David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

At some point, as he was driving, chow had seemed appropriate. He’d slept on and off for an entire day and it had been over thirty-six hours since his last solid food. Shel would tell me to eat, he thought. She’d always been good about that sort of thing. He missed her so badly it was painful and the pain wasn’t the kind you could just ignore till it goes away. There’d be no end to this pain, he thought.

He sat in a booth along the wall, looking down at a western omelet. His fork lay on the rim of the plate and his home fries sat cold and submerged beneath a vast discharge of ketchup. It was his second breakfast; he’d eaten the first in a dithering fury: a monte cristo sandwich, they served it with a side of lemon mayonnaise here. The remaining mayonnaise glowed in its ramekin like something left behind by a poisonous fish. The waitresses, they circulated like fish, he thought.

“Hey,” a voice said.

Frank looked in the voice’s direction and found at the next table a pimpled youth sitting with a glass of water and a plate of fries. The kid wiped his chin with his shirt cuff.

“You gonna eat your omelet?” He nodded at Frank’s plate. His eyes had a yellow tinge, and tiny white sores coated his fingers. Frank looked down at the plate. Two maraschino cherries sat in a bed of parsley as a garnish; a fly navigated the surface of the omelet. If flies were the size of people, Frank thought, they’d rule the world. He sat back from the plate.

“Take it,” he said.

The kid snatched the omelet away and attacked it with a spoon. Food spilled out of his mouth as he chewed.

Frank looked off and spotted a table of three call girls, sitting several booths down. One was Asian with waist-length hair and nails so long, they curled. She stared brokenheartedly across the table at a pockfaced blonde; the blonde wore fishnets over red tights. The third woman had brown hair and a fake mole. They all sat back from their plates, smoking. Frank looked at them and figured a couple hundred easy per purse if they’d had a decent night. It was a lot of money. And, given his circumstances, a lot of money was, well, a lot of money.

Licking his teeth clean of food, he eased up from his seat and ventured over to the threesome’s table. He smiled, crouching between the Asian and the blonde.

“You’re very pretty,” he said to no one in particular.

They ignored him, smoking their cigarettes and swinging their legs under the table in a cocaine mania. The blonde was thin in the face, with long pendant earlobes that Frank found just ugly enough to make her interesting.

“I said, you’re very pretty.”

The Asian groaned, the blonde rolled her eyes.

“How much for a go-around?” he asked. “Lost my dog the other night. I’m a little down.”

“Check out the pound,” the Asian said. “We’re off the clock.”

Frank smiled good-naturedly. Don’t antagonize anybody, he thought, just get one of them to come along. Grab the purse and scram. Nothing scientific. Nothing rough.

“Check out the pound,” he repeated, chuckling. He pulled every bill he had from his pocket, counted off twenties and fanned himself with them. “What’s it cost to get you back on the job?”

The Asian reached across the table for the blonde’s hand. The hand was ten years older than the face, something Frank automatically associated with motherhood. The blonde exhaled a vast cloud of smoke.

“She said we’re off the clock. What d’you want, a telegram?”

Frank turned to the brunette with the fake mole. “What about you?”

She lifted a french fry from her plate and stared at it. “I’ve got herpes,” she said, returning the french fry to her plate.

“So do I,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“I said we’re through for the night.” The Asian again. “I meant it, asshole.”

She waved across the room to a pair of men sitting at the counter. Frank hadn’t noticed them before. One looked like he might be the girls’ driver, slender and neat and fey. The other was a heavyset, clean-shaven thug in a plaid jacket; he yammered nonstop, slapping the back of his left hand into the palm of his right. His bald spot was beaded with sweat. It was the driver who spotted the Asian’s signal. He tapped the shoulder of the heavy guy. Frank put the money back in his pocket.

“What did you do that for?” he said.

“I trust my feelings.”

The man in the plaid jacket crossed the room in a slow walk, bandy-legged, hands in his pockets, smiling with fraudulent good humor. He greeted Frank with, “Hey, Scrape.”

“Waldo, get rid of this,” the Asian said, pointing.

Up close the man’s eyes had a moronic intensity. They were marbles in the face of a doll. He had hairy fingers, nails chewed down to the raw.

“Wrong table,” Frank said, but before he could turn away Waldo locked one hand around his elbow. His thumb speared down to bone. Frank’s arm went numb. Waldo leaned close and whispered, “You go outside, I’ll shoot your pink ass.” He shook Frank’s arm like a rag. “Look at me.”

The top of his head came level with Frank’s nose. Frank stared into a flat, reddish face, cavernous pores, thin hair combed back on a damp skull. Waldo breathed heavily, offering Frank a smile.

“Let’s,” he said.

He spun Frank around and steered him toward the men’s room. The three women waved to his back, chirping “bye-bye” like the Puerto Rican girls in West Side Story . Frank made a quick glance around the room. The waitresses turned their backs. The cooks and busmen kept busy, looking away. It was not a pressure job.

The slender one, the driver, stood watch at the rest room door while Waldo pitched Frank against the sink. An old man tottered out frantically. Frank felt a sudden bond with him.

“Look,” Frank said to Waldo, “go slob the knob with your faggot friend out there, leave me alone.”

With startling quickness, Waldo laid a punch hard to his temple, creating water from the waist down and a nauseating blackness. In the doorway the slender one told someone to use another rest room, a man was inside getting sick. Waldo lodged a handkerchief into Frank’s mouth, took out a penknife and opened the smallest blade, then locked Frank’s wrist in his grip and forced the blade deep beneath the thumbnail. The pain shot everywhere, he fell to his knees. This earned him a kick in the abdomen so violent his arms disappeared, his face hit the floor. He was choking, the linoleum stank with urine.

At the doorway, the slender one said again, “Inside,” louder now. “Getting sick.”

Waldo wiggled his knife free and rifled Frank’s pockets. Coins scattered across the floor. Through a galaxy of black stars Frank watched Waldo count his wad of bills; he tossed Frank’s car keys into the urinal. Another kick struck the base of his skull.

Waldo bent down. “Check it out, Scrape. Who’s the faggot now?”

At the Pierpont Hotel a gaunt bellman with feathery white hair and fleshy eyes Hoovered the lobby rug. Uniform jacket unbuttoned, he sang fiercely over the warm noise and the tickling dust, smiling into the carpet trails.

Frank limped through the Powell Street door. The bellman stood straight and fell quiet. He turned off the vacuum. Frank took shallow breaths, holding his side, ignoring the bellman’s stare. He had a paper napkin wrapped tight around his thumb because blood continued to seep from under the nail, which had turned a purplish black. He moved each foot as though it were weighted down.

He got to the rest room as fast as he could, checking the back of his head for blood. He’d swallowed ten aspirins already, taking them dry from a bottle he’d shoplifted from a Tenderloin Thrifty. Reaching an empty stall he collapsed onto the toilet seat, latching the door as he sat. His heart was racing. He pressed his good hand to his eyes and squeezed, sitting like that till the bellman came in after him. Frank could see the man’s shoes and pant cuffs beneath the stall door.