David Markson - Epitaph For A Tramp

The.45 was centered on my intestines. “Okay,” he said then. “All nice and relaxed, huh? Now where is she?”

I ignored him. He could throw that one at me all night and not get anything, not while Estelle was sitting there that way. She was wearing a drab blue robe and house slippers. Her hands were locked in her lap and her lips had no blood behind them. She was staring at me helplessly and I realized it was the first time I had ever seen her without glasses. Oddly enough it made her look better than I remembered.

“Where, cop?”

“Cathy hasn’t got the money,” I told him evenly. “You don’t have to look for Cathy.”

Estelle winced when I mentioned the name. Obviously I hadn’t changed the subject by butting in on them. I changed it now.

“Where’s your mother, Estelle?”

She looked across at me vaguely and her voice was strained. “She’s in the hospital, Harry. She had an operation last weekend.”

“Oh, my busted back,” Duke said, “if that ain’t touching. How was it? I sure hope everything came out okay?”

“She’s all right,” Estelle said distractedly.

“That’s great. I’m real glad to hear that. You be sure and tell her how glad I am.” He had not taken his eyes off me. “How many times I got to ask you, cop? What’s your pitch in this?”

Estelle’s breath was audible. She was staring at me now, probably wondering the same thing. I did not want her to be putting too much of it together.

“Damn it, where is she? Where’s the broad?”

“What broad? You mean the girl Eddie says you’re nuts about? The one you’re supposed to marry?”

“Yeah, marry. That cheap double-crossing no-good skirt, I’d like to—”

I was pleased to hear how he felt about all that. I wanted a little information myself and that could be just the needle to get it for me. “I told you,” I said. “Your girl hasn’t got the money, Angelo.”

“Can that. My old lady calls me Angelo. Her and the priest. Not you, Oliver.”

I grinned at him. “What does Cathy call you?”

“Spit,” he said.

“Always happens, doesn’t it? Trust a dame and then turn your back for half an hour and she’s—”

“Half an hour, hell. Ten damned minutes. Her and all that chatter about how she’d stick it out. And then all I do is go down for a deck of butts. Not even ten minutes, because the clock in the lobby says two-sharp when I go down and it ain’t even two-ten when I come back. Faking like she’s asleep and then—”

I kept grinning at him. I couldn’t help myself. Another minute and he’d be letting me read his diary.

His face had changed. He wasn’t sure what he’d told me but he realized he’d made a boo-boo. It wasn’t much, actually, but it was all I had and I already loved it dearly. IWo o’clock. And she’d gotten to my place around three-thirty. Time for one or two stops. Adam Moss? Who else?

Duke’s lips had pulled back over his gums in a grimace of disgust. The Colt jerked up an inch or two in his hand. “Turn back to the wall, cop.”

“What’s the matter, Angelo? I thought you wanted me to answer some questions.”

“Turn around, you phony bastard. Who you trying to con anyhow? Spit, Oliver, you ain’t got anymore idea where she is than me. You come up here on what Bogardus told you and you find me so you figure it means she’s got the dough. Bright boy, trying to con me into spilling something else. Well, you been told all you’re getting, bright boy. You phony cops, for crying out loud. Eddie lets out about the loot and you come sniffing around for it like any two-bit chiseler smelling a free beer. Turn around, phony, right now, or I’ll blast that fat smirk right off your kisser.”

I took a last look at the gun. I was sure I could knock him off his feet after one shot. One. And Max Schmeling could have taken Joe Louis if he’d been awake after the first round. I knew I’d hate myself for it in the morning, but I turned around and memorized the wallpaper again.

I suppose it didn’t matter much. He still wasn’t going to do any shooting unless somebody drove him to it. All he wanted was time. Let him go looking for Cathy. The law would pick him up sooner or later on that Troy thing. Me, I wanted someone else.

“Higher, cop,” he told me. He had moved up close. I knew well enough what was coming and I tried to set myself for it.

I heard Estelle suck in her breath and begin to whimper. I hoped he would be dumb enough to switch his grip to the business end of the gun first, but he was finished with being dumb for today. And then I said the hell with it anyhow. I waited until the last second, when the shadow of his arm was lifting along the wall.

I jerked my head aside and went for him.

I was happy. Bach might have been meant for Eddie Bogardus alone, but I had my Wagner. The Siegfried Idyll Far off, through drooping willow trees where gentle rain fell. A small wind was rising, and the rivers flowed. The rug beneath me was soft as new down, and softer daylight was breaking through the windows beyond, bathing me in its warm sweet radiance. I dreamed of fair women.

Innocent peace, melancholy contentment, what more could a man need? Let some other kid grow up to be president.

My wallet was lying three inches from my nose like a dead mouse.

A clock on a desk across the room said it had been less than fifteen minutes when I came out of it. I considered myself extremely clever to figure that out, since the clock was upside down. Curiously enough so was the rest of the furniture. I rolled slightly. Lazy clumps of dust ignored my intrusion along the floorboards.

I had caught it in the temple. Old devil-may-care Harry. Go get’im, Harry! Ha.

I lay there throbbing like a bongo. Was I in the mood to encourage all that by moving? Did it matter, since I could hardly move anyhow? I wondered if the publicity people at that nice Johnson & Johnson company had any idea how many dandy home uses people can find for their ordinary two-inch adhesive.

My hands were behind me somewhere. I tried them a little, delicately, so that only half of the hair on my wrists came out. I gave up on it. Quitter Fannin. Rapidly discouraged, beaten in a nonce.

In a trice?

I rolled over a little more and there was Estelle.

Poor Estelle. Somebody d left her on the couch, tape on her ankles, tape on her toes. Hadn’t clobbered her, though, used a gag instead. Still, pains a chap to see someone all taped up like that, you know?

We stared at each other like a pair of indecently dressed manikins in a Fifth Avenue window wishing all the people would go away.

After an undetermined period of time, roughly an eon, it struck me that I might hazard a small experiment. I opened my mouth.

No gag. If I tried harder I might even say a few well-chosen words.

“You okay, Estelle?”

She nodded, but her eyes were dull and empty. She was reacting badly. But then living with a widowed mother and teaching the third grade for fifteen years would do that. It was not the best conditioning for the rest of what I would have to tell her either.

“I don’t suppose there’s a knife around anywhere but in the kitchen? Anything sharp?”

No response. I wondered precisely how she was supposed to go about giving me directions anyhow. I wondered how my lame head would take to the idea if I started wriggling.

I tried it like a worm first, bracing my shoulders and shoving forward with my heels. Highly commendable. I managed all of about eight inches in the time it takes to roast a small hen. I grinned at Estelle and tried a roll instead.

That was better. I cut the hell out of my wrist, but I made it across to the kitchenette doorway in maybe ten flops. I stopped to let my head screw itself back into place.