Skip thought awhile and said, 'The way they got these lights timed, I don't understand it. They make you stop about every block and look at how depressing this town has become. Where is everybody? . . . I know. They're across the river at Jason's. They call it the Royal Canadian Ballet, these girls'll dance bare-ass right at your table. For ten bucks you can have your picture taken with Miss Nude Vancouver and her two breasts. There you are, the four of you smiling at the camera. Be nice to have framed. You know, as a memento, your visit to Canada. There's more going on over there than here. What I don't understand is why the car companies don't do something about it. They let the Japs eat the ass right out of their business. Just sat there and let it happen. Do you understand that?' No answer. She didn't know or she didn't care. 'Well, I'm glad your mom buys American. I like a big roomy automobile. I don't know what all that shit is on the dashboard, but it looks good. You know?'
Robin said, 'Why're you talking so much?'
'I'm trying to impress you.'
'I don't get it.'
Skip looked at her and said, 'I don't either. I haven't gotten anything since I came here.'
'We've been busy.'
'No, we haven't. You bring me on and then slip me the blotter. Get me off with acid. Hand it out one at a time.'
'I haven't felt in the mood.'
'I know what it is,' Skip said, 'you're afraid I might give you something. Like the broad in that ad, huh? She says she likes to get laid, but she ain't ready to die for it.'
'I don't know where you've been,' Robin said.
'You mean who I've been with. I've never done it with guys. Jesus, you ought to know that.'
'You can get it the regular old-fashioned way too,' Robin said, watching the road as they approached Seven Mile. 'You can't turn left, you have to go through and come back around.'
Now she was telling him how to drive.
They would go by the house with the stone lions in front, circle around through Palmer Woods in this car that would seem to belong here, and return to make another pass.
'In there counting his money,' Robin said. 'You like that picture?'
Skip liked the way she was warming up, getting with it again. What they were up to now was something they'd discussed on the phone. He said, 'I like the big yards too, all the trees you can hide in. I like not hearing any dogs. I hate dogs. Be working there in the dark and hear one? Jesus. You try and set high explosives worrying if some dog's gonna jump on you and tear your ass off. You know what I mean?'
'It might be too soon,' Robin said.
'The sooner the better. While the first one's still ringing in his ears. You've delivered the message. The guy goes, 'Hey, shit, they're serious.' '
Robin was silent.
Skip eased around a corner, watched the headlights sweep past a house with darkened windows and settle again on the narrow blacktop, an aisle through old trees. He glanced at her.
'What would you rather do instead? I can think of something, but you're afraid I might be carrying the AIDS. What do you want me to do, get a blood test first? We're riding around with my wham bag in the trunk. It's got five sticks of dynamite, blasting caps and a loaded thirty-eight revolver in it and you're worrying about getting a social disease.'
'I know why you're talking so much,' Robin said, 'you're nervous. Aren't you?'
'I'm up,' Skip said. 'I don't want to waste it, have to get back up again.'
'What's the gun for?'
'Come on, what's any of it for? What're we doing?'
He saw her profile as she flicked her lighter, once, and held it to a cigarette, calm, showing him she had it together. She said, 'I want to be sure I know what I'm going to say to him, that's all. I want to have it down.'
'What you say, that's the easy part. You'll come up with the words. It's when you say it's gonna make the difference. The timing, that's what has to be on the button. I can set it for whenever you want up to twelve hours from now.' Skip looked at the instrument panel. 'It's now . . . which one's the clock? They got all that digital shit on there.'
'It's ten forty,' Robin said.
'They ever quit making clocks with hands on 'em I'm out of business.'
'It's ten forty-one,' Robin said.
He liked her tone. Drawing on her cigarette now and blowing it out slow.
'I can set it for ten tomorrow morning, any time around in there. Or how about this? I set it to go off like in eleven and a half hours from the time I place it down. See, then you figure to call ten or fifteen minutes before that.'
Robin seemed to be thinking about it as she smoked. 'If he stays up boozing all night. . . . You know what I mean? He probably sleeps late.'
'I doubt he's gonna answer the phone anyway. That's what he's got the jig for, the Panther.' Skip looked past Robin out the side window. They were going by the house again. 'Guy likes animals, he's got the Panther, he's got lions out in front. . . . Listen, we can go buy gas, spend my last eighteen bucks and come back later. We have to stop by a gas station anyway, so I can use the men's room.'
'You are nervous.'
'My clock doesn't have a bell and hammer alarm on it, I have to rig something up. You want me to wire it in the car? Or a place I can turn a light on, lock the door?'
'I want you to be happy,' Robin said. She stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray, once, and closed it. 'After, why don't I spend the night at Mother's?'
'You mean it?'
He looked over. She was stroking her braid now as she said, 'On one condition. . . .'
Mr. Woody finished the pound can of peanuts during his cocktail hour, so he wasn't hungry till near ten. He was in a pretty good mood, seemed almost alert and was talkative. Donnell fixed him up in the kitchen, dished out his warmed-up chicken lo mein, whole quart of it on a platter, opened two cans of Mexican beer and sat down with him at the opposite end of the long wooden table. Donnell didn't like to get too close to the man when he was eating; the man made noises out his nose, head down close to his food like he was trying to hide in there.
'Mr. Woody, there something bothering me.' It was a way to get his attention, the man thinking he was being asked his advice. 'What the police will do is talk to the people were here. Try to find one will tell 'em Ginger went upstairs and then you went up there after her. I'm saying if Ginger doesn't accept your generous offer.'
The man stopped eating to think about that, frowned with his mouth open, the overhead light shining on him, and Donnell had to look away.
'I doubt your friends notice you were gone, the condition they was in, flying high on the blow. But there was one lady there wasn't of your regular group. The older one, had her hair in a braid?'
'Robin,' Woody said. 'You remember her?'
See? He could do that. Pick somebody out from a long time ago. Like he had put certain things in his mind in a safe place the booze couldn't touch. Especially things and people had to do with his brother. Donnell settled in, leaning over his arms on the edge of the table.
'Robin Abbott, huh? I thought to myself, Now who is that? I didn't recognize her 'cause it had been so long. Was at the party your lovely mother had to raise bail money, huh?'
'Mom didn't want to have it,' Woody said. 'Mark begged her, she said no. I had to talk her into it.'
'Had a way with your mama, didn't you?'
'We got along. Mark took after Dad, so she didn't trust him.'
'Your daddy went out on her, huh?'
'I guess so.'
They hadn't talked about the dad much; the dad had moved away and passed on. No problem there to come up unexpected. Donnell let the man eat in peace a minute before starting in again.
'Yeah, was at that bail party I met Robin. I was introduced to her and all those people and then after while I ran into her in the bathroom. The little one out by the front hall? I walk in, she's in there.'
The man was listening, because he said, 'She was in the bathroom, uh?'
