“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe everything is the way it is and we can’t do anything about it.”
“Run, Anita. Before he gets back. We’ll make out. Shank and I. We’ll manage.”
“I can’t, Joe.”
“Leave me, Anita. I’m no good. I can’t move. So I’m impotent without you—so what? Leave me.”
“I can’t, Joe. I can’t.”
He took her in his arms. “There ought to be a way out,” he said. “Some way. There honest-to-God ought to. This is a mess.”
She stroked his forehead. He was sweating.
“What do we do, baby?” Joe said, hopelessly.
“I guess we stick together.”
“But how do we get out of this?”
“I wish I knew,” she said. “God in heaven, I wish I knew.”
They held each other and waited for Shank. Shank’s entrance was something special.
The door swung open. A second or two later Shank came through, his shoulders hunched, his white face more pale than usual. His eyes had a hunted look. He closed the door, slid the bolt home. He turned to face them. The smile on his lips did not include his eyes.
“I found Bunky,” he said.
They stared at him.
“It was tough,” Shank said. “Had to turn the town upside-down. Big city, Chicago. I figured Bunky would be on the North Side. I combed that North Side. Went to all the hip hangouts, all the places a cat like Bunky would probably hang. Took time. Too much time.”
“What happened?”
“I found him.”
“And—”
Shank sighed. “Good old Bunky,” he said. The smile grew but the eyes became more dead than ever. “He was glad to see me. Auld lang syne. That type of scene.”
They waited.
“Something funny,” he said. “Never would have expected it. Big change in Bunky. Fundamental difference from old Bunky. Big change.”
Why didn’t he get to the point? Anita and Joe wondered. He had connected with Bunky. The three could leave the country. Why did he have to drag it out forever?
“Funny,” Shank said. “You know what it is about Bunky? Funny. It makes a poem.”
They stared at him.
“Bunky is a junkie,” he said. “Bunky is a junkie with a forty-pound monkey. It rhymes, dig? Isn’t that funny? Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard?”
Chapter 11
“Junkie Bunky,” Shank said. “No good at all to me. Horse is his whole life. Forty dollars a day. Forty dollars a day to put in his arm. He couldn’t give me a connection.”
“What then?”
A wider grin. “But don’t panic. He told me the way. The way to Mexico. There’s a plane making the trip once a week.”
“You need some kind of a passport,” Joe said softly.
“Not for this plane, baby. This is a private plane. It goes straight to Monterrey. From Chicago to Monterrey. Makes three stops at private airfields. Carries a dozen passengers, no more. You don’t need anything like a passport for this one, baby. All you need is money.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred a person.”
“That’s six hundred dollars.”
“You add good, baby.”
“How the hell can we get six hundred dollars?”
“Easy.”
“Easy? Are you going to kill some more men, Shank? Shoot more old men in alleys?”
“It made the paper, huh?”
“It made the paper. And they traced the gun. They know it’s us, Shank.”
“I figured they would.”
“So no more hold-ups, Shank. You can’t pull a hold-up without a gun. Right?”
“Right as rain, Joe, baby. You’ve got a head on your neck. You truly do.”
“Then how?”
Shank found a cigarette, placed it between his lips. He took a pack of matches, ripped one out and struck it. He lit the cigarette and dragged on it.
“Same way Bunky feeds his habit,” he said. “Bunky uses almost three big bills a week. That’s a lot of bread. And he gets it.”
“How?”
“He’s got a stable of girls, man. Three of them. Good little girls. Hustling girls. Working girls. Fly chicks. They take good care of Bunky. They go out and earn a habitful of money.”
The message was beginning to sink in.
“We’ve got an asset,” Shank said. “A natural resource. We’ve got little Anita. She can take care of us, Joe, baby. We carried her this far. Now she can carry us a little bit of the way. She can go wiggle her behind and carry us all the way to Mexico.”
“I won’t do it,” Anita said, her tones flat. Shank looked at her. She was standing up now, fear and disgust in her eyes. Shank walked to her, put his hand on her shoulder. She tried to shrink away, but his hand held.
“Sure you will,” he said.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No—”
“You listen to me,” he said. “You shut your mouth and listen. They’re going to kill us. All three of us. Strap us in the chair and turn on the juice. We’ll die. Die for murder.”
“You did the murders,” she said. “You killed the cop. You shot the old man. I read in the paper the old man had three children. A wife and three children.”
“So they’ll get his insurance.”
“You bastard!”
He laughed. A loud laugh. But he did not take his hand from her shoulder. “You took my money,” Shank said. “And you ran with me. Both of you. You were there when I killed the cop. And I killed the old man for you, for both of you. I could have run alone. I had enough money to make Chicago. I killed so you could come with me. So don’t pin it on me, little girl. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Shank—” She stopped. She had nothing to say. She could only stare at him and listen to him.
“Now you’ll hustle,” he told her. “We need six hundred dollars. Sounds like a lot of money. It’s not that much. Say you get ten bucks a trick. It’s only sixty tricks. You can handle twenty a day easy. Just quick tricks. Fast and easy and simple. Three days and we’re ready to roll. Plane leaves in four days. So we can’t miss. All you have to do is turn your tricks.”
“I’m no whore.” Easy laughter rolled out of Shank.
“Whoever said you were?” he said. “I’m not telling you to make a profession out of it, baby. Just sixty times. Just sixty quick tricks to save us all. That’s all, Anita. Maybe less, if you can get some guys to go more than ten bucks. Say, twenty. And the more tricks you turn, the faster you’re done. And then—”
“You filthy son of a—”
