She said, “I did have some typing in school. I had almost two years of high school, you know.”
“You speak well. Express yourself well.”
She liked hearing that; she gave me a broad, toothy smile that was as refreshing as that sweet smell back in the corn rows. She said, “I read a lot, you know. I like the movies, too. I always thought I’d be... you’ll laugh.”
“No I won’t.”
“An actress. There, I said it, go ahead, laugh. Every dumb little farm girl wants to run off to the big city and be a star.”
“Sometimes it works out,” I said, thinking of Sally.
“Well, at least I ran off. I don’t suppose my life is so different from being in show business.”
“You’re sure on the road a lot.”
“But even a typist. A secretary. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it? That’d be a step up, and in a big city. I can’t stay on with the Barkers and all. With Candy gone, I just don’t see why I’d stay.”
I touched her shoulder. “Why not go home, at least give your father a chance? Then you can go to the big city, if you like. I got friends in Chicago, for instance. Maybe I could help out.”
She touched my face with a hand that smelled nicely of grain; the hand she’d cracked the barley stalk with. She said, “You really are sweet, my Gentleman Jim.”
She really did read, didn’t she? The romance magazines, that is.
She was saying, “How can anybody be so good and honest as you?”
Since I was a liar trying to manipulate her into doing my client’s bidding, I couldn’t wholeheartedly agree with her.
So I just said, “I’m not, really. I just think a girl as pretty as you doesn’t need a life as shabby as this.”
I thought she might take offense, but she didn’t.
She raised her skirt. Lifted it slowly, up over her thighs. Up to a yellow fringe between her legs. No underthings.
She wasn’t bashful, this girl.
“I know Candy is fresh in his grave,” she said, “but it doesn’t matter. He’s gone, and you’re here — and I want you. I need you. You could make me feel better.”
This would go over real big with my client.
I said, “I don’t think I should, Louise.”
She reached behind her and was unbuttoning the dress; then she was easing it down to her waist and her breasts were round and her nipples were pink and I unbuttoned my trousers.
I was getting a Sheik out of my billfold when she said, “No. You don’t need that.”
“You want me to...?”
“Pull out when it’s time? No. Don’t worry. I can’t have kids.”
A more sensitive man might’ve had his ardor dampened by that remark; but I was still caught up in the sweet smell of corn and the fringe between her legs and pink nipples and I had her on the grass, under the trees, her bottom small and firm and yet soft in my hands, as I slid in and out of her, went round and round in her, as she moved beneath me with a yearning that went beyond the moment, and she moaned and groaned and cried out when she came, and so did I. Then she was sitting up and in my arms, a bundle of flesh and undone clothes and sobbing.
Pretty soon I put my pants on.
That’s when I noticed, not far from where we’d just got to know each other, biblically speaking, a patch of ground without any grass.
The grave where Candy Walker and Doc Moran lay entwined, much as Louise and I had been.
A wave of nausea hit me, as strong as the smell of ammonia. But there was nothing in my stomach, so nothing came up.
But Louise, standing now, hands behind her, buttoning, said, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“We better get back for breakfast.”
“Okay.”
“Hmmm,” she said. Noting the patch of grassless ground. “Wonder what’s planted there.”
Nothing that’ll grow, I thought.
“Let’s get back,” I said.
Breakfast was under way, when we did, and Paula — having the alcoholic’s standard plate of hardly any food (but no glass of whiskey yet) — smiled wickedly at Louise, recognizing what I can best if rudely describe as the freshly fucked look on Louise’s face, and Louise blushed, and I frowned at Paula, but nobody else noticed anything. We sat and ate. Ma wasn’t cooking, this time, but Mrs. Gillis did a pretty fair job of it herself. Scrambled eggs and bacon and fried potatoes with gravy and glasses of milk all around.
Ma seemed a little blue about it, actually — especially since her boys Fred and Doc were bent over their plates, inhaling the stuff.
Karpis was sitting next to me, his girl Dolores next to him. “You can freshen up in our room,” he said. “Right across from yours.”
“Thanks.”
“Towels and a mirror and a basin. You’ll have to come downstairs and get some fresh water, though. If you want to shave, anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess I do look a little scruffy.”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “We don’t stand on ceremony, here.”
Nelson was eating a plate of food that would’ve fed a man twice his size; sitting right across from me, next to his cute little brunette wife, he said, “I hear you’re coming in with us. Taking Candy’s place.”
At the phrase “taking Candy’s place,” Paula laughed, and a few heads turned toward her with expressions that said they didn’t get it. But the moment quickly passed, thank God.
“Yeah,” I said. “And I’m pleased to be in such high-flying company.”
Nelson smiled; his mustache looked both wispy and fake, like he was a kid who pasted on each strand with glue, one at a time. “Good to have you aboard. Sorry about the ridin’ I give you yesterday. Chicago says you’re aces, so there’ll be no more complaints from me.”
“Thanks, Nelson.”
“You can call me B.G.”
For Big George.
“Sure, B.G.,” I said.
I was shaving in Karpis and Dolores’ room when Karpis came in, his creepy smile on display.
“You forgot these,” he said.
He was holding out my glasses. I had set them on a dresser last night before I went to bed, and had, frankly, forgot to put the damn things on this morning.
“Thanks,” I said, gliding the razor across my throat.
“I notice they’re window glass,” he said.
I wondered if I had the nerve to use a razor to kill a man.
“So are mine,” he said, tapping the side of his wire-frames.
“No kidding,” I said. Shaving.
“Got to change our looks as best we can, in this business. I try to wear ’em all the time. You get used to ’em after a while.”
I smiled at him in the mirror. “I still forget sometimes. The plastic surgery’s a help, but glasses add to the basic change of appearance. Don’t you agree?”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Karpis said. He put the glasses down next to me. “Now, we’ll be leaving today, throughout the morning and early afternoon. In several cars, at staggered times.”
I nodded. “Not a good idea to travel in a caravan.”
“Nothing that attracts attention is a good idea.”
This might work out. If I could just get Louise in the Auburn — the two-seater Auburn — I could drive away with her, and break off from this fun group before they were any the wiser.
I said, “I, uh... I’m getting attached to Louise.”
Karpis flashed his sick grin again. “You’re a fast worker.”
“She’s a nice kid.”
“And lonely. You must peddle a pretty slick line to the ladies, Lawrence.”
“I get by. You mind if she rides with me?”
“Not at all. I’ll give you directions to the tourist court, before you leave.”
“I’ll take the Auburn, if that’s okay.”