Up in Honey's Room

Bo was facing them now with the machine gun, one hand on the trigger, the other on the magazine that held thirty-two rounds.

Jurgen said, “Bo, what are you doing?”

Honey said, “Bo, would you like a drink?”

Walter, in Honey’s favorite chair, didn’t speak.

Bo did. He said to Vera, “I told you to unlock the door and you forgot.”

Vera said, “How did you get in, darling?”

“I told you, as soon as you get here, unlock the door. I told you to write everything down. You forgot and I’m standing in the hall holding a fucking machine gun?”

Jurgen said to him, “You have a Schmeisser, uh? I like that name even though it’s not accurate. But I’ll tell you something,” Jurgen said, “you should never hold a Maschinenpistole by the magazine. You put stress on it, it jams very easily.”

Carl liked that-remind the boy he didn’t know what he was doing, holding a loaded weapon while he argued with Vera. Now he was facing them.

“I want you three, Jurgen, Honey and Carl, to go sit on the sofa. Walter, you’re all right, old boy, but move your chair closer to where your comrades will be sitting, we’ll get this done. Go on, you three, please take your seats. Right there,” Bo said, raised his machine gun and fired a short burst, loud, quick, that left bullet holes across the back cushions of the sofa.

Honey stared at Bo, not saying a word.

Maybe he did know what he was doing, Carl watching the way he handled the weapon, familiar with it, telling Jurgen, “As often as I’ve fired a machine pistol I’ve never had a problem. I was out of practice when I went after the Hot Kid.” He said to Carl, “Did you know it was I?”

“It had to be you,” Carl said.

“No other asshole would do,” Honey said, holding her hard look on Bo.

It seemed to stop him for a moment, his eyes on Honey, but let it go and said, “Now I would like the four of you to strip. Take off all your clothes. You, too, Walter, stand up. And I’d like the Hotdog Kid to remove the revolver from his person and place it on the cocktail table.”

“If you try to use it,” Vera said, “Bo won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

She brought the Luger out of her Persian lamb handbag and put it in Carl’s face.

“Or I will.”

Carl said, “You want to reach in my coat and get it?”

“I want you to take the coat off,” Vera said, moving away from them.

Honey saw the Luger in Vera’s hand and nudged Jurgen, the Luger exactly like the one Darcy got from Bo for the Model A and gave to her for safekeeping. The one Jurgen checked and said was loaded, ready to fire and she’d shoved down between the seat cushions of the sofa. Where Bo wanted them to sit.

She watched Carl take off his coat and now his holstered .38 was in plain sight.

Bo said, “Will you people, please, get undressed? We don’t have all night.”

Honey pulled her sweater over her head, stepped out of her skirt and moved to the sofa.

“You have a cute figure,” Bo said.

“The bra too?” Honey said.

“Of course the bra, the panties, everything. I want to make sure you’re not concealing a weapon. I hid a razor-sharp butter knife up my butt and used it to cut the throats of three death-squad SS guards, each one in turn lying drunk on horilka, Ukrainian vodka. I put my hand over each one’s mouth, stuck the knife into the throat and cut. I did it naked knowing there would be a torrent of blood. It bathed me. It was a stimulating experience. You can understand why it’s the most memorable event of my life. Though shooting Mr. Aubrey and Dr. Taylor wasn’t bad. One shot for each. Rosemary was different. I shot her, yes, but it was more like drowning a kitten. My mother made me do that when I was a boy, hold the kitten under water. Every time I thought of Puss and saw his little face looking up at me, I cried.”

Now he said, “Mr. Hotsy-Totsy, are you going to lay down your gun or not?”

Honey watched Carl step over to the sofa before pulling his revolver-Bo with the machine gun raised, aimed at him-and lay it on the cocktail table, the grip toward the sofa. Now he stood there pulling off his tie, starting to unbutton his shirt.

Bo said, “As gingerly as you can, Carl, would you shake all the bullets out of that gun, please? It makes me nervous to see it sitting there, the front sight filed off. You are a ferocious man, aren’t you, Mr. Hotsy-Totsy?”

Honey watched Vera, holding the Luger down at her side now, walk over to Bo and say something to him.

“You’re talking too much.”

“Darling, I’m doing this for you.”

“You’re performing. ‘How could a cute boy like me cut throats?’ Trying to be funny and ghastly at the same time.”

“You want me to do it or you want to leave? A moment will come and I’ll kill them, left to right starting with the modest Nazi, Walter, and pop pop pop the rest. I started with twenty-eight in the magazine and have twenty- four left. I fucked up showing them where to sit and fired one round too many. You may have to do a coup de grâce or two.” The next moment he was grinning. “Vera, look. Nudes on parade.”

What astonished Vera-well, it did surprise her to see how casually they stood about naked, not at all self- conscious, quite different tan lines on the two men: Jurgen, a slender god, had kept much of his tan through the winter and was white around his loins; Carl’s face and arms were weathered while the rest of him would be called white, but wasn’t; his skin toned with shades from Cuba and the Northern Cheyenne.

No, what astonished Vera was how neat they were about the clothes they took off and folded on the coffee table in three piles, while Walter was holding his clothes in his lap.

Bo said, “Go take Walter’s clothes away from him. He refuses to give them up, shoot him in the head, please.” He said, “Notice, the two boys are hung about average. Ah, but they’re both straight as gunshots. They were raised to be men who use women, love women, even adore them and dream of pussies. I see the way they look at you. Vera, you could take Carl anytime you want. But when I swish around them like I’m on the make, they don’t mind, they think I’m funny. The ones who don’t think I’m funny I look out for. You think I’m funny, don’t you?”

“Yes, you are,” Vera said. “But sometimes you aren’t. This is taking too long. You understand? Bo, look at me. Do it, please, when I’m out of the way.”

“Nuts, she’s walking off to the side.”

Honey said it looking down past her bare breasts to her bare thighs she kept slender swimming once a week at Webster Hall, a midtown hotel.

This was great, get to sit between two naked boys, both of them with neat packages, nice slender bodies with scars all over them: Carl’s she thought from gunshots, Jurgen’s skin tight and shiny in places where he’d been burned. These guys were all-guy. Jurgen turned his head and smiled at her and she smiled back at him. Then she smiled at Carl and Carl said, “What?”

While Vera was over there talking to Bo, Honey was able to take Carl’s hand, next to hers on the sofa, and place it on the butt of the Luger stuck down between the cushions. When she put it there she was sitting where Carl was now, so it was his right hand that worked down to get his fingers around the grip. Honey told him it was ready to fire but on safety. Carl said he felt it and snicked it off.

Honey said, “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?” Carl said. “Why wouldn’t I be sure?”

He was pretty sure he’d never fired a Luger. A Walther P38, yeah, but not a Luger. He imagined pulling this one out of the sofa and putting it on Bohunk to shoot where he was looking, squeeze the trigger and make an adjustment if he had to and shoot him down. The Luger was a good-looking gun, he liked the way it fit his hand