They groped their way to a plastic table and sat facing the swaying shadows at the bar. It seemed to Marge that their laughter was oddly cadenced, slow in the throat. Quaalude laughter.
Marge and Hicks waited a long time for the sight of Eddie Peace. They drank round after round of ice-cold beer and, after their eyes had adjusted to the light, they exchanged indifferent glances with the other patrons. The other patrons were youthful in manner and imaginatively dressed. After an hour had passed Marge went to her bag and fingered the plastic pill bottle there, but Hicks placed his hand over hers, warning her not to produce it. She managed to remove a Percodan and swallow it guiltily. At the end of a second hour, Hicks looked at his watch and said that if there was no Eddie within the next half hour they would drive back up to the canyon and come back after eleven.
Marge was tired and drunk — even with the Percodan she felt as though she might be catching cold. When Eddie Peace emerged from the darkness a few minutes later, she was genuinely glad to see him.
He came in like Escamillo, saluted by a chorus. People raised their glasses. There was a blond woman with him who wore heavy eye makeup and a dress made of leather.
Eddie was introducing her around.
Hicks waited for a few minutes, then walked over and seized Eddie by the forearm. Eddie waved him off. Hicks shrugged and came back to the table to finish off the going beer.
“Let him do his number.”
When the introductions and the double takes were done, Eddie whispered in the blond woman’s ear and sauntered over to their table.
“What’s happening?”
Hicks pulled a chair from the next table for Eddie to sit on.
“I got something for you if you want”
Eddie seated himself and called to the waitress for tomato juice and beer.
“How’d you know I was in Gardena?”
“Well,” Hicks said, “we saw Lois.”
“You saw Lois. What was that like?”
“She was kinda uptight. She told us to get lost.”
Eddie looked pained.
“A dumb cunt. What you want to tell me?”
“I want to move some skezag. I can sell you a key for twenty. I’ll give you a rate for three.”
Eddie looked about the room as though he were looking for someone. He thrust two fingers under the turtle neck of his polo shirt in the manner of one suffering from the heat. “You know what I mean?”
“I don’t foresee any trouble,” Hicks said.
Eddie seemed reluctant to look at him.
“I gotta tell you this comes as a surprise to me, fella. It’s not what I would expect from you personally.”
“There’s a different attitude about scag today,” Hicks said. “With the situation over there, anyone who travels can run it.”
“That’s the fuckin’ war for you,” Eddie said. “It’s stupid.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. But there it is.”
Eddie was shaking his head in stern disapproval.
“I’m not an expert,” he said to Hicks. “Is that a good price?”
“My dear fucking man,” Hicks said, “you better believe it.”
Eddie drank thoughtfully for a while.
“Terry and the Pirates,” he said. He was looking at Marge. “I bet you lead an interesting life.” She shrugged and tried to smile. “The big dealer and the woman of mystery,” he said, looking her in the eye. “I love it.”
Hicks leaned forward to engage Eddie’s attention.
“I think we’ve both had enough of consorting with hoodlums, right? That’s why I’m talking to you. Ideally, I’d like to approach a select circle of responsible people.”
Eddie turned to him smiling.
“You’d like to sell scag to the film industry? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Man,” Hicks said, “I don’t even go to the movies. But I’m thinking, like, if there was a dude who had a personal clientele — then this would be perfect for him. Cheap — no risk — no hoodlums. It moves like coke — among friends.”
“Attractive in theory,” Eddie said.
“This is not a theory, Eddie.”
Eddie was watching Marge in a way which made her particularly uncomfortable.
“She’s stoned,” he said to Hicks, “your Marge.”
“This is not a theory, Eddie. It’s pure shit, man, it can be cut to infinity.”
Eddie seemed to glow with some inward laughter.
“What’s life without a dream, hah Raymond?”
Hicks did not smile back. “Raymond is a dreamer, isn’t he, Marge?”
“That’s a side of him I’ve never seen,” Marge said.
Eddie was delighted.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. He leaned over to inspect her more thoroughly. “You’re a schoolteacher, aren’t you? You give head?”
Marge stared at him blankly. She had never heard the expression “give head” before.
“Schoolteachers give head,” Eddie declared. “That’s what they say.” Hicks had moved his body back from the table. He sat upright with his hands folded.
“Isn’t that changing the subject a little?”
“I’m thinking,” Eddie said. “Lemme think.” His happy eyes wandered about the room and settled on the blonde who had come in with him. She was in conversation with a gray-haired man in a paisley suit. Eddie nudged Hicks.
“What do you think of that, Raymond? Cute?”
Hicks shook his head impatiently.
“Does she give head?” Marge asked. She thought it an interesting turn of phrase.
“Not for you, she don’t,” Eddie said. He nudged Hicks again. “Her husband is a spastic. I’m not shitting you, he really is. He talks like duh duh duh. But you can’t laugh, right?”
Hicks finished a beer and looked into his glass. Eddie watched the spastic’s wife.
“So you got all this skezag under your mattress. Doesn’t it make your heart go pitter-pat?”
“Not in the least,” Hicks said.
“So. You’re experienced now?”
“I’m just doing what everybody else is doing.”
“Yeah but, Jesus, Ray,” Eddie said in an earnest voice. “Here in the big town with all that shit. I’d be scared, man.”
Watching Eddie, Marge began to think that she had seen him before. She thought it might have been at the Ulrich Studios in New York when she had studied there. He would have been fifteen years younger then — a young John Garfield. It seemed to her that she could remember him doing Streetcar for Ulrich.
She decided not to ask him about it.
“I can’t waste time worrying, can I?” Hicks said.
“What I wonder, Raymond, is where you got it.”
“I got it overseas. It’s practically legal over there.”
Eddie nodded and looked away again.
“I could tell you stories about that bitch,” he said. He gestured toward the spastic’s wife. “Things are getting so fucked up I don’t believe it. Wild?” He raised his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe half the shit that goes down in this town. It’s a new world, man. I wish I was ten years younger.”
“Tell me something, Eddie,” Hicks said. “Am I making a mistake talking to you? Am I doing the wrong thing?”
Eddie shrugged.
“Am I God, Ray? How would I know?”
They sat in silence. “2001” came on the jukebox.
“These fuckin’ people make me sick,” Eddie said. “The Spock generation. Everything’s a tit. I wannit, I wannit.” He smiled at Marge and turned toward the people in the bar. “I sit still for every creep in town. Everybody’s daddy — do me this, Eddie — do me that, Eddie. I could puke sometimes.” He suddenly thrust a finger in Hicks’ chest. Hicks looked down at it. “Even you, man. I’m sit ting on all this shit, Eddie — please lay it off for me.”
“If you want a piece, indicate by saying yes. If not, say no.”