. “You mind if I go now, your royal highness?”
“Always a pleasure to see you, Flannagan.”
There are some people you just don’t want on your side.
As I climbed into my ragtop and headed home, I tried not to think about some of the feelings that Jack Kennedy seemed to stir up. Otherwise reasonable, decent people still had their bias toward Catholics in office. William Jennings Bryan always said that he wished he hadn’t run for president because it taught him just how deep anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish bias ran in this country. Things had improved since then but, as with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, even respectable ministers felt safe in talking about Kennedy as a stalking horse for the pope.
Then there were the unrespectable people-the Klan, the Nazi sympathizers left over from the American Bundt days of the big war, the small-town radio ministers, the pamphleteers of every description. There’d been an article in Time magazine a few years back noting that any fund-raising letter or pamphlet with the word “Jew,” “Communist,” “Catholic,” or
“Negro” in its headline would earn twice as much money as a letter or pamphlet without. Judging by the entertainment shows on the tube, everything was just okey-dokey here in the land of Lincoln. But we knew better, didn’t we?
Eight
I parked in back of my apartment house, meaning to wash my car the way I usually did on late Saturday afternoons. Mrs. Goldman had a nice two-stall garage with a hose.
I was about halfway to the house when I heard the music. It wasn’t all that loud but it was an odd choice for Mrs. Goldman. Miles
Davis. I wondered when she’d gotten interested in jazz. She liked Broadway tunes and singers like Patti Page and Kay Starr.
I had just reached the stairs that run up the back and lead to my apartment when I realized that the music was coming from my place, not Mrs. Goldman’s.
The windows were open and so, partially, was the back door. I went inside.
She sat in the big leather armchair. She wore a white blouse that displayed her lovely breasts discreetly, a pair of dark blue shorts that did equally nice things for her long legs, and a pair of white tennis shoes.
She had a tanned, tight body and that impish damned face that could go sentimental on you all of a sudden and make you sad. I’d never had a crush on a married woman before and I didn’t want to now. But here she was in my apartment. There was a half-full bottle of JandBut scotch and a Peter Pan peanut-butter glass sitting on the arm of the chair.
“You bastard,” she said from the couch, where she was reclining.
“Nice to see you too, Kylie.”
“You’re late,” she said, all hot accusation.
“Late for what?”
“For our job interview.” She was slurring her words but I’ll spare you the drunk dialect.
“Kylie, did you by any chance drink half of that bottle of scotch?”
“What half bottle of scotch?”
“The one next to your hand.”
“My hand?”
She was in fine shape. A drinker she was not.
I’d seen her get snockered once on two beers. The toll the scotch took had to be devastating.
“So where were you?”
“Working, actually,” I said.
“Working actually? Who’s actually?” Then she grinned, looking pretty damned cute. “I told a funny.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You’re late.”
“You said that. But I didn’t realize we had an appointment.”
She shook her head. She was so loaded she had to squint one eye to see me. There were probably multiple me’s, the way I’d be perceived by a fly. “Job interview.”
“What job interview are we talking about?”
“We aren’t talking about a job interview.
I am talking about a job interview.”
“All right.” I went over and sat down on the couch and got a Lucky going. “And what job interview would that be?”
“I want to hire you to kill my husband.”
“Well, that sounds reasonable enough. What’s the pay?”
“I could give you a hundred down. And a hundred more later on. When I get my paycheck.”
“Well, I do have a gun, I guess.”
She squinted again. Her head was rotating as if on a track of ball bearings. “You got any bullets?”
“A few.”
“How many’s a few?”
“Probably a couple dozen.”
“Good, ‘cause I want you to shoot him at least that many times.” Then, “Where’s that damned bottle?”
“I think it got on a bus and went to Cleveland in self-defense.”
She either didn’t hear-or didn’t care to hear-my joke.
“There it is.”
Watching her pour a drink was like watching a high-wire act. There was a lot of danger. It did things to your bowels and heart and the palms of your hands. Somehow she managed to get it poured without (a) cracking the glass when the neck of the bottle slammed against the rim, (but) spilling any on the chair, or (can) spilling any on herself.
“Then I want you to set him on fire.”
“Shoot him first. Then set him on fire.
Got it.”
“He’s a jerk. I just can’t believe how much of a jerk.”
“You know, Miles Davis may not be the best music for you to be listening to right now,” I said.
“I need to be sad.”
“Well, ole Miles’ll help you get there.”
“Who you want to hear? Frankie Avalon?”
“Why don’t I just turn it off?”
I got up and turned it off and then went over to the refrigerator. “You had anything to eat lately?”
“Last night.”
“You haven’t eaten since last night?”
“Too mad to eat.” And again her head rolled free on the ball bearings. “That jerk.” Then she belched. It was a cute little belch. “Excuse me.”
“How about a bologna sandwich?”
“Didn’t I just say excuse me?”
“Yes, you did. And you are excused. Now how about I fix you a bologna sandwich?”
“With ketchup?”
“If you want some.”
“I’m not all that hungry.”
“You need some food. Believe me.”
