David Markson - Epitaph For A Dead Beat

“It is you, isn’t it? We never did get ourselves formally introduced.”

I grinned at her. “You were pretty soused.”

“You could be right — although I’ve got a hunch I was sober as a hen about two seconds before you gave me that smack.” She puckered her bright lips wistfully. “Hell of a thing for a man to do. I seem to recall I’d been pretty darned accommodating, myself.”

I laughed. “You’re feeling all right?”

“Grand, grand.” She touched her fingers to a swollen bruise at the side of her nose. “Half the pain was mental anyhow.”

Fern was standing near me. “Do you think she needs a doctor, Harry? I didn’t put anything on them except disinfectant—”

“I doubt it, not if the skin isn’t broken.” I went across to one of the sling chairs. “He didn’t do that gaudy a job with his fists alone?”

“He decided I’d be more impressed by a leather strap. Come to think of it, I was impressed at that.”

“You want to tell me about it, Dana?”

She nodded, reaching for her smoke again with one of those milky arms. Damaged as she was, the girl made you suspect that half the women in the world were grossly deficient in protein. Fern had taken a seat next to her, tucking her bare legs beneath her. She wasn’t one of the afflicted.

“I don’t come out lily white in the tale myself,” Dana said. “But then I’m just about beyond salvaging as it is.” She considered me thoughtfully. “That really was a honey of an exhibition I put on for you over there, wasn’t it?”

“It was harmless enough.”

“I’ll bet. But thanks anyhow.”

“You leave McGruder’s with Klobb?”

“No, I didn’t. I felt rotten when they let us go, and I walked around for a while. I ran into Ivan when I stopped for coffee, and we went down to his studio. It wasn’t anything except company, someone to talk to. Although Ivan was pretty upset himself, for reasons most people don’t know about.” She glanced at Fern. “Did Josie ever tell you about a man named Constantine?”

Fern turned to me.”—Connie?”

“I found out tonight. The police hit it pretty close on Tuesday, Fern. Josie’d been taking calls.”

“Taking—” She pressed her lips together. “I did begin to wonder about it, I suppose. It’s just so darn hard to accept—”

“You’re telling me,” Dana said. “Audrey let me in on it a few weeks ago. She was tight one night, feeling sorry for herself. Boy, it knocked me for a loop. We weren’t that intimate — you know how you just share a place to save money. The fact is — well, I guess I didn’t like her too much. I suppose everybody down here is always putting down everybody else, taking advantage of other people’s weaknesses, but Audrey was worse, somehow. Bitchy. Oh, damn, what a thing to be saying. Anyhow, I’d always supposed she was seeing someone else’s husband and had the sense to be discreet about it.” She looked back across. “You know about Ivan introducing her and Josie to this Constantine— for a fee?”

I nodded, watching Fern lift a hand in puzzlement. “But he’s such a successful painter. Sometimes I think he’s the only real artist down here. Why would he—?”

“You go figure it.” Dana butted her cigarette. “He didn’t mention it tonight, of course — it obviously wasn’t supposed to be known — but I was pretty certain that was what he was worried about. We had a couple drinks, and then he—” She made a face. “This is going to sound funny, considering the circumstances, but he decided to paint me. Ivan’s odd. He’s come looking for me more than once after midnight. So it wasn’t anything extraordinary, and God knows I would rather have held still all night than go home by myself. I had some pot, one stick that—”

She frowned. “I tried to pass that off to you, didn’t I?”

“We both could have used it.”

“Be nice. Damn it all, sometimes I just — oh, what’s the use? Anyhow, I smoked it — by myself, since Ivan was working. It did calm me down, even though all I could think about was Audrey under that cot. And I kept remembering the party tonight, too. Or maybe not just tonight, maybe it was all the damned parties all the nights — all the pompous philosophical excuses we make for acting like adolescents when none of us have anymore purpose than goldfish, how sleazy it all finally is — and anyhow all of a sudden I was taking a good look at myself and I guess it made me disgusted. And then I remembered what Audrey’d told me about the blood money Ivan had gotten, and—”

She confronted me squarely. “I told him I knew about it. I also told him he wasn’t paying me enough to pose, and that I wanted fifty dollars an hour — retroactive for the last ten hours. Just like that I said if he didn’t pay me I was going to the police—” She kept on feeing me. “Which is what I mean about not being worth salvaging. Oh, damn, I—” She sobbed, turning aside. “Listen, Fern, have you got some sleeping pills, anything—?”

Fern’s mouth was drawn. She got up forlornly. Dana closed her eyes and let her head fall against the wall. She sat that way without moving until Fern came back.

“It would be so darned easy if I could blame it on the marijuana,” she said then. “At least I’m not going to say I didn’t deserve what he gave me. He threw my clothes down the stairs and just about threw me after them. I don’t know what it means, although when it started I was one mighty scared young extortionist. All I could think of was that Josie and Audrey might have threatened to expose him in the same way, and he’d—”

Fern’s breath caught audibly. “You don’t think—?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t know. What kind of people are capable of blackmail? If I was capable of the impulse myself, I think Audrey certainly would have been — and Josie too, for all that supposed innocence of hers. But my God, if they were blackmailing him and he killed them he would have had to kill me too. I couldn’t prove anything the way they could have, but it still could have ruined his reputation—”

She shuddered once. Fern had set two capsules and a glass of water on the end table, and she brushed the pills into her hand. She swallowed them without water.

“What happens to us, Fern?” she said then. “What? All right, never mind all this, this is extreme, but just the way we live in general — how do we get so sick and miserable and self-destructive? I used to be a nice girl once, I swear it. I used to have clean, wholesome dates with well-meaning clods who actually brought me flowers once in a while. Dates. I haven’t had one in any prearranged sense in so long that I’ve begun to feel like — like a public conveyance. A streetcar named Dana, flag her down in front of any saloon below Fourteenth Street and climb aboard. Do you know what I was going to do if Ivan was fool enough to come through with the money? I was going to pack up and get out of here, go to San Francisco maybe, anyplace — just to see if it’s possible to start fresh. That isn’t such a shameful motive for a blackmailer, is it? But do you know what I’m going to do now? I’m going up to see this man Constantine myself. Oh, yes. Except I’ll have to wait until these bruises heal, won’t I? They like their merchandise pure when they pay cash, don’t they? Do you think it will take long? I’m really anxious, and—”

She had gotten a little hysterical, and Fern grabbed her by the shoulders. The towel fell away and for a second Dana’s eyes darted nervously, but she caught hold of herself. She gulped in air, holding it.

“Come on, there,” Fern said. “Everyone goes through this kind of thing one way or another, you know that—”

Dana let her chin collapse on her chest. “It’s my night to play the fool. Forgive me, Fern, will you, I’m just—”