She slapped his face with her free hand. It wasn’t a dainty, feminine slap. It was a hefty, infuriated wallop, with tempered muscles behind it, and a lot of solid young weight. He grunted, more with surprise than hurt, and released her wrist.
She sat erect and glared up into his scowling face. “You listen to me, Ralphie Boy. Any big talk of killin’, just don’t forget a conch shell’ll slide into your belly just as easy as mine. Aw, let’s cut it out,” she broke out crossly. “We’re a team, Ralph, you and me. If Freddie don’t come across with a wad of money right quick, sure I’ll quit him. Why not? But you ain’t got no cause to be jealous. If you ain’t gettin’ enough…”
“How big a wad?” demanded Ralph sullenly, settling back into his chair.
“Big enough so we can make that trip to New York or wherever, and make it right. So’s they’ll sit up and take notice when we hit town. Anyhow,” she ended dispiritedly, “he ain’t been around for a couple of nights. Not since those two men was looking for him. I reckon maybe they found him, so what’re you gripin’ about?”
“Yeh… well…”
“Miss Piney.”
Ralph’s mouth fell open when he heard the words precisely spoken just behind him. He twisted his chair around slowly as Sloe Burn exclaimed delightedly, “Freddie. We was just talking about you. Ralph an’ me. Ralph Billiter. My dancin’ partner. I don’t know you met him or not.”
Steven Shephard said, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” He smiled thinly and held out his hand. Ralph got up and mumbled something and took the other’s fingers and dropped them quickly and shambled away to the rear of the stage.
Shephard looked after him admiringly. “Really a magnificent specimen.” He staggered only slightly as he turned Ralph’s chair back and sat in it. “I’ve meant to ask you, Miss Piney.” He fingered his mustache nervously. “Watching you two dance together… uh… makes me wonder.”
“He’s just a boy I’ve knew from down on the Keys when we was both kids,” she told him with a toss of her head. “I been worried about you, Freddie. When you didn’t come back a-tall after them two men was in lookin’ for you, I got scared they maybe found you.”
He blinked near-sighted eyes at her. “What two men, Miss Piney?”
“Right after you was here last time. They scared me. Real tough an’ asking all sortsa questions. But they didn’t get no change outta me, Freddie.”
“Two men?” He compressed his lips tightly. “Yes, I’ve… I’ve been thinking… could we have a drink, Miss Piney?”
“Why not? You got the money to pay, aintcha?” She turned and snapped her fingers and a waiter materialized from out of the semi-darkness. “Bourbon on the rocks for me. Scotch an’ water for my friend,” she ordered.
“Yes, I… have money to pay.” Steven Shephard smiled happily as he got out his wallet. He carelessly took out a twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the table between them. It had been less than two hours since his last drink and he was floating nicely, but he felt he needed reinforcements for what he was about to say. He seized his glass when it came and took two gulps of the liquid which was even weaker than the drinks he made for himself in the motel.
He said, “We did talk about going away together. To some distant place. Perhaps you doubted my sincerity, Miss Piney. I beg you not to. I… uh… will you go away with me?”
“That takes money,” Sloe Burn told him coldly. “Lots of money, Freddie.”
“I have lots of money.” He stated the fact flatly and precisely. “More than you ever saw or dreamed of seeing. And if there are men in Miami looking for me…”
“Gee, oh, God, Freddie!” She was looking past him into the hazy dimness. “Talk about the devil! There they come now. To this table. You gotta get out quick.”
She kicked back her chair and flashed around to his side and caught his arm and tugged him desperately upward. “You come with me.”
With her arm around his waist, she half-pulled and half-carried him past the end of the platform where the stripper was at long last getting down to bare skin, and into the wings where Ralph was standing in a position where he’d been able to watch their table.
“Take him out back an’ help him get away, Ralphie. I don’t know where he’s staying…”
“Pink Flamingo,” mumbled Shephard, dazed and frightened, and leaning on Ralph’s strong right arm.
“I’ll go back an’ string them guys along.” Sloe Burn paused to give Ralph a hard look. “Take care of Freddie, you hear. I got somethin’ real important to tell you.”
She whirled away from them and ran back onto the floor where the spotlight had just been turned off as two of the rosettes dropped from the stripper’s body.
She drew in a deep breath and slowed to a walk, thrusting her breasts out and stepping mincingly so her buttocks did a slow roll with each step.
There was no one at her table when she returned to it, and she seated herself composedly and gathered up the change the waiter had left from Freddie’s twenty. As soon as the spotlight came on again for the next number, she was pretty sure the mean-looking younger man and the sad-looking older one in the black suit would be sitting down with her to ask questions.
8
Back-stage, Ralph Billiter looked down contemptuously at the frightened man clinging to him and demanded, “Whatsa matter, huh? What’re you running from?”
“Two men… looking for me… I guess,” panted Shephard. “Miss Piney was telling me about them being here the other night, and then… they showed up just now. If you can show me how to get out the back way and around to my car in the parking lot…”
“Sure.” Ralph tucked Shephard’s arm in his and led him back to a wooden door opening out into the night behind the squat building. “What they want with you, you reckon?” he asked interestedly.
“They want my money,” Shephard chattered. “That’s what they’re after. But it’s my money.” He took a deep breath of the night air and sought to draw his arm away from Ralph’s. “I’m all right now, and I thank you. I’ve watched you dance with Miss Piney, and I’ve wanted to tell you how good I think the two of you are together. Please thank her for me and tell her that I will try to contact her later tonight. Assure her, if you will be so kind, that I really meant what I said tonight.”
Ralph Billiter kept his grip on Shephard’s arm and tightened his fingers bruisingly on the Midwesterner’s flesh. “I’ll walk you around to your car… be sure you get away all right. The Pink Flamingo, huh? Ain’t that just a piece down the road?”
“Yes. It’s a motel.” Shephard did not protest further as Ralph guided him along a path beside the building leading to the brightly lighted parking area. The young man’s muscular strength was reassuring, and Shephard clung to him thankfully.
“You got the money there?”
“What’s that?”
“All the money you been talkin’ about. That you been tellin’ Essie you’d give to her was she to go off with you.” There was a sudden throbbing note of anger in Ralph’s voice that penetrated the alcoholic haze surrounding Shephard, and at the corner of the building, just before they reached the lighted area, he paused again, uncertainly.
“I have the utmost respect for Miss Piney,” he said in a high-pitched, quavering voice.
“I know,” said Ralph brutally. “You been sleepin’ with her an’ you like it.” His big hand slid up Shephard’s arm to his shoulder and he shook the slighter man vigorously. “Where’s yore parkin’ ticket?”
“Right here.” His teeth chattered and his hand trembled as he got the numbered ticket from his pocket.
Ralph took it out of his hand and marched him forward into the floodlighted area. The attendant was returning to the canopied entrance from parking a car, and Ralph intercepted him with the ticket. “We’re leavin’. What kinda car you got?” he demanded of his companion.
“It’s a dark tan Chevrolet.”
The attendant looked at the number on the ticket and went away. Ralph pulled Shephard back against the building and they waited until the dark tan Chevrolet came around from the lot and pulled up in front of them. Ralph gave him a little shove around in front of the car, and Shephard circled it to get in the driver’s seat. As he settled himself behind the wheel, Ralph opened the other door and slid in beside him. “Drive on to yore motel,” he ordered between clenched teeth. “I gotta hankerin’ to see all this here money you been promisin’ Essie. She’s my woman, Mister, and don’t you forget it.”