by Jim Thompson
He brooded. His mind moved over the events of the evening, the insults and the threats, and his fat face purpled with rage. His associates had known the risk they were taking right from the beginning. He had made very sure that they understood it. The lease titles were clouded; they could only be realized upon by being rapidly drilled-up and selling off the oil. All of this had been known by all; yet, now, when the always potential peril seemed about to become actual—and through no fault of his.…
It was a bad shake. He had been damned, and tentatively doomed, even before the meeting tonight. Without his knowledge, a new president of Highlands had been appointed, a man from the accounting department. Also without his knowledge, a new field boss had been hired. Briefly, he, Gus Pellino, no longer had a voice in Highlands’ affairs. He had the full responsibility for the company’s welfare—oh, sure, he had that, all right!—but no authority.
Just wait. Pellino raged silently. Just wait until I’m back on top again, and they come sucking around me!
They knew no tricks that he didn’t know. He knew how to dig up dirt which, exhibited to a man’s enemies, could easily prove fatal to him. And just as soon as he was in the clear…!
Slowly, his eyes raised toward the ceiling, and his thoughts moved upward with them—up there to the bedroom, where his wife lay in the moonlit darkness, she of the blankly pleasant smile and the rich and willing body. Their marriage had been one largely of convenience, a means of strengthening ties which were always a little tenuous. (And a hell of a lot of good it did when the chips were down!) It had seemed, at the time, that he was mainly the gainer by the deal. But now he was no longer so sure.
Yes or no? he thought. Had she or hadn’t she?
He shrugged, arose from the table, and went heavily up the stairs. He had nothing to lose by seeking out the truth. If he took care of Lord satisfactorily, nothing else would matter. If he failed, nothing else would matter. In the larger scheme of things, she was merely another old-country relative, of which there was already a burdensome abundance.
As he entered the room, she awakened and smiled at him, moved slightly over in the bed. He sat down at her side, started to pull down her nightgown, and she hastened to help him. Her breasts seemed to leap into his hands. He began to stroke them, gently at first, then with ominously increasing firmness.
“You have a nice time, cara? It was good to see your kinsmen?”
“Sí?” She didn’t understand him. Apparently, she didn’t. “You say wot, Gossie?”
Pellino grinned at her. His fingers dug in suddenly, her lightly blue-veined flesh squeezing up between them, and she squirmed slowly on the narrow border between agony and ecstasy.
“P-please, Gossie. A leetle it is all right. I like even. But s-so moch—Gossie!”
“Can’t understand nothin’, hmmm?” Pellino grunted. “Can’t talk to me, can you? Not to me. But Uncle Sal, now—him and Cousin Carlos—they’re something else again, ain’t they? You can talk plenty to them!”
“P-please,” she gasped, writhing. “G-Gossie…w’y you do thees?”
Pellino’s hands twisted cruelly. He told her she had better figure it out, and do it fast.
“I mean it, sister! You go on playin’ dumb, and I’ll pull them tits right off of you.”
“B-but I do not—I cannot—”
“Okay,” Pellino gritted. “Maybe you can grow a new pair.”
She moaned, half-screamed. She surged upward from the bed, and then fell back upon the bed. Her eyelids fluttered and drifted shut. Her lips moved inaudibly.
“Snap out of it”—he bent over her. “Let’s hear—”
Then, he jerked away from her, wiping the spittle from his face.
Her perpetually pleasant smile was gone now, replaced by the hard lines of hatred. Gone, too, was the puzzled blankness of her eyes, where hatred now glittered.
She put her right thumb in her mouth, up to the first joint. She withdrew it suddenly, flicking it at him. She said nothing. She did not need to.
Without speaking, she had told him the truth.
“I’m going out of town, now,” he said. “Leaving as soon as I pack a bag. You want to pass the word to your kin, it’s all right with me.”
“I will tell them to kill you!”
“They won’t do it. Not for you, anyhow.” He nodded indifferently; a man stating the axiomatic with a casualness that was utterly convincing. “They needed you. Now, they don’t. And I figure they got about as much use for a two-timer as I have.”
He let the words sink in: the fact that she was inextricably bound to him, and that after him there would be no one. It was incredible, terrifying—how could her own kinsmen have done this to her?—but there it was. Treachery would be repaid with treachery.
“Gossie,” she tried to smile. “I did not mean it, Gos. They misled me, made me think I was helping you.”
“We’ll see,” Pellino told her. “We’ll talk about it when I get back. Maybe we’ll have us a nice little party, huh? You know—party? Just the two of us.”
“Oh, yes, Gossie!” She clutched eagerly for his hand, and found it withdrawn. “A ver’ nice party.”
“Good,” said Pellino. “You can kind of be preparing for it while I’m away. Lay in a supply of liniment, bandages, and stuff. You’re going to need them.”
Then he got up, went through the door, and closed it quietly behind him.
12
For the tenth time in almost as many minutes, Tom Lord paused in his nervous pacing of the floor and looked at his watch. It was afternoon, now, nearly midafternoon. It had been hours since Joyce’s last call, when he had literally invited her to do her damndest. Yet nothing had happened. No visit from the sheriff. Nothing.
He wandered out into the kitchen, and peered vaguely out the window. He got a drink of water at the sink; then, hardly aware of what he was doing, he chased it with a shot of bourbon from the cupboard. Aimlessly, he crossed to the refrigerator and inspected its contents. The sight of the food brought a frown to his face, and he listened worriedly for some sound from the upstairs.
“No telling when she ate last,” he muttered aloud. “No food and a hell of a big hypo.…”
She needed to snap out of it, he decided. She needed some grub in her.
Or maybe, he chuckled grimly, I need to be doing something. Maybe I’ve really been begging for trouble all along, and I just can’t wait for it to hit me.
He laughed at the thought. The laugh ended abruptly; an incipient monster strangled in its fetal stage. Quickly, he threw down another big drink of the bourbon, shuddering at its sudden, flaming impact. Then he busied himself with the food. He put bread into the toaster. He put milk, eggs, whisky and sugar into a bowl, and flicked on the electric mixer. Some ten minutes later, he pushed open the bedroom door, set the tray down on a chair, and brought Donna McBride into wakefulness.
It wasn’t difficult. The drug had worn off, and her sleep was natural. He propped pillows behind her back, winked encouragingly, and put the tray on her lap.
He ordered her to eat. Obediently, responding to the authority in his voice, she began to.
The toast disappeared rapidly. She couldn’t remember when anything had tasted so good to her. She took a sip of the milkish-looking drink, frowned slightly at its taste, then, shrugging inwardly, took a large swallow. It was good. It tasted good, and it made her feel good—all warm and nice, and sort of ticklish. And if it did have a little alcohol in it—and she was by no means sure that it did—well, it was only medicine if a doctor gave it to you.
She drank the last of the glass, a delicate flush spreading over her face. At any minute, she felt, she was going to burst out giggling. Yet, as the urge grew, her habitual reserve, the inbred primness, reasserted itself.
“Doctor,” she said severely, “you put whisky in that drink, didn’t you? Quite a lot of it.”
“Whisky!” Lord registered pained astonishment. “Whisky? Oh, that I should live to see this moment!”
“Now, you stop that!” she said. “Stop it right now. I appreciate your help, Doctor, but I’m afraid I don’t care for your professional behavior. Why, I shouldn’t even be here like—like this—without your nurse present.”
“Nurse?” Lord elevated his brows. “But I ain’t got no nurse, ma’am. Wouldn’t hardly be no point to it, seein’ as how I ain’t a doctor.”
“Not a—!” She broke off, very conscious suddenly of the sheer nightgown, burningly aware that it must have been he who had transposed her into it from her own clothes. “B-but you said—” But he hadn’t said it; only something about being a reasonable facsimile of a doctor. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Fella you was lookin’ for. Tom Lord.”
“Tom L-Lord!” She stared at him angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me so in the beginning?”
“Reckon you might be able to think of a reason yourself. What are you kickin’ about, anyway? Ain’t many gals I’d put to bed in my mama’s own nightshirt.”
Donna spluttered. On the point of exploding with fury, she caught herself, and studied him curiously. What was the matter with him, anyhow? Why was he acting like this? He could have appeased her, lied to her, carried on the masquerade of being a doctor. Instead, he seemed determined to aggravate and insult her.
“Mr. Lord,” she said. “Are you…are you all right?”
“You mean am I crazy?” Lord studied the question soberly. “I don’t know,” he said, after a moment. “Could be, I guess. Or it could be I just don’t like to wait for things to happen to me.”
“Wait? What—”
“Uh-huh. I don’t like to wait, but I ain’t got the guts to bring things to an outright showdown. Kind of a two-way pull, you know, or maybe, three-way or four-way. I don’t like nothin’ like it is, and I don’t really want to change it. So I just keep circlin’ the target, wherever the hell it is. I just gnaw around the edges without ever gettin’ close to center.”
Donna looked at him, her own problems and her anger with him forgotten for the moment. Then, as she felt a sudden compelling weakness flood over her, she gave her head an irritable little shake. This wouldn’t do at all. She had come here for information, not to lie in bed and listen to a lot of foolishness.
“Mr. Lord,” she said crisply. “I’d like to dress. Do you hear me, Mr. Lord?”
He lost his dreamy, thoughtful look; the oddly dancing lights came back into his eyes. He said that sure, he heard her, and she was to go right ahead and dress. “O’ course,” he added, “you’re liable to doze off a-fore you get your panties on.”
“Mr. Lord!” she snapped. “I said I wanted to dress. I want you to leave the room!”
“What for?” Lord drawled. “Ain’t gonna see nothin’ I ain’t already seen. Not unless you’ve growed something new since I put you to bed.”
She looked at him helplessly, sank weakly back into the pillows. She wanted to cry, and oddly enough, to laugh, and she could only succumb to the drowsiness.
“A fine thing,” she said. “You were supposed to be my husband’s friend, and—”
“Me? His friend!” Lord exclaimed; and then, thoughtfully, “Well, maybe I was. Don’t reckon there’s anyone else that’d think so, but…”
“He thought you were, b-but look how you act. I came to you for help, and all you can do is joke and t-talk dirty, and—” Her voice broke.
Lord’s face contorted, and suddenly he was down on his knees at her side. Hugging her to him fiercely. “Aah, no, honey,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just…I was always a little odd, remember? You remember, don’t you? Even when I was a toddler, and you used to…”
He broke off, came out of her drowsily unconscious embrace with something that was close to desperation. He stood looking down at her, slowly getting control of himself.
He would have to talk to her, eventually. Sooner or later, he would have to face up to the gun she carried. But not now, thank God. Not now. For she had gone to sleep, at last. Gone, as the other one had gone, into a world beyond his reach. And not a moment too soon either.
A car had pulled into the driveway. A rattly old car with a familiar piston slap.
Sheriff Dave Bradley had arrived.
13
Bradley had brought a deputy with him; gangling, moose-jawed Buck Harris. Lord awaited them in his father’s old office, boots propped up on the desk, hands clasped behind his head.
Bradley was scowling importantly. Buck grinned at Lord uneasily, wishing that he was anywhere but here. Why, ol’ Tom wouldn’t do what that crazy gal claimed he had! It just wasn’t in ol’ Tom to kill a man in cold blood.
“Sure been missin’ you down to the office, Tom,” he said, just as the sheriff started to speak. “Don’t seem like the same place no more without you around.”
“Don’t it?” Lord gave him a flat-eyed look. “Is that a fact, now?”
Buck said that, no, sir, it sure didn’t seem the same—again speaking before the sheriff could. “You remember that hawg thief I nailed out t’ the commission pens. Well, now he’s claimin’ he ain’t guilty.”
“He prob’ly ain’t,” Lord said. “I figure you stole them hawgs yourself.”
“Aw, now…” the big deputy grinned uncertainly. “That ain’t very funny, Tom. Why for would I be stealin’ hogs?”
“Prob’ly because you ain’t got two dimes to rub together; ol’ Dave here grabs everything for himself. An’ you prob’ly wanted to get them big ugly teeth of yours fixed.”
Buck was very sensitive about his teeth; he usually talked with a hand held to his mouth. The hand went there now, his face white with hurt, slow anger building in his eyes. And Tom Lord was hurt for him, winced with him. But this was the way it had to be played. He had cut loose, or rather been cut loose, from something. It was best for all concerned that the cut be clean.
“Don’t pay the ornery cuss no mind, Buck,” said Bradley angrily; and then, “Tom Lord, I’m arrestin’ you for the murder of Aaron McBride.”
“Yeah?” Lord drawled. “Who says I murdered him?”
Bradley told him, and the ex–chief deputy shook his head. “She’s been threatenin’ to do that. Got peeved with me, and this is her way of hittin’ back. I figure she ain’t much of a witness, Dave.”
“What you figure don’t count! Now, you want to come peaceable or you want it t’other way?”
“We-el…” Lord pursed his lips judiciously. “Why don’t we make it the other way? Might be real interestin’.”
Bradley blinked, his mouth gaping open. He looked uncertainly at Buck Harris, and the deputy drew his forty-five. “Might be interestin’ at that,” he said. “You better get movin’, Tom.”
“Huh-uh,” said Lord. “What you fellas better do is call Miss Lakewood again. I figure she’ll probably change her story.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Unless you want to chomp up that pistol with them big teeth o’ yours. Because I’ll sure as hell make you eat it.”
It was too much for Buck Harris, well aware as he was of Tom’s handiness at “scufflin’.” It was more than he could or would take, even with the sheriff ordering him to lay off.
He came around the desk, the gun drawn back for a whipping blow to the skull. The gun came down in a vicious arc, and one of Lord’s booted feet moved lazily into its path, and Buck’s wrist smashed into it. He grunted, almost yelled with the pain. His arm went numb all the way to the shoulder, and the gun flew from his nerveless fingers. Lord caught it with another lazy motion, ejected the shells from it, and flung it back at him.
“Have another try,” he invited. “Three tries an’ you get to eat it.”
There was some method behind this madness, he decided; a subconscious reasoning behind it. Joyce would need time to cool off—if, that is, she would cool off, and by stalling he was giving her time. And Bradley had made it easy for him. Old Dave was stubborn. Told to check on Joyce, he was practically a cinch not to do it.
Bradley mumbled a feebly stern command: Tom had better do as he was told and be quick about it. Buck painfully scooped up his gun from the floor, fumbled cartridges from his belt, and began to refill the chamber.
“We ain’t callin’ it off,” he announced. “Just gonna change the rules a little.”
Lord roared with laughter. It drowned out Bradley’s alarmed orders for Buck to stop—for Tom to stop egging him on. Buck dropped into a crouch, took awkward aim with his left hand. Lord doubled with laughter, slapping his knees, and then suddenly, still bent forward, he sprang.
He rocketed out of the chair, his hard shoulders hurtling into Harris at the level of his boot tops. Buck’s legs flew from under him, the gun again flew from his hand, and his big body crashed against the floor.
Bradley helped him to his feet; snatched up the gun and held onto it.
“Now, I’m gonna call that gal,” he panted angrily, swinging the gun from one man to the other, “an’ there better not be no trouble while I’m doin’ it. I’m the boss here.…Hello, Miss Lakewood? This is Dave Bradley. I’m over here t’ Tom Lord’s house, an’—”
He broke off, listening, an angry but obviously relieved scowl wrinkling his face. He said, “But dang it! Why did you—”
He paused again as a crackling, apologetically defiant stream of words torrented over the wire. Finally, when she apparently stopped for breath, he gave her a grimly firm reproof. “Don’t know whether you were lyin’ the first time or now, ma’am. But it’s a plain bad thing, however it is. Got plenty of reason t’haul you in an’ file charges…Well, all right, then. I’ll let it go this time. But you sure better watch your step from now on.”