girl.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “You’re going to give me an ulcer, Beatrice.”
“Stop being a baby. Just do it.”
Marvin got out of the car reluctantly. Before he closed the door, Beatrice added, “And make sure to show her the money so that she knows we mean business.”
He took a deep breath and then crossed the street at an angle so that he could intercept her. He stood in front of her and she stopped walking and examined him nervously.
“Hi there…miss. Can I talk to you for a moment?” He fidgeted, not sure how to approach a call girl. “My wife is over there in that car.” He turned and pointed. The woman looked over at the car and Beatrice waved at the two of them and smiled. He pulled the wad of money from his pocket. “We would like to pay you for…a couple of hours of your time. We have a hotel room, very nice, over at the Hilton.
“You want to pay me for what?”
“It’s a little odd really. I’m sure it’s not what you’re used to. We’d really like to feed you-er-I mean get you dinner, and then-”
“Feed me? What? Am I a baby?”
“No. Not like a baby. Not at all. That’s not what I mean. That’s funny. Feeding you like a baby – but not if that’s something you do – I mean professionally. I’m just really nervous and that came out awkwardly.”
She stepped around him and kept walking so he hurried after her and kept pace alongside her.
“This is really my wife’s idea. Maybe you could just come with me to the car and my wife can make it more clear. Of course, we’ll pay you your hourly rate.”
“Listen, I don’t know what kind of sick things you and your wife are into but-”
“No, it’s okay. We’ll pay you. Just come back to our hotel room and-”
“Why do you keep saying that you’ll pay me?” She stopped and faced him. “Did you think that I was a hooker?”
“Well, you know, you’ve got those boots on and-”
“Pervert!” She pulled a can of mace from her purse and sprayed Marvin. He tried to duck but he still took some of it on one side of his face and eye. She walked off angrily as he held his jacket against his face and stumbled back to the car. Beatrice pushed the door open for him and Marvin slid in, still holding his face.
“Not a hooker,” Marvin mumbled through the fabric of his jacket.
“What’d you do to your face?”
“I didn’t do anything to it. She maced me. She thought that we wanted to bring her to a hotel and feed her like a baby.”
“Why did you tell her that?”
“I didn’t tell her that. She misunderstood.”
“What is it with you and babies today? You didn’t need to bring up babies. You’re obsessed.”She leaned closer to look at his face. “Here, let me see.”
“No, Beatrice, stay back. Just let me sit for a second.”
“It’s not like the mace is going to kill you. It just hurts. Let me help.” She leaned in again and he fought her off.
Suddenly she started giggling. She put her hand over her mouth but couldn’t contain her laughter.
“This is funny, Beatrice?”
“Your ear just swelled up like a pancake.”
He reached up and touched his ear gingerly. “Darn it. That’s not funny.” He groaned.
“I can help.” She grabbed the can of Coke that she had been drinking from the console and started pouring it over his swollen ear. It ran down his side, soaking his jacket. He gasped.
“Hey! Hey, stop! What are you doing? Don’t do that.”
“It will wash some of the burn away, Marvin.”
“Ow!” he howled. “I think the Coke is making it worse.”
“It’s not. It’s helping.”
“Please, can you just let it be for a second?”
She put the can down.
“I was just trying to help.”
“I know,” he said, patting his face with the collar of his jacket. He groaned when he took the jacket away and examined his face in the mirror. “Well, I guess that’s that. We gave it a shot.”
“That doesn’t count, Marvin. We never even got a chance to talk to her. You started talking about babies and weird stuff and you scared her off.”
“That counts. You said we’d give it one shot and if it didn’t work we could put the plan to rest.”
“But I didn’t even get a chance to talk to her.”
“That’s not my fault. You could’ve approached her.”
Beatrice stewed while Marvin drove around searching for an exit back to the highway. They drove about fifteen minutes before Beatrice told Marvin to turn around and go back.
“We had a deal, just like you said, Marvin. We’d approach one hooker. We didn’t do that. Go back.”
“We’re done, Beatrice. Give me one good reason why we aren’t done.”
“She doesn’t qualify for our agreement. We agreed that we’d approach one hooker. That woman wasn’t a hooker. You still need to honor our agreement. This time we’ll make sure that it’s a hooker and we’ll try again.”
Marvin groaned. “You’re lawyering me. That’s nothing but a cheap trick. An unimportant detail.
“Scoot toward me. I’ll climb over you. I’m going to drive until you’re done being a baby.” He slid toward her and she made her way over him and positioned herself behind the steering wheel. He slid farther toward the passenger side. She drove for a while why Marvin nursed his eye. Finally he could see through it, even though it remained squinty and weepy. Beatrice parked the car on a corner across from a group of girls that were wearing very little and calling after the cars that passed.
“How about her?”
“The black girl?”
“You don’t need to point out that she’s black, Marvin. I can see that she’s black.”
“It wasn’t some type of racist thing, Beatrice. She’s standing with five other girls that aren’t black. I just meant it as an identifying feature.”
“You could’ve said, the one with the afro?”
“How is that any less racist than saying, the black one?”
“It’s just less offensive, Marvin.”
“Fine. You mean the one with the afro, Beatrice?”
“No. Not her. Black girls are always hooked on drugs. And that’ll make this much harder.”
Marvin shook his head.
The five girls were talking and giggling when a stout man with big biceps wearing a black t-shirt walked up to them. His shaven head had a pork pie hat tilted back and slightly sideways. His neck was nearly nonexistent. Chains encircled where his neck should’ve been. Steel bracelets around his wrist. He had tattoos - skulls and other images gothic.
“Eeeooow, look at his neck. It’s worse than that flabby baby’s neck.”
“What neck? He hasn’t got one.”
“That’s what I mean. It looks like his head is just stuck right down on his shoulders. I hate people who look like that.”
“You can’t hate people for something like the way they look. You can hate the way they look, but not the person.”
“Why can’t I?”
“It doesn’t make sense. You can dislike the trait, but you can’t hate a person for their eye color or the shape of their chin or any other feature that you aren’t inclined toward. You could hate him for beating up your mother or being a terrorist or something, but not for a physical trait.”
“Stop trying to tell me what I can and cannot do, Marvin.”
“I’m just saying that it doesn’t make any sense, sugar pie.”
“You don’t make any sense, Marvin. I hate people with necks like that. That’s how I feel. Okay?”
“My brother Gary has a neck like that.”
“I know.”
“You don’t hate my brother Gary.”
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.”
“You hate Gary?”
“I just told you. I hate guys with necks like that. How do they even look over their shoulders? Th
ey remind me of those creepy old men in the forest from that story.”
“What story, sugar pie?”
“You know which one. Where they kept the beautiful princess asleep.” She looked at him as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “The little old men with no necks. There was a whole bunch of them.”
“Creepy old men that kept a princess asleep in the forest?”Marvin thought about it for a moment. “The dwarves? They didn’t keep her asleep. They were guarding her. You’re talking about Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”
“No, Marvin. Snow White was the snowman that came to life and chased the children with the broom.”
“Are these more of the stories that your mother knew by heart? The ones that she told you and your sisters at bedtime?”
“She had an amazing memory before the accident with the cow.”
“So you’ve said.”
The stout man, with the neck that made Beatrice hate him, grabbed the redhead and pulled her back from the group. He suddenly went through her pockets and pulled out a syringe and a spoon. He fired them at the brick exterior of the building. They bounced across the sidewalk. “What did I say about this while you’re working?” She put her arms up protectively.
“Oh! Marvin, did you see that?”
“Shh. Chill, sugar pie. Let’s not make a scene. He only grabbed her arm. It’s not like he punched her in the face or something.”
“I will not shush! He grabbed her roughly, Marvin! I’m going to give him a piece of my mind!”
“Hold on, sugar pie. There are better ways to handle this. Let’s slow down a little.”
“What?” Are you actually scared? He’s like five and a half feet tall, Marvin. You’re probably almost a foot taller than him.”
“That little guy right there. That man with no neck. He’s the type of guy that knows how to inflict pain on another person. Not the kind