He opened the doors to the two dressing rooms and the toilet and then studied the emergency door so that he would be able to open it immediately.
Baum, behind, said, “You sure got guts, friend. Didn’t you know curiosity killed the cat?”
“It’s kept this cat alive,” Kickaha said.
Baum lowered his voice and came close to Kickaha. He said, “You really hung up on that chick?”
The phrase was new to Kickaha but he had no trouble understanding it.
He said, “Yes. Why?”
“Too bad. I’ve really flipped for her. No offense, you understand,” he said when Kickaha narrowed his eyes. “Moo-Moo’s a real doll, but a little weird, you know what I mean. She says you two are weirdos, and there is something a little strange about you, but I like that. But I was going to say, if you need some money, say one or two thousand, and you’d just, say, give me a deed to your chick, in a manner of speaking, me take over, and you walk out, much richer, you know what I mean.”
Kickaha grinned and said, “Two thousand? You must want her pretty bad!”
“Two thousand doesn’t grow on the money tree, my friend, but for that doll . . . !”
“Your business must be very good, if you can throw that much away,” Kickaha said.
“Man, you kidding!” Baum said, seemingly genuinely surprised. “Ain’t you really heard of me and my group before? We’re famous! We’ve been everybody, we’ve made the top ten thirty-eight times, we got a Golden Record, we’ve given concerts at the Bowl! And we’re on our way to the Bowl again. You don’t seem to be with it!”
“I’ve been away for a long time,” Kickaha said. “So what if I take your money and Ann doesn’t fall for you? I can’t force her to become your woman, you know.”
Baum seemed offended. He said, “The chicks offer themselves to me by the dozens every night. I’m not jesting. I got the pick! You saying this Ann, Daughter-of-Reindeer, or whatever her name, is going to turn me down? Baum, the Gnome King?”
Baum’s features were not only unharmonious, he had several pimples, and his teeth were crooked. “Do you have the money on you?”
Baum’s voice had been questioning, even wheedling before. Now it became triumphant and, at the same time, slightly scornful.
“I can give you a thousand; maybe Solly, my agent, can give you five hundred. And I’ll give you a check for the rest.”
“White slavery!” Kickaha said. And then, “You can’t be over twenty-five, right? And you can throw money around like that?”
He remembered his own youth during the Depression and how hard he had worked to just survive and how tough so many others had had it.
“You are a weirdo,” Baum said. “Don’t you know anything? Or are you putting me on?”
His voice was loaded with contempt. Kickaha felt like laughing in his face and also felt like hitting him in his mouth. He did neither. He said, “I’ll take the fifteen hundred. But right now. And if Ann spits on you, you don’t get the money back.”
Baum glanced nervously at Moo-Moo, who had moved over to sit with Anana.
He said, “Wait till we get to L.A. We’ll stop off to eat, and then you can take off. I’ll give you your money then.”
“And you can get up your nerve to tell Moo-Moo that Ann is joining you but I’m taking off?” Kickaha said. “Very well. Except for the money. I want it now! Otherwise, I tell Moo-Moo what you just said.”
Baum turned a little pale and his undershot jaw sagged. He said, “You slimy . . . ! You got a nerve!”
“And I want a signed statement explaining why I’m getting the money. Any legitimate excuse will do.”
“You think I’d double-cross you, turn you in to the fuzz?”
“That possibility did cross my mind,” Kickaha said, wondering if the “fuzz” was the police.
“You may have been out of it for a long time, but you haven’t forgotten any of the tricks, have you?” Baum said, not so scornfully now.
“There are people like you every place,” Kickaha said.