‘Do you know something about-’ she began, alarmed.
‘The new tenant? No. I’m just guessing. But if it is the house, I’d almost rather it was possession than something else.’
What?’
He said simply, ‘Perhaps it’s called another evil man.’
4
Ann Norton watched them from the window. She had called the drugstore earlier. No, Miss Coogan said, with something like glee. Not here. Haven’t been in.
Her mouth twisted down into a helpless ugly grimace.
When she left his arms, she said, ‘Do something important for me, Ben.’
‘Whatever I can.’
‘Don’t mention those things to anyone else in town. Anyone.’
He smiled humorlessly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not anxious to have people thinking I’ve been struck nuts.’
‘Do you lock your room at Eva’s?’
‘No.
‘I’d start locking it.’ She looked at him levelly. ‘You have to think of yourself as under suspicion.’
‘With you, too?’
‘You would be, if I didn’t love you.’
And then she was gone, hastening up the driveway, leaving him to look after her, stunned by all he had said and more stunned by the four or five words she had said at the end.
5
He found when he got back to Eva’s that he could neither write nor sleep. He was too excited to do either. So he warmed up the Citroen, and after a moment of indecision, he drove out toward Dell’s place.
It was crowded, and the place was smoky and loud. The band, a country-and-western group on trial called the Rangers, was playing a version of ‘You’ve Never Been This Far Before,’ which made up in volume for whatever it lost in quality. Perhaps forty couples were gyrating on the floor, most of them wearing blue jeans. Ben, a little amused, thought of Edward Albee’s line about monkey nipples.
The stools in front of the bar were held down by construction and mill workers, each drinking identical glasses of beer and all wearing nearly identical crepe-soled work boots, laced with rawhide.
Two or three barmaids with bouffant hairdos and their names written in gold thread on their white blouses (Jackie, Toni, Shirley) circulated to the tables and booths. Behind the bar, Dell was drawing beers, and at the far end, a hawk-like man with his hair greased back was making mixed drinks. His face remained utterly blank as he measured liquor into shot glasses, dumped it into his silver shaker, and added whatever went with it.
Ben started toward the bar, skirting the dance floor, and someone called out, ‘Ben! Say, fella! How are you, buddy?’ Ben looked around and saw Weasel Craig sitting at a table close to the bar, a half-empty beer in front of him.
‘Hello, Weasel,’ Ben said, sitting down. He was relieved to see a familiar face, and he liked Weasel.
‘Decided to get some night life, did you, buddy?’ Weasel smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. Ben thought that his check must have come in; his breath alone could have made Milwaukee famous.
‘Yeah,’ Ben said. He got out a dollar and laid it on the table, which was covered with the circular ghosts of the many beer glasses that had stood there. ‘How you doing?’
‘Just fine. What do you think of that new band? Great, ain’t they?’
They’re okay,’ Ben said. ‘Finish that thing up before it goes flat. I’m buying.’
‘I been waitin’ to hear somebody say that all night.
Jackie brought the pitcher on a tray littered with beer-soaked change and lifted it onto the table, her right arm bulging like a prize fighter’s. She looked at the dollar as if it were a new species of cockroach. ‘That’s a buck fawty,’ she said.
Ben put another bill down. She picked them both up, fished sixty cents out of the assorted puddles on her tray, banged them down on the table, and said, ‘Weasel Craig, when you yell like that you sound like a rooster gettin’ its neck wrung.’
‘You’re beautiful, darlin’,’ Weasel said. ‘This is Ben Mears. He writes books.’
‘Meetcha,’ Jackie said, and disappeared into the dimness.
Ben poured himself a glass of beer and Weasel followed suit, filling his glass professionally to the top. The foam threatened to overspill and then backed down. ‘Here’s to you, buddy.’
Ben lifted his glass and drank.
