LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You’re a nice girl,” he said. He heard himself adding, “Pretty, too.”

      She didn’t answer him. Or his big mouth. Man with two kids and no clear way of making any money ought to learn he wasn’t no big catch of a beau.

      The elevator stopped, and he got out. “Sure,” Vera Mae said. “And your wife doesn’t understand you.”

      He stopped, the metal tray burning his hand from the boiling water. He swung around to face her. A bottle of milk nearly went over, and Vera Mae caught it with her hand, straightened it.

      “My wife’s dead,” he said. “And I wasn’t trying to get fresh.” Then he grinned. “It just comes natural, I guess. I don’t have to try.”

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “And you weren’t fresh. But these back-country hotshots—take the kid to the rodeo, and leave the old lady home to feed the chickens.”

      Lon said, “We don’t keep chickens,” and then at the look on her face, burst into laughter. She had to hold one edge of the tray for him, or he would have spilled the whole thing; they stood in the hotel corridor, holding the tray between them, laughing like fools. Then she said, “Ouch,” as the hot water reached her, and he had the whole tray again.

      “Lady downstairs broke her neck trying to make the supper nice,” he said. He started toward the room, walking careful. But Vera Mae trailed along.

      “Young lady?” she asked. She twisted the knob of the door he nodded at.

      “Well, not so young,” he said. “Said she had a boy about my age, about forty, and me, I’m only thirty-one. Those kids are going to wash clear away.”

      There was no sign of the children in the bedroom, but the splashing noises from the closed bathroom door were a pretty good sign that neither of them had drowned. Lonnie set the tray down on the bench, and kind of braced himself to go in there and lay down the law, but Vera Mae was still watching him.

      She grinned and put a finger to her lips. She looked about Mike’s age herself as she snatched up the two glasses of ice water from the tray and tiptoed to the bathroom door, holding her lips together real straight so as not to make any noise. But she didn’t need to worry; Mike and June wouldn’t have heard a powder blast.

      She whipped the door open, and threw the water out of the glass in two expert shots. The kids sounded like they’d been bird-shot. Then June shrieked, “Vera Mae!” and Mike’s voice, a little deeper, followed after a second.

      “You two come out,” Vera Mae said. “And I mean dry. Your dad’s worn out from lugging a ton of food up to you.” She shut the bathroom door and winked at Lon; then she went over to the tray and raised the shiny metal covers.

      “It’s what they asked for,” Lon said defensively. “Club sandwiches and milk and French pastry. God knows where they heard of ’em.”

      “Sounds all right to me,” Vera Mae said. “Bread and meat and raw vegetables. Isn’t that what they’re supposed to eat?”

      “I guess so,” Lon said. He tried to keep his voice from sounding so gloomy. “But the PTA ladies came up one time and raised hell with me. I dunno. I’d gone to a lot of trouble to get tomatoes, too.”

      The kids burst out of the bathroom like a bull out of a chute. They looked pretty good, except their hair was still wet. Vera Mae went and got two towels; she threw one to Lon, and grabbed June herself. He started rubbing Mike’s head; he felt a little like he’d been kicked in the stomach.

      She looked up, once, and said, “I’m not being bossy, am I?”

      He said, “Naw, but the gent you were with—”

      She stared at him across June’s head, across Mike’s held down in his lap. “Yeah, Lon?” He didn’t even know she knew his name; June must have told her.

      “Nothing,” he said. He moved his lips very deliberately; he wasn’t going to mumble. “I just thought he might be waiting some place.”

      “Let him wait,” she said. Because her voice wasn’t pretty now, it was the first time he noticed how nice it had been before. Then the bells came back into it. “No,” she said. “Duke’s downstairs—you know, I pointed him out to you; he’s with an Indian rider, an Okie we call Turk, he’s got a white hat on.” She let go of June, gave the little girl a pat on the backside and sent her toward the bed. Then she went over to the flimsy little table where the kids had been drawing houses, and took the hotel pen and a sheet of paper. She wrote something and put it in an envelope.

      “G’wan down to the bar,” she said, “and give this to Duke. And have yourself a drink. But just one.”

      “I gotta get the kids—”

      “Woman’s work,” she said. “If you don’t trust me, send the chambermaid in.”

      “The chambermaid?” he asked. Then he took a breath. “Listen, don’t be snippy. I trust you okay, it’s just—well-seems to me it’s my job to get the kids bedded down.”

      “Pardon me for intruding.”

      He heard himself shouting. His face, he knew, was getting red, the way it used to. “I told you not to be so snippy. I’d like to have a drink! I’m going!”

      Then she was laughing at him, and he was aware of four huge eyes staring at him from the pillow. “Loud, ain’t he?” Vera Mae said, and the four eyes got normal size again. “Send the chambermaid in anyway. I want her to do something for me. That’s the lady who makes the beds, country boy.”

      “I know what a chambermaid is,” Lon said, he hoped without yelling. This was the most irritating female he’d seen in a long time. He sure liked her.

      And so did the kids, from the way they were grinning as she advanced on ’em in the bed, a sandwich plate in one hand, and a bottle of milk in the other . . .

      It was funny, walking into a bar that way, not a care in the world. The riders she called Duke and Turk were there all right; he pushed up next to them and told the bartender, “Whatever these gents are having, and an old-fashioned for me.” He laid a five spot on the bar, and it was a long time since he’d done that. But there comes a time when a fellow can’t be a piker much longer. He’d been watching pennies an awful long time.

      The rodeo riders were looking at him. Seeing he didn’t want a fight, the gray-haired one, Duke, said, “Well, thanks, Mister.”

      “Gotta note for you,” Lon said. He handed it over. “From Vera Mae.”

      Duke took the hotel envelope. “In the movies, a fella always says excuse me before he reads a letter. It never made any sense to me.”

      Turk said, “Be a funny kind of guy that’d not read a letter. What would people send him one for, if they didn’t want him to read it?”

      The bartender brought three drinks and set them down. “Thanks, Mister,” Turk said. Duke was reading the letter. Turk held Lon’s eyes, and raised his drink.

      Still puzzling over the note, Duke raised his glass without looking up.

      “Here’s to you, and thanks.” He drank his drink in one gulp, and said to Turk. “This here’s Lon Verdoux. Turk Lacekin. Me, I’m Duke Holloway. Vera Mae says we’re to look him over.”

      “That Vera Mae,” Turk said. He took the note from Duke, said, “Excuse me, gentlemen,” and read it. He read a good deal faster than his older friend. “Yep, that’s what she says. Lon, consider yourself looked over.” He laid some money on the bar and said, “This one’s on me.”

      “The hell it is,” Duke said.

      “You had the one last week,” Turk said. Apparently they weren’t arguing over buying the drink. Turk shoved back from the bar, and walked toward the front of the copper-colored place.

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