Together they went over to the fuse box, and Howie opened the black metal door. He peered in at the fuses. “Here it is. This one,” Howie said. “You got a penny, kid?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Wait. I got one.” Howie twirled the fuse out, pulled the switch on the side of the box, and the cellar lights went out. Stan heard the clink of the penny, the grating of the fuse being turned back into the socket.
The cellar lights went on. Howie, his hand on the switch, yelled, “Okay up there?”
“Okay,” came Art’s answering yell.
At that moment Stan struck with the kitchen knife. Right under the left shoulder blade. The metal grated on bone and slipped away. Howie grunted in pain and whirled with uncanny speed, his eyes narrowed, his mouth twisted with pain. He reached toward his hip pocket.
Stan grunted with the force of the blow as he blindly stabbed down at Howie’s face. Howie stood perfectly still for a moment, one eye suddenly wide. In the place of the other eye was the dark protruding handle of the paring knife.
As he fell heavily on his side, rolled over onto his back, Stan looked down at him and giggled. Then he made a soft retching sound, turned away, weak with the sudden sickness, his hand against the rough, whitewashed wall. He pulled the switch down.
“Now they’re out again!” Art called. “What are you guys doing down there?”
“Just a minute,” Stan yelled hoarsely. He tugged at Howie, rolled him over onto his face. The knife handle gritted against the cement floor. Stan got the flat automatic out of Howie’s hip pocket. He worked the slide, heard the clink of a round hitting the floor. He thumbed the safety off and went up the stairs.
As he stepped into the kitchen, he called back, “I’ll see if Art’s got one, Howie.”
He knocked against the doorframe, blundered into the dining room. “Say, Art, we need a penny to fix the fuse. You got one?”
“I hope you guys know what the hell you’re doing down there. The lights going off like that gives me the creeps. Did I hear Howie laughing?”
“Yeah. He was laughing. Now you can laugh, Art.”
“What are y—” That was all.
It was as though the slugs drove the breath out of Arthur Marka’s chest. The darkness stank of smokeless powder. Stan stood and listened. A heavy truck went by, and then two cars.
Slowly he exhaled. He lit a match, shook it out. Three in the chest and the last one in the face. Art was slumped in the chair, his chin on his chest, both arms hanging straight down.
In the darkness, Stan pushed him off the chair. He hit with a sodden, dead sound. Stan found his heels, dragged him to the cellar stairs, got behind him and pushed. Art Marka’s body rolled noisily down the steep flight, thudded against the cement at the bottom.
He turned out the cellar light, went up to his room, saving the money until last. He packed his few clothes, walked through the darkened house to the back door. Very simple. Two suitcases on the kitchen floor. One full of money. All for Stanley Ryan.
The car was gassed up. Lock the door and leave. The clothes and the carriage were in and the front door was locked.
Three feet from his head the bell shrilled. He started violently, stood shaking in the darkness. He cursed. Crouching, he ran to the front of the house, looked cautiously out the front-room window.
A white trooper car was parked in front, the motor running.
Caught like a rat in a trap.
He slipped out of his coat, threw it aside, transferring the gun to the right-hand pocket of his trousers. With trembling fingers, he unbuttoned his shirt down the front.
He turned on the hall light, opened the front door, yawning, and said, “What do you want?”
Two tall troopers stood there, and behind them, her eyes wide, stood the thin woman who had paid a call in the middle of the afternoon.
The trooper nearest the door looked disgusted. “Mister, we got funny stories and we have to look into them.”
“He’s the one! He’s the one!” the woman said shrilly.
“Yeah, lady. We know. Mister, I understand your wife is sick. Is that right?”
Rising hope gave Ryan the courage to smile. “Not very sick. Just a little under the weather. You know how it is. She only had the kid about four, five months ago. If I’m not too curious, what is all this? What did this woman say to you? She called this afternoon and I thought she acted a little off her rocker.”
“I might as well tell you, mister,” the trooper said. Ryan moved out onto the porch.
Suddenly the woman darted into the house. Ryan made a grab for her and missed.
One of the troopers grabbed Ryan and the other one went after the woman. The trooper who had taken Stan Ryan’s arm said, “Joe’ll grab her. She’s just a harmless nut, I guess.”
Stan, listening, heard the woman go up the stairs, the trooper pounding behind her. He knew that there wasn’t much time. The woman would be looking for a woman and a baby.
The money was in the kitchen. There was a small chance. He turned half away from the trooper, let his hand drop down until his fingertips touched the cool butt of the gun.
From somewhere upstairs the woman yelled loudly. Stan yanked the gun out, shot twice at the middle of the trooper.
He ignored the clothes, grabbed the brown suitcase. Someone shouted hoarsely. A more authoritative gun roared.
The engine caught the first time, and he was glad that he had backed it into the garage.
It jumped down the drive and a figure ran out from the side of the house, an orange-red jet of flame spurting toward the car. The car swerved, thumping on the rim, wedging against the side of the house.
He ran fifty feet before the slug smashed his shoulder. The impact drove him over onto his face and he rolled, sobbing, yelling with pain and fear and the knowledge that he would die.
Two days later, after Stanley Ryan had dictated his confession to the police stenographer who sat by his hospital bed, he said to the lieutenant, “I’ve been thinking. Why did that Clarey woman bring the troopers around?”
The lieutenant, a weary-looking man in his fifties, inspected the end of his dead cigar and said, “Why, son, she thought you’d gone out of your head and killed your wife and kid.”
Stan puzzled over that. “Why should she think anything like that?”
“She has two little kids of her own, son. She found the weak spot in your window dressing.”
“Weak spot?”
“Sure, Ryan. Weak as hell. You see, you had those things on the line every day, and every day she’d take a look, because she missed the one thing that should have been out there. She missed the one thing real bad. And finally she had to come over to talk to you. If you’d given her a chance, she was going to ask about it. There was one very necessary thing that wasn’t out there every day blowing in the breeze. And young Mrs. Clarey knew there wasn’t any diaper service that far out of town.”
The Night Is Over
There was something infinitely irritating about the puffed, water-wrinkled hands of the man behind the bar. He was wringing out a rag with soft ineffectuality, humming a nasal tune that had been beaten to death by the jukeboxes.
Walker Post stifled the impulse to snarl at him. It was pointless. You can’t climb a man because you don’t like his hands, or you don’t like the tune he hums. He hadn’t been in that particular bar before. A quiet neighborhood spot, drowsing in the heat of an early July afternoon. One other customer, an old man with a ragged yellow beard, sat at a table and sweated in the sun that came in the wide window. Walker Post realized that he was holding himself tense and rigid on the barstool. His shoulder muscles hurt. He made himself slump and forced his eyes away from the bartender’s hands. He swallowed the last inch of rye and water and slid the glass down toward the bartender. He looked across at his own face in the blue-tinted mirror behind the bar. It’s so hard to look at your own face and know what you look like, he thought. What do I see? Dusty hair and pale gray eyes and lip
s that are thin. Thick shoulders and a sullen look around the mouth and chin. New lines from the corners of my nose to my mouth. The hair has gone back a bit further. A wrinkled and soiled collar. What am I and where am I going and why don’t I give a damn?
There had been people who had given a damn. Four years ago when he had been twenty-seven, when he had married Ruth, she had given a damn. His mother had always cared. Faulkner, the drafting-room chief, had cared, once upon a time.
He realized that going back to work for Faulkner had been a mistake. They had all been so kind and had tried to be so understanding. He shuddered, remembering the soft touches of their hands on his shoulders. It had been so unreal to stand and see the January snow piled so deeply across the trim new graves of Ruth and his mother. He had brushed the snow away so he could read the dates on the stones. Nineteen forty-six. The paper had used the term “common disaster.” Sure. It was a disaster and they seemed to be common enough. He could crawl up seven beaches with his eyes clouded with cold sweat and his fingers slipping on the gun and the grit of fine sand in his teeth, while Ruth skids the car through the side of a bridge.
It had been a reflex going to work for Faulkner again in January. He had been used to it. He had thought it would give him something familiar to hold on to. It hadn’t worked. Where is the point in drawing fine clear lines on white paper while the spring sun melts the snow on the soft earth near the stones? He had known he was being careless—his work had been sloppy.
He remembered the afternoon several weeks before when Faulkner had taken him into the empty office of the boss and given him a cigarette. Faulkner had perched his lean frame on the edge of the table and said, “I’ve been trying to go along with you, Walker. I can only imagine what you’ve been through. But, man, you’re not helping yourself. You’re being a fool. I can’t cover you much longer. What are you going to do about it?”
There had been a long silence in the small office. Walker Post had sucked on the cigarette while the room had seemed to darken around him. Then he had dropped the butt onto the rug and ground at it with his heel.
He had spun on Faulkner and cut into his objections with a string of the foulest words he could think of. He had gone on and on in a low tone, watching the expressions of shock and anger color Faulkner’s long face. At last he was through and Faulkner had slid off the table and walked out the door.
Post had gathered his few personal possessions together and left the same hour. He hadn’t been back. Once he had met Faulkner on the street. He had turned his face away. They hadn’t spoken. It was like that.
He had put the furniture in storage and moved his clothes into a furnished room on Plant Street. He hadn’t tried to find work. There was still more than two thousand dollars of insurance money left in the bank. He knew he wasn’t drinking himself to death. Just enough liquor each day to cloud the pictures in his mind. Just enough to dull the constant irritation with everything around him. He slept in the cheap, sour room between the gray sheets. He ate heavy fried foods. He walked the streets slowly and wondered what there was to care about. In some distant corner of his mind he was uncertain and frightened. Some mornings he would remember and realize that it would have to end sometime. There would be no more money. But that was a long way off.
He spoke to no one. He didn’t read. He didn’t go to movies. He sat and drank and ate and slept and walked, fighting down the mad thing in his heart that wanted to flash out at the people around him. He wanted to strike and crush and batter the faces of those around him.
The bartender placed the fresh drink in front of him. “Sure is hot, hey?”
Walker Post looked up into the man’s mild eyes. He looked for several long seconds, expressionless and motionless. Then he said shortly, “Yeah.”
The man shrugged and walked back down the bar. Post sat and tapped with his blunt finger at a spot of water on the dark bar. He sipped the drink. The traffic noises seemed to be softened by the heat. A woman walked past the open door pushing a baby carriage. One of the wheels squeaked piercingly. Post wondered what it would have been like if Ruth had left a child for him to care for. Would it have been different? Maybe. Maybe it would have been no different if Ruth were still alive. Maybe the sullen core of him had been slowly growing through the years. Maybe nothing that had happened had really changed him. Maybe it was all inside himself. He scratched at the stubble of beard on his chin with his thumbnail. He dug the last cigarette out of a pack, crumpled the pack and tossed it onto the bar. It slid across and fell behind the bar. The bartender walked heavily over and grunted as he picked it up. He stared at Post and half opened his mouth to speak. Post stared steadily at him. The man closed his mouth again and licked his underlip. He walked back to his spot at the end of the bar.
Some more customers came in. Post glanced in the mirror as they walked behind him. He noticed idly that there were three of them. They were noisy.
They climbed onto the stools. “And a fine afternoon it is, Mr. Donovan. Hessy here is buying us some beer. Right out of his own pay, too. Three superior beers.”
The bartender grinned and drew three. He swiped the foam off and set them down. Post noticed that the three were young. Their hands were greasy. They wore T-shirts and soiled work pants. He figured them for mechanics or truck drivers. One had a silly bubbling giggle. Post shifted restlessly on his stool.
The bartender started to walk away and one of them said, “Hey, Donovan! Get back here. We need a cultured citizen like you to settle something.”
Donovan beamed. “And sure, what do you want to know?”
“This is important. We got two bits on it. What the hell is a cygnet?”
“It’s a ring. A signet ring.”
“Nuts, Donovan. You tell him, Hessy.”
“This kind of cygnet is spelled with a c-y, Donovan. I say it’s a female swan and Fenelle here says it’s a baby swan. You ever heard of it?”
“Never did. Sorry, boys.”
The one they called Hessy looked down the bar at Post. “Hey, you. You know what a cygnet is?”
Post felt the quick rush of irritation. What right had they to drag him into their silly argument? He turned slowly around on the stool so that he faced them. His arm hit his glass and knocked it over. The chill drink ran across his wrist. He realized that they had caused him to spill his drink, and that made the room darken before his eyes.
“Get somebody else to settle your damn argument. Don’t bother me.”
The one they called Hessy slid off the stool and strutted over. He was a slim kid with cropped hair. He had a smear of grease across his cheek. His nose was slightly twisted. He stuck his thumbs under his belt as he walked. The muscles on his brown arms looked tightly woven and efficient.
He stopped with his chest a few inches away from Post’s shoulder. Post had turned back to the bar and stood his glass up again. Donovan hurried toward them, an anxious look on his face.
Hessy stood quietly for a moment, his eyes small and his mouth compressed. “Turn around, honey, and look at me,” he said gently.
Post turned around slowly.
“When I ask a guy a civil question, I kinda like to have a civil answer. Understand?” Post stared at him, expressionless. He wondered if he could take the kid. The kid looked rough and willing.
Donovan coughed. “Hey, now. None a that, boys. Skip it. You go sit down, Hessy. None a that around here.” His words were bold but his voice was apologetic.
“Shut up, Donovan. This punk needs a course in manners. Who the hell is he?”
“I don’t know, Hessy. Please leave him alone, hey?”
The talk sounded blurred in Post’s ears. His back felt tight and strained. “Get away from me. Don’t talk to me.”
“Come on, honey. Take it sitting or standing. Any way you like it.”
“Please, boys, let’s drop it, huh?”
Post spun quickly and threw his left hand like a club at the boy’s head. He missed as Hessy drove his head back a few inche
s. The force of the lurching blow dragged him off the stool and he tramped on the edge of the brass spittoon. It tilted up, throwing stale water into his shoe. He couldn’t see clearly. He heard someone say, “Nice and easy now, Hessy. Nice and easy. Make it last.”
The boy took his thumbs out of his belt and moved easily around Post. He carried himself well. Post swung again, and as he realized he had missed, a fist splatted lightly against his mouth. He tasted warm flat blood. He felt blundering and clumsy. He realized the boy was good. Probably had been in the ring. He felt suddenly afraid. He wanted to drop his arms and let the boy hit him. Anything to get it over.
The boy skipped around him and he circled slowly. The fist hit him again on the mouth. He hadn’t seen it coming. It hurt. Then the boy started clowning, leaping high in the air and landing in grotesque positions. He chanted at Post, “How do you like it, honey? How do you like it, honey?” Again the hard fist smashed into his mouth. Each blow was a bit harder than the one before.
Suddenly the dancing, posturing figure in front of him became the personification of all the blind and bitter luck that had hung on his heels. Post forgot where he was. He forgot what it was about. He couldn’t see and he couldn’t hear. There was a dancing face in front of him that he had to beat down to the floor. He felt the fury roll into his arms. He felt his nails biting into his palms.
He rushed the white face, swinging blindly and grunting as he swung. He was moving forward and the face receded. Then the room seemed darker and he felt stabbing blows on his eyes and mouth. For the first time he felt the jar of his fist striking bone. He dug his chin into his chest and hammered with his two arms, short chopping blows as his mouth grew dry and his breath was an acid gasp in his throat. He couldn’t feel the blows on his own face anymore, and suddenly the white face wasn’t in front of him. His fist smashed into wood. He stepped back and looked down. The white face was there, suspended a few feet off the dim floor. He swung his right leg and felt his shoe smack something. The face was white and red and it was lower. He swung his leg again and somebody spun him around. He clubbed his fist at another face and it went back into the mist. He could see the white rectangle of the doorway. Something hit him on the side of the head and he tried to run toward the door. It was like running through deep water.
More Good Old Stuff Page 19