Savage Night

hunkered down in front of me, laughing, burying her head in my lap.

'Y-you crazy tough little bastard, you! You've taken ten years off my life.'

'So now you're sixteen,' I said. 'I'm going to count on it.'

'Crazy! What in the name of God got into you, anyway?' She raised her head, laughing, but looking a little worried. 'It was all right to come in, wasn't it, as long as sis and-'

'Sure, it was all right,' I said, 'It was swell. I'm tickled to death you're here. I've just had a hell of a hard day and I wasn't expecting you, and-Let it go at that. Let me up off this toilet before I fall in.'

'Yeah, but, honey-'

I tilted her chin up with my fist. 'Yeah? We leave it at that or not?'

'Well-' She hesitated; and then she nodded quickly and jumped up. 'Stinker! Toughie! Come on and I'll give you a drink.'

She had a pint of whiskey in her overnight bag. She opened it after she'd slipped into her nightgown, and we sat cross-legeed on the bed together, drinking and smoking and talking. There weren't many preliminaries to go through. I'd broken the ice but good there in the bathroom. She knew who I was now, if she hadn't had a damned good idea before. She knew why I was in Peardale. She knew why I'd had her come into the city. And it was okay with her.

'Little Bigger,' she said, her eyes shining at me. 'Little Bigger. Why, my God, honey, I've been hearing about you ever-'

'Okay,' I said, 'so I'm famous. Now just wipe it out of your head, and leave it wiped out.'

'Sure, honey. Carl.'

'I don't know how I'll do it. We'll have to work that out. Now, about the dough-'

She was smart there. She might have said fifteen or twenty grand. And I might have said yes. And then I might have thought, I might have passed the word along: The dame's hungry; maybe we'd better keep her quiet..

'Aw, honey-' She made a little face. 'Let's not talk about it like I was doing it for-for that. We'll be together, won't we? Afterwards? And I know you're not the kind to be stingy.'

'It'll be a long time afterwards,' I said. 'I'll have to stay there at least until summer. You can leave any time, of course, but I couldn't get together with you before summer.'

'I can wait. Where would we go, honey? I mean after-'

'We'll work it out. That's no problem. You got money, there's always some place to go. Hell, we could live here or anywhere after a couple of years, when things cool off enough.'

'You won't… You don't think I'm awful, do you, Carl?'

'How do I know? I haven't had you yet.'

'You know what I mean, honey… You won't think I'd-I-d do the same thing to… You won't be afraid of me, honey? You won't think you have to-'

I tamped out my cigarette.

'Listen to me,' I said. 'Listening? Then get this. If I was afraid of you you wouldn't be here. Know what I mean?'

She nodded. 'I know what you mean.'

'Carl, honey…' That husky voice; it was like having cream poured over you. 'Aren't you-?'

'Aren't I what?'

She gestured toward the light.

10

That next week is hard to tell about. So much happened. So many things that I couldn't understand-or, that I was afraid to understand. So many things that kept me worried and on edge or scared the living hell out of me.

I had time. I knew I had to take time. The Man didn't want the job done for at least ten weeks, so I should have been able to get my bearings and plan and take things kind of easy. But after that first week-hell, before the week was halfway over-I had an idea that what I and The Man wanted didn't make any difference.

This might be the first week, but I had a damned good idea that it wasn't far from the last one.

That was the week that Kendall really began to show his hand… At least, it seemed he was showing it.

That was the week that Jake tried to frame me.

It was the week he tried to kill me.

It was the week Fay and I began brawling.

It was the week Ruthie…

Jesus! Jesus God, that week! Even now-and what do I have to worry about now?-it rips the guts out of me to think about it.

But let's take things in order. Let's go back to the Friday before the week began, to Fay and me at the hotel.

… She's said it had been over a year since you know what, and I kind of think it must have been an understatement.

And, then, finally, she gave me a long good-night kiss, about fifty kisses rolled into one, and turned on her side. And a minute later she began to snore.

It wasn't a real snore, one of the buzzsaw variety. It was as though there was some small obstruction in her nose where the moisture kept gathering and cutting loose in a little pop-crack on about every tenth breath.

I lay there, stiff and tense, counting her breaths, wishing by God that it was a faucet, wanting to grab her by the nose and twist it off. I'd lie there counting her breaths, getting set for the little pop-crack that stabbed through me like a hot needle. And just when I had the damned thing about timed, she broke the rhythm on me. She started pop-cracking on a seven count, then a nine, and finally a twelve.

It went up from there to a point where she was taking twenty breaths before it came, and finally- God, it seemed like about forty-eight hours later!-finally it stopped.

Maybe you've slept with someone like that; tried to sleep. One of those people who can't get into dreamland good unless they're lying all over you. Well, she was that way. And now that she'd got that goddamned pop-cracking out of her system, she started in on the other, scrounging around in the bed. It was hell.

I tried to make myself sleep; but it was no dice. I got to thinking about a guy I'd met that time I skipped out of New York. I couldn't sleep, so I began thinking.

I'd been afraid to show myself on a train or bus or plane, so I'd started hitchhiking up toward Connecticut. I planned on getting up near the Canadian border, where I could jump across fast if I had to, and swinging west from there. Well, this guy picked me up, and he had a good car, and I knew he must have dough on him. But… well, it doesn't make sense the way it turned out; he didn't make sense, like you ordinarily think of a guy making it. Anyway…

He was a writer, only he didn't call himself that. He called himself a hockey peddler. 'You notice that smell?' he said, 'I just got through dumping a load of crap in New York, and I ain't had time to get fumigated.' All I could smell was the whiz he'd been drinking. He went on talking, not at all grammatical like you might expect a writer to, and he was funny as hell.

He said he had a farm up in Vermont, and all he grew on it was the more interesting portions of the female anatomy. And he never laughed or cracked a smile, and the way he told about it he almost made you believe it. 'I fertilize them with wild goat manure,' he said. 'The goats are tame to begin with, but they soon go wild. The