Lawrence Block - No Score

Flick finished his story, finally, and poured everybody another drink whether they needed it or not, and got that look on his face that let you know another story was on its way. Before he could get his mouth in gear, Keegan said, “Why isn’t Solly at our little party?”

He wasn’t looking for an answer. He just wanted to throw a question in Flickinger’s way. But no sooner were the words out than the door flew open, and there, drunker than the five of us put together, was Solly himself.

“Well, it’s about time,” he said. “Wondered where you all went to. Knocked on this door and that door and thought you were all gone, and you’re all here. Goddamn good thing, too. Never forgive yourselves if you missed this.”

“Somebody give him a drink,” Lester suggested.

“Brought you boys a present,” Solly said. He stuck out his hand and just left it hanging there, waiting for someone to put a drink in it as Lester had suggested, but that’s the trouble with indefinite orders; we all waited for somebody else to give Solly a drink, and Solly’s hand just stayed out in the air for a little while before he remembered where he had left it and brought it back.

“A present,” he repeated, and got his hand back, and stuck it out into the hallway and brought it back in again, only now there was a girl’s wrist in it, with a girl attached. A redhead with a see-through sleeveless blouse and a flaring white miniskirt that ended less than an inch short of indecent exposure.

“This is Cherry,” he said, and started to laugh. “Jesus Christ in Marlboro Country, but if this here is cherry then I’m an unkey’s moncle.”

He tried to say it straight, and muffed it again, and fell apart laughing. Then he tried again from the beginning.

“This here is Cherry,” he said. “Her name. She wants to get checked out for dendivorous insects. No, what she wants is to get laid and relayed and parlayed. Screwed, blewed, and tattooed. She wants to take on everybody who’s game, and I thought of my old buddies, and I thought, shit, what else do you do for kicks when it’s a hundred and ten in the shade?”

Cherry was just standing there with a simple smile on her face. I guess that was the only kind she was capable of. She did look simple. There was no getting around it. She looked great, with a face that was reasonably pretty even if you didn’t fall heart-stoppingly in love with her, and with a body that would have made you willing to have her around even if the face had been horrible. But there was something in that face, some quality that was part stupidity and part vacancy, in the sense that if you opened up her head you would find a sign saying that part of her mind was on a sabbatical in Europe or something. So she stood there looking dumb and desirable, and that’s exactly what she was.

The rest of us were saying encouraging things like Hey and Wow and Sounds good and No crap. And Solly put one of his hands on Cherry’s little behind and gave kind of a shove, and she took four or five little running steps into the room. Solly followed her inside and closed the door.

“Now show the boys what you got there,” he said. “Get your clothes off, Cherry. Hurry it up. Any of you bastards got a deck of cards? High goes first and so on in order, and the same order for seconds and thirds, and after that we’ll worry about it.”

“Seconds and thirds?”

“Look at her. How often do you get a shot at something like that? You guys, I don’t know, you guys get so little ass that when you jerk off you close your eyes and pretend you’re jerking off. You think one shot at Cherry here is going to be all you want? Jesus, look at her!”

I don’t know who he was talking to, because I’m pretty sure we were all looking at her. It seemed to me that she looked awfully young, but that happens with simple people. They don’t have the sense to worry about things.

She took everything off, and she stood there with the same smile on her face, and I thought, well, take a good look at this one, Chip, because this is the one you’ll never forget, the first girl ever for you, and nothing can stop you now.

“Ace is high. Suits are spades high, then hearts, then diamonds and then clubs. Same as in bridge, but you bastards don’t play bridge. Cut the cards, dammit.”

Keegan wanted to cut first to determine the cutting order. Jimmy Joe told him to for Christ’s sake save the comedy for some other time. Flickinger, for once in his life, wasn’t reminded of a story. Lester looked as though they could tear down every Greyhound station and throw all the faggots on the fire and he wouldn’t mind for a minute. Solly cut the pack and got the seven of clubs and said something appropriate. Keegan cut the jack of diamonds. Jimmy Joe got the jack of clubs and insisted that put him ahead of Keegan. Keegan told him to piss off. Solly said diamonds were ahead of clubs. Jimmy Joe told Solly to piss off. Flickinger was sitting on a chair next to Cherry. He had one hand on her behind and was stroking up along the inside of her thigh with the other.

I was going to get an ace. I knew it. I could feel it, the way sometimes you can feel things.

Lester cut a nine, it doesn’t matter which suit. Flickinger was so busy with Cherry it was hard to get his attention, but finally he cut the cards and got the queen of hearts.

Solly said, “Son of a bitch, that puts him first. He gets fifteen bucks every time one of us makes a sale, and now he gets first crack at her crack.”

“Wait a minute,” someone said. “It’s the kid’s turn.”

“Flick might as well start. Queen’s gonna be high.”

“Aces are higher than queens,” I said. I gave the words a Dean Martin drawl because I felt just that cool and confident. I reached out for the pack of cards, cut, and got the fucking four of clubs. They all laughed their heads off, except for old Flick who was too busy getting his pants off.

Lester put a glass of gin in my hand. “No sweat,” he said. “Somebody’s gotta be last. Just five guys ahead of you. The condition everybody’s in, you’ll be in the saddle in fifteen minutes. If it takes that long.”

“Shit,” I said. I drank the gin in one swallow. I don’t ever do that, not even with a normal sized drink, and this was a whole glass of gin. I had already swallowed it before I realized what I had done, and even then I didn’t give a damn.

“A girl like this, she’ll just be warming up when you get her.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Look at her face. Jesus, look at the old bull socking it to her, and she just lies there with that grin on her face. Like she’s enjoying herself but it isn’t really reaching her. You get a girl like that who wants to pull a train, you’d think of her as basically hot, right? But look at her. Cool as ice. That’s the thing. It takes her three or four men just to put her in the mood. God almighty, but will you look at Flickinger. I didn’t know he had it in him. Hung like a stud horse, too. If she can’t feel what he’s throwing her she must have a bun full of Novocain. He’s gonna ruin her for the rest of us if he don’t hurry up and get it over with.”

“He’ll ruin her for the entire human race,” someone else said. “She won’t be fit for anything but donkeys and horses. Take it easy, Flick!”

“And get it over with, Flick, you mother!”

Flickinger got it over with, and almost got himself over with in the process. He finished roaring, and collapsed on the girl, and whether it was the sex or the liquor or what I don’t know, but he went out like a light. We had to roll him off of her, and Keegan kept saying that he was probably dead, but he wasn’t. We got him into a chair and let him sit there by himself while Keegan took over for him.