Ed Lacy - Blonde Bait

     “Where is she?” Big love—like when I'd gone out after the money in the hurricane, Rose was afraid she'd lost her boy. There'd be so much explaining—and looking—if she had to start all over again with another John.

     “She best place for gal wait for mon—in de bed. I tell her, it really not bad storm. Rain and lightening and de sky breaking wind. All we lose is few hands banana.”

     I put the outboard on the dink and towed Mrs. Ansel and the baby boy ashore. I ran to the hut. It was cool and dark inside, full of the smell of Rose: a great perfume. Opening the bedroom door, the streak of mild sunlight following me through the front door seemed to spotlight Rose's tumbled hair, her beautiful face on the crumpled pillow. Blinking, she sat up. “Mickey?”

     “Yeah.” She was sleeping nude as she always did, and the sheet half fell away from her big body. We stared at each other—a grin of relief on her face. I don't know what was on mine. Maybe wonder. I didn't care what I was to her. How many men come home to see a half-naked movie queen smiling at them from their bed? In the odd lighting, almost as if it was staged, Rose looked fantastically desirable.

     “What happened to you, Mickey?”

     “I had to wait the squall out. And I overslept. Also some motor trouble. We'll have to get a new oil cooler...”

     “I've been sick with worry.”

     “Come on, you knew I'd be back. Relax.” I sat on the edge of the bed, aware of her warmth on the sheet. I reached over and touched the soft hair tumbling to her good shoulders.

     She put her hand over mine, stroked it. “I had a nightmare. All sorts of wild nightmares about you being...”

     “But I'm back, everything's okay, babes.”

     She gave me a long look as she nodded slowly. And suddenly Rose did something I'd never seen her do before. She began to weep. I'd seen her cry with anger and frustration plenty of times, but this was a kind of tender, happy weeping.

     “No tears, honey,” I said, taking her in my arms. We kissed fiercely and I thought what a lucky character I was to come home to a moment like this. Even if I ended up in the chair, it was well worth it.

     Later as I was sleeping, a tired and contented sleep, Rose shook me awake. I sat up fast. “What's the matter?”

     “Nothing is the matter,” she said softly, pushing me back on the pillow, snuggling against me. “Mickey, can I tell you something?”

     “Of course.”

     Her lips formed words but nothing came out. Then she blurted: “Listen, I think I'm in love with you! Don't wisecrack, I'm serious.”

     “I'm not wisecracking.”

     “I think I knew it last night. I almost went crazy worrying about you. I was scared I'd never see you again and I suddenly knew I'd go off my rocker if that happened. And just now, oh, Mickey, I never felt so... so... good. For the first time I know what a man and a woman can be to each other. You must think I'm nuts, but it's the truth. I've told you I've been with a lot of men. But... what I'm trying to tell you is, up to last night—just now—you were only another guy to me. Kinder than most I'd known but... I hated all men. Sex didn't mean a thing to me but a way of getting something from a male slob. It had to be that way, Mickey, otherwise... well, if each guy had meant the smallest... I'd have gone crazy. I'm able to say this to you now because when you walked through the door a little while ago, I was excited as a teenager. Mickey, I've never known anything so wonderful!”

     She threw herself at me, giving me a strong hug. I held her tightly, not sure I believed all this. Sleeping with Rose had always been great—for me. But even if this was some kind of sales talk it didn't matter: I was happy to have Rose on any terms. I'd have been glad merely to have her picture on the wall. It was that way with me.

     She whispered, “Oh, Mickey, Mickey, I do love you! I'll love you always and only you. Darling, I—I want to do something for you. Take all the money, hold it for us. It's yours, every dollar!”

     “I like the set-up the way it is,” I said cautiously. She'd never offered me the dough before.

     “Don't you get it, Mickey, I want to do something... important for you. Anything you want. Do you want a child? I'll make a baby for you.”

     “No, I don't want a kid.” I kissed her cheek.

     “You must let me do something for you! Let me be as good to you as you've been to me.”

     “Okay, Rose, there is... one thing.” My fingers played with her ear.

     “Honey!” She went over my face with hot little kisses.

     “Rose, tell me what you're running from.”

     It was a sickening thing—to feel her body turning stiff and cold, the way she recoiled from me as if I'd become a snake—and I was sorry I'd popped the question. From the other end of the bed she asked harshly, “Goddamn you, why did you have to spoil it?”

     “I'm not spoiling anything. You're the one who wants to make our dream world a real one. Look, Rose, I'm willing to let things be as before but if you want to make it real... it has to be down the line. You have to trust me all the way. I have to know what you did.”

     “What I did? You miserable bastard, what makes you think I did anything? I didn't do a damn thing!”

     She started to jump out of bed. I yanked her back. For a moment we wrestled but that was my racket and she didn't have a chance. Pinning her to the bed, one leg across her belly, I told her, “It's not mere curiosity on my part to know the full score—it will help me protect you. You're a stand-out chick. Everyone in these islands will remember you. For all I know, we ought to clear out of the islands. In Port-au-Prince I ran upon an old buddy. That can happen again. I have to know how much to tell him, or whether I should have ducked him. There's also...”

     “What did you tell him?” She was breathing hard into my face, fear back in her voice.

     “A pack of lies. You don't have to worry about Hal, he...”

     “How the hell do you know what I have to worry about!”

     “That's it, exactly. I want to know—for your own good.”

     “Damn it, why did you have to tell him anything?”

     “Because I couldn't duck him and he saw me on the Sea Princess. Boats like ours don't come in crackerjack boxes—I slipped him a crook of bull about being a yacht captain for some rich cluck. Don't you see, if I'm going to lie—and I don't mind doing it, or anything else for us—I at least have to know what I'm lying around. There's this other thing: I like it okay here on Ansel's island. You do too—at times. But if I knew the score... well, there might be other places for us. Maybe, well... might even live it up in a big city for a few weeks or...”

     “No!”

     “Why must you alone decide this for us? If the cops get you they'll throw the book at me, too!”

     “I haven't done anything wrong.”

     “Then why the big fear, being on the run? Rose, wanting you as I do, I wouldn't do anything to... to spoil what we have. But I have to know.” Kissing her, I rolled to the center of the bed.

     She stood up and walked around the room. Then she stood at the side of the bed, a calendar girl staring down at me with hard eyes. She was shaking a little.

     There was a long silence. Closing my eyes I said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I bought everything on the list. Soon as I rest we'll unload the boat. The new records you wanted, the newspapers and magazines. I spent $419.67. The change is in my wallet. I even have some ice cream for you...”

     She reached down and slapped my face. I caught her hand. She said, “Stop talking like you're a hired hand.”

     I pulled her down on top of me. “Isn't that all you trust me to do?”

     The tears came again and she was all over me, soft and warm and big, kissing and hugging me, moaning my name. “Mickey, it terrifies me to even talk about it.”

     “Honey, there's only you and me here—no dream-busters. We talk and see what it adds up to. I have to know—if you want it the way you said.”

     For a few seconds she seemed limp, almost lifeless. I felt her take a deep breath and then she sat up as she said, “Okay, I guess I knew I'd have to tell you some time. As you said, I have to trust you all the way. Get me a cigarette, please, and I'll tell you... all of it.”

V

     “I was down on my luck in Philly. Way down and a couple hundred bucks in debt. Finally I landed a strip in a two-bit night club. Some club. It was really a crummy bar with a few tables and a junkie piano player who'd been lost in orbit before they invented satellites. It was the kind of dump where I had to use the owner's office for my dressing room. At the end of the first week he paid me off with a rubber check so we worked out a deal where I would strip only on weekends and work as a barmaid the rest of the time—with a cash pay-off every night. Along with the tips I was doing kind of fair, averaging about a hundred a week. I planned on holding down the bar for a few months, until I got straight with my debts. It was a break for the owner; business picked up. Most of the customers had seen me strip and told their friends. Somehow they got a bang having me serve them drinks. You know how it was, the joint full of whispered snickers and X-ray eyes all the time.

     “Well, the owner had me wearing a low-cut dress, one of those bare shoulder deals that made the lads jump when I bent over to put their drinks down. Only the bar was in line with the door and about ten days later I caught a cold, soon I was in bed with a fever. Then I heard the owner had lost his cabaret license because entertainers aren't supposed to work in the joint, too. So I was back to being out of work again, only this time I was sick enough to die and stuck in a flea-bag hotel. Josef came up to see me, the only person who gave a damn. He took care of me, sent up a doc, and...”

     “Who's Joseph?”

     “Josef, not Joseph. Josef Fedor. He was a guy about forty-five or fifty who...”

     “Was?”

     Rose gave me an annoyed look. “Yes—was. He was a stocky, kind of squat man, a quiet fellow with a large head and weird bushy grey hair that stood straight up. One of his eyes looked odd—later I learned it had been shot out and he was wearing a glass one. He was a foreigner who spoke with a thick accent and hung around the bar every night, sipping wine, watching the other regulars as though it was all a show. He chain-smoked cigarettes in a little gold holder. He wore a European suit and overcoat, with belts in the back, and heavy shoes. Never did more than nod at me, or slip me a buck tip at the end of the night, that's why I was surprised when he came to see me. But then, he was full of surprises. One night he sat at the piano and played like he was on the concert stage. When one of the bar-lushes yelled for jazz, he played a real hot piano, too. Yet no matter how often he was coaxed he'd never play again—at the bar.

     “He was a mixture of charm, manners, and toughness. Like one night in the bar a clown made cracks about foreigners getting all the jobs here. You know how any sort of stuff can build up in a gin mill. It started as a joke but the clown began getting nasty and then Josef knocked him flat with a terrible punch. Okay, most guys would have left it at that. But Josef gets this funny look in his good eye. He picked a beer bottle off the bar, broke it, and damn near stabbed the unconscious guy in the guts. The bouncer got to Josef first. The bouncer was an ex-pug, bigger than you, and at least a foot taller than Josef. He clipped Josef on the chin and Josef used Judo or something, threw him clear across the room. Then he stood in the center of the joint, muttering something nobody could understand—the broken bottle still in his right hand as if challenging the whole crowd. A cop came in with his gun out. Cool as ice, Josef walked over and shoved the broken bottle over the barrel of the cop's pistol. Then he stood there, waiting, this crazy smile on his big face. When the cop yelled for him to get his hands up, Josef took his time, even gave the cop a mock bow, and let the policeman frisk him. He was packing a gun on his hip, too, a very small automatic. More cops came and they took him away, but within the hour Josef was back at his usual place at the bar, drinking his wine as if nothing had happened. He was one tough little son of a...”

     “This Josef your husband?”

     “Aha. I told you he had this kind of charm about him, like bothering to see me when he heard I was sick. And he was generous, took care of my bills. When I was well, I moved into his room—in another cheap hotel. A week later he woke up one afternoon, said he was headed for Chicago, did I want to go? It always took me a while to understand his broken English, but I said yes damn fast. I hardly had any choice. Then he gave me a speech with a smile, a line about conventions and moral hypocrisy in America, and ended with saying if I wanted to marry him, he would do it. I told you, he was a surprise bag. I couldn't see what I had to lose and we were married. Although I always had the feeling nothing mattered a heavy damn to him, and he probably had wives all over the world.

     “We found a small furnished apartment in Chicago and I saw another side of Josef, he was a master with wood. He made a complete dinette set for us, as good as anything in a store. Or while he'd be listening to the radio—we never had a TV set—he'd start whittling on some old hunk of wood and soon have a chain, or perhaps a figure of a...”

     “What did he do for pork chops?” I cut in.

     Rose shrugged. “He didn't work. He'd sit around all day and read these foreign papers, and my Lord, he could speak enough languages, but not English. He used to have a lot of dizzy pet names for me. 'Mila,' and 'liebling.' I never knew what they meant. Josef wasn't a big spender but seemed to have ready money. I never saw him go to a bank or receive any mail; he carried his green in a money belt. I don't know where he got it.”