Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [15]
Denny laughed. “Smell that sweet pussy!” He wheeled around on the stool and stood up. “Let’s race down Broadway!” He ran out of the drugstore, and Jack followed.
They raced down the full length of Portland’s main street, dodging in among the evening crowds, bumping into not a few irate citizens. The light was red when they got to Burnside, but they ran across the street anyway, causing cars to brake sharply and drivers to blow their horns in anger and frustration. Jack, dancing through the traffic behind Denny, raised both hands in the standard gesture of contempt, his middle fingers extended. When they got to the other side and were among the skid row crowds, they slowed down to a walk, panting heavily and catching their breath. Above them, under the red clouds, two gigantic neon signs threw colored light on the wet streets: one saying JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD with a traveling scriptural message beneath it in blinking lights; the other a gigantic glass being filled with beer from a gigantic tap, all in blinking lights: BLITZ-WEINHARD BEER.
The Model Hotel was on the corner of Sixth and Couch Streets, above a grocery store, and had two entrances. The boys ran up the stairs leading from the unlighted side entrance, and even before they got to the top they could smell the strange, exciting woman-perfume smell of the whorehouse.
“Oh, boy!” Denny said. He grinned at Jack eagerly, and Jack’s manly pose, just assumed, collapsed in giggles.
The maid came around the corner of the corridor and smiled at them and said, “Evenin, boys. Is you of age?”
“I’m thirty-six,” Denny said.
“I’m forty-two,” Jack said.
The maid laughed and led them down the corridor to the waiting room.
Less than an hour later, they were standing on the corner of Sixth and Burnside, wondering what to do with themselves. They had spent all their money, compared girls, and exhausted the subject of sex entirely. Now Jack was feeling restless and irritated with himself for no reason, and wondering what he was going to do for scuffle money. Without any particular destination in mind, they began walking up Burnside, toward the stadium area. Denny was silent as they walked, but Jack could not keep his thoughts to himself.
“God damn it, I need gold. We got to figure out some way of gettin some gold. It’s not even eight o’clock, for Christ’s sake.”
“What’er you so pissed about? I’m broke, too.”
“Yeah, but you can always go home and get eats and a bed. I’m out in the stony, man.”
Denny put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Lissen, you can sack out at my place for a couple days. I told you that before.”
“Fuck it! I want money!”
They stopped walking. They were in a section of automobile showrooms and deserted used-car lots. Jack was wishing desperately that some fool citizen would come along so Jack could smash him, drag him in back of the used cars, and take his money. But there were no citizens around. There weren’t even very many cars going by.
He looked at the used-car lot. In the back there was a small white shack with a night light showing through the window in the door.
“Let’s bust in there and see if they left any gold around,” he said to Denny.
Denny looked surprised. “Okay,” he said. He followed Jack across the gravel of the lot and watched as Jack picked up a rag, wrapped it around his fist and punched the glass in the door. Jack reached through and opened the door from the inside, and they both stepped in, Denny throwing one glance back at the street.
There were two desks with barely room to get between them, papers all over the tops; a few calendars on the walls, and a large rack with keys on nails. Jack started going through the drawers of one desk, and after a moment’s hesitation, Denny started in on the other. All they found were blank forms, messy files of completed loan applications and title changes, and half an apple, which Denny threw in the wastebasket.
“Shit,” he said. “We left fingerprints all over the goddam place.”
“So what? Nobody’s got my prints. They got yours?”
“Hell no. Fuck it. No money. Let’s get