When we got to the room, he had already set out drinks for us in a pair of tumblers. He’d sweet-talked the oil crew into selling him three bottles. He’d tapped into one of them on the drive back and it showed in the high shine of his eyes. The bottle was already down by a third. He tossed off his drink and smacked his lips, smiled at us and served himself another. I took a sip of mine and had to admit it seemed like pretty good hooch.
Belle hadn’t picked up her glass. Buck gestured at it and said, “It’s aged plenty enough, honey. Down the hatch.”
“I don’t guess I want any,” she said, rising from her chair. “I’m really awful tired. Think I’ll go on to bed.” She said goodnight to Buck and waggled her fingers at me and left.
He got up and went to the window and pushed the curtain aside to watch her go to her cabin.
“She’s probably still hungover from the mickey,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “If it was a mickey.”
“What do you mean if it was?”
He turned and arched his brow at me. “Just because she says she was Shanghaied into it don’t make it so. Most of them who do those movies do it because it pays good and because they like it.”
“What are you saying? She was doped, man. You smelled it on her breath, you said—like on that girl in New Orleans.”
“Yeah—and what I didn’t say was I’d smelled it even before that. In a Chink dope den in New York. Me and another doughboy went in to see what it was like and got looped just breathing the air in there. You can mix that stuff all kinds of ways. Makes a swell mickey in a drink, but they mostly smoke it in pipes with a little hose. They do it for the dreams, but a right dose’ll let you stay awake and keep you smiling at nothing all night. The stag movie guys like to have the girls take a puff to loosen them up, put a dreamy look on their face for the camera, but some like it too much—sucking the devil’s dick, they call it. Get too dopey to do anything but lay there like the dead.”
I watched him pour another, then light a cigarette and blow three perfect smoke rings. “You think her story’s bullshit?” I said.
“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe not. Or maybe everything she’s said is bullshit—all that stuff about her momma and daddy, everything. Maybe she was willing enough to fuck in front of a camera for the right price or a little encouragement from the pipe, or both. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for her to admit it, though. Only thing we know for sure is she got somebody damn mad at her.”
“Russell believes her,” I said.
“Hell he does. He’s like me—he just doesn’t give a shit if she’s lying. What difference does it make if she’s a good girl on the stray or some bullshitting little tramp? Who cares? Those tits are as nice either way, and those tits are why she’s here, right? You’ve had plenty of schoolgirl tail, Sonny, but this one’s a different breed, so don’t be a sap and think that she’s—”
There came a hard rapping on the door and then it swung open and Russell and Charlie came charging in with wide smiles, their faces flushed with their recent sporting.
“There it is!” Russell said, making a beeline for the booze. “Can we count on this man to come through or can we count on him to come through?” He poured drinks for him and Charlie.
Charlie was sorry to hear Belle had called it a night but said she didn’t blame her, all she’d been through the last couple of days. Russell toasted our arrival in this strange new world. He said he loved the dryness of the heat, so different from New Orleans, where you could drown in the humidity. Charlie said she felt smaller out here. “It’s that big old sky and hardly any trees,” she said. “I can’t get used to hardly any trees.”
We finished the bottle and started on another. Russell told a joke he’d heard from a filling station guy. Fella goes to the doctor for a checkup and the doctor tells him it’s bad news, he doesn’t have long to live. Fella says, “Oh my God, that’s terrible! How long do I have?” Doctor says, “Ten.” Fella says, “Ten what? Months? Weeks?” Doctor says, “Nine…eight…seven…”
Buck told one he’d heard from the oil rig guys. The queen of England was riding in her carriage with her guest the king of Belgium when one of the carriage horses lets go with a tremendous fart. The queen turns all red and says to the king, “Oh dear, I must apologize for that.” The king says, “Quite all right, your highness—actually, I had thought it was the horse.”
The bottle was down to its last couple of inches and Russell took it with him when he and Charlie said goodnight—a little hair of the dog for the morning, he said. Buck and I stood at the door and watched them go. Belle’s cabin window was dark.
We went back inside and Buck uncorked the last bottle and filled a tumbler to the brim. “That ought to hold you,” he said. Then gave me a wink. “Don’t bother to wait up.” He took the rest of the bottle and went out and shut the door behind him.
I sat on the bed and took off my shoes and stared at the floor for a time. I couldn’t clarify what I was feeling. I picked up the tumbler and took a swallow. And then another. Then got up and went to the curtain and pushed it aside. Her window curtain was dimly yellow. I stared at it till my eyes burned. Then the window went dark.
Of course she wouldn’t admit it if she’d done it willingly. So what? He was right. Who gave a rat’s ass if she lied or even what she lied about? What difference did it make to any of us? Those tits were terrific either way and that’s why we’d brought her along. Goddam right.
Then I pictured myself standing there and felt like a damned fool. I dropped the curtain and took another big gulp from the tumbler, striped to my underwear, turned off the light and got into bed. And the booze carried me right off.
It was still dark when I woke with a parched tongue and a throbbing head. I felt my way along the wall to the bathroom and switched on the light. With my mouth to the spigot I drank till my belly was bloated. I was about to snap off the light when I saw somebody on the floor by the door and for a moment thought Buck had come back and passed out before he could make it to his bed. And then I saw it was her.
She was sitting up and watching me, hugging her knees to her breasts, the skirt of her dress tucked between her legs. The way the shadows fell across her face her bad eye looked like a black patch.
“The light woke me,” she said. “For a minute I didn’t remember where I was and I couldn’t see it was you in there and I thought I was having a bad dream.”
“When’d you come in?”
“I don’t know. A while ago.”
“Buck?”
“The other cabin.” She sniffed and wiped at her nose. “I didn’t mean to come in without asking, but I didn’t want to wake you. I tried to sleep in the car but it’s got so cold out and I didn’t have a blanket or anything and…I’m sorry.”
“Why you on the floor? Why didn’t you get in the other bed?”
“I didn’t want to be using his bed if he came over here.”
I helped her up and sat her on the edge of my bed. I lit two cigarettes and handed her one. “So what happened?” I said.
She’d been awakened by his knocking on the door. He said to open up, it was cold out there. She thought we were getting ready to leave right away for some reason. She turned on the light and quickly got dressed, then unlocked the door. He came in and locked it again. When she saw his eyes she knew he was very drunk and knew what it was he wanted. She’d seen a lot of drunk men back in Corsicana and had learned to fear them all. She asked him please to go, but he said there wasn’t any need to play the innocent, not with him.