A Diet of Treacle

by Lawrence Block

  Then, smiling, Shank replaced the receiver and quit the apartment. He hoped the phone call to the coast would come as a great surprise to the people who would be billed for it.

  He caught the elevator again, rode it to the first floor, ambled out into the night and hunted for a bar where he ordered a glass of draft beer and drank it down. He walked all the way home, looking around for anybody he might know. He saw a few people but nobody he wanted to talk to. So he wound up going straight back to the apartment on Saint Marks Place. But he felt too alert to sleep. He checked the cache of heroin, of which fourteen capsules remained. He checked the marijuana. He had sold Judy Obershain an ounce and had taken one hundred dollars for it, which meant he had two ounces of marijuana left and fourteen caps of horse and was already ahead by more than fifty dollars. A profitable day, he congratulated himself.

  His mind returned to Anita.

  Something was going to happen, Shank decided. There was more than enough for Joe there. The girl was appealing, and scared, and Shank was going to help himself to a little. Just a little. Not right away, but fairly soon. When he was ready he would simply take what he wanted. If she would not want to give it to him that would be just too damn bad. He would take it anyway. He undressed and stretched out on his bed. In his mind he concocted pleasant fantasies involving Anita. In one, her ankles were tied together, and her hands bound behind her back. She was shrieking in agony. He went to sleep and dreamed of pain.

  8

  They sat on a bench in Washington Square. Looking at her through the smoke from his cigarette, Joe was amazed at the change time had worked in the girl beside him. Before, Anita had worn a little lipstick; now she dispensed with it altogether and made up for it by wearing too much eye-shadow. Tight and faded dungarees encased belly and hips and legs. A loose black sweater covered her arms and chest. Her hair fell free, loose.

  But the outer trappings were the least of the change. Any girl could replace lipstick with eye-shadow, could switch from skirt and sweater to dungarees and sweater, could unpin her hair and let her mouth go slack and her eyes droopy. Such could be accomplished overnight, and frequently was—generally by freshman girls from Brooklyn College making the perfunctory pilgrimage to Greenwich Village before they went home to marry dentists. Exchange students from Kew Gardens, Lee Revzin called them. Kiddie-beats.

  Anita was different. More important than the outer wrapper was the girl inside. And there had been a change in that girl of direction, of attitude and mind. The words of Hip colored her speech now and sounded right coming from her mouth. The exchange students from Kew Gardens, when they used those words, made them sound like English from the lips of a Sudanese. She walked Hip and thought Hip and spoke Hip. Harlem and Long Island had drained away from her and the beat mystique had quickly replaced them. She accompanied Joe when he wanted her company; other times she remained at the apartment or wandered around the Village and the East Side by herself. She smoked marijuana with Joe, and had tried both codeine cough syrup and mescalin, neither of which had made much of an impression upon her. The cough syrup had merely drugged her for a while until she had unceremoniously thrown it up in the toilet bowl. The mescalin had given a weak high which she had found unpleasant and a bit frightening. But marijuana had seemed valuable, somehow, and she continued to smoke it whenever he did.

  Joe looked at her now, his eyes all-seeing, and he thought perhaps he had done something radically wrong. The metamorphosis from Square to Hip was, he knew full well, far from complete. He knew she worried, and he knew she was firmly convinced that much of what she was doing was intrinsically wrong. He remembered her as she had been, fresh and eager and searching for something beyond her comprehension. And he was not at all sure that what she had become was an improvement on the original.

  He recalled the first time she had smoked—at Judy’s Obershain’s party. He remembered their love-making on the floor, more or less center-stage, and he remembered how she had been when the effects of the marijuana had worn off. Scared, sick, frightened—and very much ashamed of herself. Then at last the shame had slipped away and the fear had claimed her altogether. And she was still not a girl who could make love in the middle of the floor in the middle of a party without there being something wrong about it for her, without some guilt that had to be buried beneath the rugged exterior of the perennial cool.

  Bad, Joe thought.

  “I hate this park,” she said now.

  “Huh?”

  “It drags me,” she said. “It really does. I sit here and all these people walk by. It used to be a kick. I mean, I didn’t know any of the people. They were strangers. And now either I know them or I’ve seen them so many times it’s like they’re relatives or like that. I want something to happen. God, I want something to happen.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. A small boy stopped and asked Joe if he wanted his shoes shined. Joe pointed to his tennis sneakers and laughed easily. The boy frowned, laughed and left them to bother somebody else.

  “We could go to the coast,” he said. “North Beach or something. Everybody goes to the coast. It’s like the thing to do.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I mean, if you’re hung up on New York—”

  “Not New York. Not New York, not the park, I don’t know. Just hung up in general, I suppose. Just bored and tired. I don’t know.”

  “A change of scene might help.”

  “I’m a leopard, Joe.”

  He stared, feeling disoriented. “A leper? I don’t get it, baby. I—”

  “Not a leper. A leopard. Like an animal. Leopards can’t change their spots. Remember?”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Allee samee under the skin. New York or Chicago or San Francisco or…I don’t know. Portugal. Wherever you run it’s the same person running. Can’t run out of yourself. Doesn’t work.”

  He said nothing.

  “I think I’m going back to the pad,” she said.

  “Want me to come?”

  Anita shook her head no. “I just have eyes to walk. I’m going to buy a big cup of Italian ice from the cat on the corner of Thompson, the funny one with the wagon. And I’m going to walk all the way home eating the ice. Then I’ll sit around and wait for you.”

  Joe shrugged.

  “A nice long walk,” she said. “In the lovable afternoon. I’ll make dinner. Paella, I think. A pot of rice and some seafood. It’s cheap and it tastes good. Spanish. I made it last week.”

  He remembered. “Shank may be around,” he said.

  “I hope not.”

  “You really put him down, don’t you? He’s a good cat. He’s making nice bread and giving us our share.”

  “He’s making too much bread.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t like it,” she said. “That’s a lot of money from peddling pot. I think he’s doing something else. Muggings, hold-ups, I don’t know.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “He’d do anything,” she told him. “My God, you don’t know him at all. He’s a rotten son of a bitch, Joe. He really is. He’s a snake.”

  He remained silent, having no great drive to spring to Shank’s defense. “He never did anything to you,” he managed after a few moments.

  “I know.”

  “So why the noise? There’s lots of studs I can live without. But I don’t go screaming on ‘em all the time.” She smiled. It was a strange smile. Then she stood up.

  “Later,” she said. “Fall up around six or so for dinner. It’s okay to reheat it, you can keep the pot on the stove for a week. But it’s best the first day.”

  He watched her walk away until she was out of sight and he wondered what was wrong. She was a leopard and she couldn’t change her spots. Solid. But why all the fuss? He thought about Shank. Somehow he couldn’t see Shank as a stick-up man. The picture did not add up. But there was no way to get aro
und the fact that Shank had changed visibly. He was less talkative than ever. He didn’t seem to have any time for casual conversation. He rarely hung around the pad, rarely went out with them during the evenings. A few nights back a whole mob of them headed out around midnight, caught a late show in Times Square, then bought a few bottles of wine and went to Central Park. They stayed there all night long, singing at the top of their lungs, balling on occasion, making a major scene. But Shank hadn’t wanted to come along. He had said he had things to do. But what kind of things? And how come he never talked about them? A problem. But Joe Milani knew how to deal with problems. He had carefully cultivated a method over the days and weeks and months. He simply ignored the problem. From a pocket he took a paper-bound copy of Henry Miller’s Sexus that somebody had carefully smuggled in on a return trip from Europe. He opened it to an intriguing passage, began to read, and forgot completely the changes in Anita and Shank.

  After Anita left Joe she did more or less as she had told him she would. She bought the paper cup of Italian ice from the man with the wagon on Thompson Street. Then she walked east on Fourth Street, stopping at a few stores along the way to shop. She angled up First Avenue to Saint Marks Place and the apartment, where she unpacked what she had bought. She put the kettle on the stove, filled it with water, put the rice into it. She let the rice boil for a while, then started to add the mussels and the chopped-up eel. She dropped other ingredients into the pot—some left-over chicken, two crabs, and miscellaneous seafood. Then she covered the pot, wondering if it were all right to watch it. A watched pot, they said, never boiled. That seemed physically illogical. Did watched pots boil? Did a pot burn when you watched it? Many things to think about. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to concentrate. She picked up a book and tried to read. Unable to concentrate, she gave up, tossing the book carelessly on the other bed. She stared across the room, waiting for something. For dinner to cook. For something, damn it. She was sitting on the bed when Shank entered. Anita did not greet him, nor did Shank greet her. He walked to the stove, lifted the lid off the pot and sniffed like a comic-strip husband. He sauntered to his bed, picked up the book she had tossed there and looked through it. He threw it on the floor. Then he turned his gaze on her. She felt there was something obscene in his expression. He kept staring at her till she flushed and turned away. When she looked back he was still staring at her in precisely the same way. She wanted to tell him to stop it but she did not know what to say. She wished again he would go away, so she and Joe could live alone. She would get a job—it would be worth it if she and Joe could have a place of their own. Shank still stared at her. She returned his glance now. She searched his eyes, trying to figure out what was hidden there.

  Then he told her. “Strip,” he said. Her eyes widened. “Strip. Get your clothes off and get ‘em off fast. Strip!”

  “What are you—”

  His dead eyes blazed in his pale face. His mouth was smiling terribly. His voice was flat and deadly. “I am going to do what I please with you. And you don’t have a thing to say about it. Nothing. What I do to you is up to me. So get those clothes off fast.”

  “You’re crazy!” His hand slipped into his pocket and reappeared with a knife. She watched in morbid fascination as his fingers curled around the handle of the knife. He pressed the catch and the blade snickered out. She stared at it, watched light glinting on the carefully polished face of the blade that appeared to be very sharp. “Strip,” he repeated. She was numb. “You’ve got a choice,” he told her. “You can take your clothes off or I can cut ‘em off. It’s up to you. I don’t care one way or the other.”

  “Joe,” she said. “Any minute. He’s coming home. He’s coming and—” He turned and locked the door.

  “Thanks for putting me wise,” he said. “Now the clothes. I’ll cut ‘em off of you if I have to. And I’ll cut you up while I’m at it.” He was telling the truth, he would make good his threat if he had to. And there was nothing for her to do…Finally, when she kicked off her tennis shoes, she was naked. Now, his eyes were worse than ever. She felt as if she had taken off her skin and he was staring at her insides. Shank approached the girl and held out the knife. She stared at the blade as a bird would at a snake. Then, after a long moment, she tried to move away. But the bed was behind her and the distance between them remained the same.

  “Don’t move,” he advised her. “Not yet. You could get hurt. And Joe might not like you after I got through.” He was insane, Anita knew. He would kill her. She wanted to scream but she was too scared.

  “Now undress me,” Shank said. When she hesitated, he repeated the command and backed it up by touching the knife to her and raising a tiny bead of blood. Anita undressed him. His grin widened and his eyes became steadily more insane. She was terrified. Then, casually, he folded up the knife and tossed it on his bed. He did this without taking his eyes from her. Then, as if he had all the time in the world, he drove his fist into the pit of her stomach. She clutched her stomach in agony, trying to hold back the pain. Tears came to her eyes and spilled over. Then he slapped her across the face with all his force. The pain was like a knife. Her body began to tremble. Then Shank began to curse her. He used language more obscene than anything she had ever heard. He cursed her intently and she listened to the words he spoke with her eyes wide and her heart beating violently. Then he began to hit her again. Finally, he shoved her down to the bed and then it began. It was long and bad and very painful. He seemed more concerned with hurting her than anything else. She lay inert, the pain washing over her in high and resonant waves. She lay there, on the bed she shared with Joe, while Shank made vile and brutal and horrible love to her. Later, when her pain had subsided and she was dressed once more, Shank gripped her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. She tried to turn away but he had her vised.

  “You won’t tell him,” he said.

  “I won’t?”

  He shook his head. “You won’t tell him. You don’t want to. You think you do but you’re wrong.”

  “Why?”

  He grinned. “Three things could happen,” he said. “He could play protective male. He could decide to punish me for taking advantage of his poor, defenseless woman. And that would be a mistake. Because then I’d have to take care of myself. Have to protect myself, like any average all-American boy. And he’s bigger than I am. Which means I’d have to make it closer. The knife. I’d have to cut old Joe a little.” He wasn’t human, Anita thought. No human being could act as he did and talk as he did. Joe was his friend and she was Joe’s girl, yet he could beat her and rape her and talk about knifing Joe as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Or he could decide you led me on. That’s one way. He’d figure it was your fault and get mad at you. He’d beat you for dust, little girl. And you don’t want that. Hell, one beating a day is plenty for you. Right?” That wouldn’t happen, she told herself. Joe would never do that. Never. “Or one other thing. He wouldn’t do anything. He’d just shrug it off and forget about it. Pretend you were jiving him or something, or else say it was between you and me and he didn’t give a damn. And that would shake you up, little girl. Shake you six ways and home again.”

  “He wouldn’t,” she said.

  “Naw,” he drawled. “Not old Joe. That’s what you want to think. You wouldn’t want to find out he doesn’t care more for you than he does for a used fish. And that’s the big reason why you won’t tell him. You dig the whole message? Any way you lose. Joe gets cut or you get hurt or Joe just doesn’t give a damn. Three ways to lose and no ways to win. You know what? I think you’ll keep that little mouth of yours sewed up nice and tight.”

  “You’re a bastard, Shank.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “That the best you can do? You can call me worse than that. Go ahead—talk a big streak.”

  She called him a foul name and he laughed harder. She swore up and down at him and he laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. �
��You’re sick,” Anita said. “You think pain is fun.”

  “If it’s not my pain.”

  “You’re sick.”

  He was laughing. “And you’re fun. Lots of fun. And you’re not going to say a word to Joe. You understand?” Shank walked to the stove and lifted the lid.

  “Paella again,” he said. “I can live without it.”

  “I can live without your company.”

  He laughed again. “I think I’ll pass up your paella,” he told her. “Catch a bite out somewhere. Give my regards to your man, Anita.” He laughed again, louder, and he was gone.

  She shut the door after him, sank on the bed, and cried. When she stopped crying she thought she would tell Joe, and they would leave Shank. Why shouldn’t she tell Joe? Shank’s reasons were nonsense. They made no sense at all, and they were just an argument because he was afraid of what would happen if she did tell Joe.

  She told herself that again and again.

  But, when Joe came home, she acted as if nothing were wrong. All through dinner—the paella was delicious, although she hardly managed to taste it—she told herself she would tell Joe later, in a little while, later in the evening, after dinner.

  But she did not tell him.

  They stayed home that night and Shank did not show. They stayed home, and when Joe suggested smoking some pot she made no objection at all. She got very high.

  But still she did not mention anything to Joe about what Shank had done.

  Joe wanted to make love to her. But after what she’d been through, that was out of the question. Anita lay awake for hours after they had gone to bed. Her brain reeled in circles and the sun was coming up before her mind finally blanked out and she drifted off to a hectic sleep.

  9

  “Let’s move,” she said to Joe.