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  “ ‘Bullshit,’ nothing,” he said. “You’re in a business, lady. It’s purely a matter of business, and your attitude about it bothers me. You don’t want to think about it, so you don’t think about it, and that means it isn’t a business. Well, it is, just the same. I used to be in a business just like it. They were using my ass like a bastard, getting rich off me, paying me chickenshit, I think I’m big time, while they’re the ones getting rich. Buying me drinks, and getting me laid, and then who goes to the slammer? I go to the slammer. And where did they go? I dunno. Vegas, most likely. Never heard from the bastards again. Hell, I never knew most of their names.

  “I’m trying to tell you, okay? Experience counts, all right? It counts against you. The longer you been at it, the less interested the customers are. I used up my eligibility? ‘So long, baby—Ciao.’ Just like Allen will do to you, some fine day. It goes with your line of work.

  “And then what?” he said. “You wanna be an old whore someday? Because you’re gonna be old. You don’t have a choice about that part. And the hooker part you won’t, either. Old whores don’t make much money. Old ladies with money don’t hook, and old ladies with money don’t care. You wanna be an old lady, with her own money? Or an old whore who can’t make a dime? It’s the same thing with me. I’m gonna get old. I don’t wanna be an old ex-con. Nobody hires them for nothing. I wanna be a nice, secure, old man. Spending the winters in Florida. Playing the golf and stuff. Clipping my coupons and washing my false teeth. Driving my own Cadillac.

  “That’s what you don’t understand,” he said. “Or pretend you don’t understand, ’cause you know what I’m saying is right. That’s what I’m telling you, all right? There’s only so many chances. You’re lucky, you get one. I had my one, and I blew it. My brother had his one—he took it. He was smart, and I was stupid. I admit it. Tough shit for me. Now you never had one, but this comes along, and I’m telling you: this is your one. Now listen to what I am saying. I got myself in the shit once, and I climbed out of the shit. Which very few guys ever do. You haven’t been in the shit yet, and believe me, you don’t want to go in. Listen a guy who knows how it is, and we both stay out of the shit. Don’t throw your one away. Just listen to what old Earl says.”

  “Shut up,” she said. “Too hot to talk. Just drive and let me sleep.”

  He grabbed her by her upper left arm. “Listen to me,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t know you till I met you, but I knew a lot of ladies in the same damned line of work. I met them, got introduced, by guys like Allen, there. They gave those ladies to me. ‘Here’s a freebie on the house. Don’t beat Temple by nine. Eight’ll be fine, but not nine.’ At the time I thought: ‘Geez, this dame is old. Looks good, but she is old. Ah, what hell. Long as she sucks the cock.’ I was nineteen, twenty, all right? These old broads were old. Some of them almost twenty-five. But to me, they were old.

  “Okay,” he said, “this was New York. A little higher speed. Boston? Maybe ten years later, but no more’n that. You don’t believe me, just ask Nancy. Nasty, but the facts.

  “Now,” he said, “the next time Allen has a birthday with a zero in it, the first digit’s gonna be six. All right?”

  “Allen’s in good shape,” she said lazily, her eyes still shut. “His stomach’s flat as a rock. He doesn’t drink like you do, and he treats me very nice. You should look as good as he does, you get to be his age. You should look as good as he does, now. Let go my arm.” She shrugged it.

  Earl let go of her arm and turned in his seat. Her breasts rose and fell under the white sweater. She had a small smile. “He treats you like a toy,” he said. “An expensive toy, but a toy. The next birthday you see with a zero in it’s gonna have a three in it, too. He’s going to the island now, be with his lovely wife. His third lovely wife. How old is she? Probably close to forty. Twelve years or so older’n you are. You think that when you’re thirty-five, Allen’s still gonna be interested? Fat fuckin’ chance he will, thirty-five-year-old honey. I know you give great blow jobs, and that’s what Allen likes. But sucking cocks is not a job you need much training for. Couple outings, any broad can do it. I hear some guys can do it, too. There was talk like that in prison. What matters to guys like Allen is that the broad is young, and her tits’re high, and she looks like a fresh young tender piece of ass that only a rich man can buy. And then later on, replace. You got two years at the maximum before he goes and clumps you. You either get the bundle before he does that, or you go fuckin’ without. Try to find some other pigeon, when you’re thirty-three. You’ll be hanging around lounges. Looking out for plainclothes guys, and hoping for a trick. That’ll at least pay the room, so you got a place to sleep.”

  She opened her eyes. “Got lucky last night, huh?” she said.

  “I got laid,” he said, “if that’s lucky. Doesn’t take a lot of talent.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. “I’m coming home, you’re picking me up, but while you’re waiting, you screw.”

  “Well,” he said, “at least I didn’t have Allen’s dick in my mouth. Like some people that I could name.”

  She slapped him. “Earl,” she said, “I did it for you. You were the one, thought of it. It was all your idea, I start sweet-talking him. ‘Hey, this looks like love to me, Allen. How ’bout if I stop taking calls, stop going out to hotels?’ And he went for it. Well, it was a good idea. So far, at least, it has been. But if it turns sour, that’s not my fault. Wasn’t me that thought it all up. Wasn’t Allen, either. The whole thing was all your damned idea.”

  “Well,” he said, “and it was a good one. So long’s you remember the whole thing. The first thing’s a good thing, but it’s temporary. Guy doesn’t hurt you. Pays you in cash. Doesn’t need you around all that often, and the cops don’t care about that shit. Very good thing all around.”

  He slapped her. “But then comes the second part,” he said. “The big reason for this whole idea. You pick up some dingbat in some bar someplace, and you go his room with him, haul his ashes. And he’s a nice guy. He’s grateful. He does not beat you up. He gives you a big hundred bucks. Well, that’s great, but it’s like buying neckties wholesale for a buck, and selling them for fifty cents: You can’t make a profit on volume. And you can’t retire on what you make, turning tricks night after night, when Allen spots a new model.

  “You also,” he said, as she rubbed her left jaw, “you also can’t do it on Allen. Unless you make Allen give you the bundle, and put the cash into the bank. If we shake him down, like we said we would do, and he pays us a million damned dollars, we got five grand a month for the rest of our lives, and the million still left at the end. And that, dear, is serious money.”

  She sat up straight in the seat. She yawned. “Why is it you’re stealing this car?”

  “Because I got to,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on. My brother called me, and he said: ‘Go see this guy.’ And I said: ‘Who the fuck is he?’ And Donald said. ‘Look, you don’t wanna know. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. He’s a guy that a friend of mine knows, that he owes a damned favor to. So go down and see him, find out what he wants, and then do what he tells you, all right?’ And I go: ‘Well, how’s this involve me? Maybe he wants a guy killed.’ And Don goes: ‘Oh it’s nothing as heavy as that. This’s just kind of shady, and he needs it done, but not by a guy from down there. So, if you can do it, without fucking it up, just do it without fucking up. And if you can’t, call me back, and I’ll make some more calls. Inna meantime, just go and see him.’ And I say. ‘I’m not gonna do this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know who I’m doing it for. You can’t get me into this thing.’ And Donald says: ‘Look, have you got a record?’ I say: ‘Well, I did time.’ And Donald says: ‘Yeah, but you ain’t got a record. Keep in mind how come that is.’ ”

  “It’s that politician up there,” she said.

  “I assume so,” he said. “It must be. But I still don’t know why I’m doing this thing. I figure Ed Cobb’s beh
ind it. My brother’n him’re like Siamese twins—but why Ed Cobb wants it done, I don’t know. All I do know’s that this guy Battles has got something on Ed Cobb, and Ed Cobb called my brother, and my brother called me. So Battles did something for one of them, once, or somebody that they like, and now he’s calling his marker. And it must’ve been something damned big, Battles did, if the bastard can get this much service.”

  “Jesus,” she said, “and you talk about me? Taking chances, I mean, and all that? I could get batted around by the wrong guy? You could go back to jail. And you’re doing what this fat shit tells you? Taking the car and just crushing it? You must be out of your mind. How much’re you getting for this?”

  “Peace and quiet,” he said. “And some money, too. I’m not gonna crush the damned car.”

  “You’re not,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I have seen it. This is a prime Mercedes two-seater, worth about five or six K. One of those roadsters, robin’s-egg blue, and the seats’ve hardly been sat on. I’m gonna drive it up to Donald’s, have him put it on the lot, and some rich asshole’ll buy it.”

  “And you think Donald’ll do this?” she said. “Thought you said he thinks you’re a crook.”

  “I know he’ll do it,” Earl said. “That’s why he’ll do it. Donald’s very religious. Because he likes money, and there’s nothing that goes better together’n money and religion, except gin and vermouth. And I got a story he’ll go for right off. It’s close enough to robbing a bank so that, coming from me, he’ll believe it. I heard it from a lawyer that was on the bus with me. Going in for an estate thing that he sold some stuff himself, only the stuff went to friends that didn’t pay much money. ’Less you counted all the cash they gave to him and didn’t mention. I’m gonna tell him I’m getting the bill of sale sent. And as soon’s I get back to old Waldo’s joint there, and grab a clean one from him, you fill it out and I send it to Donald, and he sells the car free and easy.”

  “Me?” she said. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re a woman,” he said, “and I’m telling Donald that I got this car from a hooker that’s been shipped out by her old man. Which he will go for like a trout goes for mayflies. Just dirty enough to sound good, but in this case, as legal as hell. And then it’s half for Donald and half for me, since I’m getting the damned thing for nothing. ’Cept for my trouble, I mean. And that’s exactly why I’m pushing you now. Let’s sell Allen the pictures. For the money. We do that and we both retire. Free, from sin, and free, from all temptation.”

  She lifted the handle and unlatched the door. “Come on,” she said, “some wet eggs. And some sausages soaked in the steam table too, cold toast and a watery drink.”

  “You’re hard to please,” he said, opening his door.

  “I’ve had a hard life,” she said.

  “Have we got a deal?” he said.

  “We’ve got a start,” she said.

  6

  Earl took Route 189 off Interstate 95 and headed east toward Lafayette. “This’s pretty down around here,” Penny said as the car passed between tall maples that overhung the road. “Sort of like a long green tunnel. Only without walls. Nice big house, riding horses, smell the ocean, too. Very nice down here.”

  “I guess so,” Earl said. “I didn’t come down for the scenery.”

  “I don’t see a bar, though,” Penny said. “Nice friendly inn with a bar, sit on the porch with a drink.”

  “You don’t need another drink,” he said. “You had your drinks back at lunch. You got to get this thing home in one piece, and the cops in this state’re vicious.”

  “I could still use another drink,” Penny said. “Those ones I had, that dog-assed motel, all those crappy things were was water. Since I’m not gonna see you tonight after all. Could at least buy me, real drink. What the hell made you pick that place, anyway? You said you knew a place, and that’s where we end up?”

  “Old times’ sake,” he said. “Used to meet Joey in there. That’s where we had our meetings, in the coffee shop.”

  “All that way out of the city?” she said. “There’s no coffee shops in Manhattan? You came all the way out of the city, meet with a guy, and then it turns out, he’s working the FBI? That was smart. No wonder you got caught.”

  He sighed. “Penny,” he said, “there’s another thing you worry about, you’re doing something like that. Besides the FBI. Sure, you don’t want them to see you. Liable make them wonder: ‘What’s a nice college guy, plays for Saint Stephen’s, what’s he doing having coffee with this large layoff man?’ But you also, you also don’t want the high rollers, don’t want them seeing you, either. They might start thinking, ’long same lines: ‘Hey, how come Joey’s having coffee with the guy that runs the plays?’ Might cut down on the action, cut down the action a lot. So you stay out of their hangouts, too. And anyway, Joey wasn’t working the Bureau, the first year. Or most of the second one, either. It was only the last four or five times, they had him. After his brother came coco. That’s when they got him wired up. Joey never wanted, you know, set me up. Just they had him in the bucket when his brother spilled his guts, and he didn’t have a choice. It was either he did what they told him, or else he did twenty-five years. I could see what a box he was in.”

  “Earl,” she said, “Joey was the guy that set you up. Joey was the guy that picked you to do the dirty work with the team. Which means that Joey was the guy that arranged for you to go to jail.”

  “Well,” Earl said, “but he didn’t have no choice about that, either. I would’ve done the same thing myself.”

  “ ‘No choice,’ ” she said. “Whaddaya mean: ‘No choice’? He had a choice. He could’ve left you alone. He could’ve picked some other guy. He could’ve bribed the whole team. Why did he pick just you? Why were you the fall guy?”

  “Penny, for Christ sake,” Earl said, “when you’re fixing games, all right? You don’t pay off the whole team. For one thing, it’d be too dangerous. The more people know, the more people can tell. For another thing, it’d cost too much, and some of the guys, it’d stand to reason, they wouldn’t be cute enough to make it look good. No, Joey did what I would’ve done, if I’d’ve been Joey, you know? I was the guy that they needed. I was the guy with the ball. I was the playmaker. Joey just got my name out the papers. Coach said I was the best point guard he ever saw in college ball. He said maybe I was the best college point guard ever. I was the natural choice.”

  “Do I believe that?” she said. “Or is that like the ex-wife you call when you’re drunk, and the daughter that dropped out of U Mass? Something you just tell people you meet, something that just never happened.”

  “You could go and look it up,” he said. “I lost the clips myself, but it was all in the papers.”

  She shook her head. “Well, I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Well, that doesn’t matter, you do,” he said. “That’s still the way it happened.”

  “I don’t mean,” she said, “I don’t mean I don’t believe what you just said. I just don’t believe a guy like you can walk around like you do, on his way to steal a car—some guy’s expensive car, which means he is at least rich, and probably he’s mean, and will come after you himself, if he doesn’t like the cops—and tell me to take a chance on either Allen dumps me, or Allen calls the cops. So we both go to jail. And then, in the practically very next breath, you sit there and tell me, a perfectly straight face, this Joey that sank you was just a nice guy that just hadda get out of a jam. What’s the matter with you? You get dropped on your head, you’re a kid? You must’ve had some time yourself, when you were in the can. Didn’t you ever start to think: ‘How did I get here?’ I mean, I assume you didn’t like it. I don’t know too many guys that actually did time, but my brother and the couple or so ones I did meet, said they didn’t like it at all. So why’re you so damned determined, do things like this, probably get yourself more? We’re doing okay, just the way that we’re going. Everything�
��s not hunky-dory, but I had some worse times, my life, and I never even got busted. I figure that’d be worse, worse’n the worst day I had.” She shook her head again. “There’s no part of this that I see that I like. No part I see that I like.”

  “Look,” he said, “inna first place, all right? You like these houses? You like the fields and the ponies? The stone walls and big trees and all of that shit? Wait’ll we get little closer to town, you see all the boats onna bay. They’ll make you cry, they’re so pretty. But, this’s the shit that you like? This is shit that you want? Well, you want to get it, it won’t be from blowing Allen, and it won’t come the job I got now. It’s like when they teach you to swim, you know? When they teach the young kids to swim. First they get in the water, and then they teach ’em to tread it. So they can stay afloat. But they don’t tell them: ‘You keep doing that, you’ll make it the end of the pool.’ Get to the deep end, you got to do more. Got to use both your hands and your feet. And that’s exactly where we are, where we are right now: treading the fucking damned water. We ever expect, get this kind of stuff, we got to start kicking and grabbing. And that’s why we’re doing these things.”

  She slumped down in the seat. “Maybe if I close my eyes,” she said, “maybe if I go to sleep. Maybe then when I wake up, this all will be over, and I won’t be meeting a matron.”

  Earl drove the Dodge through the village and up a long hill where big houses overlooked wide lawns and the ocean on the left, and old farmhouses guarded walled pastures on the right. He took the third road on the right after leaving the village. It was dirt, rutted with shallow washouts; the tops of boulders protruded. “Are you sure,” he had said to Battles after following him to the faded red barn behind the white colonial house, “are you sure I’m gonna be able to get this fucking thing out of this place? ’Thout leaving the oil pan behind?” Battles had smirked at him, pulling the dustcover off the blue roadster. “Well,” he’d said, “I got it in here. And the guy that owned it’s been getting it into places like this for years. Taking it out again, too. I didn’t have any trouble, bringing it in here when I did. So, he did it, I did it, figure you can.”