He had a hundred and thirteen dollars. I put it in my pocket. “All I got!” he shrieked. “ž’S all I got!”
“Ninety-one dollars more, Nestor. Halfway there. Where’s the petty cash?”
He jerked open a desk drawer and threw a small lock-box on the desk. He pulled out a small key, unlocked it with trembling fingers, and thrust the box toward me. It skidded off the desk and spilled onto the floor.
“Pick it up,” I told him.
He got down on his hands and knees and began scooping the money up and flinging it on the desk and chair, cursing me all the while in Spanish and English and maybe a few other languages. He was terrified of me, but he couldn’t seem to stop cursing me. I knew how he felt. I let go of the chain and it slithered to the floor and landed with a clunk. I didn’t see any singles on the desk, so I picked up four twenties and three fives and put them in my pocket. “Okay,” I said. “Now we’re quits.”
He just sat there in a scatter of money, holding his throat and weeping. I’d expected a bald spot under the hat, but he had a nice head of hair. I set his hat back on his head. “See you, Nestor,” I said.
He didn’t look at me as I left. He was busy weeping. I’m not sure he knew I’d been there anymore. I’m not sure he remembered what had hurt him.
3
Reece
Back then I lived at the Harmon Court Motel, out on Harmon, near Paige. The place was right behind the Sun-Glo billboard, which was something of a local landmark. The Sun-Glo Girl was seventy-five feet long and lay around all day on an elbow and a hip. Her job was to lie there, smiling and brushing back her hair. From the front she was an awfully healthy-looking girl, but from my window all you could see was the plywood back of her, propped up by iron struts. It was still a pretty healthy profile. The Court was usually half-empty, but it didn’t cost much to keep open, and I guess tearing the place down was more work than somebody was in the mood to do. My room was the last one past the pool. It was one of two deluxe rooms that had a kitchenette in the corner, and I got a percentage off my rent in exchange for handyman work. That was the theory, anyway.
When I got home from Nestor’s office, I sorted the money out on the dresser: twenties, tens, fives, and ones. Two hundred and eight dollars. I added the money Rebecca had given me and counted again. It made a decent little pile. It wouldn’t last, because I was behind seven weeks’ rent and two payments on my car, but it still felt nice between my fingers. It’s always good to get your pay. There was a mirror over the dresser, and I watched myself tuck the bills neatly in my wallet, and then I stood and looked at myself. I looked like the kind of guy who strangles contractors. I pulled off my clothes, turned the shower up as hot as I could bear, and stood under it awhile. I toweled off and had a drink from the bottle in the desk. I looked in the mirror again. Better. I put on some pants. Better all the time.
Aside from my clothes and groceries, the only things in that room I owned were the typewriter on the desk and a trunk where I kept my books. I didn’t keep the books out on shelves because I didn’t have any shelves, and because if girls saw them they wanted to talk about the pug who reads and wasn’t that wonderful.
I only buy books by people I wish I wrote like. I had some Hawthorne, some Irwin Shaw, and some John Dos Passos. I had some Hemingway, but he tires me, and if we knew each other we’d have to fight. I had some Flannery O’Connor, but she makes me want to put my head in the oven. I had some Chekhov. I don’t care about who’s a Russky. If Chekhov’s a Commie, then I wish I was one, too. But let me tell you, when it comes to writing about war, give me Stephen Crane. You can have Tolstoy. You can keep him. The son of a bitch never crossed out a sentence in his life.
I bought the typewriter with my mustering-out pay. My drafts and carbons I kept in the bottom left drawer. One drawer was enough, because I didn’t let them pile up. Every six months or so, I’d go through and read two or three pages at random of everything in the drawer, and if I didn’t see anything I liked, I’d chuck them. At any given time there’d be two or three screenplays, half a dozen treatments, and one or two short stories or pieces of stories. I threw most of it away, but I did keep a log with the names of everything I’d written and who I’d sent it to, so if I ever wanted to I could see what I’d been doing for the last nine years.
I had another drink, put on a sport shirt and loafers, and went to see Mattie Reece.
Reece’s office was a Quonset hut just inside the Republic studio gates. I found him where I always did, sitting behind a pair of big feet, a burning cigarette, and a pair of sharp black eyebrows. A rickety little man in a rumpled suit. He never seemed to take his feet off his desk, but somehow everything at Republic always ran smooth and tight. He could have left Poverty Row for a big job at the majors, but then he might’ve had to take his feet off the desk. “’Lo, Mattie,” I said.
“Hello, Ray. Come in and take a load off.”
“Thanks,” I said, sitting down.
“Getting a little gut there, soldier.”
I shook my head.
“I can see it from here,” he said.
I shook my head again. “I’ve had that gut for years. I don’t blame you for trying to ignore it.”
“Shame on you, getting out of shape like that. What if you wanted to get back in the ring?”
“I had it when I was fighting. My dance card was still pretty full. Who’s this lulu you wished on me?”
“Isn’t she a specimen?” he said. “I give you a week to get in. One week, you son of a bitch, if you haven’t already. Tell me, how does an ugly bastard like you get in all the time?”
“A friendly smile and a firm handshake. What do you think of her?”
He opened his eyes wide. “Can you imagine posture like that on such a flimsy little thing? It’s like she borrowed ’em off a fat girl.” He gave a little shiver. “She wrecks me.”
“Anything else?”
“Why would there be anything else?”
“She says she’s being threatened.”
“Ah, no,” he said, concerned. “You’re not coming here to ask me about her story, are you? The mysterious man who’s gonna do mysterious bad things?”
“Sure. She’s hired me to help her.”
“You simple son of a bitch. I didn’t give her to you to work for. I gave her to you to boff. I couldn’t even get a glove on it, and, you know, I didn’t want her going to waste.”
“I already took her money.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure that’ll be a novel experience for her.”
“Any idea who the guy is?”
“The guy.” He waved away a smell. “What makes you think there’s a guy? Outside of her shaggy little head? Listen, Ray, I’m serious. You only know the girls you poke. I know every girl who ever tried to work in this town, and I’m telling you, this one’s nuts. Strictly wigsville. You don’t want to hop her, don’t hop her, but whatever you do, don’t become part of her plans.”
“I already took her money. Who’s she been hanging around with? I assume she’ll simmer down and tell me, but I’d like to hear it from you.”
“She don’t hang, that I know of. It looks like she gave up the starlet bit a while back. I’ll give her that, she’s smart enough to give up. Since then she works in stores and so forth, you know, little pretty-girl jobs. I hear she might have posed for some, ah, pictures. As for guys, she’s been seen around with Lance Halliday.”
“Jesus, the names out here. Who’s he?”
“An ‘independent producer.’ Isn’t that nice? He’s a little hood who makes stag movies. Maybe that’s what he wanted with your nut job, he heard she’d done nudie stuff. He came out here to be the new Hot Diggity, and it wasn’t such a crazy idea, because he’s got the face, the voice, he even moves nice, but he’s one of those you get where, under the lights... ” Mattie slowly raised his hands, wiggling his fingers. “It all fizzles away. Like ice on a radiator. He’s a big blonde dreamboat and he’s always got a ring on every finger. You know, the debonair Lance Halliday was in attendance, wearing his trademark rings. I guess he played around with your nut job a little, like he does with a lot of ’em, but I can’t see him getting obsessed. He’s too queer for himself. But no, yeah, if she bounced him hard enough I guess he could turn nasty. He’s a very vain guy with not a lot to be vain about, and you don’t want to kid some of those too hard.”