“It’s a way out. What he did is a criminal offense. I could get him jailed and collect too, in the same way. All I want is the money.”
She sat down again. “Why did you come and tell me this?”
“Your head is a little harder than his. You take a fellow like Dil. He gets in a bind and he pretends it didn’t really happen to him. He keeps himself from thinking about it until the due date comes along. Then the roof falls in on him and he can’t believe it was his fault. You plan ahead a little.”
“But if you want the house anyway, what difference does it make, Jim?”
“I can use the house. I’d rather have the four thousand and no trouble.”
“And no talk. That’s why you came to me.”
“I guess you’ve got it straight, Lennie.”
She got up again and paced back and forth across the room, taking long strides, the fabric of the house coat whispering against tanned legs. She turned in quick appeal to Stauch, hands outstretched. “What did I do to deserve this, Jim? Why does this happen to me?”
He didn’t look at all friendly. He blinked his poached eyes slowly. “I can tell you, but you won’t like it.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He studied her, his expression mildly contemptuous. “You got yourself a man weak as water, Lennie. But he’s husky and his disposition isn’t bad. All you ever had to do was climb on his back and sink the spurs in his hide and keep them there. Good God, the way this town has grown it would damn near take a cretin to keep from making money out of it. But no, you weren’t going to do that. He was supposed to take care of you. Put you in a pretty house and buy you pretty clothes. A man like that has to be driven. All you’ve ever done for him was sleep with him, and I don’t figure he had any exclusive rights in that department. You’ve had yourself a lot of fun. People doing your cleaning for you. Sunning yourself like a country dog. Drinking fancy liquor and trotting out in the bushes with anybody that gives you the urge. At any time you could have sunk the spurs in him and rode him and made him make something out of himself. You’re still a pretty little thing, and your looks have lasted longer than they should have. But the good times are over, Lennie. They’re all over. You people passed the hump some time back and you’re on the road heading down and you’ll be surprised how steep and how fast the grade gets, and how far down that road goes. It goes way down, Lennie. You came along for the ride. You’ve had the ride.”
“Damn you, Jim Stauch!”
“That’s your style. Cuss me. I was just telling you.”
She stood facing him. “All right. Suppose all that is true. Suppose I’m what you think I am. What can I do now?”
“Don’t see as how there’s much you can do.”
“I’ll tell you why you came here. You came from nothing. You come from bare-ass, hookworm cracker stock, Jim, and you’ve always been jealous of people like Dil and me. I’ll remind you of a pass you made at me about twelve years ago. You weren’t as fat then as you are now, but you still didn’t appeal to me a damn bit. Now you have a chance to lean your weight on us and you couldn’t pass up the chance to come out here and watch me squirm. That’s why you came here.”
His expression didn’t change. “You might be right, Lennie. But you see, I didn’t need anybody riding me. I didn’t need spurs. I’ve made it myself.” He picked his hat off the floor and stood up.
She moved closer to him. “Isn’t there any way I can … change your mind?”
He looked at her and half smiled. “Twelve years ago, wasn’t it?”
“I think so, Jim.”
He put his hand on her waist, slid it casually up to her breast, squeezed her breast with thick fingers. The pain made her wince, but she did not move away.
“Sorry, Lennie. I suppose that would be one way to work off four thousand dollars, but I’m so damn busy, I just rightly don’t see how I could get out here to see you two thousand times.”
She swung hard and he blocked the blow with his left arm, grinning openly. When she swung again, he caught her wrist and twisted it, spinning her around. He pushed her away. The screen door slammed behind him as she recovered her balance. She went to the screen. She called through the screen. The obscenities did not make him turn or slow his pace. As his car drove away she started to cry. She stumbled blindly through the house and fell across her bed, making sick, ugly, forlorn sounds. The crying lasted a long time. She felt stained and cheap and old.
When the tears were over she fixed her face. She went out to the kitchen and poured a big glass of milk. She leaned against the sink and drank it slowly, holding the glass in both hands, wiping the milk from her lips between sips with quick pink tongue. From time to time her breath would catch in her throat, the last meager ghosts of tears. She was no longer angry at Jim Stauch. She could understand his reaction. Her anger was directed at Dillon, and at Tomlin. Dillon was responsible for this. There would be time to punish him later. Maybe the house would have to go. But after they could get at the Tomlin money, it wouldn’t matter. The first thing was to get the old man out of the way. During some telephone gossip right after breakfast she had learned that Hedges had spread his story quickly, had even embroidered it in the telling.
At a quarter to three she left the house and drove south down the key to the cabana at South Flamingo Beach. She parked the car in the hidden driveway and let herself into the cabana. She stood well back in the room and looked through the big window toward the deep blue of the Gulf. She arched and flexed her body, pressing the heels of her hands hard against the tops of her thighs. She smiled, and she felt cat-agile, rabbit-soft, mare-ready. Small spheres of heat seemed to rise up through her body and burst near her heart, like the bubbles that rise up through the pastel tubes of a juke box. When the spheres burst, it made her breath shallow and quick.
When she heard him come in she was breathing very quickly, and as she turned she knew that this time they would make the call she had planned quite a bit later. She saw his crooked grin and heard his rusty voice and saw his foolish arrogant strut as he walked toward her, and she moved quickly to meet him, her eyes half closed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Toby Piersall came home alone on his bike from school on Thursday, frowningly intent on his plans for the evening. Wednesday night had been a washout. During the afternoon he had crept close enough to see the big blonde woman sunning herself on the dock. After dark, after dinner, he had managed to get a lot closer to the Mather house. He had moved with great caution. He had found a window where he could see into the lighted kitchen.
He had learned nothing. At least, nothing that would enable him to prove or disprove his hunch about the man who called himself John Wheeler. He had learned that there were two other men staying there. One of them was huge. He had a battered face, but he looked sort of friendly and pleasant. The other one was younger. He certainly didn’t look like a criminal. The way he looked shook Toby’s confidence. If he was on a television play, he would have been the hero.
Toby, from his vantage point, couldn’t hear what was said in the kitchen. At one point he saw the good-looking one stand behind the blonde woman and rub the back of her neck. The blonde woman didn’t seem to like it. When the dark one came out into the kitchen, he looked angry. Toby had wanted to believe, when he saw the two strange men, that they were all crooks, planning something. But the two strange men looked so … ordinary. It was difficult to keep up the fiction. Toby was nearly willing to believe that they were what they seemed to be—people on vacation. He was half tempted to give it up and do his homework and spend the time that was left working on his boat model, the big one with all the parts.
He went into the kitchen as soon as he got home and made himself a thick sandwich and poured a glass of milk. His mother said, “You seem strangely quiet, Tobe. Anything on your mind?”
“Num.”
“Allowing for a quarter pound of sandwich, that must mean no.” She cocked her head on one side and smiled at him.
“Any big plans cooking?”
“No.”
“Any trouble in school?”
“Gosh, Mom, I don’t see why …”
“Okay, okay. Drop the rest of those crumbs out in the grass, please.”
He went out into the yard. He moved over to the edge of their property. The big man was standing on the dock. He moved to where he could see the garage. The car was gone. He knew what he had to do, to get this problem off his mind. He had to see the dark man with his shirt off. The description had talked about the bullet wounds in the back of the man’s left shoulder. That was the only way he could resolve it.
He rinsed the milk glass at the sink and went to his room. He studied the picture and description again, hid the clipping carefully away. He turned on his radio and stretched out on his bed and frowned at the ceiling. One way to solve it would be to give the police an anonymous tip. Harry Mullin is in the Mather house on Huntington Drive. Then hang up. He could call from the sundries store, from the booth there. The police would have to check. Or would they? He couldn’t make his voice sound like a man’s. Suppose they checked and it wasn’t Mullin. Then he wouldn’t look like a fool. Yet, if it was Mullin, how could he prove he had given them the tip? That was the important part. Brother, the school would really be jumping if he was the one who gave the tip and got the reward money.
It would be so darn easy if only the man would go out on the dock and take a sun bath. Then he could use his father’s binoculars and find out with no trouble. If the scars were there, he could ride down to the police station on his bike and show them the clipping and tell them. Then they’d put a cordon around the Mather house and use a loudspeaker and tell Mullin to come out with his hands up. There might be some shooting. They might evacuate the houses on each side. Later, his picture would be in the paper. Toby Piersall, of Huntington Drive, son of Benjamin Piersall, prominent local attorney.
He wondered if he should tell his problem to his father. He would know what to do about it. But it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be the same at all.
Mullin was waiting when Ronnie and Sal got back just before dusk. The Ace heard them come in and he came out too. They sat in the living room.
Ronnie said, “Sally can check me on this. Joe Preston is a punk. He’ll be no trouble. The nigger looks healthy and sturdy enough, but I don’t imagine he’ll make any trouble. The old man is frail. Preston’s wife, Laurie, is probably the only one with guts. We both got inside the gate in the car and I got into the house. It’s isolated enough. Nobody can see into the yard behind the wall unless they stop right in front.”
“How about phone lines?”
“The line comes from the front, from a post out by the curb. It comes in over the wall. We can go in with a rock tied to the end of the rope. Heave it over the phone line and pull it down right away before we go into the house.”
“Where’s the box?” Ace asked.
“I didn’t exactly get around to asking where it was. But a good guess would be the sort of study-library thing just to the left off the front entrance hallway. The old boy was in there reading. It will either be there or in his bedroom. I’ll say it’s probably the study. I don’t want to put the hex on, Harry, but it looks easy.”
“Then we can make it for tomorrow. Friday. Hit it about five or five-thirty,” Mullin said. “Suit everybody?”
Ace shrugged. Ronnie nodded. The woman played with a bangle bracelet.
“We leave the car out at the curb. Sal will stay in the car and—”
“Harry,” Ronnie said, “I think we can take the car inside. It will attract less attention. Blow the horn and the man will come and open the gate. He’ll recognize it as the car that brought Joe Preston home today.”
“Then they’ll be able to give a description of you and Sally.”
“They’d probably spot the car anyway and it would be the same thing. I think we can skip the masks, Harry. Move fast and shut them up so they can’t get out, and be long gone.”
“If you want to risk that, okay,” Mullin said. “The Ace and I will wear the masks.”
“Then how about the car?”
“We’ll take it inside. While we’re in the house Sal will turn it around and have it heading out. We’ll empty clothes out of two suitcases and take them in empty. Round up the four of them in the study. From there we can play it by ear. We ought to have plenty of time.”
“One man could almost handle it,” Ronnie said meaningfully. “Two is plenty.”
“Then why don’t you go home, kid?” the Ace asked.
“Cut it!” Mullin said sharply. “Sal, go get some food started. We stay holed up here until we take off for the house tomorrow. Ace, we’ll go over that map right now. Go get a bottle and glasses and ice, Ronnie.”
“Yes sir!” Ronnie said. He followed the woman into the kitchen, patting the rear of her tight skirt as the door swung shut behind them.
“Stop it!” she whispered, turning away from him.
“You’re a dandy bowler, sis.”
“I like to bowl.”
“Come here a minute, sis.”
She backed away from him. He laughed at her and got the cube trays out and levered ice into a plastic bowl. He fixed her a stiff drink and gave it to her, and took the equipment back into the living room. Mullin and the Ace were huddled over the map. He looked at Ace’s thick neck, at the small roll of fat, brick-burned by the beach sun, at the crinkled tonsure of ginger hair around the bald spot.
He looked at the Ace’s neck and remembered the time in Brownsville. Rocco had fled to Mexico City and he was reasonably safe there, but he liked to return to stateside. It had taken a full month to take him. Ronnie had purchased the bench-rest twenty-two single-shot rifle in Houston. It had a special ten-power scope. He had broken it down and packed it in an outsize trombone case and taken the bus back to Brownsville. It had taken some time to get the right hotel room, a room on the eighth floor overlooking the walled court of a patio restaurant diagonally up the street. On the eighth night, two days later than the tipster in Mexico City had indicated, Rocco and party ate at the patio restaurant. They had come across the bridge in the blue and silver Cadillac. Ronnie sat on a straight chair in the dark room. Rocco had taken a convenient table. Three men and two dark lively Mexican beauties.
He remembered how it was in the dark room, rifle resting on the sill, watching the party through the powerful scope. It brought them vividly close, candles on the tables flickering inside the glass globes, the red lips and white teeth of the girls, Rocco leaning back when a great laugh split his dark tough face. Ronnie could have done it any time, but he waited. It would be awkward to shoot Rocco as he sat. The direction of the slug could be too easily traced. He watched the second round of coffee. Rocco began to look restless. He kept looking at his watch. As he made motions to get up, Ronnie cuddled the heavy rifle more closely. He allowed for the downward angle of the bullet. Rocco pushed his chair back and got to his feet. The cross-hairs were on his throat. As he started to turn, Ronnie touched the trigger. The spat of the rifle was lost in the traffic sounds. Rocco turned further, took a half step, caught himself and fell on the flagstones. Ronnie watched through the scope and saw a dark girl’s mouth open wide in an unheard scream. People clustered around the fallen man. Ronnie dismantled the rifle and stowed it in the case. An hour later he went down on the street. He heard that a man had been shot through the head and killed. He slept well and checked out the next morning.
Looking at the Ace, he thought of the scene through the scope. He felt as if he were looking through a scope sight at the nape of the Ace’s neck. Tonight would be as good a time as any. It would be some time before the house was investigated. Days.
Mullin felt as though he walked on thin places. When he walked across the room he had the curious feeling that the rug was unsupported, that it would sag under his weight and drop him into darkness. He seemed to feel a trembling under his feet. Everything around him had an odd fragility. The
world did not seem to have the substance or purpose he remembered. It had been this way since he had escaped. He found himself touching things to test their hardness and reality. He felt at all times as if, directly behind him, there might come without warning a hideous, ear-cracking scream, a great yowl that would collapse everything around him, the way he had heard that a violin can shatter a wine glass.
This unexpected aspect of the world he had regained was something he tried hard to conceal. It made him unsure of himself and his own reactions. In concealment he moved slowly and his face showed nothing. The people around him shared the insubstantiality of material things. The Ace, Ronnie and the woman—they seemed for a little time out of each hour to be clever character actors, laughing mutely at him as they planned to trap him. He moved slowly on a stage. The world fell away off to one side of him, always out of sight. But there was no audience out there. There was blackness. The stage he moved on was garish. All colors were too vivid. And fragile—with nothing behind the walls until stage hands placed other rooms there. And the stage trembled constantly.
He felt an unreality in himself. As though he had ceased to be Harry Mullin, had become a creature quite different. For a time he had been able to return to his own skin when he made love to the woman, becoming complete for a little while, finding substance and reality in a known act performed upon gasping acquiescence. But of late this too had become unreal to him, her buttery flesh an illusion, his own avidity a careless imitation.
And always, directly behind him, was the threat of the scream.
There was one way he could escape from this world that had become alarming. That was the reality of the money. He knew that when he had the money, when he could hold it, count it, plan how to spend it, he would once again be Harry Mullin, a man who could laugh, a man who was confident, a man who knew his place. Until then he was unfocused, a double image upon his own retina. It could not go wrong. It could not be permitted to go wrong.
At the evening meal he knew that the hours would be interminable until they would be able to leave the next afternoon. After the woman had cleaned up, she sat in the kitchen and listened to a small plastic radio, snapping her fingers softly when the music had a pronounced beat. The Ace and Ronnie played gin rummy morosely. Mullin paced the house. He went in the bedroom to get a fresh package of cigarettes. As he turned to leave he saw a whisper of motion at the dark screened window. He did not turn back. He walked casually out of the room. He hurried to the living room and said, “Somebody looking in my bedroom window. Go out the front and around, Ace. I’ll take the back.”
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