Rumble Tumble

The men’s talk was loud, to compete with the music, to try and not show nervousness. I figured there were plenty of husbands in here who weren’t regular whoremongers, but who were trying to start out in style. Most of the men in the room looked to be either businessmen or farmers, and all but one looked to be past thirty.

The women were all young and looked to be whores, of course. You could tell from the lack of clothes. I checked each one individually, trying to determine if any of them were Tillie. Well, maybe that wasn’t why I looked so carefully, but it was part of the reason.

Over by the crackling fireplace was a Steroid Jock wearing an expensive hand-tailored suit, but that didn’t make it pretty. He had chosen to have it made out of a kind of olive green material the texture of grape leaves. His head was square, like a block, and it was topped with black hair cut close to the scalp. His ears reminded me of radar tracking devices. He was talking to a handsome blond man in another hand-tailored suit, only this one was blue and smooth and more tasteful. Then again, who was I? A fashion critic?

The guy in the blue suit was huge too, but it didn’t show right off, he was so well proportioned. I realized utility instead of fashion had more to do with the hand-tailored suits these guys wore. You looked like they did, you couldn’t pick a suit off the rack. The guy in the blue suit was watching me, like a bird stalking a worm. He had one hand on the mantel and he was playing with a smoking pot of incense.

I glanced around the room and saw more of the boys. Not the customers. Just these big sonsabitches. They were trying to look casual, but they looked about as casual as warthogs in jockstraps and snowshoes. There were six of them altogether, packed into those expensive suits, housing enough steroids inside their flesh to accommodate the entire Mr. Universe competition. I wondered how many more like them were upstairs. I thought about the one on the porch. Maybe he and Leonard were sitting on the steps right now, talking about the moon.

Naw.

I took a deep breath and put a smile on my face and started walking among the women, like I was shopping. A redhead looked at me and smiled. Bless her heart, I’d seen more sincerity in the grin of a presidential candidate.

I grinned at her, just to be sociable, but tried to discourage her by turning away and looking at my watch. Only problem was I wasn’t wearing one.

How long had I been inside now?

Five minutes?

Ten?

Soon, Leonard would be moving the car closer, and not long after that he’d be inside looking for me.

I turned slightly and the redhead was at my shoulder. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she was cute. She had a lump of a nose, good teeth, and freckles to go with the red hair, which was the color of copper and probably that way naturally. She was a little thick in the hips, but if she’d been wearing more than thin black panties that wouldn’t have been noticeable. Another ten years those hips were going to give her trouble.

She had me by the elbow. She said, “You need some company?”

“Well, I’m looking for somebody.”

“Here I am.”

“I’m looking for someone named Tillie. I hear good things about Tillie.”

She frowned. “You don’t hear good things about Darlene?”

“Well, I don’t hear bad things about Darlene. It’s just I’m looking for Tillie.”

“I don’t know any Tillie.”

I tried to remember the photograph I had seen of Tillie in Brett’s house. “She might go by Till. Something like that. She’s a redhead too. Big-breasted.”

“That’s it. You don’t like me because I have small tits.”

I knew she could care less if I liked her or her tits. She was doing what she was supposed to do. Drum up commerce.

I saw her glance toward the fireplace mantel a couple of times, looking at the guy in the blue suit. He glanced at us, then looked away, checking out the rest of his business. And I was sure it was his business. Or at least the one he was running for Big Jim. I figured he was the big guy Taxi Man had told me about.

“About this Tillie?” I asked.

“There’s no one named that here,” she said.

“Not even upstairs?”

“You really want this Tillie, don’t you?”

“I’d like to try her. I’ve heard good stuff.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, no Tillie. You get bored and I’m not playing the horizontal tango with some redneck’s weasel, you look me up. For two hundred dollars I can make you forget Tillie, or damn near anybody or anything.”

“I’ll remember that.”

She winked at me, went to join a couple of guys who had just entered the room, and they were damn glad to see her. One of them instantly had his arm around her, and I heard her laugh like she had just heard the funniest goddamn joke ever told.

Time was running out. Already Leonard was slipping shells into that double-barrel. Beard the lion in his den, I thought.

I went over to the guy in the blue suit. I said, “There’s a girl I’m looking for. A Tillie. She here?”