Peter Rabe - Murder Me for Nickels

“About the record, you can believe that, too.”

“About what I said yesterday, Jacky, you can believe that, too.”

“You don’t mean about the couch, do you?”

“Sure,” she said. “That, too.”

She smiled and gave the good side of my face a small pat and so help me, the girl had a lot of appeal.

“I’ve get nothing against you,” she said. “Just like you’ve got nothing against me.”

“I don’t, you know.”

“I do know. You’re a bastard, Jacky, but you did have a lot of fun on that couch, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything and besides, you didn’t seem to be suffering any yourself.”

“I wasn’t, and that’s what it’s got to do with,” she said. “And now, off to the wars.”

She took her arm out of my hand, blew me a kiss, and walked out to the room where Lippit and Conrad were.

When I got there Lippit must have seen everything, or maybe Conrad, in his technical pride, was getting to be too much to take, because Lippit was saying, “And what about the downstairs part, Mister Conrad?”

“Downstairs? This is all there is.”

“Maybe this is all he knows,” said Pat, which was when I came up, with thoughts of saving the situation.

“But Jack knows,” said Pat. “You do know what’s next, don’t you, Jacky?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s next is very important, Lippit. I’ve been thinking about it while we were sitting there, with that music.”

“It inspired you, didn’t it, Jacky?” she said.

“Quiet a moment. Walter, I’d like to see you alone. This is business.”

“I was going to tell him about this business,” said Pat “Are you trying to steal my thunder?”

I sure as hell was trying to steal her thunder and tell Lippit that I had this idea, about how to get records, without middleman profits even, and all because I would try very hard, my very damnedest as a matter of fact, to get my influence to bear on the management of this studio-this management whose members I had gotten to know personally-and what with the friendship I had with them, there wouldn’t be anything they wouldn’t do for me. Such as the following, very clever arrangement.

I didn’t make it that far, because Lippit didn’t like to be puzzled and soon Pat took it from there.

“Thunder,” he said. “What are you two talking about?” And none too friendly about it.

“It’s about records,” said Pat.

And what wasn’t, at this point?

“I’ve thought it over, about the records,” she said, “and I think there was something in what Jacky was saying.”

What had I said now?

“You mean about making that record over?” Lippit asked her.

I glowed with hope.

“Yes. I’m going to do something about that.”

She took my arm and squeezed it. She took Lippit’s arm, too, and perhaps squeezed it, but she was mostly smiling at me, and I thought why was such a beautiful creature such a conniving one at the same time.

Or maybe not any more. With her hand through my arm, leaning up a little, reminding me of the more beautiful things which she was capable of-why should I spill even as much to Lippit as that I was thick with the management?

If Pat would say nothing, I would say nothing, and about Lippit’s record troubles, I’d handle that in some other way. I’d get the records for him, the way I had been thinking, but he wouldn’t have to know how. I liked Lippit. His business was my business and I wouldn’t want him to go under. But Loujack, Inc., was mine and not his.

“Listen,” said Lippit. “You go into that singing business some other time, okay Pat?”

“I’ll go into that singing business some other time,” she said, and so I wouldn’t miss the double meaning she said it straight at me.

Hope aflame now.

“Because I got to get back,” said Lippit. “And so does Jack.”

“Yessir, that’s right,” I said, and led them to the door.

“And on the way down,” said Lippit, “we can look at the downstairs part of the business.”

“I wouldn’t, Walter. I…”

“I would,” said Pat.

We went to the downstairs part of the business.

We looked at all the downstairs part of the business. The foreman down there was an old man with the black dust from the record processing in all his deep wrinkles and he answered the questions for Lippit It could have been a sightseeing tour. If Pat hadn’t been along. If her Cheshire-cat smile hadn’t been along.

We looked at the blanks, at the presses, the cooling racks, at the labeling machine, and the packing table. The place smelled like hot plastic and a machine made a hiss now and then. Nice and peaceful. Then there was nothing else to see.

“Very interesting,” said Lippit.

“Yes,” said Pat. “Are we ready to go?”

I felt like falling flat on my back, like a puppy maybe, overcome with relief. Or did she mean she’d keep me dangling that much longer before singing her song to Lippit. I still felt like falling flat on my back, to beg for the coup de grace, this time.

“Listen,” said Lippit, “you think I could ask the old man for a cup of coffee? I see they got this urn back there. No breakfast yet, this morning…”

Naturally, on account of my influence, we got a cup of coffee each, a sweet roll each, and sat on the loading ramp in back.

I figured three minutes for the sweet roll, four minutes for the coffee, and since the two would overlap, I figured five minutes, perhaps, before Pat would leave one way and Lippit and I the other.

“Ah,” said Lippit. “That hits the right spot,” and he drank coffee.

“Yes,” I said.

After a moment he said, “Interesting place, this here.”

“Yes,” said Pat. “Very.”

“I don’t think it’s interesting,” I said, “and we’re wasting time with the business that really matters. Tell me about the South Side, Walter.”

“Yeah,” he said, and drank coffee.

Three more minutes, I figured. Three more and the coffee break would be over.

“I’m not too worried about that,” he said. “I got guys hanging around just in case. It’s the price of the records worries me.”

“Let’s go back to the club,” I said and put my cup down. “I got a notion about that. How to beat that angle.”

“I know,” he said. “Get out of the business, for instance.”

He put his cup down and Pat put hers down and then she said, “You think, Jacky, with the pull you have in this company, we could all get another cup of coffee?”

I did not think I could go through another five, or let’s say, three and a half minutes like this, even without sweet roll time. So I said no, I didn’t want to take advantage. “What we need,” said Lippit, “with Bascot out of the question, is a fake jobber. We set up a fake territory, excluding this one, and then ship to here. Something on that order.”

“If you can’t even get a cup of coffee,” Pat was saying, “how did you ever manage the recording session for me, Jacky?”

“It was hard,” I told her, and to Lippit I said, “You have a wonderful idea there, Walter. Let’s leave and talk about this.”

“It would even be better,” said Pat, “if you could work in the name of an outfit that’s already established. Wouldn’t that help, darling?” and she said it to Lippit.

He looked at her and then at me and said, “You know, she’s smart. You know that?”

“I know that,” I said and got up.

“Of course, it would have to be a real friend,” said Pat. “So it wouldn’t cost you so much, buying into it.”

“Yeah,” said Lippit, and he got up too. “Comes a point, you need a friend.”

“It would have to be another jobber,” I said, “and there aren’t any.”