A Man's Game

by Newton Thornburg

  A Man’s Game

  Newton Thornburg

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1996 by Newton Thornburg

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition April 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-748-7

  Also by Newton Thornburg

  To Die in California

  Dreamland

  Cutter and Bone

  Eve’s Men

  Valhalla

  The Lion at the Door

  Beautiful Kate

  Black Angus

  To Janet

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  More from Newton Thornburg

  One

  He stood at the front end of the bar, looking out over the cavernous room with boredom and contempt. His straight, brownish hair was pulled back into a ponytail held by a silver clasp that matched the ring in his left ear, and he had silver-and-turquoise Indian jewelry around his neck and wrists and fingers. He wore old jeans and cheap snakeskin boots and a matching vinyl snakeskin vest with nothing underneath except his lean, muscular torso. Even then he did not stand out in the college-age crowd, any more than did the deafening young grunge band performing on a low stage at the rear of the room. Ragged and emaciated, they looked almost tame compared to those they were playing to, who had bright green hair and purple hair and dreadlocks and shaved heads and wore junk rags and see-through pajamas and black dominatrix lingerie over white longjohns. Some of the crowd were dancing, but most stood around in the dimness drinking beer or wine and studying each other in the eerie lambency of a lightshow.

  The man, who appeared to be in his mid twenties, lifted a bottle of Mexican beer to his thin lips and chugged it. When he lowered the bottle, his attention focused on a very pretty young woman standing with friends on the other side of the room, beyond the dancers. College kids, he thought with contempt. Yet he could not take his eyes off the girl, who was small-boned and curvaceous, just the way he liked them. He watched her for a while longer, then started toward her, picking his way through the crowd. As he drew closer, his upper lip lifted in a kind of smile, a smile oddly like a sneer.

  “Hey, purty lady,” he said, “you wanna dance?”

  Startled, she looked at him for a moment, then mumbled “No thanks” and turned to the girl closest to her, reaching for her. And they practically collapsed in each other’s arms, sputtering for a few seconds, then letting go and laughing out loud, laughing at him. Moving on, he heard the girl’s voice again, addressing not him so much as the world in general.

  “Give me a break, okay? Just a break—that’s all I ask.”

  The man made his way to the front door then, still smiling his odd smile, pretending nothing much had happened. But his body had become slick with sweat and he could feel himself trembling with the effort to control his rage. Outside, he pushed through a couple of teenage boys, who started squalling until they caught his look, and then they skulked away.

  He walked down the block and got in his car, a seventies’ Chevy Impala, not in the best of shape. But it started right off for a change and he drove closer to the rock tavern, parking finally in a loading zone so he could watch the entrance more carefully. He got a pint of rum from under the seat and took a deep pull on it, washing down half a meth in the process. He wished he could have taken them all on one at a time, the boys the same as the girls. College kids—he should have known better. Christ, how he hated them. Someday, when he got control of the whole local market—acid, grass, all of it—then they’d change their tune, the bastards. He’d have a penthouse looking out over the whole fucking Sound, and they’d be pounding on his door then, begging to be let in. He could just see himself sitting out on the deck in one of those lounge chairs, looking off into space, indifferent, while some college bitch worked on his joint.

  Right now, though, all he wanted was to see the girl come out alone and leave by herself. Or even both girls, if it came to that, because he didn’t doubt for a second that he could handle the two of them at the same time. Shit, all it would mean is that he would have twice the fun, giving them each a lesson in manners, like who it just didn’t pay to laugh at.

  But they came out in a group finally, three girls and two boys, one of the boys a football type, bigger than the man. Disappointed, he smashed his fist into the dashboard and the thing cracked open, the hard old plastic splitting like the shell of a turtle in a vise: a childhood memory. In a rage now, he started the car and took off, burning rubber and scattering the stinking college kids.

  The rock joint was located practically in the shadow of the Space Needle, an area much too crowded for what he had in mind. So he drove east past the freeway and went up onto Capitol Hill, for once not to pick up some pitiful fag but just to cruise the neighborhood surrounding the park: dark, leafy streets with old mansions set back amid the great trees, dimly lit and solid, fortresses people like him could breach only with a jimmy and a flashlight. But that was not his interest this night as he rumbled slowly up and down the quiet streets, nursing his rage. There were a few couples out late and some solitary males, fags looking to score, he figured. But it wasn’t until he drove alongside the park and turned at the yellow-brick mansion that he saw what he was looking for: a midnight jogger, a young woman running with a dog on a leash.

  The man grinned ruefully, figuring the bitch had to be a yuppie, a college girl, to be so stupid, so reckless, running these streets at night, thinking some fucking mutt would save her. Already his heart had begun to hammer at him and the sweat came again, prickling his skin in the cool night air. He drove on for two blocks and turned at an unlit corner, parking a few hundred feet down the side street. He put on a pair of gloves, workman’s leather gloves with the smooth side in. Then he got a tire iron from under the seat and slipped out of the car, moving quickly back to the corner. The house there was a ramshackle gingerbread type set back in a lot overgrown with bushes, some as tall as trees. So he had no trouble concealing himself as the girl came toward him, her tennis shoes slapping steadily louder on the sidewalk.

  He hit her first, lunging out of the bushes and throwing a forearm into her face. As she fell, the dog—a boxer—jumped straight up into the air and yelped even before the man caught it with the iron, right on its snotty head, hard enough to make the stupid thing flail along the sidewalk for a dozen feet, as if it were trying to run on ice. Then it found its legs and scampered off, yipping in terror.

  The man hurriedly dragged the young woman back into the bushes, then lifted her and carried her closer to the unlit house, where the brush was even thicker, making for better cover. But by then he didn’t care if he was seen or not as the rage came founting out of him like arterial blood. With his half-gloved fists, he punched the girl twice in the face as har
d as he could. He pulled her sweats and panties down and pushed her sweater and bra up around her neck. Yet even as he lowered his own pants, he knew he was not going to make it, knew that he was losing it, that he would not be able to penetrate her. In a fury, he began to hit her again, in the face as well as the body. Then he rolled her onto her stomach and tried once more, grinding desperately against her buttocks. But it was no use.

  Desolate now, crying, he lay across her limp form and masturbated on her. And afterward he stayed there for a time, holding onto her, even kissing her, as if she were a lover.

  Finally he pulled off her sweatshirt and wiped her carefully, trying not to leave any cum on her. He belted his pants and picked up the tire iron and for a few moments stood there in the shadows looking down at the girl, wondering whether to waste her. College kids. Christ, how he hated them.

  Despite the troubles in his marriage, Jack Baird was feeling reasonably happy. For one thing, he’d just had a very good day, calling on only nine of his accounts, yet billing over seven thousand dollars, which meant a commission of at least four hundred for him. His new Buick was purring along just fine, and then there was the day itself, clear and warm after a spring of seemingly endless rain. The city looked burnished in the bright sunshine.

  To his left was the long green sweep of Volunteer Park and the cemetery; on the other side, a row of handsome old Victorian houses giving way to a couple of new condo buildings, after which came Baird’s own street, angling off Fifteenth Avenue and heading straight for his house before cutting back to the avenue. Even when Ellen was on her high horse, Baird still enjoyed coming home and seeing the big old house dead ahead. It was a blocky red-brick affair with a dazzling view to the east of Lake Washington and the Cascades. As far as he was concerned, though, its best feature was that he had stolen it fifteen years earlier for sixty thousand dollars, about a tenth of its present market value. As such, the house represented almost his entire net worth.

  But it was as he pulled in and drove around to the garage that he came upon the real treasure in his life: his daughter Kathy, who was eighteen. At his arrival, she had come out onto the back porch, and now she came down the stairs as gravely as a funeral director, though she certainly didn’t look the part in her denim shorts and a sleeveless blouse knotted under her breasts.

  Groaning as if he’d spent the day in a coal mine, Baird got out of the car. “And what have I done to deserve all this?” he asked. “You gonna hit me up for a loan?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. “Just kidding, baby. Whatever reason for the welcoming committee, I’ll take it.”

  She made a face, a kind of pout. “The creep followed me home again.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were. He got on the bus downtown and got off with me at the park. Then he walks me home. I try to run, he runs. I can’t shake him. And all the while he keeps talking his special brand of filth.”

  Baird felt a surge of anger. “Goddamn—that settles it. Tomorrow I’m gonna find out who he is, and then we’ll go to the police, let them handle it.”

  “Really? You think they’d bother with something like this?”

  “Of course. Why not?” He patted her bottom with his briefcase. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  Going ahead of him through the back door, she turned and smiled, and Baird had no trouble understanding the creep’s taste in women, for his daughter was hauntingly beautiful, though in a style not altogether modern, in that she looked sweet and shy rather than tough and assertive.

  Ellen, working at the kitchen sink, glanced over at the two of them as they came in.

  “Daddy’s going to find out who he is,” Kathy said. “Then we’ll go to the police with it.”

  Ellen went on rinsing a bowl of lettuce as if she’d found it in a neighbor’s garbage. “The police?” she said. “Aren’t we overreacting just a bit?”

  “How can you say that?” Baird went over and kissed her on the cheek, then turned back to Kathy. “What is this, honey—the fourth or fifth time he’s done it, right?”

  Kathy nodded. “Five times. In two weeks.”

  “Right. I’d say that’s enough harassment for now.”

  Ellen placed the salad bowl on the butcher-block table and began snipping and slicing vegetables into it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I admit he looks creepy. But for heaven’s sake, he hasn’t even tried anything yet. He hasn’t even touched her. All he does is talk. He’s probably just some poor jerk with a crush.”

  Kathy gave Baird a baffled look. He made a face and shook his head, indicating for her not to let it bother her. She knew her mother. They both knew her mother.

  “What do you suggest we do then?” Baird asked.

  Ellen shrugged. “Drive her to and from work for a while. Make her inaccessible.”

  “If I have to hide from somebody, I’d just as soon know who the devil he is,” Kathy said.

  Her mother looked at her, giving special attention to her skimpy attire. “You know, if you didn’t get yourself up the way you do, maybe this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.”

  “Oh, Mother—for God’s sake!” The girl dismissed her with a wave of the hand and left the kitchen, crossing the dining room and heading upstairs.

  Baird shook his head. “That was just great, Ellen. Nothing like backing up your kids.”

  “She is not a kid. She’s a grown woman.”

  “The hell she is. She’s our little girl, and there’s this maniac out there making her life miserable.”

  “Why maniac? How do we know that? Because he’s got a ponytail?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve heard the things he says to her.”

  “Have I?”

  Baird was shocked. “Jesus Christ, you don’t believe your own daughter?”

  “It just sounds so weird, that’s all.”

  “That, Ellen, is the fucking point.”

  She picked up a large zucchini and began to pare it into the salad. “All right. Okay. You find out who he is and we’ll go to the police. I’m just saying that there are all kinds of jerks out there hitting on women all the time. And I wish she’d be more of a woman and not such a wimp. Sometimes you just have to tell men to fuck off, that’s all.”

  Baird wearily dropped his briefcase onto the table and went over to her again. He took the knife out of her hand and put it beside the salad bowl. He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently backed her against the counter.

  “This is our daughter we’re talking about,” he said. “And with her, we don’t play it casual. We don’t take chances.”

  She did not blink. “Why not just call the police?”

  “Because I don’t want some cop jerking me around on the phone. First, I find out who this guy is, then we go to the station and lay it out for them face to face—make them do something about it.”

  She lifted his hands off her shoulders and moved away, still intent on getting dinner without interruption. “Whatever,” she said.

  Upstairs, Baird knocked on Kathy’s door even though it was slightly ajar. As usual, an opera was playing softly on her stereo, one of the romantic arias she loved so much more than her father did. For that matter, her bedroom was not much to Baird’s taste either, since it was without question the most relentlessly feminine room he’d ever seen, all pink and white, with gossamer curtains and mounds of silky pillows and teddy bears and huge stuffed bunnies and kitties, as well as a white four-poster bed trimmed in rose sateen and needlepoint. Also painted white was her drafting table, where she endlessly drew beautiful young models wearing clothing of her own design.

  Kathy and her mother had fought over the bedroom for years, Ellen insisting that they toss out “all this baby-girl shit” and make it into a proper room for a college student, one that other students could visit without Kathy becoming a laughing stock. But the girl had checkmated her—by dropping out of school, by never having guests.

  No
w Baird found her lying facedown across the bed. He sat next to her.

  “Why is she so hateful to me?” she asked.

  “That was a bit much, I agree. This creep is scaring you to death and she can’t seem to get over the fact that you’re not going to be a lawyer someday.”

  Kathy smiled wryly. “You know what? There’s a bunch of new law-school brochures downstairs. But they’re not for me—they’re for her.”

  Baird had seen them. “Yeah, I know.”

  “She’d be fifty by the time she got out of law school.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Baird was the same age as his wife.

  Kathy punched him lightly on the arm. “Oh, come on, you’re not old. You could pass for sixty-five easy.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  She laughed. “No, really. When you pick me up at work, the other girls all start primping. ‘That’s your father?’ they say.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “Well, they do.”

  “Anyway, we’ve got more pressing things to talk about. If we do end up going to the police, I want you to tell them everything he’s said. Everything he’s done. You’ll probably have to sign a complaint. What we want is to get a restraining order against him.”

  Kathy rolled over and sat up. She looked frightened. “Do I have to do that?” she asked. “I mean, tell them what he’s said. All that filth.”

  “I’m afraid so, baby.”

  “God, he’s so weird. So sickening.”

  “What’d he say today?”

  She sighed. “Oh, just more junk. He was running on about my body, you know? My looks. Judging every part, like I was a show dog or something. You know the thing he likes best?”

  Baird was embarrassed. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “My eyes,” she went on. “He likes the look of fear in them. Like a horse in a fire, he said. That’s the look he wants. Like a horse in a fire.”