Blue Eyes Read Free

perfume in my nose.”
    Not all of the Chinaman’s problems stemmed from Coen. He was in love with an eighteen-year-old prostitute, one of his own girls. The Chinaman distributed short subjects featuring Odette, the porno queen, to specific bars and stag clubs, he arranged dates for her with serious men who arrived at Odette’s apartment on Jane Street with fifty-dollar bills tucked in their shoes, but he couldn’t get a finger inside Odette’s clothes. She wouldn’t fornicate with a Chinaman. Kicking under his pride, he offered to pay. Two hundred dollars. For a girl he was managing. Two hundred dollars for someone who should have admired the soft leather on his suspenders, who should have been grateful for making her rich. Odette said no. “Sonny, I don’t get down with trigger-men.” The Chinaman would have branded her, shaved her crotch, put his initials on her belly, no matter how valuable a property she was, but Odette could control his rages with a few chosen words. “Zorro wouldn’t like me with blood on my behind.”
    So Chino walked the line between Bummy’s and Ferrara’s, his mop growing a dirty brownish red (he couldn’t risk eating at any of the dim sum cafes on Mott Street though he was starving for pork and abalone), until the spit accumulated on his underlip and he tired of almond syrup on his tongue. Then he went looking for Odette. He tried Jane Street, stabbing her buzzer with a doublejointed finger.
    â€œOdette, you home? It’s only me, Reyes. I want we should talk. I make you a promise. I won’t touch.”
    Odette’s landlady, a woman in hair curlers and pink mules, came to the front door. She wouldn’t open it for the Chinaman, and he had to shout through the glass. “Take me to Miss Odette.” Her frowns convinced him; he would have to go in around the back. “Hey muchacha,” he said, tapping on the glass, “don’t wait too long for me.” He blustered toward the side of the house, trampling little vegetable gardens, crushing the remains of certain flower pots. The Jane Street alley cats wouldn’t move for the Chinaman. He had to unhitch one of his suspenders and whirl it at them before they would give up their perch on the fire escape. Then he grabbed for the bottom rung of the ladder, chinned himself up, and settled outside Odette’s windowsill. The window revealed nothing to him. He saw green furniture through a maze of curtain fluff. He forced open the window without splitting any glass. Climbing in, he searched Odette’s room and a half, nibbling the miniature sandwiches she kept in the icebox for the clients Chino brought her (crescents, triangles, and squares of black bread with snips of cheese), reminding him of his new livelihood as a pimp. He took stockings out of her hamper, garter belts, soiled brassieres that she wore in her films. He wanted keepsakes, a wealth of underclothes. “Jesus,” he said, stuffing his pockets. “She’s with her girlfriends.” And he went out the front, scorning fire escapes this time, a garter belt dangling at his knees.
    He could have charged into Odette’s hangout, The Dwarf, but both the lady bouncers were taller than Chino, and he would have lost a sleeve and a shoe before he reached Odette. So he called from a booth across the street. “Odette Leonhardy,” he said with a fake lisp.
    â€œWho is this?”
    The bouncer had a softer voice than he expected.
    â€œIt’s Zorro.”
    â€œShe hasn’t come in yet, Mr. Zorro. Can I take a message?”
    â€œYeah,” the Chinaman said. “Tell her somebody raided her hamper. And if she wants her party clothes back, she’d better be nice to a particular gentleman. She’ll know who.”
    â€œAnything else, Mr. Zorro? Then I’ll have to say goodbye.”
    The Chinaman stood in the phonebooth biting a knuckle and watching the blood rise,