seafood restaurant jutting out over the ocean. Moira had declared an armistice with her diet, and she proved that she meant it.
The meal opened with a lobster cocktail, practically a meal in itself. Served with hot garlic-bread and a fresh green salad, the main course was a sizzling platter of assorted seafoods bordered by a rim of delicately-browned potatoes. Then came dessert-a fluffy cheesecake- and pots of black, black coffee.
Moira sighed happily as she accepted a cigarette. 'As I said earlier, this is living! I honestly don't think I can move!'
'Then, of course you don't feel like dancing.'
'Silly,' she said. 'Whatever gave you an idea like that?'
She loved dancing, and she danced very well; as, for that matter, did he. More than once, he caught the eyes of other patrons on them; seeing them also, Moira pressed closer to him, bending her supple body to his.
After perhaps an hour of dancing, when the floor became oppressively crowded, they went for a moonlight drive up the coast, turning around and heading back at the city of Oceanside. The mounting waves of the night tide foamed with phosphorus. They came rolling in from the distant depths of the ocean, striking against the shore in a steady series of thunder-like roars. On the rocky outcrops of the shore, an occasional seal gleamed blackly.
It was almost eleven when Roy got them back to their hotel, and Moira was suppressing a yawn. She apologized, saying it was the weather, not the company. But when they again stood in front of their rooms, she held out her hand in good night.
'You don't mind, do you, Roy? It's been such a wonderful evening, I guess I just wore myself out.'
'Of course you did,' he said. 'I'm pretty tired myself.'
'You're sure now? You're sure you don't mind?'
'Beat it,' he said, pushing her through her door. 'It's okay.'
But of course it wasn't okay, and he minded a great deal. He entered his own room, restraining an angry urge to slam the door. Stripping out of his clothes, he sat down on the edge of the bed; puffed surlily at a cigarette. A hell of a holiday, this was! It would serve her right if he walked out on her!
The phone tinkled faintly. It was Moira. She spoke with repressed laughter.
'Open your door.'
'What?' He grinned expectantly. 'What for?'
'Open it and find out, you fathead!'
He hung up and opened his door. There was a sibilant, '
'I hope you don't mind, sir,' she said. 'I just washed my clothes, and I couldn't do a thing with them.'
Then, gurgling, choking with laughter, she collapsed in his arms. 'Oh, you!' she gasped. 'If you could have seen your face when I told you good night! You looked s-so-so-
He picked her up and tossed her on the bed.
They had a hell of a time.
18
But afterward, after she had gone back to her own room, depression came to him and what had seemed like such a hell of a time became distasteful, even a little disgusting. It was the depression of surfeit, the tail of selfindulgence's kite. You flew high, wide, and handsome, imposing on the breeze that might have wafted you along indefinitely; and then it was gone, and down, down, down you went.
Tossing restlessly in the darkness, Roy told himself that the gloom was natural enough and a small enough price to pay for what he had received. But as to the last, at least, he was not convinced. There was too much of a sameness about the evening's delights. He had been the same route too many times. He'd been there before, so double-damned often, and however you traveled-backward, forward, or walking on your hands-you always got to the same place. You got nowhere, in other words, and each trip took a little more out of you.
Still, did he really want anything changed? Even now, in his misery, weren't his thoughts already reaching out and across the hall?
He flung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. Lighting a cigarette, pulling a robe around his shoulders, he sat looking out into the moonlit night. Thinking that perhaps it wasn't him or them-he or Moira-that had brought him to this gloomy despair. Perhaps it was a combination of things.
He didn't have his strength back yet. He'd used up a lot of energy in catching the train. And grifting after so long an idleness had been unusually straining on him. Then there'd been a lot of little things-Moira's curiosity about the separate rooms, for example. And that heavy dinner, at least twice as much as he needed or wanted. Then, after all that…
His mind went back to the dinner now, the enormous quantity and richness of it. And suddenly the cigarette tasted lousy to him, and a wave of nausea surged up through his stomach. He ran to the bathroom, a hand over his mouth, cheeks bulging. And he got there barely in time.
He rid himself of the food, every miserable mouthful of it. He rinsed out his mouth with warm water, then drank several glasses of cold. And immediately he began vomiting again.
Bending over the sink, he anxiously studied his stomach's washings, and to his relief he found them clear. There was no tell-tale trace of brown that would signify internal bleeding.
Shivering a little, he tottered back to bed and pulled the covers over him. He felt a lot better now, lighter and cleaner. He closed his eyes, and was promptly asleep.
He slept soundlessly, dreamlessly; seeming to compress two hours of sleep in one. Awakening at about six-thirty, he knew he'd had his quota and that further sleep was out of the question.
He shaved, showered and dressed. That took no more than a half-hour, drag it out as he would. So there it was, only seven o'clock in the morning, and he as much at loose ends as if he was back in L.A.
Certainly, he couldn't call Moira at such an hour. Moira had indicated last night that she intended to sleep until noon, and that she would cheerfully murder anyone who awakened her before then. At any rate, he was in no hurry at all to see Moira. It was labor enough to pull himself together again, without the necessity of entertaining her.
Going down to the hotel coffee shop, he had some toast and coffee. But he only did it as a matter of discipline, of virtue. Regardless of nights-before, a man ate breakfast in the morning. He ate, hungry or not, or else he inevitably found himself in trouble.
Strolling down a white-graveled walk to the cliff above the ocean, he let his eyes rove aimlessly over the expanse of sea and sand: The icy-looking whitecaps, the blinking, faraway sails of boats, the sweeping, constantly searching gulls. Desolation. Eternal, infinite. Like Dostoevski's conception of eternity, a fly circling about a privy, the few signs of life only emphasized the loneliness.
At this hour of the morning, a very little of it went a long way with Roy Dillon. Abruptly, he turned away from it and headed for the rented car.
The coffee and toast hadn't set at all well with him. He needed something to settle his stomach, and he could think of only one thing that would do it. A bottle of good beer, or, better still, ale. And he knew it was not to be found, so early in the day, in a community like La Jolla. The bars here, the cocktail lounges, rather, would not open until shortly before lunch. If there were morning drinkers in the town, and doubtless there were, they had their own private bars to drink from.
Turning the car toward San Diego, Roy drove out of the southerly outskirts of La Jolla and into the more humble districts beyond, slowing occasionally for a swift appraisal of the various drinking establishments.
