Elmore Leonard - Up in Honey's Room

Honey looked over her shoulder so her butt was still aimed at him. “I knew a boy on the circuit was injured one time,” Honey said. “He’d write on a notepad to tell me how hungry he was, his jaw wired shut till it healed.” Now she was dusting the bookcase, dabbing the feathers at the shelves.

“I forgot to tell you Eleanor wasn’t there when he died. She was in Washington. Roosevelt had a full schedule today, planning to attend a barbecue where country fiddlers were going to play for him. So he wasn’t thinking about dying, was he? You like hillbilly fiddles? I don’t. At all. Did you know Roosevelt was president longer’n any of the others? Since 1933. He was sixty-three years old.”

Now she was taking a book from the shelf, holding it toward him so he could see it was Mein Kampf . “Never read and no longer a conversation piece,” Honey said, and tossed it in the cabinet she opened, beneath the shelves.

Jurgen said, “Isn’t that where you put Darcy’s pistol?”

She stooped to bring out the Luger. “Right here, I want to ask you about it.” She laid it on a bookshelf and moved to her record collection in another part of the cabinet. She said, “One of the radio reports said Roosevelt was sitting in an armchair and seemed comfortable when, the guy said, ‘A piercing pain stabbed at the back of Roosevelt’s proud, leonine head.’ You think Roosevelt had a head like a lion? I thought he was suave with his cigarette holder, but never thought of him as leonine. Now Truman’s president.”

She stood up with a record and put it on the Victrola. “He’s a Kansas City politician they say plays the piano. We’ll have to see what we have here, Harry S. Truman. I doubt he’ll make much noise.”

The record came on and Jurgen said, “What is that?”

“Bob Crosby.”

“I mean that instrument.”

“Bob Haggart whistling through his teeth while he strums his bass.” Now she was singing, “‘Big noise blew in from Winnetka, big noise blew right out again.’”

“What’s the name of it?”

“‘Big Noise from Winnetka.’ What else can you call it? The drummer’s Ray Bauduc, with his wood blocks and cowbells. Ray’s fun.”

“You know him?”

“I mean the way he plays is fun. I did meet him one time I was in New Orleans. Had a drink with him.” Honey picked up the Luger from the shelf and brought it to Jurgen on the sofa. “I think Darcy said it’s loaded, if I’m not mistaken.”

“He did,” Jurgen said as Honey let herself fall into the sofa close to him. He was fooling with the Luger now, pulled up on the toggle that exposed the breech and a nine-millimeter cartridge ejected. He added the cartridge to the magazine, popped it back inside the grip and handed the pistol to Honey. “Loaded, ready to fire,” Jurgen said. “Is there someone you’d like to shoot?”

“Are you kidding?” Honey said, raising the pistol and closing one eye as she aimed at the mirror in the hallway to her bedroom. “I wouldn’t hesitate to plug Hitler, I ever had the Führer in my sights.”

“You don’t want to see him tried for war crimes?”

“What if he gets off?”

“You’re not serious. He’ll hang, if he doesn’t kill himself, which is a distinct possibility.”

Honey lowered the pistol and raised it again saying, “What about Walter’s look-alike, Heinrich Himmler?”

“The world will celebrate for days when he’s hanged.”

“If I had a choice,” Honey said, “Hitler or Himmler? I’d pick Himmler. Kick him in the nuts as hard as I can before I shoot him.”

Honey lowered the pistol again. This time she jammed it straight down between the sofa cushion she was sitting on and Jurgen’s.

“Boy, am I tired.”

“Why don’t you take a nap?”

“I have to go get booze. I think Vera likes to get smashed. Especially the way things are going.”

“I think she handles it well.”

“I hope so. I’d hate to see her fall apart.”

“You mean get drunk?”

“No, the way she’s worried about Bo.”

“You believe he’s missing?”

“Why would she lie about it?”

“What did you tell me Carl said? He can see her wringing her hands?”

“He’s a smart-ass.”

“He has different poses,” Jurgen said. “One time he looks like a farmhand with a jaw full of Beech-Nut chewing tobacco.”

“Scrap,” Honey said.

“The next time-this one’s my favorite-he’s looking at something miles away that no one else can see, and you believe he actually can. I think he’s himself, though, when you’re talking to him. He’s straight with you.”

“He can stop you in your tracks,” Honey said. “You have to think fast to come back at him. He’s more fun than he looks.”

“You like him,” Jurgen said.

“I like him as a man, but he’s taken. If he wasn’t, you’d have competition breathing down your neck. He told his wife, Louly, on the altar, he’d stay pure as the driven snow, and he believes he means to keep his word. But then if he happens to get horny, as we all do at times, and he wants some action right now? Something happens. Dumb luck sets in and saves Carl, gnashing his teeth, from going back on his word. I might’ve told him it was his guardian angel fucking with his life.”

“You know him well.”

“I learned that about him in less’n two minutes. You know what he is, he’s lucky. And there is nothing in the world like going with a guy you know is lucky.”

“I think several times in his shooting situations,” Jurgen said, “Carl, yes, has been lucky. The bank robber coming out to the street, the sidewalk, with a woman in front of him, and tells Carl and the few police in this small town, ‘Lay down your guns.’ Carl told me he could see part of the bank robber’s face over the woman’s left shoulder. Carl’s in the street, thirty feet away. The policemen drop their guns, Carl raises his and shoots the bank robber in the middle of his forehead. I said to Carl, ‘You were risking the woman’s life.’ Carl said, ‘I hit him where I aimed.’”

“He knows what he’s doing,” Honey said. “Did he tell you the woman fainted? Carl said something like, ‘Yeah, she slumped over, I was afraid I’d hit her.’ Then shows just a speck of a grin.”

“He told you that?”

“No, it was in the ‘Hot Kid’ book about him. Kevin loaned me his copy. I haven’t told Carl I read it. I’ve been comparing him to the one in the book.”

“Are they the same person?”

“Identical. He’s the only guy I know who can brag about something he did without sounding like he’s bragging. You accuse him of risking the woman’s life and he tells you he hit where he’d aimed. In the book he says, ‘Dead center.’ He’s still lucky.”

“I was in tanks almost four years,” Jurgen said, “and I’m still alive.”

Honey said, “I know you are, Hun. I spotted you as Mr. Lucky in Vera’s kitchen, the first time I laid eyes on my Kraut,” patting his thigh.

“Yes, but if you had to choose between us right now, at this moment-”

“I’d pick you,” Honey said, “because you love me. I’m getting there with you, Hun, all I have are tender feelings. I don’t see why we won’t make it. Right now I gotta go get the booze.”

“I’ll get it,” Jurgen said. “Go to bed and I’ll come looking for you.”

Walter arrived downstairs at twenty to eight, surprising Honey. She buzzed him in and opened the door to the apartment. In the kitchen, Jurgen sipped his martini and raised the glass to Honey coming in with an empty one.

“To the love of my life. Who was that?”

“Walter-”

“I thought he was in Georgia.”