"I live here," Mr. Rebeck snapped. They were standing on the steps now, shouting at each other. He could feel the cool, tickling trickles of sweat sliding down his sides under his shirt. "I like it here. This place, this dark city, is as much my home as any place on earth is ever anybody's home. I can't live anywhere else. I tried. I tried for a long time. Now I live here and I'm happy. A man should live where he fits, and if he doesn't fit anywhere he should try to squeeze himself in somewhere where he won't hurt anyone and where nobody will notice him. I've been lucky in finding a place to live, luckier than a lot of men. They're still looking."
"You think this is living? This is eating, nothing else." Mrs. Klapper grabbed at the crescent hat a moment before it fell off her forehead and shoved it to the back of her head, where it remained, tipping from side to side, like a seasick bird. "You're like all those yentas where I live, you sit in the sun and wait for your wings to grow. You want to live somewhere, live in a house. That's where people live."
At any other time, Mr. Rebeck would never have taken advantage of the opening she had unwittingly given him, even had he noticed it, which is doubtful. Now he drove through it, his anger tucked like a skull under his arm.
"Is it? Then tell me why you keep calling Morris's mausoleum his big house?"
In the silence they heard the sound of an engine, and they both looked up the path to see the caretakers' pickup truck turning in off Central Avenue. Even at that distance Mr. Rebeck was able to recognize it. It was olive green, for the most part, with rusty fenders and a wide paintless patch on the driver's door—Campos had once managed to get it caught in a funeral motorcade. The engine harrumphed like a Congressman, and the rim of the hood was bent up and out on one side, so that the truck wore an impersonal sneer.
Mr. Rebeck was not at first alarmed when he saw the truck, because he associated it with Campos, who loved it and drove it most of the time. But he saw Walters' blond head above the steering wheel and, as he had done so often that he no longer thought of it as running, he fled up the steps to the mausoleum door. There he paused with the iron of the doorknob under his hand and turned, expecting to see Mrs. Klapper's face wrinkled with mockery, waiting to hear her voice, that could be like the bitter shriek of knives against each other, jeering at him. He hoped, in a way, that she would, so that he would not miss her when she did not come again. For he was sure she would not return, and he feared remembering her.
But she only looked at the truck and then at him, and she said quietly, "It's too late, Rebeck. He's seen you. Come back."
And he came down the steps, taking them carefully so as not to stumble, and he stood beside her on the bottom step and waited with her for the oncoming truck.
Walters brought the truck to a hiccuping stop before them and cut the motor. He leaned out of the cab and demanded, "You people together?"
"Yes," Mr. Rebeck answered. He hoped that Walters would not recognize him. They had met twice before, and both times Mr. Rebeck had pretended to be a visitor. He tried vaguely to make his voice different.
"Well, don't you know the place closes at five? It's ten to five now."
"My," Mrs. Klapper marveled. "Look how the time flies. We just got here a minute ago, it seems like." She narrowed her eyes suspiciously and raised a finger at Walters. "You're sure it's ten to five?"
"I'm sure, lady," Walters answered, but he looked at his watch. "You don't get down to the gate in a hurry, they'll lock you in. And this ain't no place I'd want to spend the night."
"Well." Mrs. Klapper turned questioningly to Mr. Rebeck. "I guess maybe we better be going, huh?" Mr. Rebeck nodded.
Walters looked at his watch again. "You'll never make it in ten minutes. They'll lock you in. Hop in and I'll give you a ride down. Come on."
Mrs. Klapper glanced quickly at Mr. Rebeck, but no word passed between them. She turned back to Walters and shook her head. "Thanks a lot, but no. You just go and tell the people at the gate we'll be a little bit late, they shouldn't lock up right away."
"Come on, come on," Walters said impatiently. "It'll take you a half-hour to walk it. They ain't going to wait that long for anybody."
"So the night man will let us out," Mrs. Klapper replied calmly. "Anyway, we can't ride with you, thank you. I lost something on the way and we have to find it."
"Yeah? What'd you lose? We got a Lost and Found in the office."
Mr. Rebeck correctly interpreted Mrs. Klapper's look at him as a howl for help. He remembered having said, "Fear nothing," to her in jest, and he wondered if she remembered too. He had thrown it off very lightly.
"A ring," he said. "On the way up here, she lost a very small ring. We're going to look for it on the way back. That's why we want to walk."
Walters slapped his forehead. "Jesus Christ, you can't go looking for a ring now. It'll take you hours, a little thing like a ring. Come back tomorrow."
"It wasn't that small a ring," Mrs. Klapper said indignantly. "Do I look like the kind of woman would wear a little tiny Woolworth ring? We'll find it, and it won't take us so long, either. You just tell the people at the gate not to be in such a hurry, we'll be right along."
"Look, lady—" Walters began, but he did not finish. Mrs. Klapper occasionally had that effect on people, Mr. Rebeck noticed. He felt sorry for Walters.
"Thank you for offering us a ride," he said. "And don't worry. We won't take long."
"Yes, thank you very much," Mrs. Klapper said, as if she were daring Walters to make something of it. "You're a very nice young man."
"Jesus God," Walters said. It sounded almost like a prayer. He turned on the ignition, and the engine snorted with a kind of baleful humor.
"I'll leave the gate unlocked," he said to the steering wheel. "Tell the man at the gate when you leave. Would you do that for me?"
"Certainly," Mr. Rebeck said grandly. "We'd be glad to."
"And watch it with the truck," Mrs. Klapper called as Walters drove away. "Don't go running over the ring, it's very valuable." They watched the truck shudder along the path and out of sight on Central Avenue.
They had intended to laugh when it was safe, fully intended to sit down on the steps and laugh together, louder than they ever had. Neither one had spoken this intention to the other, but it had been completely understood while they were talking to Walters. But they looked warily at each other and remembered that, five minutes before, each had come very near to destroying the other for the other's Own Good. Neither was quite certain that the destruction had not actually been accomplished, and each cautiously watched the other move and did not dare to speak for fear that one might now have no tongue and the other no ears. They moved as if they were wading or picking themselves out of wreckage.
"I better go," Mrs. Klapper said at last. "He's not going to wait forever, whoever's locking the gate. I got to get home, anyway."
"I'll walk part of the way with you," Mr. Rebeck said.
She did not answer, and they began to walk toward Central Avenue. Sometimes their shoulders touched.
"You think somebody'll get nervous, they only see one person leave instead of two?"
Mr. Rebeck shook his head. "No. Walters has gone home, and one of the night men has taken over. No one will notice anything."
"You sure know the routine around here. Like a bank robber."
"I have to."