working for Perry Carver had been a kick at the beginning, more because the job was something new than because of anything else. Now the job wasn’t new any more. And jobbing Murray Rogers had been exciting enough in a sort of scummy way, but that too was finished with now. He had been neatly boxed, and whether or not he got off without a jail sentence, Joyce would have what she wanted. She could divorce him with no trouble at all and could pick up a healthy settlement in the process.
And my part of the proceeds? Gone and forgotten, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t want Murray’s money now and I didn’t want Murray’s wife. I wanted to do what a grifter does when the setting turns sour. I wanted to take off.
Hell, I could do it. Murray was nailed to his guilty plea, and to Joyce it didn’t much matter if I stuck around or not. A day, two days—time to clean out the bank account and pay off the money due on the Ford and straighten myself out with Perry Carver. And then I could leave. No hits, no runs, no errors—well, maybe a few errors, come to think of it. And a great many men left on base.
So I’d drive out Main Street in a day or two, and this time I would take that right turn at the Thruway entrance, and pick up the ticket, and drive the four hundred miles to New York. And after two hours making the rounds of a few right places I would make the proper contacts and work the proper connections and get ready to spend the rest of my life doing what I was evidently born to do—plucking pigeons and shearing lambs with false shuffles and crimp cuts and hold-outs and second deals.
But there was something I had to take care of first, a bridge that had to be burned correctly. I waited until it was about the right time. Then I picked up the phone and dialed the number.
She answered right away.
“Barbara,” I said. “This is Bill.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Are you busy tonight?”
“No.”
“Dinner? I’ll pick you up around six?”
“Fine,” she said.
I put down the phone and wondered just how I would tell her that she wouldn’t be seeing me again.
15
Barbara Lambert was such a very damned fine girl. If she had been aggressive or cheap or mercenary or a nymph or anything like that, then there would have been no need to tell her in the first place and telling her would have constituted no major problem. But she was a very damned fine girl, and I would have no fun telling her we were quits.
I told her at the end of the dinner. We went to the Evergreen and had rare steaks and baked potatoes, and I told her over coffee. I set my cigarette in the enameled ashtray and put my coffee cup in its saucer and spoke her name.
“Go ahead,” Barb said.
“Go ahead?”
“Go ahead and tell me,” she said.
She was especially attractive that night. The blond hair gleamed, the blue eyes struck sparks, the knit dress was tight around the soft curves of her body. But her lips were set now and her fingers gripped the cigarette she was smoking almost tightly enough to break it in half.
I said, “I’m leaving town in a few days.”
“For how long?”
“Permanently.”
She didn’t say anything. She nodded, digesting the information along with dinner.
“Why, Bill?”
“Reasons.”
“Reasons you want to talk about?”
“Well—”
“You don’t have to, Bill.”
This last said softly, quietly, with the head lowered and the sentence trailing off. “Oh, hell,” I said. “It’s no great secret. Things aren’t working out here, that’s all. I’m the old square peg in the round hole, that bit.”
“I thought you were doing well.”
“In some ways.”
She didn’t say anything. I waved for the check and put a bill on the table to cover it.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We left the Evergreen. We drove for a couple of blocks without saying anything.
Until I said, “I’m not the guy you think I am, Barb.”
“You aren’t?”
“No.”
“Who are you, then?”
So I shrugged and told her. Not all, of course. Not close to all. But a little, and enough.
“I’m a sort of a criminal,” I said. “In a way. A con man, a hustler. I deal in high-priced card games. I’m good with my hands. Sometimes I cheat. Most of the time I cheat.”
She didn’t say anything. She was staring straight ahead. I offered her a cigarette. She didn’t take it.
“I wound up in this town by mistake,” I went on.
“Things kept falling in my lap.”
“Like me?”
“Like you. Like a batch of friendships. Like the job with Black Sand. All of that. I—I hadn’t planned on any of that. I was going to stay in this place long enough for Sy to fix my teeth and then I was going to leave. I didn’t want to settle down here.”
“What changed your mind?”
“I don’t know,” I said, not entirely dishonestly. “I’m not sure. I guess I thought maybe it could work out, living an honest life, staying in the same place forever.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No,” I said. “It didn’t.”
More silence. I drove on this street and that street and paid very little attention to where I was going. She held out one hand for a cigarette. I gave her one and she lit it herself.
“Where are you going, Bill?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why don’t you take me with you?”
“Barb—”
“I’m good company,” she said. “I can cook and sew and say bright things. I’m fun at parties. And I know when to shut up and get out of the way. Most of the time, at least.”
I didn’t say anything. Barb smoked her cigarette.
She said, “Why not?”
“I can’t.”
“He travels fastest who travels alone? I won’t try to slow you down or cramp your style. I’m not the reformer type. Remember the game we played? I’ll be the high-priced call girl type, Bill. I’ll live your life.” She turned away and I couldn’t see her eyes. “I remember playing that game, Bill. Only you weren’t playing, and maybe I knew that all along.”
“Barb.”
She got rid of her cigarette. “No?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t even have to marry me or anything. See how shameless I am? You could just take me along. I’ll be your private whore, Bill. I’ll be William Maynard’s private whore. That’s quite a little title, isn’t it?”
