Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

upstairs room of the Ohio Club, watching the action. “And he’s still smiling. How’s a punk kid like that get so much dough to throw around? And how’s he get a doll off a calendar?”
    “There’s plenty more where that came from,” said D. A. “You don’t go to the pictures much, do you. Earl?”
    “No, sir. Been sort of busy.”
    “Well, that kid is named Mickey Rooney. He’s a big actor. He always plays real homespun, small-town boys. He looks fourteen, but he’s twenty-six, been married twice, and he blows about ten thousand a night whenever he comes to town. I hear the hookers call him Mr. Hey-kids-let’s-put-on-a-show!”
    Earl shook his head in disgust.
    “That’s America, Earl,” said D. A. “That’s what y’all was fightin’ for.”
    “Let’s get out of here,” Earl finally said.
    “Sure. But just look around, take it all in. Next time you see this place, you may be carrying a tommy gun”
    The club was dark and jammed. Gambling was king here on the upstairs floor, and the odor of the cigarettes and the blue density of the smoke in the air were palpable and impenetrable. It smelled like the sulfur in the air at Iwo and the place had a sort of frenzy to it like a beach zeroed by the Japs, where the casualties and supplies have begun to pile up, but nobody has yet figured out how to move inland. And the noise level was about the same.
    At one end of the room a roulette wheel spun, siphoning money out of the pockets of the suckers. A dozen high-stakes poker games were taking place under low lights. In every nook and cranny was a slot and at each slot a pilgrim stood, pouring out worship in the form of nickels and climes and silver dollars, begging for God’s mercy. But craps was the big game at the Ohio, and at even more tables the swells bet their luck against the tumble of the cubes and piles of cash floated around the green felt like icebergs. Meanwhile, some Negro group diddled out hot bebop licks, crazed piano riffs, the sound of a sax or a clarinet or some sad instrument telling a tale of lost fortunes, love and hope.
    Earl shook his head again. Jesus Christ, he thought.
    “We got to keep moving, Earl,” said the old man. “They don’t like baggage in a joint like this. You play or you leave.”
    As they moved downstairs, they passed through the crowded bar. Five girls tended it, hustling this way and that to stay with the demand. Behind them, in the elaborate mahogany structure, ranks of dark bottles promised an exciting form of numbness.
    “You want a drink, Earl?”
    “Nah,” said Earl. “I gave that shit up.”
    Earl wore a new blue pinstripe three-piece suit and a brown fedora low over his eyes. He had a yellow tie on, and a nice shiny pair of brown brogues. He felt like he was wrapped in bandages but he looked like $50 worth of new goods, which is what he was.
    “Probably a good thing,” said D. A. “I won sixteen gunfights drunk, but, goddamn, there came a time when I was drinking so much I was afraid I’d wake up in Hong Kong with a busted nose, a beard, a tattoo and a brand-new Chinese family to support.”
    “Happened to more than a few Marines I knew,” Earl said.
    They walked out onto the street. Before them, on the other side of Central like seven luxury liners tied up in dockage, the town’s seven main attractions—bathhouses—blazed against the night, and even now were crowded with people seeking the miracle power of the waters, which emerged from the unseen mountain behind them at a steady, dependable, mineral-rich 141 degrees.
    People had been coming to this little valley for centuries and so the city had acquired an odd clientele: it was for those in need. If you needed health and freedom from the cricks of arthritis or the rampages of the syph you came to Hot Springs and soaked for hours in the steamy liquid, which if nothing else numbed the pain and cleaned out your dark crevices. When you got out, you felt like a prime. Better? Well, possibly. At