Little Deaths(62)
Pete half-dragged her around a corner, leaned her against a wall. As he took a step back, she stared at him, trying to focus. Her face was lined, her hair lank. She could have been any age from forty to sixty.
Suddenly she bent over and vomited. He jumped back and looked at her in disgust as she spat a couple of times, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She straightened up.
“Jesus Christ. That’s better.”
She raised red eyes to Pete. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
She broke into a fit of coughing, spat again. “You wanna have some fun, mister? That it?”
“Did I hear you say you wanted to speak to Lou Gallagher?”
She peered at him. “Christ alive. Did that sonofabitch send you out here to deal with me? Lou can’t afford decent muscle these days or somethin’?”
“I don’t work for Lou Gallagher. My name’s Pete Wonicke. I’m a reporter.”
He took out his pack of cigarettes, angled it toward her. She took two, stuck one behind her ear and the other in her mouth, and waited impatiently while he lit it for her.
She inhaled deeply, blew out a long stream of smoke, and then broke into another hacking cough.
“So why you talking to me?”
“I need information on Gallagher.”
She paused to pick a flake of tobacco off her tongue.
“What kind of information?”
“About Ruth Malone. About her kids. You know her?”
The woman shrugged and took another drag.
“Never heard of her. But I know him.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
Suddenly her expression was calculating. She shook her head and wagged her finger coyly. “Uh-uh, Mr. Reporter. You wanna know about Lou, it’s gonna cost you.”
He hesitated.
“You want to know about Louie? You want me to tell you what he’s like? I got stories about him. About the things he done.”
Her eyes were wet and desperate, but the anger in her voice was raw and real. He bit.
“Twenty bucks.”
“Fifty. And I want the money up front.”
“Thirty. After I hear what you got to say.”
“Thirty bucks? Come on, mister. I got bills to pay! I got debts . . .”
He thought about his dwindling funds, and shook his head.
“Okay, okay. Jesus Christ. You men are all the same, out for what you can get. Thirty, and you can buy me a drink and I’ll tell you.”
He looked at her, sighed and said, “Don’t you think you’ve had enough already?”
She drew herself up. “I think that’s my business, kid.”
She took him to a basement dive several blocks away. When they walked in, the guy behind the bar shook his head at her and opened his mouth to speak. She raised a hand.
“It’s okay, Sam. I won’t cause no trouble. And I got money—my friend here is paying.”
Sam shook his head again, pointed a fat finger at her.
“One more night like Saturday and I’m calling the cops, Bee. Final warning.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just pour, will ya?” And to Pete: “Show him some green, for Chrissakes.”
He brought the drinks over to a dim corner where she was removing her shoes and rubbing her swollen feet. She swallowed half of hers in one gulp and sighed.
“So whaddya want to know, Mr. Reporter?”
“I want to know about Lou Gallagher. Whatever you can tell me.”
“Give me a cigarette and let me see that thirty, and you can have whatever the hell you want.”
He slid the pack over to her, opened his wallet, and showed her his money. Then he took out his notebook, and waited.
She said her name was Bette.
“It used to be regular Betty with a ‘y’ but I decided to change it when I moved to New York. I put an ‘e’ on the end. You know, like Bette Davis. More glamorous.”
She saw his expression and shrugged.
“Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.”
Then she half-smiled at him, showing uneven brown teeth.
“You know, I used to be a real looker. Soft skin, curls, the works. I wanted to be a model. Louie fell for me soon as he saw me.”
She saw Pete’s disbelief and smiled wider.
“Oh yeah. Hook, line, and sinker.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I was working as a waitress. Waiting for my big break. Lou came in one night and that was it. He kept talking to me, kept asking me to sit with him, join him for a drink. I told him I was working and he called my boss over, said he’d give him fifty bucks if he’d give me the night off.”
She sighed. “I thought that was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.”
Then she said, “I need another drink before I tell you any more. Ain’t much romance in the rest of it.”
“What are you having?”
She nodded toward the bartender. “Ask him for an Orange Blossom.”
She smiled. “I drink ’em because they sound so pretty.”
He brought it over and she started talking again. She’d fallen for Lou. Hard.
“He was real good to me at the start. Bought me presents, took me out. Told me he loved me, that he wanted us to get engaged. Only he told me he wanted to make it big first. He said he wanted to make enough money to support me, to buy us a nice house.”