then turning tail toward the city; passenger cars, speeding and skidding and jockeying for position as they swarmed out from town to their own duchies of Brentwood, Bel Air, and Beverly Hills. The cars were of all kinds and sizes, from hot rods on up, but there was an awesome abundance- even a predominance, at times-of the upper-bracket makes. Caught once in the Strip's traffic, Roy had examined its content and, except for two motorcycles and a Ford, he had seen nothing, for as far as he could see, but Cadillacs, Rolls-Royces, Lincolns, and Imperials.
Now, listening to the night's throbbing, Roy wished he was down there on the Strip, or practically any place but where he was. He had told Lilly about Carol as quickly as he could, anxious to get it over with. But brushed over, it had probably sounded worse than in detail. He had felt the need togo back through it again, to explain just how what had led into what. But that seemed only to worsen matters, making him appear to pose as an honest if earthy young man who had been put to shameful disadvantage by the willful stupidity of a young woman.
There was just no good way of telling the story, he guessed. There simply wasn't, despite her definite nonprudishness and the fact she had never played the role of mother, as he saw it.
He gave a start as Lilly's purse slid to the floor with a thump. He bent forward to pick it up, then settled back uneasily as he saw what had fallen from the purse-a small, silencer-equipped gun.
Her hand closed around it. She straightened again, hefting it absently. Then, seeing his unease, her mouth twisted in a tight grin.
'Don't worry, Roy. It's a temptation, I'll admit, but it would cost me my permit.'
'Well, I wouldn't want you to do that,' Roy said. 'Not after the trouble I've already caused.'
'Oh, now, you shouldn't feel that way,' Lilly said. 'You've paid your bill, haven't you?-tossed money at me like it was going out of style. You've explained and you've apologized; you didn't really do anything to explain or apologize for, did you? I was stupid. She was stupid-stupid enough to love and trust you, and to put the best possible interpretation on what you did and said. We were fools, in other words, and it's a grifter's job to take the fools.'
'Have your own way about it,' Roy snapped. 'I've apologized, done everything I can. But if you want to get nasty-'
'But I always was nasty, wasn't I? Always giving you a hard time. There was just no good in me, never ever. And you damned well couldn't miss a chance to get back at me!'
'Wh-aat?' He looked at her sharply. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
'The same thing you've spent your life brooding about and pitying yourself about, and needling me about. Because you had a hard time as a kid. Because I didn't measure up to your standards of motherhood.'
Roy blurted out surlily that she hadn't measured up to anyone else's standards, either. Then, a little shamefaced, he tacked on a half- hearted retraction. 'Now, I don't really mean that, Lilly; you just got me sore. Anyway, you've certainly done plenty out here, a lot more than I had any right to expect, and-'
'Never mind,' she cut him off. 'It wasn't enough. You've proved it wasn't. But there's a thing or two I'd like to get straight, Roy. To your way of thinking, I was a bad mother-no, I was, so let's face it. But I wonder if it occurred to you that I didn't look on myself that way at all.'
'Well…' He hesitated. 'Well, no, I don't suppose you did.'
'It's all a matter of comparison, right? In the good neighborhoods you were raised in, and stacked up against the other mothers you saw there, I stank. But I didn't grow up in that kind of environment, Roy. Where I was raised, a kid was lucky if he got three months of school in his life. Lucky if he didn't die of rickets or hookworm or plain old starvation, or something worse. I can't remember a day, from the time I was old enough to remember anything, that I had enough to eat and didn't get a beating – –
Roy lit a cigarette, glancing at her over the match; more irritated than interested in what she was saying. What did it all amount to, anyway? Maybe she'd had a tough childhood-although he'd have to take her word for that. All he knew about was his own. But having had one, and knowing how it felt, why had she handed him the same kind of deal? She knew better. She hadn't been under the same ugly social pressures that had been brought to bear on her own parents. Why, hell, she was married and living away from home at about the age he'd finished grammar school!
Something about the last thought dug into him, cut through the layered rationalizations which warmed him in their rosy glow while holding her off in outer darkness. Irritably, he wondered just how soon he could decently break out of here. That was all he wanted. Not excuses, not explanations. Because of Carol, and because he did owe Lilly
He became aware at last that the room was silent. Had been silent for some time. Lilly was leaning back in her chair, looking at him with a tiredly crooked smile.
'I seem to be keeping you up,' she said. 'Why don't you just run along and leave me to stew in my sins?'
'Now, Lilly-' He made a defensive gesture. 'You've never heard me reproach you for anything.'
'But you have plenty to reproach me for, haven't you? It was pretty lousy of me to be a child at the same time you were. To act like a child instead of a grown woman. Yes, sir, I was a real stinker not to grow up and act grown up as fast as you thought that I should.'
Roy was stung. 'What do you want me to do?' he demanded. 'Pin a halo on you? You're doing a pretty good job of that yourself.'
'And making you look like a heel at the same time, hmm? But that's the way I am, you know; the way I've always been. Always picking on poor little Roy.'
'Oh, for God's sake, Lilly-!'
'Now, I've got just one more thing to say. I don't suppose it will do any good, but I've got to say it, anyway. Get out of the grift, Roy. Get out right now, and stay out.'
'Why? Why don't you get out yourself?'
'Why?' Lilly stared at him. 'Are you seriously asking me,
Roy wet his lips nervously. Maybe she wasn't exaggerating, although it was comforting to think that she must be. But he wasn't in her league, and he never would be.
'I'm strictly short-con, Lilly,' he said. 'Nothing but small-time stuff. I can walk away from it any time I want to.'
'It won't always be small time. With you, it couldn't be. You're only twenty-five years old, and already you can lay out three grand without turning a hair. You're only twenty-five, and you've come up with a new angle on the grift-how to take fools for profit without changing hotels. So are you going to stop there?' Her head wagged in a firm negative. 'Huh-uh. The grift's like everything else. You don't standstill. You either go up or down, usually down, but my Roy's going up.'
Roy was guiltily flattered. He pointed out that however it was, it was still the con. It didn't have the dangers that the organized rackets had.
'It doesn't, huh?' Lilly asked. 'Well, you could have fooled me. Now, I heard of a guy just about your age who got hit so hard in the guts that it almost killed him.'
'Well, uh-'
'Sure, sure, that doesn't count. That's different. And here's something else that's different.' She held up the burned hand. 'Do you know how I really got that burn? Well, I'll tell you…'
She told him, and he listened sickishly; shamed and embarrassed. Unwilling to associate such things with his mother, and unable to connect them with himself. Insofar as he could, they tended to widen the rift that lay between him and Lilly.
She saw how he felt; saw that it was no use. A slow fury welled through her tired body.
'So that's that,' she said, 'and it doesn't have anything to do with you, does it? Just another chapter in the Perils of Lilly Dillon.'
