I had opened the car door, propped my foot inside, and leaned over the window. When I spoke, my voice carried strong and clear over the mountaintop. “What’s in the newspaper is his side of it. Here’s my side, in case you’re interested. That guy is a killer. I’ve tried to pin him for more than two years. I guess I finally got sick of it. He raped a woman and beat her silly and was coming back for an encore. He found me there instead. As far as brutality is concerned, forget it— he’s plenty big enough to take care of himself. When he says I cuffed him and beat him, he’s lying. I took the cuffs off and it was a fair fight. That’s the end of it. I’m going home.“
I drove down the mountain feeling depressed. But under it was a strange feeling of elation, of joy, making a mix that’s almost impossible to describe. I didn’t know what was happening but it was big. Oh, was it big! Could I have lived thirty-six years and never once felt this? I stopped at the side of the road about five miles from her house and fought the urge to go back. I won that fight… one mark for good judgment.
I’d call her in the morning.
She’d call me.
Somehow we’d get past all the problems of her money and her expertise and my brutal nature.
One way or another, it wasn’t over. That was the one sure thing in an unsure world.
29
I got to the store about quarter past midnight. The street was deserted except for an ambulance far away: the overture of another long night on East Colfax. I tucked the Steinbeck under my arm and let myself in. The place had a stale, slightly sour smell at midnight. I locked the door and put the book on the counter, then sat on my stool looking at it. I opened it and looked at the doodle Steinbeck had drawn all those years ago, when fame and glory and money were his, when his talent was at its peak. “May 12, 1940: Tom Joad on the road.” A prize, yes, one might even say a small victory, but a hollow one. You can have it back, Miss Rita, you hear that? You can have the damn thing. All you’ve got to do is ask.
I cut a piece of plastic and wrapped the jacket anew. With a light pencil I wrote in the new. price, $2,000, and looked in the glass case for the perfect centerpiece spot.
The phone rang.
It can’t be, I thought. I watched it ring three times, then I picked it up and said hello.
“I knew you’d be there,” she said.
“You’re getting pretty smart in your old age.”
“It’s what I’d‘ve done not so long ago. When you buy your first big piece, you can’t wait to see how it looks in its new home. Even if it’s midnight.”
“For the record, it looks great.”
“You’re allowed an hour to gloat. After that, it’s unbecom-ing.”
There was a long pause, what I was starting to think of as a Ritalike white space. Then she said, “I called to tell you something but I don’t know how.”
“We could play twenty questions. Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”
“Animal,” she said. Her voice sounded thick, lusty.
“I kind of thought it would be.”
Another pause. I didn’t know what to do but fill it with more comic relief.
“Does it walk on two legs, four, or slide on its belly like a reptile?”
“This is difficult,” she said. “I know you think I’ve been manipulating you, but I haven’t. I’m just not very consistent sometimes.”
“Hey, if I want consistency I’ll buy a robot. So you give off mixed signals. That’s all part of the human comedy.”
“You’re angry.”
“Just confused, Miss McKinley. First you tell me, in barely couched terms, to break a leg and go blind. Then you call and invite me up. You fix me a dinner but act like I’m the butcher of Auschwitz when I ask you for a date. You’d already read that newspaper, you knew full well that I stomp puppies to death for a hobby, but do I worry? Nah! I’m just glad I got to see your books.”
There was white space, of course: a ten-second pause. I thought of whistling Time on My Hands, but I didn’t do it.
“You are one strange bird, Janeway,” she said.
“I’m fascinating as hell, though, you’ve got to admit that.”
“Yes,” she said, and I felt that buildup in my throat again, and I hoped I’d be able to get through this conversation without croaking like Henry Aldrich.
“I have a dark secret,” she said. “If I tell you what it is, will you promise not to try to see me again?”
“I never bet on a blind. Only fools and bad poker players do that.”
“I guess I’ll tell you anyway. I don’t want you going away thinking I’ve been playing with you.”
“What difference does it make, if I’m going away?”
“I told you before, don’t be so goddamned analytical. Take a few things on faith.”
“You haven’t said anything yet.”
“It’s very simple. I hate violence, but all my life I’ve been attracted to violent men.”
“That’s very interesting,” I said, struggling past a pear-sized obstruction in my throat.
“So the reason I didn’t want you to come up here today is the same reason I finally did ask you up. The same reason I didn’t cancel when I read the paper. The same reason I wouldn’t go out with you. Does that make any sense?”
“No, but keep going. I like the sound of it.”
“You wear your violence on your sleeve. It goes where you go. You carry it around like other men carry briefcases. It’s like a third person in the room. I can’t help being appalled by that.”
I listened to her breathe. My pear had grown into a grapefruit.
“And yet, I’m always a sucker for a man who can make me believe he’ll do anything, if the stakes are big enough.”
I gave a wicked laugh.
Gotcha, I thought.
“I don’t want to see you again,” she said. “I just wanted you to know why.”
“I’ve got a hunch we’ll see each other.”
“I’m engaged, Mr. Janeway. I’m getting married next month.”
“Then it’s a good thing I came along when I did.”
“Good-bye,” she said, and hung up.
God damn it, I thought.
Whoopie! I thought. Yaahoo!
Elation and despair were sisters after all.
I called her back: got the recording. When the beep came, I pictured her sitting in the kitchen listening to my voice. Insanity, the third sister, took over. I got real close and crooned into the phone. “Oh, Rüüü-ta! This is the mystery voice calling! Guess my name and win a truckload of Judith Krantz first editions. Ooooh, I’m sorry, I’m not George Butler the Third! But that was a fine guess, and wait’ll you hear about the grand consolation prize we have in store for you! Two truckloads of Judith Krantz first editions! Your home will certainly be a bright one with all those colorful best-sellers lying around. Your friends will gaze in awe—” The tape beeped again, and a good thing, else I might’ve gone on till dawn. I replaced the phone in the cradle and stared at it for a long moment. Ring, you sonofabitch, I thought, but the bastard just sat there.
Convulsed with laughter, I was sure.
Too weak to call.
Savoring my wit in her solitude.
Damn her.
I worked it off. In a bookstore there’s always something to do. I had a small stack of low-end first editions that needed to be priced, so I did that. I watered Miss Pride’s plant again, and studied the AB. I read for an hour. Sometime after two o’clock I fell asleep in the big deep chair near the front counter.
I opened my eyes to a feeling more desolate than despair. This was not the aching loneliness of new love, it was something far more desperate and immediate. The street was still dark: the world outside was hollow and empty and nothing moved anywhere. The store was like a tomb: still, silent, eerie.