Peter Rabe - Benny Muscles In

“I am ready with your call to New York,” said the mechanical voice. There was a buzz at the other end, then a woman’s voice that said that Mitzi was molting again, then the buzz. “I am ready with your call to New York,” the voice said again.

“Hello, hello! This is Tapkow… Yeah, I know. I got a new address. Haute Platte, Louisiana… No, that’s good enough, because I’ll be calling you… So has Alverato… Whaddaya mean, more than a week! How’s that meathead think I’m going to keep the lid on this thing with no co-operation and Pendleton wise to the whole setup? Listen, for God’s sake, tell him I got to know how much longer. This thing is worth millions and he- Of course I’m running out of money… That’s damn generous of him, but another thousand bucks can’t hide me from Pendleton. That creep might be tapping this call right this minute!”

They talked a while longer but Benny didn’t get anywhere. He should lie low a while longer, just a few days maybe, he should keep in touch, and he could pick up a grand at Western Union in the morning.

He was sweating hard when he came out of the booth and it wasn’t the heat that did it to him. It was all too vague, all too dependent on one fat slob rolling around on his yacht in the Caribbean and making passes at Miss Driscoll. “This’ll make Pendleton stew,” Alverato had said. It was doing worse than that to Benny. Too much had gone wrong, at Tober’s, then the cops now, and that queer and crazy thing with Pat. He’d been wrong about too many things.

Before he left for Malcotte he spent a few bucks on some green whisky and three hundred for an air conditioner. Then he drove back, feeling jumpy and tense. He’d been wrong about too many things.

He didn’t know it, but he’d been right about one thing. Pendleton had been tapping that call.

The air conditioner helped. They sat in the cabin and there was the liquor. He figured the liquor was better than the other stuff and it helped with Pat, it helped so he could handle things. Sometimes when he saw her asleep and how her face was drawn and the bones showing more, he killed the vague feeling that came to him then. That helped too. Later, later for sure, he’d promised himself to do right Later, when the pressure was off and the deal secure… He couldn’t be any good to her until then. Except for the liquor. When he gave her the liquor, that was less bad than the other.

What worried him was New York. There had been no money at Western Union. And nobody answered the phone.

He went twice a day. He sat in the back of the telephone exchange watching the young operator plucking at her switches.

“Nothing yet, sir. It just rings.” She looked over to Benny and gave him an encouraging smile.

“Keep trying.”

One red light kept blinking monotonously. Benny waited. Was that kid giving him the eye? He saw her glance at him, look away, and then do it again. Benny got up and leaned his elbows on the counter. “Nothing yet?” he asked.

She looked up and smiled. “I’m afraid not, sir.”

She didn’t have to be so damn cheerful about it.

A customer stepped up to get some change and she counted it out.

“You’ve been in here pretty regular, haven’t you?” She looked at Benny again. She had dimples whether she smiled or not, and Benny was watching them.

“Yes. Off and on.”

She giggled and looked away. He started to say something else, to take her up on the way she was acting, but then he checked it. He watched the operator’s speaker, the way it moved up and clown with her breathing, and then he looked at her arm. It was pink and plump, with two fat wrinkles where she bent it at the elbow. He pushed himself away from the counter.

“Cancel that call. There’s nobody home.” He went to the door.

“Sir?”

He turned to see her smiling again, dimpling. He frowned, reached for the door. It had a pneumatic check on it that didn’t work right and he had to yank.

“Sir?” she called again.

This time he came back.

“What is it?” He sounded in a hurry.

“I was wondering-” and she stopped, trying to make up her mind about something. “I was wondering if I should tell you this or perhaps you aren’t even the one. It’s against regulations, really, but he sounded so-uh-so strange about it, I was wondering if I shouldn’t ask you. I haven’t told anybody because it might be against regulations or it might be nothing at all, so you got to promise you won’t tell anybody I said this, will you?”

“Look, kid, if you’ve got something to say, say it.”

“Well, here’s what happened. I was on till twelve the other night, so about a quarter to twelve or so this New York call came in, asking for anybody at the pay-phone exchange, so I took it because naturally me being the only pay-phone exchange at this-”

Benny groaned. “Get on, willya? What was it?”

“So he said, ‘Quick, lady, take this down because I can’t talk much,’ and while I was trying to get it down fast he kept right on talking and then we were cut off.”

“Well, what did he say? Who was it?”

“We got cut off, or he hung up. I think he hung up.”

Benny wiped his face. “Jessis in heaven,” he said, and looked up at the ceiling.

“Do you think it was for you?” She gave him an innocent look.

“How do I know?” Then he lowered his voice, talking patiently. “Go right ahead, kid, just talk.”

“He didn’t have a chance to really explain, but I thought it might be for you because he said he was the man who’d been getting the calls from here, the calls from somebody called Tallow. Is your name Tallow?”

“Yeah, yeah, Tallow, lard, pig fat, go on, go on!”

“When you came back in I should tell you, he said, because he might not get to the phone any more. He said something like the wise father or something, and then it happened. We got cut off, I mean.”

Benny closed his eyes and let his mouth go lax as if he were asleep. “He said what?” His eyes stayed closed while he waited for an answer.

“He said something about the wise father.”

“Father? Whose father?”

“Oh, her father, he said. I remember now.”

“Fine now let’s try again. Her wise father?”

“Yes, something like that. And he didn’t say father, really, he said old man. That’s what he said.” She looked pleased.

Benny was silent for a moment, staring at the girl without seeing her. “Did he say perhaps that her old man-”

“Of course! He said her old man is wise.”

Benny repeated it, giving the last word a different tone.

“Her old man is wise.”

Pendleton.

Benny rushed out of the exchange. He tore the door open with such force that it flew against the wall in spite of the pneumatic door lever. Benny made one stop. He checked at Western Union, but there wasn’t a thing waiting for him. The clerk double-checked, shook his head at Benny, and turned to the next customer. But the next customer said no, he had changed his mind. Tearing his message blank in two, he followed Benny out of the door.

When Benny was chasing down the small highway that led to Malcotte, he figured he had never before been so anxious to see Pat. Perhaps she wasn’t there any more and instead there was a trigger-happy goon sitting on the bed, shotgun across his knees, waiting for the door to open and the fire to open and the gut to spill all over the floor where the shotgun-But that wouldn’t be like Pendleton. Not at all. Perhaps a knife, or a rope, or even just an empty room with a guy sitting on the other side eating a meal, a good one, and Benny starving to death right there, tied to the radiator. That was more like Pendleton. But right then it didn’t mean much to Benny. He had his foot to the floor board and was chasing the short trembling shadow that flitted like a black sheet over the road just ahead of the car.