I said, “Doesn’t anybody take turns with him?”
“No,” Karpis said. “Nelson told him to take that post, and he didn’t even blink. Just does whatever Nelson says. Sits up there and reads Western pulp magazines and keeps watch. Three days, now. Sleeps there, too—but I never knew a man to sleep lighter. Nice to have him around.”
“Hell, he didn’t even have supper with us.”
“Nelson took some out to him. He treats Chase fine—like a faithful dog.”
“Is there anybody else here I haven’t met yet?”
Karpis flashed that awful smile. “Not that I can think of, offhand.”
He went inside and I followed him; he joined the poker game, taking Nelson’s empty chair. I watched for a few moments, then went into the living room, where Burns and Allen were just getting over. When George had said “say good night, Gracie,” I asked Karpis’ girl Dolores about sleeping arrangements.
“You could take Doc Moran’s bed,” she suggested. “It’s free.”
“No kidding.”
“There’s a lot of bedrooms in this house, but they’re all taken. The Nelsons sleep upstairs, and Alvin and me have an upstairs bedroom, and so do Paula and Fred, and Candy and Lulu too, or anyway they did.”
“Where did Moran sleep?”
She pointed behind her. “There’s a sewing room back by the kitchen, and the two Docs each had beds back there. Cots, actually.”
“Where do the farmer and his wife sleep?”
“There’s a Murphy bed in the sitting room.”
This was turning into home away from home.
“The boys sleep in there, too,” she continued, “in pallets.”
“Sounds like a full house.”
“Sure is. Could be a topsy-turvy one tonight, though. Last I knew Paula was upstairs in her and Fred’s bedroom nursin’ Lulu.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, and Lulu don’t want to sleep in her and Candy’s bed tonight. She wants to sleep with Paula.”
“Think Fred’ll go along with that?”
She grinned; she had a much better smile than her boyfriend Karpis. “He would if he was included. But he’ll have to go sleep alone in that other bedroom, I guess.”
I decided to go up and see how Louise was doing. I found brunette Paula standing out in the hall, smoking, ever-present glass of whiskey in one hand.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she said. Smiling. Sultry.
“How’s the kid?”
“Lulu? Busted up about it.”
“It’s a tough one.”
“She’s asleep, now. Poor thing.”
“Best thing for her.”
Paula brightened. “You want to do me a favor?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Go in and look after her for me. Keep her company.”
“She doesn’t even know me…”
Paula swatted the air with her cigarette in hand. “She won’t wake up till September. But if she does, somebody should be with her.”
“I guess I could sit in there awhile.”
“That’s not what I mean. You need a place to sleep, right? Bunk in with her.”
“Don’t be foolish.”
She crooked her finger, like she was summoning a child. I complied. She leaned in with me in the doorway, where I could see Lulu, curled up in a fetal ball, pink dress way up over pretty white legs. She was sleeping deeply on one of two twin beds that were pushed close together. The bedroom was regularly the boys’ room, obviously. There was a balsa wood model plane hanging from the slanted ceiling, which was papered in dark blue with silver stars, a child’s idea of the nighttime sky.
Standing away from the open doorway, now, Paula said, “Freddie’ll be tickled to death to get the bed Lulu and Candy been sleeping in—we ain’t had a double bed in a week. You’d be doing us a favor, and she isn’t going to mind, you in your separate bed and all. She shouldn’t be left alone, you know.”
I thought about that.
Paula put a hand on my shoulder; her breath was whiskey-scented, but she was sexy just the same. She said,
