"I'll be laughing my ass off," he snickered. "Because it's a pretty funny joke. Ha ha ha."
He kept laughing. I felt the hotness spreading, tightening the veins in my throat. I closed my eyes. I had two choices, ignore Morrisey or kick his teeth in, and I knew if I started I wouldn't be able to stop. And if that were to happen I wouldn't be marrying Marge and her three million net worth. I squeezed my eyes shut, squeezing tighter until I could hear the blood rushing through my head. Until the sound drowned out Morrisey's soft, convulsing laughter. After a while I was able to ignore him completely.
# #
Luanne visited me twice during the next three weeks. My heart ached just to look at her. She was so young and sweet and fresh. So damn beautiful. She knew I was getting out but the way I explained it to her was I needed time alone on the outside to find myself, but we would continue to write and after no more than a year we would be together. She pleaded with me to live with her right away. I almost broke down and agreed. I had eighty-two thousand in a bank account thanks to my enterprises and I weighed it and Luanne against the million and a half Marge Henke offered. Watching Luanne's soft brown eyes moisten with tears almost did it for me. I came within a hair's breath of throwing away Henke's money when common sense kicked in like a mule. After all, it would only be a year, maybe less. Then Luanne and I would have all the time in the world together. And we'd have the money to enjoy it.
I thought about Luanne a lot my last three weeks. About whether I could go a year without seeing her. Of all of them, she was the only one to have ever visited me. Twice a month, as allowed by prison policy, for the last two and a half years. None of the others had ever seen me except for the photos I sent, not even Marge Henke. At times some of them would suggest coming to the prison, but it would be easy enough to talk them out of it. Deep down inside they wanted me to talk them out of it. It was safer that way than to risk having their fragile make-believe worlds shattered by the hard cold truths of a con.
# #
On my last day, as I was being led out of my cell, Morrisey made some crack to me about kissing my new bride for him, and then he broke out laughing. I told him to go to hell and that only made him laugh harder, his ugly face twisted in mirth.
When I was let out the front gate I found Marge standing there waiting for me. The sight of her made me instinctively step back towards the prison. The picture she had sent me was a bigger fraud than anything I'd ever attempted. It had to have been taken decades earlier and even still had to have been doctored. She was blond, or at least the stuff on her head had been dyed blond, but that was about all she had in common with that picture. The woman in it was a plain, slightly overweight, thirtyish year old. What was standing before me was closer to fifty and more than double the size. But it was the expression on her face that freaked me, though. Like I had caught her in the act of twisting the heads off puppies. And I don't know how I could've possibly been prepared for that smell. There was nothing in the pen like it.
"Marge, darling," I said and forced myself forward. I caught a stronger whiff of her and somehow kept from gagging.
"Honeypie," she offered demurely. She was caked in makeup. A heavy glob of blood red lipstick had been smeared across her lips, and thick pinkish rouge was layered over her cheeks. She tilted her cheek towards me, expecting a kiss. As I pulled away, I couldn't help tasting the rancid sweetness that came off her. My breakfast started to come up. I lunged forward, grabbing my duffel bag and hurrying away. "Let's go, darling," I murmured, trying to keep the sickness down. "Let's get married."
I ran through the parking lot with her trotting behind me. By the time we reached her car, a battered nineteen seventy-eight Chevy Chevette, she was out of breath, gasping for air. After getting in the car I rolled down the passenger window. Her smell had saturated the cloth seats. After six years of prison life I thought I could deal with anything, but not that. It was like onions and garlic and dirt and sewage and sweat all mixed together. Like sickness and rotting flesh. I could barely stand it.
She drove the three hour trip to Sacramento. Every few minutes I'd catch her sneaking a peek at me. As we approached the city, she pulled into a fleabag motel off the highway, telling me she had booked a room there and she needed to freshen up before the wedding.
After we checked in, Marge again tilted her cheek towards me for a kiss. "Honeypie," she offered coyly. "After we legally marry, I'll let you do more than just that." And then she disappeared into the bathroom.
As I sat on the bed waiting, a feeling of longing for Luanne overwhelmed me. All I wanted was to be with her. I wanted it more than I ever wanted anything. I closed my eyes and could see her the way she was during our last visit. In my mind’s eye I could see her standing in the same yellow sundress she had worn. The way her hair fell past her bare shoulders, how slender her hips looked, the way the dress outlined her thighs and then ended a few inches above her knees …
Marge Henke's monotone humming filtered in from the bathroom and knocked Luanne’s beautiful image out of my head. I got up, found some paper, and wrote Luanne a letter expressing how much I needed her and how it was only a matter of time before we would be together and when we were it would be forever. All the pain inside drained out of me and onto that letter.
The bathroom door creaked open. I folded Luanne's letter and slipped it into my inside jacket pocket. Marge Henke stepped out and I noticed all she had done in there was apply more makeup. Her stench was as strong as ever.
"I have to put on my dress," she announced irritably.
I told her that I would go take a shower. Inside the bathroom, I put the water on full and scrubbed myself, trying to get her smell off me. After a half hour I could still smell faint traces of her on my skin.
When I got out of the shower I yelled out to her about what a lucky man I was going to be. She didn't answer. I dried myself off, dressed, and yelled out before leaving the bathroom that she'd better be decent.
The motel room was empty. Her suitcase was still on the floor, but she was gone. I looked out the window and saw her car was gone.
I sat on the bed and took out a pack of cigarettes and turned on the TV. At first I was sort of relieved but after an hour I started to get annoyed. As I stared at the set I decided I was going to take more than a million and a half from Marge Henke. By the time I was through bleeding her she was going to be one anemic fat broad.
I finished the pack of cigarettes and then walked over to the front office and bought a couple of more packs. The girl working the desk couldn't tell me anything about where Marge had gone. There was a liquor store next to the motel. I bought a six-pack of beer and a quart of bourbon from it and then went back to my room to wait.
I woke up at four a.m. with my head pounding and the set blaring away. Marge Henke still hadn't come back. I finished off what was left of the bourbon and then paced the room and kicked at the bed. I couldn't understand what had happened. Then it came to me. I checked my suit jacket's inside pocket. Luanne's letter was still there, but I could also pick up Marge's smell on it. There was nothing else to do so I turned off the set and went to bed.
I was woken up the next morning by her smell. It was stronger than ever. I lifted my head and saw Marge Henke standing over me, hands on her hips.
"Look at the mess you made!" she exclaimed. Her eyes were bloodshot and her skin looked even paler than before.
"Where were you, darling?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
I sat up slowly, trying not to move too fast. I had gone six years without touching any alcohol and the bourbon and six-pack had hit me hard.
"You don't have to talk about it," I said, squinting against the light. "I guess you needed time alone to think things over."
"I still don't know what you're talking about." She narrowed her eyes and peered at me, her large, doughy face expressionless. "My lord," she cried out as she glanced at the clock. "It's eight thirty already. You better get up if we're going to get married!"
We drove into Sacramento, found city hall, and a half hour later were man and wife. The J.P. involuntarily grimaced as he told me I could kiss the bride. I managed to give her a little peck on the lips, and fortunately only tasted the lipstick that had been smeared over them.
Marge had a house in Davis, which was about a two hour ride from Sacramento. During the trip I started to doze off and was jostled awake by her.
"You must've gotten letters from a lot of girls." Marge said, a sly look on her face.
"I guess so."
"Why don't you tell me about them."
I looked over at her. She still had that sly look on her face, like she knew something I didn't. "There's not much to tell. It took a lot of letters before I found the right person."
"I bet some of the girls were real pretty."
"One anyway." I smiled at her and squeezed her knee. I got no reaction, just the same sly, calculating look. "Most of the ladies were lonely and pathetic. A couple were nuts."
She didn't talk after that and I went back to sleep. I dreamt about being trapped in a sewer.
# #
When she woke me and I caught sight of her house I almost broke out laughing. The car was bad enough for a woman with three million dollars, but that house? It was nothing but an ugly little clapboard shack.
"We're home, honeypie!" she announced.
Inside was worse than anything I could've ever imagined. The smell almost knocked me over. There was dirt and clutter and garbage everywhere. And that smell ...
Marge pushed me aside and went straight to the telephone. I overheard her talking to someone named Henrietta, telling her about how we got married this morning instead of yesterday. "He just took off yesterday afternoon," she said. "That's right, he left me waiting in the motel room all day and night. I don't know where he went. But he came back this morning and we got married." After that she called someone named Irma and gave the same story.
"Why'd you say that?" I asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She stood up, made a sour face, and ran her hands over her rumpled dress. "I have to go to the bathroom."
As I stood alone, a sickish feeling began to work its way into my stomach. I called my credit agency and asked for another credit check on Marge Henke, giving them her address and phone number. I then took my duffel bag into the kitchen and found Marge's folder.
As I read it, a cold chill ran through me. Her file had been tampered with, mixed with the file of another woman, Mary Henderson. I pulled Henderson's file and found Marge's earlier letters hidden in it. They were the rambling of a deranged mind.
In my mind's eye I could picture Morrisey laughing hysterically. I could almost hear it.
The phone rang. It was the credit agency, letting me know that Marge Henke was a bad risk with less than three hundred dollars in savings.
Marge walked out of the bathroom, peering at me expressionlessly. "What you doing, honeypie?" she asked.
I didn't bother to answer. I walked back to the kitchen and packed away my folders, then grabbed my duffel bag and started past her. "A big mistake was made, lady," I said. "Don't wait up for me."
"You ain't leaving me!"
"Oh no?" I started laughing. "What do they use to get rid of a skunk's scent, tomato juice? Well, as soon as I'm out of here I'm buying a case of it. Wish me luck."
"You heard me tell my friends about how you went away yesterday. Unless you want to end up in big trouble you better just read that copy of the San Jose Examiner I brought back with me. Page fourteen."
As I stared at her I felt a weakness in my knees. Luanne was from San Jose. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You just better read it!"
I found the newspaper laying on the sofa. On page fourteen was a story about a young, pretty girl who had been strangled to death in her apartment. The girl was Luanne Williams.
"You killed her," I heard myself saying.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
As I looked at her, her large bloated body dissolved into a sea of redness. Before I knew it I was clawing at her, pushing her head into the wall, choking her. There was a surprising hardness to her flesh as she fought back. Her face inched its way towards mine. The harsh, fetid smell of her breath assaulted me. My senses were reeling. The ground seemed to be slipping sideways away from me.
I collapsed onto the floor, weeping uncontrollably. "You killed her," I sobbed.
"Look at the marks you left on my neck," she said in a calm, almost indifferent voice. "I'm going to show Irma and Henrietta these marks." As she stood over me, a horrible smile formed on her face. Like when I first saw her.
"Who do you think the police are going to believe, an ex-convict or a woman like me who's never had any problems with anybody? Especially after I show Irma and Henrietta what you did to my neck."
"Now, honeypie," she added coyly. "Why don't you get up and lie down with me. You might as well because we're going to be together for a long time. Forever and ever."
Somewhere in the distance I could hear Morrisey laughing his head off. Laughing like there was no tomorrow.
The Manny Vassey Stories
In Small Crimes, Manny Vassey is a ruthless mobster dying of cancer, and his willingness to give a deathbed confessions sets everything in motion. In some of my early stories written in the 90s I had a prototype for Manny; a vicious, ruthless mobster also named Manny Vassey. This earlier version isn’t as fully fleshed out as the Small Crimes version, and is also somewhat more of a caricature, but I thought it would be fun for people to see where Manny evolved from.
Triple Cross
Manny first appeared in this nasty noir story featuring a set of murderous triplets, appropriately titled, Triple Cross.