The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction

“About that drink,” I said.

She laughed and threw down the covers, got out of bed and walked past me naked to the closet to get a robe. I wanted to reach for her but I didn’t; I’d learned by now that Billie the Kid was never amorous early in the morning and resented any passes made before noon.

She shrugged into a quilted robe and padded barefoot over to the little refrigerator behind the screen that hid a tiny kitchenette. She opened the door and said, “God damn it.”

“God damn what?” I wanted to know. “Out of liquor?”

She held up over the screen a Hiram Walker bottle with only half an inch of ready-mixed Manhattan in it. Almost the only thing Billie ever drank, Manhattans.

“As near out as matters. Honey, would you run upstairs and see if Mame’s got some? She usually has.”

Mame is a big blonde who works behind the bar at Mike Karas’ joint, The Best Chance, where Billie works as B-girl. A tough number, Mame. I said, “If she’s asleep she’ll murder me for waking her. What’s wrong with the store?”

“She’s up by now. She was off early last night. And if you get it at the store it won’t be on ice. Wait, I’ll phone her, though, so if she is asleep it’ll be me that wakes her and not you.”

She made the call and then nodded. “Okay, honey. She’s got a full bottle she’ll lend me. Scram.”

I scrammed, from the second floor rear to the third floor front. Mame’s door was open; she was out in the hallway paying off a milkman and waiting for him to receipt the bill. She said, “Go on in. Take a load off.” I went inside the room and sat down in the chair that was built to match Mame, overstuffed. I ran my fingers around under the edge of the cushion; one of Mame’s men friends might have sat there with change in his pocket. It’s surprising how much change you can pick up just by trying any overstuffed chairs or sofas you sit on. No change this time, but I came up with a fountain pen, a cheap dime-store-looking one. Mame had just closed the door and I held it up. “In the chair. Yours, Mame?”

“Nope. Keep it, Howie, I got a pen.”

“Maybe one of your friends’ll miss it,” I said. It was too cheap a pen to sell or hock so I might as well be honest about it.

“Nope, I know who lost it. Seen it in his pocket last night. It was Jesus, and the hell with him.”

“Mame, you sound sacrilegious.”

She laughed. “Hay-soos, then. Jesus Gonzales. A Mex. But when he told me that was his handle I called him Jesus. And Jesus was he like a cat on a hot stove!” She walked around me over to her refrigerator but her voice kept on. “Told me not to turn on the lights when he come in and went over to watch out the front window for a while like he was watching for the heat. Looks out my side window too, one with the fire escape. Pulls down all the shades before he says okay, turn on the lights.” The refrigerator door closed and she came back with a bottle.

“Was he a hot one,” she said. “Just got his coat off – he threw it on that chair, when there’s a knock. Grabs his coat again and goes out my side window down the fire escape.” She laughed again. “Was that a flip? It was only Dixie from the next room knocking, to bum cigarettes. So if I ever see Jesus again it’s no dice, guy as jumpy as that. Keep his pen. Want a drink here?”

“If you’ll have one with me.”

“I don’t drink, Howie. Just keep stuff around for friends and callers. Tell Billie to give me another bottle like this back. I got a friend likes Manhattans, like her.”

When I got back to Billie’s room, she’d put on a costume instead of the robe, but it wasn’t much of a costume. A skimpy Bikini bathing suit. She pirouetted in it. “Like it, Howie? Just bought it yesterday.”

“Nice,” I said, “but I like you better without it.”

“Pour us drinks, huh? For me, just a quickie.”

“Speaking of quickies,” I said.

She picked up a dress and started to pull it over her head. “If you’re thinking that way, Professor, I’ll hide the family treasures. Say, that’s a good line; I’m getting to talk like you do sometimes.”

I poured us drinks and we sat down with them. She’d stepped into sandals and was dressed. I said, “You’ve got lots of good lines, Billie the Kid. But correct me – was that lingerie instead of a bathing suit, or am I out of date on fashions?”

“I’m going to the beach today, Howie, for a sun-soak. Won’t go near the water so why not just wear the suit under and save changing? Say, why don’t you take a day off and come along?”

“Broke. The one thing to be said for Burke as an employer is that he pays every day. Otherwise there’d be some dry, dry evenings.”

“What you make there? A fin, maybe. I’ll lend you a fin.”

“That way lies madness,” I said. “Drinks I’ll take from you, or more important things than drinks. But taking money would make me—” I stopped and wondered just what taking money from Billie would make me, just how consistent I was being. After all, I could always send it back to her from Chicago. What kept me from taking it, then? A gal named Honor, I guess. Corny as it sounds, I said it lightly. “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not Honor more.”