by Ed McBain
“All right, Mack. Y’dn have to hole it. I’cn hannle it. Where … where ’sh … oh … thanks.”
She tilted the glass. She stretched out her legs and threw her head back. She was very tired, very sleepy, just lie down and sleep some place, but hide the bruises, ugly bruises on thigh, strong fingers like vise, hide the bruises, but, oh, so tired, so very tired, but hide them, spoil legs, do you like my legs?
“Do you like my legs, Mac?” Silly question, shouldn’s ask silly damn question deserves a silly damn …
“They’re lovely,” he said, his voice a hushed whisper.
“Oh, how hoarse,” she said. Horse? No, Man. Man Mac.
“Let’s get some air, Marge. You need some air, that’s what. Come with me, Marge, and we’ll get you some air.”
“Air is for bloons.”
“Come, Marge. Come with me. Come, Marge. That’s the girl. Upsa-daisy, there you are, that’s the girl, good girl, good girl, Marge your legs are lovely, Marge, wonderful lovely legs, lovely …”
“’vely. Air is for bloons. Air is for blooms, Mac.”
“Balloons.”
“We said that twice already.”
“All right, but you get the point, don’t you? Point, there now, you should answer, ‘I get both points.’ Remember that Jane Russell Movie? ‘JR in 3/D. It’ll knock both your eyes out!’ I pity that poor, poor girl, believe me. I know just what she goes through.”
“They are beautiful, though,” Aaron said. He reached out and touched one of the blonde’s breasts, tracing it lightly with his fingers. “Beautiful.”
“You think so?” the blonde asked. Her chest expanded proudly under his fingers. She smiled and leaned her head back against his shoulders, taking his other hand and moving it up to the front of her dress. “They are pretty nice to have, after all, I guess;” she purred happily.
“Who culled me stupit?” Hengman asked.
“Break-ish ash fr’m,” Posnansky said.
“Who culled me stupit?”
“C’est beau?” Manelli exploded in French. “C’est magnifique!”
Canotti burst out laughing.
“I heard that one,” the brunette said.
Manelli patted her thigh paternally.
“You’re not eating any olives,” Stiegman said.
The redhead smiled. “Mister, olive-eating ain’t my profession.”
“What is?”
“You guess. It ain’t eating olives, I can tell you that much.”
He saw McQuade helping Marge from the room, and he was annoyed. He was annoyed because he’d appointed himself protector, and annoyed because he and Cara were getting along fine, and he did not particularly feel like leaving her. For a moment, he debated just letting Marge do whatever the hell she felt like doing, but she looked so helpless there, so vulnerable, and somehow the thought of McQuade touching her was a repulsive one. For no good reason, he remembered the small scratch on the leg of Maria Theresa Diaz.
“Excuse me, will you?” he said to Cara.
“Yes, of …”
He left her and started across the room. McQuade had his arm around Marge’s waist, and he was leading her into the corridor that led to the bedrooms. Griff quickened his pace. When he caught up to them, he tapped McQuade on the shoulder.
“Hello,” he said.
Marge looked up, trying to focus Griff.
“Hello, Griff,” McQuade said. There was no smile on his face now. He was sweating, and the sweat beaded his forehead and his upper lip. His eyes were bright.
“Griff?” Marge asked. She nodded her head, as if affirming his presence.
“I was just taking her out for some air,” McQuade said. His eyes did not leave Griff’s face.
“Yes, I figured,” Griff answered, smiling. “I can take care of that, though. I promised Marge I’d take her home, and this seems as good a time as any, don’t you think?” He was amazed at the ease with which the lie sprang to his lips.
“In all honesty,” McQuade said, “no, I don’t think this is as good a time as any.”
Griff shrugged. “Well, I do.”
“Home?” Marge asked. “Tim’r go home, ’ready?”
“I think she’d like to stay,” McQuade said. He had not smiled once during the conversation, nor had the brightness left his eyes. He kept staring at Griff, as if trying to convince him by the sheer force of his eyes.
“Well,” Griff said, “I enjoy debates, but Marge is going home.”
McQuade released her suddenly. She wobbled for an instant, and then Griff caught her, steadying her with an arm around her waist.
“You’re rather like a twentieth-century chastity belt, aren’t you, Griff?” he said tightly.
“Look—” Griff started, and then he clamped his mouth shut. There was going to be trouble, he could sense it. He could feel a tight knot in the pit of his stomach.
“No, take her, take her,” McQuade said. “I make it a policy never to argue over a slut.”
Marge looked up suddenly, but McQuade’s remark had not penetrated her alcoholic haze. For an instant Griff wanted to smash his fist into McQuade’s face. He felt his hand tighten, but something stopped him from throwing the fist, and then suddenly McQuade was smiling, the hardness leaving his mouth, the crinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes. He extended his hand.
“No hard feelings, Griff?”
Griff stared at the proffered hand for a moment. He hesitated, telling himself he should refuse the hand. He sighed then, and extended his own hand. “No hard feelings,” he said, feeling strangely relieved.
“Of course not,” McQuade said. “To the victor belongs—”
And then his grip tightened.
Griff had not expected McQuade’s sudden grip. He had offered his hand for a listless handclasp, and now he felt McQuade’s fingers tightening around his own and for a moment he felt awkward, mistaking McQuade’s grip for a sign of affection. But the awkwardness fled before a scream that almost escaped his mouth when McQuade really bore down. He pulled his hand back in a reflexive movement, but he could not extricate it. He saw McQuade’s jaw muscles tighten, and then the fingers closed on his hand like a vise, squeezing his bones together, shooting raw pain up past his wrist, daggering pain that rushed to his shoulder and his brain. He tried to pull his hand away, but McQuade would not release it.
McQuade was smiling now, his jaws tight, his teeth clenched together. The sweat popped on his forehead, as if the effort he put into the hand crush were squeezing it out of his body.
Griff stood with his arm around Marge’s waist, the other arm extended, the hand caught in the steel trap of McQuade’s grip. He thought McQuade would terminate it abruptly, and so he tried to keep the pain off his face and the scream from his lips. But McQuade did not end it. McQuade showed no intention of ending it. McQuade’s fingers tightened and tightened until Griff’s hand became a throbbing aching bundle of nerves, ragged, jagged nerves that screamed silently.
His whole body seemed to suddenly flow into his right hand. His whole body, and his whole mind, his entire existence were suddenly in the palm and five fingers of his right hand. The hand seemed like a sentient thing with a mind of its own, and a soul of its own, and a hundred darting, electrifying aches and pains and needles and jabs and ripping, tearing cracks and fissures of its own. His lips parted, and he squinched up his eyes, and then his teeth came together, and he could hear the click when they came together, and he felt this swelling pain that came from his hand, that shouted with a voice of its own from his hand.
He felt weak all at once, dizzy and weak, and he felt his left arm slipping from Marge’s waist, and he saw Marge slump against the wall, but he was no longer concerned about Marge, he was concerned only about the swelling pain of his right hand, the pain that seemed to mushroom out and envelope his entire body. He could see McQuade’s face clearly, the lips drawn back, the teeth clenched tightly, the sweat clinging to his brow. He could see the face, and then the face blurred a
little, and he knew he would lose consciousness if McQuade would not release him. He suddenly wanted to plead with McQuade, to beg McQuade to drop his hand, to let his fingers go, to stop the godawful pain, oh, the pain, oh, oh, and he fought to hold the scream back, and then he wondered why he was fighting the scream, and he realized he was not fighting his own weakness, he was fighting McQuade’s strength.
For McQuade’s power had suddenly become a very real thing, not the power invested in him by Titanic, but another power, a power that was part of the man himself, a power that was overwhelming and frightening, the power of a thousand boots on a cobbled street clattering their might to the night. There was something shameful and degrading about giving in to this power, something like the shame he had felt the time that Stuka had dived at him, long ago, so long ago, when he had felt the sudden release of his bowels and then the overwhelming stench of his fear. He could not give in to McQuade, and so he did not scream, and so he fought the livid pain, fought it with every nerve and muscle in his body.
He was on his knees now, on his knees before McQuade, and still McQuade would not release his hand. Griff’s left hand was flat on the floor and behind him he could hear Marge mumbling, “Say … what … say …” but the words were blurred, and he felt this dizziness swell up inside him, and he shook his head to clear it, his right hand extended, his right hand caught in the mesh of McQuade’s fingers.
He knew he would be unconscious in a very few seconds, and he wanted to shout something before he went out, wanted to shout something loud and clear so that everyone could hear him, but he didn’t know what to say, and he could not find the voice to say what he didn’t know how to say the voice shout say how the voice shout …
McQuade dropped his hand.
“You’d better take her home, Griff,” he said pleasantly, and then he turned his back and strode off down the corridor, heading for the sound of the music, ducking his head a little when he went through the open doorway, and then walking toward where Cara stood near the record player.
11
She still felt very dizzy, and Griff’s silence did not help her dizziness at all, not at all. They were in a cab, heading for her house, and he had not said two words since they entered the cab, just pulled himself into this silly, thoughtful silence, wrapped it around him like a black cloak.
“You are silent, thoughtful, sincere, courteous, kind—” she started, and when he did not smile, she cut herself short.
“All right,” she said, “so be that way.”
He did not answer.
“I don’t see what you’re angry about, anyway. A girl has a few drinks, and you act as if …” She glanced sideways at him, and then her mind fled to the city outside the cab window, and she squealed, “Oh, Griff, it’s so pretty out there! All the lights and …” She reached for his hand and squeezed it, and he pulled it back sharply, his mouth opening as if he were going to shout at her.
Well, all right, she thought, all right, I won’t touch you. Okay, okay, I won’t touch you, didn’t know you were so fussy about things like that, anyway, and how did I get in a cab with you, anyway, who asked you to take me home, I was having a good time, wasn’t I?
“I was having a good time,” she said aloud.
“That’s nice,” he said.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, nothing, sure, nothing. You sit there like … like I don’t know what and you say nothing. All right, nothing. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything, anything at all. Just sit there, clam. Just sit there and make pearls inside your shell, clam.”
“Oysters make—”
“I know all about oysters,” Marge said angrily, pulling herself to one side of the cab. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, you’re not.” She couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason for her sudden indignation, but she was indignant as all hell, and she imagined it had something to do with Griff’s attitude. After all, she really hadn’t had that much to drink, and besides her head was absolutely clear now—well, almost. “You’re an old …” She sought a word. “I don’t know. You’re just an old.”
“Clam,” Griff supplied.
“Yes. ’Zactly.”
“All right, Marge,” he said.
“All right, Marge. Nice little girl, Marge. Here’s a pat on the head, Marge. Here, Margie, Margie, Margie.” She tried a whistle, as if she were calling a dog, but the whistle came out as an inadequate puff of air. “You know what?” she asked.
“What?”
“You’ve got no sense of humor.”
“Maybe not,” he said.
“Don’t sound so proud. It isn’t good to have no sense of humor. The trouble with everybody today is that they don’t know when they’re happy. They have to be told when they’re happy.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right. Mac said so.”
“Oh. Then it must be right.”
“And you see? He didn’t try anything, anything at all. He was a perfect gentleman, and he got me drinks all night, which is a lot more than you did.”
“That’s true,” Griff said.
“Am I drunk?” she asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, then, I’m drunk, So what?”
“So nothing. I wish I were drunk.”
“You do not. If you wished you were drunk, you’d be drunk.”
“Suppose I wished … well, never mind.”
“Anything you wish, you get. I wished I was a model, and tonight I was a model. You see?”
“I see.”
“You do not. You’re trying to humor me. Only you haven’t got a sense of humor.”
“I’m just a clam. Clams never laugh.”
“No, but they make pearls.”
“Oysters—”
“Don’t talk about clams or oysters, please,” she said. “I don’t think I feel so good.”
“All right.”
“You’re a very accommodating fellow, did you know that? My wish is your command. You’re kind, courteous, sincere—”
“Yes, I know. I’m a gem.”
“Hey, do you know something?”
“What?”
“I think there were a lot of sluts there tonight. What do you think of that?”
“It’s entirely likely,” Griff said.
“Certainly. Even Mac said so. Well, you know, he was talking about one with you, before you shook hands.”
“Yes,” Griff said.
“Was he trying to hurt you?”
“When?”
“When he shook hands with you?”
“No.”
“Oh. I thought he was trying to hurt you.”
“No.”
“I thought he was.” She wet her lips. “I like April.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Don’t you like April?”
“It’s all right, I suppose.”
“I keep forgetting. Clams don’t like anything.”
“Except other clams.”
“How do clams …?” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oops, never mind.”
“The same way oysters do,” he said.
“It must be dull.” She hiccupped. “Excuse me.”
“You’re excused.”
“April is very nice and misty. It always reminds me of sad songs, ‘Yesterday’s Gardenias’ or ‘Blue Rain’ or ‘Serenade in Blue,’ songs like that.”
“You left out the most important one,” Griff said.
“Which?”
“‘I Remember April.’”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes. And ‘Laura.’ That’s an April song, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You feel like growing in April, don’t you? Everything else is growing, and you feel like growing with it, don’t you? Do clams grow?”
“Clams grow.”
“In April?”
“In April.”
“Maybe it isn’t so bad being a clam. In April. I can’t see it during January. Clams must be very lonely in January.”
“Well, it’s a lonely life,” Griff said, “but we try to manage.”
“Are you feeling a little better now?”
“Yes, a little.”
“That’s good. Hey, did Mac hurt you?”
“No.”
“What were you doing then? You looked like two kids trying to … I don’t know. You looked sort of stupid.”
“Did we?”
Marge shrugged. “I could use a cup of coffee, do you know that?”
“We can stop somewhere.”
“No, no, I’ll make some for us when we get home.”
“Your parents …”
“No, I don’t live with my parents. Didn’t you know that? I used to live with a roommate, but she got married. I moved out of my parents’ house when I was twenty-one. I think that’s significant.”
“Is it?”
“Certainly. When you’re twenty-one, you’re on your own. That’s the way I feel. You don’t live with your parents, do you?”
“My parents are dead,” Griff said.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“Oh, Griff, I’m so terribly sorry. Griff, you make me feel like crying.”
“They’ve been dead a long time,” Griff said.
“Griff, please don’t say anything else because I’ll bust out crying, and I don’t want to cry, Griff, please, it’s been such a lovely night.”
“Let’s go back to clams,” he said. “They’re safe.”
“You’re a nice boy, Griff.”
“You’re a nice girl.”
“And I don’t really think you have no sense of humor. And I don’t really think you’re a clam.”
“But I am,” he said. “I thrive on sea vegetation.”
“No, really,” she said, smiling.
“Really. Clams never lie.”
“I think I’m beginning to sober up,” she said.
“Good.”
“But I’d still like a cup of coffee. You’ll come up, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Is it terrible for a girl to get drunk? Whenever I see a drunken woman, I lose all respect for her.”