They found her in the next room and Tober had been right. She was sleeping. She was lying on Tober’s rumpled bed with her clothes on and her sleep was like a thick unconsciousness.
Benny looked at the still figure and his mouth was mean. “Tober, how much did you give her? If that kid-”
“Jesus, Benny, I swear. Just a pinch.”
Benny grabbed Tober’s arm again. “Bring her around, you bastard.”
“God in heaven, let go my arm. Can’t you see she’s sailing and having the time of her life? Benny, let go. I got to have my jolt. These crazy neckties-” He was tearing at his open collar.
Benny let him go. Tober wasn’t any good this way, without his dose, and Benny watched him rush to the bathroom, where he tore open the door to the medicine chest.
When Tuber came out again he was a different man. His black eyes were glittering and he carried his thin frame like a man of strength.
“All right, Tober, let’s try again.” Benny got up from the bed and stopped in front of the man. “Bring her around.”
Tober glanced at the bed, then smiled at Benny. “No need of that. It wasn’t enough to do any harm. You never know how it hits the first time, but often they go to sleep. She’s all right. She’ll sleep it off like a drunk. Except no hangover, Benny. The beauty of-”
“Yeah, I know. I just saw you in one of those no-hangover states. Does she know she took heroin?”
“Of course not. I was very discreet Please, Benny, I don’t know what came over me.”
“Forget it. Show me an empty room.”
He picked her up carefully and followed Tober across the corridor. He moved his arms once so her head wouldn’t hang. He thought for a moment that he hadn’t known how limp she could be.
Chapter Thirteen
He sat by the bed until he fell asleep himself, and when he woke, feeling stiff and sticky, he saw Pat through the dark of the room, on her side now, breathing regularly. It was nighttime and from the drug she had passed into sleep. He took her shoes off and covered her with a blanket.
There was none of the hardness in her face now, just the distance of a sleeping face, small and helpless.
He looked at her and it got to him. At that moment he couldn’t have thought of his deal, of his hates and his determination, even though they were a part of him, up through his whole anxious life. They had helped. They had helped him forget the father he had never known, and his mother, who had done nothing for him except to bear him. The easiest thing had been to run with the gang, the petty, raucous hoodlums whose mean little lives had only one solution, to be big now and to let everyone know it.
He’d done well in that game. He hadn’t been the biggest, but he’d been the sharpest. He hadn’t been the strongest, but he’d been the quickest. And then there was one difference between the rest of them and Benny. He didn’t care to stop at showing big. He had to be big.
Benny got up from his chair and walked past the bed. The girl was still sleeping quietly and not knowing a thing. He turned away and hunted for a cigarette.
She didn’t wake until morning. He had waited for her to wake, wondering how she would be. When she sat up and saw him, the change was sudden. The face he had seen in sleep froze into lines. She was Pendleton’s daughter now.
“Beat it, Peeping Tom.”
He stared at her.
“I want to take a shower.”
He left the room without a word. Perhaps he was imagining things. He hadn’t had much sleep. But then it came back to him why he was here, the real reason, the million-dollar deal that hung by one thin girl with brassy manners and a crazy temper. He went back to the room.
She had found a big white bathrobe and it made her head and hands look small and frail. It made him say it before she changed her face again. “You’ll be all right, Pat. Last night-”
“What do you want?” Her eyes looked flat.
His voice was changed too now and he walked up to her, hands in his pockets. “How do you feel?”
“Fine, Tapkow. Why?”
“You got drunk.”
“Act your age, Tapkow.”
“I just want to warn you about Tober. Stay clear of that guy.”
“Why, Tapkow?” She sat down in a chair by the bed and crossed her legs. “Because he’s a hop-head?”
All he did was bite his lip, but she caught it. “Because of the heist ball concoction?” She smiled, watching him.
He took out a cigarette, started to fumble for a match, forgot about it. “Look, Pat. Let me set something straight. You and me came here together. So I’m watching out that-that nothing should harm you. I’m trying to say-”
“If you’re not going to smoke that cigarette, give it to me.”
He looked at that face with the smile on it and almost lost his temper. Then his voice came very low. “For one minute I want you to shut up and listen.”
“Look, Benny,” she said, and got up to put one hand on his arm. “If you’re worried about that concoction he gave me, just ease your conscience.” The honey in her voice was something new. “It was nothing, Benny. Hardly enough of a pinch to flutter a hair.”
He stepped back and his eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Heroin, darling.” Before he recovered she went on. “You shouldn’t be all up in the air about it, Benny. Poor old Tober never breathed a word. He was your trusty old friend through and through.”
“A pinch,” he said finally. “Just a pinch!” His voice got sharper. “Do you know how long you’ve been out?”
“I can guess,” she said. She was still smiling, and she stepped close again. With a slow motion like a caress she pushed back the thick sleeve of the bathrobe. “But don’t blame Tober, darling. I fixed that dream myself.”
And inside the frail-skinned crook of her arm he saw a red dot.
She watched his face, enjoying it.
“You what?” It was hoarse at first, then a roar. “You what? You fixed that jolt yourself? You crazy bitch, you went ahead and shot that filthy junk-”
“I didn’t mean to go to sleep on it, really. But how was I to know how little it was cut.” It was a grin now, not a smile any more.
“Christ in heaven, you stupid dame, don’t you know what this can do? Don’t you see what happened to that blithering Tober, what made him the jackass he is now? A wreck! A cheat! A lying, stupid jackass who-”
“A cheat, a liar, a stupid lying jackass?” Her voice was a sudden scream. “You sanctimonious crook, you call him a liar?” She was crouching now, talking with an angry speed that hit him like a gust of hail. “You ugly runt, you can stand there in the daylight, talking like a judge, talking like a holy saint who’s shocked when somebody goes to pieces, breaks, goes under!” There were tears in her eyes, bright tears she didn’t try to hide. “You stinking swine, you can stand there telling me to be a lady and not mind the filth you brought along? What filth? The filth last night, Saint Benny, the filth the day before, that lying act you worked up in that cabin, that noble deal to make me think Saint Benny is a saint. He doesn’t take advantage of a crazy dame who’s throwing it around because she’s crazy. He wants to make her pure and clean instead, and later maybe have an unspoiled act of love-so pure, so rare, so-” She couldn’t go any further. Her raw voice cracked and she sobbed.
He saw it now. She’d gone to bed that night in the cabin, thinking of him with a kind of love. She’d…
“Don’t bother, Tapkow.” He had started to reach out for her when her voice stopped him. “You’re forgetting yourself. This is Miss Pendleton, the piece of business you got on your hands. Your little Big Deal Pendleton dame all neat and cold and so important.” Her laugh had a nasty ring. “You didn’t tell me, Saint Benny. Tober didn’t mean to
