Free If Dying Was All by Ron Goulart Page B

flurried up and spattered Burley. “Stupid bastard, look what you made me do,” he shouted at Easy.
    “You really ought to learn to relax,” Easy told him. He drove two short right jabs into Burley’s sun-blotched face.
    The big, angry man rocked back, stopped from completing a backward arc by his seat belt. He tilted forward then and slumped against the steering wheel.
    Easy got out of the Triumph without opening the door, brushed sports car dust off his trousers and walked off to retrieve his Volkswagen.

X
    T HE HOUSES IN THIS block of Burbank were the same color as the late afternoon sky, a dirty tan. The lawns had great dry patches which echoed the murky brown shade. Thick, warm air pressed down on everything, and trees looked as though they’d had a hard time getting completely up out of the ground. Clusters of tiny children ran across lawns and between the low houses, circling fallen tricycles and upturned wagons. Dropped plastic toys, yellow and red, made zigzag trails over the dry grass.
    Easy stepped over a lime green hula hoop and turned in at the third house from the corner. Below the bell button a small white on black sign said: Ott, DBA Ottstuff Enterprises. Easy pushed the button and a dog barked inside.
    After a moment, the inner door opened wide and a tall, 185-pound woman stood facing Easy, filtered by a rusty screen door. “Hi, I’m Sonya.” Her hair was taffy color, worn long. She was wearing a rayon happy coat that hit her well above her enormous plump knees and she hugged a bristly little terrier tight against her low-hanging breasts. The dog made a yapping sound and Sonya stroked his muzzle. “Be still, Trummy.” She smiled, a plump, dimpled smile at Easy. “I get the impression you haven’t heard of me. Sonya?”
    “No,” Easy admitted. “I’m John Easy. Would you be Mrs. Ott?”
    “My married name.” She pushed the screen door toward him. “Come on in. Dum Dum is expecting you. He’s back in his studio.”
    Trummy, the frizzled dog, snapped tiny teeth at the elbow of Easy’s $150 dollar sport coat, giving off an evil-sounding gargle.
    The walls of the hallway were completely covered with framed photos. Mrs. Ott stood back-dropped by dozens of glossy photos of herself. She was naked in all of them. “The reason I asked if you’d heard of me is, Mr. Easy, I have something of a rep in the girlie mag field. One of Dum Dum’s lines is the girlie publishing business. That’s part of what it means about Doing Business As Ottstuff Enterprises. You don’t appear to be the sort of man who reads our mags. Black Lace Panties , Sharp-Heeled Black Shoes , Naked Home Companion , Black Lace Panties Annual and so on.” She dimpled and jabbed an enormous, plump thumb in the direction of the nude photos. “I have what girlie photogs refer to, technically, as a zoftig figure. That’s Jewish for ample. I’m also acrobatic. See the row of pics there? Except for the feather duster those are classic yoga positions. Then down there are some of my favorites. One of Dum Dum’s pictorial fellation essays. But then I guess you didn’t come to admire my work.” She reclutched the bristly Trummy and started down the dim hall, her bare feet flapping on the worn hardwood. “We were into the American Indian thing in our pics long before they became a fashionable minority.” Mrs. Ott gestured at six pictures of her atop a naked man with a feather in his hair.
    They passed through a kitchen smelling of several kinds of Campbell’s soup and out into a utility room filled with tied bundles of paperback books. Latex Lady was the title of the novel showing at the top of each bundle. Out in the back yard was a windowless hut surrounded by wild grass and dying creeper vines.
    Mrs. Ott stooped, still holding tight to Trummy, and picked a red vinyl boomerang off the dry grass. Flinging it over a raw wood fence in the direction of another low dirty tan house, she said, “One of our major regrets is that