Big Ernie came in from the back with a tray of fresh-baked claws and began lining them up in the display case.
Moldenke breathed in the fragrant smell. “Give me another one, please, to go.”
Big Ernie backed his head and shoulders out of the case and stood his full height. “Welcome to Altobello, my friend. You’re a free man.”
“I can’t say it’s good to be here, but a person makes do. I suppose I’ll look for some kind of work, employment somewhere. Best way to pass the time I hear.”
“What’s the point of working if everything’s free? I got a passion for baking.”
“I used to have a passion for the labor movement back home, but what’s the use of that here? I do have a yen for these claws, though. They’re far better than the best you can get in Bunkerville.”
Big Ernie put a hammy hand on his hip and thought for a moment, then came to Moldenke’s table and whispered to him, “Look at that poor daughter of mine.” Moldenke glanced over at her. She was busy powdering her lumpy, misaligned cheeks. “A jellyhead did that, squirted her right in the face. No wonder she hates them. She wants a gun now. I tell her how hard they are to find. Can you do me a favor?”
“What’s the favor?”
“Poison that son of a bitch for me, the one that deformed her. He goes naked with a big swinging donniker and wears a snap-brim cap. You can’t miss him.”
“I’ve never killed one. I’ve seen them killed with a firearm. I don’t know about poisoning them. How would I do that?”
“Think of it like this: you won’t be killing him…I will. You’ll simply act as my agent. Here’s an example. If you were squirted with deformant, would you blame the deformant or the jellyhead that squirted you?”
“The jellyhead, that’s obvious.”
“You see my point?”
“In a way, I do.”
“The streetcars are running tomorrow. Catch the morning one to the Quarter, go to Smiley’s Meats. Get a couple of sausages and put them on my account. Then walk on to Goody’s Antique Hardware store for a tub of strong rat paste. Charge that, too. Take those sausages, split them open, and pack paste in there. I know that jellyhead loves sausages. There I was, coming back from Smiley’s one day and the filthy thing grabbed a bag of hot links right out of my hand and ran off. I could see him crouched behind a tree, eating them. So go to the Park and leave them by that old dead tree.”
“All right,” Moldenke said. “I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
“Bring me the ear valves. If you don’t have a knife, pinch them off with your fingernails.”
“Right, I will.” Moldenke’s tone was laden with doubt.
Big Ernie smiled broadly and winked. “Little Sorrel’ll owe you a favor…”
“All right. I’ll take care of it.”
Moldenke was on the afternoon car back to the west side feeling anxious. It wasn’t in his nature to kill anything, even a jellyhead. He decided to distract himself that evening after an order of mud fish at Saposcat’s by going to the Joytime Cinema, the only open one in the City, to see Misti Gaynor and Enfield Peters starring in Who Puked in the Sink?
Midway through the dull, slow paced film, Moldenke fell asleep. Just after its end, an usher awakened him. “Go home, fella. You’ve shit yourself.”
“I’m sorry. It’s something out of my control and it’s getting worse.” Moldenke yawned and stretched. “All right. But tell me, who puked in the sink?”
“It was the plongeur, the dishwasher. The wealthy partiers were leaving all those rich canapés on their plates and he’d been eating them. It made him sick and he heaved it all up right there into the three-chambered sink. Mystery solved. Now get on out of here. We’re closing up for the night.”
On the way back to his room, Moldenke ventured into a dark alleyway where he threw his soiled underdrawers into a trash bin. Fortunately the discharge in the theater had been light. His uniform pants were only lightly stained. When he reached his flat he hung them in the window to dry then sat naked all night, smoking Juleps and watching the progress of the half-moon through his window when the clouds and the swaying pants would let him.
It was an hour or two after getting into bed that he finally gave in to sleep and dreamed of Ernie’s daughter coming fast toward him on a busy street, her hair wild and tangled and blown by the air she parted with her rapid walk. She looked as thin as death, expressionless as she came to him and locked him in a tight hug. They whirled around, which prevented him from looking straight into her ravaged face. He saw only parts of her — a cheek, an ear, and hair swept back like a comet’s tail. His eyes were fixed in a stare at empty space. She said nothing, and her gaze never met his.
Employees at a streetcar terminal in Bunkerville watched in horror Monday night as a jellyhead fatally slashed her throat and stabbed herself repeatedly in the chest. Melba Morten, thirty-one, was dead on arrival at a hospital after the incident in the cafeteria of the terminal.
Randolph Scott, an off-duty police officer working as a security guard, struggled with the victim, twice trying to get the knife from her.
“She was split from one end to the other, screaming and gasping for breath,” Scott said. “I tried to get a bandage on her, but I’ve never come across anyone so strong. She pushed me away.”
Olga Pimental, cafeteria supervisor, said she heard Morten screaming. “I ran to see who it was and she was slashing her throat,” she said. “She did it about three times. After she did it, she just stood there screaming. It sounded horrible.”
After a cup of tea and a bowl of meal at Saposcat’s the next morning, Moldenke cut through Liberty Park on his way to the streetcar stop and stepped into a mound of jellyhead stool hidden by leaves. There were no flies on it to give warning, even though the odor was unbearably foul, like something days dead. There were other mounds scattered around and balled bunches of wiping rags and soiled newspaper thrown about. It was a jellyhead toileting area.
As he waited at the stop, Moldenke scraped much of the stool from his boots onto the car tracks, but what remained smelled strong enough to get him kicked off as soon as he got on.
“Who do you think you are, getting on my car smelling like that?”
“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”
“Get off right now.”
Moldenke jumped out of the car while it still moved, fortunate not to sprain his ankles. It was a long walk to Smiley’s, and he was exhausted when he got there. He sat down outside on a concrete banquette under an awning and watched the comings and goings of Smiley’s customers until he felt strong enough to go in. An elderly woman who passed him said, “I’ve never seen a maggot in Smiley’s meat.”
The market was cool and cavernous inside, the floors, walls, and ceiling covered in gleaming white tiles. There were several counters between the refrigerated cases, each with a long line. Moldenke chose one and prepared for a long wait. A free man in front of him said, “Holy Christ, man. I’m going to faint from that smell. Did you step in shit or something? Get in another line.”
“All right. I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”
Moldenke moved to another line. When he finally reached the counter, he said, “Let me have two of your sausages.”
“You got it. Two links on the way.” The clerk wrapped them in waxed paper.
“Put them on Big Ernie’s card.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, Big Ernie’s Bakery, downtown. Best claws in the Quarter. Him and me go way back.”
The clerk disappeared through a rubber curtain. When it parted momentarily, Moldenke saw butchers at work sawing bones and cutting meat. A jellyhead boy in a canvas apron policed the floor, picking up fallen scraps and filling a wheelbarrow with them, which he emptied into the hopper of a sausage making machine, along with scoopfuls of pepper, salt, and other spices. At another station, a butcher emptied packets of gelatin into a vat of head cheese.