Chapter 18
Walter Lippit had a pretty place out in the country. We have country with hills, with woods, with fields, and with lakes. Lippit, because of enough money, had all of this. The house wasn’t big but sat pretty. All the landscapes came together where he had built it and the lake came even close enough to make shiny patterns on the living room ceiling.
I sat with the view of the lake and a hill. I might have had the view with the fields or the woods, except Folsom and Franklin had decided it this way. No difference to me. I sat in the room with the chintz and the pine paneling, and my closest friend was the bottle I held.
The light patterns on the ceiling were getting independent. Folsom and Franklin were in the same room, but I didn’t want anything from them. I just sat.
“Watch him,” said Folsom.
“He’s drunk,” said Franklin.
Folsom came around to the front of the chair and stood looking at me. Then he slapped my face.
“Yeah. He’s drunk.”
I kept sitting.
Franklin went to look out of the big window and looked bloated against all that light. And peaceful, I should think. He was feeling all right.
Folsom went into the next room-woods view from that one-and maybe was reading the paperbacks. Lippit had a library there. Nothing but paperbacks, in case it rained over the weekend.
The patterns on the ceiling were like cold water all over.
He wasn’t reading in there. He was on the phone. He was muttering and cackling at the country exchange but they only listen in on connections which have been completed. Before that happened, it took a while. Leisure. All is slow leisure and country-type pleasure, and the reason I would marry a stripper, she’d look good in even one slipper-
Now the ceiling moved, and not the patterns.
I looked away from there and listened. I even put the bottle down. Spill on the rug, if you want, but not on my pants.
“Yeah. No. I’m not in town. No.”
That was clear enough, and true to boot.
“It comes off like we said. Yessir, like we said.”
Maybe he meant my head? Where would I then have the hangover? In thin air?
“Yessir. You said it.”
Talking to Lippit? What a yes-man, that Folsom.
“Like I said, you stupid jerk, and no other way!”
He was not talking to Lippit. Stupid? Not Lippit A jerk, yes, but not stupid. Folsom was talking to one of his men.
“Nine o’clock,” Folsom was saying, “and that puts it right after the time when they close the building. Yes, that’s when I want it, or else that shop is lousy with people.”
Back on the candy shop beat?
“I don’t care about the help. I want the machines busted, the merchandise, and those masters. I said masters.”
I heard you the first time, Folsom, and if you’re following orders, boy, then boss Lippit is more than clean out of his head. He is clean out of every thing, including the more powerful instincts, such as the one about making money.
“Where? When?”
Ask again, Folsom. I didn’t get it either.
“Franklin,” he yelled, and Franklin said, “Yeah.”
“We gonna be done here before maybe an hour?”
“Yeah.”
A very intelligent beast, this Franklin. A four letter word, twice repeated, and making it sound the same way each time.
I could hear Folsom hang up and then I saw him come back.
“He hasn’t got any schedule,” Folsom told Franklin. “He’s just drifting around, here and there, like he does. Except for his two o’clock swim at that club.”
“That’ll be fine,” said Franklin. “Fine.”
“We gonna be done?”
“Why not be done? He’s yours, anyway.”
A lot of “he’s” in that conversation, except with the last “he” they were looking at me.
The other “he” was Lippit.
It closed out the inventory. Item: Break up my pressing plant, though that was nothing personal. Because, Item: Ruin the masters so that Lippit’s disc supply would again be cut off. Item: Get Lippit himself. That was business, and personal, because Franklin would be doing that job. Item: Very personal. Folsom to be done with me within the hour.
Now Folsom had me and then he would get Lippit. But first, me. He came at me, hoping I could take it for an hour.
Chapter 19
I whipped the bottle at him so he stunk from liquor. I kicked out my foot and missed. I swung out with the glass club and missed. I stepped out of the way and missed.
When you’re drunk everything is sure and nothing works. Then I felt sober but still nothing would work and the main thing was still sure. It was their turn.
And there was no point in talking because everyone knew what would happen next.
Franklin held my arms from behind and breathed quietly into my ear. Folsom stood in front, also quiet, because he was feeling around in his pockets. The leather jacket had six outside pockets and he went through all of them. It made a slippery sound every time he put his hands in and out. He found his gloves. He put them on and smiled at his hands while he did this.
I felt I was the noisiest one, breathing. My breath rustled in and out, in and out, and I could do nothing about it. It went all by itself, the way everything else did. For a moment it seemed as if I might decide whether to be drunk or sober, but that wasn’t up to me, either. Everything felt swimmy one moment and very clear the next. I would see the ceiling and then I wouldn’t. I could see the lake, and then not. Only the light stayed the same, bright and painful, outside the window, on the rug, on the wall. Some of it shimmered around on the ceiling.
Folsom looked black in the light, like a very big menace. He had his gloves on and stepped closer, and there was nothing for me to do. When it seemed to Franklin as if I meant to move, my arms hurt. I meant to do nothing. I wished I were more drunk.
Folsom stroked the gloves down his fingers and looked at my face.
“I hear Benotti did that,” he said, and he touched the patch.
“Trouble with Benotti,” he kept talking, “he’s always too sure.”
He stroked the gloves and then, with one finger, he stroked the patch. It itched.
“Can’t be just luck, you getting him twice. Don’t you think so, St. Louis?”
I had a horrible feeling inside, as if everything was melting together.
“Of course, the third time, when he’s out of the hospital, that will be different.”
“Listen,” said Franklin. “I can’t hold him like this so easy very long. He’s taller than me.”
“What’s the matter, he’s too strong for you?”
“He ain’t too strong for me. He ain’t doing nothing. It’s the angle.”
“Try and hold out a little longer, huh, Franklin?”
