A World of Thieves

said they were called. Beefy well-dressed guys with watchful eyes and with bulges under their coats. After an hour of blackjack I was nine dollars to the good, but Buck dropped eighty at stud and Russell was forty dollars poorer after his turns with the dice.

As we made our way through the crowd to get to the speakeasy ballroom Russell whispered, “Goddam, I wish I had my own bones with me. I know I could work this place.”

Buck cut his eyes at him. “I’d say we ain’t getting out of this town any too soon. You’d lose more than a couple of fingers here, buddy-boy.”

Buck and I had a drink at the bar while Russell and Charlie took a turn on the dance floor in the company of about two hundred other couples whirling to the band’s rendition of “Stardust.” The smoky air was laced with perfume. Knockout women everywhere you looked, all of them in the company of highrollers.

“Man, you ever see so much goodlooking stuff under one roof?” Buck said. “What I wouldn’t give for a crack at any one of them. But hell, they too rich for my blood.”

“Why not try the direct approach?” I said. “Sometimes it does the trick.”

“I knew this old boy decided one night to try the direct approach,” he said. “Picks out this goodlooking thing at the bar and goes up to her and says, ‘Hey, honeybunch, I sure wouldn’t mind a little pussy.’ Gal gives him a look and says, ‘Me neither, Mac—mine’s as big as your boot.’”

After a while Russell bellied up to the bar and Charlie tugged me out on the floor as the band started up with “You Do Something to Me.” She was wearing a little black satin number and I felt the play of her belly and thighs against me as we swirled around in the midst of the other dancers. And like the times we’d danced so close together when I was a kid, the same thing happened in my pants.

She smiled wide and said, “Why Sonny, you still know how to pay a girl the sweetest compliment.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Can’t help it.” My ears burned.

“Well of course you can’t, sugar. After being so long in that awful place. You really did need more time with that Brenda girl.” She laughed and pinched my cheek. “And you still blush more handsome than any man I know.”

We danced like that for a while and my embarrassing condition persisted. “Poor baby,” she whispered in my ear, her belly tight against me as we danced to “Amapola.”

She glanced at the bar and I looked too and saw Buck and Russell hunched over the counter in close conversation. She took the lead and sidestepped us through the dense crowd of dancers to the far side of the floor and into the darkness behind a partition of potted palms.

“Hey girl,” I said, “what the hell are—”

“Hush,” she said.

She backed me up against the wall and then slipped her hand off my shoulder and down between us and her fingers closed around me through my pants. I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t about to protest. I was already so worked up that it took her only a few quick squeezes to set me off. I dug my fingers into her hip and groaned into her hair.

She put her hand back on my shoulder and patted it gently. “There now. All better, baby?”

All I could think to say was “Whooo.”

She chuckled softly and pecked me on the cheek. “I’ll take that for a yes.” Then said: “Good thing we’re both wearing black. Stains won’t show.”

We danced out from behind the palms and into the crowd again and slowly swayed our way across the floor to the rhythms of “In a Little Spanish Town.” Buck and Russell were still talking.

She pushed her belly tight against me. “I must say, Mr. LaSalle, you certainly feel more relaxed.”

I grinned back at her. “No small thanks to you, Miss Hayes, I must say.”

“And I must say, Mr. LaSalle, what’s a friend for if not to lend a helping hand?”

Our cackles drew amused looks from the couples nearest to us.

“Listen, honey,” she said, “I really think you need to get yourself a girl.”

“I really think you may be right,” I said.

It was nearly one in the morning when we finally called it a night. The place was even more crowded than before and people were still coming in.

“It don’t really get jumping for another hour yet,” Russell said. “The highrollers won’t get their hats and coats till practically sunup.”

The parking lot was jammed and cars were lined on both shoulders of the beach road. The Model A was at the far end of the lot, in the shadows of a thick growth of oleander. Charlie led the way, showing off some slick dance moves as she went. We were almost to the Ford when the car parked next to it pulled out and a white Lincoln wheeled into the vacated spot.

Three good-sized guys in fancy suits got out, laughing like one of them had just told a good joke. One of them said something to Charlie that I didn’t catch, and she said, “Oh my, does your momma know you talk like that?” Then the one closest to her grabbed a handful of her ass.

She whirled and took a swipe at him with her purse. “Hands off, Buster!”

I was in front of Buck and Russell and moved in fast. One of them said, “Watch it!” and Buster started to reach in his coat but I caught him with a solid right that put him down. One of the others punched me high on the head but it didn’t have any weight behind it and I countered with a hook in the ear, knocking him against the Ford, then drove one into his solar plexus and that was it for him. He slid down the side of the car, trying to suck a breath.

As I stripped the two guys of their pieces—.38 four-inchers, both of them—I heard Russell say, “Do it, tough guy!” and Charlie shrill, “Russell, don’t!”

He was holding a cocked pistol in the third one’s face. The guy looked like he was posing as Napoleon, a hand inside his coat. Buck stepped up and jerked the guy’s arm away and relieved him of an army .45 automatic. “Thanks, pal,” he said. “I been wanting one of these.”

“You assholes got any idea who you’re fucken with?” the guy said.

“Oooooo,” Buck said in mock fright. “Scary man here.”

“We work for Sam and Rose, you stupid shits.”

Buck kneed him perfectly in the balls. The guy groaned and sank to his haunches with his hands at his crotch, then fell on his ass, cussing low.

“If I was Sam and Rose,” Buck said, “I’d hire me some better help.”

We hustled into the Ford and I wheeled us out of the lot and wove through the traffic in front of the club and then we were out of it and breezing along the beach road. The Gulf was shimmering brightly under a silver moon.

“Hot damn!” Buck yelled out the window—and Russell and I laughed like he’d said something funny. He held up the .45 for us to see. “Slug from one of these’ll knock a man down if it hits him in the little finger, you know that?”

“These are smart little Smith & Wessons too,” Russell said, handling the .38s I’d taken off the Maceo men.

In the rearview I saw Charlie looking from one to the other of us. “What am I doing with you guys?” she said.

“Why honeybunch, don’t you know?” Russell said. He snuggled up to her and kissed her neck and ran a hand over her breasts.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said, and slapped at his roving hands. “But like you boys are always saying…even when you know, you never know.”

That got another big laugh from all of us.

“What I know is, we ain’t getting out of this town any too soon,” Buck said.

Then he started singing “Bye Bye Blackbird” and we all joined in.