Queenpin Read online

  “I don’t give a damn what you want,” she snapped. “You had to lift your skirt for him. For that bridge jumper. Every gal in town has his number, but you, you can’t help yourself?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Even at your age I knew who was worth letting into my bed,” she said, voicing shaking. “They had to show me the velvet. They had to show me they were standup. They had to show me their stuff. I was careful, do you see? I was discriminating. That’s how you last.” Then, more quietly, “That’s how I lasted.”

  It was the closest she’d ever come to showing me something. It wasn’t heat, but it was something. Maybe her forehead burned above room temperature once. Maybe she’d once felt it like you couldn’t stop it, like a thudding, aching thing.

  We were at Vic’s building. I tried one more time. “He knows Mackey’s boys are after him. He’s probably skipped town.”

  She looked at me like I was a prize sap. Which I was.

  “He might have a gun,” I said.

  She kept looking at me, but something was shifting in her face. Something burning behind her eyes, something roaring up. It was like she couldn’t stop herself now, like she could taste hot blood on her lips. Here was her heat, I realized. This was her heat.

  She was breathing so hard the pearls around her neck were wobbling with each exhale. Patting her handbag, she said, “I hope to hell he does.”

  My hand shook as I knocked. She stood several feet away. Don’t open it, Vic, I kept thinking. Don’t be there. He knows Mackey’s goons are ready to take their pound of the flesh, he can’t possibly be sitting in his apartment like a slaughterhouse lamb.

  “Look who busted out to see me,” he said, grinning at me as he opened the door.

  “Vic,” I started, but before I could get a word out, she was behind me, shoving me in the apartment in front of her. Vic’s eyes went wide as she slammed the door behind her. He even backed up a few steps.

  “Isn’t this a surprise,” he said, voice still steady. “Gloria Denton. Your reputation precedes you. I feel honored—”

  “Cut the theatrics, flannel mouth,” she barked. I stood slightly behind her and she seemed, suddenly, to be ten feet tall in the small space. This room, this room where you let him… where you did that…

  I couldn’t look him in the eye.

  “Your skin game’s over and look what it got you,” she continued, waving her purse around the empty room.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, smiling foolishly. “But I’m awful glad to see my girl. You chaperoning now?”

  “Vic, don’t—” I started, but her eyes flashed at me and I shut up.

  “You cheap clip artist. You think you got any business laying your flyweight hands on my girl?”

  His eyes narrowed a little, his pose became stiffer. “She wasn’t complaining.” Then he turned to me. “Were you, sweet-face?”

  His eyes fixed on me, he took a step toward me, and I could smell the bay rum, the Old Golds. I’d like to say I didn’t feel it in my knees. But I did. Of course I did.

  I did terrible things with him, Gloria. I couldn’t help myself. I want to say I regret it but I don’t, not even now. Not one dirty thing. I loved them all.

  She shot a hard look at me, like she could feel the heat on me, feel it coming off me. Her head swung back towards Vic. “Why don’t you tell her about Regina,” she said, voice thick.

  Regina.

  He looked over at her, lifting his eyebrows. “Regina who?”

  She smiled nastily. “Regina the furrier.”

  “You knew Regina?” I said, my voice quavering in spite of myself.

  “Sure,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “She made the rounds. We’ve yapped on occasion.”

  “I’d say so. You were flopping at her apartment until a few months back.”

  “What does this mean…” I said, my voice trailing off.

  “It means the whole setup was a setup,” she said. “This chiseler got Regina to make nice with you.”

  “To take her share of the Dutton job?” I asked, feeling a cold wetness at my temples, on my palms.

  “And to get in with you, Little Miss Muffet,” she said, and I couldn’t look at her because I knew it was true. I looked at him instead, and it got my blood up. It got some steel in my bones to see him so bare. How many ways can you play the sap? I asked myself. You played them all.

  “You been working me from the start?” I said, cold as she taught me.

  “I never played a dame,” he said, shaking his head, backing up a little. “There’s no dividend in it. Not even the ones with bank accounts of their own. They all got some fella behind the scenes ready to make trouble. Sugar daddies, lawyers, private bankers, vag husbands back in town.” He was talking way too much. It was all laying out there now, splayed out.

  “So where’s Regina now? What, she’s gone home crying to Ma?”

  “Buried under two feet of lime for all I know,” he said, and the hardness hit me like a sucker punch. “But not from me,” he added. “She was spreading her sweet butter all over town. Sure, I heard about the stones, but I wasn’t in on that and I sure as hell would’ve stopped her from jawing about it door to door, flashing her new belly button emerald to every fast-money boy on the strip.”

  “That’s bunk,” she said, walking toward him slowly. “And you know it. She took her shot because she’d borrowed heavy to cover your debts and then she was in deep with the sharks herself. So she got a nice haul from the jewelry deal, but before she could pay off her cuff, you’d taken her honey pot for yourself and dumped it all on another chalk bet at the track.”

  He smiled again, but it was a sickly smile, toothless, like the broken men who played Texas twist for bottles of applejack in the lowest sawdust joints in the lowest part of town.

  “She had to pull a Houdini,” she went on, “or they’d have strung her up. So you figured you’d move on to the bigger catch. The one you’d had your eye on all along. That’s why you kept your pretty face out of the rock heist. You were saving your grand entrance for my girl. You knew she’d have sweeter candy for you than little Regina ever could.”

  “Ha. I should be so slick,” he said, looking over at me, rolling on the balls of his feet like a kid trying to bluff at the blackboard. “I’m a bettor, and a bad one. I’m no hustler. Hell, angel face over there knows, I can’t plan fifteen minutes ahead.”

  “Lucky for you, you don’t have to,” she said, and I saw the hand go into her purse. And I knew what was coming. And I didn’t know if I cared. I didn’t know anything. My hand rose slightly at my side as if to say something, stop something. But it all felt hollow. I didn’t feel a thing.

  Not even when I saw the revolver in her silver-gloved hands.

  “Hey, look,” he said, backing away, lifting his arms up at his sides like an old pro. “Let’s jaw this around a bit. What do you want, the scratch? Sure, I lost it, but I can win it back.

  Give me a day, two tops.”

  Beads of sweat began popping on his brow. Oh, Vic. But I felt nothing, not even satisfaction.

  “You think we want your sad little chump change,” she said and my eyes were on the gold grips of the revolver.

  “That’s going to be loud,” I found myself saying.

  “It’s not a blaster,” she said matter-of-factly, without even looking at me. “Besides, you think anyone around here cares? There’ll be a parade.”

  He was backing up. I wondered if he had a gun. I’d never seen him with one. If he’d had one, he’d probably hocked it for another round of blackjack. I eyed his open suit jacket but saw nothing. Then, as his arm turned, I spotted the flash of a blade under his shirt cuff. So he was dumb but not that dumb. He’d been ready for something, someone. But who did he think he was dealing with that a knife was going to save him?

  “You’re going to shoot me because she’s a liar and a tramp,” he suddenly barked, nodding toward me, his face greenish, g
leaming with fear. “How’s that work?”

  It was a mistake. He couldn’t know it, but it was a mistake. I saw the heat rise back up in her. It was visible. He couldn’t have known, but there it was.

  “You think you can talk that way, think you can man-handle my girl, knock her around, put the scare in her, beat her until she ponies up for you? Bruise her fine flesh?” Her chignon came loose, that satiny auburn hair tumbling. “Well, that’s my flesh you’re marking, little boy.”

  “Manhandle? Pony up?” He looked over at me, then back at her. “Is that what she told you—”

  “He’s got a knife,” I blurted out, before he could go on. Sure, I did. Who’d turned me out? She’d take me with her to the end, not just to the nearest strip of silk. Besides, how did I know that gun wouldn’t turn on me?

  Before he could speak, I heard a strange wail come from her and saw the silver-gloved fingers squeeze and the two shots in fast succession.

  They felt like the loudest noises I’d ever heard, booming in my ears.

  I looked over at him and there was a quick, hot splatter of blood from his face. No, his jaw. She’d hit him in the jaw. He began to lean forward and I saw the other shot had gotten him in the gut, but barely.

  Had she tried to kill him and missed? At just ten feet away?

  He started lurching toward her, hand under his chin, flaps of skin and muscle hanging from where his lower jaw had been.

  In spite of everything, his eyes were shining and I thought I could see the corners of his mouth rising, like he was smiling at his luck. Like he would have been smiling if he could have, if his smile hadn’t been half torn away. Maybe under all the pulp, he was smiling.

  Either way, he was going for the gun and everything went so fast and the next thing I knew they were intertwined, he was grabbing her legs as he collapsed, and the gun went flying, landed in the far corner of the room, then slid across the bare floor and into the bedroom.

  “Get it. Get the goddamned gun,” she was growling as he writhed on the floor, clinging at her, dragging her down.

  I saw the knife slip from his sleeve, saw its flash. He couldn’t reach for it, she was on him, the heel of her hand wedged in his gut wound, twisting. But I wanted that knife. I didn’t want that knife in anyone else’s hands.

  Dropping to my knees, I made a lunge for it as it lay several inches from Vic’s shaking fingertips.

  I meant only to take it out of both of their grasps. That was all I wanted. To get it out of reach. But before I knew what I was doing I was looking at his outstretched hand, still reaching for it as he wrestled with her. His hand was wriggling and I saw his eyes dart over toward me, asking me something, asking me for something. And then. And then.

  I raised the knife and plunged it down through the center of his hand and into the wooden floor. The sound he made was not a cry or a shout but a sad little wheeze, soft and despondent.

  Rising to my feet, I scrambled across the room for the gun. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I was going to get it.

  It was on the floor of the bedroom and a bullet had popped out and rolled. I grabbed that too, shoving it back in the chamber as I ran back into the living room.

  I couldn’t have been gone more than ten seconds, five maybe.

  But the wrestling match had ended. She was on top of him, legs astride. I saw the knife standing up, wedged into the floor, pinning his hand down, and she had the letter opener out. It was out and raised above her head.

  “I have the gun. I have the gun,” I shouted.

  Her head darted around to look at me. Her eyes, were they red?

  And a low, ugly whisper: “I don’t want the gun.”

  I thought she was just going to finish him off, don’t you see? Yeah, that was bad too, but he wasn’t going to make it anyhow, his face falling off, a bullet rolling around in his gut. I thought she was just going to finish the job, a deep, clean jag across the throat without the noise of another gunshot. Maybe the opener’s point was sharp enough. Maybe she could make it quick.

  But there was something wrong. She was lifting her arms in those strange, jerking moves, like she was on strings and when I saw the pointy tip… and then it went down and up and down and up in jittering motions, like an old movie reel jumping and rocking. And the blood kept spinning up like a Tilt-A-Whirl and it was spraying her face and her hair and I saw that she’d slipped off her mask, finally, and here was her heat but look what kind of heat it was.

  Her gloves soaked through red, pooling in her fingertips. She peeled them off and they fell like swollen petals in a pile beside her and still she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. I saw that. She’d never stop.

  I tossed the gun and grabbed her under her arms and pulled as hard as I could, fighting her strength. I think now that it was the first time I’d ever touched her, she who’d put her hand on me countless times, adjusting my clothes, smoothing my hair, straightening my seams, grooming me, making me…

  I lifted her to her feet. Her arms, her hands, her whole torso was shaking. We both nearly slipped on the slick floor.

  The letter opener was in her hand, her grip so tight her fingers had slipped and I could see its blade pressed in her palm. Still standing behind her, I uncurled her fingers from it one by one until it dropped to the floor with a clatter.

  “Well, that’s done,” she muttered, breathless. She was looking down. I couldn’t look down. But I could smell the horrible sweetness and could feel it.

  I stepped back and bent down to pick up the gun, and as I did, I saw her silver stiletto pull back right beside Vic’s head, then kick forward, tugging the last strands of muscle loose and sending the jaw bone skimming across the floor towards me.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, turning towards me, cool as ever. “We’ll find someone else for you to fuck.”

  We might have been standing there thirty seconds or thirty years. She was figuring things, you could see her running it down in her head. And her chest was heaving, and she was giving off waves of heat. She was deciding what to do, how to fix it. I was watching her, wondering how it happened, wondering how she’d lost it all.

  The front of her sharkskin suit steeped in blood, her stockings drenched red along the shin bones, her hair spattered with it. Worst of all was her face. I kept thinking of those pictures of South Seas headhunters in Weird Tales. When I was a kid, I’d look at those pictures for hours, my fingers pressed on the pages, on the fearsome mandaus they brandished, hair teeth and claws rising from the hilts. I’d have nightmares they were coming for me, crossing oceans and continents for fair-faced little girls to behead, to roast on spits over the fire. That’s what she looked like, she looked like one of those Dyak warriors, her face red and raw, streaked and spangled.

  Gloria, all those stories about you were true. And they weren’t half as dark as this.

  As we stood there, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to say a word. I couldn’t imagine what I could say. I wasn’t looking at the body in the corner, and I couldn’t bear to look her in the face. I stared at the floor.

  Finally, she spoke. “It’s going to work like this,” she said. “You’re taking the El Dorado. You’re going to do three things. Are you ready? Are you with me? Pull it together, kid.”

  I forced myself to meet her gaze, but she couldn’t make me focus my eyes. Instead, I looked at a blur of red, red hair, red face, red lips, snaky tongue.

  “What…” I whispered. If I was going to get through this, I needed cool Gloria back, in her cool white suits, her precise French twists, her powdered face, textureless, planar, marble.

  “Don’t turn greenhorn on me now,” she said, facing me. “Listen up. I want you to take the gun and the letter opener. I want you to drop the gun in the sewer drain, but drive at least five miles from town. By the paper mill. Got it? Then drive over by the loading docks and drop the letter opener in the water.

  “I’m hoping I don’t need to tell you to make sure no one sees you. Do whatever
you have to do to dodge any eyes. Then drive to your place, it’s closer, and pick me up a coat, something long, your trench coat. And a bag. A shopping bag. I can’t walk out of here with this butcher’s apron on. You get it, baby? You get it?”

  She grabbed my chin in her hand. It was wet and she wanted it on me. She wanted his blood on me. She curled her fingers so high up my chin they touched the bottom of my lips. The wet touched my lips and lingered there.

  “You’re going to do it and you’re going to do it smart. And don’t even think of going Pollyanna on me,” she muttered. “That knife didn’t get there by itself.”

  We both turned and looked at Vic’s knife poised there, straight in the air. Still in his hand. Still in Vic’s hand. Had I done that?

  Looking at it got my head on straight again, knocked the horror out of my bones and reminded me of the stakes here, for us and for me. Reminded me of the world beyond that room, a world larger than all this, with rules, laws, machines of its own that didn’t care about my dread, about what I had going on inside me, about the ugly red haze stuck in my head.

  Then, hearing her breathing next to me, smelling it, and smelling the desperation on her, I realized I had to do something. I had to show her I wasn’t going soft. If she thought I was going soft, there was no telling what she’d do.

  I walked over, leaned down, and yanked the knife out. I made sure I didn’t even twitch when the body jolted with the motion.

  Holding up the knife, I said, “Guess I’ll toss this while I’m at it.”

  She looked at me, her right hand dangling at her side. I could feel the blood on my chin, along my jawline where that hand had been.

  “Guess you’d better,” she said.

  I walked, slow as she ever did, to where my handbag lay and kneeled down for it, tossing the knife inside. Still kneeling, I arced my arm in a wide circle, sweeping the gun and the letter opener into the bag as well. Then I rose and pulled out a handkerchief and my compact. Looking straight into the mirror, straight at my face, batter white except for the two thick, gruesome red streaks down either side of my mouth, I ran the handkerchief over my chin, dainty as a society lady at a dinner party.