Lawrence Block - Candy

Besides, her story had touched the strings of my heart. Her cat Lemuel had been her constant companion for almost twelve years, which is evidently quite a distance for a cat, and then poor old Lemuel just sort of dried up and died, and now that Lemuel was in heaven it didn’t seem fitting and proper to consign his corporeal remains to the incinerator.

Hence the loan, and it was for a good cause. It was also for a cunning twenty-five percent interest, but that is neither here nor there.

Anyway, here I am processing Miss Ferkel’s application when my faithful co-worker Les Boloff ups from his chair, meanders over to my desk and leans on it with his face sort of hanging. He looked sad.

Hell, he always looked sad. Les was one of those unfortunate bastards who always seems to have recently emerged from a Turkish bath. It can be twenty below out and he is still swimming in his own sweat. He’s a soft, fat guy to begin with, the type of guy you know after one glance to be a real sweet slob, a nice Joe who’ll do anything for you, and a guy who has never made much of anything out of his life.

“Jeff—”

I tried to smile but it hurt. It was tough enough raising my head the way I felt, let alone smiling. So I just looked up at him with an expressionless expression on my poor face and waited for him to say something.

“Jeff—”

“What gives, Les?”

“Let’s have lunch together.”

I shrugged. “That’s all?”

“Yeah, I figured it might be nice to go out together to get a bite instead of ordering food up. About noon or so?”

“Okay by me.”

“Fine,” he said. “There’s a Chink place around the corner that gives you a good meal for a buck or so. I used to eat there once, twice a week.”

He turned to go.

“Les—”

“Yeah, Jeff?”

“What’s the bit?”

He hesitated—just for a split-second, but enough so that I knew there was plenty that wasn’t right in the world. “Nothing,” he said. “We’ll talk about it at lunch.”

I went back to Miss Matilda Ferkel and her dead cat but my heart wasn’t in it. Something was wrong, something that was deeply disturbing to my good friend Les, and to make things just that much cooler I was hungover to beat the band. The band that I wanted to beat was the one that was playing funereal rhythms inside my head. I didn’t mind too much that the drummer was pounding my cerebellum or that the cat on trumpet didn’t have the decency to use a mute—this was par. But if the bastards would only have played something cheerful, things would have been rosier.

I glanced around the office and saw gleefully that it was empty of customers. This isn’t normally an occasion for rejoicing but I had something special in mind. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, unearthed a bottle of rye and took a hearty guzzle from the bottle.

It worked.

The band was playing happy music now. And the trumpet genius had a mute on his horn now.

Ah.

You see, I didn’t mind the band as such because I was used to it, used to a morning hangover as part of the daily routine, used to drinking myself quietly to sleep every night in my revolting little room in the Kismet Hotel, used to waking up every morning with the boys jamming in my skull. It was all part of the game, and the fact that the game was not worth the candle is a fact everybody should kindly refrain from mentioning.

One solid month.

One month without seeing or speaking to my mistress, one month without knowing where she was or what she was doing or if I would ever see her again.

Candy.

My mistress.

Oh, it had been one hell of a month, let me tell you. Things had settled down to a monotonous routine that was almost comfortable until you stopped to think about it. A room at the Kismet Hotel complete with a liquor store across the street. A job at the Beverley Finance Company complete with a bottle in my bottom drawer. A couple drinks during the day to take the edge off. A few quick belts at the bar around the corner the minute I got out of the office. A dinner of sorts at a lunch counter and a bottle to take to bed.

What else could I take to bed?

Not Lucy.

Not Candy.

That left me with a bottle.

Which was better than nothing at all, I suppose.

One night it got bad enough for me to go whore-hunting, and for that it has to be very bad indeed. But the bottle was no great soulmate that night and I got up, put on a suit and tie and got the hell out of the hotel. The whores had switched their location since my last visit to Whore Row, which wasn’t particularly astounding. I hadn’t needed to go on a whore-hunt in the past eleven years.

They used to be on Eighth Avenue between 42nd and 48th. Then the city had a clean-up campaign and for all of a week, I guess, they went into hiding. Now they were on Seventh Avenue between 47th and 52nd, which is as good a place as any. They stand in doorways and say nothing, and little men dressed very nattily stop occasional passers-by and exalt the charms of the various whores.

Dressed nattily. That reminds me of the old vaudeville bit that went something like:

Do you like to dress nattily?

No, but I’d like to undress Natalie.

Oh, well. So I found my whore next to the Brass Rail and we repaired to a hotel that was, if possible, worse than the Kismet. It made the Somerville look like something Hilton was saving up to buy. No roaches in this place—they were afraid of the big bugs.

So we checked into the hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Mordecai Sledge at a cost of a hot two bucks and checked into bed for another ten. The girl told me her name was Mildred and she was no bargain. She wouldn’t have been much of a bargain at fifty cents in Gimbel’s basement, and at ten bucks I was really getting a screwing.

Which had been my object to begin with, so why fight it?

But she was really pretty awful. I got undressed and sat down on the edge of the bed while she peeled off a cruddy red dress with nothing under it. There should have been something under it—she would have looked a hell of a lot better.

She had big breasts but they were the type that could put you off breasts for life. To say that they were not firm is like saying that the ocean is not dry. They drooped like wet noodles.

So did I.

Breasts—hell, she could have slung them over her shoulder. I was half expecting her to grin at me and tie them in a bow or something.

So there we were, both of us naked and both of us on the bed and both of us equally bored with the whole procedure. I didn’t even mind the ten-spot at this point; I just wished I was home in bed with my bottle. My lack of enthusiasm must have been evident because she asked me what was the matter.

I started to tell her that what I really wanted was a piece of Candy, but I don’t think she would have understood. Instead I told her it was all a horrible mistake and I’d better get home to my bottle.

“Here,” she said, pushing me back down on the bed. “I know what’s wrong. You’re just a little tired is all.”

“Maybe.”

“You been drinking?”

I nodded miserably.

“That’ll do it. Here, you just lie down like this and I’ll see what I can do to help you. I’ll make it real easy for you.”

“I’d rather you made it hard for me.”

She laughed at that one. They stopped laughing at it forty years ago at Minsky’s but she was in a happy mood.

“Lie down,” she said. “Relax.”

I tried to.

“Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes. Ah, it was better already—I didn’t have to look at her.

“Now,” she cooed. “Now I just know everything’s going to be all right. You just wait and see if I don’t know what I’m talking about. Everything’s just going to be all hunkydory now.”