Carny kill

'Cut it out.'

'The owner was a Greek. A very fat, greasy Greek of fifty.'

'I said cut it out.'

She looked at me.

'But I wanted the job-a start-that bad,' she said.

'All right,' I said and I was goddam mad about it. 'Now you've told me how you had to lay with a sweaty Greek who was old enough to be your grandpa in order to get your start. So now you're happy.'

'I didn't say I was happy.'

'Well it doesn't really matter, does it?'

She sighed. 'That's my whole point. That's what you said yesterday when I said I hoped you'd get this job. It didn't really matter. That's the exact difference between us. It does matter.'

'How?' I wanted to know. 'Look. A hundred years from now there's going to be another poor mixed up sonofabitch just like me bumbling around on this earth. What am I going to mean to him then-or to anybody or anything?'

'I don't give a damn about a hundred years from now or ten thousand years!' she said urgently. 'We're here now. You and I. It's our turn. And they're never going to give us a second shot at it.'

I said nothing. I rowed the boat.

'Don't you see?' she said. 'We've got to make the most of it. They start our kind out with nothing and if we slob around saying it doesn't really matter, then that's what we end up with. Nothing. Nowhere. I can't settle for that.'

I beached the boat on Treasure Island and I got out and gave her a hand out. Then, as long as I had ahold of her and there was nobody else around and because I still didn't know what to say, I started to pull her in to me.

'No, Thax,' she said.

'Why not?'

'Because I'm not sure yet. And I'm getting to an age where I've got to be sure.'

'Because you're afraid of wasting your time on a bum huh?'

'Something like that,' she said levelly. 'And right, say it. I'm a bitch. A stupid little bitch with a dollar sign for a brain.'

'I don't believe that any more than you do.'

'Well,' she said, 'I don't like myself much when I talk like that, but sometimes I have to remind myself that I have a dream.'

'Of what?'

'Of a better way to live. A very much better way.'

I started to say it didn't really matter, but I didn't. I drew her in and I kissed her and her response was good but I didn't make with the hungry hands. I let her go.

She didn't say anything for a moment. She didn't look at me. Then she said, 'We'd better get back.'

I didn't like the idea at all but unless I resorted to rape what could I do? I said, 'All right.'

We didn't talk as I rowed us back to the dock.

5

The luckboy who had sicked Eddy the pickpocket on me last night was strolling by the Admiral Benbow when we arrived at the dock. He grinned at me and called:

'How was it on the island?'

'The same as it is anywhere.' I wasn't in the mood for fun and games and I guess it showed in my face or in my voice.

'Don't,' Billie said to me. 'Jerry's all right.'

The lawyer-looking thief called Jerry laughed.

'That's what all the girls say,' he said and winked at me. 'Jerry's all right.'

I had to smile. He was a friend of mine.

'I'll bet they do. How are things law-wise?'

'Booming. Simply booming. They've set up a sort of half assed police station in the Okefenokee Arcade and the usual interrogation of anybody and everybody is well underway. I get it they'd like for you to show up for a minute or two.' Jerry grinned again.

'Just the facts, mam. Just the grisly routine facts.'

Billie looked up at me.

'Should I go with you, Thax?'

'Uh-uh. Why get involved? Go get ready for your show.' I turned back to Jerry.

'The law going to let us open?'

'Sure. Everything but the Swamp Ride. Lieutenant Ferris, the dick in charge, was set to hold us closed. But Madame Cee came along and changed his mind for him.' Jerry didn't wink again.

I figured he meant May when he said Madame Cee. I looked at Billie. There was nothing else to say. Not with Jerry the kid with the ears standing there.

'I'll see you later, Thax,' she said.

I liked the way she looked at me when she said it. I said, 'Sure. See you.' Then I watched her walk away and it was something to look at-the way she handled that stern action. Jerry thought so too.

'Yeah,' he said softly, his eyes following her.

I gave him an easy one in the ribs.

'Mine,' I said. He looked at me, ready to smile.

'Think so?'

'I hope so,' I told him. 'C'mon.'

I liked this Lieutenant Ferris right off. He was an old-time dick. I don't mean he was a daddy graybeard. I mean he looked like those violent men who came out of Prohibition and the Depression-the ones with the iron- eyed faces that might have belonged on either side of the law but couldn't possibly belong to any other strata of society. He was about fifty. A tired fifty.

'Sit anywhere,' he told me.

There wasn't anywhere to sit, which didn't bother him because he was a stroller. He kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor and he strolled up and down while he talked. I pushed some cheap souvenir doodads to one side and parked myself on a counter.

'Name?'

'Thaxton.'

He glanced at me. 'Well, are you going to add to that or just let it sit there?'

'L. M. Thaxton.'

'I'm still waiting.'

'Leslie Thaxton for crysake.'

He grinned. 'You were right the first time.' He dropped his grin with a bang. 'How come you got into the act this morning?'

I told him about me and the tree house and about Freckles yelling down the roof.

'So you decided to be a big help and go in there and haul the stiff all over the Swamp Ride. Anybody ever mention to you you ain't supposed to touch anything till the law arrives?'

'The kid was pretty hysterical. I didn't know but what those gators were eating somebody alive.'

'Not those gators. The bigshot, Lloyd Franks, tells me they're as safe as housepets.'

'I didn't know that,' I said. 'I only walked on the lot yesterday.'

Ferris strolled away from me, four paces and turn and four paces back, watching the floor.