Max Collins - Neon Mirage

I was sleeping again. It was my third nap of the day. But then for months now I’d been sleeping more than usual. My habit was to sleep six hours or so each night, especially since the war, after which I’d started having cold-sweat nightmares. Actually, immediately after I got back from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, I’d had mostly sleepless nights. It had taken a good long time to work up to six hours per.

But lately I’d been sleeping twelve hours. And catching naps, too. I was working hard, sure, but no harder than normal, and doing damn little field work. Why was I so tired?

Hell, I wasn’t tired. I was escaping. I was at a point in my life where I’d rather be asleep than awake. Where I’d rather be out like a light than alert and thinking.

When I was asleep I was safe, safe from memories and pangs. I was kind to myself in dreams-with the exception, of course, of the occasional combat nightmare-and when Peggy came to me, in dreams, it was as a lover, not as a love lost.

She would speak to me in my dreams. Tell me she loved me. Call out to me.

“Nate,” she’d say. “Nate. Nate!”

I opened my eyes, slowly.

Before me, in the soft focus of Hollywood and the half-awake, was a vision of Peggy. The sun was behind her, making a halo around the dark curly mane of her hair; her skin was golden, not pale, but her eyes were as violet as ever, her mouth scarlet and smiling, teeth white as purity. This wasn’t Peggy. Not the Peggy who’d bolted from my office, hating me. This was the Peg of my heart. Of my dreams.

“Nate!”

I blinked. Sat up on the lounge chair.

“Peggy?” I said. My mouth was thick with sleep. It tasted as bad as she looked good.

And did she ever look good. She loomed over me, little woman that she was, her trim figure caught in a damp black swim suit, top half of her breasts peeking out whitely above the black. She was still smiling, but she’d hidden the white teeth away for the moment. She’d plucked the dark eyebrows some, making them more conventionally curved. The sun had made her freckles stand out more. She was a little thinner, the chipmunk chubbiness of her cheeks gone. She at once looked younger and older than I remembered her.

She sat on the edge of the lounge chair.

I ran a hand through my hair, waking up, wishing I could brush my teeth.

“How are you, Nate?” she asked.

“Okay.” I said. “Okay. How are you?”

“Okay,” she said.

She smiled tightly at me.

I smiled tightly at her.

“I didn’t write,” I said. “I didn’t know where to write.”

“I know. I didn’t write, either.” She shrugged. “I thought a clean break was best.”

I said nothing.

She said, “You’re not surprised to see me, though.”

“I thought maybe you might still be out here,” I admitted.

“Didn’t you know?”

“How could I?”

“You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, not a psychic. You didn’t even tell your family where you were. You dropped off the face of the earth.”

She shrugged again. “I just dropped off the face of Chicago.”

“Same difference. Anyway, you look great.”

“You look good, too.”

“No I don’t. I’m fat.”

A half-smile crinkled one cheek. “You are a little pudgy. How much do you weigh?”

“Almost two hundred pounds.”

“How do you account for that?”

“I’m just your typical successful businessman. Fat and sassy.”

“Really.”

I sighed, smiled one-sidedly myself. “All I do these days is eat and sleep. It’s my way of compensating.”

“Compensating for what?”

“The loss of my girl.”

Her smile disappeared, then returned briefly, just a twitch, and she said, “I hope you didn’t come looking for me.”

“I didn’t. I’m here on a job.”

“I know. Ben hired you. For pickpocket work.”

I nodded. “He approached me months ago. Back on the S.S. Lux.”

“Did you say yes then?”

“More or less. He approached me again, through Fred Rubinski, who I’m in business with now. The money is good. It’s cold in Chicago. Good time of the year to go west. As Elmer Fudd says, west and wewaxation at wast.”

She shook her head, smiled again, sadly. “I think you came looking for me, Nate.”

“So do I. But I also came for the money, and the sun.”

“The sun. How many times last summer did I get you to the beach?”

I thought. “Three times?”

“Once,” she said. “Nate, it’s a mistake.”

“What is?”

“Coming here. A part of me still loves you, but it’s over. I don’t want either one of us to get hurt. It’s just not going to happen again, do you understand?”

“I don’t understand, but if you want me to keep my distance, fine. I may be pudgy these days, but I still don’t have to force my intentions on women.”

“You’re a good-looking guy, a good catch for any girl.” She pointed at her half-exposed bosom, which was droplet pearled. “Except this girl.”

“You got a new guy, is that it?”

“That’s not really any of your business, at this point, is it?”

“No need to get nasty. Just don’t tell me you want us to be friends, Peg. I’m not good at that.”

“I know. Me too.”

“It runs too deep. I can’t turn it into being pals. I might be able to turn it into hate. I could work on that, if you want.”

She swallowed. Her eyes were as wet as her swim suit. “I don’t think I’d like that.”

“Okay. Then why don’t I just love you at a distance, and you can feel about me however the hell you care to, at a distance, and I’ll do this job, and put half a continent between us as soon as possible.”

She nodded. She stood. “I think you should pass on the job, too.”

“Why?”

“This is a bad time to be around Ben.”

“I hear he’s under a lot of pressure.”

She nodded. “He’s very brave, and very smart. But I’m afraid for him.”

“Well, if he called me out here to be his bodyguard, I’ll be on the next plane out. The last time I took a job like that, everybody got burned.”

“Including…” She shook her head. Not finishing it.

I finished it for her: “Including your uncle. You know, if you insist on getting attached to headstrong gangster types, you’re going to spend a lifetime crying over spilt blood.”

“You can be cruel sometimes.”

“Sure. I learned that from life. And from Chicago.”

“Same difference,” she said.

“Are you still Virginia Hill’s secretary?”

“No. I’m working for Ben. His confidential secretary.”

“That sounds very high-tone. What about La Hill?”

“She’s in and out of here. She’s allergic to cactus, doesn’t like the climate.”

“But she doesn’t like leaving her boyfriend’s side, either.”

“No,” she admitted. “She goes on buying trips. She’s helping him decorate the Flamingo. The hotel part, anyway.”

“Is she here now?”

“Yes. She’s over there with him this afternoon.”

“That must be hard on you.”

“What?”

“Knowing he’s with her.”

“What do you mean?” She bit off the words.

“Well, you love him, don’t you?”

She squinted at me. Hatefully. Upper lip curling. But she said nothing.

“I thought so,” I said.

“It’s none of your business,” she said, and she turned and walked quickly away. Her legs were tan and bore not a trace of fat; the cheeks of her sweet ass showed under the cut of the black swim suit. I wanted her, in every way you could want a woman.

I dove back into the cool water, but it didn’t do any good. I was a goddamn detective with a detective’s goddamn instincts. I climbed up on the side of the pool and water ran down my face, from my wet head, although a salty taste was mixed in.