Chapter 13
It took Kenny fifteen minutes to gather his belongings and move out of his pad. Then they climbed up out of San Miguel on the winding road up the mountain. Once above it they took the highway to Dolores Hidalgo and headed north for the border.
They took turns driving, day and night. One slept on a makeshift bed in back while the other stayed at the wheel. In this way they made good time. At the end of the second day they had arrived in Shreveport, Louisiana, both of them so beat that they had to spend their last dollars on a motel room so they could rest.
After sleeping a few hours, they both awoke in the night aware of each other in the bed. At first Elaine was not sure Kenny was awake, but she needed to be close to him, to feel his arms around her.
Tentatively she slid her body closer to his. They were both in the nude because they had both collapsed in the bed after a shower which they took together.
Neither one had been able to keep awake, but now, after the initial exhaustion had been somewhat relieved by a few hours sleep, she felt the stirring of a need deep within her relaxed body.
At the first contact, Kenny didn't seem to respond. So she burrowed her hips deeper against his warm legs.
She felt a molten glow suffuse her whole body as his arm slipped around her waist. His hands pressed firmly against her middle, pulling her tighter against him.
For a moment they lay like that, sensing the desire which they both felt. Then, when he moved one hand upward and held her shivering breasts, they felt more tender and sensitive than they ever had before.
It seemed almost like a dream to her, and yet, she was aware that it wasn't a dream, that it was truly happening to her. His strength was a reality pressing firmly, almost insistently against her legs.
Her body flinched and stirred.
He kissed the back of her neck very gently. They were two lovers in the night, lying naked together without fear or shame.
She moved her body again, welcoming him. And then he twisted his hips very slightly, pressed against her.
She trembled as he struck solidly at her. She pushed out her hips to receive him, squirming at the pressure of his hands on her breasts.
Slowly, almost dream-like, he stirred his lust, pressing harshly and then retreating. Pressing and retreating-a gentle, perfect lover.
His hand moved down to her middle, the fingertips came in contact with the smooth satiny skin, caressed tenderly.
"Oh, Kenny," she sobbed.
He kissed her neck, put his lips against her ear. His breath was warm and exciting.
"I love you, Elaine," he whispered.
"I love you too, Kenny," she sighed. "I love you, and I want to give myself to you this way."
She rolled her hips gently on the bed, squeezing him with the flexing of the body. Her breasts throbbed piquantly beneath his caressing hands.
The nipples rose to hardness, straining as he pinched them with his gentle touch.
He moved his straining body, forcing himself at her. She gasped and reached back with her frantic hands, pulling at his body. They worked together with increasing passion.
"Hold me, darling," she moaned. "Love me more. Don't ever stop making love to me-"
Slowly gliding down on the bed, Kenny moved lower, churned his body as he drove to her. And suddenly she welcomed him.
His arms encircled her as she gave a low sob of pleasure-pain.
"Love me," she cried urgently. "Love me more, darling. Don't ever stop loving me. Please, darling. Don't ever stop loving me...."
They had awakened together in the night, found each other. And now he was mastering her completely, driving against her with frantic hunger, driving them both toward completion.
Then it was happening to her and she shrieked with joy as she saw his body shudder and arch as he drove away.
They mounted to the peak of passion, to the very top, and trembled there together in wild ecstasy. Yet this was more than mere release. This was the pleasure of a man and woman united by love, who needed each other, who belonged to each other forever.
And then it was over, and they sank slowly back into the deep shadows of sleep, still clinging one to the other....
The next morning she awoke with a feeling of utter peace and contentment. Kenny was already up and dressed, sitting in a chair by the bed, looking down at her with a soft, gentle expression in his eyes.
"Good morning, darling," he said with a smile.
"You should have wakened me," she replied. "It's time we were on the road again."
"You were sleeping so peacefully, I decided to wait."
Quickly she rolled out of bed and went up to him. She sat on his lap and kissed him for a moment before she hurried into her clothes.
They had coffee and doughnuts at a truck stop care at the edge of Shreveport before they rolled down the highway. It had been their last fifty cents. The gas tank was half empty. The situation was growing desperate.
"If we had a hose and a can we could siphon gas from somebody's tank," Kenny said. "But it's pretty hard to do in the daytime."
"And we don't have a hose and can," Elaine added with a smile.
"So we'll have to think of something else...."
"We might pick up a hitchhiker who'll share expenses," she suggested.
"Now there's a thought."
They drove for another thirty minutes before they saw a hitchhiker. Then there was a kid with a college sweater and a battered suitcase standing on the curb at the edge of a town they passed through.
Kenny slammed on the brakes and opened the back door for the kid to hop in.
"You got any money?"
"Why?" the kid said suspiciously.
"We've got a car, but no gas. You buy the gas and we can all get on down the road."
"All right," the kid said reluctantly.
He filled the gas tank, and it carried them as far as the next hitchhiker. In that manner they made it clear into Kentucky. And then they managed to find a hose and can in a junk yard beside the highway.
Driving all night and siphoning gas from parked cars in the smaller towns they passed through, they made it into eastern Pennsylvania by daylight the next day. And they had a full gas tank as well as a full can of gas in the back seat. Enough to get them into New York City.
Kenny decided that Warren Lasswell, being the arty type, would probably stay in Greenwich Village, so he headed there as soon as they came out of the Holland Tunnel.
Their first stop was a coffee house near Washington Square, where Kenny knew a couple of pushers who hung out in that vicinity. They were flat broke, so they had to stand on the sidewalk outside.
In about twenty minutes, a weedy-looking little man with a three-day growth of black beard shuffled by. Kenny reached out and grabbed his arm.
The little man cowered instinctively, and then he grinned when he recognized Kenny.
"Man, you liked to scare me out of my skin."
"How are you, Benny?"
"Like man, I'm sick, It's been two days since I've had a smak. I'm trying to wrangle the money now, and it ain't easy, I'll tell you."
"Wish I could donate," Kenny said sympathetically. "But right now I'm busted myself, until my pension check comes in...."
"Man, if you could just come through with a couple of bucks, I'd have enough for a ten-dollar bundle. It wouldn't help my habit much, but it's better than this slow death."
"I would if I could, Benny. Maybe you can help me out I'll pay you later...."
"What do you need, friend?"
"Ever heard of Warren Lasswell?" Benny squinted his watery eyes, rubbed his bearded chin. Then he shook his head slowly from side to side.
"It don't ring a bell."
"I've got to find him," Kenny said. "The sooner the better."
"Is he a tattoo?" Kenny nodded.
"And he's got money to burn."
"Then he won't be buying the 'brown stuff," Benny said thoughtfully. "I know just the pusher to ask. He deals in top grade stuff. You wait here until I come back."
They watched him shuffle up the sidewalk and disappear around the corner. Kenny slipped an arm around Elaine's waist and gave her a gentle squeeze.
"Benny's a nice guy. He'll help us out if he can. I've done him favors."
"I hope he can find Brenda," Elaine said sorrowfully.
"It might take time," Kenny said, smiling softly at her. "What we need is coffee while we wait. I know where I can borrow a couple of bucks. You stay here and watch for Benny. I'll be back...."
She watched him go with a sinking feeling in her chest. Already she depended on him, and it frightened her to be alone in the strange city without him for even a short while.
She stood with her back to a building and watched the parade of beatniks and oddballs passing by. There were the same type that could be seen m Sausalito and San Miguel and every art colony in the world. The cool, bored girls in black sweaters and toreadors, the bearded wonders with faraway looks in their eyes. Once they had impressed her as being profound, but they usually babbled like idiots when they opened up on art or life or the way to unplug the kitchen sink.
There were the perverts and the Lesbians walking hand in hand down the sidewalk. The little goateed men with canes who seemed to have stepped out of another era.
To them all, conformity was a dirty word. Yet they were conforming just as much in their own way and for just the same reasons as the flannel-suited Madison Avenue executives.
She wondered how she could ever have been impressed by such a bunch of phonies. There were true artists, but they didn't have to disguise themselves like this.
She had been a phony herself, but since she'd met Kenny that had all changed. Maybe she and Kenny would be together only a few weeks or months before he drifted off again, but she knew he was good for her.
He had made her realize many things. And now she knew what she wanted out of life. To work hard at becoming a good painter. And especially she knew what she didn't want-this crazy merry-go-round she had been riding on.
In five minutes Kenny returned smiling broadly. He took her hand and led her into the coffee house.
"It didn't take long," he said happily. "A bartender up the street is a good friend of mine. He loaned me ten until my check comes in."
They sat at a table near the window and drank espresso. They finished two cups before Benny returned with another man, a sallow-faced character with bags under his eyes.
"This is Moe," Benny said, pulling up a chair.
Moe borrowed a chair from the adjoining table and sat down on it with his arms draped over the back. He sniffed and stared at Kenny.
"What do you need, friend?"
"You know a Warren Lasswell?"
Moe nodded his head gravely.
"I know him," he said noncommittally.
"Is he in town?"
"He was this morning."
"How do you know?"
Moe blinked his eyes and then grimaced uncomfortably as he looked at Benny.
"I told you he's all right," Benny said impatiently. "He's a friend of mine."
"Well-" Moe sniffed and wiped his nose on his finger. "I just sold him some stuff, not thirty minutes ago.
"Where?" Elaine said eagerly.
"She on the level too?" Moe said uneasily, shifting his eyes to Benny's face.
"She's with him, ain't she?"
"O. K., if you say so." Moe swallowed, bobbing his Adam's apple. "I went up to his place. A customer with his kind of money, you gotta humor."
"Where does he live?" Kenny asked.
"Over by Sheridan Square. I don't know the number for sure, but his Jag's sittin' in front."
"Is he still there?"
"If he ain't dead already...." Elaine gripped the edge of the table and sat forward uneasily. She was filled with a terrible foreboding. Her heart seemed to leap up, threatening to choke her.
"What do you mean by that?" she said in a hoarse voice that was barely audible.
"Well," Moe said, blinking his eyes. "This guy's a real nut. I've known him a long time. He's a customer of mine when he's in town. He's always been pretty far-out, but today he really acts like he's flipped his lid."
"What's he doing?"
"Well, for one thing, he insisted on the uncut stuff. Wouldn't take nothing else. I had a bundle that hadn't been stamped on, so I sold it to him. Got a good price, because he can afford it."
Elaine felt her body grow cold. She sensed what was in Warren Lasswell's mind, and yet she tried to tell herself that it wasn't happening.
"Did he say what he wanted with uncut H?" she asked weakly.
Moe nodded his head dismally.
"He told me after I sold it to him. I wanted it back then, but he run me off. I got to protect myself. I can't get messed up with the trouble he's going to make...."
"What did he say?" Elaine said frantically, her throat tightening with despair.
"He had a long story to tell. I never seen him talk so much. He left Mexico in a hurry after a guy took an overjolt and went out...."
"I know about that," Elaine said impatiently, gripping the table. "What else?"
"Last night he run down a woman and killed her dead. You should see the front end of that Jag. He's pretty shook up because he knows the fuzz will track him down, and that's one rap his money won't buy him out of. So, he's playing this game. See? Russian roulette, he calls it. He's got two decks, and one of them's the straight stuff I sold him. Man, that guy is way out...."
"Go on," Kenny said.
Moe blinked his watery eyes and sniffed his nose. He shook his head in amazement.
"He's holding off-see? Just as long as he can. Him and this girl. He's got her crawling on the floor, begging for a fix. He's just laughing at her. Mean louse."
"Is she a blonde?" Elaine said, grasping at straws.
"That's the girl," Moe replied with a nod. "Young gal. Good looker too ... So he's got these two decks taped to tie phonograph table, going round and round, just like a roulette wheel. There's no way to tell which one is the overdose...."
Elaine jumped up from the table.
"Let's go, Kenny," she cried, holding back the sobs.
"Don't you know the house number?" Kenny said.
"Near Sheridan Square. You'll see the Jag in front," Moe said with a shrug.
"Let's go," Kenny said, grabbing Elaine's hand.
Kenny roared the motor, spun away from the curb and rolled up the street in second. He never shifted out of second, never slowed down at the corners. And then they were braking to a halt beside the silver Jaguar.
As Elaine burst out of Kenny's car she noticed the smashed front end of Warren Lasswell's Jaguar. The hood was dented and the headlight on the right side was broken.
Kenny was already running up a short flight of stairs. He stopped in the alcove and read the names on the boxes, then he ran on. Elaine followed, taking two steps at a time, keeping at Kenny's heels.
Then they were running down a long hallway. Kenny twisted the knob of a door and hit it with his shoulder. It was locked. He hit it again, cracking the wooden paneling.
As Kenny drew back to slam at the door again, it came open.
Warren Lasswell stood calmly smiling at them, a blunt automatic in his hand.