Stick Page 9

“I did it straight up,” Stick said. “I’m done. For good.”

  “You hope to Jesus.”

  Stick said, “He get you out of a halfway house or coming through the window?”

  “Shit,” Cornell said. “You know how he found me? Man didn’t know nothing about me, I was doorman at a place down the beach, this big private condominium. He comes driving up—place is full of cars on account of this reception somebody’s having. See, I didn’t park cars, I have to stay there by the door. But Mr. Stam, he slide his window down, his hand riding on it, he got this ten sticking out from between his fingers. He say to me, ‘You got room for one more, haven’t you?’ and shove the bill at me, like go on, take it. So I do, I tuck it in my shirt. I say to him, ‘No, sir, we full up,’ and walk away. He gets out of the car and comes over to me, stands right here.” Cornell held the palm of his hand straight up in front of his face. Then lowered it to his chin. “No, more like here. Like he’s the little manager and I’m the umpire. You know what I’m saying? Right here. He say, ‘What are you, some kind of smartass?’ I go, ‘You offer me the money, shove it at me to take it. Wouldn’t I be a fool not to?’ He turn and come back and he’s got his lip like pressed against his teeth? He say, ‘You got nerve, kid. I like a kid with nerve.’ Takes a c-note out of his pocket from a roll, hands it to me and says in his natural voice again but real loud, ‘Now park the fucking car!’ I go, I scratch my head, I go, ‘Oh, tha’s what you wanted.’ We doing this skit, see? He go in the party, come out a little later, I’m still there. He say, ‘What do you do, man, when you not impersonating a doorman?’ See, I know the man’s crazy, likes to fool, so I tell him the truth figure he’ll think I’m giving him some shit. I go, ‘Well, I hustle, you know, I deal, I steal, sell TV sets and silverware out the back door.’ Man love it. He say, ‘You polish the silverware ‘fore you fence it? You know how to do that?’ Coming on to me now. ‘You the cool cat with the hot goods?’ All that kind of shit. Now it’s part of his routine. They have company, I come in with a tray of canapés to serve the guests? He’ll say to one of the ladies, ‘Watch your purse, Sharon, here comes Cornell.’ Then what I do, I grin and chuckle.”

  “Doesn’t bother you?” Stick said.

  “Bother me how? Put on the clown suit, man. Grin and chuckle. ‘Yessuh, Mr. Stam.’ Say to the lady, big blond lady name of Sharon, ‘Oh, that Mr. Stam, he terrible what he say.’ Put on the clown suit and they don’t see you. Then you can watch ’em. Learn something . . .”

  He seemed thoughtful. Stick said, “Learn what?”

  “I don’t know. Something,” Cornell said. “There must be something you hear listening to all these rich people can do some good.”

  “Something they don’t know they’re telling you,” Stick said.

  “Yeah,” Cornell said, dragging the word. “You got it.”

  “Only you don’t know what you’re listening for.”

  “Not till I hear it,” Cornell said. “But when I hear it—you understand me?—then I’ll know it.”

  “You been listening for four years?”

  “What’s the hurry?” Cornell said.

  Right, and if he never heard magic words of opportunity what was he out? Cornell was playing his grin-and-chuckle game with himself, Stick decided. Which was all right: he’d probably admit it if you held him down. On the other hand listening and being ready, not sitting back on your heels, there could be something to it.

  He wondered where the man was.

  “Phoning,” Cornell said. “When you don’t see him he’s phoning. When you do see him he’s phoning.”

  “People with money like phones,” Stick said.

  “Love ’em,” Cornell said. “It’s a truth you can write down, memorize.”

  “I met a guy has twelve phones,” Stick said.

  “Twelve’s nothing,” Cornell said. “Mr. Stam’s got seven in the garage part counting the ones in the cars. Must be fifteen in this house and the guest house and four, five outside.” He said, “Here, look in as we go by the den.”

  Sure enough, there he was on the phone, sitting at a black desk in a room painted black, sitting in a cone of light from the ceiling, holding a red phone. Stick caught glimpses of gold and red. What stopped him was the blown-up black and white photo of Barry, about six feet of him from cutoffs to yachting cap, eyebrows raised in innocence, his expression saying who, me? The black and white Barry behind and above the real Barry on the phone.

  Why was it familiar? The expression.

  Cornell said, “Hey,” in a whisper and they moved on. Now Cornell was saying the man liked black ’cause it was restful, kept him calm swinging the big deals. Loved a red phone with the black.

  Stick, listening, kept seeing that who, me? expression in his mind. The man had not looked familiar in the car, not someone he’d seen before . . . until he thought of another photo in a group of photos on the paneled wall of a den . . . all the guys in their Easter-egg colors and the two girls on the aft end of the yacht . . . the exact same who, me? expression on the guy next to the girl with the gold chain digging into her tan belly, yes, the guy next to her. Who, me? I’m not doing anything.

  Jesus. Barry and Chucky . . .

  He could be wrong. The same expression, but two different guys that looked somewhat alike, the same type.

  “Now the man’s wife, Miz Diane Stam,” Cornell was saying, “she something else. You see her here, you see her there. What the man says she does, she putzes. Putzes around the house trying to think up things to be done. Then she give you a list. Man loves phones, the woman gets off on lists. List say put all the books in the library in alphabet order by the author’s names. List say put red licorice Jelly Bellies in the black den, put mango and marzipan Jelly Bellies in the morning room . . . There she is. Grape ones in the living room.”

  They were coming through a pantry into the kitchen.

  The woman still had on the green robe, a thin, silky material. She was talking to the cook. Cornell waited. Stick would bet, judging from the way the robe hung, she had those round white breasts that looked full of milk and showed little blue veins. She was about thirty, a good age. When she turned to them Cornell said, “Miz Stam, I like you to meet your new driver. Stickley.”

  She was looking at him but could have been thinking of something else. Vague brown eyes, pale complexion, thick brown hair pulled back and tied with a piece of yarn.

  “Stickley?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The kind he thought of as a soft, comfortable woman, slow moving, passive—they always had that pale white skin.

  “Stickley . . . is that English?”

  The kind if he saw her alone in a bar he’d feel his crotch come alive and then he’d be anxious, nervous, going through the opening remarks and was sure he sounded dumb.

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s English,” Stick said. Though he had never considered himself or his people from anywhere but the Midwest.

  “That’s nice,” Mrs. Stam said. “Well then . . .” Stick waited, but that was it. She walked out of the kitchen.

  He met the cook, Mrs. Hoffer, a bowlegged old lady in a white uniform: strong-looking woman, she swiped at Cornell with her neck towel when he patted her behind, but Stick could see she liked it. He told her he was glad to meet her and she said, “You too, kiddo.”

  Cornell put an arm around her shoulders. “This lady makes super blintzes, don’t you, mama? Makes knedlachs, piroshkis, what else, kugel, all that good stuff. I’m showing her some gourmet tricks, like how to save her bacon grease and pour it in with the collards.”

  The kitchen was a pretty friendly place. Stick met Luisa Rosa and Mariana, the maids that Cornell called the Marielita Twins from Cooba. They smiled and stayed fairly close to one another, both in yellow uniforms with white aprons. Cornell said he was teaching them to speak American, how to say, “I’m feeling depressed because of my anxieties,” and “Have a nice day.”

  No—Stick decided—Cornell wasn’t listening f
or magic words. He was home.

  After supper, coming back along the breezeway to the garage, he began thinking of that big blown-up who, me? photo again—wondering if he could stick his head in the den, take another look—and a strange thing happened. He saw a yacht tied up at the dock now. Big sleek-looking cruiser that had to be fifty feet long. He went down to the dock, began pacing it off from the bow, counted twenty strides and looked at the stern.

  Seaweed. And beneath it, Bal Harbour, Fla.

  He walked back to the apartment in the garage, now relating Barry’s who, me? expression to the cruiser in the photo in Chucky’s den, but still not sure of something.

  Cornell was wearing a pearl gray tie now with his gray trousers, slipping on a lightweight black blazer.

  “You going out?”

  “Man, you think I wear this to go out? Look like the undertaker.”

  “There’s a boat tied up at the dock.”

  “Boat? That’s a halfa million dollars worth of cabin cruiser, the Seaweed. The man makes some of his great escapes on it.”

  “I thought maybe somebody stopped by.”

  “We got company coming, but not by sea.” Cornell buttoned his blazer, turned sideways to the dresser mirror to look at himself. “You a lean, handsome motherfucker, ain’t you?”

  “He has parties on the boat, uh?”

  Cornell turned from the dresser. “What you trying to find out I might help you with?”

  “Our boss, I wondered if he’s got a friend by the name of Chucky.”

  Cornell’s face broke into a smile. “Chucky? You know Chucky? You do, there some things you haven’t told me.”

  “They pretty good friends?”

  “They play together sometime. How you know Chucky?”

  “There was a fella name Rainy Moya at Jackson, used to work for him.”

  Cornell shook his head. “Don’t know any Rainy Moyas. But Chucky, shit, Chucky’s the head clown, our man’s star attraction, his in with the bad guys, the wise guys, all those guys . . . What you looking at?”

  Stick waited.

  Cornell said, “Yeah,” taking his time, “there some things you have not told me.”

  “I got to talk to somebody,” Stick said.

  “Don’t get me into nothing, man, I’m clean, I’m staying clean.”

  “I need to find out something . . .”

  “I got to go to work.”

  “Wait a minute, okay? I want to ask you a question, that’s all. I think,” Stick said, and hesitated. “I practically know, Chucky set up a guy, the one I mentioned. Rainy. Sent him to drop a bag knowing he was going to get whacked. Guy steps out of the car with a gun big enough to kill Jesus. But you tell me Chucky’s the head clown, lot of laughs.” Stick waited.

  Cornell said, “Yeah? What’s the question?”

  “Is he or isn’t he?”

  “I got to go to work,” Cornell said.

  Stick fell asleep. He wasn’t sure for how long. He was watching a James Bond movie on television, sitting up in a comfortable chair, but when something touched him he jumped and the news was on.

  Cornell said, “Didn’t mean to scare you . . . Mr. Stam would like you to come out to the patio.”

  Stick had to look up at him. “That all you going to tell me? How should I dress?”

  “You fine like you are.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Cecil,” Cornell said. “Cecil come home mean and ugly. Don’t like the idea he’s fired.”

  “I been waiting for him to come and get this stuff out of there,” Stick said, “so I can go to bed.”

  “Well, he’s here now. Mr. Stam want you to have a talk with him.”

  “I didn’t fire him, he did.”

  “Then come tell Mr. Stam that.”

  “What’s the guy think, I took his job?”

  “Ain’t any way to know what Cecil thinks.”

  “Yeah? What’s he like?”

  “Cecil? He’s an ugly redneck motherfucker is what he is. And he don’t like nothing.”

  “Wait a minute,” Stick said. “I get into this—then he’s got to come here and pick up his clothes? After?”

  Cornell said, “Man, what can I tell you?”

  It was an informal get-together. Friends over for a few drinks, some cold shrimp and crablegs: Barry’s lawyer, his internist and his yacht broker and their wives in casual dress, light sweaters over shoulders, their faces immobile, softly illuminated by patio lights buried among rows of plants, candles on the buffet table and a circle of torches burning on black metal poles.

  Barry and Diane wore white caftans, Diane among the guests while Barry stood in his robe, in the ritual glow cast by the torches, to face Cecil, who hung against the portable bar.

  Cecil would shift his weight and the cart would move, the bottles chiming against each other. He would reach behind him, take a bottle by the neck and swing it backhand to arc over the heads of the guests—no one moved—and splash in the swimming pool. Several bottles floated almost submerged in the clean glow of underwater lights.

  Barry held his elbows in, palms of his hands extended flat, facing up. He would gesture as he spoke, then return to this palms-up pose of resignation.

  “Cece? . . . What can I tell you?”

  “You already tole me, asshole. If I heard you right.” Cecil was drunk enough to stumble. He would cling to the cart as he raised a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to his mouth.

  “That’s what I mean. What more can I say?”

  “You can say it ain’t so, pussyface. We’ll talk her over.”

  Barry was solemn. “Cece, you’re not giving me much reason to even listen to you.” He glanced off into the dark. It looked like someone was coming. Finally. “I don’t want to call the cops, Cece, but I don’t know. I press charges you’ve got a parole violation. Right?” Barry looked at his guests, picked out his lawyer. “David? Wouldn’t you say he’s on dangerous ground?”

  The lawyer stirred, sat up straighter. He said, “Well, I suppose it’s possible . . .”

  The figure, coming from the general direction of the garage, was cutting across the slope of lawn now. Carrying something at his side. A bucket? Something round, with a handle. A second figure, Cornell, trailed behind.

  Barry said, somewhat louder, “Well, Cece, it’s up to you. I’m going to ask you once more to leave quietly.”

  “And I’m own ask you to bite this,” Cecil said, palming his crotch. “Little pussymouth Jew-boy, you might be pretty good.”

  “That’s it, all she wrote,” Barry said. “You’re paid up and your replacement’s right here, so get the fuck out. Now.” He stepped back toward his guests, looking at Stick coming into the torchlit patio . . . The hell was he doing? Carrying an old two-gallon gasoline can . . .

  Stick walked past Cecil without looking at him, not wanting to. He’d seen enough of Cecil already: that hard-bone back-country type, cords in his neck and pale arms, big nostrils—Christ, hearing the guy blowing air through his nose to clear it. You did not talk to the Cecils of the world drunk; you threw a net over them if you had one. Cops and prison guards beat their brains in and they kept coming back. Stick walked over to the buffet table. He placed a glass on the edge, unscrewed the cap on the gooseneck spout of the gasoline can and raised it carefully to pour.

  Cecil said, “The fuck you drinking?”

  Stick placed the can on the ground. He picked up the glass, filled to the brim, turned carefully and came over to Cecil with it. Cecil stared at him, weaving a little, pressing back against the cart as Stick raised the glass.

  “You doing? I don’t drink gasoline, for Christ sake. Is it reg’ler or ethyl?”

  Stick paused, almost smiled. Then emptied the glass with an up-and-down toss of his hand, wetting down the front of Cecil’s shirt and the fly of his trousers.

  There was a sound from the guests, an intake of breath, but no one moved. They stared in silence. They watched Cecil push against the bar, his elbow
sweeping off bottles, watched him raise the fifth of Jack Daniel’s over his head, the sour mash flooding down his arm, over the front of his shirt already soaked. He seemed about to club down with the bottle . . .

  Stick raised his left hand, flicked on a lighter and held it inches from Cecil’s chest.

  “Your bag’s packed,” Stick said, looking at him over the flame. “You want to leave or you want to argue?”

  He was making his bed, changing the sheets, when Cornell came in, leaned against the door frame to watch him.

  Cornell said, “I don’t know what you worried about Chucky for . . . Mr. Stickley.”

  Stick looked over at him. “I don’t know if I am or not. You never answered the question.”

  “Hospital corners,” Cornell said. “Know how to do all kinds of things, don’t you? You about scared the shit out of the guests. They all had a double Chivas and went home to bed.” Cornell came into the room, looking around at nothing; the walls, painted a light green, were bare. “You ask me is Chucky a clown or what. Could he have had your friend killed? Ask Mr. Stam, no. Chucky’s the funky white Anglo-Saxon cocaine dealer, weird, but wouldn’t hurt a soul. Ask on the street, that’s another something else. They speak of Chucky, say bad things about him. Set up his own man, set up his mama, wouldn’t make no difference. Works with de Coobans and stays zonked on the ‘ludes. Way you want to never never be.”

  “He come here to visit?”

  “Time to time,” Cornell said. “But as I say, man know how to play with fire shouldn’t have to worry none.”

  Stick brought up the green plaid bedspread over the pillows, then pulled it back down again and folded it across the foot.

  “You want to know what was in the can?” He looked up at Cornell. “Water.”

  Cornell said, “Sure, ‘nough?” His grin widening. “Shit . . . you telling me the truth?”

  “Where was I going to get gasoline?” Stick said. “Drive all the way over the Amoco station?”

  10

  WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME he had a choice and picked out his own clothes?

  He wore state clothes. He wore sporty clothes left by the guy who went to Key West and didn’t come back. Now he had a black suit, a gray one and a tan one a tailor in the Eden Roc Hotel had chalked, altered and delivered in three and a half days as a special favor to Mr. Stam. Two seventy-five a copy.