“You son of a bitch,” he said.
“I’m not finished. I’m also supposed to tell you that the auto theft people don’t want to work with you any more. And that you may have a certain amount of trouble getting picked in the dock shape-up. People may tend to overlook you. You think I’m bluffing, don’t you? Mr. Haig’s friend didn’t want his name mentioned, but there was another name he told me to mention to you.”
I did so, and I never thought four syllables could have such an effect. He did everything but die on the spot.
I said, “I think you should go away now.”
He went away.
So did the rest of them, ultimately. They had questions, most of them, and Haig answered them. He got into a long psychoanalytical rap with Andrea Sugar, who turned out to be very knowledgeable on Jungian psychology.
Madam Juana took him aside and told him something, and kissed his cheek, and Haig went beet-red. He had never done this before in my presence. I can’t swear to what she said to him, but I can make a guess based on my instincts and my experience, because before his blush had a chance to fade she came over to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and whispered in my ear, and what she whispered was, “You a wonnerful boy and you get the bom who kill my Maria, and anytime you wanna girl you come down and I give you best inna house, no charge, anytime you wanna fock.”
Eventually Kim was the only one left. I took her upstairs and showed her the fish. She was very interested. She was also still a little nervous, so I waved at Haig and took her back to her apartment.
“I never thought you were violent, Chip. I thought of you as, you know, gentle and sensitive and aware.”
Like the actor who turned out to be a faggot, I thought.
“And Gordie is so big and strong—”
“Well, Wong Fat showed me how to do a few things. I’m basically a very non-violent person. The only time I ever had to hit anybody was when I was a deputy sheriff in South Carolina.”
“A what?”
“It was an honorary position, basically. What it came down to was that I was a bouncer in a, well, in a whorehouse, if you want to know. Sometimes guys would get drunk and pull knives, and I would have to hit ’em upside the head with this club they gave me.”
“Upside the head?”
“The local expression.”
“You really didn’t go to college, did you?”
“I told you. I had to drop out of high school. My parents were sort of high-class con men, although I didn’t know it at the time, and they got caught, and they killed themselves, and Upper Valley threw me out a few months before graduation. They were all heart.”
She looked at me with those wide eyes. “You’ve really lived,” she said.
“Well, I tend to keep moving.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you before, Chip.”
So that’s about it. Ferdinand Bell is wearing a strait-jacket, and will spend what’s left of his life in a cell with spongy walls. This infuriates Haig, who would like to see the return of public hanging. We still haven’t spawned the African gouramis, but John LiCastro finally got the results he wanted, and has a whole twenty-nine-gallon tank full of baby discus fish. Haig went over to see them the other day and says they’re doing fine, and that you would have thought LiCastro had fathered them himself, the way he was carrying on.
Gordie McLeod hasn’t been heard from. He never turned up to take his stuff out of Kim’s apartment, and a couple of days ago I got all his things together and tucked them neatly into the incinerator. Kim said that wasn’t very nice, and I said it was too bad.
I ran into Andrea Sugar at the funeral for the Vandivers. She volunteered to teach Kim the art of massage. I sort of sidestepped that one. It was probably just a nice gesture on her part, but she may have had an ulterior motive. I have nothing against lesbians, but I wouldn’t want my girl to marry one.
What else? Addison Shivers called the other day. He sent a check around, and Haig returned it, and the old gentleman was displeased.
“I have not earned it, sir,” Haig told him. “You hired me to look out for the interests of the late Cyrus Trelawney. I exerted myself enough to justify retaining the advances I received from yourself and Mrs. Vandiver, but I cannot say that I did much for Cyrus Trelawney, certainly not enough to warrant my accepting additional payment.”
They talked some more, and an hour later the check arrived again. A messenger brought it and he tried to deliver it downstairs, which confused the girls. No one had ever tried to pay by check before. This particular check was for five thousand dollars, and it was no longer payment for work performed. Instead it was an advance against work to be performed. Because Haig had been rehired to look out for the interests of Cyrus Trelawney. Specifically, he’s going to prove that Ferdinand Bell’s mother was nutty as a Mars bar, and the killer wasn’t Trelawney’s son in the first place.
Which means I’ll be making a trip to Lyons Falls before very long. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, if you want to know. The heat wave just broke and New York is not a bad place to be.
Haig has been driving me crazy lately. He keeps handing me furniture catalogues and asking me to pick out the kind of bed I like best. He won’t give up, he’s as single-minded as Cato on the subject of Carthage. So far I’ve been stubborn and have gone on paying the rent on my furnished room.
Which is probably silly. I’ve been spending most of my nights on Bethune Street lately, anyway.