'This is Leonard,' Trudy said.
It was obvious from the expression on Howard's face he was trying to picture Leonard's role in all this. 'So, you gave Trudy and Hap a ride up. You ought to stay for dinner before you go back. I'm going to fix my famous spaghetti.'
'He's in on it,' I said.
'Ah,' Howard said, and looked at Trudy.
She wouldn't let him catch her eye. 'He's a good swimmer,' she said. 'Hap wouldn't come without him. It's like they're married or something.'
'Just engaged,' Leonard said. 'We're still picking china.'
Howard had gone mildly red-faced with irritation. 'So, you swim, huh?'
'Like a goddamn eel,' Leonard said.
Howard nodded, tried to keep it pleasant. 'Where's your car, Trudy?'
'Leonard's. I didn't want to drive on ice.'
'I see,' Howard said. 'What say we go in? I'm freezing.'
'Go ahead,' Leonard said. 'I'm gonna smoke a pipeful first. Hap's gonna keep me company.'
'All right,' Howard said, and put his arm around Trudy as they started for the house. Howard seemed to be holding her shoulders rather tight.
They went inside and Leonard got his pipe and fixings out of his coat pocket, packed the pipe, and lit it.
'I don't know about you, Hap, but I like him. He's sweet. Warmed to me right off, don't you think?'
'I think you talk too much.'
'And I could see he warmed to you too, and you to him. You both got, I don't know, a kind of glow on your faces when you first saw one another. Guess spreading the same gal does that to you.'
We leaned on the hood for about five more minutes, then Leonard tapped out his tobacco and put his foot on it. 'Well,' he said, 'what say we go on up to the house and meet the rest of the gang? Got a feeling we're gonna love them much as we do Howard.'
Chapter 8
The house was sticky-warm and the air wore the smell of incense like a coat, and beneath the coat was some kind of stink.
The incense came from the upraised trunk of a small brown ceramic elephant sitting in the middle of a water- ringed coffee table. My delicate nose determined that the underlying stink most likely came from the kitchen garbage. The heat came from a big butane heater with busted grates, and from a small fireplace that needed shoveling out.
The walls were covered with faded newspaper, and the paper was ripped and peeling, and where it was completely gone you could see pocks in the wood and occasional holes stuffed with thick wads of toilet tissue.
There was a couch covered in what was left of a flowered pattern, and a big green armchair with the cloth on its arms worn down to the wood and cotton dangling out of the cushions like some strange animal that had got its guts knocked out by a speeding car.
There were also a couple of folding metal chairs with their seats polished shiny silver by hordes of shifting asses.
'All right,' Leonard said. 'Where's everybody?'
As if in answer, Howard came through a door. Before he closed it, I saw behind him a kitchen with a greasy cookstove, a bullet-shaped refrigerator and smoky-yellow walls that were once white.
I was right about the garbage too. With the kitchen door open the smell came into the room like a bully and started pushing the incense around. Howard closed the door, stopped in the center of the living-room and stood there looking nervous and angry, though he was trying not to let it show, and thought he was good at it. He was all dry smiles and no hand gestures—he had his hands pushed down in his pockets to keep from it, but there was tension in them and they fluttered in his pants like frightened animals trapped in sacks.
'Trudy went to tell the others,' he said. 'They'll want to meet you.'
'Bet they aren't as excited about it as we are,' Leonard said.
The door to the hallway opened and saved Howard from having to respond to that. Trudy came into the room, along with some cooler air and a fat, doughy man with a shaggy haircut that didn't go with his receding hairline. He wore a tie-dyed tee-shirt, faded jeans with ripped-out knees, and low-cut work shoes with thick white socks. Except for the haircut and clothes, he was a pretty nondescript guy. He had colorless eyes, shit-brown hair and smooth features.
But the only thing regular about the man who followed him were the clothes he wore: a black tee-shirt with pocket, blue jeans and running shoes.
The right side of his face was red and angry, obviously burn-scarred. He had a lump like a melted candle for a nose. His lips were two thin lines of purple leather. His left ear was missing and there was a knob of wart-like flesh where it had been. He was bald except for a tuft of hair over his right ear, and that ear seemed big enough and flared enough to pick up the BBC. At some point his scalp had been torn off and resewn, and a poor job had been done of it. The skin on the back of his head pouched up like a wrinkled pup tent.
Trudy said to me, 'I've explained to them that you and Leonard are with us.'
'Except I'm not giving my share to any whales or such,' Leonard said.
