Floyd’s head skewed back. “Well?” he demanded.
“Well what? I didn’t hear what you said.”
Georgie mumbled, “The hell time’s it?”
Mitch said uncertainly, “He’s freaked out.”
Georgie cackled. His mouth worked and after a moment he said in a slurred breathless whisper, “Man, blowin’ my—mind!” He simpered and crawled around on the floor, rolling up in a fetal ball. The pupils of his eyes were pinpoints; the irises around them seemed enlarged with bloodshot veins. He was having a great deal of trouble getting his breath.
Floyd said lamely, “Take it easy—take it easy.”
Georgie made no response. His eyes turned dull like slate; they closed. He lay curled up, wheezing.
Mitch said, “What’s the matter with him?”
Floyd didn’t answer for the longest time. Mitch felt a hand on his arm—Terry, clutching him for strength. Billie Jean and Theodore hung back at the edge of the shadows, watching, afraid to speak. Afterward, remembering it, Mitch’ wondered how it was that they had all known, before anyone had said much of anything at all.
Finally Floyd said without tone, “I think he’s had it—I think he’s had it.”
Mitch felt his muscles go rigid. He cleared his throat. Floyd seemed to think the sound was a question. He said, “Overdose of heroin depresses the respiratory system. Slows down all the vital functions. He’s got congestion in his lungs now—I think he’s had it.”
None of them moved. Floyd said, “You may leave me alone now. All of you.” When he looked up his expression was astringent, unforgiving. It lay against Theodore and then it came around against Mitch like a bladed weapon. Mitch backed up, dragging Terry with him. The four of them retreated beyond the lamp and stood in a loose knot. None of them said anything. From where he stood, Mitch saw Georgie’s face change. Georgie began to frown like a small child sleeping—solemn, innocent. The sound of his labored wheezing became louder and slower in the silent dim store.
Georgie must have found the heroin in the cracker tin when Theodore left him alone inside; Georgie’s trips to the bathroom had given him the time to mainline the stuff. He had injected too many shots in too short a time—that was all.
Mitch felt Terry’s fingers crawl up his arm and clamp onto his shoulder. She turned her face against his chest. He slipped his arm around her and gripped her waist. She stopped shaking and stood rigid, waiting. The only sound was the rattle of Georgie’s breath. It became raspy and irregular; the intervals of silence grew longer. All the while, Floyd squatted on his heels with one hand on Georgie’s neck, not blinking, not stirring. Georgie’s skin turned gray and grainy like a matte finish. Hunched over him, Floyd resembled a pagan priest entranced in some macabre rite. It was as if he intended the power of life to flow through the tips of his fingers, lightly resting on the side of Georgie’s neck, to resurrect the dying: as if by the sheer force of mental concentration he could will life into Georgie.
A time came when Mitch took a deep breath and realized he had himself stopped breathing; it had been a long time since he had last breathed; he panted to get air in his lungs—and realized in that moment that he had begun to hold his breath when Georgie had stopped gasping.
Floyd stood up briskly and turned. His face was composed: his expression like a natural law left nothing open to dispute. “Strip off his clothes—don’t forget his watch and ring. Dump him out in the desert.”
Billie Jean said, “You mean bury him?”
“No.” Moving like a mechanism, Floyd walked to the back of the room and sat down in the debris with his back against the wall. “No. Leave him out there naked where the coyotes and buzzards can get at his face. The ants will finish the job.” Momentarily his eyes flashed: “Or do you want the cops to identify him and track us all down through him?”
Terry shuddered violently. Her little cries were muffled against Mitch’s chest. He tightened his grip and muttered, “You do it, Theodore.”
Theodore glanced at him, lugubrious; if Theodore had any feelings about it he did not display them. He went slowly toward Georgie and bent down and Mitch turned away, unable to watch; he cupped his hand at the back of Terry’s head to keep her face against his chest. Floyd, sitting with his knees drawn up, lowered his face and closed his eyes. Billie Jean began to whimper.
Floyd never glanced at any of them after that. Theodore went out, carrying Georgie. Billie Jean lit a stick of pot and even offered it around but no one wanted it and Billie Jean settled down in a corner, hunched around her smoke, taking quick little furtive puffs. Mitch held Terry close to him until she stopped trembling, whereupon she turned away from him and settled to the floor much the way a pneumatic tire settles when punctured. She watched Floyd the way she might have watched a clock ticking toward—what? Mitch kept his uneasy stare on her; he pressed his hands together until he heard the knuckles crack.
Withdrawn and brooding, Floyd sat surrounded by a coiling charge of electric malevolence which tightened notch by notch as the night passed. His immobile silence was more sinister than a furious rage.
When Theodore returned he dropped Georgie’s clothes in a bundle on the floor and obliviously opened a can of beer and drank it quickly, afterward belching with loud satisfaction. So far as Mitch could tell Floyd didn’t even glance at him. In her corner Billie Jean mewed like a frightened kitten but Theodore only turned his head to stare at her; he did not go to her. They all remained like that, squatting in their individual solitary caves of silence across a lengthening stretch of time which to Mitch seemed almost visible, like a sheet of glass slowly disintegrating into brittle frosty fragments.
Mitch waited through the awful stillness without reckoning the passage of hours. A point came when he found himself sitting crosslegged, his hand on the silken warmth of Terry Conniston’s forearm, her head propped gently against his shoulder—he did not remember moving to her, nor remember her responding to his intrusion. Her eyes had gone dark behind their opaque placenta of fear; he understood that she was clinging to him only because it was better than sitting alone, untouched, in taut terrible emptiness.
She seemed unaware of the fact that he was looking at her, or perhaps indifferent to it. Her lower lip jutted in profile—afraid, defiant, infuriated by her own despair. The bare triangle of smooth golden skin at her throat held his attention: the round thrusting solidity of her breasts, the concave crescent of her narrow waist, the round line of strong hip and long flank outlined against the dying lamp, and on her face the traces, etching deeper, of heavy and desperate strain.
The lamp went dry and the flame flickered out and it slowly penetrated Mitch’s dulled consciousness that streaks of gray light were sharding in through cracks around the windows and door. He got up, stiff in all his joints, slipping Terry’s hand out of his grip, and crossed to the front of the place. When he dragged the door open it squealed and scratched its way across an arc of sand and pebbles on the floor. The indeterminate half-light of dawn sprawled in through the opening, throwing a vague splash across the floor toward the spot where Georgie had died. Mitch stood in the open rectangle breathing the crisp air, pushing the residue of stale pot smoke from his nostrils.
When he turned back inside the light was growing stronger; Floyd’s eyes lay against him like glass-cutting diamonds, motionless but ready to slice. Mitch stood bolt still in his tracks.
Floyd was getting to his feet. Straightening up, looking at each of them in turn, walking slowly forward trailing uncertain mystery like a cloak: he passed Mitch a foot away and went on out through the door, ducking his head beneath the tilted beam.
Mitch waited ten seconds; then his eyes grew wide and he wheeled under the beam, outside.
Floyd stood out in the street, ten feet from the porch, frowning thoughtfully at the eastern sky. Half the sun was a red ball on a mountaintop. Floyd seemed to have the peripheral vision of a professional basketball player: he swiveled his head to look at Mitch, who had taken one step onto t
he porch and was standing still in deep shadows. The adrenaline pumping through his body made Mitch’s hands shake.
Floyd bent down slowly and picked up a clot of clay the size of his thumb. He rubbed it between his fingers until it disintegrated in a little shower of sand. Turning his face toward Mitch, he spoke from his semi-crouch:
“About that time.”
Floyd’s eyes seemed voracious. He put his right hand in the slit pocket of his jacket—the pocket where he kept the revolver. Mitch did not stir; he only breathed again when Floyd turned with a sharp snap of his shoulders and stalked across the street toward the barn.
The Oldsmobile started up and came out of the barn slowly, crunching stones. It stopped below the porch and Floyd leaned across to the open right-hand window. “Enjoy yourself,” he said, and tossed the revolver to the ground below the porch.
Mitch glimpsed Floyd’s hot quick smile and then the Olds-mobile’s engine roared. The tires spun, spraying back salvos, then gained purchase. The big car surged away, covering Mitch with dust.
He stepped down off the porch and picked up the gun. It occurred to him then that Floyd’s own emotions were no more important to Floyd than his tonsils, which had been removed in his childhood. Nothing would distract Floyd from his logically constructed plans.
Mitch had not known what to expect; frozen with fear, he had half believed Floyd would explode against them all. Now his brain slowly clamped onto the new realization after numbly dislodging from its former suspicion. Floyd meant to go through with it all as if nothing had happened.
The weight of the gun was unfamiliar in his hand. He turned and saw Theodore and Billie Jean standing just outside the door.
Billie Jean said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think he’s gonna come back.”
Theodore sat down with his legs dangling over, gripped the edge of the porch with both hands and rocked back and forth. The milky half-closed eye caught a glint of sunlight; he said, “You got the gun, Mitch. You want to do it or do I?”
“Do what?”
Theodore shrugged and kept rocking. “Her,” he said.
“Nobody’s touching her,” Mitch said. Rage swelled his eyes, fueled and banked by the long repressed night.
Billie Jean said, “She knows what we look like.”
Mitch didn’t reply. Theodore fixed his one-eyed stare on the gun and stopped rocking; his legs became still. Billie Jean said, “When Floyd gets back we ain’t going to want to waste a lot of time. Better get done with it now.”
“You just said you thought he wasn’t coming back. Make up your mind.”
“Either way,” Billie Jean said, “we got to stop her clock, don’t we? I mean, we can’t take her with us and we can’t leave her here to talk.”
“We’ll wait for Floyd,” Mitch said.
Theodore said, “Georgie’s dead. What’s he got to come back here for?”
The edge of that thought, fast-traveling, struck them all a sharp blow. Mitch’s eyes widened; he said, “We wait,” with more confidence than he felt.
Billie Jean said crossly, “He owes us money.”
“You’re talking as if he’d already run out on us.”
“Well, he has. You know he has. Who’s going to stop him pick up the money and just keep going across the line? Was you him, would you come back?”
I would, Mitch thought. But I’m not him. He wouldn’t be afraid of the rest of us coming after him.
As if reading his thoughts Billie Jean said, “Suppose’n he picks up the money and then he stops at a phone and tells the cops where to look for us.”
Theodore scowled. “Floyd wouldn’t do that to us.”
“You wanna bet?”
Terry Conniston appeared in the door, pale and unsteady; clearly she had been listening. She fastened her gaze on Mitch. Theodore’s head twisted around on his short neck; he said in his casual abrasive voice, “We oughta use that gun on her now and get out of here, go on down the road and watch for Floyd. If Floyd comes, okay. If the cops come we fade back in the rocks and let them go by and then get the hell out of there. There’s a good spot up the road ten-twelve miles from here.”
Billie Jean said with waspish petulance, “We ain’t got any more time to wait.”
Mitch shook his head obstinately. “Anyway the car’s only a two-seater. And Floyd’s got the keys to it.”
“You wanna get us all put away?”
“We wait,” Mitch said, and set his teeth.
Theodore growled. He turned around again to fix his cyclopean stare on Terry, who shrank back in the doorway and gripped the jamb, the tendons of her fingers standing out. Billie Jean lowered her brows and walked to the edge of the porch, sat down beside Theodore and bent to whisper in his ear. Mitch frowned and took a step forward. Theodore’s eye whipped around toward him and Theodore nodded in response to something Billie Jean said. Billie Jean formed her hand into a fist and pounded her knee, talking with sibilant earnestness; Mitch, unable to make out the words, kept walking forward.
He came within six feet of them: Billie Jean stopped whispering, gave him an arch look and stood up. Mitch pointed the gun at them. “You two gentle down.”
Billie Jean started to walk back along the porch toward the door. “You figure just wait here till the cops come, Mitch? What do you hear from your head lately?”
She stopped at the door. Her plump face was turned toward Mitch—but her hand darted out, clamped around Terry’s wrist and yanked Terry out onto the porch. Terry’s little cry brought Mitch up on the porch; he extended the gun before him and said, “Let her go!”
Billie Jean’s sensuous mouth formed a pouting leer. Terry grabbed her hand and tried to pry it loose. Mitch took another step toward them—and Theodore landed on him like a cement bag.
They had set it up between them—Billie Jean’s distraction, Theodore’s leap: he had fallen for it like an idiot. He had time for that disgusted thought in the instant when he felt the rush of wind from Theodore’s charging attack. Then he was pitching forward, agony exploding in his back where Theodore’s knee had rammed him; spinning, his wrist caught in Theodore’s fist. He went down with Theodore on top of him and the gun fell somewhere. The tumble, and Theodore’s weight, knocked the wind out of his lungs; a curse, savage but weak, escaped his mouth. Theodore grunted and twisted something and Mitch’s face was pushed down against the splintered porch boards. He felt something rip along the side of his jaw; only then did he begin to react. He was not a fighter but there was enough screaming panic in him to inject strength: he flailed his body, striking back with both heels, and hit some part of Theodore, enough to make Theodore shift his weight and cry out. Mitch got one elbow under him and heaved, rolling them both over. Theodore switched his grip from Mitch’s wrist to his torso and pinned one arm against his side in a cruel hug. Nothing was in focus or balance; Mitch couldn’t see through the red wash of outrage and terrified frustration that filled his eyes. Agony pulled at his mouth. Kicking blindly, he got purchase against a post and heaved again. It threw him off the porch. There was a sickening instant in mid-air, rolling over, like a dream of falling. They spun together and hit the dusty earth with a whacking thud. Somehow Mitch was on top of Theodore. The fall broke Theodore’s grip and Mitch felt himself rolling free. Stunned and spastic, he whipped around on hands and knees, scrabbling to get his feet under him.
He brought things into focus and saw several things at once. On the porch both girls were diving toward the fallen gun. On the ground before him Theodore was rolling toward the kitchen knife which must have fallen out of Mitch’s belt.
Mitch felt needles in his legs. With a cry he launched himself forward: he brought his hand up with deathly panic behind it, whacking the heel of his hand up under Theodore’s nose. It lifted Theodore off the ground: he heard the crush of cartilage, felt the spurt of blood on his palm; Theodore windmilled, off balance, and slammed his back against the edge of the porch. Behind Theodore the girls were a blur of swirling flesh, a cacoph
ony of shrieks.
Theodore roared and bounced forward, his eye glittering. Light raced along the blade of the knife in his sweeping fist. Horror froze a knot in Mitch’s throat. He tried to dodge and his heel slipped on the loose pebbles of the street and as he fell his right leg whipped out for balance. Theodore tripped over it and sprawled, still roaring. Mitch reached for the edge of the porch to lift himself to his feet; as he got to his knees he saw, at eye-level, the revolver come skittering across the boards—kicked by one of the girls’ thrashing feet.
Unwilled, automatically, his fist closed around the gun and he wheeled in time to see Theodore rushing toward him with the knife outstretched at groin level, ready to rip him up the belly. In unthinking reaction Mitch yanked the gun around and jerked the trigger, and kept jerking the trigger with deliberate, methodical, mechanical pulls.
The gunshots were earsplitting roars; the bullets sprayed out, making the gun pitch and buck in his fist; more than one of them, fired point-blank, struck Theodore. Red spots started to show up on his shirt even before he stopped moving. A dark disk appeared on his face just above his bad eye, rimmed at the bottom by droplets of crimson froth. In slack-mouthed disbelief Mitch watched him turn aside like a puppet and take a dozen jerky disjointed steps and topple—dead, clearly, by the way he fell.
The firecracker scent of cordite was a vicious bite in Mitch’s nostrils. Blood dripped from the scraped side of his jaw. He had a stitch in his ribs; he stood soaked in his own juices, staring down at the trail of blood spots that marked Theodore’s last few steps.
Dull amazement washed through him; he was not ready to credit the reality of it. It was only after some time that he thought to turn around—he almost lost his balance—toward the porch where the girls had been struggling.
They stood a little distance apart, staring. The gunshots must have broken up their fight. Terry slowly sat down and buried her face in her hands; her body lurched but she made no sounds. Billie Jean waited a long time before she climbed down off the porch and walked past Mitch as if he weren’t there and stood over Theodore’s crumpled body. She prodded Theodore with her toe. There was a reflexive muscle-jerk that made Theodore’s leg clatter; Billie Jean jumped back in terror. Mitch bent down by her and felt for a pulse but he wasn’t sure where to look: he tried the wrist and the throat. He peeled back the lid of Theodore’s good eye but blood filled it immediately; he wiped his hand on the sandy ground and backed away, and ran to the corner of the barn, where he bent over and threw up.
What of Terry Conniston? Page 12