“Doesn’t need to be said. You’re here, aren’t you? Don’t be so damned analytical. You’re here, I must’ve wanted to see you again. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let you into my life. I’m sorry if that’s too blunt, Mr. Janeway, but you can’t say you didn’t ask for it.”
Then a curious thing happened: her hands began to tremble. She groped for words, reached down into a stack of newspapers and came up with THE newspaper. “I never stop my papers when I go away. There’s a boy I hire who brings all my mail and newspapers in every day. I guess I should have them stopped but I don’t. I like to see what’s been happening while I’ve been gone. Look what I came across this morning.”
The story was a little different than the one I had seen. The headline said cop named in brutality charge. They had moved my picture out to page 1 for the late edition. It lay on the table, staring up at me, glaring angrily at the angry old world.
“Is this my dessert?”
She just looked at me.
“Miss McKinley, I’m wasting a helluva lot of great one-liners on you. I’m starting to think you’ve got no sense of humor at all.”
She still said nothing. Her eyes burned into my face like tiny suns.
“You want maybe I should comment on this? Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“My comment is this. Don’t believe everything you read.”
“That’s it?”
“Tell me what you want and I’ll do my best to give it to you. I mean, look, you read that this morning, right? Plenty of time for you to call to cancel. You didn’t do that, did you?”
Her eyes never left my face. She gave a shake of her head that was barely a movement.
“Even after I got here, you could’ve shuffled me in and out. But you didn’t do that, either. You gave me a good stiff drink and free run of the place, then you gave me dinner. What am I supposed to make of that?”
She said nothing, did nothing.
“I’m going home,” I said.
I stood and paused for just a moment, my hands clasping the back of my chair. We looked at each other. Her face was a solid wall. She said nothing. I went to the door and looked back. What a great exit, I thought: I’ll just fade away like some damnfool hero in a bad cowboy movie. In the yard I looked back. She had come to the doorway, a silhouette in the yellow light. I gave her a cheery wave. The hell with you, I thought. Then I thought, Don’t walk away, it’s too important; don’t do this. What you say and do this minute will set the course of your life from this day on, I thought.
I had opened the car door, propped my foot inside, and leaned over the window. When I spoke, my voice carried strong and clear over the mountaintop. “What’s in the newspaper is his side of it. Here’s my side, in case you’re interested. That guy is a killer. I’ve tried to pin him for more than two years. I guess I finally got sick of it. He raped a woman and beat her silly and was coming back for an encore. He found me there instead. As far as brutality is concerned, forget it— he’s plenty big enough to take care of himself. When he says I cuffed him and beat him, he’s lying. I took the cuffs off and it was a fair fight. That’s the end of it. I’m going home.“
I drove down the mountain feeling depressed. But under it was a strange feeling of elation, of joy, making a mix that’s almost impossible to describe. I didn’t know what was happening but it was big. Oh, was it big! Could I have lived thirty-six years and never once felt this? I stopped at the side of the road about five miles from her house and fought the urge to go back. I won that fight… one mark for good judgment.
I’d call her in the morning.
She’d call me.
Somehow we’d get past all the problems of her money and her expertise and my brutal nature.
One way or another, it wasn’t over. That was the one sure thing in an unsure world.
I got to the store about quarter past midnight. The street was deserted except for an ambulance far away: the overture of another long night on East Colfax. I tucked the Steinbeck under my arm and let myself in. The place had a stale, slightly sour smell at midnight. I locked the door and put the book on the counter, then sat on my stool looking at it. I opened it and looked at the doodle Steinbeck had drawn all those years ago, when fame and glory and money were his, when his talent was at its peak. “May 12, 1940: Tom Joad on the road.” A prize, yes, one might even say a small victory, but a hollow one. You can have it back, Miss Rita, you hear that? You can
I cut a piece of plastic and wrapped the jacket anew. With a light pencil I wrote in the new. price, $2,000, and looked in the glass case for the perfect centerpiece spot.
The phone rang.
