A Man's Game

by Newton Thornburg

  Slade could just picture the cocksucker sitting around that big old dump of his, planning the gig. And it made him grin, because he knew that whatever the plan was, old Jacko was in for the surprise of his life—that much Slade could guarantee. He would have to play it by ear of course, depending on how the thing developed. But there was one particular ending that was gradually coming clearer in his mind. In it, he could see Satin regaining consciousness in her little red sportscar, remembering nothing but being hit from behind, and slowly beginning to realize that she was in a bad way—naked, battered, raped—and covered with blood that was not her own. Then, like being goosed with an electric cattle prod, she would discover Mr. Jack Baird slumped next to her in the front seat, his pants down around his ankles—and a knife stuck in his chest. A knife, as it would turn out, with her fingerprints all over it.

  He knew the idea was a bit too neat, too cute. In real life, things didn’t always work out the way you planned them. Yet there was really nothing complicated about the plan. It was just a matter of waiting to see if things fell into place, then making his move. He had always been good at that.

  In any case, old Jacko was soon going to find out that he was in over his head. This was not some wimpy, white, middle-class game he was playing. It was not golf or tennis or tiddledywinks or whatever the hell the smug bastard normally played. No, this game was different. This game was for keeps. This game was for all the marbles. This was a man’s game.

  The rest of that weekend Baird spent a good deal of time lying out on the deck alone, at war with himself. One moment he would feel that he had it all together, knew exactly what he had to do and was convinced that he could make it work, that it would all come out right in the end, with Slade in jail and the rest of them—himself, Kathy, Satin—all still in one piece, unhurt, safe, free. Then, as if he were an upended hourglass, it would start draining out of him, all his confidence and determination, and he would see himself winding up in jail, or worse. He would see himself dead. After a time, though, he would hear again the sound of Kathy screaming and again would feel himself shaking like an alder leaf in a gale. And the hourglass would turn.

  When Monday finally came, he continued to think about it all so steadily—worry about it so much—that he imagined everybody thought he was sick. He tried to concentrate on any number of other things, but never quite managed it. He was like a man overboard in the middle of the ocean, trying hard to think about everything except water.

  In the early afternoon it occurred to him that he hadn’t fired the .25 automatic since the day after he’d bought it from Chambers, three years earlier. Here he was, relying on it for protection against Slade, and he didn’t even know if the gun would jam or if the bullets were still good. Also, he had forgotten to take his suede jacket with him when he left the house that morning. So instead of stopping for lunch, he bought a frozen, dressed turkey in a supermarket and drove home with it, knowing that Ellen and Kathy would be at work.

  Down in the basement, he carried the turkey into the old coal bin, now a storage room. He set the plastic-wrapped turkey on a box and took the gun out of his briefcase. As he recalled, there were seven bullets in the clip, one of which he now pumped into the chamber. Stepping back, he aimed at the bird and fired twice. The plump white corpse trembled slightly but took the slugs neatly, in two small, dark holes.

  Satisfied, Baird put the bird back in the paper sack and took it, the gun, and his briefcase upstairs. At the gun cabinet, he got two more .25-caliber bullets out of the single small box he kept there in a drawer. He inserted the bullets in the gun clip, slipped the clip back into the handle, put the safety on, and returned the gun to his briefcase. Then he got his suede jacket out of the hall closet and carried it, along with his briefcase and the bird, out to the car. On his way back to his route, he detoured down an alley and tossed the turkey into a dumpster.

  Later, after he had dropped off his orders at the warehouse, he stopped at Leo’s to fortify himself for the ordeal ahead. Sally, apparently bored, came after him as soon as he sat down.

  “I sure love those old styles,” she said, referring to his suede jacket. “It takes a man with real self-confidence to wear them.”

  “The pockets are leather,” Baird said.

  “So?”

  “So you can carry more. For instance, if I were to render that certain intimate service you crave, and you paid me off in Krugerrands, the pocket could hold them all without breaking through.”

  Sally laughed. “Krugerrands! Dream on, Jackson.”

  “I’ll have a double,” he said.

  Leo, wiping down the bar, came toward them. “Jesus, doubles now, huh? I might get rich yet.”

  “Not on me, you won’t. This is just an aberration.”

  “Too bad.” Leo made the drink and served it. “Hey, Jack, whatever happened with that guy who was hassling your daughter?” he asked.

  “No problem,” Baird said. “I shot him.”

  The big man laughed. “See? You didn’t need me after all.”

  Ten

  After leaving Leo’s, Baird stopped at one other bar on the way to the Oolala. In addition to another double vodka-tonic, he ordered a ham-on-rye sandwich, more to slow the effects of the alcohol than because he was hungry. Earlier in the day he had loaded up on half-pints of rum and vodka, just as Slade had instructed Friday night when Baird was leaving the man’s motel-room apartment.

  “Booze and cash,” Slade had said. “You forget either of ’em, the deal’s off.”

  Driving on now, Baird felt cold sober compared to his condition the last time he had visited the Oolala. Normally, three doubles would have been his limit, but on this night they served only to keep him from jumping out of his skin. He drove with the windows down, for it was still typical late-August weather, clear and dry, with the nighttime temperature in the sixties. The road, Bothell Way, was jammed with beer-high kids cruising in convertibles and pickups and lowriders, tossing empty cans and loaded insults as they jockeyed with each other. When Baird finally reached the parking lot of the Oolala, he was relieved to see that Slade’s car was not yet there. And this troubled him, shamed him, to realize how strongly he hoped Slade would never show up, even if it meant the threat to Kathy would go on as before.

  A half hour passed before old Jimbo finally pulled into the lot, his car belching blue smoke. Baird checked the gun in his pocket, making sure the pocket flap was in place. Then he got the bag of half-pints and walked over to the Impala. Slade was still inside, patting his ponytail into place. As he got out, Baird saw that the man wasn’t wearing one of his two vests for a change, but a long-sleeved black-vinyl jacket with chrome studs and pins and silver piping, the kind of jacket an impoverished Elvis might have worn. Predictably, he had left it unzipped, the better to display his hairy chest and rippling stomach.

  “New threads,” he said. “What d’ya think?”

  “Real cool.”

  “You know it, man.”

  “The kind of thing Satin won’t recall.”

  “It ain’t me she’s gonna see, remember?”

  “Ah yes, this friend of yours. You give him the hundred?”

  “Of course. You got the extra three?”

  Baird nodded. “Yeah. But where is he?”

  “He’ll meet us inside. If he comes, remember?” Slade reached for the bag. “Well, let’s see what Santa brought us.” He picked out two bottles, pocketing a half-pint of rum and handing a vodka to Baird. Then he placed the bag behind the driver’s seat of his car and locked the door, despite the cardboard windows in the back.

  Inside the Oolala, Baird again paid the cover charge for both of them. This time Slade chose a couch in the far corner of the room, apparently feeling a need for greater privacy. “There won’t be no Satin tonight,” he said. “Not dancing for us anyway.”

  “Gonna play it cautious, huh?”

  “No, I just ain’t gonna play it dumb.”

  “You scared?”

  “Wh
at the fuck’s there to be scared about? We ain’t knocking over a bank, you know. We just gonna be a coupla spectators, that’s all. We just gonna tag along. And most likely, all we gonna see is a girl sayin yes and puttin out nice and peaceful. This guy, the cunts really go for him.”

  “He sounds like a real winner.”

  Slade looked at Baird. “Hey, what’s with you anyway? Why so fuckin sarcastic tonight? You backin out?”

  “I’m against doing it, that’s all. I don’t want to see the girl hurt.”

  “So you told me.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Fuck no. Unless I miss my guess, once my buddy’s finished, you gonna dive right in there for seconds. You gonna have the fuckin time of your life.”

  “You think so, huh?”

  “I know so.”

  Looking around the strip club, Baird could almost have believed that he and Slade had never left the place nearly ten days before. Everything seemed exactly the same. In the dimness, the patrons looked no different, just as the dancers and the music and the lightshow had not changed. The girl who took their order for soft drinks was one of those who had waited on them the last time, a redhead with creamy white skin and rigid silicone breasts. Evidently remembering the two men, she asked if they wanted Satin again, and Slade jumped all over her.

  “If we wanted Satin, we would’ve fuckin asked,” he told her.

  She smiled anyway. “Then I’m your girl. I’ll put it right in your face.”

  “You ain’t nobody’s girl,” he told her. “You’re too fuckin ugly.”

  She gave him the finger and sauntered off, unexcited, evidently used to dealing with creeps.

  “You sure told her,” Baird said.

  Slade shrugged. “Fuck her.”

  In time, Slade did agree to have one of the girls dance for them, a light-skinned negress who reminded Baird vaguely of Lee Jeffers, a younger version, sinewy as a miler, with a beautiful mouth and eyes full of contempt. As before, Baird found it difficult to sit and watch a nude woman dancing so close to him. Three different times he saw Satin dancing, once on the stage and the other times for men sitting alone, one at a table and another in an easy chair across the room. And at a distance, Baird had no problem watching her, in fact could barely take his eyes off the girl, with her beautiful face, and body, and the way she moved to the music, in rhythms that seemed to come from inside Baird himself, imperatives he did not even know he had.

  Now and then his mind would cough up shreds of his drunken dreams of two nights before, lights from the glitter-dome crawling like glowworms over ivory skin, and he would drink again, would shakily pour more vodka into his soft drink. And he would wonder what on earth had happened to his life. How was it that he came to be here, committed to this mad enterprise?

  Oddly, Slade did not seem any more enthusiastic about things than Baird was. As the evening wore on, he grew steadily more sullen and testy. He popped a couple of pills. He went to the bathroom every twenty minutes or so. And he was drinking much more than Baird. Little more than an hour had passed before he went out to his car to get another half-pint of rum. Even though the bouncers were obviously keeping an eye on him, he took no pains to conceal that he was spiking his drinks. It was almost as if he wanted to be kicked out of the place. And there seemed to be nothing that pleased him, least of all their intended victim. Watching Satin dance, he sneered and shook his head.

  “Look at that cunt,” he said to Baird. “She thinks she’s such hot stuff. But when you come down to it, she’s just another cunt, good for nothin but layin down and spreadin ’em. You think she’s so special cuz she looks like your kid, but I got news for ya—they’re both cunts.”

  Baird broke into a sweat. Sitting there on the couch, he felt almost too close to turn and look at Slade. And anyway, he knew what he would have seen: the sneer and the cold, pale eyes. How great it would have felt to loop his fist into the center of all that ugliness, smash it like a melon. Instead, he unbunched his fists and breathed deeply, telling himself to save his rage, use it later, use it when it would count.

  Slade drained his glass and reached for Baird’s wrist, checking his watch.

  “Christ, not even midnight yet,” he groused.

  “Yeah, and where’s your friend?”

  “I told ya he might not come. But there’s another place—he could be there.”

  “Where?”

  Slade didn’t answer. “Come on, I’m outa here,” he said.

  Baird obediently got up and followed him out to the parking lot. There, the cool, unsmoky air hit his lungs like an irritant, making him cough. Slade tossed his empty half-pint over a row of parked cars, and it shattered against something solid.

  “Fuckin strip clubs!” Slade bawled. “It’s all tickle and tease. If this country was honest like in Thailand and them places, the cunts would just come over and unzip your fly and suck you off. Be a lot less fuckin crime then.”

  Crime. Baird didn’t, know what to say. He had never heard Slade mention the word before, had doubted that the man even knew what it was. At the moment, though, old Jimbo was heading for Baird’s car.

  “No, not mine,” Baird said. “This is your show. If a witness describes a car, it’s got to be yours, not mine.”

  “I thought we was in this together.”

  “Like I said—I’ll go along, but I won’t participate. If it was up to me, nothing would happen. No one would get hurt.”

  Actually, Baird knew that it would not have mattered even if they took his car, since he planned to call the police in on them at the end. But he was afraid that if he agreed to use the Buick, Slade might have become suspicious, knowing it was a stupid thing for Baird to do.

  Walking toward his car now, Slade shook his head in disgust. “Some buddy you are,” he said. “Fuckin creep is more like it.”

  Baird almost laughed out loud, knowing that old Jimbo’s charge was not without merit. Things had come full circle. He was now the creep’s creep.

  Slade drove them to a small, quiet beer tavern located a block from the lake. The half-dozen patrons, like the bartender, all looked older than Baird, working stiffs content to drink their beer in silence as they sat watching a fight rerun on television. Slade led the way to the last booth in the room, where he could continue to hit his half-pints out of sight. He ordered a pitcher of beer and made steady inroads into that too. And in time he fished a small vial out of his pocket, then produced his switchblade and flicked it open. Dipping the point into the vial, he brought up a tiny mound of white powder, which he then snorted up his nose.

  “I’d offer you some,” he told Baird, “but you don’t need it. You don’t need nothin to be a sicko voyeur.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  They had been in the bar about a half hour when Slade finally made the announcement.

  “I don’t think my friend’s comin. I’m afraid you lost your hunnerd bucks.”

  “Big surprise,” Baird said.

  “What d’ya mean by that?”

  “I never expected him to show.”

  Jimbo looked more puzzled than angry. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because I figured you and him were one and the same.”

  “You mean I made him up?”

  “That’s what I mean, all right.”

  “And why the fuck would I do that?”

  “Because you’re the one who wants to do Satin. Only you want me to pay you to do it.”

  Slade did not respond for a time. He sat there frowning and glaring at Baird, then took a long pull on another half-pint of rum, recapped it, and put it away. Finally he grinned, sneered.

  “You’re full of shit, you know that, Jacko? But I gotta admit—it is an idea. I could use the cash. I really could. Only I wouldn’t be ‘doing’ her—I’d just pick her up and con her into it, that’s all.”

  “Because the cunts really go for you, right?” Baird said.

  And for a moment he had no idea what Slade would do n
ext. At first the man looked merely confused. Then Baird could see the anger building in him. In the flat of his cheek a muscle began to pulse like a tiny heart.

  “You tryin to piss me off, Jacko?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re doing it anyway. And I’ve had just about enough bullshit outa you.”

  Baird shrugged. “I’m sorry. The thing is, I just don’t know where I stand. Are you going ahead with Satin, or do I pick up my marbles and go home?”

  “I thought you didn’t want the thing to happen. And above all, I thought you didn’t want to pay to have it happen.”

  “I don’t. It’s entirely up to you. If you’re going ahead with it anyway, then I’ll pay to be there. To watch it. But I don’t want her hurt. I don’t want anyone hurt.”

  Slade shook his head. “Jesus, you’re makin me dizzy, you know that? I can’t follow you.” He reached across the table. “Gimme the money, and we’ll see what happens.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  Slade groaned. “All right, then—yeah, I’m gonna do her, with you or without you, I don’t care which.” His fingers beckoned for the money. “So pony up. Or take off. One or the other.”

  Still Baird held back. “Just so we understand each other. I’m not paying you to do this thing. If I don’t pay, you go ahead anyway.”

  Slade still had his hand out. “Yeah, yeah—what’d I just say?”

  “All right, then.”

  Baird got out the money and gave it to him, and Slade settled back in the booth. Neither of them said anything for a time, and Baird was surprised at how rapidly his drinking partner’s mood began to change. Once Slade admitted to his mission—to what he had intended all along—Baird had expected to see more of the cockiness and drunken fervency so in evidence on the drive home the previous week. But instead Slade was becoming increasingly sullen and somber, more like a condemned man than a man about to condemn someone else, sentence her to life in the harshest of prisons. It was almost as if he had been unfairly chosen for the task at hand and deeply resented it. And finally he explained. As if he were confiding secrets of state, he leaned across the table and spoke in an urgent whisper.