McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales

by Michael Chabon

  “Are you good at it, sai?”

  She was silent, biting at the corner of her lip again.

  “Show him,” Eisenhart growled. “Show him and be done.”

  They walked down the steps, the rancher’s wife leading the way, Eisenhart behind her, Roland third. Behind them the kitchen door opened and banged shut.

  “Gods-a-glory, missus Eisenhart’s gonna throw the dish!” Benny Slightman cried gleefully. “Jake! You won’t believe it!”

  “Send ’em back in, Vaughn,” she said. “They don’t need to see this.”

  “Nar, let ’em look,” Eisenhart said. “Don’t hurt a boy to see a woman do well.”

  “Send them back, Roland, aye?” She looked at him, flushed and flustered and very pretty. To Roland she looked ten years younger than when she’d come out on the porch, but he wondered how she’d fling in such a state. It was something he much wanted to see, because ambushing was brutal work, quick and emotional.

  “I agree with your husband,” he said. “I’d let them stay.”

  “Have it as you like,” she said. Roland saw she was actually pleased, that she wanted an audience, and his hope increased. He thought it increasingly likely that this pretty middle-aged wife, this exile from the Manni with her small breasts and salt-and-pepper hair, had a hunter’s heart. Not a gunslinger’s heart, but at this point he would settle for a few hunters—a few killers—male or female.

  She marched toward the barn, and when they were fifty yards from the stuffy-guys flanking its door, he touched her shoulder and made her stop.

  “Nay,” she said, “’tis too far.”

  “I’ve seen you fling as far and half again,” her husband said, and stood firm in the face of her angry look. “I have.”

  “Not with a gunslinger from the Line of Eld standing by my right elbow, you haven’t,” she said, but she stayed where she was.

  Roland went to the barn door and took the grinning sharproot head from the stuffy on the left side. He went into the barn. Here was a stall filled with freshly picked potatoes. He took one of the potatoes and set it atop the stuffy-guy’s shoulders, where the sharproot had been. It was a good-sized spud, but the contrast was still comic; the stuffy-guy now looked like Mr. Tinyhead in a carnival show or street fair.

  “Oh, Roland, no!” she cried, sounding genuinely shocked. “I could never!”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, and stood aside. “Throw.”

  For a moment he thought she wouldn’t. She looked around for her husband. If Eisenhart had still been standing beside her, Roland thought she would have thrust the plate into his hands and run for the house and never mind if he cut himself on it, either. But Vaughn Eisenhart had withdrawn to the foot of the steps. The boys stood above him, Benny Slightman watching with mere interest, Jake with closer attention, his brows drawn together and the smile suddenly gone from his face.

  “Roland, I—”

  “None of it, missus, I beg. Your talk of leaping was all very fine, and certainly you leaped when you left your father and his folken, but that was years ago and I’d see if you’re still limber. Throw. ”

  She recoiled a little at the mention of her father, eyes widening as if she had been slapped. Then she turned to face the barn door and drew her right hand above her left shoulder. The plate glimmered in the late light, which was now more pink than red. Her lips had thinned to a white line. For a moment all the world held still.

  “Riza!” she cried in a shrill, furious voice, and cast her arm forward. Her hand opened, the index finger pointing precisely along the path the plate would take. Of all of them in the yard (the cowpokes had also stopped to watch), only Roland’s eyes were sharp enough to follow the flight of the dish.

  True! he exulted. True as ever was!

  The plate gave a kind of moaning howl as it bolted above the dirt yard. Less than two seconds after it had left her hand, the potato lay in two pieces, one by the stuffy-guy’s gloved right hand and the other by its left. The plate itself stuck in the side of the barn door, quivering.

  The boys raised a cheer. Benny hoisted his hand as his new friend had taught him, and Jake slapped him a high five.

  “Great going, sai Eisenhart!” Jake called.

  “Good hit! Say thankya!” Benny added.

  Roland observed the way the woman’s lips drew back from her teeth at this hapless, well-meant praise—she looked like a horse that has seen a snake. “Boys,” he said, “I’d go inside now, were I you.”

  Benny was bewildered. Jake, however, took another look at Margaret Eisenhart and understood. You did what you had to . . . and then the reaction set in. “Come on, Ben,” he said.

  “But—”

  “Come on.” Jake took his new friend by the shirt and tugged him back toward the kitchen door.

  Roland let the woman stay where she was for a moment, head down, trembling with reaction. Strong color still blazed in her cheeks, but everywhere else her skin had gone as pale as milk. He thought she was struggling not to vomit.

  He went to the barn door, grasped the plate at the grasping-place, and pulled. He was astounded at how much effort it took before the plate first wiggled and then came loose. He brought it back to her, held it out. “Thy tool.”

  For a moment she didn’t take it, only looked at him with a species of bright hate. “Why do you mock me with speech, Roland? What did my father tell thee?”

  In the face of her rage he only shook his head. “I do not mock thee.”

  Margaret Eisenhart abruptly seized Roland by the neck. Her grip was dry and so hot her skin felt feverish. She pulled his ear to her uneasy, twitching mouth. He thought he could smell every bad dream she must have had since deciding to leave her people for Calla Bryn Sturgis’s big rancher.

  “I know thee spoke with Henchick today,” she said. “Will’ee speak to him more? Ye will, won’t you?”

  Roland nodded, transfixed by her grip. The strength of it. The little puffs of air against his ear. Did a lunatic hide deep down inside everyone, even such a woman as this?

  “Good. Say thankya. Tell him Margaret of the Redpath Clan does fine with her heathen man, aye, fine still.” Her grip tightened. “Tell him she regrets nothing! Will’ee do that for me?”

  “Aye, lady, if you like.”

  She snatched the plate from him, fearless of its lethal edge. “What would ye visit on us, ye gunstruck man?”

  Eisenhart joined them. He looked uncertainly at his wife, who had endured exile from her people and the hardening of her father’s heart for his sake. For a moment she looked at him as though she didn’t know him.

  “I only do as ka wills,” Roland said.

  “Ka!” she cried, and her lip lifted. A sneer transformed her good looks to an ugliness that was almost startling. It would have frightened the boys. “Every troublemaker’s excuse! Put it up your bum with the rest of the dirt!”

  “I do as ka wills and so will you,” Roland said.

  She looked at him, seeming not to comprehend. Roland took the hot hand that had gripped him and squeezed it, not quite to the point of pain.

  “And so will you.”

  She met his gaze for a moment, then dropped her eyes. “Aye,” she muttered. “Oh, aye, so do we all.”

  She left him for the house.

  Blood Doesn’t Come Out

  By MICHAEL CRICHTON

  A man can only be pushed so far—especially

  when his mother is the one pushing.

  It wasn’t my day. When I hit him in the mouth, I cut my hand and the blood dripped onto my new mauve Lauren tie. And blood doesn’t come out. It made me mad so I kicked him a couple of times while he rolled on the ground in the alley, swearing in Spanish. Nobody saw us. The alleys of Beverly Hills are pretty deserted at eight in the morning. The stores don’t open until ten.

  I got back in my new Mustang and tossed the digital camera on the passenger seat. I stuck a Kleenex on my knuckles and started the ignition. The guy was on his feet by then, shak
ing his fist at me as I drove away, but he had only himself to blame. He shouldn’t have been stealing all those nice leather jackets from the store. The client wanted pictures and now I had them. A dozen digital hi-res snaps showing the guy taking stuff out of the truck in the early morning sun and putting it into his car. I figured I’d earned my money. Wrongful termination suits are expensive and I’d nipped this one in the bud.

  I called the client on my cell phone and left a message on his answering machine. By now it was time for breakfast. I would have gone around the corner to Nate ’n Al’s except I had blood on my tie. So I went home.

  I had one of those small houses in the flats south of Pico. Beverly-wood, they call it. It’s a good neighborhood, real people with real jobs live there. I’ve had the same house for forty years, now. It was reasonable when my mother bought it in the sixties. Now it’s north of half a million for eighteen hundred square feet, two baths, and a backyard the size of a walk-in closet. You’ve got to wonder. My mother lived in it with me until I came back from college. But she’s been in a home for years now. I hardly ever see her. Sometimes I feel guilty, but not often.

  The client called back right as I pulled into the driveway. He was screaming. He said I’d got the wrong guy, and what the fuck was I doing beating up poor Fernando? I told him I had the pictures to prove it, but he wasn’t listening. I could see my fee slipping away. The client never wants to hear that his lover is a thief. Not while he’s in love, anyway. Afterward, of course, he wants to kill. But I could tell this guy was still in love.

  All his yelling at me was making me feel bad. Losing the fee was making me feel worse. I was already behind on my car payments. I pretended my connection was going bad, and hung up. Clearly, it wasn’t my day. I stripped off my tie and went in the house. I noticed I had a couple of blood spots on my shirt, so I started unbuttoning it as I went into the bedroom. I felt like a drink, but it was a little too early.

  There was a suitcase lying open on the bed. Janis’s clothes were folded in neat piles around the room. The closet door was open and some of her clothes were already gone. I looked in the bathroom but she wasn’t there so I went into the kitchen. It was time for that drink after all.

  Through the windows I saw Janis in the backyard, pacing back and forth with the portable phone to her ear. She was wearing a halter top and sweatpants. The perpetual exerciser. Janis picked up an acting job about three days a year, just enough to keep her health insurance. The rest of the time she exercised. She was in good shape for thirty-five. We’d been together two years, off and on.

  She hadn’t seen me standing there yet. I went to the wall phone by the refrigerator and punched the speaker button.

  “—just can’t stand it,” she was saying. “I can’t take it anymore.”

  A man’s voice said, “Did you tell him?”

  “I can’t talk to him.”

  “Don’t you think you should?” the man said. He had a deep, confidential voice. He sounded like an older guy. But then, I was an older guy too. I was fifteen years older than she was. My next big one was five-oh.

  Janis was still pacing. “I’ve tried to talk to him, Armand. You know I’ve tried.”

  I thought, Armand? Who the fuck is Armand? I started to sweat. I took off my sports coat so I wouldn’t crease it. Sometimes when I sweat I get creases at the elbow and the shoulder. Then I have to get it pressed. I slipped the jacket over the back of the kitchen chair.

  “I’m tired of faking it,” she was saying.

  “Faking what?”

  “Faking everything. Faking conversations, faking smiles, faking orgasms. Faking everything.”

  Armand chuckled. “Everything?”

  “He likes it when I scream,” Janis said. “So I scream. What the fuck.”

  I was sweating more. I wiped my forehead. I felt dizzy. I hated him for that knowing chuckle. They were still talking but I couldn’t hear them for a while. I got the bottle of scotch down from above the refrigerator. I noticed I had only three bottles left. I twisted off the cap. I took a slug and felt it burn all the way down.

  “He’s such an old lady,” Janis was saying. “I mean it’s his house, he’s been here forever, but he won’t let me change anything, or move anything. Everything has to be just so.”

  “I thought he chased around. I heard he was a big ladies’ man.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe back when. All I know is, nobody can move Mom’s picture on the piano. I can tell you that.”

  I was looking at the piano in the living room. I hadn’t remembered the picture was even there. Why didn’t she tell me if she didn’t like it? Hell, I didn’t care. My mother was in a home, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t care either.

  I took another slug, and didn’t feel it. So I took another to keep it company. My stomach was warm and I coughed. She heard it and looked over.

  “I got to go,” she said quickly, and there was a dial tone. I clicked the speakerphone off as she came in. “Very nice, Ray,” she said. “Very fucking classy. What’re you, investigating me now?”

  I said, “You want to move the picture, go ahead and move it. I don’t give a shit.”

  “I’m leaving,” she said, sweeping into the bedroom. “So why don’t you just give me an hour alone? Be civilized about it.”

  “I don’t feel civilized.”

  “Then have another belt.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “What’re you going to do now, tough guy, beat me up?”

  “No,” I said, “I’m not going to beat you up.”

  “That’s good, Ray.”

  “I’m not even going to touch you.”

  “That’s good,” she said, “because if you do, Ray, I’ll have your ass in jail so fucking fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  “I said I won’t touch you.”

  “And I heard you. We’ve communicated. Now just go away, will you?” she said. She slammed the bedroom door behind her.

  I said, “Who the fuck is Armand?”

  She didn’t answer. I was standing there in the kitchen with my half-unbuttoned shirt and my tie streaked with blood. I took another slug, buttoned my shirt, and left.

  I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I just drove around the neighborhood. The scotch sat hard in my stomach, turning sour. I stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought a pack of Marlboros. I stood outside on the pavement and watched the guys going in to buy Lotto tickets. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, and got a newspaper from the sidewalk dispenser. I sat in the car and flipped through the sections, not really reading. I checked my watch. I’d given her twenty minutes. I figured that was enough.

  I wanted to go back and argue with Janis some more; I was feeling like an argument. I turned the key in the ignition, drove a block, then pulled over and parked again. The more I thought about her, the more I decided I didn’t give a damn. I’d always known those screams were fake. That’s what you get with an actress. A lot of rich, fake emotion. And a thirty-five-year-old broad in good shape. I was better off without her. I wouldn’t have to listen to her talk about her fucking diets.

  It was hot, sitting in the car. I got out and walked back to the 7-Eleven. I bought a pint of Red Label and took some to settle my stomach. I went back to my car. I waited until forty minutes had passed, and then decided to go back.

  When I got there she was gone. Her clothes were gone from the closet. I pulled out the dresser drawers. Her underwear was gone. The bathroom, all her cosmetics were gone. The lacy bras that hung over the shower rod, the thong panties dangling from the tub spout, they were gone too. Hell, it was the first time in two years she’d cleaned up after herself.

  I didn’t look for a note.

  I knew she wouldn’t bother.

  The mail came. I heard it rattle through the slot. I went out to get it. It was mostly bills. I sat on the couch in the living room and shuffled through it. The sun was coming in through the front windows. It was glaring and bright where I sat. I moved over to the piano bench, whic
h was still in shade.

  I finished with the mail. There were a couple of pieces for her. I tossed them aside. I looked down at the piano bench, noticing how scratched up it was, how old. I didn’t know why I’d kept it all these years. For that matter, I didn’t know why I’d kept the piano. My mother used to play it, occasionally, when she lived here.

  And when I was a kid, she sat on the bench beside me and made me do my lessons. Every day, she sat beside me and corrected me, getting angrier and angrier because I wasn’t paying attention, and then she’d start smacking me on the shoulder every time I made a mistake. She thought it would make me pay attention. But for me it was just a daily challenge, to see if I could take what she dished out, and not cry. I refused to cry after about the age of eight. Of course she wanted to make me to cry so she hit me harder, and harder. My arm would get red, and sometimes it was bruised. But I wouldn’t cry.

  We played that little game every day for about four years, until I had football after school, and could stay away until dinner. Once I was a teenager, I avoided her as much as I could. By then she was drinking hard, anyway. She’d snarl at me that I was a fuckup like my father, that I’d never amount to anything. My father had left her before I was born. Made sense to me.

  In later years, she was usually drunk asleep when I got home. I was grateful she was passed out, because I wouldn’t have to listen to her abuse. I’d fix dinner for myself, do my homework. It was all right. Then I went back east to college, so I didn’t see her much after that.

  The sun was moving. It had almost crossed the living room to find me at the piano bench. I wondered how long I had been sitting there, remembering old times. The sun reflected off the black polished surface of the piano and glinted on the silver frame that had my mother’s picture. The picture was faded, the colors washed out. It showed my mother smiling. She always smiled for a camera, and then dropped it as soon as the shutter clicked.

  I don’t know where the picture was taken. It was on the piano when I got back from college. By that time my mother was unable to care for herself. She had bleeding ulcers and trouble with her balance, and she walked with that shuffling gait that marks the real drunks. You know the way they never pick their feet off the floor, because they can’t feel anything anymore.