“Rose, why’d you call me to come — ”
He stopped, and the growl that came out of him was half-human. I tried to get free of Rose, but she had her damned legs twined around me, and I was stuck! The Tiger came at us, and grabbed my collar and ripped me off the sofa. I was twice as big as him, but I’d never met anyone who wanted to kill more than him.
He caught me one straight in the right cheek and I sailed back against the wall. I slid down the wall and just sat there for a minute, too stupid to do anything.
He went after her, then, and picked her right up by the neck. I saw what she’d wanted to do; to break us up. If she could split us, she could move in on me and get an in at the Union. But it hadn’t worked that way. The Tiger had picked up his guts somewhere, and now he was kill-mad.
He had her by the throat, and he was banging her auburn head against the wall, while her tongue came out of the side of her mouth … she was dying.
“Tiger!” I yelled, and got up from my Little Jack Horner corner.
I grabbed him and pried his thumbs off her jugular. Then I spun him around and took him out with one solid bolo to the mouth. He collapsed against me and I let him slide down my body.
Rose was able to move around by now, and she was dragging herself to the kitchenette. I was too stunned by the arm Derry had laid on me, too knocked out by the events of the past few minutes to know what she was doing.
But when she stood over him with that butcher knife in her goddam hand, I knew what she was thinking, what she wanted to do. The girl was off her nut; she wanted to make it so bad, she didn’t care who got drug in the process.
“Kill him!” she said, and pushed the knife into my hand. I stood looking at him for a moment, at the kid who reminded me of my dead brother Pete, and the talent he had all boiling in those hands, and the way this woman would stop nowhere to get what she wanted, and she said, “Go ahead, you big bastard! Go ahead, for us!” and she jammed her hot body against me, so I used the knife.
It’s all in having coolth, the way I see it. There are some people who got to get somewhere, even if they don’t know where that somewhere is. And there’s others who aren’t meant to get at all. Those are the kind that brodie when the gaff gets too thick. You dig?
I mean, some people are just meant to take a blade in their gut, and others are meant to take the blame. So that something worthwhile can go on.
The Tiger’s playing at Basin Street this week, you said? See what I mean … he’s got it. He’s got the talent, and that’s more important than one flak-man named Brenan.
That’s Brenan with one “n” in the middle.
The warden gave me a record player and a couple of the Tiger’s sides with Trane as a last request, you know. I thought that was kind of sweet of the old guy. He and I had quite a few gab sessions about Bix and the old days.
He’s a good joe.
I don’t think I dig this haircut, though. I never liked a baldie — even if it’s just in one circle on the back of my head. And look what that razor did to my Continentals. These slits’ll never catch on, man.
That’s Brenan with one “n” in the middle.
I guess I’m just a flak-man at heart. Any publicity is good publicity, like they say.
So stay cool, man, I gotta split.
I got a date. A hot date.