would buy the girl a Coke or a beer and a hamburger and probably jump her again on the way home. Both of them very well satisfied with the arrangement. Renner knew. He’d been born in Mission Bay. He lit a cigarette and walked back to the pumps.
Old man Manners was mumbling in his stubble of grizzled beard. “Fifty cents, by God. Fifty cents worth of gas. And will I please check his radiator and be sure and clean the windshield as the bugs are bad up in the hills tonight.”
Renner laughed and looked up the highway again.
“Why you all the time looking up the highway?” the old man asked. “You expecting someone on the bus?”
“No,” Renner lied. “Just wondering why Angel is so late tonight.”
The old man shook his head. “Angel. Now that’s a hell of a name for a man.” He was concerned. He had reason to be. Along with the day mechanic and the cooks and the barman and the maids and waitresses and handyman, the tenure of his job depended on Renner being able to keep the court open. He asked, “How did you make out with that banker in Los Angeles, Kurt? The one you were going to ask about a loan.”
“No dice,” Renner told him.
He used the men’s washroom in the station before returning to the cocktail lounge. Some punk had dropped a wadded paper towel on the floor. Renner picked it up and put it in the container, then studied his face in the mirror over the bowl as he washed his hands.
The strain was beginning to tell. He was thirty-three years old. He looked it. His face was beginning to line. There were traces of gray in his hair. He had to hold on to the court. If and when he lost the Eldorado it meant going back to wearing a monkey suit, saying “Yes, sir” and “No, sir,” not even a captain this time, none of the cream off the top, but starting in at the bottom again, hopping bells, catering to the venality of the traveling public.
The great traveling American public, with money. Misunderstood husbands and balding businessmen trying to cling to the ephemeral illusion of youth, from Atlanta and Cleveland and Boston; pillars of the church and their home-town chamber of commerce, men with more money than sense, most of them with only two things on their minds—liquor and sex.
Ditto their opposite feminine numbers, frustrated wives and willing widows, trying to look coy and attractive at forty, calling the switchboard for a bell man.
And when you knocked on their doors, there they were, their breasts bulging out of sheer nightgowns, their fat thighs quivering, a hopeful gleam in their eyes and an erroneous conception of room service.
Renner scowled at his reflection in the mirror. So? So bring the guy his Scotch. Phone for a fifty dollar call girl and take your cut like a good little pimp. Hand the old bag a line. And if the old bag gets so sore you think she won’t tip then squeeze her tits a little. Run your hand between her legs. If you have to, jump her. What’s a little flesh between friends? You can always wash your hands or take a bath. Ten here, ten there counts up. You want to own a tourist court, don’t you?
Renner dried his hands on a paper towel and went back to the cocktail lounge. No miracles had sprouted. The jukebox was still blaring rock and roll, with a little progressive mixed in. The lounge still smelled like all cocktail lounges, of cigarette smoke and beer and amorous males and used and about to be used female flesh. No fault of his. Male and female created he them.
Renner climbed back on his stool and lit a cigarette as he studied Kelcey Anders’ face. It was a good face, but weak. Kelcey was as big a man as he was, a few years younger, black-haired, dark-complected. He looked like he had money. He did. His family had been in the chips for years. Anders Senior owned the bank in Mission Bay, several business properties in town and only he and the tax collector knew how many thousands of acres of ranch and farm and timber land.
When Kelcey was sober he liked to boast there had been a Spanish Don in the family tree. But right now he wasn’t interested in lineage. He was much more concerned with getting drunk, secure in the knowledge that no matter how drunk he got the local sheriff wouldn’t dare arrest him. Bill Prichard thought too much of his job.
Tony, the barman, asked Renner if he wanted anything. He shook his head and turned his mental attention to Anders Senior. It was said that in his younger days the old man had been almost as much of a bastard as Kelcey. But now that he was semi-retired, he’d mellowed. As far as Renner was concerned, outside of his foul mouth and his flatly refusing to make him a bank loan large enough to tide the Eldorado over until the highway opened, Mr. Anders had only one serious flaw. That was his opinion of Kelcey.
Kelcey was his boy. And “My Boy” could do no wrong.
It was an interesting subject. Renner pursued it. Like the time that Pete Gonzales had caught Kelcey raping his fifteen-year-old daughter in the fish house on the beach. Were Gina’s clothes torn off her forcibly? Was she screaming in pain and praying for help when Gonzales managed to break down the door? Had she been brutally violated? Don’t be foolish. In court, Kelcey had claimed it was all her fault, that Gina wanted to do it. And by the time that Anders Senior and the Anders’ lawyers had completed twisting the facts, Kelcey had really gone to the fish house to buy a can of tuna and Gina had been lucky not to go to jail charged with lewd and indecent exposure and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Some day, however, Kelcey was going to force himself on the wrong girl. When that happened it was going to cost his father a small fortune to keep him from going to prison—say thirty or forty thousand dollars, enough to meet the payroll and the payments on an eighteen-unit tourist court for the length of time it took a highway to be born.
Afraid that Kelcey might get bored and pick up his change and walk out before the bus arrived, Renner crossed the lounge and sat in the booth with Kelcey.
“How about a drink on the house?”
Kelcey was alcoholically suspicious. “What’s the idea?”
Renner simulated surprise. “Just trying to be friendly. After all, you spend quite a bit in here.”
Kelcey was amused. “I get it now. You’re afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of losing your court.”
Renner motioned to Tony to bring two drinks. “Don’t be silly. I’m doing fine.”
Kelcey laughed harshly. “Hah. Don’t give me that crap.”
Bus or not, it was time to get the show on the road. Renner raised his voice to make certain what he had to say would be heard above the music. “If you don’t mind, Kelcey, please watch your language.”
Kelcey continued drunkenly. “You know you can’t possibly hold on for nine more months. You tried to borrow money from my father and he turned you down. Now you think maybe I’ll lend you some.” He grew even more belligerent. “Well, I won’t. I hope you do lose the court. Imagine a stinking punk like you, an ex-bell captain, a god-damn Hunkie celery farmer’s son, thinking you could swing a high-class place like this.”
It was the opening Renner wanted. He caught the other man by the lapels of his coat and pulled him across the table. “I warned you,” he said, coldly. “I warned you in a nice way to watch your language. Now stop talking like that or get out and don’t come back. I run a respectable place. And I won’t have a drunk talk the way you’ve been talking in front of decent girls.”
The speech had the
