The Kissing Gourami by Kin Platt

Author:Kin Platt [Platt, Kin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4046-2
Publisher: Prologue Books
Published: 1970-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

I found his name in the phone directory and drove around to his apartment. I knocked, and he came to the door and opened it without his gloves on, tugging a bathrobe over his pajamas.

“Bernie West?”

He looked at me impassively a moment, then nodded. I unfolded my handkerchief and showed him the bloody broken molars I’d picked off the glass-littered floor at Coy’s after I called the ambulance.

“They used to belong to Geneva,” I told him. “Maybe you’d like them for a keepsake.”

He rubbed his grotesquely twisted hands together and spat on a worn carpet. “I don’t need no more mementos, Mac.” He looked at me with a little more interest. “So you took him, huh? What about Coy?”

“They’re both at County General Hospital. There’s a good chance they’ll live.”

His controls eased and he showed a wolfish grin. “Too bad. Otherwise it could be a pretty good night for celebrating.” He rubbed his black-stubbled jaw. “What else you got for me?”

I showed him the picture I was carrying.

“Alice, huh? It figures.” He tugged at the collar of his bathrobe. “I’ll get dressed and we’ll go out for a bite and a couple of beers. You can ask all you want, pal. I owe you for Geneva and Coy.”

The Nevada Club was a downtown gambling casino. The food was good and a small combo far up front wasn’t trying to impress anybody.

West was wearing thin light leather gloves. He put his knife and fork down and finished his beer. He nodded toward the smoke-filled side rooms. “I started as a dealer here five years ago. They liked me even after I left them for a better deal up on the Strip at the Alamo, working for Coy. The Strip is class. Downtown here’s the dregs.

“After Geneva finished me off, these guys took care of the hospital bills but couldn’t offer me a job back here. Coy’s cute. He don’t threaten much. Geneva just keeps knockin’ the help off, busting an arm or a leg, until nobody wants to show up. They knew they couldn’t stay in business with the rap I had on me.” He shrugged. “What the hell. I couldn’t work no more as a dealer. I can’t shuffle nothin’ smaller than a bottle of beer. So I pump gas to stay alive and blow what’s left on the nickel, dime and quarter action here.”

“Did Coy get you the job so you could keep paying off?”

He grinned. “Sure. He’s big-hearted that way. He knows I’m hooked on the action. I drop off a tenner every week and he lets me stay alive. Maybe in another ten or twenty years, when I get even, he’ll take away the favor. I guess you’d expect me to hate ‘em for what they did, only I don’t — not any more. Christ, what I did was so goddam stupid. It ain’t just my hands — throwin’ away my life for a broad.” He leaned back and laughed. “Y’know, sometimes I even catch myself wondering if it was worth it.

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