Sunset People. Herbert Kastle

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      Anyway, she sounded reasonably awake and not yet stoned, and he said, “Hey, love, are we gonna have that reconciliation?”

      So how does she answer ole black Mel layin’ his heart on the line? “Glad you called. I need a lid of Columbian, lightly dusted.”

      “Yeah, and how you been?” he muttered. A real user, Beth-Anne. A real cunt. He’d known it from day one, and no way could he fall for her when she was just another nude dancer and the Sunset Strip was full of them and he’d had his way with so many he was certain he was immune to anything as cube-like as love. But he’d surprised himself by being the john of johns—ended up marrying her after a week in Vegas, in one of those plastic quick-job chapels.

      “We’ll talk tonight,” she said. “You might as well bring the pot.”

      “Might as well,” he mocked. But his pulse had picked up speed and there was a stirring in his pants. She’d almost fucked him to death during their five months of togetherness. At fifty-six, he wasn’t quite the man the twenty-three-year-old stripper needed, though he had never let her know this. He performed whenever she snapped her pussy—and, man, could it snap! Also taught her a few things about vibrators, big and rectal size, she hadn’t known.

      But it wasn’t only sex he’d wanted from her. And it was only sex she’d wanted from him: sex and bread and dope, which he’d provided in unlimited quantities. Which meant he’d had to take chances he normally wouldn’t take.

      He was a dealer, yes, but only in a small way, more to get the girls than the bread. When a dancer was broke, he worked a trade—what she needed for what he wanted. Before Beth-Ann, he had paid the rent and the grocery bills, and given away as much as he sold. One pickup a week, and then he used his phone to arrange meetings with the chicks, or with the rare male he supplied—who in turn supplied him with chicks.

      It was a neighborhood business, like your friendly Mom-and-Pop grocery. It was nothing much to interest the pohlice.

      But, baby, now was different. Now he made three pickups and now he pushed the real thing and now he was loaded and ready to buy back his wife. He had five grand, a nice round figure; had been saving until he could flash it on her. If she came back, he’d make more to hold her and try not to think of the slammer and what it had been like when he’d done what the cons called “an easy dozen.”

      He was sweating as he thought how far from easy that year had been. How his mind had almost cracked. Because Mel Crane wasn’t made for the tough stuff. He was a lover, not a fighter. He was a pussycat, a pushover for most pretty white chicks, and especially for his young wife.

      She proved it by dropping her voice—probably so the guy in bed with her wouldn’t hear: “You been thinking about your little Beth-Anne, Mel? You been thinking how you’d like to crawl into her?”

      “Among other things,” he said, but she had his number. He was her ole black patsy. “Can I come to your pad?”

      “Someone’s sharing it with me.”

      Guess who, but he wanted no hassles. “Then my place.”

      “Well, maybe.” She was playing little-girl cute. “First, we’ll have dinner. Then we’ll talk about reconciliations and your pad.”

      “Dinner? You have to be on stage by nine, and it’s three before you’re done.”

      “Night off, baby. Don’t play with that cute black dicky too much. Save some for Beth-Anne. If you bring the pot and we get along without arguments.”

      They’d get along without arguments, once she saw the bread.

      “Tarpon’s Fishery?” he asked.

      “Right! I haven’t had a good seafood dinner since we split. Chris . . .” She paused. “Almost all my dates eat steak and Italian over and over, maybe a little Chinese. You know how to keep a girl’s figure for her, Mel.”

      There was a voice in the background. She said, “Eight. Tarpon’s. ’Bye.”

      He told himself he wasn’t square enough to feel jealousy . . . but whatever the feeling was, it hurt.

      Frank Berdon hadn’t picked up his Chevy until noon, though Lila drove him to the garage at nine. “A few last-minute adjustments,” Gallico had said; then Frank had waited three hours. People were always doing that to him.

      He’d been carrying his briefcase. He often did, when he was going to call on his steady customers, checking them for shortages, showing them whatever was current in the lines he carried.

      Berdon’s Stationery and Business Machines specialized in such personal service. His father had started the practice in a more gracious time, and Frank had carried on so as to survive in an era of big discount stores.

      But his briefcase hadn’t held stationery today, and while he’d waited for his car he’d taken it with him to the garage’s toilet. It was a dirty, smelly, closet-like room and he would no more have considered sitting on that grimy seat than drinking from that foul bowl.

      What it did have was privacy.

      After locking the door, he’d opened the case and taken out the gun, examining it in the light for the very first time. And noticed another unusual feature besides the obvious one, the silencer: the entire weapon, including the custom wood grips, was finished in dull black.

      He’d found the catch on the base of the butt, fiddled with it, and felt it give as he pushed it toward the rear. Then he’d pulled out the magazine, and smiled his cherub’s smile. Because there were eight rounds in the clip, and since this was an automatic that reloaded itself on firing, there was another round in the chamber. Nine in all.

      Now, at seven-thirty, closing up the store, he looked at the counter on which the briefcase rested, and again smiled. He’d been given a bonus. Whoever had loaded the gun had inserted a shell into the chamber in addition to a full clip of ten in the butt. Eleven to start with, two fired, nine remaining—one more than he had expected.

      And when those rounds were finished, so was he with the gun. No purchases of shells to connect him to the killings. Nothing at all to connect him to the killings.

      He left the store, drawing the grilled metal gate closed behind him, and locking it with the heavy chain and padlock.

      Crime was a real problem in this town.

      When Mel reached the restaurant, he saw Beth-Anne standing outside. Which surprised him. True, he was twenty minutes late—he’d had to cover half of L.A. to get angel-dusted pot on such short notice—but why wasn’t she waiting inside in comfort?

      Then he realized the Tarpon Fishery’s parking lot was empty except for Beth-Anne’s Javelin and his Mustang.

      “Damn,” he said, running over to her. “Forgot they’re closed on Mondays.”

      She wore a sour expression along with her tight knit dress, and the way she was standing, hand on hip, showed she figured him for some sort of con.

      No matter what her expression, her attitude, he loved the way she looked. God, but the broad had everything! In that wild pink knit, in spike heels that brought her a little СКАЧАТЬ