I was wearing a tailor-made suit. I’d laid down two hundred skins for it. My pinky-badge was white and clear even if I’d got it at a hock shop. It was a big party, all right, and all the big wheels were there, and Manny Cole was one of them. They were afraid of me, and they respected me. Even Julie. Julie maybe respected me more than all the rest.
The usual punks were there, too, eager, falling all over Mr Williams, waiting for the big kill, the one that would put them up there on top of the heap. Mr Williams introduced me to a young squirt named Davis, Georgia Davis or something. He said the kid was worth watching, that he’d done nicely on a few gigs so far. I watched the kid, and a few times I caught him watching me back, and there was a hungry, glittering look in his eyes.
I didn’t get home until five in the morning. The dawn was creeping over the edge of the night in a grey, lazy way.
I stood in the kitchen in the quiet apartment. I had the money to move out of there now, but I hadn’t made the break yet. I pulled back the curtain, and I looked down over the rooftops, the way I used to long ago when Betty would come up to see me, when we were both a little younger-when Betty was alive.
It got chilly in the apartment. The chill reached through my skin and settled in my bones. I tossed the curtain aside and walked over to the phone, flipping open the pad. I’d written the number down when it was an important number to know, when I’d been a punk like Georgie Davis and when this number belonged to a guy on the top.
‘Hello?’ The voice was tired, not a big shot’s voice.
‘Hello, Turk,’ I said. ‘This is Manny Cole.’
‘Oh, hello, Mr Cole, how are you? What can I do for you?’
I smiled a little. ‘Turk, bring a girl over. I feel lonely, Turk.’
‘A girl?’ Turk said. ‘Why sure, Mr Cole. Any particular kind?’
Mister Cole again. The smile got bigger on my face. ‘Use your own judgment, Turk. You know what I like.’
‘Sure, Mr Cole. Right away.’
‘Incidentally, Turk...’ I heard the click on the other end of the line, and I knew he’d hung up. I really didn’t have anything more to tell him, but I had felt like talking a little more. Slowly, I put the phone back into the waiting cradle.
The apartment was quiet, very quiet. I walked into the bedroom and stood before the dresser, looking down at the framed picture of Betty. I looked at it for a long time.
Then I went to the phone and sat down near it, wondering who I could call, wondering who I could talk to. I lit a cigarette, studied the burning end.
I knew who I wanted to talk to.
I put her out of my mind. I thought of other things. I thought of Georgie Davis, the young punk who’d eyed me at the party. And I thought of all the other punks who’d stare at me with the bright gleam in their eyes and the hungry look on their faces. The young punks eager for a kill, eager for a lot of things.
I thought about them for a long time.
When the doorbell rang, I knew it was the girl.
I knew it couldn’t have been anyone else, but it took me a long time to open that door. And when I did open it, I had one hand on the slippery .45 in my pocket, and I was sweating. I wasn’t scared, but I was sweating.
I was sweating because I knew I’d have to open a lot of doors in the days and nights to come-
And one of them would not open on a smiling girl.