Agreement to Kill

by Peter Rabe

  “This way,” he said. “You’re walking into the woods.”

  It seemed a long walk back to the cabin and the quiet made the girl stay close to his side.

  “If you want, Jake,” and her voice sounded too bright, “we can go back to the party.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Loma will be in the cabin,” she said.

  “I don’t care. I wish you wouldn’t.”

  She didn’t say anything then, but Spinner knew she was trying to. She tried laughing instead but the sound got nowhere.

  “Stop thinking so hard,” he said.

  “Jake?”

  He waited.

  “You know, we can just go to bed. I’m so tired.”

  They stopped at the clearing and Spinner wished they could see each other more clearly, but she thought he was smiling at her and he stroked her arm.

  “Sure,” he said. “You’ll sleep well.”

  They started to cross the clearing when the moon fused through the clouds, making a cold light in the air and on the ground. Next to the door, a small shape, sat Loma.

  “Oh,” said the girl, and then, “you shouldn’t be out here this late.”

  Spinner couldn’t see Loma’s face in the shadow but he knew the expression, and he knew how the eyes looked, and he knew how Loma would sound, like the cold light.

  “I couldn’t get in,” said Loma, “because of the step.”

  Spinner let go of the girl and cursed under his breath. He walked up to Loma’s chair and started to reach for it.

  “Leave me here,” said Loma. “I’ll stay out here for a while.”

  It didn’t hit Spinner immediately but when it did his scalp prickled with heat and he couldn’t find enough breath with the anger squeezing him. Everything Loma touched, everything —

  “You shouldn’t stay …” the girl started, but the violence of Spinner’s movement made her stop. He yanked the chair up to the house, pulled the screen door open and kicked it back with his foot, and then he pushed Loma’s chair through the first room, making the wheels turn with a fast whisper.

  “You can get into bed yourself?” he asked Loma.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” said Spinner, not daring to say more. He came back to the front room and slammed Loma’s door.

  The girl stood by the window and he could see her unbutton her blouse. He watched her. Something in the way she undressed made him relax, and when he walked up to her she smiled at him and then turned back to what she was doing. Spinner was no longer upset. She waited for him while he took off his clothes. She stood by the window, holding her arms, rubbing them slowly as if she were cold.

  When they lay down her head was next to his face and he put his chin into her hair. He held her with one arm down her side and one hand near her throat. He could feel a small pulse there and after a while it seemed to slow and grow softer. She stretched out her legs and turned her head toward him.

  “Does the light bother you?” said Spinner.

  “No. I don’t even see it.”

  They lay like that for a while, with Ann so quiet that Spinner was sure she was asleep.

  “Do you hear something?” she said.

  “No. What was it?”

  “It’s so quiet,” she said. “I’m not used to it. I keep listening for something to spoil it.”

  “You can hear small noises outside,” he said. “But they don’t spoil it”

  She nodded. He felt it on his chest.

  “What did Keel mean,” he said, “when he said back to the farm?”

  “Keel? I don’t remember he said that — ”

  “I thought perhaps he meant that’s where you came from.”

  She laughed and said, “No. Keel just said that to be in line, I guess. Something like country girl comes to the big city and gets good and bad, or whichever.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Why do you ask? I look like a farm girl?”

  “Oh no. Not at all. I’m from a farm.”

  “I’ve been on one, but that’s all. Fact is, I’m from a bigger city than St. Louis.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  She laughed again, to herself this time.

  “New York wasn’t big enough for me and my family. It was either their way or no way.”

  Spinner shifted a little but didn’t let go of her.

  “I can see that,” he said. “Running around with the likes of Keel, I can see why they …”

  “There weren’t any Keels. Just nice, approved bastards my family liked. The real filth. So I picked my own friends.” She paused. “At least they weren’t filthy.”

  “So how come,” Spinner asked, “you ended up with the Keels?”

  She moved her head away and looked out the window.

  “I just — I lost my bearings somewhere along the way.”

  Spinner lay still and stroked her side. He felt her grow stiff under his hand, or perhaps he imagined it. “Anyway, it’s okay if you like it in St. Louis.”

  “Sure,” she said. “What happened to your farm? You didn’t like it?”

  He stopped moving his hand, and put both his hands up behind his head.

  “Oh. I liked it all right.”

  “Did you lose it?”

  He laughed at the thought, remembering that he still owned it, but what did that get him?

  “No. It’s still there.”

  “But you can’t go hack?”

  “Sort of like you,” he said. “Why don’t you go back?”

  She turned on her side, to curl herself up, and then said, “Sort of like you and so forth.”

  Her tone gave them an out and they pushed the whole thing aside, laughing about it, but then had nothing else to say. They didn’t want to talk or to think any more and when she turned the next time, his way, that was the distraction. He pulled her closer and she didn’t say no or try to lie the way she had done before. It was more familiar this way, even to the kiss, which was mechanical. Then she was going to laugh and say something about it always ending this way when Spinner held still and listened into the dark. She heard Spinner curse.

  “Doesn’t that bastard ever sleep?” he demanded.

  “Who?” She sat up too.

  “Loma. Don’t you hear him?”

  Then she heard the sound of somebody breathing. It was in the next room.

  “He never breathes like that,” said Spinner. “I’ve never heard that before.”

  Spinner let himself drop back and stared at the ceiling.

  She leaned down on one elbow, and said, “Why does he bother you? He never does anything and he always seems to bother you.”

  Spinner didn’t know what to answer, but hearing the breathing in the next room he couldn’t keep silent.

  “Because he’s all wrong!” And when it didn’t feel like enough, “He’s everything opposite!”

  The girl lay down next to him, and Spinner saw her nod. Then she turned to put her hand on Spinner’s face.

  “Why are you with him?” she said.

  “Yeah. It’s a question.”

  She kept her hand on his face and he turned her way, and then she moved closer.

  “I don t hear him any more.” She kissed him, small and warm.

  “Stay close.”

  “Jake,” she said. “I’m glad he interrupted, before.” She knew that he felt so too when suddenly Spinner pulled back their sheet.

  “Come on,” he said, “get up.”

  “Now? You mean — ”

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here. You and me.”

  She started to laugh and held his arm when they ran out of the cabin because of the way he was dragging the blanket along. She took one end of it and he the other and they went a short distance into the woods.

  CHAPTER 20

  Loma — it turned out in the morning — could walk. Spinner was tying his shoes, and Ann stood smoking and watching him when they heard the hard sounds, as if something had fallen. Loma opened h
is door.

  “Christ,” said Spinner.

  Loma was holding himself with both hands in the frame of the door. His small body was bent to balance himself and the foot with the white cast was swinging slightly, tapping to find its place.

  “Here,” said Ann, “let me help you,” and she went up to Loma to take his arm.

  “No. You needn’t.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” she asked.

  “No.”

  He let go of the door frame and walked with a grotesque stumble till he got to the bed.

  Spinner finished tying his shoe and sat up. “Loma, how come you always say no? She asks you if it hurts when you can barely crawl; but you got to …”

  “The pain is minor,” said Loma. “I have trouble walking because I’m used to favoring my other side.” He looked down at his clubfoot. “As it is, I have to learn it the other way.”

  Spinner looked at Ann and said, “You see? He’s got a reason. Always no, but he makes a reason.” He shrugged and got up. He hadn’t been aware of it but his tone when he talked about Loma had been something new, as if either Loma were human or Spinner didn’t care one way or the other.

  “We were going to breakfast,” said Ann. “Sit in your chair and I’ll wheel you down.”

  “He’s going to say no,” Spinner said and watched Loma.

  Loma sat down on the bed, near the phone, and moved his leg with the cast so it would be more comfortable.

  “Keel is coming this morning,” he said. “Or is it no longer important to you?”

  It was. That and the fact that Loma could walk, if he wanted to, meant a great deal. Loma no longer needed him and St Louis was sending word whether they wanted Spinner or not It should feel like a turning point, but Spinner could not force a feeling beyond that of a strange, very vivid dream. It meant that he might wake up, had he thought of it, and then he would not know what to do.

  “That’s right,” said Spinner. “We’ll stay here, so I don’t miss him.”

  “He’s also coming for you?” said Loma and looked at the girl.

  Spinner had turned away so that the girl saw only the back of his head.

  “Sure,” she said. “For the ride.”

  They had breakfast brought to the cabin and then they waited for Keel, hoping he would come soon.

  • • •

  Keel had left St Louis early, as he had been instructed, but no part of his errand was very important. A message for Loma, instructions about Spinner, and to pick up Annie — if she were free. None of it seemed too important to Keel so he stopped on the way for breakfast, stopped again where he saw a big sign on a barn which read Auction, and when he came to a railroad crossing where a freight train was coming through he sat counting the cars with interest.

  Driving into the resort he made a bet with himself that Loma would be under that tree again, and another bet — with odds much lower — that Annie was still in bed, and that it wouldn’t be with Spinner. Keel knew Annie from way back; they were all alike, they didn’t faze him one way or the other, and this time when he took her back, no more monkey business. If there was anything he despised, Keel said to himself, it was a dame acting up.

  He roared up to the clearing, made an impressive stop, and saw he had won one bet and lost two. Loma was under the tree; so was Spinner, and Ann was sitting next to him. Keel started laughing, first thing, because he thought the three of them looked very funny, and it also kept him from tallying up how much he owed himself for the lost bets.

  “Hey, back to the farm, huh?” he yelled and walked over to the tree.

  They all nodded hello at him and Keel stood looking from one to the other.

  “Boy,” he said, “lemme tell you it’s getting hot in the city. Even early this morning.”

  “When did you leave?” asked Loma.

  “Eight in the morning. I had to be in the office before eight, and got chased out to here right from there. And the heat …”

  “How come you didn’t get here till now,” said Loma, “if you left that early?”

  “Hell. I don’t know. The road, I guess. How you been, Annie, had a good night?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Thank you?” and Keel started laughing again. “Hell, I had nothing to do with it I wasn’t even here!”

  But Spinner, just sitting there, dampened Keel’s fun. Keel sucked his teeth and looked at Loma.

  “Well, I haven’t got much. Little early to tell.”

  Loma looked at the girl and said, “Would you leave for a moment?” He followed Ann with his eyes when she got up and walked to the cabin, and then turned back to Keel.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Well, there’s nothing on you, right now. You either got through clean or they’re playing it cagey.”

  “What about the trip?”

  “Looks like the little girl in the burg you stopped in and that doctor in that other burg you stopped in didn’t report a thing. And that farmer outside that one burg don’t know from nothing either. He thinks you’re a fine little gentleman, he says.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “Me? Hell, no. We got a man there doing legwork.”

  “I don’t quite understand about the girl,” said Loma. He treated the whole thing as if he hadn’t been in iL “After all, the store got robbed, and so on.”

  “Oh. She said that was robbers. She got scared and hid in the closet, she said, and didn’t see who it was.”

  Spinner looked at Loma’s face, wondering if there would be relief, or perhaps doubt, any emotion about that part of the trip. There was nothing, and Loma went on.

  “What about Stone Bluff?”

  “Oh, that Dixon’s dead, all right You knew that,” he added, smiling.

  “Go on.”

  “And nobody’s looking for you there, that’s for sure. They’re sure as hell looking for him, though,” and Keel nodded at Spinner.

  It was nothing new to Spinner, and should have meant nothing to him. He looked away. His face felt tight and he squinted at the hill in the distance.

  “They figure they got him dead to rights, with evidence and everything.”

  “What evidence?” Spinner asked.

  “We didn’t get that part. That sheriff and prosecutor aren’t easy to get by.” Keel scratched his ear. “Because Dixon’s dead, that’s why, I guess.”

  “Anything else?” said Loma.

  “No, I think that’s it, so far.”

  “There’s got to be more,” said Spinner. “Aren’t there any details, anything else about what happened in Stone Bluff?”

  “How come you’re so anxious?” said Keel. “Hell, you got out from under. All they’re doing is looking for you.”

  “All? If I’m going to stay healthy …”

  “Hell, you should worry. You should know what they got against me!” He started to laugh again. “Or Loma here, huh, Loma?”

  Keel was just about to slap Loma’s back when he suddenly stopped laughing and changed his swing with the arm into something else. He slapped his leg and coughed hard, thinking how terrible it would have been to slap a man on the back who was wearing a cast, or sat in a wheelchair, or had a clubfoot — anyway, a man like Loma.

  “Well?” said Loma. “What else?”

  “What about — did they find the place where I met Loma? Where the car was?”

  “I don’t know,” said Keel. “So what?”

  “If that’s all,” said Loma, “you can go back to town. Tell them I’m staying a few days longer, to be sure nothing else develops. Tell them I want more information tomorrow”

  “Okay, Loma. I’ll do that”

  Keel turned to Spinner. He put his hands in his pockets and started to grin.

  “Now I bet you’re anxious as hell about what’s with you, huh?”

  “Let’s have it, Keel.”

  “I’m taking you back with me, to St. Louis. They want to see you. Happy?”

  Spinner hadn’t heard the last par
t They wanted to see him and he was going with Keel, that’s what he had heard. He inhaled deeply, held it, and let the breath come out slowly. He clenched and unclenched his hands which he held between his knees, and repeated the words in his mind to make them sink in. He should feel something terrific right now, because this was it. The way he had planned it, the way he had imagined it, and now it was true. There should be a big sense of another step taken and a big scene of strength about everything but maybe this caution was better. The way Loma would feel about something like this: hold it a little bit longer, until it was sure, until it was over, and then — like with Loma — it would be over without any feeling at all!

  “Come on,” said Spinner. “Come on, let’s go, this is big!”

  He had talked so loud that Ann stepped out of the cabin to see what went on. Spinner kept pushing himself.

  “You got something else to say, tell me about it on the way down. The way I’ve been waiting for this, Keel, this is no time to …”

  “I want you to bring him back afterward,” said Loma, ignoring everything, and before Spinner had time to react to it Keel answered the same way.

  “Sure. He’s supposed to, anyway.”

  “Why? Why in hell …”

  “Jesus, stop yelling,” said Keel. “This is just for a talk. After that you hang around some and wait. And that’s what this place is for. Come on over, Annie.” Keel waved to her.

  The girl came back to the tree and nobody except Spinner felt there was any more to say. Loma wheeled himself back to the cabin, Keel started asking the girl again what kind of a night she’d had, and Spinner was left with what he had heard. It still wasn’t over, maybe it never would be, and maybe this was part of the switch too, waiting for somebody’s word and someone else’s decision. It was maybe not much of a switch from anything else.

  CHAPTER 21

  The ride back was a pain in the neck to Keel, because Spinner started out acting sour and when Keel tried to make light conversation Spinner got mean. They sure knew how to pick them, thought Keel, first Loma and now Spinner.

  Then Keel tried it with Ann but she didn’t even start out easy, the way Spinner had done it, but got rough right from the start. She said she was sick and tired of listening to the same tired old line and that he, Keel, couldn’t do a thing for her. Talked as if she had to be convinced, like some square with a job someplace or a boy friend waiting for her somewhere out of town.