Peter Rabe - Murder Me for Nickels

He was getting his at the club. I didn’t mind the thought.

Then I had busy thoughts about the rope, Folsom and me. I was getting stiff. I had a buzzing in my ear, the smell of dust in my nose. The buzz was something else. I knew that when it stopped. When it slammed the door, when the feet were coming.

If you want to get killed, St. Louis, then move now.

“Franklin? That you, Franklin?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” said Franklin.

He came into the room and when he passed me he must have looked down.

“Still out?”

It sounded as if he thought I might answer. Then he kicked my foot.

“He’s fainted again. How was yours?” said Folsom.

“That’s a shame. That’s a damn shame,” said Franklin. He sounded much meaner than when he had left.

“I had to beat him down again,” said Folsom. “How was yours?”

“It stunk.”

He said it so hard, each letter came out all by itself. Then he went to the couch and sat down.

“He been out long?”

“What’s the matter with you?” Folsom asked him. He sounded mean too, like a rat without teeth.

I could have told him what was the matter with Franklin. He had missed feeding time. Lippit hadn’t been there. Like a baby dracula running short on gore he felt edgy and uncomfortable and would get worse in time.

“He wasn’t there, huh?” said Folsom.

Franklin was cracking his knuckles.

“What a lousy place, anyways. Was I supposed to get something done there?”

“What’s the matter? All the athletes make you feel like a twirp?”

Folsom shouldn’t have asked that. Not that he would get it in the neck for that crack, but I would, in a while. The big one was cracking his knuckles.

“Don’t you got to go?” he asked Folsom.

“Yeah. Soon. Soon’s I finish this cigarette.”

I was hoping it was king-size.

“You don’t know where he is?” Folsom asked.

“No.”

“They didn’t know at the club?”

“How would they know.” He spat on the floor, worked his foot over it “You know what they know?”

“Who?”

“You know what clomps is?”

“Which?”

“Forget it.”

Franklin, I saw, was looking out of the window, and Folsom was smoking.

“Didn’t you talk to anybody?” he asked a while later.

“Yeah. One guy says to me, ‘You wanna give somebody athlete’s foot?’ and the…”

“Which?”

“Athlete’s foot! Don’t you know from athlete’s foot?”

“You mean you got that?”

“Go to hell, will ya?”

There was smoking and the knuckles cracked once.

“You were saying,” said Folsom.

“That’s all there was. Then the other one, he wants to know do I want to crush somebody’s toes.”

“What kind of a way is that to talk?”

“Bunch of creeps down there, is what I say.”

“He said that and that’s all? You let that go by like that?”

“What else? He was some kind of a guard.”

Folsom put his cigarette out. I could hear it. Franklin got up and took a deep breath.

“How long you gonna be?”

“I don’t know. Till I’m done. And you stay here, understand that?”

“Yeah. I’m staying here.”

“And take it easy, hear? This ain’t your home.”

“I’ll take it easy.”

Then Folsom left. Folsom with the mean heart, the black gloves, the sick instincts. I would rather have had Folsom.

The big one sat down in the chair for a while. It was fairly dark in the room now, and the remaining light outside was bluish.

Once in a while he looked my way and said something. Once he called me a name and gave a jerk on the rope. Mostly he waited. So did

He was heavy. He held the chair down like a stone. Perhaps he would get up. When he was halfway up, maybe…

He kept sitting. The car was gone outside and I could hear the water make sounds under the dock.

If a motor boat came, I might even scream. They wouldn’t hear it. If a car stopped-then I felt myself tremble. It hummed like before and I heard the car. Folsom. He forgot something. Maybe one of his gloves.

The steps were so soft I had to think of a cat.

“Are you alone?”

“Huh?” said Franklin.

But he didn’t get out of the chair. He looked at Pat coming in and watched how she walked.

Smooth and leisurely. She had soft shoes on, with no heels at all, and a summer dress which was like a bathing suit at the top. She stopped and put one hand on her hip.

“Something wrong with him?” and she must have been looking at me.

“Naw,” said Franklin. “Just passed out.”

I could hear her walking away and I opened my eyes again.

“You alone?” she said.

“Sure. Why you ask?”

“Call me Pat.”

“Sure. Why you ask?”

I could see her against the window. She shrugged. She rested against the window sill, next to the chair, and her shoulders had a sheen from the light by the window when she leaned back on her arms.

“Just so,” she said. “You know.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

She had smooth, bare arms. She folded them so that the line between her breasts became deep and high.

Franklin looked at her and knew what he wanted, but he wasn’t sure what she was after.

“You come out here often?”

“No,” she said. “Usually there’s nobody here.”

“Except today.”

“Yes. I know. I heard you talking to Walter.”

“Oh. You know where he is?” The question brought back the big one’s interest.

“No. Do you care?”

He shifted in his chair but didn’t get up.

“Well, one way only,” he said. “Just so he don’t show up here.” Then he laughed.

She laughed too. “Would I come?” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Lemme try it out.”

But he didn’t get up for it. He pulled her over by one arm and gave it a twist so she would sit on his lap. I could see only that they were close together.

“You’ll fill the bill,” he said.

She didn’t say anything. I heard a sound of material. Then he said, “What’s wrong with Lippit?”

“Wrong? Nothing wrong.”

“Then why this?”

“You’re bigger.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

They were close together and I couldn’t see much else. I saw her bare arm on his shoulder and I saw her move her head once.

Pick the winner, I thought. First rule to success, male or female, pick the winner. Pat had been with Lippit for quite a time.

“No,” she said. “Not here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t like him there,” she said.

“He’s out.”

“I don’t care. I’ve never done it this way.”

“Listen,” he said, and laughed. “All you got to worry about…”

“Please, Franklin. No.”

They didn’t talk for a while and then he said, “You’ll come around.”

“I know,” she said. “Let me show you,” and she got up.

I don’t know if he let her or if she just caught the right moment, but when she got up she did so all the way, smiled at him, and went to the door to the lake.

I could see her good there, in the light. Everything else being normal, I would have gone after her, too.

Franklin got out of the chair and she went out of the door. He went that far, this side of the frame, before he stopped and turned around fast.

At first he just watched the chair, because it was moving and chairs shouldn’t move. This one flew.

I was up, hauling the line, trying to get the chair to me before he did.

He was fast like a rhino. He got ahead of the chair, heading my way, because the chair meant nothing to him, but I did.

He got ahead of the chair and then the chair caught up. It caught him in the back of the legs, and there was just a small stumble, a one moment chance and then it would be gone.