Under the Skin (16 page)

Brando snatched him by the coat and pulled him inside. But the guy
was no slouch—he grabbed Brando’s piece and tried to take it away
from him.

“Son of a bitch snatched onto it like a damn bulldog on a bone,”
Brando said. “We went banging against the tables and the bar,
knocking over stools, both of us cussing a blue streak. He’s trying to
get the piece and I’m mainly trying to keep it pointed away from me.
Bastard was
strong
.”

“Ray finally jerks the gun away from the guy—but he was pulling
straight back and hit hisself in the face with it,” LQ said, demonstrating the move. “About knocked hisself on his own ass. I’ve got the
other fella by the collar with my piece to his ear and it’s a damn wonder I didn’t shoot him by accident I was laughing so hard.”

“Real funny,” Brando said.
“I gotta say, the old boy paid for it,” LQ said. “Ray just
whaled
on
him with that gun—whap! whap! I expect the fella swallowed them
top teeth he lost. I never did see them come out his mouth. When
Ray got done with him the guy looked like he’d tried to stop a train
with his face.”
“Son of a bitch,” Brando said softly, fingering his shiner.
But Dunlop’s troubles—and Garr’s too—had only just begun.
When Freddie was done checking the machines, he handed LQ a
piece of paper with a tally of the money the slots had taken in since
they’d been rented by the Red Shoes Cabaret. LQ compared it to the
slip of paper Rose had given him that showed the total slot receipts
Dunlop and Garr had reported. The Red Shoes tally was way short.
“I told them fellas what the problem was,” LQ said, “and they
started talking a mile a minute to try and explain things. The one
with the busted mouth sounded like a retard, it was so hard for him
to talk. I never did understand how these old boys who get caught
with their hand in the jar figure they can say something that’s gonna
make any damn difference.”

They made Dunlop hug one of the thick floor-to-ceiling support
beams and made Garr hug another and they tied their hands around
the posts with their own belts and gagged the men with their own
neckties. Then Brando told the janitor to get him a hammer.

“Would’ve settled it for just a hand,” Brando said, “but that Dunlop bastard made me mad, so I did his foot too.”
“What about the Garr guy?” I said.
“Well hell, same thing,” Brando said. “They’re partners, aint
they?”
“Share the profit,” LQ said, “share the loss.”

e all got nicely buzzed on another three pitchers while the afternoon dwindled away and the lounge windows turned pink
with the sunset. When Brando asked what I’d done to celebrate the
night before, I told them about having supper with Rose and then
going to a cathouse, but I didn’t feel like talking about the fight, so
I left that part out.

Brando said he would’ve been better off going to a cathouse too,
considering the way things turned out for him with the French girl.
When he’d arrived at Brigitte’s to pick her up for the party, she was
already gone. She left a note saying she’d got tired of waiting and that
the party was at such and such an address and she’d meet him there.
So he went on over to the place, an apartment house by the wharves.

He said you could hear the shindig from three blocks away. The
party took up the whole building, all eight apartments, with a different kind of music blasting in each one.

He searched through five apartments before he found her. She was
dancing with two guys at once, one holding her from the front and
one from the rear, and all three of them so drunk they weren’t really
dancing as much as staggering around together.

Before Brando could make up his mind what to do—grab her
away or start punching or what—the guy hugging her from behind
suddenly puked a gusher over her shoulder, getting it all over her and
the other guy both. That broke up the three-way dance in a hurry,
Brando said. The puking guy backpedaled into the end of a sofa and
fell over on a pair of necking couples who shoved him off on the floor
and started kicking hell out of him. The other guy stood there staring down at his puked-on shirt and cussing. The Brigitte girl stumbled over to the wall and leaned against it and started doing some
puking of her own.

“I have to say she pretty much lost all her glamour right there,”
Brando said. “I left her to her fun and went on home, had a beer and
hit the hay. Some New Year’s.”

“It’s what you get fooling around with them trashy women,” LQ
said. “You got to find yourself a woman you can respect.”
“Oh man, if I have to hear about that Zelda again,” Brando said.
“It’s all I’ve heard from this guy today—Zelda this, Zelda that.”
And of course he did have to hear it again, since LQ had to tell me
all about her. His New Year’s Eve with the redhaired Hollywood Dinner Club hostess had been everything he’d hoped, although it had
gotten off to a shaky start because she’d been miffed that he was late
in picking her up. She’d heard enough about the Ghosts to accept his
explanation that there was never any telling how long a job would
take, but all the same she let him know she hated to be kept waiting.
If a fellow were going to be tardy in arriving for a date, she told him,
the least he could do was to call and let the lady know—it was the
gentlemanly thing to do. LQ told her he agreed 100 percent and
apologized for not having done the gentlemanly thing.
“From there on it was all smooth sailing,” LQ said. “Best time I’ve
had in a while. Good dinner, nice dancing, a walk on the beach in our
bare feet. Then over to her place for a little brandy and soft music.
Then into the bedroom and off to the promised land.” He winked

“Holy shit,” Brando said, looking alarmed. He leaned over the
table to stare closely at LQ’s face. “What’s that in your eyes?”
“What?”
LQ said, rubbing at his eyes and then checking his fingers.
“Oh... I see,” Brando said. “It’s only stardust.”
“Real funny,” LQ said. “I already told you, I’m just banging the
woman, I aint courting her.”
“I bet that’s what he said both times before,” Brando said to me.
“Dollar to a doughnut he marries her. Disaster number three, coming
right up.”
“I don’t know if I should take that bet,” I said.
“Piss on both you,” LQ said. “I’ll bet you a hundred dollars apiece
I
never
marry her. I’ll give you five to one I never.”
“What the hell kind of bet is that, you’ll
never
marry her?” I said.
“Only way we can be sure you’ll
never
marry her is wait till you or
her dies.”
“That’s right,” Brando said. “What if you wait to marry her when
you’re sixty years old? You expect
us
to wait that long to collect? We
got to have a time limit, none of this
never
bullshit.”
“Well, what about
me
?” LQ said, portioning out the remaining
beer in the pitcher. “If I die before I marry her, I win the bet but I
can’t even collect on it.” He paused in his pouring for a moment,
frowning like somebody not real sure what he’d just said.
“Christ almighty,” Brando said. “Only some East Texas peckerwood would come up with a stupid-ass bet nobody can collect on.”
“Well now, he could collect if
she
died first,” I said. “He couldn’t
marry a dead woman even if he wanted. I don’t believe it’s legal.”
“Can’t be, not in no civilized country,” Brando said. “So if she dies
first, that settles it—he’ll never marry her and he can collect. But
now hold on... what’s to keep him from
killing
her the minute he’s
in need of two hundred bucks?”

I shrugged.
“You dickheads are drunk,” LQ said.
“Bet’s off,” Brando said. “I aint putting up a hundred bucks he can

win by just shooting the bitch.”
“I knew you’d chicken,” LQ said.
“Chicken
this,
” Brando said, giving him the jack-off gesture.
While they were going at it I signaled the waitress for another

LQ squinted at his watch. “Goddamn, I’m supposed to be there already. I gotta get rolling.”
“Ah hell, have another beer,” Brando said. “You got plenty time.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She had such fun with you last night she won’t
mind if you’re a few minutes late, not this time.”
“I aint gonna have no more such fun if she gets all out of sorts with
me,” LQ said, collecting his cigarettes and lighter and putting them
in his pocket.
“Christ sake, he gets it off her one time and already she’s got him
pussywhipped,” Brando said.
That got LQ’s attention. “My
ass,
” he said. “You aint seen the day
I been pussywhipped and you never will.”
“Here he comes again with
never,
” Brando said. He took a sip of his
beer and turned so LQ couldn’t see his face and gave me a wink. He
knew how to rile LQ as well as LQ knew how to rile him.
“Come on, pardner,” I said to LQ, pouring him another glassful.
“Help us put a dent in this pitcher before you go.”
“Maybe you best give her a call,” Brando said. “Ask if it’s okay you
have another beer.”
“Up yours,” LQ said.
I pushed the full glass over to him. “Here you go, bud. One for
the road.”
“Pussywhipped,” LQ muttered, picking up his beer and giving

Brando another hard look. “Every woman tried to pussywhip me I got
my hat and gone. I’ve walked out on better pussy than you’ll ever see,
pussy you’d beg for on your knees. I’ve turned my back on better
pussy than you beat off to in your dreams.”

he following evening, after I spent another boring day in town
while Brando and LQ made collections around Pearland and
Katy, we got together for supper again. Brando threatened to go sit
at another table if LQ got started on the subject of his fiasco with
Zelda the night before, but he only muttered “Here we go again” and
rolled his eyes as LQ went ahead and told me about it.

Zelda had been so furious with him for being more than two hours
late she wouldn’t even open her door to talk to him. She said she’d
call the cops if he didn’t quit all his hollering and banging on the
door and go away, and so he finally did.

“I keep telling you,” Brando said, “it’s what you get for fooling
around with them snooty hostess types.”
“Goddammit, I don’t see why she couldn’t even let me explain.”
“Explain what?” Brando said. “How we put a gun to your head
and made you get drunk on your ass?”
“Maybe I’ll go see her at the Hollywood. She can’t hide from me
there.”
“Swell idea,” I said. “Rose and Sam always get a kick out of employees arguing in front of the customers, especially at their fanciest
place. Make a big enough scene and Rose’ll probably give you both a
bonus for being so entertaining.”
“Goddamn it,” LQ said.
“Hell with her, man,” Brando said. “Kick the bitch out of your mind.”
A few more beers into the evening LQ decided on the age-old cure

for getting a woman out of your mind—namely, by replacing her
with another one. He and Brando had to make a collection run the
next day, first to Baytown and then over to Port Arthur, a few miles
south of Orange, where LQ had once had a girlfriend named Sheila.
He hadn’t seen her in about six months, not since they’d had a bad
argument about something, he couldn’t remember what.

“You reckon she’s still living there?” he said. “I wonder if she’s still
red-assed at me. Could be she’s married, huh?”
“I know how you can find out all that,” Brando said. He nodded
at a telephone booth in an alcove across the room.
So LQ gave Sheila a call. And discovered that she still lived in the
same place and she wasn’t married. Yes, she was glad to hear from
him, and yes, she would like to see him again too. Yes, tomorrow
night would be just dandy—just be sure and bring a little something
to drink because she was running low and payday was a long way off.
And yes, she remembered his friend Ray Brando, and yes, she could
get a friend for him.
“I aint heard so much of yes in a coon’s age,” LQ told us back at
the table. His spirits were vastly improved.
Brando was as pleased about the phone call as LQ. “You think
she’ll be goodlooking, the friend?” he said.
“She’d have to be a goddamn calendar girl to be any better looking
than Sheila,” LQ said.
“I wouldn’t object any to a calendar girl,” Brando said.
“You know, if things go good tomorrow night,” LQ said, “we
ought make a damn weekend of it.”
“Be all right with the office if we don’t turn in the pickup money
till Monday?” Brando asked me.
“I’ll square it with Mrs. Bianco. Just leave me this Sheila’s phone
number and don’t wander off from her place for too long.”
“Shitfire, man—if things go right, we won’t leave her place at all
for the whole two days.”

riday crawled by even more slowly than the previous two days. None of the Maceo informants
had heard so much as a hint that the Dallas guys
were planning any kind of move on us. Rose was starting

to think Sam and I were probably right—they weren’t
going to try anything. “Guess I’m getting jumpy in my
old age,” he said.

I spent the rest of the morning in the gym. While I was
going through my workout, Otis reminded me of our sparring session for ten o’clock the next morning.

“I could use that ten o’clock slot to make me some lessons money if you can’t make it for some reason,” he said.
“I’ll be here, Otis.”
He grinned big. “Well all right then.” He couldn’t wait
to get me back in that ring.
I had lunch on the Strand again, then took in another
movie,
The Bride of Frankenstein,
which mostly made me
laugh. Then I went over to the beach and took off my coat
and shoes and walked along the edge of the water for a
while. It was about time for my twice-a-month swim. In
winter the gulf usually got damn chilly, but I always made