The Grifters

'How about Langley?'

'Langley…' He puzzled over it for a moment. Then, 'Langley! You mean, The Farmer? You teamed with Farmer Langley?'

'That's me, pal.'

'Well, now…' He hesitated. 'What happened to him, anyway? I heard a lot of stories, but-'

'The same thing that happens to all of 'em, a lot of them I mean. He just blew up; booze, dope, the route.'

'I see,' he said. 'I see.'

'Now, don't you worry about him.' She snuggled closer to him, misreading his attitude. 'That's all over and done with. There's just us now, Moira Langtry and Roy Dillon.'

'He's still alive, isn't he?'

'Possibly. I really don't know,' she said.

And she might have said, And I don't care. For the knowledge had come to her suddenly, though unsurprisingly, that she didn't care, that she had never really cared about him. It was as though she had been hypnotized by him, overwhelmed by his personality as others had been; forced to go his way, to accept his as the right and only way. Yet always subconsciously resisting and resisting, slowly building up hatred for being forced into a life-and what kind of life was it, anyway, for an attractive young woman?-that was entirely foreign to the one she wanted.

It was nothing clear, defined. Nothing she was consciously aware of or could admit to. But still she knew, in her secret mind, knew and felt guilty about it. And so, when the blowup came, she had tried to take care of him. But even that had been a means of striking back at him, the final firm push over the brink, and subconsciously knowing this she had felt still more guilty and was haunted by him. Yet now, her feelings brought to the surface, she saw there was not and had never been anything to feel guilty about.

The Farmer had got what he deserved. Anyone who deprived her of something she wanted deserved what he got.

It was pine-fifteen when the train pulled into Los Angeles. She and Roy had a good dinner in the station restaurant. Then they ran through a light rain to his car, and drove out to her apartment.

She threw off her wraps briskly, turned to him holding out her arms. He held her for a moment, kissing her, but inwardly drawing back a little, subtly cautioned by something in her manner.

'Now,' she said, drawing him down onto the lounge, 'Now, we get down to business.'

'Do we?' He laughed awkwardly. 'Before we do that, maybe we'd better-'

'I can scrape up ten grand without much trouble. That would leave twenty or twenty-five for your end. There's a place in Oklahoma now, wide open if the ice is right. As good as Fort Worth was in the old days. We can move in there with a wire store, and-'

'Wait,' said Roy. 'Hold it, keed!'

'It would be perfect, Roy! Say, ten grand for the store, ten for the ice, and another ten for-'

'I said to hold it! Not so fast,' he said, angering a little now. 'I haven't said I was going to throw in with you.'

'What?' She looked at him blankly, a slight glaze over her eyes. 'What did you say?'

He repeated the statement, softening it with a laugh. 'You're talking some tall figures. What makes you think I've got that kind of money?'

'Why, you must have! You're bound to!' She smiled at him firmly; a teacher reproving an errant child. 'Now, you know you do, Roy.'

'Do I?'

'Yes. I watched you work on the train, as slick an operator as I ever saw. You don't get that smooth overnight. It takes years, and you've been getting away with it for years. Living on a Square John income and taking the fools for-'

'And I've been doing some taking myself. Twice in less than two months. Enough to put me in the hospital here, and in San Diego today-'

'So what?' She brushed the interruption aside. 'That doesn't change anything. All it proves is that it's time you moved up. Get up where there's big dough at stake and you don't have to stick your neck out every day.'

'Maybe I like it where I am.'

'Well, I don't like it! What are you trying to pull on me, anyway? What the hell are you trying to hand me?'

He stared at her, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry, his lips twitching uncertainly. He had never seen this woman before. He had never heard her before.

The rain whispered against the window. Distantly, there was a faint whirring of an elevator. And with it, with those sounds, the sound of her heavy breathing. Labored, furious.

'I'd better run along now,' he said. 'We'll talk about it some other time.'

'We'll talk about it now, by God!'

'Then,' he said quietly, 'there's nothing to talk about, Moira. The answer is no.'

He stood up. She jumped up with him.

'Why?' she demanded. 'Just tell me why, damn you!'

Roy nodded, a glint coming into his eyes. He said that the best reason he could think of was that she scared the hell out of him. 'I've seen people like you before, baby. Double-tough and sharp as a tack, and they get what they want or else. But they don't get by with it forever.'

'Bull!'

'Huh-uh, history. Sooner or later the lightning hits 'em, honey. I don't want to be around when it hits you.'

He started for the door. Wild-eyed, her face mottled with rage, she flung herself in front of him.

'It's your mother, isn't it? Sure, it is! One of those keep-it-in-the-family deals! That's why you act so funny around each other! That's why you were living at her apartment!'

'Wh-aat?' He came to a dead stop. 'What are you saying?'

'Don't act so goddamned innocent! You and your own mother, gah! I'm wise to you, I should have seen it before! Why, you rotten son-of-a-bitch! How is it, hmm? How do you like-'

'How do you like this?' Roy said.

He slapped her suddenly, catching her with a backhanded slap as she reeled. She leaped at him, hands clawed, and he grabbed her by the hair and flung her, and she came down sprawling on the floor.

A little wonderingly he looked at her, as she raised her smudged and reddened face. 'You see?' he said. 'You see why it wouldn't do, Moira?'

'You d-dirty bastard! You're going to see something!'

'I'm sorry, Moira,' he said. 'Good night and good luck?'

21

At the curb outside her apartment house, he lingered briefly before entering his car; relishing the rain against his face, liking the cool, clean feel of it. Here was normality, something elemental and honest. He was very glad he was out here in the rain instead of up there with her.

Back at his hotel, he lay awake for a time, thinking about Moira; wondering at how little sense of loss he felt at losing her.