The Butterfly - James M. Cain [8]
"I heard you."
Chapter 4
And there came the night when we drove into Carbon City with our first hundred quarts, packed in every bag and sack and poke I could find, and yet all you could hear was glass, rattling louder even than the truck. I thought I would die, and when she left me, after I parked by the railroad, everything from the chirp of crickets to the clank of yard signals just gave me the shivers. After a long time she was back, with a café man, and he had a flashlight, so I wanted to holler at him, and tell him to put it out. But we had it set that she'd do the talking, so I sat there and wiped off sweat. They talked along, and he put the light on a bottle for color, then did some tasting and handed it back. "It might not be so bad, sister, except it's all full of caramel."
"O.K. I'll take it up the street."
"Can't you taste it?"
"What would I be tasting it for? I made it, dumbbell. That color's charcoal, that I burned in the keg myself, as anybody would know except maybe a jerk that hadn't seen good booze for so long he's forgot what it's like. But it's all right, and no hard feelings. I'll just take it where they know what it means to have some hundred ten proof in the house that makes blended stuff taste like something, and kick a little bit too."
"What do you mean, hundred ten proof?"
"Get your tester."
"Mine's broke."
"Then I brought one."
She got out the hydrometer and let him take a reading. "If you think that gauge is loaded, try a slug yourself."
He took a swig, while she stood there looking at him so sinful it made me sick to think she was any part of me. Then he took another, and you could see it take hold. "What are you asking for it?"
"Ten dollars a gallon."
"I'll give you four."
"Oh, I'm going up the street."
"No, wait a minute, let's talk."
They closed at six, and I ran them to the alley back of his place, where he went in and got the money and had the bottles carried in. Then she jumped in beside me.
"Come on, Jess, let's celebrate."
"What do you call celebrating?"
"Just going somewhere, having a good time."
"What was the idea, looking at him like that?"
"Well my goodness, I was selling him booze."
"What else were you selling him?"
"The way you talk."
We drove under a bridge, then came to a café called the White Horse and stopped. I had never been in a place like that, but I no sooner saw it than I knew it was the kind of place I'd been hearing about all my life, and that it was bad. The lights were low, and on one side was a bar, on the other side booths, and in the middle a place where couples were dancing to slow music that came out of a box at one end, with lights in it. The crowd no sooner saw Kady than they began to yell, and come to find out it was where she used to work. I didn't thank her when she said she'd brought her old man, and I didn't offer to shake anybody's hand. We sat down in a booth and I told the girl two Coca-Colas. "Make mine a rum coke."
"Two Coca-Colas."
"Listen, Jess, I want a drink."
"We're going home."
"If you don't like it here, you can go home, and I'll stay, and I'm quite sure somebody will take me in for the night."
So anything that meant she might leave me, that got me, and I shut up. But I was swelling up thick inside.
In the next booth was a girl and two men, that were mine guards from the way they talked, and when one of them and the girl left, the other one got up and asked Kady to dance. She went off with him, and they went to the music box, and their heads were together while they dropped in their nickel. Then they danced, and when the tune was almost over they danced by the box, stopped, and dropped more money in, at least a dozen nickels, one right after the other. Then when a tune stopped, it would be only a few seconds before another one started, but during that time they didn't stop dancing. They stood there, swinging to the music that wasn't playing any more, and then when it started again they'd go off. About the third tune, they made signs to the bartender, and he made