Night bait, page 20
At five, Chet knocked on the door, and walked in. "I thought I told you to keep this door locked."
"Can't you tell?" she said, and picked her purse up from the coffee table. "I like to live dangerously."
"Seriously, Vickie, you shouldn't leave the place open all the time. Christ, in this town ..."
She didn't say anything more, but she did lock the door when they left to go to the car. She remained silent for most of the ride, staring at the rowhouses and the parked cars with empty eyes, and chain-smoking Salems Even with Chet right next to her, she still felt totally alone, as though she was the only person in the work and the people who milled around on the streets were just animated dummies.
"Something bugging you?" Chet said, keeping his eyes ahead.
"Yeah, something's bugging me." Her tone was bitter, hostile.
"Want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't feel like it. Talking won't solve anything."
"How do you know? Sometimes hashing things over with someone will work wonders."
"Forget it."
"Well, if something's troubling you, I think it's—" Exasperated, she turned and severed his words. "Look, Chet, I'm tired; I'm pissed off; I feel like shit, and I'm going to freeze my ass off tonight in this stupid dress, so how about laying off, huh? I don't feel like talking to anyone."
"Sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just concerned."
"I'm not upset. And don't bother being concerned. The last time anyone was concerned about me was way back when Christ was a child."
More silence came between them. Vickie knew that she had created an unpleasant situation, taking her frustrations out on Chet. She hated it when she got like that, but right then, she didn't have the gumption to apologize.
"Hey, I'm starved," he said, and finally ruptured the uneasy quietude of the station wagon's interior. "Let's get something to eat before we hit the block. It's still light out."
"I left my wallet at home," Vickie said with a straight face.
"No problem. My treat. We'll go to Jiffy's and get a sub."
Chet bypassed Vermont Avenue, made a three-quarters circumference at Scott Circle, then pulled up and parked in front of a fireplug on 16th Street. When she got out of the car, Vickie caught a full-front view of the White House two blocks down. It was hard to imagine that the White House would be located so close to the block. There it was, in all its landmark fame and beauty, the most important building in the country, and just a few blocks in the opposite direction was a human zoo, festered with junkies, pimps, hookers, pushers, pornography dens, massage parlors, and every other kind of obscenity that man could devise. Sin City, right next door to the White House. Vickie smiled to herself as they entered the sub shop, thinking that if she were the President, she'd move the White House to Connecticut.
Chet ordered them each a steak, egg, and cheese sub and a medium diet soda. Vickie could tell that he was apprehensive about saying anything to her again, for fear of being barked at. When he came to the booth with their food, she said, "I'm sorry I bitched at you in the car. Sometimes I just get bitchy, you know? I guess I've been down in the dumps lately."
"That's all right," Chet said, and unwrapped his huge sandwich. "Around here, it's pretty hard not to be down in the dumps."
The smell of fried onions and melted cheese wafted up to her nose. She took the top roll off of her sub and very carefully plucked off the pickle slices. "When I was a kid, we'd always take the pickles off our hamburgers at the school cafeteria and toss them up on the ceiling."
"Sounds like fun," Chet said, and took a bit out of his sub.
"They'd always stick up there for a while, but sooner or later they'd fall back down and land on somebody's back." Instantly, Vickie began giggling, unable to stop.
"Christ, it's not that funny."
"I know. I don't know why I'm laughing."
"They say that's a sign of schizophrenia."
"Sometimes, I wish I was a schizophrenic. At least that way I'd have someone to talk to at night."
"Well, I'm sure that a girl with your good looks won't have any trouble finding someone for that."
"So you think I'm attractive, huh? Yeah, I suppose if they ever held a Miss Prostitute Pageant, I'd be a sure shot for runner up. Anyway, I don't think cops were interested in looks. Just sex."
"Oh, not so, not so," he said through a mouthful of sub. "I once went out with a girl who was so beautiful that the very idea of sex was unthinkable. She was just too beautiful to defile with a sexual relationship."
"That's a new one on me. What happened to her?"
"She dumped me."
"Why?"
"She said I wasn't satisfying her needs"
Vickie blurted a laugh. "Then it's your own stupid fault."
"Yeah, well, sex is so superficial, you know? That's all people care about anymore. Romance is out of fashion. Love has turned into a great, big orgy. I think I'd rather have no relationship at all than have a relationship which revolved around sex."
"No wonder girls think you're weird," she said with an odd cock of the brow. "I've never heard that one before."
"Anyway, sex without love ruins existential volition. Besides himself, there should only be one other person in an existentialist's life. I just haven't found her yet."
"I don't think you're looking very hard."
"No time to. Too many murderers running around keeping me busy. But it doesn't matter. Time is nothing to the universe."
Vickie shook her head unbelievingly. "Most cops talk about football and roadhogs. But you talk about the universe. Maybe someday I'll figure you out."
"Good luck. I hope you do." He rolled his foil sub-wrapper into a ball and crammed it in his soda cup. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah," she said, looking at the half of her sandwich that she hadn't eaten. "There's no way I can finish this. I don't think a human stomach can hold this much food."
"I'll be right back. I have to use the, uh...facilities."
Vickie sat in the booth and waited for Chet as he trotted off to the men's room. It seemed that the minute Chet was no longer near her, her mollified spirit whiplashed right back to the depression she had felt earlier. It was as if his presence exorcised her feelings of despair. Outside, through the shop window, she saw a young couple walking by, arm in arm, with bright merry eyes and smiles flowing with mutual happiness. They brought flashback memories of Steve, and reminded her of how she felt when she was with him: happy, content, and in love. She wondered if she would ever know this feeling again. At that moment, it seemed farther away from her than the next galaxy. Suddenly, she couldn't stop thinking about bad things. The thoughts popped into her head like a color slide show. Nora's blue arm. Dutch's filthy hands running up her body like putrid slime. Diane Slezak's dead Kodachrome face. The uneaten portion of tomato stuck ludicrously out of the side of her sub, reminding her of the color of Mary Elizabeth Baker's eyes.
When Chet was back, they both went out to the car. "Wait here," he said. "I have to call the Captain. Only be a minute."
She nodded in slow acknowledgement as he started down the sidewalk toward a beaten pay phone. It was getting dark now, and the moon had crept higher in the sky, brighter, and more detailed. A gargantuan, dirt-caked Metrobus roared by, the pitch of its engine grinding in her ears, puffs of sooty-black smoke belching from its exhaust pipe. All at once, the filthiness of the city assailed her senses, the cigarette butts, the rancid air, the unemptied garbage cans, the paper refuse blowing around in the gutters. In a jaded muse, the grand capital of the United States now struck her as nothing more than an overground sewer, clotted with garbage and fuming in a whirlpool of mephitic stench.
Rush hour was in full bloom now. Scores of businessmen hustled by her, on their separate ways home. The streets slogged with busses and commuters' cars. Yet, with all this evidence of human presence, Vickie felt helpless and alone. Even in her bright apparel, people walked right past her, some almost bumping into her, as if she weren't there, as if she were as invisible as a ghost, or standing there on another plane of existence. A feeling of utter uselessness dropped down on her like sandbags at an opera theater. Depression hounded her. She thought that if she tried to smile, her face might split right down the middle, and she felt the threat of tears coming. Don't you start bawling again! she yelled at herself. You'll fuck up your eyeliner!
"Why do you look so sad?" a voice asked from behind.
She turned around and faced the entrance of a closed down pawn shop, and at first, she didn't see anybody. Then she looked down and saw a tattered old man, dressed in rags, squatting oddly in the doorway. A scrub of gray whiskers mottled his face, and his hair, the same faded gray, lay disheveled on his head. He was obviously a begger. At his side rested an upturned hat with a few coins in it, and his gnarled, weathered fingers clutched the stem of a guitar in his lap. He seemed to be sitting on a platform of some kind, with wheels. That's when she noticed that the man had no legs.
She gaped at him with her mouth open. The man looked up at her, smiling exuberantly.
His voice was ragged. "You look so sad," he said. "What's a young, pretty girl like you doing with a frown on your face?"
She didn't know what to say to him.
"That's all I ever see anymore," he continued. "Folks pass me by one after another, all with frowns on their faces. Is there no joy left in the world?"
"I—I guess not."
"Then no wonder you look so glum. Life is only what you make it. Look at me; I got my legs blown off by the Nazis; I sleep in doorways, and I got to beg to eat. But you don't see me frowning, do ya? I got no one; my wife left me in forty-nine; my children abandoned me, but I'm happy. Always will be. You know why?"
She shook her head.
He flashed her a toothless grin. "Because I'm alive. I'm happy to be alive. You should be too. I can't understand why a girl like you, full of youth and beauty, can stand around with a smirk."
"I don't have any friends."
"Impossible," he chuckled. "You got the world at your feet, and a whole life ahead of you. If you got no friends, you gotta make 'em. Even I got friends, an old tramp who's gotta wheel himself around to get someplace. Sure, I got friends, lots of 'em. I know everyone on these streets. I ain't lonely, and I'll never be bad on life. When I fought in Arnhem in forty-four, when the blasted Germans took my legs, I thought sure I was gonna die. And when they flew me out of there, I prayed and I prayed for a second chance; I begged to God to get me out alive and let me live. And you know, He did it; He really pulled me through, and here I am, alive and well, when I should've died on that fuckin' bridge forty years ago. And there you are, lookin' like doomsday. You're young and alive; you should be as happy as me."
Her heart was in her throat. "I know. You're right; I never realize how much I have to be grateful for." In the distance, she saw Chet standing by the car, waving at her. She reached for her purse, but stopped when she remembered that she didn't bring her wallet. "I wish I could give you something," she told the old man, disappointed at herself. "I didn't bring any money."
The old man tilted his scruff head and pushed out his palms. "Aw, that's awright. I got plenty."
"I have to go now. 'Bye."
"Take care of yourself. And cheer up."
She smiled at him, then walked away.
"Who was that?" Chet asked when she got in the station wagon.
"A man with no legs," was her answer. "Kind of makes me wonder about myself, you know? That poor old gruff sitting there begging for pennies to eat, and I act like I got it tough. Jesus, I'm a selfish, brooding child."
"No," he said, meaning yes in a polite way. "It's just that sometimes we forget how fortunate we are. We take our limbs and our eyes and our health for granted until the day rolls around when we lose them."
Vickie chewed her lip and said nothing.
The car wheeled back the way it came and made the intricate loop of stop lights at Scott Circle. Touch and go. Stop and start. Rush hour was always murder in D.C.
"Looks like good weather," Chet said to change the sour subject. "Could be a little less chilly tonight; at j least I hope so for the sake of your legs. And the weatherman says only ten percent chance of rain."
"Don't say that. Whenever the weatherman says no rain, a tropical storm usually follows. I'll bet those guys flip coins to decide what the forecast will be."
"Wouldn't be surprised."
She looked up dreamily. "You know, every day that it's rained, someone's been murdered."
"Yeah, you're right... I hate rain."
As the car drew nearer to Vermont Avenue, the sky seemed to grow dark at a tremendous rate. The bottomless bars were opening their doors, spewing thunderous chords of rock music out into the corridor of the street to beckon passersby. Massage parlors, adult bookstores, and X-rated theaters switched on their gaudy, flickering lights, like strings and strings of Christmas bulbs draped over window after window. An hypnotic trap to lure the jaded. Vickie peered out her window as they drove along, her eyes held by the city lights which passed before her in panoramic waves: blocks of red, orange, white, and blue, all glowing with alien intensity. The light was everywhere, and it poured out from its countless sources to fill the streets with a cast of lewd, artificial gloom.
"Skin flicks and politics," Chet said. "All wrapped up in one big beautiful city."
"All the places are open," she said back, "but no one's around. Just like last night. I haven't seen a single hooker."
"It's still early. Anyway, the fewer, the better, remember? Even though most of the hookers are in hiding, some of them will come out later. And maybe You-Know-Who will too. I have this bad feeling that somebody's going to get killed tonight."
"If there's one thing you aren't, it's a bringer of good will."
"Like my mother always said: Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. That way, when everything goes wrong, it doesn't seem quite so bad. There's so much shit in the world nowadays, it's absurd to get your hopes up about anything."
"Christ, Chet, you really are a downer. How can you be so negative about everything?"
"Because I'm a realist. Pessimism breeds truth. You've heard of Murphy's Law? Well, that's Winslow's Law. Works every time."
Vickie couldn't resist the opportunity to chip at him. "You know, you appear to be made of stone, oblivious to everyone and everything. But I'll bet that behind your stone mask there's a very sad and lonely man."
"Well, there's another thing about Winslow's Law," Chet replied with a smile of complacency. "Being dishonest with yourself is just as useless as being idealistic in a tooth-and-nail world. I won't lie to you. I'm alone in the world, and I'm not happy in any conventional sense, but that's the way it is. My happiness comes through internal satisfaction. Only on a personal level. Because looking for happiness on a social level is looking for something that's really not there. Think about it."
"If I think about it too much," she said, "I might decide to walk in front of a cement truck. I'm already on a sinking ship."
"So am I. So is the world. Maybe someday we'll get together and bail ourselves out... Here's where I drop you off."
The car rolled to a stop at the corner, and Vickie snapped her purse shut after making sure she had her mace. "See ya down the line," she said, and stepped out on the sidewalk.
Chet waved and pulled away.
As she walked down barren L Street, the moon followed her through the gaps between the buildings. The darkness of the night was complete now, and the color of the moon had changed from its earlier flawless white to an odd tint of yellow, deep and unnatural, like an artist's depiction from the cover of a horror novel. She squinted at it as she went on, imagining that she saw a partially human face in its lunar surface, a grimacing face of consequence.
And just then it occurred to her that the odd color of the moon was identical to the glow of the single streetlamp on the corner of Vermont Avenue.
The clock in the tower read: 12:01
She was born under the name of Patricia Juliette Dubois. But nobody called her that anymore. Since she had become a prostitute four years ago, Patricia had been renamed Cherry Smash by her pimp. She didn't care. There were no names on the street. Only lust and money mattered here; everything else was unimportant. Cash for services rendered was all that Cherry cared about. Green makes the scene, not names. They could call her Little Miss Muffet for all she cared. Identity wouldn't but food.
The neon lights burned red behind her as she stood in front of The Rockwork Club on the east side of 14th Street. It was one of the more outrageous bottomless bars along the main drag, and sometimes the guys inside would come out all fired up and hot to trot. Cherry had made pickups there before, and she thought she'd try it again tonight. For the past week, business had been really dragging. The block of 14th and Vermont, commonly referred to as Hooker Haven by all the working girls, was almost vacant. She had stood around there in all the usual spots earlier, with hardly any luck at all. She had only seen three or four other hookers all night, and the usual Saturday night flow of Johns was virtually nil. Everyone kept away from that part of the block now; each night, fewer and fewer hookers would show themselves. Probably because of that Electrocutionist fucker, Cherry thought. Getting everybody riled up and scaring away all the business. Now, even the hookers themselves were running scared. No one wants to get burned by some crazy. But, shit, a girl's got to make a living. No way in hell I'm staying off the streets, she assured herself. Not just because of some crazy. But I'll be happier than a pig in shit when they catch that asshole so business can get back to normal. If she didn't start bringing in some good cash soon, there'd be hell to pay with her pimp. She had never seen the block so empty. Sure, every now and then the cops would put the pressure on, and the hookers would have to lie low for a while. But this was unheard of. The block was dead. On a good night, even in the off season, Cherry could turn ten tricks if she really got on her bicycle. But that wasn't the case tonight. She had been on the street since six in the evening, and all she had to show for her time was a piddling fifty bucks from those two pissant college boys. They had told her right off the bat that they only had fifty bucks between them. Any other time she would've laughed in their faces and walked away. But with business that tight, she had to take every penny she could get. So, she'd agreed to give them each a quick knob job in their car. They had parked in the lot right across from the Gulf Station, so if all went well, she'd be able to get it over with and be back on the streets in just a few minutes. The three of them had gotten into the back of their tiny Omni, and Cherry went right to work. The first guy, a spindly-form wimp with a tool no bigger than a cigarette, had shot his wad all over himself before she even had a chance to get it in her mouth. She'd almost laughed out loud when that had happened. And the second one, a big, muscle-bound clown with a mustache, wasn't wearing any underwear, swinging free and easy, and moaning and groaning like one of those guys in the sound stag films. Christ, what a pair of genuine assholes. Hardly worth the time.
