Chapter Two: Paint The Town Red
New York City, 1946
I: Eddie and Sally
"Sally. Wake up, Sally. It's for you. It's that crazy asshole Eddie's crazy asshole girlfriend."
"You're all heart, Larry, ya know that? Hello, Sophie?"
"I'm sorry to wake you up, Sally, but, when was the last time you saw Eddie?"
Sally thought about it.
She and Eddie worked together, every once in awhile.
"Jeez, I'd say it was Monday. An' today's what, Friday?"
"Saturday. And I haven't seen Eddie since Wednesday. We went on a real toot, earlier this week, and we both ended up getting arrested."
"Arrested! Jesus Christ!"
"That's not all. I had so much to drink I had to have my stomach pumped. That's it, Sal. That's the last straw. I'm not gonna turn into a schoolgirl, but I gotta slow down."
"Yeah. So does Eddie. He makes the Post once or twice a week and he's wearing out his goodwill with the public. Maybe he's still in jail."
"Well, that's why I'm calling you. The arresting officer, Hollis Mason, called Edie from the police station on Wednesday, and told her that Eddie wasn't gonna be home for awhile. She hasn't heard from him, since. I figured you might know this Mason guy."
"I do. I'll call you when I get to the bottom of it."
Sally hung up the phone, got out of bed, and started getting dressed.
"Where are you going?"
"Eddie's in trouble. Big trouble. Hollis might know something."
"What do you care?"
"It's business, Larry. Sometimes I work with Eddie. I'd like to make it more than sometimes."
Sally could see the dollar signs ringing in the cash register in Larry's head.
"Yeah! Say, that's an idea! The Comedian and the Silk Spectre, a team! Holy shit, Sal, that's a great idea. If we could find a way to pull Blake out of the gutter and clean him up a little bit, that kind of thing, we could be rich!"
Sally was about to ask Larry if that was all he could see, but she already knew the answer.
"Yeah, Larry. Don't wait up."
Watchmen Headquarters
When Sally got there, Hollis was the only one around.
"How did I know it would be you who'd come? Sally, listen, you don't owe that animal…"
"Hollis, listen to yourself! Eddie ain't an animal. He's a human being. He's a man, and he's got a family who depend on him. Not to mention he's the only mask in this city who'll take me seriously. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on!"
Hollis sighed.
"Well, I've seen it a million times before, being a cop in this city. With these young guys who become big in the pictures, or as a singer, or with a band. Their whole lives, they have nothing, they get a little money, they go a little crazy. Except Blake, he was more than a little crazy to begin with—"
"Hollis, I read the Post. I know Eddie's been havin' a little too much fun, lately. What happened on Wednesday night?"
"It was pretty bad, Sally. I don't know what kind of a bender him and his girl had been on, but they were higher than the Empire State Building when I arrested them. He was trying to give her the time in a sink. They didn't even have the presence of mind to do it in a stall. She went to the hospital, and we took the Comedian to jail. He was completely out of his mind. It took ten officers to get him into the cell, and once he was in there, he ripped the whole place to pieces and tried to tear the door off. When that didn't work he decided to use his head as a battering ram. I had to call Rolf and Nelly, and late at night, we went in with a shot that would knock out a horse and a straitjacket, but subduing him wasn't easy. We brought him back here, and got a doctor in. Not just to sew his head up, but because we thought there was really something wrong with him. Well, the doctor took a look in his eyes, and he got worried, so he took a blood test and found out that Blake had enough horse tranquiliser in his system to kill an elephant. Somebody in that filthy joint he was in doped him, good. They were trying to kill him, but all it did was make him crazy. And I mean crazy. So the doctor rushes him to the hospital, and they pump his stomach, and all these doctors are trying to figure out why he's not dead. So they've got medicine and fluids going in one arm, and something to keep him from getting up and destroying the place in the other, and meanwhile, I have to keep all this quiet and out of the papers. Well, last night, they took all the needles out of him, and he seemed pretty coherent. They're letting him out this afternoon."
"Why don't you let me go pick him up? I think I have a business proposition he might be interested in."
Hollis Mason's face turned fish belly white.
"Sally, you…you can't! He's…he's…"
"Eddie's the same goddamn sunnuvabitch he ever was. At least I know him. There's a lost scarier sons of bitches out there in the street I don't know. And since I'm too young to retire and too old to get another job, I've decided if I'm going to go out there and mix it up with every two tone sunnavabitch in New York, it'd do me good to have a bigger sunnuvabitch than they are on my side."
Sally wasn't sure if Hollis believed her, but he sent her off to Brooklyn General, anyway.
When Sally got there, Eddie was sitting on a bench in front of the hospital.
He had on a pair of boots, fatigue pants and a plaid shirt that was open.
There were a few drops of blood on his undershirt, dried and brown and old, and he had a bandage over his forehead, and two fingers taped together on both hands.
From far away, he looked tired, worn out, even lost.
Close up, he looked sort of pale and quiet, and he didn't even make a smart comment when he got in her car.
Ending up like he had, it shocked the cockiness out of him, but, Sally hoped, it has also convinced him, like Sophie had said, that he had to slow down.
"How you feelin', Eddie?"
"Like shit."
That was uncharacteristically brief.
"What, are you ashamed of yourself, or somethin'?"
"You goddamn well bet I am! Jesus H. Christ, I'm a grown man, 22 years old, I fought a fuckin' war, I'm raisin' four kids, I'm a goddamn national hero, I'm the Comedian, fa Chrissakes, and what have I been doin? Actin' like a punk teenager who's got a C-note burnin' a hole in his pocket from runnin' bootleg whiskey. Jesus Christ!"
Now he was angry.
That was something, it was better than seeing him look so defeated.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Eddie. You never got to have a good time when you were a punk teenager. All you had in your pockets was balls. I knew you, remember?"
That made him smile a little.
"So whyzit you who's come to get me? Does this mean I'm finally offa red an' onta yellow?"
"Eddie, you never change. Look, the way I see it, you an' me, we both gotta problem. You been whoopin' it up a little too much, endin' up in the papers, an' now your reputation's in the crapper. But you're workin' every night you want to. Me, I'm America's Sweetheart. My reputation's solid gold. But everybody thinks I'm a fuckin' Twinkie, and Larry, well, he wants me to sell dish soap and underpants. So, I figure, if we start workin' together, that takes care of both of our problems."
Eddie looked at her for a minute like she was out of her mind, and then, he smiled pretty big.
"Business proposition, huh, Sal?"
"That's right, Eddie. Business."
He lit a cigar.
All the sudden he was Eddie, again.
Sally wasn't sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing.
"What about the Minutemen?"
"What about 'em? They wanna put me out to pasture. I don't wanna go. I'm in my prime, yunno?"
"I know, Sal. I got eyes."
"You got hands too, Eddie. Keep 'em the hell off me. I'll beat the fuck right outa you. An' in your case, that'd be quite a beating."
"Well, okay, partner, what d'you think I should tell the troops at home?"
"Tell 'em the truth, Eddie. Somebody drugged your drink and tried to kill you, an' you barely made it alive. They don't hafta hear the rest. And that's another thing. I don't expect you to turn into a priest. But, you think you got alla this hell bent for leather shit outa your system?"
"Yeah, Sal. I do."
"Why are you grinnin' at me like that, you jackass?"
"Just admit it, Sal. I don't give a fuck if ya never do a thing about it. But admit it. It ain't all business, is it?"
"No, Eddie. It ain't. For some goddamn unknown fuckin' reason, I always liked your company. We were good friends. We worked well together. That's what I'm lookin' for. That's all I'm lookin' for."
"Yeah, I guess you get enough at home."
Sally snorted, derisively.
"From Larry? Are you kidding me? Ya know how you got broads stashed around town? Well I got some guys stashed around town. Maybe if I covered myself in salad oil and rolled around in five dollar bills, then Larry would get innarested."
Sally couldn't believe she had just said that.
That was the kind of thing she'd only say to Edie.
But she knew she could say just about anything to Eddie, and it wouldn't bother him; he wouldn't think any the less of her; that was one of the things she liked about him.
"So he's your beard. What's the matter with the little prick? Is he a fag, or somethin'?"
"No. I'm too much for him. And he ain't enough for me. I mean, I married the sad little bastard, so, every once in awhile, he gets enough courage to do what he's gonna do, but it's not much."
"Then why the fuck did you marry him?"
"Because, Eddie, a woman ain't like a man, ya know? You can go around havin' a buncha different broads, and everybody will think you're some kinda man. I do that, they'll think I'm some kinda whore. If I'm gonna be livin' my life under public scrutiny, it's at least gotta look like I'm doin' what I'm supposedta do."
"Youse could always get a divorce. Make it look like he was cheatin' on you. And, yunno, I ain't busy."
Sally almost ran the car into a pole.
"Eddie, did you just ask me to marry you?"
"Well, yeah. Why are youse so shocked?"
"Eddie I…I….and you wouldn't care if I was runnin' around town with a whole buncha guys?"
"Sal, if you was married ta me, you might have occasion to screw around with a coupla fans, or a grateful victim or two, but, trust me, most nights, you'd be runnin' right home ta Daddy."
What he said made her want to slap him, but then again, there was no mistaking it, Eddie was a whole lot of man.
But not for her.
"You're real funny, Eddie. And we're almost at your house. So, how's this gonna work? Us goin' on patrol together?"
"You come here every night around 0. Bring your costume. Youse can change in here, it's safe. Then, we go out. I start around 11 and knock off around 2."
Sally parked her car.
"And that's it?"
"Yeah. That's it. You gonna come on in the house, partner?"
Sally wasn't sure if she liked that "partner" jazz, or not, but she didn't say much.
"Sure, Eddie. Why not."
On the Waterfront. Six Months Later.
It was the oldest trick in the book, and Sally knew it.
She was a woman, and she was dangerous as hell.
So what had made her trust another broad?
Was it just because she was a woman, too?
Remember what Eddie taught you in the trophy room.
You can't trust anybody, because everyone is the enemy.
Sally struggled against her bonds, cursing herself in silence.
Then the door crashed open, and Hell commenced.
The thing about "Good Lookin'" Mickey Blake was that he could kill in cold blood.
Not so for his son.
Eddie had to be mad to kill.
Unfortunately for New York's criminal element, the Comedian was a young man full of rage, and it didn't take much to bring that rage out in him.
Being a piece of shit criminal, and reminding him of his monster father was usually good enough.
But, this unlucky son of a bitch, he had the unfortunate distinction of having taken the Silk Spectre hostage, and even though Sally wanted no more to do with him, outside of work, and probably never would, that didn't change that Eddie loved her, and that he considered her his girl.
Nothing would ever change that.
He held the man, by his throat, held him off the ground, high in the air, and squeezed.
A little harder, and he knew he'd hear bones start to snap, but he needed this asshole alive to talk.
Eddie threw him against the wall, picked up his crumpled body, dragged him by the hair to the stairs, and shoved his head down on the step so that he was biting the cold concrete.
The Comedian jammed his boot down on the top of the man's head.
He screamed, teeth flew everywhere like little red and white rocks, and blood pooled on the concrete steps.
Eddie hauled the man's broken bloody body to a standing position.
"Tell me where she is, fucko, an' I'll let you live."
"Downstairs! The boss has her downstairs."
"Now, was that so hard?"
Eddie punched him on the bridge of the nose, breaking it, and probably blacking both the man's eyes.
His adversary crumpled to the ground, and Eddie kicked him once in the ribs and once in the stomach.
"Pick up your fuckin' teeth and get outa here."
The man did as he was told, glad that he'd been shown mercy by the Comedian, and he crawled away.
Eddie went down the stairs, and kicked the door open.
There were two dead men on the ground; that was Sally's work.
She didn't go down, easy.
There was a surprised man with a gun at his hip, on the floor, having been knocked over as the oak door blew off his hinges, but Eddie already had his gun in his hand.
He shot the man twice, once in the head, once in the heart.
Sal was tied to a chair.
There was another man there, he put his hands up.
"Sal, did either of these guys try beat youse up or try an' fuck you?"
"They tried real hard, but I fought 'em off. I didn't get beat up this bad fallin' down." She told him.
Eddie flew into a rage.
He grabbed something, a chair, broke it in pieces, he was screaming and swearing, raining blows on the surviving goon. With the chair leg, with his fists, with anything he could touch.
Now, he saw the man dying on the floor, with blood pouring out of his broken body, and the chair leg driven further down his throat than seemed humanly possible, but Eddie was so mad, when he came out of it, he hardly remembered doing it.
There was only one living person in the room besides Sally, and it was another broad, dressed up like a high-class gang moll.
She looked completely horrified as Eddie stalked towards her.
The broad was a real looker, but the Comedian hardly noticed; he just wanted to kill her, and he was thinking of all the ways he could, and with his cock wasn't one of them.
Warm, fresh blood shined slickly on his leather breastplate, and spattered his chest, his face and the steel shields on his shoulders.
He approached the woman with his bloody hands still balled into meaty fists, a few of his knuckles blue and bruised.
"So, you're the boss, huh? What did you want with the Silk Spectre? You tell these guys to soften her up a little? Huh? Is that it?" the Comedian demanded.
The woman forced a mask of composure over her face.
"I'm not afraid of you, big fella. You came down here to save a woman's life, ya won't hurt me. Guys like you, masks, you leave broads alone."
Eddie grabbed her by the throat.
His hand went all the way around; she had a skinny little neck, and it wouldn't have taken much more than a flick of the wrist to snap it.
But the broad had a point, she was unarmed, and she hadn't attacked him.
He would give her a fighting chance at life.
"You don't know me, doll. I leave women alone if they leave me alone. A broad fucks with me, she'll get what a man gets. Now, I'm givin' youse a chance to get the fuck out of here, and you better do it."
Eddie turned his back on the woman, to go and see to Sal.
Sally who had gotten one of her hands free, had the gun out of her bustier.
For a minute, Eddie thought it was him she was going to shoot; he felt the bullet whiz past his ear.
It all happened in the twinkling of an eye, and by the time the Boss had her gun in her hand, presumably to make a hole in Eddie, Sally had put a bullet through her head.
Eddie turned around, to look at the dead woman and her dead goons.
"I guess she must think this armor ain't bulletproof. Dumb cunt. Fuckin' mooks. They never listen." He said.
He put his gun away, stepped over the bodies, and tracking through the pool of blood with his boots on, he knelt down beside Sally and untied her.
"Eddie, you crazy motherfucker! How many people did you kill to get to me?"
"About five. What did they want you for, Sal?"
"To make an example of me."
Eddie grinned at her.
"So, I saved your life?"
"Yeah. And I just saved yours. That's four of them for me."
She stood up, pushed past him, and went up the stairs to the street.
Eddie followed her.
"I can't believe you turned your back on that broad! What, did you think she wasn't going to shoot? You think all women are cream puffs?" she asked.
"No. I just wanted to give you a chance to even up the score. You alright?"
"I'm fine. Jesus, what a fuckin' day. All I wanna do is get outa this costume. After bein' in it since last night, it's really cuttin' me off at the pass. An' you need a bath, Caligula."
"Yeah. In case any of these dead fucks had anythin' contagious. So, it's early yet. After we get cleaned up an' change, y' wanna go get somethin' ta eat? An' a drink?"
"You buyin'?"
"Sure."
"Then I'm drinkin'."
New York City, 1946- Greenwich Village, twilight, Wednesday
II: Sophie
"You don't understand, Magda. I'm Eddie's first real girlfriend."
"What are you talking about, Sophie? He's a grown man!"
"He's not as grown as you think. Eddie's younger than me, by a little over a year. He's only 22. And before we met in the war, he never had an actual steady girlfriend. He was a back door man when he was a teenager. Had a bunch of broads stashed around town, who liked seeing him for an hour, late at night, now and then. He was in love with a woman he worked with, but he was 16 and she was 20, and he blew it being a stupid, mean, dumb kid. This is Eddie's first bite at the apple."
"What, he's a war hero, he's a superhero, he gets free cars and radio endorsements, and he meets with the president in Washington, and he's only 22?"
"Eddie's had a helluva life. Maybe worse than mine, and that's saying something. We had good years, as a family, Magda. Eddie never did. Besides, I like him. We have a good time together, all the time. He's my old army buddy, you know how that is."
Magda was about to say something else, but heavy footsteps on the stairs gave way to six feet and three or four inches of the aforementioned Eddie Blake, decked out in a gangster-looking suit rather than his usual fatigues or work-clothes.
He looked cheap, mean, and dangerous, and that was probably what her sister liked about him.
"Hiya, Magda. How's Ralph?"
"Mr. Schmidt and I are just fine, thank you. Well, I suppose you and my sister are going to go out and paint the town red. Don't let me stop you. Please tell me you have somebody watching those children you're responsible for?"
"My sister." Eddie chuckled.
"Don't worry, Magda! Goodbye, Magda!"
Sophie hustled her sister out the door, as Eddie sat down on the couch and lit a cigar.
She sat beside him.
"If she wasn't my sister, I'd beat the shit out of her."
"Yeah, ya look in the fuckin' dictionary, and right next to Crazy Annoying Jew Broad, they got Magda's picture." Eddie chuckled.
"She's a stereotype with feet. Someday Ralph is going to kill her, and I'll pay for the best defence attorney in New York. So, are you ready to see the hottest jazz band in the five boroughs?"
"Sure, Soph. I was born ready."
Sophie picked a good joint.
The place was jumping, the band was hot, and people were dancing and drinking and smoking reefers in the john and having a good time.
They were blowing some Dixieland and Eddie and Sophie were really cutting the old rug when that high, shrill whistle blew, letting everybody know that it was time to cheese it, the cops had arrived.
That didn't make no never mind to the former Sgt. Major Sophie Kaufmann, USMC Special Forces, or her dance partner, Major Edward Morgan Blake, USMC Special Forces, both of them late of the Invaders, they both knew the cops wouldn't touch them.
Besides, Sophie knew she was too drunk to drive, and she figured Eddie was, too.
"Keep on playin', boys. It's alright." Eddie told the piano player.
"You got an in with the cops, man?"
"Yeah. I'm Eddie Blake. Relax."
The band kept playing, switching to some hot bebop, as pandemonium broke out.
"See, Soph, this is what pisses me off about the fuckin' cops. It's why I'm an independent. The fuckin' streets out there, they're full of hop pushers an' muggers, an' rapists, an' child molesters, an' all kindsa theivin', murderin' scum. An where are the cops? In here, bustin' a whole lotta people for havin' a good time, lettin' every murderer an' thief in town run riot. Drives me fuckin' crazy." Eddie told Sophie.
"Yeah. I guess I see what you mean."
A cop came down, and Eddie didn't miss a beat.
"Is there a problem, officer?"
"Other than the fact you smell like reefer and you're all over that poor girl, not much, Eddie."
"Awww, everybody in this joint smells like reefer, they been smokin' in the john all night. An you can't arrest me for dancin' with my girl. She ain't no teenager."
"You're doing this just to piss me off, Blake! Well, you've succeeded!"
"Relax, Hollis, old buddy. I ain't dancin' close with a lady ta piss youse off. I happen to like gettin' close up with broads. Maybe you should try it, sometime. Hell, maybe you should try dancin' with a guy. Somebody, ya know?"
"You know what, Eddie? Go shit in your hat!"
The cop and his fellow officers hustled about ten people out of the club, and left.
The band finished the song, and everybody who didn't get arrested clapped, and Eddie and Sophie went back to their table.
When the waitress came around, they got a couple more drinks.
"I take it you knew that copper."
"He's a fuckin' asshole! His idea of fightin' crime is to make sure everybody acts like a fuckin' pussy with no balls, just like him. Fuck him." Eddie snarled.
Sophie knew Eddie well enough to know when he was really mad, after all, they had slept in foxholes together, and blown up bridges, and slit Nazi throats and laughed.
"Is he the one who gave you the shoe?"
"Yeah! The fuckin' prick! Thought he'd move in on Sal. He thought wrong. She ain't with me, but she ain't with him, either."
Sophie could see Eddie's mood getting blacker and blacker.
"C'mon, Eddie. The cops ruined this joint for me. Let's go eat at the Automat. Because, you're really gonna need your strength for tonight." She told him.
"Oh yeah? Ya feelin extra horny, tonight, Soph?"
"Like a junkyard dog under a full moon, Eddie. Let's blow this pop stand."
On the way home, Eddie drove like a priest.
Which was a good change.
For a few months there, he got really out of hand, but, Sophie figured, so had she.
Actually, she was still pretty much out of hand.
It was the second Caddy that GM gave him, he'd crashed the first one into a pole, with both of them in it, about six months before.
But, since he started working with the Silk Spectre and getting good ink instead of bad, Eddie was keeping his nose fairly clean.
Thus, they made it back to her place in one piece, and helped each other get up the stairs.
Sleep was something reserved for people who had easier lives than Sophie and Eddie, after they were done bouncing each other off the walls, they put the radio on and talked and smoked and passed a bottle of red wine between each other, waiting for the few hours of sleep they usually got to sneak up on them.
"You ever go and see that shrink about that shell shock deal, Soph?"
"Nope? You."
"Naaah. I'm used ta nightmares."
"Yeah. Me too. So, how are the kids this week?"
"The usual kid shit. Cast comes off Jimmy's arm on Friday, this comin' Monday I gotta take a night off an' go see Allie do somethin' at the school. How's Max doin?"
"Good. He's almost through with the business college. Two year degree, you know? I guess, when he's done, me and him will get married, and open that place. He understands about you, Eddie. Max doesn't mind Wednesdays."
Eddie took another drink of wine.
"Max is a good guy. So, how's NYU treatin' youse?"
Sophie had dropped out, but she didn't want to tell Eddie that.
"After what I went through, I can't complain. Have you heard from Jimmy, lately?"
"Yeah. After what happened to him in Japan, with his wife an' their baby gettin' murdered, he's about fuckin' done. He went back home, to Canada. He's livin' in on the old homestead, with his father. Workin' as a lumberjack. He says he's seen enough of the world to last him a million years, an' he figures he'll marry an Indian girl, someday, and raise a bunch of little mutants, and never come down out of the mountains again, no matter what happens to the world."
Eddie passed the bottle, Sophie took the last drink, and put it on the night table.
"Sounds like a good idea."
"I kinda wish I had someplace like that ta go, Soph."
"Me too, Eddie. Me too."
And, before either of them realised it, they were asleep.
Eighth Annual City of New York Superhero's Appreciation Christmas Ball, December, 1946
Sophie was beginning to think that everybody was right.
Even Magda.
Because she knew she was out of control.
It had been easier to ignore when Eddie was going off the rails, with her, but after he almost got killed, and started this partnership with the Silk Spectre, he'd toned his act down.
After all, he was a man with a family, he had a reputation to preserve and a job to do.
Reasons to get his act together.
Sophie didn't have any reasons.
Well, there was Max.
And she loved Max, make no mistake, but she couldn't stop, she didn't think she could stop if she wanted to.
But she didn't want to.
And it wasn't just drinking and reefers, anymore.
Eddie didn't know about that.
And he never said much to her about it, about what she was doing to her life.
But, when he came to pick her up for the big superhero shindig and she was obviously high and loaded before she ever got in the car, that really pissed him off.
"Jesus, Christ, Soph, I ain't your mother, an' if the war fucked youse so hard you gotta kill yourself, I can't stop youse, but couldn't youse have tried to stay straight for tonight? Most of these motherfuckers are so square they got corners, an' you got a white ring under your nose. Jesus, you're on the hard stuff now?"
"Who, me? I'm no hophead."
"Oh, just blow, huh? Well that makes me feel better. What the fuck is the matter with you? I ain't said shit to youse because I thought you'd straighten yourself out, but, holy Christ, Soph! You better check yourself into someplace and dry out. I'm not goin' around with no crazy snowblind whack job."
That, of course, was Eddie's way of saying he was concerned.
"I can handle it, Eddie."
"Sure you can. That's what my sister usedta tell me. She ended up a hophead, and OD'd in a fuckin' alley."
"Do we have to talk about this, now?"
"No. What we gotta go now is get through this night without you doin' anything fuckin' crazy. Then, I'm making double goddamn sure youse gets dried out. Enough is too fuckin' much!"
In hindsight, the whole night was a blur.
Sophie got a lot of funny looks from people in masks, and spent a lot of time at the bar.
She could see why Eddie was mad at her, but after a few fortifying snorts in the can, and a few zillion drinks, she was too drunk and to hopped up to care.
"Alright. That's it, you crazy Jew bitch. I'm takin' you home."
But Sophie didn't feel like going home.
"You are, Eddie? You and what fuckin' army, ya dirty Mick sunnuvabitch!"
Everybody was looking at them, now.
"Nice job, Soph. Real cute. Y'wanna finish your drink an' come with me, before one of these nice upright citizens calls the cops?"
"Fuck you, Eddie! I'll go when I'm damn good and ready."
"Oh no you won't! You're goin' right fuckin' now!"
Eddie grabbed Sophie by the arm, and as her other arm was free, she made it a fist, and clocked him right in the face.
He shook it off, and went to try and pick her up and carry her out, and Sophie, swearing like a pirate, reached under her gown for the revolver, and shot him in the leg.
Of course, she hadn't really meant to shoot him, and so, when Eddie grabbed hold of the bar to keep from falling over and she saw the blood on the polished marble floor, Sophie started to scream.
"Eddie! Eddie! I didn't mean it!" she yelled.
Of course, it didn't matter if she meant it, because she had done it, just the same.
Then she just started to scream.
As Eddie tried to haul himself onto a barstool, Superman strode into the picture to take charge.
"Alright, Miss Kaufmann, you'd better give me the gun." He said.
Gently, but firmly
"Don't get a cop, Supes. She didn't mean it. She ain't well. It's shell shock. I was gonna make sure she got some help, yunno, right after Christmas. Ya gotta get her to the hospital. Not to the cops." Eddie gasped.
That was when his partner showed up.
"Eddie! Jesus! Don't just stand there, Larry, go get the goddamn car. How bad is it?"
"Bad. It broke the bone." Eddie gasped.
Sophie continued to scream.
"Will you get her out of here?' Sally said, as she reached for the phone behind the bar.
"What about the Comedian?" Superman insisted.
"He has his own doctor. I'm calling her. Hello, Jack? It's Sally…not too good. Eddie's been shot in the calf, and the bullet went right through the bone, and out the other side. I hope Merrie's home…she is…good…I'm gonna bring him around right away…alright Jack…yeah, helluva evening. Bye."
Sophie realised they were taking Eddie one place and she was going another.
She screamed even louder.
"I'm alright Soph. It's nothin'. I'll come to see youse in the hospital. I unnerstan', Soph. I ain't even mad."
After that, they took Eddie away, and Sophie had a few more screams in her before everything went black.
Sophie Kauffmann spent Hanukkah and Christmas at the VA Hospital, drying out.
Her sister, and Ralph, and the boys were regular visitors, and Max came every day.
Eddie came to see her Wednesdays.
On crutches.
It was a clean break, there would be no complications.
He was the first one she told.
"So, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but Max's brother has a good thing going with a restaurant, in Tel Aviv. In Israel. He's done with school, now. Me, I dropped out. But Max, he needs the experience. We're going to go there, for awhile. We'll get married, and I joined up with the Israeli army for an 18 month hitch. Then, I'm coming back to New York, and Max and I are going to open a place of our own. You think you can see your way clear to free up Wednesdays for me, once I come home?"
"Sure I can, Soph. I think it's a good idea."
"And I'm going to keep seeing a doctor. A shrink. At least for a little while. You don't think any less of me, do you, Eddie?"
"Fuck no! After what you been through, it's alright for youse to be a little nuts. Hell, I ain't the sanest man in the world, myself."
Anybody else, Sophie would assume they were just mollifying her.
But Eddie wasn't like that.
Even if he managed to get back into Sally's good graces, even if true love did conquer all, Eddie would make a place for her, in his life.
A place called Wednesday.
That was just the way he was.
"Does Sally know how lucky she is, having a guy like you, Eddie? Because I know how lucky I am."
"I dunno what Sal thinks, Soph. I ain't got the right to."
"Yes you do, Eddie. You've spent too many years crucifying yourself for a mistake you made when you were just a boy. Yes, it was a terrible thing you did. But you've bent over backwards to show that woman that the man you are isn't the boy you were, and she won't even consider forgiving you. If it was me, I'd forgive you, Eddie. I understand what it does to you, to be abused and tortured. How it twists you. I know how hard you have to try to overcome it, and not end up like the people who did it to you."
"I hope Sal never has to understand that."
"You're a good man, Eddie Blake. Don't forget that while I'm gone, alright? I'll write to you once I'm settled, and you had better write back."
"Sure I will."
South Brooklyn, New York, 1947
III: Sally
"…you fuckin' idiot! Where the fuck did you get your license? In a box of fuckin' Cracker Jacks? Why don'tcha haul your ass back to Jersey, ya bum!"
"Hey, pal, why don'cha get outa that goddamn Caddy, an' put your money where your big fat rat trap is!"
"Youse want me to get outta the car? Fine!"
"Eddie, Jesus, let it go."
"Hey, you let it go, Sal! He ain't fuckin' callin' youse out! I'll be right back."
Sally sat in the passenger seat of Eddie's new Cadillac, and smoked a cigarette while he had a fistfight with some meathead driving a box truck.
The meathead in question was about the same size as Eddie, so it was a pretty good fight.
However, being in this situation made Sally ask herself some questions.
What the fuck am I doing in Eddie's car watching him have a childish fistfight with some fucking meathead?
Of course, if she wanted to ask herself questions like that, she could have asked herself how she and Eddie's twin sister, Edie, and to some extent, his second oldest sister, Aggie, became friends, during the war.
And she could ask herself what the fuck she was doing, working with Eddie.
Eddie, of all people.
Maybe it was because he was willing to work with her, and take her seriously as a mask.
As time passed, Sally's dreams of movie stardom began to seem more and more silly and hollow, and despite her celebrity status as America's Sweetheart, the Girl on the B-52's, the actual work began to mean more to her.
She had actually learned to fight, clean and dirty, and she'd begun carrying a gun, in a special holster in her bustier.
Larry liked her working with Eddie; it was good ink.
America's sweetheart, and America's red, white and blue war hero extraordinaire, teaming up to clean up the mean streets of New York City.
And Sally had to admit, not only was she finally getting credit as a mask, she was having a goddamn good time.
But, then again, she and Eddie always did have a good time, together; they were damn good as partners and alright as friends, but that was as far as Sally was letting it go.
Besides, she was going on the kind of missions that Hollis and Rolf and Nelly had always excluded her from, real street-level shit, where you had to get in there and mix it up.
There were times she had Eddie had to literally run for their lives, and fight for their lives, back to back, surrounded by murderous thugs.
That was the stuff people thought of, when they thought of being a superhero.
Fast times, excitement, adventure, side by side with a massive wall of Eddie, closer to him than she was when she was lying next to Larry at night, heart pounding, blood rushing through her veins, ready to take on the world.
But, there was more to it than that.
Eddie wasn't just a brutal, violent man, he was a hell of a detective, too, and she had plenty of opportunity to witness him at work.
Stakeouts, following up leads, turning snitches and milking them, plain old pounding the pavement.
They were even making a movie about it.
With Errol Flynn and Maureen O'Hara.
Larry had tried to get her in, playing herself, but to no avail.
Sally wasn't as upset as you might think she would be.
What Hollywood was going to do to the truth of what it was she and Eddie did in the street, she really didn't want to be part of, after all.
And Eddie, the crazy fuck, he brought a movie star along with them in the car on some of their missions.
Researching the role.
However, as Errol Flynn was apparently also a crazy fuck, he had a helluva time.
Reloading weapons, serving as lookout, driving them out of a shootout, and on more than one occasion, getting in there and helping her and Eddie knock some crooks around.
Then, of course, there was the bar, after patrol.
Sally remembered, sitting there, getting blotto with two extremely good-looking and internationally famous guys, wondering where the line was between drunk and unconscious, and drunk and not remembering what happened when she took them to a motel.
Well, at least she didn't do it.
She had some pride.
Okay, so it wasn't pride, completely.
Mainly, she passed up an even shot at Errol Flynn, who was still one of the best looking sons of bitches on God's Green Earth, at least to her eyes, because of Eddie.
It would kill him.
So, Eddie had a new drinking buddy who was as crazy as he was; God only knew the kind of trouble two nuts like that could make, together.
They took pictures of her and Eddie on-set, advising the stars about their roles, and they were in movie magazines and short reels, the whole nine yards.
Then, the location shooting on the movie wrapped, and the glitz and the glamour were gone, but the street was still there.
The street where there were no cameras grinding away to show what they really did.
And here they were, a year had gone by.
Almost ten years since she met Eddie.
But some things never changed.
Sally snapped out of her reverie.
Eddie and this meathead were still knocking each other around.
Sally got out of the car, and muscled her way between them.
"Jesus H. Christ, Eddie, are you gonna fight with this guy or are you gonna fuck him?" she snapped.
She turned to the meathead, gave him a roundhouse to the jaw, and dropped him, cold.
"Put that piece of shit back in his fuckin' truck and let's go! We don't have all night for you to fuck around, we got work to do!"
Sally got back in the car, and after depositing the unconscious meathead in his car, so did Eddie.
"Boy, you're in a shitty mood, tonight, Sal. Trouble in paradise?"
Sally lit a second cigarette on the butt of the first.
Most of the time she could laugh off Eddie's comments about her sham of a marriage, and his usually astute observations about her extracurricular activities, but not tonight.
"I don't wanna talk about it. Let's just get to work, so I can go to the bar." She said.
Eddie knew her well enough to know that there was something really wrong.
"Hey, Sal, those fuckheads are gonna be in that warehouse tomorrow just like they're gonna be there, tonight."
"Maybe I don't want to talk to you about it, Eddie."
"Who else are you gonna talk to? Edie? Aggie? It'll get back to me, anyway. C'mon. We'll go get somethin' ta eat. It's no good to go drinkin' onna empty stomach."
Over burgers and fries, Sally found herself telling Eddie just what it was that had put her in a pensive mood.
"You know, Eddie, I'm not getting any younger, here. In three years, I'll be thirty. So, I decided that I wanted to have a kid. Larry didn't like the idea, he was worried about me ruining my body, but I know how to train. I can get it back."
Sally lit another cigarette.
"So, we've been trying. For almost six months, now. No good. Of course, Larry blames it on me. He's accused me of all kinds of things. Ruining my body with back-alley abortions. Or VD. That sunnuvabitch! I been very careful, yunno. I never had an abortion, and I never caught VD, and my doctor says there's nothing wrong with me. I could have ten kids. It's Larry who's shooting blanks. He won't admit it. And he wants to fucking adopt. Why should I have to adopt a kid with a guy who's a joke when my marriage is a joke, when I'm perfectly capable of having one of my own!"
Sally waited for Eddie to say something, but he didn't.
Not right away.
"My offer still stands, Sal."
"I already toleja I can't. See, Eddie, I'm not the marrying kind. I like to go out with men, have a few drinks and a good time. I don't wanna settle down with just one guy. I mean, I'm no whore but, I work hard. I deserve it. And I'm careful, and it's not like I'll just go with anybody. But, you and I both know a woman can't get away with that. Especially not a woman in the public eye. I mean, I knew that when I married Larry. Hollis asked me around the same time. But, I would have felt horrible about running around on Hollis, and it would have broken his heart. Larry doesn't know what I do with my free time and he doesn't care, as long as the money keeps rolling in. It's a business arrangement."
"You wouldn't hafta feel bad about it, Sal. I mean just because you're married to somebody, if you ain't the forsakin' all others kind and neither are you, well, then there ain't no problem. Not my side, anyway."
"I can't marry you, Eddie. We'd kill each other inside of a month. Jesus…why is it when you put on a mask, there's this unwritten law that says you hafta give up on everything that most people take for granted? Yunno what I mean?"
"Yeah, Sal. I do. I mean, I'll be seein' Sophie on Wednesdays, an' I guess there'll always be room for my crazy ass in her life, on Wednesdays, but she's married to Max Grossmann, an' they'll have a decent life. I mean, my Ma died, I hadda kill Pop, their kids are almost raised. I fought a goddamn war, I helped save the fuckin' world, so where's my piece of the pie? How the fuck did I end up with the fuckin' crumbs?"
Sally laughed at the analogy.
That's what you ended up with when you were a mask.
The people you fought it out with.
"You're right, Eddie. We do the dirty work, and everybody else gets the pie and what do we get? The fuckin' crumbs. And, nothin' for nothin', but you gotta point. Those fuckin' crumbs we're after, they'll be there tomorrow night. Fuck it. Let's go get drunk. If we end up on the cover of the Post, it's like Larry says. There's no such thing as bad publicity. I'm buyin', tonight."
"Then I'm drinkin'."
Letter From Sally Jupiter to Laurie Juspeczyk
Dear Laurie,
If you're reading this letter, either I've passed on, or you've found out that Eddie is your father while I'm still living.
You're probably already angry and confused on one hand, and, on the other, I suppose you understand now why Eddie played such a big role in your life growing up.
I'm sure what you've heard about me and Eddie is what I like to call the official rumor.
The one that goes like me and him got together one afternoon in 1948 and made you, and that was our moment in time.
Well, you already know that our moment lasted a long time after that.
What you don't know, is that it began before that.
I always loved your father, that's why what he did to me in the trophy room hurt me so much, because I loved him, even then, and I had only known him for about six months.
Even though half the time, well, more than half the time, I couldn't live with him, still, I never could live without him.
And, being a young woman in the heyday of women's lib, you can't understand what things were like in the thirties, forties, and fifties for a woman who didn't want to stay, as they say, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
Nobody, least of all me, ever expected that I would blossom into a real crimefighter out of being a tough-talking burlesque dancer and would-be starlet.
In a way, I had Eddie to thank for that, too.
That night in the trophy room changed my life, and it wasn't just the attempted rape and the beating, it was the look of disgust Rolf gave me while I was lying on the floor, bleeding.
I could see in his eyes he thought it was my fault.
That I had brought myself to this shameful state, playing Little Red Riding Hood with the Big Bad Wolf.
In the months following that night, I really stopped to think.
If I wanted to be a starlet, well, I should pack my ass up and move to LA, and get on the casting couch while my name recognition was still good.
But then, I thought about that.
First, there were about a million other girls with the same big idea.
And if I was just going to start handing it out to goddamn anybody just for a walk-on part, maybe a walk-on part in a B movie, well, I might as well have just let a guy I was starting to think of as my boyfriend give me the time in the Minutemen's trophy room.
But, how many women were superheroes?
I was tough, but I wasn't tough enough.
That was where I went wrong with Eddie.
If I had been tough enough to do the job I was playing at, I would have wiped the fucking floor with him; I would have had both the ability and the inclination.
Can you imagine him trying that on Liv Napier?
She probably would have beat him senseless and then laughed at him if he couldn't get it up.
Of course, knowing your father, a little thing like a few smacks in the head wouldn't put him off.
If I had been tough enough to give him a damn good beating, a bad enough beating he would have been more worried about staying conscious rather than staying stiff, he would have crawled away to lick his wounds. But after that, the crazy prick would have had some respect for me, and he wouldn't have treated me like I was some broad.
He would have treated me like I was a mask, too.
So, I decided that I was still going to be a big star, but not as some dime-a-dozen starlet who was pretty much a glorified call girl in the studio meat factory.
No, I was going to be famous for being the Silk Spectre, superhero.
While your father was off fighting World War II, proving to himself and the world that he was more than a punk kid in a yellow boiler suit, I was home, proving to myself and the world that I wasn't just talking the talk, I was walking the walk.
I actually learned how to fight, I started carrying a gun, and I got involved in really giving the crooks the business, as well as getting into the business of being a famous superhero.
That's pretty much what was between Larry and me.
Business.
It didn't look right, my not being married, so I married my manager.
He was what the queers used to call a beard.
Anyway, by 1945, Eddie and I were both at the top of our game.
We were young, we were good-looking, and we were unbelievably famous and celebrated.
But, we both had a problem.
Eddie's problem was that he was Eddie.
Your father wasn't always the man he was when you came to know him; when he got back from the war he was a pretty crazy kid, and who could blame him?
All his life, he had been poor, miserable, overworked and underpaid, like a lot of people, but unilike a lot of people he'd also been horrifically mistreated and abused.
Now, all the sudden, he had fame, he had money, and everybody loved him.
So, he went a little crazy.
There's a reason Eddie was the only person who could get Liv Napier in line.
For part of 1945 and 1946, he used to be just like her.
They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but Eddie was making the papers two or three times a week.
The cops would catch him in a hotel room with an unbelievable number of broads and a brick of grass.
Your father, he was really some kind of man. He'd take two or three girls home with him, and send them home tired, and wake up the next morning ready for three more. If you've inherited what he had, cupcake, I can understand why you picked an indestructible and presumably indefagetible nuclear reactor for a boyfriend.
But, anyway, the point is, Eddie was way out of control.
They'd pull him over for speeding and he'd be so drunk he fell out of the car when the cop opened the door.
He'd go out and get unbelievably drunk and tear a bar to pieces and get into a fistfight with somebody and put them in the hospital. Or he'd get in a fistfight with ten guys and all of them, including him, would end up in the hospital.
The only reason the cops didn't find him lying in the street half the time like they did Liv was because Eddie still had his brothers and sisters at home to look after, and he always made sure he got there before he'd pass out.
But, on Wicked Wednesdays, as the scandal sheets called them, him and Sophie Grossmann, who was still Sophie Kauffmann, they really knew how to paint the town red.
The cops would go and raid some joint in Harlem, and Eddie and Sophie would be there, drunk and stoned out of their minds.
Hell, the paint wasn't dry on his new Caddy that GM gave him before Eddie wrapped it around a telephone pole in the Village.
They ran a picture in the Post of the wreckage, and said it was a miracle Eddie or Sophie survived, let alone escaped with minor injuries.
Your Uncle Hollis told me he raided a place, once, and while he was checking the johns to see if anybody was trying to hide in the stalls from the law, he found Eddie and Sophie trying to do something in a sink that you don't usually do in a sink.
Trying, because they had both passed out in the process and were completely unconscious, so far out of it that Sophie had to be rushed to the hospital to have her stomach pumped.
Eddie had no idea where he was; he wandered around yelling and waving his arms around with his underwear and his pants around his ankles, and Uncle Hollis actually had to put his clothes on him and take him away in a police car.
Then, he got violent.
He beat his head against the window of the police car until he smashed through it, and Hollis said it took him and seven cops to get cuffs and leg irons on Eddie and get him in a cell; they were afraid to let a doctor in to look at him because he was raving and out of his mind.
Uncle Hollis ended up calling Rolf and Nelly, and the three of them went in there and held Eddie down long enough that a doctor could come in and shoot him up with enough dope to knock out an elephant, so that he could get his bloody head stitched up and bandaged, and get checked out.
It turned out somebody had put monkey tranquilizers in his drink, to kill him.
The Post didn't report all of that incident, but they reported enough.
People had a lot of goodwill towards Eddie because he was in the Invaders, and he was a Great American Hero, but he was spending it, fast.
My problem was that I had risen to the level of being a damn good mask, but nobody would take me seriously because I was a woman.
It was Hollis' idea I retire when I got married, and when I tried to keep working, he and Nelly and Byron and Rolf did their damndest to keep me out of anything meaningful.
They did the same thing to Ursula, and it used to make the both of us furious.
Then, Eddie came to a Minutemen meeting one night and asked me, on a whim, to go on a serious mission with him.
I think he was surprised I wasn't just a cupcake, anymore.
Anyway, as Eddie's always been a hell of a lot more stable than Liv, bless her crazy heart, and when he woke up in the hospital, sick as a dog, to a splitting headache, ten stitches, and the headlines in the Post about his and Sophie's latest debacle, he realised two things.
One was that he was going the way his mother and father had, down the road to hell paved with booze, and if he didn't put on the breaks he was going to destroy everything he'd worked for.
The other was that his good name was in the shitter, and he was going to have to do something to rectify that.
One thing about your nutty father, the son of a bitch was always crazy like a fox.
It was his idea.
I had a nice, clean reputation, but I couldn't get anyone to work with me, and his reputation needed a big boost and he was willing to give it a chance.
It worked like a charm.
Me and Eddie working together as masks, as famous and celebrated as we were in 1946, it was a big, big, big thing.
We both started getting good ink.
I was able to do my job, Eddie got his shit together and so did Sophie, and Larry got his cut of lots and lots and lots of my money.
Everything was roses.
There was only one problem.
The elephant in the living room.
Under all of our bullshit and pretence and politics, beside the camaraderie between masks, and aside from the fact that I did, and still do, think that although there's good in Eddie, and that he's actually a good man, that he's mad, bad, and dangerous to know and I could only take him in small doses, one fact remained.
I loved Eddie, and he loved me, and we'd take anything that resembled being together.
You were around for round two of the Eddie and Sally show, so you know how it goes.
Eddie and I get together, we see each other every once in awhile, then one of us does something unforgivable, and we quit speaking to each other for months.
Then, eventually, the whole thing starts over again.
Well, you witnessed it when we were grown up, mature people in our thirties and forties and beyond, and by then, we had you in common, and the sad knowledge that sometimes, love just isn't enough, and that although we would never really be apart, we weren't meant to be together.
Eddie met the woman the Devil made for him in hell in the second act of his life, as I write this, Liv Napier is still "his girl".
Which is funny, because, as I write this, Eddie is sleeping in my bed in the other room, he's visting with me here in LA after coming home from some mission in Southeast Asia, and Liv is probably painting New York City red with Tony Stark, or maybe off in the woods on one of her periodic survival treks with Jimmy Howlett.
That makes two guys Liv Napier and I have in common, because I've been seeing Tony, here and there, since 1966.
You may discover this for yourself, someday, cupcake, but let me tell you, love is complicated, and it isn't always I love him and he loves me and that's all there is to it.
My point is, the first act of the Eddie and Sally show, the one that played itself out between 1946 and 1948, that was the big show.
Eddie and I were both in our twenties, and like most people in our twenties we didn't know shit about anything and thought we knew it all, and we had no idea that neither hello or goodbye were forever.
And that is why your birth in 1949 was even more of a miracle than you might think it was.
Eddie and me have every reason to hate each other, but we have every reason to love each other, too, and we do them both together.
The first time we got together and blew up, we blew up big.
Like a hydrogen bomb.
Thirsty's Show Bar, Manhattan, New York City, 1947
II: Sally
It was somewhere in the area of midnight, and Sally Jupiter was somewhere in the area of completely blotto.
Her hairdo was becoming undone, her lipstick was smeared over her face, and one of her breasts was about ready to fall out of her shirt.
It was a warm summer night, and she was both sweating profusely and drinking heavily, and every guy in the place would have been ogling her, if it wasn't for the fact that she wasn't alone.
Parked on the barstool beside her was a mountain of Eddie Blake, in blue work pants, combat boots, and a GI- Issue fatigue A-line undershirt, with clanking dog tags on a chain.
He was not as drunk as Sally, and he was watching over her, to make sure she was alright.
"Hey, Sal, your tits are almost hangin outa your shirt."
"What do I care?" Sally said.
But Sally wasn't alright, she was anything but alright; she was literally crying into her beer while Eddie was trying to get her to fix her shirt.
She hardly knew what she was saying, she was blubbering about Larry, and her empty shell of a marriage, and the dreams she had when she was younger, and the trophy room, and a whole bunch of other things, until she had her face against Eddie's shirt and she was just literally weeping.
"Eddie, my fuckin' life is shit. Workin' with you is all I got, and you're the fuckin' son-of-a-bitch who beat the fuck outa me and tried to fuck me in my ass onna floor inna trophy room."
"Sal, I never woulda done that to youse! That's the lowest, filthiest, most fuckin' disgustin' thing you can do to a person! Make a punk out of 'em. I wouldn't fuckin' do that to anybody. Death's too good for somebody who would do somethin' like that!"
Drunk as she was, Sally could tell she'd touched a nerve, and she believed him.
"You know what I mean, Eddie. I didn't mean it literally. You're a no good lousy Mick bastard. But you're all I got. All I ever really had. An' I hate you. I hate your stinkin' guts. You made me what I am. On the other hand, I don't hate ya, at all. We have some laughs. You're my partner. My friend. An' if I wasn't a mask, Jesus, I'd prob'ly been on Hollywood Boulevard blowin' spades for money to buy smack, by now."
"Sal, you're drunk. Ya need to go home."
"I got no fuckin' home. The street's my home."
"Well, you gotta go someplace. C'mon. Let's get youse outa this dump."
Sally was too drunk to struggle more than a little, she leaned against the wall of Eddie and let him load her into the car, and later load her out again.
He took her to some apartment she'd never been to, and made a phone call.
It was Sally's chance to leave, to flee, but she was so drunk she was completely helpless; he could have done anything he wanted to her, finish what he started in the trophy room, but he didn't.
He took off her shoes and put her on the couch, put a pillow under her head and covered her with a blanket, and put a trash can by the couch.
"Where the fuck am I?"
"My apartment. I'm pretty drunk, too, Sal. I gotta go lay down before I fall down. If you need me, just yell real loud. G'night."
Eddie staggered off to bed.
Sally had to throw up a few times, and she started to feel really sick and dizzy, like she was going to pass out.
"Eddie! Eddie, I think I'm gonna die! Eddie!"
Sally really did feel like she was going to die; she threw up so much that she passed out, and came to a few moments later in the bathroom.
Eddie was washing her face with a washrag.
"I think you better come an' sleep with me in the bedroom, Sal. You ain't doin' so good."
"Can I trust you, Eddie?"
"Sal, it took me almost ten years to get you to trust me this much. You think I'd throw it all away so's I could fuck you when you was passed out drunk? That ain't what I had in mind."
Sally knew she was helpless, and it frightened her, to be helpless, and with Eddie, but she knew she could trust him.
"Okay, Eddie. You gotta help me, though."
"I gotcha, Sal."
It made her feel better that he did.