Blue Belle - Andrew Vachss [73]
"What're you crying about—you don't like it?"
"Don't be such a hard guy," she said, ignoring the tears; "you know why."
I kissed her. "Okay. Be a baby if you want to."
"It's your baby I want to be," she said, pushing me to the couch. She dropped into my lap, sprawling across me, covering me, knowing she wouldn't fit and not giving a damn. I snaked a hand around her hip and pulled out the jasmine box. Handed it to her.
"What's this?"
"Open it."
"Oh, it's perfume!"
"Paste, not spray. Here," I said, touching my finger to it, rubbing it between her breasts.
She pulled my head down to her. "How do I smell?" she asked.
"Like juicy flowers," I told her.
She rolled off my lap, pulling at my belt. "I've got some juice for you, baby. Come on, come on!"
82
IT WAS after nine when I looked at my watch. Belle was lying half on top of me on the couch. Pansy was spread out on the floor, looking glum. I rolled off, sliding away from Belle.
I took Pansy to the back door, jumped into the shower, dressed fast. Junior's at eleven, Marques had said.
I leaned over to kiss Belle on my way out. "You going to be okay here?"
"I do love you," is all she said.
The Plymouth hummed, a fast horse on a short rein. Maybe it missed the way Belle drove. Junior's was over the border. Uptown. A players' joint, it wouldn't even start to roll until past midnight. The bar was in shadow, Billie Holiday on the jukebox. "God Bless the Child."
I wasn't going to pull a house–to–house search through the booths. The bartender came over. Slash of white skin across his dark face like a scar.
"Can I help you, Officer?"
"I'm not the Man. I'm looking for Marques. Marques Dupree."
"Nobody by that name here, friend."
"Yeah, there is. He's expecting me. Ask him."
"What name should I call?"
"How many good–looking white men you see in this bar?" I asked him.
He looked me full in the face. "None," he said, moving away.
I lit a cigarette. Felt a tap on my shoulder. Slim blonde woman in a bottle–green sheath. "Burke?"
"Yeah."
"Marques is over this way," she said, moving off.
I followed her to a horseshoe–shaped red leather booth. Marques was sitting at the center, another blonde to his left. The one I had followed moved to his right. I sat facing him.
"My man!" Marques said, not offering his hand. "How's the hijacking business?"
I nodded to him, not answering.
"You come by yourself?" he asked, not looking around, sure of himself on home ground.
"Same way I came into this world," I assured him.
"You packing?"
I let out a breath, disgusted with his bullshit games. "Yeah, I got a machine gun in my pocket."
"Mind if Christina takes a look?"
"Whatever it takes to get on with this."
The blonde who had come over to the bar moved next to me, running her hands over my body. She reached into my crotch, squeezed. "Nobody home, huh?"
I didn't answer her, my eyes on Marques.
She slid back next to him. "He's got three packs of smokes, two lighters, bunch of keys, some folding cash….He's empty."
I watched Marques's teeth flash. "Can't take chances with you gunslingers."
"Ready to talk now?"
"Fire away."
I looked deliberately at the blonde on his left. Turned my head, looked the same way at the one on his right.
"My ladies are cool—you can talk in front of them."
I shrugged, putting a pack of cigarettes and a butane lighter on the table in front of me. I lit another smoke, snapping off a wooden match. He didn't pay attention. That's why he was a pimp and I was what I was.
"You know a man named Mortay?"
"The fighter?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know him. Man, I don't want to know him. He's not on my list—I don't let my women mess with no freaks."
"What's that mean?"
"I saw him do his thing, man. It was unreal. He fought this other dude…."
"The Japanese guy. In the basement under Sin City?"
"Right on. I didn't even know what the entertainment was going to be, but it was on the wire that it was a big thing, you know? I had to make the scene. Get down, be around. When you set the style, you got to show it off."
"Yeah, right. You saw the whole thing?"