Chapter 1
The lettering painted on the opaque glass of the door read: GUZZLER'S GAZETTE. Underneath, in smaller letters: Joe Barnes, Publisher.
Inside the cluttered office, the young publisher sat at his battered desk, engrossed in a sheaf of typed papers. He chuckled tentatively under his breath. And then again, more audibly. Hey, this was pretty good stuff. The unsolicited manuscript had come in that morning's mail from some kid up at Mizzou.
"Annie, this is good, damn good," Joe grinned, finishing and addressing the attractive girl who sat at a typewriter a few feet away. "I want you to read it. I think we ought to buy it."
Ann Lee hit a few more keys before looking up. "What's it about, darlin'?", she asked. Her sweet voice faintly dripped with the accents of her native Texas.
As always, Joe experienced the little flip-flop of something inside his chest at the sight and sound of her. It seemed that whenever he saw her again after an hour or a day, or even, like now, when his mind had been on something else, he felt this liquid surge at the renewed awareness of her presence.
"This is the one from the student at Missouri. He's got a parody on the Three Pigs story, with the President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense playing the leading roles. It's funny as hell." His mind was only half on the manuscript now as he surveyed her for the thousandth time: the shining, dark brown hair done in a stylish but feminine and natural sweep, the large, lively blue eyes, the full lips, the perky, turned up nose animating her bright, pretty face. To Joe, she was a vision of loveliness. He was beginning to think the impression was caused by something more than just the rose-colored glasses of a new love affair. After all, their time together was lengthening. She'd been his secretary and office Girl Friday for three months now, and his steady girl for two and he still got that little thump in his chest at the sight of her!
"It sounds like a funny idea. Some of these college fellers are awful good writers ... Hoo boy, I'm stiff", said Annie, stretching her arms wide and curling her wrists. As she did so, Joe was treated to a view of her full, ripe breasts moving under her loose jersey. Their points thrust forward, wriggling a little as she stretched and arched her back. The stripes of the jersey, which had draped before, straightened into stretched horizontal lines between the two rounded peaks.
He was rapidly losing interest in editorial tasks, but said: "Yeah, we need this kind of fresh stuff to keep the old Guzzler's Gazette the funniest weekly saloon paper in the west ... Or in St. Louis, anyway."
"Don't you mean the only one in St. Louis?", Annie retorted with a twinkle. They shared a quiet laugh.
"Well, actually, we're not doing so bad, Annie", Joe said, his dark eyes going reflective as he leaned back in his chair. "Circulation is hitting a consistent 15,000 a week now, where it was next to nothing when I started this nutty tabloid a couple of years ago. We've got a little advertising revenue coming in. At least we're paying the bills and having a little left over for beer and smokes and good times, and....", he grinned suddenly, "it's summer time and I've got me a pretty girl ... What more could a fellow want out of life?"
The tender look in Annie's blue eyes matched his own. "You like this life, don't you, Joe?"
"Yes, I do Annie. I guess I just wasn't cut out to play corporation man. Sure, I know the Guzzler is a small potatoes business and probably always will be but, I don't know, it gives me a creative feeling, and I try to make it good and, well, I'm kind of proud of it."
His self-pride was almost immediately tempered as he ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. Was the dollar sized bald spot at the crown getting a little bigger?
"I'm proud too, dariin'. Proud of you. Not many fellers could start out on a shoestring with just an idea, and make it work like you have." Annie leaned forward over her typewriter to place her hand atop his.
Joe eyed the full curves of her figure, moving in sensuous coordination. God, she's got a sexy body, he thought, his visual awareness awakening a physical response. Crazy little nut, always saying she needs to go on a diet ... If she only knew, he mused hungrily, appreciating the firm, full lines of her hips and thighs and lushly turned calves, the heavy loll of her large breasts, as she leaned forward.
"Come here, Tex", he commanded.
"Yes, Boss ... and don't call me Tex", she pouted prettily, rising and coming forward to comply with his order.
"Now why shouldn't I call you Tex? You come from Texas, don't you?" He patted his knee and she slid into his lap, fitting her roundness snugly into the angularities of his hard frame.
"Yes, I do come from Texas, but 'Tex' sounds like a cowboy. I don't make you think of a cowboy, do I, dariin'?" She appeared to examine his face close up, with wide-eyed interest. He often thought of her as some kind of a cute cartoon character, with her large, open blue eyes and her curious, high-pitched, little-girlish voice that sounded as if her nose was forever stopped up.
He planted a peck of a kiss on the turned-up nose. "No, baby doll, you don't remind me of a cowboy", he said. That's putting it mildly, he observed, as his palms cupped the softness of her tummy and hip.
"And I'm proud of you too, Annie," he continued. "Some of these saloon keepers who sell the paper have been a lot more cooperative since you came around. You suppose they've got a yen to know what's inside these little britches?" He patted her firm buttocks.
Annie smiled tenderly. "What's in those little britches is for you, Honey, not for anybody else." She brushed his lips with hers and he could feel that they were warm.
"Want to swing around the Square tonight?", he inquired, his hands starting to roam in widening circles on her roundness, front and back.
"Uh-huh", she answered softly. She had laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder and her lips were at his ear. He felt her warm breath as she spoke.
"Want to close up shop for the day now?" He could feel his masculinity reacting to its snuggling contact, and knew she must be aware of it too.
"Uh-ihuh", Annie breathed dreamily, taking his ear lobe between her teeth and hold it lightly.
"Want to go down and see how Dean's coming along with the Purple Pussycat?" His hands were moving more urgently now, as with an autonomous motivation.
"Uh-huh. When?", Annie said in a small, intimate voice. She darted the hot tip of her tongue liquidly into and out of his ear.
"Now?", he managed, his voice tightening as the mischief of his reply was erased by the delicious message her tongue was sending through his body.
"... You gotta be kidding", she breathed throatily into his ear. Her hand moved to his stomach, the fingers unhurriedly opening a button of his shirt.
Yes, she knows we're not going anywhere just yet, Joe thought happily. What a wonderful girl, he reflected, deriving supreme enjoyment from the close fragrance of her, the intensely feminine heft of her there on his lap, in his arms. Yes, little ol' Texas Annie could just turn out to be the one. Like a bolt from the blue. There he'd been, a couple of years past thirty, beginning to figure he was pretty well set in his bachelor ways when, all of a sudden, she had happened to him. A cute, chuckled-headed-but sweetly stable-blue-eyed girl had tripped into his life and now he was like a schoolboy in love again.
He slipped a hand under the back of her jersey, thrilling to the touch of her smooth flesh. With a deft push, squeeze, and flick of his thumb, the bra snap came undone, and all of her seemed to loosen and melt closer to him.
He moved his other palm on her tummy now, in tantalizing circles. At least it was tantalizing to him, as each arc described by his hand inched even higher on her vibrant contours. Judging from her reaction, the teasing play was tantalizing to Annie also. She was beginning to breath in long, consciously controlled draughts, with a little shudder at the end of each one. Her hand worked rapidly at his shirt buttons now.
He slid his hand under the loosened bra and mounted the bulbous swell of her large, ripe breast. She gasped her pleasure as he did so. The shimmering smoothness of the wondrous object under his palm-its softness padding the hard resiliency beneath the rounded surface-sent a wave of need plunging through him.
"Oh darlin' I love it when you touch me there", she sighed as if in wonderment at her own reactions to his tender attentions.
Joe swiveled his cupped palm gently upon the luscious globe, trying to contain as much of its heavy bulk as possible. The breast tightened and firmed under his kneading grasp. A hard, rubbery point materialized and nudged between his rasping fingers.
"Squeeze it harder, honey", she whispered urgently," so I can feel it deep down."
He did so, and her pleasure was apparent in the glow of her half-lidded eyes and the rising flush on her cheeks. Suddenly, she crushed her body against him and bent his head back in a searing, open-mouthed kiss. Their tongues sparred furiously in a battle of sweet arousement. Joe felt his need for her rising to almost painful dimensions, and her carnal bent seemed to match his own.
As suddenly as she had joined, Annie broke the kiss and drew back. She sat straight up in his lap, her lips dewy moist and trembling as she gazed purposefully into his eyes. She was breathing hard. A shaken little smile appeared on her lips as she said: "I'm tellin' you, boss, the things you do to me ... Go lock the door, Joe ... Hurry."
She slid off his lap and Joe crossed to the office door where he secured the bolt. Turning back, his breath caught in reverent awe.
Annie had removed jersey and bra and stood by the old leather sofa, naked to the waist. He accepted the invitation in her loving blue eyes to admire the glorious nudity she displayed for him. The sleek curves of her feminine torso flowed into breathtaking focus in two magnificent breasts, high and proud, crying out for his touch it seemed. The creamy melons were punctuated at center by wide, clearly-defined cinnamon-colored circles from which twin points now jutted. The nipples vibrated visibly under his gaze.
"Come to me, Joe", she implored simply and sweetly.
Joe went to her and their arms snaked about each other as lips and tongues tasted the liquid flames of each other's passion. His hands moved with growing urgency on her back, shoulders, buttocks, thighs, trying to know all of her womanly warmth at once. Popping one of the pendulous breasts loose from the crush of their embrace, he belabored the hard, throbbing nipple with thumb and forefinger. Annie whimpered in pleasureable pain.
Their hips were moving against each other now, inexorably assuming the rhythmic motions of love. Now. He wanted her now. He didn't think he could wait another minute, as his shaking fingers pushed downward at her waistband.
The trembling lovers broke contact for a feverish moment. Joe shucked heedlessly out of his clothing, scattering it about, while Annie unzipped her skirt and, sliding her panties down with it, stepped forth into complete and radiant nudity before him.
Annie's eyes flicked downward upon his nakedness and then seductively back to his face. "See? I knew all along you were kiddin' about leaving right away", she said knowingly. A dash of delicious wickedness flavored the tremulous yearning of her voice. She opened her arms to him and he entered the alabaster gates with singing heart.
Joe folded her velvet softness to him, her nudity like a blow torch against the length of his body. His strong embrace raised her from the floor. As they kissed wetly and hotly, she squirmed against him he could feel her moist femininity seeking him out. Enough. It was time.
He lead her to the yielding leather of the sofa. Lying side by side, their limbs entwined, Annie's clutching fingers drew him dizzingly onward. He shifted to his knees and heard her hissing delight as he attended to her juicy breasts with his mouth. His tongue explored each puckering nipple in turn, thrilling to the appearance of the many small goosebumps which formed around the rubbery points.
He looked into her face, at the moist, swollen, trembling lips, the eyes gone dreamy and glazed, the jugular in her white neck throbbing. Even as he put his open mouth upon hers and stabbed his tongue between her teeth, she grasped him with both hands, guiding him, and rose to meet him.
With curled legs she enveloped his thrust and they were rapturously together. Her strangled moan at the moment of contact forced back his own deep-throated groan.
"Oh, Joe. Oh my darlin' baby Joe. What is it happens between us?", she murmured feverishly.
"I don't know, baby, but let's not lose it, ever", he whispered hoarsely.
Their bodies shuddered and settled into hot, rhythmic harmony. Oh, Anjiie, my wonderful Annie. He believed no woman on earth had ever, could ever, give him the exquisite joy he knew at this moment. He wanted desperately to give as much in return. To that end, he disciplined his racing blood as best he could, pacing himself, controlling the spasms that wanted to take his body from him.
With each loving thrust, Annie gasped her agonized ecstasy louder, her hands slapping at his back, finally losing restraint and digging sharp nails into him as she neared a choking pinnacle.
At the moment his passion burst and spewed forth in a rampaging flood, Annie went taut as steel. Her scream was that of an animal, drowned by the roar of the explosion that ravaged them simultaneously.
The echoes of her hoarse, jagged scream died out as the thunder of their culmination rumbled off into the distance and they lay together, panting and spent.
For many minutes, neither moved. They lay, maintaining their liquid union, as if afraid that what their bodies had gone through had left them fragilely breakable. Gradually, the sounds of their ragged breathing subsided and they looked into each other's eyes. She seemed especially beautiful to him at these times, her face placid, still glossed with the perspiration of love.
"I love you, Annie", he said simply.
"And I love you too, Joe", she replied tenderly, as though sealing a solemn pact.By God, we'll have to do something about that some day soon, Joe thought, a little frightened at the ideas that were coming to him with increasing frequency these days, about this girl.
He parted himself from her and stood on rubbery legs. "How about a drink, Annie. It's late enough", he suggested, smiling tenderly down at her. His passion-fires banked, he saw her ripe nudity in a different mood now, with a curiously clearer eye. Yes, she was lovely in this light too. She would wear well.
"Oh, I reckon I could stand one", she replied, her peaceful smile returning his admiration.
Annie rose and padded to the small bathroom adjoining the office, while Joe fished a bottle of bourbon out of the scared desk. In a moment she returned with two tumblers half full of water, and he measured a healthy dose of the whiskey into each.
While Annie fussed with her makeup at the wall mirror, Joe sprawled back relaxedly in his swivel chair, still nude, and took a long pull at the amber fluid in his glass. He enjoyed the good burning sensation on his palate and in his nostrils. Life looked pretty good to him right now. He had a little business, nothing big but a going thing, and he had Annie.
He watched her softly sinuous figure as she worked at the mirror. She'd put on her panties and bra and when she raised her arms to her hair, the lush breasts jiggled against the confinement.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you", said Annie. "We're invited to a party tomorrow."
"That's nice. Where?"
"Burt Goslin's apartment. He called this morning."
"Great", said Joe, his mind on the ramifications. Poor old Burt. A damn nice, gentle guy underneath some of his minor vices, like not knowing when to stop with the booze. Joe speculated as to how and why the party invitation had really come about. He thought he knew. He'd known Burt Goslin for four or five years. They were friendly enough, occasionally hoisting a glass together if they happened to meet during their travels around town. But they weren't what could be called close buddies. They had a tenuous common interest in that both were concerned with the publishing business, although in totally divergent capacities. He didn't think he'd been socially invited to Burt's quarters more than once or twice before. Even then, as he recalled, there'd been some underlying business purposes. No, this party invitation was from somebody else even though it had been Burt who put in the phone call. Joe was pretty sure he knew who that somebody else was, and wondered what was on her mind. Poor Burt, he thought again as he had a couple of months ago when he saw the announcement in the papers. An essentially decent guy just might be getting himself into more of a pickle than he realized.
"Did you see Burt's column in the Herald yesterday?", Annie was asking.
"No, what was it about?"
"Sort of a mood thing about Gaslight. Trying to paint the feel of the atmosphere about the whole Square. Did it very well, I thought."
"Yeah, you've got to give Burt that. He's a good, versatile writer." Joe wondered how the guy could do it any more. It seemed, with every passing year, almost every time he saw him out at night, he was loaded, really stoned to the point of immobility. And yet, there was his "Round Town" column in the Herald every morning and, given the subject matter to work with, it was usually perceptive, highly readable copy. It surely took a kind of strength Joe doubted he himself would have, to keep churning out the good ideas despite paralytic forces of the daily alcohol baths. Burt looked a good fifty, and more dissipated all the time, but Joe suspected he was actually a good deal younger, maybe as much as a decade. And now this fiasco with Carla. That would put years on a man in good health. What would it do to poor Burt?
"I've never met his new wife", said Annie, coming to sit on the edge of the desk. She poured his empty glass halfway up with newly fetched water. Re-stocking both glasses with bourbon, she added: "You know her, don't you, Joe? What's she like?"
Carla. An image of the tall, glamorous blonde focused in his mind. Maybe he was being unfair to assume their union would turn out to be a fiasco for Burt. It was the snap judgement he'd made when he'd heard of their sudden marriage two months ago. He hadn't even known they were acquainted. It figured they would be, though, because both had traveled in sometimes converging circles around town for years. Maybe it wasn't really a sudden marriage, but a sudden judgement on his part, twisted by subjective colorations that didn't necessarily bear. He could be quite mistaken. After all, people change. Maybe even Carla. He hadn't actually had a personal conversation with her for a good two years now, so what did he know for sure? He'd seen her around and they'd greeted each other in crowds, but that was all for a long time now. Since their marriage, he hadn't seen either her or Burt. For all he knew, they were a pair of cooing lovebirds. For Burt's sake, he hoped so.
"What's she like? Well, she's ... uh ... pretty. Tall, blonde". He found he was deliberately searching for bland adjectives, not at all moved to give Annie a comprehensive character analysis. He wondered why not. Surely the thing he'd felt ... the thing they'd had ... was long since buried in the past. If not the memory, certainly the relevant feelings were gone. The torch was out. Wasn't it?
"I really don't know what Carla's like these days, Annie. We went to high school together, and for a while I saw a lot of her but I haven't talked to her for a long time."
"She's some kind of a model isn't she?", Annie asked, and Joe sensed she was a little more curious than logically figured.
He hoped she wasn't reading anything in his face. He was a little disturbed at his own unsettled nostalgia over the mention of Carla Smith. "Yeah, you might say so", he answered. "At one time I thought she was sure to go on to the big time in New York. She went there a couple of times, but always came back to St. Louis."
She'd wanted success in that career so desperately, he remembered. Far more for the recognition than for the money, he'd always believed. If she'd ever had a chance to get that beautiful kisser on the cover of a national magazine, she'd have paid them for the privilege. What could have side-tracked her? Certainly not a lack of energy and drive. She was compulsively manic, to the point where he used to think she'd surely crack up some day. Weren't her looks good enough for the big time? Well, he was no expert, but he'd always believed she was as beautiful as any, In that glamorous model's way, and more beautiful than most. She still was today, or the last time he'd seen her. Although the time of being able to hold any realistic hope for the big break had to be behind her. Let's see, she was two years behind him at Roosevelt High, so she had to be 30 now, or pushing it. If a model hasn't made it by that time, she's not going to ... So now she's Mrs. Burt Goslin. Or is he Mr. Carla Smith? He'd have a chance to size it all up at the party tomorrow.
"Well, Tex", said Joe, rising and stretching and patting Annie's soft thigh, "what say we toddle down to the Purple Pussycat and get a check from Dean for his ad?"
They dressed, locked up for the day, and walked down one rickety wooden flight to the street. Although it was almost six o-clock, the burning sun still blazed high in the sky. After the air-conditioned office, the heat radiating up from the asphalt and concrete produced a sensation of wavering vision and light headedness.
They started up the sidewalk arm in arm, the clicking of Annie's heels the only sound in the stillness of the heat-slumbrous street.
"Whooooee, it's hot", Annie remarked, touching her brow.
Hot as hell. Uncomfortable and sticky but this was his town and he loved it, especially in the hot summers. He loved the yeasty smells here in the inner city, and the sight of the sycamores and the squat old Dutch houses, their bricks baking lazily in the sun. He felt good to be here, his Annie with him, the disturbing memories of Carla Smith evaporating now.
They turned the corner into Olive Boulevard, at the north end of Gaslight Square. The strip was almost deserted now, not a ghost of the milling mob that would populate it with the fall of night. Only an occasional car bumped past along the cobbled, trolley-rutted street as they headed south toward the Purple Pussycat. The only businesses open at this hour on the Square were the several antique shops, but they appeared deserted as the couple filed past. They moved on, past Tortilla Flat, the Opera House, Crystal Palace, Bustles and Bows, and came at last to their destination.
At Joe's knock, the curtain at the window of the new Purple Pussycat parted a crack. An eye peeped out. A moment later, the door was being unlocked.
"Come in, Joe ... Annie! Welcome to the Pussycat", the blonde young man beamed.
Entering, Joe's gaze swept the freshly redecorated room. "Nice, Dean. Very nice", he said heartily, nodding his head in approval. "So you've finally got your own place, eh? Congratulations."
"She's all mine. How do you like it, Annie?" Dean Twiddy smiled his Richard Widmark smile, a built-in leer, at her.
"It's beautiful, Dean. You're gonna make a barrel of money here, isn't he, Joe? ... What are those little balconies up over the bandstand?" She indicated two tiny platforms, one on each wall, perched near the high ceiling.
"Oh, those are dance platforms for the go-go girls. Cute, huh? See the firehouse poles? That's the only way to get to them. The broads gotta shimmy up and slide down ... And, my god, you oughta see the things big-dumb-Julie does with that pole while she's dancing. She's gonna get us arrested before we start!" He cackled as if amused at the thought of being arrested. His laugh, too, very much resembled Richard Widmark's crazy giggle. Joe had often wondered if it was a conscious mannerism.
"Hey! Have a beer on the house!" Dean slapped the bar with friendly finality before hurrying around behind it.
"Nothin's too good for my pals, Annie and Joe", he remarked jovially as he expertly filled two large mugs. " ... You rather have something else, Annie? My bourbon's not here yet, but the scotch came in today."
"No, Dean. A beer'll be fine in this heat", she replied. "You here alone?"
"Yeah. The carpenters just left. Crazy oughta be by any minute to clean up their mess." He placed the frosty mugs before them and went to fetch one for himself.
"So your big night's a week from tomorrow, Dino?" Joe took a big swallow of the cool brew.
"Yeah, the big grand opening of the Purple Pussycat. It's gonna be a blast, man", Dean enthused proudly, returning from the tap. "You'll be here of course?"
"We wouldn't miss it for anything", Annie smiled.
"Oh, Joe, you got my ad all set for next week's issue of the Guzzler's right?"
"Yep."
"Here, let me give you a check", said Dean, pulling a large, bound checkbook from a shelf under the bar. "Forty dollars, right?" He wrote out the check and handed it to Joe.
There was a knock at the door.
"Must be Crazy. Just a sec", said Dean, coming around to answer the knock. He opened the door.
"Hi, Dean. Thought we'd drop around and see the progress." She was a striking, well-stocked woman with long, blue-black tresses.
Dean simultaneously planted a kiss on the girl's cheek and pumped the hand of the slender, handsome young man behind her, pulling them inside.
"Hey, Joe. Annie", Dean called. "Look who's here! Rita and Sid ... Sid, I haven't seen this swinging chick of yours in a coon's age. Where you been keeping her?" He had his arm draped familiarly around Rita's pneumatic behind as he escorted the new arrivals to the bar.
Friendly greetings flowed back and forth while Dean made another trip to the beer tap. Rita and Sid Leopold. Speaking of odd couples, Joe thought ... But, as with the new pairing of Carla Smith and Burt Goslin, could an outsider really know what makes a couple tick? Rita and Sid had stayed married ever since he'd known them, five or six years, so they must have something going for them. You'd sure never pick them as birds of a feather, though. Sid, the shy, handsome-almost too handsome-retiring type. And Rita! She was something else again. Easily the wildest swinger-type chick he'd ever come across. At least to hear her talk. But he'd heard from reliable sources that she wasn't just a talker. Nice young people, both of them, Rita and Sid, in their offbeat ways. You just wouldn't peg them as marriage partners at first glance.
"I hear you're dancing over at the Grecian Grotto these days, Rita", Joe smiled at her. She looked flashily sensational as usual, in a red satin beaded outfit that set off her gleaming black hair, carnivorous white teeth and dark features. Sharp-pointed, conical breasts pushed against her tight bodice.
"Yes I am, you ugly bastard." Rita's thick, sensuous lips parted in a grin, her black senorita's eyes flashing with lewd amusement. Joe noticed that everything about her seemed to glint and flash her black eyes, the muscular dancer's calves on her legs, even her white-white teeth. She added: "Why haven't you been over to see me, son of a bitch?"
Joe shook his head, chuckling. Same old Rita. "Well, I've been awful busy, doll", he pleaded.
Dean motioned to Sid and the two men moved away from the group, down opposite sides of the bar, to engage in some whispered privacies.
"You're looking good, Stud", Rita said to Joe, eyeing him boldly. To Annie she said: "Mind if I give this man of yours a peck on the cheek, Honey? I haven't seen him for a while." Her cat smile at Annie seemed to indicate no reply was necessary, that she was going to buss the publisher no matter.
Stepping up to him, she snaked an arm around his neck and plunged her hot tongue into his ear. Joe winced at the pleasant sensation and made as if to pull away, but her strong arm tightened on his neck. She whispered conspiratorially: "I've got such hot pants today, I'm climbing the walls! What say you and I slip back to the ladies room and you throw me a fast f...."
"Rita!" Joe laughingly cut her off and pushed her away. He leaned back against the bar, chuckling, while Rita, also grinning, wagged her tongue lewdly between her white teeth. Same old Rita, all right. He had half a mind to take her up on one of her propositions one of these days. It wouldn't surprise him any that if he did she'd probably run like a scared rabbit.
He looked at Annie and chucked her pretty chin. Annie was smiling too without, perhaps the enthusiasm of the other two, but as if to say she understood and it was all right.
There was another knock at the door.
"I'll get it Dean," Rita announced. She switched over to the door, her firm buttocks like rounded pistons under the clinging satin. Opening the door, some of the vivaciousness left her voice as she said: "Oh, it's you. Crazy. Come on in. Here to work?"
The slight, slack-jawed young man shuffled through the door and stood blinking blankly around. His lustreless, red-rimmed, grey eyes seemed to be having difficulty adjusting to the half light.
"Uh ... Where Dean?" he grunted absently, to no one in particular. He slipped his beat-up Cardinals baseball cap from atop his small, pointed head. Scratching at the unkempt crew cut of his patchy hair, he grunted again: "Where Dean? ... Uh, hey, Dean ... You here?" As he raised his mushy voice, flecks of spittle rose unlicked to the corners of his slack mouth.
"Yeah, Crazy. I'm here. Come on back," Dean called from the far end of the bar.
Crazy shuffled slowly forward in the direction of his employer's voice. He walked with his thin arms hanging loosely, straight down. His tight, turtle-neck tee shirt emphasized the bird-like thinness of his chest and shoulders, while his two-sizes-too-big blue jeans gave him an overall pear-shaped appearance as he moved.
"Yech! That character gives me the creeps, said Rita when Crazy had staggered beyond easy ear shot. "Did you see the way he slobbers?" In a lower voice, to Joe, she added: "I'm horny, honey, but not that horny."
"Poor little feller," Annie sympathized. "He doesn't have much of a life, does he?"
"Hell, he doesn't know any better," returned Rita. "He's got nothing in that pinhead to think a-bout troubles with. Give him the few dollars he makes sweeping up for these Gaslight joints, enough for room rent and food, and he's probably happy as a lark."
The trio's conversation drifted to pleasanter subjects; the party tomorrow at the newlywed Goslin's, and the forthcoming Purple Pussycat opening. Dean and Sid remained in private conversation at the other end of the bar.
Presently Crazy reappeared from the shadows at the rear, bearing a broom. He came up to the front end of the bar and busied himself foggily, sweeping the litter on the floor. When the phone rang, Crazy was right next to it. He picked it up.
After a moment, in which his expression changed from total blankness to something like dull comprehension, he called: "Uh ... hey, Dean ... It's for you ... Uh, it's a girl."
As Dean started along the bar, Crazy put his thick, wet lips back to the receiver and blurted in his gutteral croak: "Hey, baby ... Uh, you wanna...."
There followed an explicitly obscene one-word proposal to the female caller. Everyone in the room snapped to shocked attention, even Rita. Although, where Annie looked dismayed, Rita's expression showed that she found Crazy's faux pas highly amusing.
Dean grabbed the phone from Crazy, muttering under his breath as his eyes shot angry daggers at the retarded youth. "Yeah, who is it?" he said into the receiver. " ... Yeah, I know, Honey ... I heard him ... It was Crazy ... Yeah ... Okay, I promise, I won't let him answer the phone any more...."
Sid rejoined the others as Dean continued his telephone conversation. Crazy continued with his sweeping as if unaware that anything unusual had happened.
"Well, that was a hell of a howdy do, wasn't it?" Sid grinned.
"Gosh, I've never heard him say anything like that before," Annie put in. She looked troubled.
"Sounds to me like somebody's been teaching the little creep the facts of life," suggested Rita.
They all looked at Crazy, puttering uncoordinatedly with his broom, head down. Joe felt a wave of pity for Crazy. He was a gentle ... whatever he was. You could hardly call him a man. And yet, he was human. Horribly blighted, but a human being nonetheless. He felt guilty for never having realized this before. Nobody ever thought about Crazy one way or the other. He was just there. He served his menial purpose, and nobody ever thought about him beyond that. But he'd sure gotten himself a moment's notice just now. "Poor devil," Joe said.
He looked at his watch. It was time for them to go. "Well, if you good people will excuse us...."
The group exchanged cordial goodbyes, affirming that they would meet again on the morrow at the Goslin's. Dean, still trying to pacify his lady caller, sent them off with a cheery wave, and Joe and Annie left the Purple Pussycat.