by Peter Rabe
Charley gave him the bottle. The stuff was pure ethyl without anything else.
“I hope it eats your insides,” he said.
Joe drank and turned blue. When he relaxed again Charley got ready with a swab.
“Where’s Martha?”
Joe burped, but that was when the swab went in and he almost convulsed himself off the table. Charley pulled the swab out and threw it away.
“Where’s Martha.”
“Christ,” said Joe. He was panting.
Charley did a neat job because he wanted Joe to live. Then he told Joe to roll on his stomach because he wanted to sew the gash where the bullet had torn out “Before I trim, where’s Martha?”
“She ran off. Honest to God, Chuck, get this thing over with — ”
Charley started to trim with the surgical scissors and Joe held on to the table to keep from jumping off. “She all right, Joe?”
Joe had started to tremble.
“Answer me.”
“She’s all right, she’s all right — ”
Charley tore open a suture pack and started to sew. He did a nice even job, working fast, and Joe never went under. When the bandage was on Joe slumped on his back.
“Another shot?”
Joe lay there too exhausted to answer. Charley packed away the things and Francesca picked up the soiled stuff. She got a bucket of water, a stiff brush and soap and went for the table top next to Joe. When he saw her he hauled out with one arm but missed because she was bending low to do her scrubbing.
“Scrub later,” said Charley, “or he’ll start using that filthy language again.”
She went to sit on the hearth and every so often she looked over at the table top.
“You want to lie in bed?” said Charley. “Never mind. Just let me get my breath.”
Joe stayed on the table, and they heard how his breathing got better. After a while his hands came to lie at his side. They were no longer white-knuckled like at first, nor limp and useless. They were like always, big and resting there.
“It’s been maybe an hour,” said Charley. “Where’s Martha?”
Joe turned his head and saw Charley sitting in the chair. The smile was back on his mouth. He sat quietly and then Joe saw he was holding a bottle. He hadn’t put the alcohol back.
“Chuck — you been drinking that?”
“She better show up soon, Joey, or I’m going to worry. And you better worry, Joe.”
Charley uncorked the bottle and took a slow drink. “Christ, Chuck — ”
“Yes, Joey?”
“Chuck, listen to me. You know better than drinking that stuff, you know — “
“Shut up, Joey,” and it sounded unconcerned.
• • •
The first thing she recognized after walking and walking was the back yard where the car was, behind the osteria. She didn’t wonder how she had gotten there because once she started to think again it was about Joe on the floor. She didn’t think about Charley, she hadn’t thought about that since the shot. Now, walking past the yard, she saw the Bugatti and still couldn’t think about Charley. But she had stopped. She stared at it without moving and then she started to run.
• • •
Charley put down the bottle and then put his hands behind his head.
“Why did she take that shot at you, Joey? Tell it again.”
“A hundred times, Chuck, I’ve told you a hundred times and you wouldn’t listen — ”
“So tell it again. Tell it again so you know why you’re going to be dead. And stay where you are, Joe.” Charley smiled. He reached down for the bottle. “If I were religious, Joe, I’d ask Fanny to bring out two candles. Or is it four? I think they use four and put them at the corners — “
Charley dropped the bottle, and it broke. He saw Martha, and jumped up. They didn’t talk; they only held each other.
Joe lay still on the table and waited. He wasn’t impatient and he wasn’t afraid any more. He was like a very primitive animal that can’t be destroyed. He watched them come apart and made his move.
“Martha,” he said. “The bargain. I kept my bargain.”
Chapter 25
To Charley, Martha had come back from a walk. To Martha, Charley had come back from the dead.
She kept her hand on his arm, and when Joe talked it was just a voice. For a moment nothing could matter to her except that Charley’s arm was under her hand, and she felt it warm and moving.
“You want to lie down for a while?” said Charley. “Martha, look at me — “
She looked at him and shook her head. “It’s all right now,” she said. “You’re back.”
“Sure, honey, I’m back.” He patted her shoulder and put his hand in her hair. “If you’re all right — “
She said, “I’m all right,” but now all the rest was back too, the bargain, the weakness, and the evil secrecy which was as bad as the truth. She looked at Joe’s face and saw the bland eyes and the mouth smiling.
“Tell me about it,” said Charley. “Tell me how bad it was.”
That’s when Joe started to laugh. “Bad!” and he only stopped laughing because it hurt his side. “Tell him how good it was, kid! So go ahead, tell him!”
Charley got very still and when he talked his mouth hardly moved.
“Martha. Shall I kill him?”
“You want her to break up?” But the way Joe said it there was hardly a question in it. “You want to make her stupid brains work overtime dreaming up a good one to match your stupid question? Listen to me, you dumb jerk, and you better sit down so your rear don’t drag when you hear this.”
“Keep it up, Joe.”
“You’re damn right I’m keeping it up. That hoor’s caused enough trouble around here.”
“I don’t care how shot up you are,” said Charley and whipped Joe across the face.
But it hardly made a pause. Joe was getting faster because he had to get it all in before Charley stopped listening.
“You see Adele around here?” he yelled. “You wanna ask Fanny what happened to Adele? She’s gone, I sent her away. Tell him, Fanny, did I send her packing?”
Francesca nodded. She was holding the scrub brush in her hand and stood waiting by the hearth.
“I had to send her away right after you left. You know why, jerk? Because your roommate there, she comes waving in here with a gun. You have to give her a gun, you jerk, so she can bulldoze her way into here. If you don’t send them away, she says, I’ll kill myself. Joe baby, she says — “
Charley did it again. His flat hand made a hard sound across Joe’s face, but it stopped nothing.
“I want you, she says. And waving that gun there I don’t argue. With your roommate standing right there I send Adele packing, but quick. That, you jerk, is the short version of one long argument. And next. You know what comes next?”
“What comes next, Joe?”
“I go to her house with her — the gun, you know. And if you didn’t guess it by now — “
Charley looked over to Martha, but she had her eyes closed. She was standing that way, waiting for Joe to finish and waiting for Charley to end the nightmare.
“Maybe you think I’m out of my head?” Joe was roaring. He swung out one arm and caught Martha by the short sleeve of her blouse. There was a rip. “Take a look at that, you stupid sap, take a look at the way she bruises!”
There was a dark mark on her shoulder where the blouse had come off.
“And don’t tell me that you did that!” He watched Charley and when he saw Charley starting to smirk and his hand go up to his belt, Joe added the next thing, slowly, “How do you think I did it, sap? With this bullet in my gut?” Charley stopped to listen. “You gotta be healthy to do right by her. She shot me afterwards. When I said it was the last time.” Then Joe waited to see how it worked.
It was a fine story, and Martha’s bruise showed on her bare shoulder so Charley could look at it. He looked at her and waited for her to say something.
But to Martha it didn’t need words. It needed love and one look between them, and words wouldn’t count for much after that. Martha opened her eyes and when she saw Charley she saw the question and the waiting.
All the words wouldn’t count for anything.
Her head stayed upright, and she cried with eyes wide open. After a while it racked her and the shaking got so bad she sank to the floor and cried, never stopping all the time while Charley picked her up and carried her back to the house. He felt like wood. He put a blanket over her and left the house.
He went back across the garden. Joe hadn’t moved. Francesca was in the next room, lying on the bed, because she had nothing to do. Charley went to close her door, came back to the table. Joe waited. He saw Charley next to him but he couldn’t tell anything by the face.
“Tell it again, Joe.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Tell it again, Joe. There’s time. I’m not going to kill you fast if you play games with me.”
Joe started to sweat and tried to rear off the table.
When Charley pushed him back Joe hit the back of his head with a hard thump, but Joe was talking already. It got fast and high while Charley watched him with a face that seemed almost asleep.
“You don’t know what she is, Chuck, you picked her up and don’t know the first thing about her. Chuck, listen to me, that woman’s been nothing but trouble, you know that, Chuck, and you not knowing the half of it about that — about that — “
“Don’t say hoor, Joe.”
Joe didn’t say hoor. The less he saw in Charley’s face the more he got afraid. Perhaps repeating the story would be a mistake, perhaps repeating it would give him an idea, another lie to add, another piece of time before Charley broke the hold on himself. And if nothing made a dent there was still the ace in the hole, but Joe wanted to hold it until nothing else seemed to work because the ace in the hole could mean murder for sure, anybody’s murder.
“How come she shot you, Joe?”
“I told you, I explained how — ”
“It didn’t make sense.”
“I told you she isn’t what you think she is. You never took the trouble — ”
Charley didn’t want to hear about it. Joe was a liar and Martha — Who was Martha? She’d been on the bridge, and that’s all he had ever found out.
“Try this, Joe. How come I was ambushed?”
“Was what?” Joe kept his mouth open.
“Try hard, Joe.”
There was some life in Charley’s face now, and Joe saw it.
“I never trusted that Bantam, Chuck. You remember the way I felt — ” He got a painful clip across the loose mouth but it wasn’t serious yet.
“Harder, Joe.”
“For chrissakes, Chuck, I’m lying here sick and — ”
“Bantam had nothing to gain from it.”
Joe frowned, because it was getting out of hand. He gasped when Charley got the knife out, but then Charley tossed it across the room. It stuck in the beam over the hearth and Charley said, “We’ll try again, Joe. With the bare hands only. How come — “
He stopped because Martha was back.
She had the shawl over her head and her face was dark. All of her looked dark with the sun behind her, very low now, because the day was almost over.
“Martha — ”
“No, Charley. I came to talk. Then I go.”
He tried interrupting her once more, but her cold voice stopped him, the voice of a stranger, and when he saw her face closer he was surprised that she didn’t look tired any more. She looked cold, and alive with anger.
“So you will know about him,” she said. “So when I leave you will know he is not through with you yet.”
“Martha, I know — ”
“You know nothing.” The sharpness was like a slap. She kept it that way so nothing else would show, the defeat, the loss in her life. “He told me you would be dead if I did not give him his way. I overheard him talking — he and the man with the suit — how they meant to kill you, and then Joe wasn’t going to stop them from killing you unless I gave in.” She talked faster to get it out of the way. “And I let him because what is a small, filthy thing — in order to save you, I thought. So it was a bargain and I had forgotten that you do not win a bargain with the devil, because afterwards he came back and told me that you were dead. And I believed him and shot him for that.” She was screaming.
“I thought you could shoot the devil and it would be over. I thought all my evil could buy something good and believed it even more when I saw you back, except I should have known nothing mattered any more.” Her voice dropped but she held it in hard, even tones. “After the devil, Charley, even you could not come back. I was not your Martha any more. I saw this because you listened to him and you doubted me. I think you really did have to doubt me, because I was no longer the same. Nothing is,” she said, and when she turned and was gone Charley looked at the empty door as if he were waiting to wake up.
He then did the thing that was closest. His hands were around Joe’s throat and for a soundless moment nothing else existed except that neck with the muscles thick on each side and the breath caught.
There was a struggle and then almost no time to spare.
“Chuck — hear me — after her, run after — ”
Charley pressed harder.
“Delmont — bridge, Delmont — she knows — police — ” He let go so suddenly that Joe kept twisting when he was already free. Then he heard Charley’s voice, hoarse and full of hate.
“What did you say? I’ll kill you in spite — ”
“Run, Chuck. She’s after you. You and Delmont under the bridge! She saw — ” Joe got his breath and his voice turned into a roar. “How else would I know except she told me about it! At first I kept her from using it, but now — “
Charley was gone. His run was a crazy stumble through the weeds and to the house where the Judas tree grew. She had taken nothing. She was gone, and everything was still there, even the gun on the floor. It looked almost as if she meant to come back. He scooped up the gun and ran back through the weeds, and then down the long steps. He never stumbled. It was quite dark now, and the steep way down could have broken him many times, but nothing stopped him any more. He ran on without anything in the way any more.
Chapter 26
If she had left for good, he knew which way she would go. If she meant to come back she would go the same way, because the gendarmeria was in the same direction.
Crossing the square, he turned uphill by habit because he always went uphill to get the car before going down into town. He would lose her with the car. Once she crossed over into Pizzofalcone she could disappear in the tangled streets, through archways and courtways leading into the next alley. Or she could even hole up there, spend the night or days with somebody — for how many lire, for whatever it was worth to her. It had been worth holding it back from him, never talking about the black sight she had seen from the bridge because she probably knew how he would handle that.
She had known all along. She had been so sure in her secret that she even came back for one grandstand play there in the kitchen. Perhaps the police knew already, and that’s why she was that sure — but not sure enough not to run that last minute. She knew how he would handle it now.
He ran the other way and knocked over a child in the square. There were couples and old people but they stepped aside and made no noise. Let him run. If he goes away there will be no trouble.
Perhaps she had run, too, and her lead was too great. Charley ran around the corner into the dirt road by the house where the roof had fallen in. But perhaps she was thinking he was busy up in the kitchen. By rights he’d be killing Joe now, and then he’d have Fanny on his hands who’d maybe wake and start screaming. It wasn’t far to the alleys beyond the ravine. If she had made it —
• • •
There was a spray of gravel when he skidded down to the old bridge and he started to race again
. There wasn’t enough light to tell the other side clearly, but it was all right not to look that far because she was still on the bridge. The shawl was over her head making a tall, headless shape, very dark.
To Charley it looked like a monster.
She must have heard because she turned and stopped. And she hadn’t been walking fast, he noticed, but slow and sure. She stood and watched him come. He wasn’t running any more. He had stopped, drawn the gun, and probing it out ahead of him he had started to walk in a tense crouch. This time it felt right all the way. No sick pain, no doubt, and he started to kill her every step of the way.
Then he stopped, and she didn’t move.
“So you saw,” he said.
The monster without the head did not move and the voice was without feeling.
“I saw what?”
It felt to him as if he was going to giggle, and it needed some strong impact to keep him sane. He would look at the monster and remember the bridge. He would step closer, look at her, and remember the bridge.
“Charley — ” she said, and he could hardly hear. The blindness of his run was wearing off and her voice was Martha’s voice again. She had moved her head, a small move, and seeing her face now it was hard to remember the monster. He didn’t notice how his gun hand went down.
“Why did you come, Charley?” The voice was weary, but Martha’s voice.
“Why did I come?”
“It is too late, Charley.”
“Too late? What’s too late?” He had to repeat automatically just to do something, to become himself again and not go dizzy under a spell she was weaving. Everything Joe had said was an evil trick. But the thing under the bridge — Joe hadn’t been there; Martha had. With an effort of will, Charley tried thinking. No more feelings now — no more hate feelings for Joe and love feelings for Martha — because they were both blinding spells and once and for all he had to know. He looked away from Martha and focused on something far.
“What did you tell him? What did you tell him about that first night?”
At first she didn’t understand, and the emptiness inside her gave her no will. She would have liked to hear nothing and see nothing. His hand was on the stone rail of the bridge, rubbing it with fingers working the stone.