James Crumley - One to Count Cadence

I didn't shake his hand. "Where did they take my friend?"

"Just to an outside cell. He will be all right. I didn't want him making any more, how should I say, bad blood with the two sergeants who brought you here." His English was very neat too, but he sounded like an insurance man making a pitch for increased coverage, or a Bible salesman.

"Just talk straight, huh? What's your price? What's it going to cost us to get out of this fairy tale?"

"Oh, everyone is in such a hurry today. But it is late, and I, ah, shall we say, have a lady waiting. So to the point. If you had not made my two worthy sergeants quite so angry, we could arrange some sort of deal where I, ah, would purchase your cigarettes at a very small loss to you. You pay seven for them on Base, I would pay you seven. You would be out nothing but your profit and expenses, and be much the richer, as they say, for the experience. A very small loss, indeed," he said, pausing to offer me a cigarette, which I didn't take.

"A small loss?" I asked, "or a shakedown?"

"Oh, such a crude term. I would have expected more from an educated man," he said, lighting his Chesterfield.

"Educated?" I said.

"Oh, yes, I know about you, Sgt. Krummel. I've known Teresita for many years. A lovely woman, as they say, yes, indeed. I've known about your business for some time. I also heard about your unfortunate encounter with Mr. Garcia this afternoon. He is a pig, but he could be dangerous, yes, indeed. As they say, I have my ear to many walls, yes, and you might call this a tax, a luxury tax. And the small loss you speak of so heavily would indeed be small compared to the price you would pay if you force me to call the U.S. Military Adjutant. You will surely face charges, be, as they say, busted, and perhaps spend some time in the stockade," he said, finishing with a perfect smoke ring.

"But, as I said," he quickly continued, "that was before you two boys made my men so unhappy, so damned unhappy. Now, unfortunately, it will take only a gesture for you and your friend. You must walk out, forgetting you ever saw these cigarettes. You have reserve, surely, and it will take all of this to, as they say, grease the angry palms around here." There wasn't a trace of irony or of threat in his voice, but a slight note of sadness; the director of one company hearing about the director of another falling into a bad but not disastrous deal.

"My friend said no deal, didn't he?" I said.

"Unfortunately, yes. He's such an emotional creature." Another perfect smoky circle.

"Then no deal."

"Don't be foolish. You made a mistake dealing with such a, as you might say, small tomatoes for a drop." He rustled in his desk for a moment, then handed me a card, and offered me another cigarette. I took this one. "My address and telephone number. I also deal slightly in the market. When you make a run after now, call me. If you can boost your load to three hundred cartons a week, guaranteed, I can raise the price to eleven and a half. You will get rich; I will get richer. But you have to take this small loss. The younger man has, as you might say, political connections. A small loss. You'll make it up in a month."

"Did you tell my friend this?" I asked, blowing a ragged ring of smoke between us.

"Yes," he said, standing. As he walked around the desk the crease in his trousers lay as precise as a ruler edge, the shine on his expensive shoes, hard and brilliant. "And other things. Other things."

"And he still said no?"

"Yes."

"Then, no."

He sighed, then said, "You must be very good friends, indeed. Money can't buy friendship, as they say." He made out a receipt for the cigarettes, "But I think this is going to be an expensive friendship for you." He reached for the phone. "Good luck. Think about what they say, Money can't buy friendship."

"I guess not," I said as I left, cuffed again. They walked me out and lodged me in the cell with Morning.

"He give you that get-rich-quick shit, too?" he asked out of the dark corner where he perched on a bamboo cot.

"Sure," I said, sitting on the other after the two cops removed the cuffs. "I told him it was a great idea. Told him to go ahead."

"Don't try to shit me, Krummel. You told him to shove it right back up his crooked ass. Just like me." His words seemed very close to my ear, but I still couldn't see him; my eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness. "Crooked mother."

"Where do you get off being so damned moral?" I asked.

"What we're doing is okay; what that bastard is doing is crooked. He's supposed to be a cop. And so what if we do have to deal with shit, at least it knows it's shit, like our lovely drop man, but that mother up there thinks he don't stink. Where do I get off being so moral? Shit, man, where does he get off being so crooked. So I told him to shove it," he said quickly, something, not fear, nor excitement, making his voice high and tired, almost a whine.

"And why? Why not take the loss?" I asked.

"Why? Because, man, I've been lied to, stolen from, and shit on for the last time. It's too much. Nobody pushes me around any more, man," he said.

"And how do you know I didn't take the loss?" I asked.

"Nobody pushes you around either," he said.

"No, I guess not," I said. "Guess not."

The adjutant had us out in an hour. In another half hour we sat with a bottle of black-market Dewar's – bought with my money because Morning discovered his loss – in the hotel. I was very numb, but tired too, and the Scotch seemed to run to my legs and weaken them, divide the very cells holding the muscles together. It seemed I should feel more, something more, anger, rage, shame, something about the loss of Teresita and my stripes in the same day, but for now I was just tired. The rage mounted behind Morning's unfocused eyes, but I was just tired.

(The night Ell left with Ron Flowers to go to his apartment, after Ron and I had argued about going to Mississippi for the summer project, and he had drawn the switchblade he had carried without using since he was ten, and I called him a nigger, then broke his arm, saying, "I will not be pushed"; after Ell left, saying, "You don't need me. You always win. You just never lose. I can't stand that," and I crying to her back fleeing through the door, "But I thought that was what a man was for," and my voice echoing in the empty hallway, "was for," and the past tense striking me like a boot in the face, and the loneliness clawing in on quick feet, not just Ell gone, but the world gone from me, and I screamed into the empty hall again, "But, baby, I'm losing now. Goddamn, I'm losing, and the losers are winning, and goddamn, baby, I don't know why," and I cried for a bit while curious fools peeked through cracked and darkened doorways, then I sat in the living room all night, drinking; I was just too damned tired to move.)

I left the table once to pry open the window, to flee the conditioned air, but found only the stink of the sea's dumb expanse, the growl of the streets, and a hot breath on my face as some tired mad hound raced toward me through the night.

"Money can't buy friendship," I said to the sweating dog.

After the first quart, we ordered another even though Morning was already as drunk as one man should be. He hadn't stirred from the table, except to take a leak, and he drank straight from the bottle. I had been as still as he, after trying the window, and may even have been as drunk, but I was silent, counting the blossoms on the flowered wallpaper, while he constantly mumbled to himself, his whispers like bees in the room, his hands flying about his face. And when I wasn't counting, I was just there. Sad and numb, the way it is when you catch a good one on the jaw and in that time between the fist and the darkness you float away from the world, consciousness unconnected, unanchored by pleasure or pain, just ether dissipating in the vacuum, tumbling through fire-streaked skies. But Morning's voice, now loud, grasped me from the whirling peace, sat me back on earth: