The Erection Set

I went out the side door cf the ballroom, took the back corridor that led to the parking lot, let my eyes get adjusted to the darkness and picked my way between the cars to the street ramp. Traffic seemed normal enough and the few pedestrians on the sidewalk didn’t pay any attention to me at all. I stayed in the shadows, found my car two blocks away, checked out the one parked in front of me, then got behind the wheel and sat there looking up at the stars. Ferris, I thought.

Hell, I had been concentrating too long on the name. I had damn near ignored the numbers, and now I had half of the cryptic message right in front of me.

Twenty-three years ago, 655 was a post office box number and a picture postcard to that address was an alert signal that a shipment of contraband was ready for a drop and I had to designate the time and place through old Mel Tarbok. But Mel had been dead for fifteen years now and that post office box had long been discarded.

Which left Ferris and I didn’t have the slightest idea who or what Ferris was.

I turned the key and let the engine idle a minute, then pulled out into traffic behind a bakery truck. I turned left at the next intersection when I saw the car behind me finally flip on its lights and when it slowed for the next turn it was still behind me. When it turned I was already parked and waiting in a doorway with the .45 in my hand. The lights from the window threw a good, solid glow across the roadway and lit up the faces inside the sedan. A pair of teen-agers were laughing and one was taking a pull from a can of beer. They cruised right on past and farther down the street one leaned out the window to whistle at a lone girl walking by.

I put the gun away and got back in my car. I was getting spooked again and almost got annoyed at myself until I remembered that getting spooked easily had saved my neck more than once. This time I made sure nobody was behind me and I picked up the old Stillman road that headed out into the country hoping I could remember Tod’s directions.

Curiosity had made me look over the old bawdy house that was falling apart, then led me into making an inquiry at a real estate place. The old man told me the place had never been put up for sale as far as he knew and Tod had confirmed it. Over the phone he had told me, “Hell, Dog, Lucy Longstreet never did go far. She and that colored maid moved out on a little farm where the old way station was when the buses first started.coming through. Still there as far as I know. Saw them about a year ago, playing Scrabble on the porch. Doesn’t want nothing to do with nobody, though.”

And now she was still there playing Scrabble on the porch with Beth, the colored towel girl, both of them old and tired with screechy voices, armed with huge, dog-eared dictionaries. Years had taken the fat off Lucy, leaving the flesh dripping in folds from her arms and chin, but her hair was still the same off-color red that didn’t belong there at all and the diamonds still glinted on her fingers, only this time the pudginess wasn’t there to hold them on and the jewels hung on the underside of her hand.

It was Bath, aged but timeless, who recognized me and simply said, “My, oh my, look who’s here, Miss Lucy.”

Madam Longstreet had a mind that could dip back, bend and reform like a steel spring and after a five-second inspection she closed her dictionary and nodded. “Cameron’s bastard grandson with the idiot name.”

“You made me, Lucy,” I said.

“Been reading about you too.” She pointed to a chair. “Have a seat. Beth, go make us all a drink.” I tossed my hat on the table and slid into an overstuffed wing-back. “Good to see you, kid,” she told me.

“You haven’t changed much.”

“Who you kidding, sonny? Take a good look.”

“I was talking about your attitude.”

Beth came in with a bottle and three glasses on a polished silver tray. I remembered that being passed around her old parlor. Beth poured out the drinks over ice, added some ginger ale and went back to her dictionary. “Don’t mind me,” Lucy said, and spilled down her drink in one long pull. “Very seldom get a chance to have one anymore.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have retired.”

“Hell, the amateurs get all the action these days. Nobody can run a decent operation anymore.” She pulled a long cigar out of her pocket, stuck it in her mouth and held a lighter to it.

“At least you could have bitten the end off of it,” I said.

“I ain’t no woman’s lib type, sonny.”

“You never were.”

She sat back puffing on the stogie, her legs crossed, then let a smile flash at me. “Got the word you might look me up.”

“Who’s that smart?”

“Cop named Bennie Sachs. Aren’t many people who know I’m alive, but he had some funny ideas about you and passed the word.”

“About what?”

“Something about those cousins of yours ”

I shrugged my shoulders and tasted my drink. It was a real powerhouse. “Why bother if you’re out of circulation? This could be a visit for old times’ sake.”