'Benny, if the cops -'
'Who are the cops to me? Stencil's got the teeth.' He was terrified. It had only now occurred to him that he'd broken the law.
'Stencil, buddy, what do you say to one of us - going back there with a toothache and figuring out a way . . .' He tapered off. Stencil kept quiet.
'Was all that rigmarole with the rope just a way to get me to come along? What's so special about me?'
Nobody said anything. Paola looked about ready to burst from her tracks, bawling and looking to be held by Profane.
All of a sudden there was noise in the hallway. Somebody began banging on the door. 'Police,' a voice said.
Stencil, jamming the teeth into one pocket, dashed away for the fire escape. 'Now, what the hell,' Profane said. By the time Paola did open up Stencil was long gone. The same Ten Eyck who had broken up the orgy at Mafia's stood there with one arm slung under a sodden Roony Winsome.
'Is this here Rachel Owlglass at home,' he said. Explained he'd found Roony drunk on the stoop of St. Patrick's Cathedral, fly open, face awry, scaring little kids and offending the solid citizens. 'Here was all he wanted to come,' Ten Eyck almost pleaded, 'he wouldn't go home. They released him from Bellevue last night.'
'Rachel will be back soon,' said Paola gravely. 'We'll take him till then.'
'I got his feet,' Profane said. They hauled Roony into Rachel's room and dumped him on the bed.
'Thank you, officer.' Cool as any old-movie's international jewel thief, Profane wished he had a mustache.
Ten Eyck left, deadpan.
'Benito, things are falling apart. The sooner I get Home -'
'Good luck.'
'Why won't you come?'
'We're not in love.'
'No.'
'No debts outstanding, either way, not even an old romance to flare up again.'
Shook her head: real tears now.
'Why then.'
'Because we left Teflon's place in Norfolk.'
'No, no.'
'Poor Ben.' They all called him poor. But to save his feelings never explained, let it stand as an endearment.
'You are only eighteen,' he said, 'and have this crush on me. You will see by the time you get to be my age -' She interrupted him by rushing at him as you would rush at a tackling dummy, surrounding him, beginning to soak the suede jacket with all those overdue tears. He thumped her back, bewildered.
So it was of course then that Rachel walked in. Being a girl who recovered fast, first thing she said was:
'Oho. So this is what happens behind my back. While I was at church, praying for you, Profane. And the children.'
He had the common sense to go along with her. 'Believe me, it was all perfectly innocent.' Rachel shrugged, meaning the two-line act was over, she'd had a few seconds to think. 'You didn't go to St. Patrick's, did you? You should of.' Waggling a thumb at what was now snoring in the next room: 'Dig.'
And we know who it was Rachel spent the rest of the day with, and the night. Holding his head, tucking him in, touching the beard-stubble and dirt on his face; watching him sleep and the frown lines there relax slowly.
After a while Profane went off to the Spoon. Once there he announced to the Crew that he was going to Malta. Of course they held a going-away party. Profane ended up with two adoring camp followers working him over, eyes shining with a kind of love. You got the idea they were like prisoners in stir, vicariously happy to see any of their number reach the outside again.
Profane saw no street ahead but the Gut; thought that it would have to go some, to be worse than East Main.
There was also the sea's highway. But that was a different kind entirely.
II
Stencil, Profane and Pig Bodine made a flying visit to Washington, D. C., one weekend: the world-adventurer to expedite their coming passage, the schlemiel to spend a last liberty; Pig to help him. They chose for pied-a-terre a flophouse in Chinatown and Stencil nipped over to the State Department to see what he could see.
'I don't believe any of it,' said Pig. 'Stencil is a fake.'
'Stand by,' was all Profane said.
'I suppose we ought to go out and get drunk,' Pig said. So they did. Either Profane was growing old and losing his capacity, or it was the worst drunk he had ever thrown. There were blank spaces, which are always, of course, frightening. As near as Profane could remember afterward, they had headed first for the National Gallery, Pig having decided they ought to have company. Sure enough, in front of Dali's Last Supper they found two government girls.
'I'm Flip,' said the blonde, 'and this is Flop.'
