start.
He smacked his head against the steering wheel in rage and frustration. He tried the ignition again as he scanned the sidewalks, searching for the agents that must be coming.
The engine caught. Franklin slammed the shift lever into drive and mashed on the accelerator.
Bang! Into the car ahead. Holy…! Reverse. Then forward, out of the parking space.
Cranking the wheel over at the comer, he slewed around with tires squalling and stomped on the gas.
Toad Tarkington stared glumly at the remains of a beer in the glass in front of him. Across the table Rita Moravia was chattering away with the peckerhead attack pilot who had spent the last three days initiating her into the mysteries of the A-6. Beside Toad sat the bombardier who had been coaching him, ol’ Henry Jenks. Both these mental giants were hanging on every word from Moravia’s gorgeous lips. There she sat, smiling and joking and behaving like a real live normal woman-type female, as she never did around him, damn her! And these two attack weenies were eating it with a spoon!
The pilot. Toad decided, had a rather high opinion of himself He looked and acted like a lifelong miser who has just decided to spend a quarter on a piece of pussy that he knows will be worth two dollars. His smile widened every time Moravia glanced into his little pig eyes. If he wasn’t careful his face would crack.
This BN, Jenks, wasn’t any better. He obviously hadn’t had a good piece of ass since his junior year of high school- Jenks was telling a funny to the pilot as he watched Rita’s reaction out of the comer of his eyes. “Do you know a fighter puke’s definition of foreplay?” After the obligatory negative from his listeners, Jenks continued. “Six hours of begging.” Rita joined in the ha-ha-has.
Watching these two cheap masturbators in action was a thirsty business. The waitress caught Toad’s hi sign and came over. “Four double tequilas, neat.” Toad said, and looked around to see if there were any other orders. The attack weenies were still drooling down Moravia’s cleavage as she told an anecdote about something or other. ‘That’s it,” he told the waitress, who regarded him incredu- lously.
“Four?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She shrugged and turned away.
The club was still crowded with the remnants of the Friday- night Happy Hour gang. The married guys had left some time back and a bunch of reservists were drifting in. Altogether forty or fifty people, ten or twelve of them women, three of whom were still in uniform. Canned rock music blared from loudspeakers that Toad didn’t see. Only one couple was dancing.
When the waitress brought the drinks she sat them in the center of the table. Jenks looked at the drinks with raised eyebrows. “I’ll have another beer,” he said. “Perrier with a twist,” Moravia chirped. “Diet Coke,” intoned the lecher beside her.
Toad drank one of the tequilas in two gulps. The liquor burned all the way down- Ah baby!
Another song started on the loudspeakers, a fast number. Toad tossed off a second drink, then climbed up on he chair. He straightened and filled his lungs with air- “Hey, fat girl,” he roared.
Every eye in the place turned his way. Toad picked the nearest female and leaped toward her with a shout; “Let’s dance!” Behind him his chair flew over with a crash.
And oh, that woman could dance.
7
The bedroom lights were on in the second story of the town house when Terry Franklin parked the car. He turned off the ignition and headlights and sat behind the wheel, trying to think.
He had driven around for an hour and a half after his panicked departure from the drop, craning to spot the agents he felt sure were tailing him. At one point he had pulled over and looked at the damage to the front of his car. The left front headlight was smashed and the bumper bent from smacking into that car when he tried to get out of that parking space too quickly.
A dozen times he thought he spotted a tail, but the trailing vehicle usually went its own way at the next corner or the one after. A blue Ford with Pennsylvania plates followed along for half a mile until he could stand it no longer and ran a red light. His panicky wanderings back and forth through the avenues and traffic circles of downtown Washington seemed like something from a drug-induced nightmare, a horrible descent into a paranoid hell of traffic and stoplights and police cars that refused to chase him.
Franklin sat now behind the wheel smelling his own foul body odor. His clothes were sodden with sweat.
Lucy and the kids were home. He tried to come up with a lie for Lucy as he scanned the street for mysterious watchers and people sitting in cars.
How long could he live like this? Should he take the money he had and run? Where could he run with the FBI and CIA looking for him? He didn’t have enough money to evade them forever. Should he go to Russia? The very thought nauseated him. Freezing in some gray workers paradise for the rest of his days was about as far from the good life as a man could get this side of the grave.
He wasn’t feeling well and went to the dispensary, that was what he would tell Lucy. God knows he must look like he was in the terminal stages of AIDS. No good. No prescription. A beer. Yeah, he went out for a beer. He got out of the car wishing he had really stopped for one. After another look at the broken headlight and grille, he plodded toward the front door.
She came out of the kitchen when she heard the door open. “Where have you been?” She stood rigid, her face pale.
Uh-oh. He kept his voice calm. “Hey, babe- I went out for a beer. Did you all get anything at the mall?”
“I know where you’ve been. Cindy across the street has told me all about your little expeditions when I’m out for the evening. I know all about you, you son of a bitch.”
He stared, thunderstruck. This isn’t happening. No, not to me. For the love of— “How?”
“Who is she? I want to know. Who is she?”
“Who is who?”
“Who is the goddamn bitch you’re tomcatting around with, you son of a fucking bitch. Who is she?”
At last he understood. As the relief washed over him he was suddenly too weak to stand. He sank into a chair. “Lucy, there’s no other wo—“
“Don’t give me that shit! I knowl Cindy told me!” She was a quivering, shouting pillar of hysterical righteousness. “You’re cheating on me.” Tears were flowing now. “Oh God. I tried so hard…”
“Lucy, calm down. Please, for the love of— The kids will hear. Honest to God. there’s no other woman.” He got to his feet and approached her. “Babe, I love you. There’s nobody—“
“Don’t you touch me, liar. I’m getting a divorce.” She spun and made for the stairs. “I’m locking the bedroom door. If you try to get in, I’ll call the police. Liar. Cheat Bastard.”
He lost it. It had been that kind of evening, “You crazy cunt,” he roared. “You don’t know shit. I went down to the corner for a goddamn beer and when I get home you’re fucking loony crazy. I haven’t cheated on youl I haven’t fucked another woman since that night I knocked you up at the drive-in. You don’t have any god- damn evidence at all, you crazy lunatic.”
He heard the bedroom door slam and the kids sobbing. He threw himself onto the living-room couch. Some days — it’s absolutely crazy how some days just go bug-fuck nuts. You almost get ar- rested, smash up the front of the car, your wife demands a divorce because you’re cheating on her when you’re not. What else? What else can fucking happen before midnight?
The drop was empty. He stretched out on the couch and con- templated that fact. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. He could hear Lucy putting the kids to bed upstairs. Finally the noises stopped.
He would have to call them. In Miami they had given him an emergency telephone number that he had memorized and a verifi- cation code. He would call. He looked around for the evening paper. On top of the TV. He flipped to the sports section. The code was simple; the location and opponent in the next scheduled game of the Bullets, Orioles or Redskins, whichever was in season. They had been insistent; he was never to call except in an emergency and then only from a pay phone. Well, this was sure as hell an emer- gency. But he wasn’t going back
