Free Brain Guy: A gang killer meets his match in a TNT blonde by Benjamin Appel Page A

had to get used to it. And then a fellow shouldn’t stay on the wagon so long.
    Madge sat on the studio couch, her thin green dress folding over her legs. Her thighs were spread far apart. She nodded her head, the narrow triangle of face with the slightly oriental eyes staring at him with some female knowledge that almost provoked him into shouting: What the hell you thinking of? “Hell with landlords,” she said.
    “I’m nuts about you.” He pulled his jacket and vest off, aware she was observing him with a knowledge more certain than truth. What the hell was she finding out? He was plain crazy. Why should he feel she was getting into the core of him? It was a lousy trick of women when about to give themselves. The only way to hide himself from her was to fix her. Damn her, so young and acting so smart.
    He imitated McMann, chucking his shirt on the table, his bare arms haired yellow, stuck out of his jersey.
    “Hey, you,” he said, “get outa your dress.”
    “O.K.”
    “You’re a skinny runt.”
    “Nuts to you.”
    “Hell, you’re tough.” He hated the idea that she had lived life more strongly than himself. “C’mon, strip.”
    She crossed her white legs, again contemplating him with her immense calm. “You’re a bad boy, ain’t you?”
    He thought of the crowds that had slept with her, youth or no youth. What was her idea about things, about himself? He was just another guy. “You think you’re slick. You’re just a kid.”
    “Yeh, what you think?”
    He glanced at her. She knew more than him. She knew ten times as much, kid or no kid. He remembered her story, the lineups in Brooklyn, the abduction, and now whoring it regular. His knowledge, gross with age, with stale usage, with death.
    “C’mon,” said Madge. “What you mopin’?”
    “I’m wondering.”
    “About what?”
    “About you, you poor little bitch.”
    “You got fever sure as hell. Aw, come to bed. You act worse’n a kid.”
    “I’m thinking I am one.” His voice was soft.
    Her eyes lost their diabolical sure knowledge of the male animal, her nose wrinkling like a puzzled child’s. “You’re a funny feller.”
    “I’m Save-a-Soul Billy.”
    “You’re nuts.”
    “You like me?”
    “How do I know how you act up in bed? I seen some of the huskiest turn out punks.”
    “Let’s find out.” He laughed, switching off the light, stumbling down the black room, his bare feet sliding along the rug. He sat down next to her, feeling her cold thigh against his own. “You poor kid.”
    She hugged him. “You crazy galoot.” In the dark she was made of silver and he wasn’t sorry for her or himself any longer.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    H E AWOKE to McMann’s hand shaking his shoulder, snapping awake with that sense of loss of one sleeping in a strange place. McMann yawned, although his hard-surfaced face showed no fatigue. Bill got off the couch immediately. “Hello.”
    “Sh, Bobbie’s still snorin’ inside, the ole pig.” He winked like a small boy. “I like ‘em hefty. Madge’s skinny, but she’ll be all right in a coupla years.”
    “I’m glad to hear it.”
    Madge was asleep, turned on her side towards the wall. He marveled at the quietude of her face. A voice like Mac’s ought to wake the dead. Even his whisper had guts to it. It was early afternoon, the air frosty and clean. “How’d you wake up, McMann?”
    “My belly hurt. I near starved.”
    Bill scrubbed his face in the bathroom, soaking his hair and sleeking it down. They were cozy inside the bathroom, just the two of them, McMann boasting of his private toilet, the class to it, no chasing out in the halls for him, he liked to live nice. Bill squeezed a pink worm of toothpaste on his finger and mauled his gums, combing his hair. They gazed kindly at one another with the peace of men after a night with women.
    McMann shut the door gently behind on last night’s old smell, walking downstairs into sunlight. The crosstown tracks glinted. People’s ears were