“I know. I know what you mean.” She shivered and kissed me. “But this other…It seems like there should be some other way.”
“I guess there probably is. There’s probably lots of other ways. But no one’s ever pointed them out to me, and I’ve never been able to find them for myself.”
“Poor Collie. Have you had a hard time these last few days, darling? Where have you been?”
“Nowhere. Just fooling around.”
I took a bath and put on some clothes she gave me. We had lunch, and then we talked some more.
At first she said we’d find another way out. There was bound to be another way and we’d find it. When Uncle Bud showed up we’d toss him out on his ear. But she was drinking while she was talking and she kept tossing the booze down. So it wasn’t long before the good mood was gone, and she’d completely reversed herself.
“Collie, Collie, the wonder souphound. Why don’t you dig us up some bones, boy? Dig us a cave to live in.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that, Fay. I know you don’t mean it.”
“There in the bar that day. You thought you were hooking into a soft touch, didn’t you? You thought you could take me for everything I had. Well, you can so why don’t you? Take the damned car and the damned house, and see what you can do with ’em! Of course, you’ll have to pay off a couple of little mortgages first.”
“Maybe I could,” I said. “I mean, maybe if we had a little money, and I could get some kind of a job…”
“You jerk! You imbecile. What kind of job could you hold—hunting sand in the Sahara?”
A blinding pain stabbed through my forehead. I said that if that was the way she felt about me; I’d better clear out.
“Well, why the hell don’t you?” she yelled. “Do it and stop talking about it!”
She staggered into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I got up and went out to the back porch. And, then, after a minute or two, I started down the lane toward the highway.
It was the best thing to do, I figured; the only thing to do. Because if she acted this way now, when she didn’t know there was really anything wrong with me, how would she act if she knew the truth? A lot of normal people are scared to death of anyone with mental trouble. And with those booze-shot nerves of hers, she was a long ways from being normal. Probably she wouldn’t say anything, do anything openly. She’d be too scared. But she wouldn’t want any part of me—she wouldn’t, and Uncle Bud wouldn’t. And yet if I was tied up with them in a kidnapping, if I knew something about them that might send them to the chair…
Well, you see what I mean. They’d feel that they had to get rid of me. They might not like to do it—at least, Fay might not—but they’d think that they had to and they would.
Anyway, that’s the way things looked to me just then.
I was almost to the highway when Uncle Bud’s car turned into the lane, He came to a quick stop and leaned out. I gave him a grunt and a nod, and kept on going.
“Wait a minute, Kid!” He jumped out and caught me by the arm. “This is a way to treat a pal, Kid? I’ve been laying awake nights worrying about you and hoping you’d come back, and then the minute I see you—”
“I’m in a hurry.” I cut him off. “I just stopped at the house to tell Fay good-bye, and now I’m on my way again.”
“Naw. No, you’re not, Kid!” he said firmly. “I ain’t letting you pass up a deal as sweet as this. You hop right in the car, and whatever’s bothering you, we’ll—You ain’t sore at me, are you? I didn’t hurt your feelings with that little joke I made about sleeping by yourself?”
He looked up at me anxiously, his face all friendly concern. I said that it hadn’t sounded like much of a joke to me.
“So I just wasn’t thinking!” he said. “So”—he laughed uncomfortably—“so maybe it wasn’t a joke. Maybe I don’t like the idea of another guy making time with Fay when I’ve never been able to get to first base.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying anything like that.”
“Sure, you weren’t, But if you do try to, Kid—if you want to and she wants to—you’ll never hear another peep out of me. I need you too much, know what I mean? I’ve been looking for a guy like you for months, and now that I’ve found you—”
“I think you’d better count me out. I—I don’t seem to get along too well with Fay.”
“Aah, sure you do!” He clapped me on the back. “She was needling you, huh? Well, don’t you mind her at all, because she don’t mean a thing in the world by it.”
“But there’s something else.” I hesitated. “Something about me…”
“So you’ve had a little trouble.” He shrugged. “Who the hell hasn’t? Now pile into the car, and forget this stuff about clearing out.”
I knew it was all wrong. He had to have me, so he was willing to forget about Fay for a while. But as soon as he was through with me—or if something made him decide that I wasn’t any use to him…
It was all wrong any way you looked at it. Fay in the shape she was in. And me in my condition. And Uncle Bud feeling like he did about me. And the kidnapping itself. Kidnapping—the dirtiest kind of crime there is. Still, it was either this or nothing, the way things looked to me. It was either this, or the old concrete pasture. So I got into the car with him and went back to the house. I wanted to believe that things would turn out all right, so I went back. And inside of an hour I was back up on top of the world again.
Everything was fine. Everything was going to be finer. Uncle Bud knew it and he made me know it.
He didn’t try to kid me that the job wouldn’t be dangerous. But once it was pulled, we’d be safe and we were a cinch for the dough. We’d be able to duck the traps that kidnappers are usually caught in. We’d know about them in advance, whether the ransom bills were marked or registered, or whether there was a police stake-out at the payoff place. Uncle Bud still had all kinds of contacts inside of the department. He’d know every move that was being made, before it was made. So there might be traps, but they wouldn’t catch anyone.
We’d get the money, a quarter of a million dollars, and we’d get away with it.
We didn’t discuss the actual kidnapping that evening. Uncle Bud said we’d take that up after I got settled down a bit. I didn’t argue with him. I was feeling good. Whatever there was to worry about—and I guessed there was probably plenty—I didn’t want to face up to it just then.
Fay waked up. She got to feeling fairly good again, and the three of us went out to the garage apartment. We dusted it out, put clean sheets on the bed, and so on. Then we went back to the house, and after a while Fay began to razz me a little. But she was more funny about it than mean, so I didn’t really mind.
Uncle Bud left around ten o’clock. Or, I should say, he started to. He was telling me good night, shaking hands with me, when he turned suddenly and looked out the window.
“Somebody’s coming! Get that light off! Get out of sight, Kid! Fay…”
Fay hurried to the window and looked out. She stood there a moment, peering through the glass. I heard a car door slam.
“You’d better go into the bedroom, Collie. Take your glass with you. But it’s all right for Uncle Bud to stay.” She turned around. “It’s only Bert.”
“Bert!” Uncle Bud turned white. “You mean that character from the roadhouse? Hell, if he sees me…”
“What’s the difference? He can’t tie you in with anything.”
“He’s threatened to kill me! We were in on a deal together, and he thinks—” He broke off frantically, snatching up his glass. “Don’t let on I’m here, understand? There ain’t no one here but you!”
“But your car! What’ll I tell him?”
“He doesn’t know my car when he sees it! Tell him—tell him it broke down on the highway and the people pushed it in here for the night!”
I was already in her bedroom. He beat it in after me, leaving the door cracked open a little. He was really scared. I could hear him panti
ng in the darkness, hear the nervous rattle of papers in his pockets. Whatever he’d pulled on Bert, it must have been pretty raw.
Bert only came in as far as the kitchen, so we couldn’t hear everything that was said. But from what we could hear, it sounded like a purely social call. Fay was a good customer of his. She hadn’t been into his place for several days, and he’d wanted to see if she was all right.
He left after a few minutes. Uncle Bud followed me out of the bedroom, wiping the sweat from his face.
“Boy,” he said shakily. “Was that a close one!”
“Mmm,” said Fay. “So it would seem. Just what kind of swindle did you work on him, anyway?”
“None, Nothing.” Uncle Bud shook his head fretfully. “Bert’s just plain unreasonable, know what I mean? You try to explain something to him, show him exactly why a proposition went wrong and it isn’t your fault, and he won’t even listen. He just holds his hand out, and tells you to come across.”
Fay yawned and sat down again. She looked at me, that mean sparkle coming into her eyes.
“Well, Collie, what do you think of our head man, the genius who’s going to lead us safely from rags to riches? A truly great mind, wouldn’t you say? Of course, it may get him killed, but at least he did manage to swindle a barkeep.”
Uncle Bud laughed and gave me a nudge. He said I wasn’t to pay Fay any mind, because she was just the world’s greatest little kidder. “But look, Fay,” he added, “it ain’t going to do for that character to be dropping by here. If it should happen later on, after we—”
“Forget it!” Fay snapped. “That was Bert’s first visit here in months, and I’ll see that it’s his last. I’ve got a strong stomach, but one bird like you is about all I can take.”
Uncle Bud laughed again. He was after something, you see, and he wasn’t going to let himself be insulted until he’d got it. He left a few minutes later. Fay and I talked for a while longer, after he’d gone. Or, I should say, I tried to talk to her. Because I didn’t have much luck at it. She’d slugged down four or five drinks in a row, so that killed any chance of really talking.
“Why do I ride Uncle Bud?” she said. “Well, why does one ride a jackass? Because it’s the shortest distance between two points. Quad erat demonstrandum, which translated into canine means—”
“Look, Fay, this is important. If you think he can’t pull this off, or that he might try to pull something on me—”
“Will you stop interrupting? It means never look for bones in a bottle. You remember that, Collie. It’s the secret of my success.”
“Good night.” I got up and started for the garage. I was just about to the back door when she called, “Collie,” and followed me out to the kitchen.
“I don’t know, honey,” she said, putting her arms around me. “There’s something insidious about the guy. He sort of takes you over, and makes you over, and it’s hard not to like him. But the things he’s pulled on people…And as for this present deal—a man who would dream up a thing like this, Collie, he’s considerably less than upright. If it would make him anything, and if he thought he could get away with it, he’d double-cross anyone.”
“But you don’t see how he could? You just razz him to see him squirm, like you do me?”
“Something like that. When a person can’t stand herself, Collie, when she loathes herself…”
“It’ll be all right,” I said. “Everything will be all right afterwards.”
“Will it? Do you really think any good can come from it?”
“It’s got to, Fay. It’s got to come from somewhere.”
We stood there close together, her arms tightly around me. She squirmed contentedly, and her robe opened a little. She had nothing on underneath. Fay bent her knees a little, sliding her warm flesh against me. She took a long shivery breath. The sweet softness of her breasts seemed suddenly to harden. Then, she waited. All I had to do was make one little move. And somehow I couldn’t make it. With any other dame, yes. But not with her. She meant too much to me. This had to mean more than it could now.
After a moment Fay looked up at me, eyes twinkling, a soft smile on her face. “Well, Collie, is this part of your college training? Not to take advantage of a lady in her cups?”
“I—I don’t know,” I felt rather embarrassed and foolish. “I mean, well, I never really went to college. Just some night classes when I didn’t have to work.”
“So?” She stood on tiptoe and kissed me, gave me a pat on the cheek. “Well, it’s an excellent argument for the midnight oil.”
“Look, I don’t want you to think I wouldn’t like to—”
“Also for abstinence. Go to bed, my friend. Yes, I really want you to. We have a nice thing here, and let us not louse it up.”
She kissed me again, and gave me a push toward the door. I went to bed.
6
Usually, during the past fifteen-odd years, I’d hated to see morning come. That’s a psychotic symptom, you know, not wanting to awaken—hating to face things that are bound to be more than you can handle. It had gotten so that I was almost always sick in the morning. I’d start vomiting almost as soon as I opened my eyes. I’d gone on that way for years, for more than fifteen years, and I guess I’d just about forgotten there was any other way. But that morning I knew better.
That morning—the morning after that night—it was like all those years had never been.
I waked up early, not long after daylight, and the way I was feeling you couldn’t have paid me to stay in bed. I lay real still for a minute, sort of holding myself in, feeling the energy build up. Then, I jumped up, and for about the next ten minutes you’d have thought I was crazy. I “skipped rope.” I shadowboxed. I did a handspring up onto the bed and off the other side, and I wound up by walking into the bathroom on my hands.
I was breathing a little hard, but that was all right. It was good to have done something to breathe hard about. I shaved and showered, using the toilet articles Uncle Bud had bought me. I got dressed, and went over to the house.
Fay was still asleep, of course. She hardly ever got up much before noon. I fixed myself a big breakfast, keeping quiet about it so as not to disturb her, and after I’d eaten I went back outside.
I sat out on the back porch a while, looking at the waist-high grass of the lawn. It looked to me like it was just kind of begging for it, just daring me to move in and cut it down to size. So finally I dug an old scythe up out of the garage and went to work on it.
Well, though, it wasn’t much of a scythe, and that grass was almost as tough as wire. After an hour of hard swinging, I’d hardly made a dent in it.
I straightened up, and rested my back. I walked up to the far corner of the garage, and sized the yard up from that angle. It looked to me like I’d better do my cutting in rows, starting here on the outside and working in toward the house. I could keep track of the job better that way. I wouldn’t actually cut any more, but at least it would show up better.
I started swinging again, cutting a broad swath clear down to where the trees began. I was standing there resting in the shade, when I saw a car coming. I ducked down out of sight, wondering who it was because I could tell it wasn’t Uncle Bud. Then, the sun struck against the license plate, lighting up the lettering. And I jumped up and ran.
I ran straight down the lane toward it. It stopped, and I hesitated a moment, panting, and then I opened the door and climbed in.
Doc Goldman took out his pipe. He tamped tobacco into the bowl and struck a match to it. Not looking at me. Just looking straight ahead through the windshield.
“I’m sorry, Doc,” I explained. “I couldn’t stay there with you. You know I couldn’t. It—it just wouldn’t have been right! I’d have been worried about it.”
“But this didn’t worry you, simply walking out on a friend? You thought that was all right?” He shook his head. “That’s not very straight thinking, Collie. It’s the kind of mixed-up, one-sided thinking that can get you into serious
trouble.”
“I’m not mixed up. It was just something that I had to do, so I did it.”
“With a gallon of red wine, I suppose? And the rear end of a truck for transportation?” He laughed tiredly. “No, it wasn’t too difficult tracing you, Collie. You’re hardly what one would call nondescript. But with all that wine, I didn’t expect you to get this far.”
“That wasn’t for me. It was a present. I bought it for the—for these people I’m working for.”
“Here?” He motioned up the lane with his pipe. “Then, you lied to me when you said you didn’t know anyone in this state?”
“No. I mean—well, I didn’t really know them. I just met them that night, the night I met you. Kind of an elderly couple. We had a few drinks together, and—”
“Stop it, Collie! I’ve made a few discreet inquiries. I know who lives in this place.”
I felt my face turning red. I wanted to tell him to go to hell; that it wasn’t any of his business what I did. But he just wasn’t the kind you could say things like that to. And I couldn’t have done it anyway. He’d been too nice to me, and I knew he was trying to be my friend.
“She’s a widow, isn’t she, Collie?” he said. “She picked you up in a bar, just as, I suspect, any number of other women have—and for much the same reason. But being a nice guy, if a little naive, you didn’t hang around. You knew it was the wrong thing to do, so you left. Then, yesterday, you changed your mind. You convinced yourself that wrong was right, so you came back and moved in.”
“No! Not the way you mean it, Doc. I’m working here, really working. You can see that I am, and you can see there’s plenty to be done.” He glanced at the house and then skeptically at the patch of grass I had cut. “I’m not living with her,” I explained hastily. “I’ve got a little apartment out there above the garage. Sure, I like her! I like her a lot, and she likes me. And she needs me. She—she drinks too much, and she needs someone to—”
“But, Collie! Collie, my friend.” He laid a hand on my arm. “Don’t you see—You did see the danger in such a situation a few days ago. You, by no means a well man, and a woman who also is not well, an alcoholic. The two of you together—a woman whose behavior is certain to be erratic and trying, at least at times, and a man who is apt to be upset by ordinary give-and-take.”