Blaze

“No. Say George, I’m the asshole who forgot to wear the stocking.”

“I got the m —”

“Say it.”

“George, I’m the asshole. I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“Forgot to wear the stocking.”

“Now say all of it.”

“George, I’m the asshole who forgot to wear the stocking.”

“Now say this. Say George, I’m the asshole who wants to get caught.”

“No! That ain’t true! That’s a lie, George!”

“It’s the truth is what it is. You want to get caught and go to Shawshank and work in the laundry. That’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That’s the truth on a stick. You’re bull-simple. That’s the truth.”

“No, George. It ain’t. I promise.”

“I’m going away.”

“No!” Panic seemed to stop his breath. It was like the sleeve of the flannel shirt his old man had crammed down his throat once to stop him bawling. “Don’t, I forgot, I’m a dummy, without you I’ll never remember what to buy —”

“You have a nice time, Blazer,” George said, and although his voice was still coming from the bathroom, now it seemed to be fading. “You have a good time getting caught. Have a good time doing time and ironing those sheets.”

“I’ll do everything you tell me. I won’t fuck up again.”

There was a long pause. Blaze thought George was gone. “Maybe I’ll be back. But I don’t think so.”

“George! George?”

The coffee was boiling. He poured one cup and went into the bedroom. The brown sack with the money in it was under George’s side of the mattress. He shook it out on the sheet, which he kept forgetting to change. It had been on for the whole three months George had been dead.

There was two hundred and sixty dollars from the little mom-n-pop. Another eighty from the college-boy’s wallet. More than enough to buy…

What? What was he supposed to buy?

Diapers. That was the ticket. If you were going to snatch a baby, you had to have diapers. Other stuff, too. But he couldn’t remember the other stuff.

“What was it besides diapers, George?” He said it with an air of off-hand casualness, hoping to surprise George into speech. But George didn’t take the bait.

Maybe I’ll be back. But I don’t think so.

He put the money back in the brown bag and exchanged the college kid’s wallet for his own, which was battered and scuffed and full of nicks. His own wallet held two greasy dollar bills, a faded Kodak of his old man and old lady with their arms around each other, and a photo-booth shot of him and his only real buddy from Hetton House, John Cheltzman. There was also his lucky Kennedy half-dollar, an old bill for a muffler (that had been when he and George had been running that big bad Pontiac Bonneville), and a folded-over Polaroid.

George was looking out of the Polaroid and smiling. Squinting a little, because the sun had been in his eyes. He was wearing jeans and workman’s boots. His hat was twisted around to the left, like he always wore it. George said that was the good-luck side.

They worked a lot of gags, and most of them — the best of them — were easy to work. Some depended on misdirection, some on greed, and some on fear. They were what George called short cons. And he called the gags that depended on fear “short con heart-stoppers.”

“I like the simple shit,” George said. “Why do I like the simple shit, Blaze?”

“Not many moving parts,” Blaze said.

“Correct-a-roonie! Not many moving parts.”

In the best of the short con heart-stoppers, George dressed up in clothes he called “a little past sharp” and then toured some Boston bars he knew about. These weren’t gay bars and they weren’t straight bars. George called them “gray bars.” And the mark always picked George up. George never had to make a move. Blaze had pondered this once or twice (in his ponderous way), but had never come to any conclusion about it.

George had a nose for the closet queers and AC/DC swingers who went out once or twice a month with their wedding rings tucked away in their wallets. The wholesalers on their way up, the insurance men, the school administrators, the bright young bank executives. George said they had a smell. And he was kind to them. He helped them along when they were shy and couldn’t find the right words. Then he’d say he was staying at a good hotel. Not a great hotel, but a good one. A safe one.

It was the Imperial, not far from Chinatown. George and Blaze had a deal going with the second shift desk-man and the bell-captain. The room they used might change, but it was always at the end of the hall, and never too close to another occupied room.

Blaze sat in the lobby from three to eleven, wearing clothes he wouldn’t be caught dead in on the street. His hair always gleamed with oil. He read comic-books while waiting for George. He was never aware of passing time.

The true indicator of George’s genius was that when he and the mark came in, the mark hardly ever looked nervous. Eager, but not nervous. Blaze gave them fifteen minutes, then went up.