the Bar Studs) Page 14

  After drawing, aiming at himself, and pulling the trigger a few more times, he looked at his watch and saw it was close to eight o’clock. He’d better go uptown and start looking for Tino Fernandez. He flicked the safety switch back on, walked to the bed, and jammed the clip of bullets into the handle of the Colt. From the manila envelope he counted out three hundred dollars, which he folded once and put into his left front pocket. Then he sealed up the envelope, took out his folding hunting knife, opened it, and crawled underneath the bed.

  On the underside of the box spring he cut a long slit, and squeezed the envelope full of money through it into the box spring. Then he moved one of the slats that supported the box spring so that the slit was concealed. If anybody broke into the room and started looking around they’d never notice that slit.

  He undressed, put on his dirty yellow terrycloth robe, and went down the hall to take a shower. When finished he returned to his room and shaved at his sink with a dull blade, cutting himself three times. He brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and then looked through his dresser but could find no clean underwear or socks. He put on the same underwear and socks he had worn that day, but managed to find a clean shirt, a black one with imitation pearl snaps instead of buttons, and clean denim jeans. After dressing he snorted some cocaine, put the loaded Colt into the right pocket of his leather jacket, and left his room.

  In the lobby he walked up to Max the desk clerk. “How much you say I owe you?”

  “Sevenny bucks.”

  Johnny Mash reached into his pocket, counted out the money, and dropped it onto the counter. “I always pay—see?”

  Max looked dubious as he pulled the money toward him. “You hit the numbers?”

  “A guy paid back some money he owed me.”

  Johnny Mash turned and marched past the television fans to the telephone booth, where he dropped a dime in the slot and dialed the number on the slip of paper. The phone buzzed in his ear several times and when it was answered he heard a rock and roll band and the sounds of a party.

  “Hello?” said a man whose voice Johnny Mash didn’t recognize.

  “Lemme speak to Adrian Graham.”

  The man shouted: “Adrian Graham—telephone!”

  After several seconds he heard a girl’s voice. “Adrian just went out. Who’s this?”

  “Johnny Mash—who’re you?”

  “This is Julie Bauman from the bar. I thought I recognized your voice.”

  “You sounded familiar too. You know where Adrian is?”

  “He went out for a walk about a half hour ago, and he hasn’t come back. Do you know his fat old broad closed down the bar?”

  “Yeah—I called and she told me. You know what happened?”

  “She caught him in bed with me,” Julie said.

  “I figured it was somethin’ like that. You two mustn’t a been very cool.”

  “We weren’t.”

  “So now about fifteen people are outta work. You know what he called me about?”

  “He had some good grass to sell, but it’s all gone now. We’ll have some more tomorrow if you want some.”

  “Adrian stayin’ there?”

  “He did last night. I guess he’ll be back again tonight.”

  “Give him a message for me, okay? It’s very important, so write it down and make sure he gets it. It’s about a gig.”

  “I’ve got a pen right here,” Julie said. “Go ahead.”

  “Tell him to call Al Liggio at 422-8270—okay?”

  “Let me write it down. Call Al Liggio at 422-8270 about a job. I’ve got it.”

  “That’s all for now. I’ll see you around like a doughnut. Bye-bye, baby.”

  “Why don’t you come over?” Julie asked, because she, too, was attracted to Johnny Mash. “We’re having a little party and Adrian should be back in a little while.”

  “I got somethin’ important I gotta do. See ya later.” He hung up the telephone.

  Finding no cabs on University Place, he walked to 14th Street and hailed one at Union Square, telling the driver to take him uptown to the Guggenheim Museum. Johnny Mash knew the Guggenheim was in a quiet neighborhood where rich people lived, and before his bar hold-up he used to mug guys around there. Tonight he needed a driver’s license that couldn’t be traced to him.

  The Guggenheim was closed for the night and in the spotlights looked like a lopsided vanilla layer cake. At the corner he paid and tipped the cabdriver, and walked west on tree-lined 89th Street toward Madison Avenue. He passed elegant townhouses and expensive small apartment buildings and saw couples and larger groups of well-dressed pedestrians, but not the solitary man he was looking for. On Madison Avenue he turned left, and turned left again on 90th Street. He spotted a lone man but there were too many other people and doormen about, so he continued his stalk, turning right on Fifth Avenue and right again on 91st. Sooner or later he’d find his man.

  He covered all the streets to 95th, and then began heading downtown again. While strolling on Madison Avenue between 94th and 93rd he saw a man in a charcoal wool topcoat leave a liquor store with a package under his arm. The man had long gray hair and walked unsteadily as if a little drunk, and at the corner turned right onto 93rd Street. Johnny Mash followed about twenty feet behind him and on the 93rd block saw one couple far up on the other side of the street, and a doorman leaning against the front of a building on this side.

  Johnny Mash quickened his pace and came alongside the man with gray hair. The man turned to him and Johnny Mash pulled out the Colt and jabbed it into his ribs.

  “That’s a real gun,” Johnny Mash said. “Do what I say or it’ll be all over for you.”

  The man opened his mouth, sucked in air, and became pale. He moved his lips and tongue but couldn’t find his voice.

  Johnny Mash put his hand and the Colt back in his pocket. “Just keep walkin’—make like we know each other.” He looked at the buildings just ahead and decided any one would do. “Walk up these steps and open the door.”

  “You aren’t going to shoot me?” the man asked in a quavering voice.

  “Not unless you make me.”

  The man climbed the wide stone steps and Johnny Mash followed, looking up and down the street. There was nothing to worry about.

  “You want me to go inside?” the man asked, turning around. In the street light his lined face was made of white stone.

  “Yeah.”

  The man opened the door and they both stepped inside a small wood-paneled vestibule that smelled like money to Johnny Mash. To the left set in a polished brass square were four buttons with names beside them, and ahead was a locked door. Johnny Mash hoped nobody opened that door, but if someone did he could handle that too.

  Johnny Mash took out the Colt and pointed it at the man’s face. “Gimme your wallet—fast!”

  With shivering hands the man reached inside his suit jacket and brought out a brown leather wallet, passing it to Johnny Mash. Johnny Mash snatched it from his hand.

  “Turn around!”

  “What do you want now?” the man asked desperately. “I already gave you my money.”

  “I said turn around!”

  The man turned and when he faced the wall Johnny Mash raised the Colt and brought it down with the full weight of his body on top of the man’s head. The man grunted and collapsed, blood oozing from a gash in his gray hair. Johnny Mash dropped the Colt into his pocket, opened the door, and descended the steps of the building.

  He walked to Fifth Avenue where he hailed a cab and asked to be taken to the Hertz garage on 49th Street near Eighth Avenue. As the cab sped down Fifth Avenue past luxurious apartment towers on the left and Central Park on the right, Johnny Mash took out the wallet he had stolen and searched through it. He found one hundred and forty-three dollars and several pieces of identification, one of which was a driver’s license issued to Robert Stearns. With his fingernail he obliterated Stearns’ date of birth.

  At the Hertz garage Johnny Mash used th
e driver’s license to rent a new blue Chevrolet Impala, and paid the fifty-dollar deposit in cash to a pretty girl in a yellow and black uniform. He drove the Impala west to a factory neighborhood near the waterfront, stopped beside a gutter, and threw the stolen wallet with the other identification down the drain. Then he drove east toward the Borinquen Cafe, where Tino Fernandez hung out and his girl friend, Rita Piscopo, worked as a waitress.

  The Borinquen Cafe was located on Ninth Avenue between 47th and 48th Street and occupied the entire ground floor of a five-story brick tenement building. It was in the area formerly known as Hell’s Kitchen but now called Clinton by real estate entrepreneurs, and was essentially a slum neighborhood inhabited predominantly by Puerto Ricans. Ninth Avenue was one of the area’s commercial districts and the Borinquen was bordered by a shoe store closed for the night, and a little bodega still open, a lighted sign in its window advertising Malta Corona. A white cardboard sign in the window of the Borinquen announced in Spanish that the illustrious singer Elvira Almagro was appearing nightly.

  Johnny Mash walked into the dark cafe, chewed the matchstick in his mouth, and looked around. The bar on the right was half as long as the room and covered with black Formica, as were the tables on the left and in back. The barstools and chairs were covered with a red vinyl fabric, the walls were black, and in the rear left corner was a small stage and bandstand. A dozen people sat at the bar, and about another thirty at the tables. The only light came from candles on the tables and dim bulbs behind the bottles at the bar.

  Johnny Mash selected a stool beside a chubby Puerto Rican girl sitting alone at the bar.

  “Hiya,” he said to her, flashing his best smile.

  She turned and looked blankly at him. “Hi.” Then she looked away.

  A short middle-aged bartender in a red jacket approached. “Que quiere?”

  “Cerveza,” Johnny Mash said. He could speak a little Spanish.

  “Cuál cerveza?”

  “Budweiser.”

  “No tengo Budweiser.”

  “Schaefer.”

  The bartender walked back to the cooler and Johnny Mash winked at the girl. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked in English.

  She tapped her small goblet of red wine with her finger. “I got a drink.”

  “It’s almost gone. Have another one on me.”

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  When the bartender arrived with the beer Johnny Mash ordered a glass of wine for the girl. As the bartender reached for the wine bottle the jukebox went on and a young man began to sing a dramatic love song.

  Johnny Mash listened for a minute and then said to the girl: “He sounds pretty good. Who is he?”

  “That’s Raphael,” she said lazily.

  “Raphael what?”

  “Just Raphael.”

  “He ain’t got no last name?”

  “No.”

  Johnny Mash realized he was the only North American in the cafe so he over tipped the bartender because he wanted him on his side in case there was any trouble. Then he turned to the girl. “What’s your name?”

  “Olinda.”

  “I’m Johnny.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “You’re a gringo, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then what you doin’ in here?”

  Johnny Mash grinned. “I love Puerto Rican music and I love Puerto Rican girls.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled. “What you like about Puerto Rican girls?”

  He winked. “They’re pretty and they know where it’s at.”

  “Do you know where it’s at?”

  He closed his eyes. “You’d better believe it.”

  “Then where is it?”

  He chuckled. “Where it is.”

  She sipped some wine and he drank some beer. She was too fat and not very pretty but he thought he’d fool around with her to pass the time until Tino Fernandez showed up.

  “You live around here?” he asked.

  “Yeah. How about you, or don’t you got a place to live?” She made a hip smile.

  “I got a place in Greenwich Village.”

  “That’s where all the faggots live. You a faggot?”

  “No, are you?”

  She laughed. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but I’d like to check you out sometime.”

  Just then the jukebox stopped and there was a drum roll. Everyone turned to the raised stage in the corner, where a skinny old man in a tuxedo, black toupee, and dyed moustache, stood under the spotlight with a microphone in his hand. Below him at floor level was a five-piece band. The old man enthusiastically and lengthily introduced the singer Elvira Almagro, and as everyone applauded she walked onstage and accepted the microphone. She wore a short white dress that flared out around her corpulent hips, had a beehive hairdo, and her face was round and pretty. She snapped her fingers, the band began to blast away, and in a strong voice she belted out a peppy Latin tune that made Johnny Mash want to get up and dance.

  He applauded with everyone else when she finished, and next she sang a slow song in bolero tempo. He bobbed his head from side to side in time to the music and had completely forgotten why he was in the Borinquen Cafe when suddenly into his line of vision passed a tall gaunt man in a black topcoat and narrow-brimmed gray fedora. The man had pimples on his small rodent face, white slacks stitched with red thread down the seam, and was unmistakably Tino Fernandez.

  Johnny Mash watched Fernandez walk to the end of the bar and pause, looking toward the area of tables. When a waitress with dyed blonde hair and thin shapeless legs glanced up at Fernandez he smiled and waved. Johnny Mash figured she was Rita Piscopo.

  Johnny Mash’s mind was turbulent. He could shoot Fernandez down right then—it would be easy—but there were too many witnesses around. If he hit him later outside on the sidewalk he might be identified there too. He decided to follow Fernandez home and get him where there was no one around.

  * * *

  Teddy Holmes looked up at the fat black orderly who was pushing a small table on wheels into the room with a freaky grin.

  “Hi there,” said the orderly in a woman’s falsetto. “I’m Oliver and I have to give you a bath.” He was in his late thirties, had his hair teased into a massive Afro, and wore eye makeup and false eyelashes. He pushed the table next to the bed and clasped his hands together. “I had to flip coins with five other orderlies to get you. This is my lucky day.”

  Teddy closed his eyes and wondered if Oliver was a hallucination induced by all the medication he was receiving.

  “The bartender from the Corral,” Oliver said, rolling his eyes, “and he’s all mine. Who’d believe it?” He waved his fingers in the air. “Look at all those bandages. Why, I hardly know where to wash, but I’m sure I’ll find something.” Gently he touched Teddy’s bandages. “Well I can’t; wash your pretty face, and your big husky chest’s all bandaged too.” He touched Teddy’s cock. “So I guess that leaves your private parts and your long hairy legs.” Oliver bent over and with delicate fingers drew up the hem of Teddy’s gown. When he had bared Teddy’s pelvis, his eyes widened and he smiled delightedly at the sight of Teddy’s semi-hard cock. “Well, looka there,” Oliver said. “What in the world can that be?”

  Teddy groaned. A week ago he wouldn’t have looked twice at a swish like Oliver, but now he was lonely and demoralized and would accept whatever pleasure he could get.

  “Why, it’s the most beautiful thing,” Oliver said, his forefinger on his chin. “Well, I’d better start taking care of business.” He spun around and minced to the door, shutting it and snapping the latch. Then he returned to his table, on which was a pitcher and basin. He poured water from the pitcher into the basin, dropped in a bar of pink soap, and with his pudgy hands rubbed the soap into lather. “This is Cashmere Bouquet soap,” he said. “I buy it myself because it’s so much better than the crap the hospital has. It smells very nice and it�
��s wonderful for your skin.” With his soapy hands he reached down and caressed Teddy’s private parts.

  Teddy closed his eyes and felt tickles run up and down his spine. Oliver washed him from the top of his pubic hair to the tip of his toes, giving his cock a few playful jerks every now and then. Teddy was hard as a baseball bat and Oliver was actually panting when he dried Teddy off with a fluffy white towel.

  “And now,” Oliver said, folding the towel and setting it down atop his cart, “your little slave will give you the blowjob of your life and make you well again.”

  With a sigh Oliver bent over and placed Teddy’s cock in his mouth.

  * * *

  Leo Anussewitz didn’t sleep that night, so consumed was he with anxiety and frustration over Dorrie Caldwell and Harry Ryker sleeping in the next room. He tossed and turned, paced the floor, went to the bathroom several times, and ate cheese and cold meat in the kitchen. He wasn’t worried about waking them up; he figured they’d fucked themselves to the point of exhaustion and couldn’t hear anything anyway. Whenever he returned to bed he couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard he tried.

  At seven o’clock in the morning he decided there was no point staying in bed, so he got up, took a hot shower, and shaved. After dressing in blue corduroy bellbottoms and a blue and white shirt, he went to the kitchen and made a cup of instant coffee, which he carried to the living room. Inside his head was a dull buzz and smoldering hatred for Dorrie and Harry. He was too tired and irritable to read the paper so he turned on his television set to the Early Bird Movie, and the first image on his screen was of Clark Gable kissing Jean Harlow under a palm tree.

  He turned off the television set, drank the cup of coffee, and went to the kitchen to make himself another. The buzzing in his head became louder and he felt aches in his throat and at his temples. He couldn’t sleep and yet he wasn’t awake. The situation was making him physically ill and he should have his head examined for letting Dorrie stay with him.