Макс Коллинз - Road to Purgatory

Now tonight the young hero was back, sitting at the bar again. That well-tailored gray pinstripe indicated Outfit money had already started to flow for him. But he seemed troubled to her, sitting slumped over that Coke like a boozehound on his twelfth whiskey and soda.

The last song of her set was “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” and the couples at the tables gave her a nice hand. Michael’s eyes weren’t on her as she slipped onto the stool next to him.

“Back for more punishment, hero?”

“You sing great. Really pretty.”

“Thanks... You look kinda blue tonight.”

“I guess I’m a little homesick.”

“Well, hell, soldier — how far is DeKalb, anyway?”

He tasted his tongue. “Real far. Farther every day.”

She studied him. “You got a girl back there?”

“You... you remind me of her.”

Estelle was about to kid the kid about using such an old line on her, but from the pain around his eyes, she knew he meant every word.

“Does your best girl,” she asked gently, “know what you’re up to, here in the big city?”

His eyes widened with a touch of horror. “Not hardly.”

“Then why are you up to what you’re up to, Michael? Every door in this town, every door in this country , is open to you!”

He turned to her, the glass eye as cold and expressionless as the rest of his face; but the good eye, the real eye, was on fire. “I have things I need to do.”

For a moment, she felt frightened, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d read the newspapers stories about all the Japs this kid had killed, but it had no meaning to her; it didn’t seem real — Japs dying in movies were just milk bottles getting knocked down by baseballs at a carnival.

Now, suddenly, she sensed the killer beside her.

And yet she also sensed a sweet, troubled boy.

She put a hand on his arm. “Would you like to go somewhere more private? Where maybe we can talk?”

“I... I don’t know if I want to talk.”

She stroked his cheek. “You don’t have to, sweetheart. But you look like you could use some company — and I don’t mean Louie Campagna.”

He thought for a moment, then nodded.

A self-service elevator off the second floor took them to the third, where she led him by the hand into one of the ten private suites. The spacious single room had a fireplace, light blue plaster walls, white trim, white carpet, modern dark blue furnishings, several framed abstract paintings in blue and white, a large double bed with blue satin spread, a small wet bar, and a window looking onto the neons of Rush Street, semivisible through a sheer blue curtain. She went to a table lamp with a translucent blue shade and a dim bulb and switched it on; this was all the light they’d need.

She walked him to the bed and kicked off her heels, nodding permission to him to do the same. His Florsheims off, she helped him out of his sportcoat, and carefully hung it over a chair near the bed. She was mildly surprised not to find a shoulder holster. Then she loosened and removed his tie, and took him by the hand and led him to the bed, where they lay on top of the smooth spread, generous pillows behind them. He was on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling; she lay on her side, chin propped on the heel of her hand, studying him.

“What’s on your mind, handsome?”

“Are you Catholic?”

Her eyes widened. This was not a response she’d anticipated. “Well... that depends on how you look at it.”

He turned his face toward hers, forehead tightened with interest. “How so?”

“I was raised that way, for a while. But I haven’t been to mass, for a long, long time.”

“Did you ever go to confession?”

“Well, sure.”

He sighed. Looked at the ceiling again. “I went today.”

“Did you, now.”

“I feel kind of sick about it.”

“Why?”

“Because I... I don’t know. I guess I feel like a hypocrite.”

“And why’s that?”

“It was a big sin.”

“Well. I guess sins come in all sizes.”

“They don’t come much bigger than this. Anyway, I’m not sure I believe, anymore.”

“Then why go?”

“Habit. Tradition. A feeling that... my father would have wanted me to.”

“Listen, don’t knock it. You had a father. More than I can say. So what if it comes with a little baggage.”

“I’m not knocking it.” A painfully young earnestness came into his face. “But my father believed . He really thought he could do something... something really bad, and a few words from a priest could wash it away.”

“Who’s to say it can’t?”

He looked at her again. “But what if you commit that same sin again? What if when you’re asking for forgiveness, you know you have every intention of doing that sin again?”

“Well... maybe it’s sort of one sin at a time. You know, a matter of keeping up with ’em, making the bookkeeping easier, for you and God both, not to mention the stupid priest... I’m sorry you’re so unhappy.”

This seemed to surprise him. “Am I?”

“Well, this, whatever-sin-it-is, is bothering you, isn’t it?”

“Not really.”

“But you’re... talking about it... thinking about it...”

“Yeah. But I’m not really feeling anything.”

“Well, sure you are. You feel guilty, or you wouldn’t go to church and confess.”

He gave her a mildly annoyed look. “I told you. That was habit or duty or something.”

“You don’t feel sad? You don’t feel guilty?”

He didn’t say anything for a while; his gaze returned to the ceiling. “I haven’t felt anything, really, not for a long time.”

“Oh, yeah? What about feeling homesick? What about that girlfriend of yours?”

He shifted onto his side, leaned his elbow against a blue satin pillow, and put a hand against his head. He bestowed her that wonderful half a smile again. “Hell, Estelle. That’s just biology.”

She grinned, laughed. “How old are you, hero?”

“Twenty-two.”

“I’m almost ten years older, you know.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Not in this light, anyway. But I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it.”

“With what?”

“An older woman kissing you.”

And she did. A soft, slow, tender kiss that he responded to well. They kissed for five minutes; necked like she was as nearly a high school kid as he was. Then they petted, and she found it surprisingly exciting; breathing hard, she slipped off the bed and out of her gown. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his shirt.

Soon the lamp had been switched off and they were naked under silk sheets, and he was a sweet, gentle lover at first, kissing her face, her neck, her breasts, and she slipped her head under the covers to take him into her mouth, enjoying the shudder she invoked. Finally she climbed on top of him and rode, because she liked to control men, and he seemed glazed, as he looked up at her body washed as it was in blue neon from the street. She came so hard she thought her head would explode, but he restrained himself and let her go there alone; then he eased her off him and onto her back and mounted her, and — displaying an intensity that thrilled and frightened her — brought her to another climax, and himself, collapsing into her arms, where she held him close, patting him like a crying child as his breathing returned to normal.

“Did you feel that , cowboy?” she asked.

“I felt that,” he admitted.

“But just biology, huh?”

“Where would we be,” he said, “without it?”

Eliot Ness was sitting on a bench in a museum studying a massive pastel painting called A Sunday on La Grande Jatte , depicting Parisian city dwellers on the bank of the Seine on a Sunday afternoon.