King Blood(7)

Alone, a swindler may 'work' single or double, temporarily acquiring a 'wife' or 'sister' if he chooses to do the latter. But a team, a man with a real or pseudo-encumbrance, must work double. Necessity – her mere presence – will force the woman into at least a minor role. She must be privy to her 'husband's' or 'brother's' affairs. Ignorance of them will spell disaster for them both.

So Ray launched one of the simplest confidence games. The supposed past-posting of a winning horse, on a race already run. He rehearsed his 'wife' in her tiny role until she appeared letter-perfect. And, indeed, there was very little to rehearse. She had no more than a dozen words to say, before bursting into tears.

A few words, then the tears. What, for God's sake, could have been easier? A child could have done it, if the role had called for a child. Yet _she – she,_ the stupid slut – blew it! She tipped the 'fool' she had roped, and the fool hollered copper.

Ray got them out of it, but not without an 'icing-off' of the law (the payment of bribes) which completely absorbed the remaining contents of Ike King's strongbox. Afterwards, she sulkily suggested that it wasn't her fault. He had made her nervous, and – brightly – she was sure she would do much better 'next time'. Ray was too furious to reply to this. But when they were alone that night, he beat her within an inch of her life.

He would have left her cold, except for his fear of losing Critch by doing so. He had to be surer of the boy than he was now; to weaken her hold on him while strengthening his own. And, dammit, she must be good for something besides screwing!

Bluntly speaking, however, she was good for little else. There was little else that she had been used for since her marriage to Ike at age thirteen. And, now, in her early thirties, such other talents as may have lain within her had become atrophied.

Ray was forced to accept her for what she was, and to make the best of it. It did not work out too badly for a time.

She was sweet bait for the badger game. An over-the-shoulder look at a fool, then a sensuous twist of her hips, and she had him in her bedroom. Into which, of course, her outraged 'husband' would burst at a crucial moment.

Money-wise, they began to 'get well,' as the saying was. But, gradually, repetition brought boredom to her, making her into a preposterous facsimile of the errant and frightened wife she was supposed to be. Instead of cowering, she was apt to yawn. Once she had even squatted on the pot, mumbling her pleas for forgiveness to the tinkle of urine.

Ray lectured her, pointing out their terrible physical danger, the certain fiscal disaster, which must derive from her attitude. He beat her, frustration adding to his fury as he sensed her gratification at the punishment. But neither scoldings nor beatings could change her. Just as boredom, too much of a sameness, had driven her from old Ike, it was now taking her off on another tangent. And at the worst possible time. They needed to hit big, or at least steady, yet in the sorry sum of her moments, there was no jackpot.

Descent is easy. One must rest before the long climb upward, and the best place is always on the next step down. There is no hurry, no cause for alarm. After all, what goes down must come up, mustn't it?

Well?

She made a good whore, the runaway wife of Old Ike King. Her reputation for giving satisfaction spread so rapidly that Ray had to do no pimping once he had started her. For here, in sameness, she found variety. In sameness, she found a challenge. Something which lent itself to delightful testing and experimentation, with unfailing reward to her senses.

She made a good whore… as a practitioner. One who was more and more pleased and pleasing with each transaction. And that was the trouble with her. Here, as in everything else, she defeated herself.

It was enough for her, the act itself. She meant to demand money; usually she did demand it. But often, in the excitement and anticipation of the moment, she forgot to. And when she did not, well, a little toying with her by a patron, a pretense of being broke or disinterested, would make her drop her demands. Some men even boasted that they had got her to _pay them._ The only complaint ever made against her was that she plumb wore a fella out.

At fourteen, Critch had known for some time that his mother was getting it pounded for money, and he unemotionally accepted the fact as a necessary fact of life. She did it with Ray? Why not with others? He was dependent on her for support; without her earnings his ever-fascinating association with Ray would be impossible. And, so he was grateful to her. Perhaps, in the deepest recesses of his mind, there was buried a sickish shame. Perhaps, also, there was anger and hatred for Ray for bringing her to this. But these feelings were well-buried. Things so deeply sunk in the subconscious that they must twist tortuously to the surface, distorted (and distorting) and manifesting themselves in attitudes unidentifiable with their source.