Ed Lacy - Blonde Bait

“But that isn't all of it. I like you. Really.”

“You're the beautiful one, Mickey, after a gal gets to know you. Now don't laugh, I'm serious. You're so homely and powerful and good. You're not a phony, which is about the highest compliment I can give a man. The way you just said you liked me. Didn't try to corn me with any love pitch.”

“Could be I love you. I don't know what love actually is.”

“It's hot air, a knife in the back.” Rose pulled out of my arms and jumped to her feet. She walked a few steps and suddenly did a cartwheel on the sand.

I didn't know if that was her way of changing the conversation, or what. I sat there open-mouthed. She motioned for a cigarette from my shirt pocket. Sitting down beside me again she blew smoke at me as she said, “The fish need turning. And don't make with the pop-eyes like a hick. I've been a show girl, too, and for that I had to learn ice skating, dancing, tumbling, and a dozen other things. I've been a stripper, and not only in burlesque. And of course, an 'actress.' I used to be a real ambitious kid, until I learned better. Ambition is a bum sales talk.”

“I went through that routine myself—once.”

“If you have talent I suppose you need the push of ambition. The trouble was, I'm a big no-talent girl.”

“But with your looks?”

“My looks! Know something, Mickey, often I've wished I'd been born plain. Sure I have all the curves and whistle stops and they gave me dreams, ambitious dreams that ran me up a couple of roads—all the lousy ones.”

Turning the fish over carefully, I squeezed wild limes on them as I said, “I know, I've been through the same wringer.”

“No, you haven't, Mickey. You don't know what it means to be so positive you'll make it because you have the talent, and then the awful empty let-down when you find you're rather average. That would be tough enough, but there's an even bigger kick in the heart when you see talent doesn't matter much anyway; it's connections. Talent you're born with, but connections are made. That makes you drive harder. You push yourself until... It made me a bitch. Oh, I snapped out of the swindle when I finally realized that. Or I could be kidding myself, I was only getting old.”

Rose stared at the sand for a moment, then she said— almost to herself, “My Dad did it for me. He was the greatest guy. He told me something I've never forgot. 'Marie—' that's my middle name and he liked it best, 'Marie, the secret of happiness is to go through life without being a pain in the neck to anybody, including yourself.' Think it over and you'll see it's quite a philosophy. World would be smoother if everybody followed that.

“It was only when I realized life wasn't my oyster because I had looks, that I was becoming a stiff pain—to myself then I was able to relax, stop driving. It's the reason I enjoy living like we do. I think you would have liked my father. He would have hit it off with you.”

“Yeah?” I said politely, washing a couple of palm leaves in the surf, serving the fish on them. We ate like pigs and didn't talk for a while.

Full of food, I stretched out beside Rose and puffed contentedly on a cigar. “Rose, you and I are more alike than you know. I had that driving bug, too. You had your body, your looks, and I had my muscles and dreams of being a big time pug.”

“One look at your face tells me that.”

I tried blowing a smoke ring. “Never got my face from boxing. Of course at no time was I ever a pretty boy. The ring gave me the scar tissue over my left eye. Wrestling presented me with the tin ear, the busted nose.”

“You were a wrestler! That's a crazy racket.”

“I was even a honest one—as an amateur. From my kid days all I could think about was muscles. It was my religion. My old man had a Greek buddy who'd been a wrestler in the old country and he showed me a lot of holds. Wrestling won me a college scholarship—only they went football crazy in my freshman term and cut out wrestling. I was a third team tackle but gave it—and college—up because you could get hurt easily and by this time I saw myself fighting Louis some day. My legs and punch were going to bring me to the big paydays. But I lacked connections, ended up as the local ring cop.”

Rose gave me a quick glance. “What's a ring cop?”

“This was before the war, before TV, and there were small fight clubs in every big city. They had a kind of syndicate running most of them. I had a sharpshooter for a manager, a guy trying to climb himself. As he explained it, I had to wait my turn and play ball. So I'd fight every month or so, getting about twenty bucks a fight for myself. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes I'd go into the tank—which ever way I was told. If one of the other pugs got out of line, they'd match me with him and I'd flatten him. That was being a cop.”

“Oh.”

“I was twenty when the war came and had about that many bouts. I was twenty-four when they gave me my ruptured duck and I knew I couldn't wait much longer. All the time in service, I kept in shape. So I came back to find my manager is hanging around the top and I thought I was set. He had me take three dives in a row against stumblebums who'd been making it while I was overseas. He kept telling me my break was coming. It never did.

“Anyway, when I finally realized I was just another two-bit fighter, I became a wrestling clown. I grew my hair long and they dyed it bright red and had me sporting a devil's costume in the ring. But there wasn't any money in it, I was wrestling five times a week for ten bucks a night. It wasn't any snap. You had to be an acrobat, have perfect timing, and I was clumsy. Those falls hurt if you landed wrong, and I got my features scrambled. Also I felt like a freak walking around with the long red hair. My old man had died while I was overseas and the boat was mine, so I began going in for charter fishing... and taking it easy.”

Rose rolled over and fondled my tin ear. “We are alike.”

“Aha. You ever been married?”

My hand was resting on her stomach and I felt it stiffen. 'Twice. It never worked.” She jumped to her feet. “I'm going in for a dip. The fish left me greasy.”

“Let me finish my cigar, first,” I said. “Then I could use a swim.”

I watched her walk to the water and dive in—feeling very proud this big and beautiful woman was mine. So she'd been married twice. She must be on the run from one of her husbands. Still, she had a lot of dough and a lot of fear. Running away wouldn't make her that scared. Had she killed him?

That might explain the fear, and the money—if she had knocked off a big racket guy. Sure, that could be it.

Her husband was a racket biggie and she killed him, lifted his loot and the rest of the goons were looking for her.

It made sense—maybe. I killed my rope in the sand and walked leisurely toward Rose and the sea.

III

I anchored in a small cove not far from Port Antonio shortly before dusk. I'd been here once before with Rose in the old Sea Princess. I suppose at one time or another we'd dropped anchor off most of the Caribbean ports— which isn't covering too much territory.

I took a sounding by throwing a large conch shell I'd been keeping for no reason overboard and watching the number of circles it made as I turned the boat into the slight wind. I figured I was in about sixteen feet so I lowered the Danforth and let out thirty feet of chain, waited for the anchor to set. The wind increased and the Sea Princess began to buck and bounce a little. I stripped and dived over to make sure the anchor was really holding. Although I wasn't wearing a face mask, I could see pretty good. Underwater swimming always bugs me, gives me a sort of religious feeling.