Росс Томас - The Mordida Man

The Greek managed to look hurt. “But she is our gift — Lou’s and mine. It’s all fixed.”

Dunjee smiled and rose. “In the States, Tony,” he said, making it all up, “it’s considered bad luck to let anyone else pay for your woman.”

Perdikis blinked at that, then nodded slowly. He was no longer offended. A gambler’s superstition was something he could appreciate. “We’ll see you tonight, of course.”

“You bet,” Dunjee said, picked up one of the last plates, and tossed it toward the singer, who gave him back another enormous smile.

When Dunjee reached the table, he looked down at the woman in the green silk blouse, but said nothing. He guessed her age accurately at twenty-five, and somehow he knew that within two years she would look ten years older than that.

She looked up at Dunjee with a careful stare, virtually an assessment. Then she made her lips and teeth form their foxy grin. “Too bad your taste in friends isn’t as good as your taste in champagne,” she said.

Dunjee sat down and poured himself a glass of the wine. “What’s wrong with my friends?”

The woman shrugged. “What isn’t?”

“Well, they won’t be coming to my party.”

“So it’s your party now, is it?”

“My party.”

“Just the two of us — or the three of us?”

Dunjee looked at the other woman. She was a pretty brunette, possibly foreign, with empty eyes and a soft, loose mouth.

“I think the three of us, don’t you?” he said.

“Oh, absolutely,” the woman in the green blouse said. “Three is much more fun than two. Much more. My name’s Sloan. Vicki Sloan, and this is my friend, Sunday Smith. I’m not joking. That’s really her name.”

Sunday Smith seemed to feel that it was time for her to say something, so she said, “I like Americans,” and ran her tongue slowly along her upper lip.

“What’re you calling yourself this morning?” Vicki Sloan said.

“Dunjee. Chubb Dunjee.”

She laughed. It was a loud laugh that started out soprano and wound up almost baritone. “You didn’t make that up.”

“Not at six in the morning.”

“Chubb Dunjee,” Sunday Smith said, as if it were her time to speak again. “That’s really a super name.”

The party got under way at almost half past six that morning in Dunjee’s room on the sixth floor of the Hilton. It developed into a mild orgy that ended shortly before nine. The two women turned out to be more practiced than inventive, and during the French exhibition set piece Dunjee caught Sunday Smith yawning a little when she should have been writhing with lust.

By nine it was time to break the bad news and by then Dunjee had carefully made sure he was fairly drunk. It was something he’d never been able to fake very well. Vicki Sloan took the news hard. Extremely hard.

“What do you mean you haven’t got it? ” she said, almost screaming the last four words.

Dunjee looked up from the chair he had slumped into. He let his lips go loose and slack and grinned sloppily. “Temporary shortage of funds, love. That’s all. You’ll get your money. Only temporary.”

She bent down over him naked, her two hands resting on the arms of the chair. Her face was less than a foot from his. He could smell her breath. It wasn’t pleasant. Her eyes seemed furious, but when she spoke her voice was very low and quite controlled. “You owe us five hundred fucking quid, Jack.”

Dunjee nodded agreeably. “Or a thousand dollars. Whichever.”

“When?” she demanded.

Dunjee wrinkled his forehead into thought. “When?” he repeated. “Yes, when? Well, noon, say. What about then? I’ll have it by noon. Not to worry.”

She stood up, shaking her head slowly as she gathered up her clothes and slipped into them. “I’m not worried,” she said while dressing. “You’re the one who’d better be worried. Where’s your passport?”

“Get his fucking passport,” Sunday Smith said.

Dunjee pretended that he couldn’t remember where he had put it. All three searched the room until Dunjee finally looked under the mattress where he had slipped the passport earlier. “This what you want?”

Vicki Sloan snatched it away from him, examined it quickly, and then tucked it away in her purse. “If you want this back, you’d better be here at noon with the money. All of it.”

“You’ll be back at noon, huh?” Dunjee asked, knowing she wouldn’t.

“Not me, love. Somebody else.”

Dunjee decided it was time to get rid of them. He went around the two women to the door, turned back the bolts, and unfastened the chain. “Well, I’ll pay whoever shows up. Even offer him a drink — if he’s a drinking man.”

Vicki Sloan put her hand on the doorknob and stared up at him, still furious. “I wouldn’t disappoint him, if I was you. He gets nasty vicious, he does, when he’s disappointed.”

She opened the door and went through it followed by Sunday Smith, who paused just long enough to say, “You don’t have the money, Rollo, he’ll cut your fucking heart out.”

When they had gone, Dunjee closed the door and turned to survey his wrecked room. He thought about calling down for maid service, even for some breakfast, but decided against it, sat down on the bed, and lit a rare cigarette. A minute later he put the cigarette out and lay down. Three minutes later he was asleep.

He was still asleep when the determined knocking began on his door shortly before noon. It took several long moments before Dunjee became fully awake. He concluded that he felt somewhere between awful and terrible. He let the knocking go on for another few seconds, then rose and went into the bathroom to inspect himself in the mirror. He looked even worse than he felt — which was the way he expected to look. After splashing some cold water on his face and half drying it with a towel, Dunjee went to the door and opened it.

The man who stood there wore a gray tweed jacket and a ferocious scowl, but at the sight of Dunjee the scowl dissolved into a sad, lopsided grin. “God save us, lad, will you be dying on me this morning?”

“I might,” Dunjee said. “Come on in.”

The man followed Dunjee into the room and glanced around at the bottles and the smeared glasses and the twisted sheets. “Had a night of it, did we?”

“You her pimp?”

“I’m just a lost soul, brother, with the sad misfortune of being in love with a whore, and I’m fair dying for a drink.” He took out Dunjee’s passport and tossed it onto the writing desk. “My compliments.”

Dunjee climbed onto the bed, reached up, and removed the air conditioning grille. He took out his wallet, put the grille back, and stepped back down to the floor. He opened the wallet as though to check its contents and let the man catch a glimpse of all the hundred-dollar bills it contained. “Let’s have that drink,” Dunjee said and started counting out ten of the bills.

The man turned toward the bottles. He was not quite as tall as Dunjee, but wider and at least seven or eight years younger. He had thinning blond hair and too much forehead and the sad eyes of a failed cleric. There was just enough chin and perhaps a bit too much mouth. He mixed the drinks deftly and handed one to Dunjee, then raised his own glass and said, “To suicide, mate. I’m thinking you might drink to that this morning.”

“I might,” Dunjee said, formed the ten one-hundred-dollar bills into a small fan with one hand, and held them out to the man. There was a moment of hesitation before the man took the money and stuffed it down into his pants pocket.

“You overpaid, you know.”

“I know,” Dunjee said. “What’s your name?”

“Harold Hopkins, sir, and notice how nicely I handle me aitches.”