ordinary month’s episodes into five days. And it cured Werner, cured him for good. He entered her body with increasing reluctance. She had been getting wilder and wilder at the end, throwing herself around, making strange tortured sounds, and sometimes, as happened now, bursting into tears.
“Werner, if I’d only remembered that damn padlock-”
He stroked her mechanically. “If-only is a dumb game. If Jack had only noticed. If we’d put a couple more cc’s of Demerol in that jolt. And incidentally, let’s make sure of that this time. Canada’s a big fat man. Give him a double.”
“But we can’t make it too strong or we’ll kill him.”
Werner reached for his drink. “I haven’t asked you this yet, but it’s been on my mind. How did Jack do it? Did he just walk over and shoot, or did he have to talk himself into it?”
“It seemed to be easy for him. You have to remember-a loan shark is like a coyote to Jack. You don’t kill it, you harvest it to keep down the population.”
“You didn’t try to argue him out of it?”
“Are you crazy? It happened so fast, I was badly in shock. The minute he did it, you could see that Neanderthal brain starting to tick. The coyote was dead. Was there any way we could use it?”
“If you want to know my opinion, I think he had that in mind all along. He was just waiting for an opening. Like this, he could shift some of the blame to you, make you feel guilty.”
She was silent for a moment. “I’ve thought of that. We can’t have more sex right this minute, and it wouldn’t be smart to get drunk, which ordinarily I wouldn’t mind doing, so I suppose we’ll have to talk about it. Here’s what I decided. I decided that whether he did or didn’t, it doesn’t matter. We did the kidnapping together. We’re all in the same boat now.”
“Not quite in the same boat,” Weiner said. They never looked directly at each other when they were talking about anything serious, as though afraid of what they would discover. “There’s one big difference. He’s a cop. We’re nobodies. If anything slips, he can bust us, or shoot us in the head the way he did Eddie, then arrange it any way he likes. And keep all the money.”
After another moment, she said in a low voice, “It might be better for our mental health if we didn’t wonder about things like that.”
“How much money have you got?”
“Scraping bottom. You?”
“Enough for groceries for another week. You can’t hide from a mad cop on unemployment insurance. So maybe we have to go through with this.”
“Except that”-she waited-“it might be a good idea to keep in mind what you’re saying about Downey after we collect the money-”
“I’m for that,” he said briefly.
She reached for cigarettes. She had lost weight. She was so close to the tipping point that unless she made a conscious effort to eat, it showed almost at once. She had too many knobs on her spine, and a starved ass. Incredibly, because it had been less than five minutes, he felt the beginnings of the sexual tingle. But the phone rang.
The phone table was on Pam’s side of the bed. Her shoulder muscles knotted. He could tell it was Downey, and the time had come.
“All right. Yes, twenty minutes. Yes. Don’t worry about that. We’re all psyched up.” Putting the phone down, she said, “Get dressed.”
They met at a drive-in movie. It was porno night, two of the new generation of porno pictures, with a grammatical script and personable actors who gave every appearance of enjoying what they were doing. Interesting, complicated things kept taking place on the oversized screen, and when Downey’s car appeared at the lighted ticket window, Werner almost missed it. They waited to be sure nobody had followed him in, then threaded their way among the darkened cars with the entwined couples and got in with him. This was his working vehicle, with metal mesh separating the front and back seats and no inside handles on the rear doors. They had already had one conference in this car, and it made Werner uncomfortable, reminding him forcibly of one of the things that could very well happen.
“The Goddamn perverts,” Downey snarled, looking up at the screen. “Showing this dirty stuff, and not a thing in the world we can do about it. We can’t lay a finger on them. The Supreme Court said so. I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, turning, “people are fucking in these cars.”
“Maybe we can find a John Wayne movie the next time,” Werner said.
“You realize people can see that screen from the expressway? By Christ, I’m going to come in here some dark night with a chain saw-”
Werner felt the back of Pam’s hand pressed warningly against his leg. He decided there was no point in quarreling. Downey wasn’t too bright, but they were stuck with him.
She said, “We didn’t come here to talk about free expression on the screen, did we, Jack? Call the meeting to order.”
Downey swung all the way around. He had left the sound outlet hooked to the post. On the screen behind him, three lovely young women continued to work in silence.
“It’s tonight,” he announced. “And we couldn’t ask for a better location. Man, it couldn’t be more ideal. This is going to be so easy.”
“Not like the last time,” Werner couldn’t help saying.
“Wernie,” Downey said after a slight pause, “could something be bugging you? Let’s talk about it.”
Werner moved his hand so it gripped Pam’s. Her fingers lay inert in his to show that she didn’t think this conversation was necessary.
“As far as Eddie Maye goes,” Werner said, “I guess you were right. We seem to be in the clear. A three-inch story in the paper, and nothing else. One more unsolved homicide for the end-of-the-year stats.”
“And it’s going to stay unsolved all the way,” Downey said. “My partner on it is a real retard. All he likes is to drink beer and watch games on TV. An unsolved gangland homicide, Werner. We don’t care if they only kill each other.”
“I accept that, and I know you can jinx a thing if you get too negative about it. But let’s suppose for a minute. What if some little unexpected thing goes wrong, like that gun Eddie had when he was supposed to be so meek and mild. Knock on wood. I mean, what if? Won’t they ask themselves, even your partner if he can tear himself away from the tube for a minute, whether we’re the same people who did it to Eddie? And that’s so very much more heavy.”
Somewhat to Werner’s surprise, Downey didn’t start yelling. “I’m glad you brought this up, Werner,” he said seriously. “Remember-we don’t officially know that was a kidnapping for ransom. Speaking as a cop now. But there’s always that outside chance that the two things would be connected. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a plus. I don’t want to insult you or anything, but this is your first time at bat in the majors. If it comes down to where you have to shoot the mother or somebody else, now I can count on you to perform. You won’t check or hold back. Because it’s your ass, right? And one of the things I was starting to tell you, it looks so open and shut I’m going to be right there with you on it.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Pam said.
“When you got in that trouble in the garage,” Downey continued, “I could have turned my back and let you get out of it by your own self. Wading into the middle of a gunfight wasn’t a part of my deal. But it didn’t occur to me not to. When Pam goofed at the house and let Eddie see us, I’m the one who took care of it, didn’t I? We’re getting a fantastic break tonight. Unbelievable. And if you’re a believer in luck, Werner-we all are-you can’t walk away from a break like that, or the luck will be rotten the rest of your life, and you’ll die young. O.K.? O.K., Pam?”
“O.K. But can we get going, please? All that stuff up there is making it hard to concentrate.”
Downey shot a quick glance over his shoulder. “Say a carload of nuns came driving along and saw that? Do you see what I mean? Consenting adults is one thing-”
“Jack.”
He turned back. “Just don’t look, or cover your eyes. The big thing I’ve been trying to do is get a bug in on Canada. But he’s bug-shy from way back, and he’s got some advanced sweeping equipment. When he goes places, he goes with a driver mostly. And he don’t keep to a schedule, a pattern, you know? He learned that a long time
