no going back now, I half-ran down the street, Lucille's high heels clicking behind me. The damn duffel bag seemed to weigh a ton.
The stores stopped at the end of the block—then came a row of small apartment houses with even less people on the street. I stood there, not knowing what to do. Lucille was shoving her purse at me, panting, “Tony—take this.” I kept turning away from her. A small crowd of plump women shoppers stopped to stare at us—sure they were seeing a man-and-wife fight.
More people surrounded us, snickering at the breasts I was drawing. Through the fleshy forest of heavy bare legs and slacks I saw Ping and Shorty round the corner. I worked faster on the thick curves of the hips as the crowd grew. A high feminine voice said, “What gall—drawing a dirty picture right on the sidewalk!”
“He's good,” a mild voice added.
Ping's sharp slacks, the shoddy pants of his squat partner reached the edge of the crowd. When they came through the people, I'd put up a hell of a brawl, no matter... Sketching like mad, through the many legs I suddenly saw those of the two goons pull back, abruptly turn, walk away very rapidly.
Still on my hands and knees I watched them go —until a hand pushed my shoulder. I glanced up at blue pants, the red face of an old cop asking, “Whatcha think you're doing here, Mac?”
Standing, I brushed my hands against each other. Ping and his knife buddy were turning the far corner. Lucille was giggling down at the sketch. A man in the crowd said, “Hey, it's her—
He put his hot face next to mine. “You smell sober and I don't see you begging. Come on, folks, break it up. Too hot to crowd around.” He scowled at me. “You—you're on the wrong street, get around the corner with the rest of them Village nuts and fairies waiting for the beach bus. Move on—before I work up a sweat running you in—man your size drawing on the sidewalk!” He called to one of the storekeepers standing in the doorway of his shop: “Artie, get me a pail of water, I'll wash this pin-up off.”
Ping and Shorty were not to be seen as I slowly started walking back up the street—Lucille at my side. I stopped a cab and she got in with me, handed me her purse. She said, “Told you to take this.”
I had the cabbie drive downtown as I opened the purse—there was a roll of bills and the .32 which had belonged to Gus. The sight of the gun made me trust Lucille—a little.
She wiped her nose, which was starting to run, whispered, “Let's get to someplace where I can use... soon! I'm starting to get sick.”
“Take it easy. You ever see the long and short guys before?”
“Once. Now wait, don't get me wrong, Tony, only time I saw them was when I was leaving my place—couple hours ago. They were coming into the building. Only noticed them because they are so short and long. That's the truth. I didn't bring them or...”
“Okay, okay.” There was a twitch in her right cheek, under the eye, and her face seemed to be aging by the second, the lips turning a cracked, dry red. Gus
Passing a street of modern and ugly ranch houses, empty except for a few kids playing, I stopped the taxi. We walked through the street, turned a corner to another quiet block, over to a business street. I waited on the corner, to see if we were being followed.
Lucille begged, “Please, Tony, give me a sniff!”
“No. I'll give you some—soon.” I stopped another cab, and we drove downtown. Passing a cheap hotel, we left the cab at a movie house two blocks away. I bought two tickets and walked in with Lucille, turning as we reached the ticket-taker to make certain the taxi had driven off. In the darkness of the theatre, Lucille pressed her hands into her stomach, groaned, “Tony, I have the works in my bag... give me some stuff and in the ladies' room...”
“Too risky. Only be a few minutes more.”
“You have to!” I snapped, holding her arm firmly and walking out of the theatre. I registered at the flea- bag hotel as a Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Mason of Riverbays, rented a small room which was not only hot and stunk of strong insecticide, but on top of a record shop blaring out the same idiotic rock-and-roll song over and over. The moment the door closed, Lucille pulled a needle and bent spoon from her purse, reached for my blue duffel bag. Pushing her away, I opened it, let her take a very small pinch of the white powder. I had to help her down the hall to the John, couldn't bare to watch her make a fix. I returned to our stinking room, keeping the door open, an eye on the John. The gun in her bag was loaded and working. I slipped it into my back pocket. Counting Lucille's money—we had twenty-three dollars: I'd already spent seven of her bills for the room.
Minutes later she came down the hallway, actually looking fresh and bright. Locking the door, she bent over to kick off her high-heels. I watched the curve of solid hips under the dress. She said, “Now on, it's you and me, Tony.”
“Seems that way.”
“Tomorrow I'll find us a better pad.” She began to undress. “Honey, well make it just fine. I'll hustle us some money, and you have the bag of dreams. Plus, I go for you. Too bad you had to cut off all that swell, curly hair.”
She stood before me, naked and sweaty, symbolic of the farce and cruelty of sex the world over. The male always has to prove himself to the female, and I knew she was waiting—for me to prove Gus had been crazy calling me a swish. But the thought that I wasn't dependent upon her, her habit made her
Throwing her on the bed, I tore off my clothes. Now that I was a murderer, there was little point in worrying about getting sick.
CHAPTER 10
For the next five days Lucille and I settled into a convenient, and not entirely uncomfortable routine. We moved the following morning to another sleazy hotel in Brooklyn, still perfumed with sharp anti-bug odors, but the room was large and light, with a one-plate burner for cooking, and after the rock-and-roll racket of living over the record shop —seemed restfully quiet. Lucille made an arrangement with the lump-faced desk man, who was also the porter, and probably the owner, to turn a “few tricks” per day without having to walk the streets or solicit. As she happily explained, “Tony, all I have to do is knock off two guys a day— one for us and one for him. He'll send the tricks up, keep it quiet. It couldn't be better.”
But the desk man complained to me.; 'What's the matter with your broad? She's built to take it, and I can send her a dozen hot pants a day without attracting too much noise. No sense in her sitting on all that money.”
“She was in an accident, lost a lot of blood, has to rest up,” I told him, resisting the temptation to break his fat jaw.
Lucille seemed positively content. With ease and in a comparative few minutes she earned enough for our food, and a bottle, and of course I had 'stuff' to last her lifetime. Actually, she rarely left our room. Early in the morning I'd go out—never more than a block from the hotel—buy the papers, food, a bottle, and whatever paperback she wanted to read. We'd spend the rest of the day in the room, sleeping a lot, eating, drinking a good deal. At night, or whenever Lucille was with “clients,” I went up on the roof, to shadow-box and exercise —for some unknown reason.
I also worked-out often with Lucille. Being an untidy creature (her bra and panties were in worn shreds) she had this fetish about always being in the nude, ready with her corny, “As the wise man said, have fun: what else is there in life?” It was mostly clinical interest on my part, trying to decide if I really was arousing her, or if she was merely faking her passion. It's so damn much easier for the woman to fake it.
Although she still called me Tony, Lucille knew I was the artist the police were seeking and while she never mentioned it, we had some off-the-wall talks about art. I bought a cheap pad and a soft pencil, made dozens of sketches of every curve of her body, each feature in the wide face. She was a good model, rarely moving, but never very excited about the sketches. Of course I destroyed them the second they were finished. On Sunday, I made a collage with the colored comic pages and her nail polish—cutting out various shapes of colored paper, pasting them on a sheet of brown wrapping paper. I was trying to copy
