The Kill-Off

picnicker fountains, and drove up to the dance pavilion.

The big front doors were swung open. I went inside, circled around in front of the bandstand, and stopped in the doorway of Pete Pavlov's office. He was at his desk, bent over some papers. He glanced up, squirted a stream of tobacco into a spittoon and bent back over the papers again.

He's one of those round-faced, square-built men. About fifty, I guess. He wore khaki pants with both a belt and suspenders, and a blue work shirt with a black bow tie. His hair was parted on the side, and there was a blob of shaving soap up around one of the temples.

I waited. I began to get a little uneasy, even though I was practically sure that I had a job with him for the summer. Because any time Pete Pavlov could do anything to annoy people in Manduwoc, he was just about certain to do it. I mean, he'd go out of his way to get under their hides. And giving me work would get under 'em bad.

He didn't need to care what they thought of him; his business was all with the summer trade. He owned most of the rent cottages, and the pavilion, and two of the hotels, and oh, probably, two-thirds of the concession buildings. So to heck with Manduwoc, was the way he felt. The town people hadn't ever done anything for him. In fact, they'd always been kind of down on him, sort of resentful. Because even back when he was a day laborer, cleaning out cesspools or anything he could get to do, he was as independent as a hog on ice. He'd do a good day's work, but he wouldn't say thank-you for his pay. If anyone called him by his first name or just Pavlov, he'd do exactly the same thing with them. No matter who they were or how much money they had.

He straightened up from his desk, and looked at me. I smiled and said hello, and remarked that it was a nice day. I said, 'I guess I better be getting to work, hadn't I, Pete?'

He waited for me to say something else. I didn't, because I was just too worried. Here was maybe another twenty-five dollars a week going down the hole. The only chance I had left for any income.

Pete kind of squirmed around in his chair, kind of scratching his rear, I guess. He leaned back and picked something out of his nose, and held it up and looked at it. And then he pushed his lips out, moved them in and out, while he stared down at his desk.

'Well, hell,' he said. 'I tell you how it is, Ralph. The way this goddamned summer business is going, I figure on hiring out myself.'

I didn't say anything. I guessed things weren't as good for him as they used to be, but I knew he was still setting pretty. He had plenty, all right, Pete Pavlov did. It would take more than a few slack seasons to hurt him much.

'What are you looking like that for?' he said. 'You think I'm a goddamned liar?' Then, his eyes flickered and shifted, and he let out a whoop of laughter, and slapped his hand down on his desk. 'Well, you're right, by God! I wish you could have seen your face! Really had you going, didn't I?'

'Aw, no, you didn't,' I said. 'I knew you were joking all the time.'

'You know what a broom looks like?' He waved me toward the door. 'Well, see if you can find one that'll fit your hands.'

I got out. I got busy on the rest rooms, and after a while, as he was leaving for downtown, he looked in on me. Stood around talking and joking for a few minutes. He asked about Luane, and said he was pretty goddamned hurt the way she never told any dirty stories about him. I laughed, kind of uncomfortable, and said I guessed that was his fault, not hers. Which was mainly the way it was, of course. Because how can you mud a man up when he's already covered himself with it? To annoy people, you know. What's the point in saying that a man does such and such or so and so when he lets 'em all know it himself?

He had a family, a wife and daughter, but Luane couldn't do much to dirty them, either. There just wasn't enough to them, you know, to hold dirt. They were dowdy and drab. They went around with their shoulders slumped and their heads bowed-like they might cut and run if you looked their way. No one was interested in them. There wasn't anything to be interested in. And if the time ever came when there was, well, I figured Luane would do some tall thinking before she gossiped about it.

You see, years ago-before Luane and I were married- her father gave Pete an awful raw deal. Cheated him out of a pile of money, and then placed it in Luane's name, so that Pete couldn't sue. Luane's always felt kind of guilty about it. She'd think a long time before she did anything else to hurt Pete or his family

'Well,' Pete said. 'I got a feeling that this may be a good season after all. The best damned season yet.'

'I think it will, too,' I said. 'I think you're right, Pete.'

He left. I finished with the washrooms, and went back to his office.

I pulled a chair up to the air-vent, took off the grate and crawled up inside the duct. I crawled through it slowly, squirming along on my stomach, brushing all the dust and cobwebs and dead bugs in front of me. It was so hot and stuffy I could hardly breathe, and I kept sneezing and bumping my head; and I was just about one big muddy smear of sweat and dust. I crawled through all the duct, the branches and the main, and came out at the rear of the building.

I dropped down to the roof of the blower shed. I started up the big four-horse motor, tightened the belt to the fan, and went in the back door of the men's room.

I looked at myself in the mirror, and, man, was I a mess! Dirt and cobwebs from head to foot. I started to turn on the water at one of the sinks, and then I stopped with my hand a couple of inches away-kind of frozen in the air. I stood that way for a few seconds, listening to the piano, to Rags, listening to her. Then I turned toward the door, picking up my broom sort of automatically, and went out into the ballroom.

It was pretty shadowed in there, and there was just the swivel-necked light on over the piano. So, for a second, I thought it was Janie up there singing. Then I started across the floor, and pretty soon I saw it was another girl. She had the same kind of voice as Janie, and the same kind of candy-colored hair. But she was quite a bit bigger. I don't mean she was any taller or that she probably weighed any more, but still she was bigger. In certain places, you know. You could see that she was without even half-way studying the matter. Because it was still pretty warm there in the ballroom, and Rags was stripped to the waist. And all she had on was a bra and a little skimpy pair of shorts.

I thought she was a mighty good singer, but I knew Rags wasn't pleased with her. I knew because he was putting her through Stardust, having her rehearse it when he'd always told me that no singer needed to. 'That's one they can't bitch up, see?' he'd told me. 'They can do it with all the others. But Stardust, huh-uh.'

He brought his hands down on the keys suddenly. With just a big crash. She stopped singing and turned toward him, her face hard and sullen-looking.

'All right,' Rags said. 'You win, baby. I'll send for Liberace. Me, I'm too old to run races.'

'I'm sorry,' she mumbled, not looking a darned bit sorry.

'Never mind that sorry stuff,' he said. 'Your name's Lee, ain't it? Danny Lee, ain't it?'

'You know what it is,' she said.

'I'm asking you,' he said. 'It's not Carmichael or Porter or Mercer, is it? This ain't your music, is it? You've got no right to bitch it up, have you? You're goddamned right, you haven't! It's theirs-they made it, and the way they made it is the way it should be. So cut out the embroidery. Cut out that bar-ahead stuff. Just get with it, and stay with it!'

He picked up his cigarette from the piano, and tucked it into the corner of his mouth. He brought his hands down on the keys. He seemed to kind of stroke them-the keys, I mean. But yet there was no running together. Every note came through, clear and firm, soft but sharp. So smooth and easy and sweet.

Danny Lee took a deep breath. She held it, the bra swelled full and tight. She was nodding her head with the music, tapping one toe. Listening, and then opening her mouth and letting her breath out in the Stardust words. Soft-husky. Pushing them out from down deep inside. Letting them float out with that husky softness, still warm and sweet from the place they'd been.