“Not necessary,” he muttered awkwardly. “What was it?”
“Scotch and soda.”
“Any brand?”
“Bar Scotch. I never could tell the difference.”
He bought the two drinks and brought them back to the table. She didn’t make a fuss about his having paid, but her bag was still on the table. He took a swallow and knew his mouth would taste rancid by midnight. What the hell. “So,” he said, and stopped, unable to think of what to say.
“I’m sorry, I’m not much help either, am I? I’m not used to picking up strangers in bars.”
“Neither am I.”
They both smiled. Then the shape of her eyes changed. “Hate is a very exciting feeling, do you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I was sitting over there at the bar thinking about killing my son of a bitch of a husband—ex-husband, pardon me. I mean really thinking about killing him. Imagining what it would be like to strangle him with piano wire or stick a kitchen knife in his throat. I’d never do it, of course, I’m not that crazy. But do you ever have daydreams like that?”
“I guess so.”
“It’s exciting, isn’t it. Gets all the juices flowing. You get very stimulated.”
“You know that’s true.…”
“You said that as if it’s happened to you but you never recognized it before.”
“Something like that, yes.”
She shook her head—the same mockery again. “I guess you don’t want to talk about yours either.”
“My what?”
“Whatever it is that made the world fall down around your ankles. All right, we’ll make a deal—we won’t talk about any of that, we’ll talk about something else. You live here?”
He widened his eyes. “Here? Tucson?”
“I guess you don’t.”
“I’m surprised—I thought it stuck out all over me. I’m from New York.”
“Well, if I were a local I’d probably have noticed. I’m from Los Angeles.”
“On your way to or from?”
“From. Emphatically from. I got this far today—I’m staying in the motel next door.”
“So am I.”
It caused a brief gap; she dropped her eyes to her drink. Paul said, “Look, I didn’t mean anything by that. It wasn’t a hint. I happen to be staying there, that’s all.”
“I am beginning to feel,” she said in an abrupt vicious little voice, “like the world’s prime cock-teaser. Please forgive me.”
“What for?”
“For coming on like some kind of nympho bar girl and then flying into a twitter the minute I imagine I hear you tossing a gentle pitch my way. I am sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for, I promise you.” Another swallow: Take it easy on this stuff. “Where are you bound for, then?”
“Ask me tomorrow when I get in my car. Maybe I’ll have an idea by then.”
“You really are footloose and fancy-free.”
A twisted smile, a dip of her face; her hair swung forward, half masking her. “I have a sister in Houston. I suppose I’m edging in that direction. Reluctantly.”
“No other family? No children?”
“Three kids.” She bit it off. “My husband got them.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s all right. All you’d have to do would be read the Los Angeles papers. It’s public knowledge. I’m not fit to raise my own children—the judge said so.”
“I’m sorry. Really.”
“Of course it helps when your husband’s a lawyer and the judge is a friend of his.” Her face whipped up. “Do I look as if I’d neglect my children? … Shit, never mind, how could you be expected to answer that? Look, I promised we’d talk about something else. What are you doing here? Vacation?”
“Business. Very dull, I’m afraid.”
“All the way from New York. It must be big.”
“Big for some people. For me it’s just my job.”
“What do you do? Or is that prying?”
“No, not at all. I’m a C.P.A., I’m doing an audit of a company’s books. It’s hardly a sensitive subject but I promise you it’s less interesting than dishwater.”
“Well, then. What shall we talk about? Nuclear submarines? The weather?”
“I don’t mind, really.”
“We don’t really have to talk at all. It’s such a strain sometimes, isn’t it.” She gathered her handbag and tossed off the rest of the Scotch. “Why don’t we go?” The voice was pert but she wasn’t meeting his eyes.
He walked her across the motel’s concrete apron, concentrating on his balance. She trailed along beside him with her vague involuted smile, her hips swaying from the slender stem of her waist. “The station wagon with mud all over it, that’s me. My room.”
“I’ll say goodnight then, and good luck to you.”
“No.” She turned under the porch overhang. “Do you like me? Do you like me at all?”
“Yes—I do.”
She opened the door; it hadn’t been locked. She drew him inside and pushed the door shut behind him. The only light was what slotted in through the half-closed blinds. Against it her eyes glittered, betraying a wild desperate appetite. “I want to hold you. I want you to hold me. Please hold me for a minute.…”
He reached for her and they breathed liquor on each other, and kissed; he felt the tears on her cheeks. “Oh, come on to bed,” she said, “we both seem to need it and it’s a friendly thing for two people to do, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
He awoke conscious of having dreamed. Weakness in all his fibers; a pounding dull headache, a dehydrated pain in his abdomen.
“You can open the other eye now, I’ve made some coffee.”
He sat up and took the cup. His fingers were unsteady. He looked at her for the first time. She still had a red patch on her chin from his stubble.
The coffee made a good smell but it tasted terrible. He put the cup down half-full. “Thanks.”
She was already dressed—the same blouse and leather skirt as last night. A good looking woman, he thought. Small, too thin, a little leather around the eyes; but damned good looking. In the night he’d lain drowsily between sleeps, thinking what it would be like to live with a woman who could take his mind off the TV commercials and the killers in the alleys.
She said, “I’m all packed. I thought of letting you sleep it off, but it occurred to me it would be awkward if I left and the maid came in and found you here.”
An abrupt tug in his throat; an instant’s wistful panic. “You’re going?”
“Time to hit the road. It’s a long way to Houston.” She patted her lips with a tissue, set the cup down in the saucer and stood in front of the mirror smoothing down her skirt. “Thank you for last night. I needed somebody to help me make it through to this morning.”
It occurred to him as she went out the door that she probably didn’t even remember his name.
“So long, Shirley Mackenzie.”
He wasn’t sure she heard him; the door continued to close. Clicked shut and left him very alone in the room.
“Oh, Jesus,” he croaked, and began to cry.
* * *
It was Saturday; he spent the half day in the Jainchill conference room and had lunch at a franchise hamburger drive-in and drove toward the center of town, down Speedway to Fourth Avenue and left down Fourth toward the tracks. The sporting goods store was where he remembered it. He went inside and said, “I’d like to buy a gun.”
On the plane he dozed with his head against the Plexiglas pane. The stewardess went down the aisle looking at passengers’ seat belts; the lights of New York made a glow in the haze over the city. They circled down in the holding pattern and landed at Kennedy. In the terminal on his way to baggage-claim he stopped at a counter to pick up a present for Caroclass="underline" she had always had a tooth for bitter chocolate. He bought half a dozen Dutch bars and put them in his briefcase on top of the papers which concealed the .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver and the six fifty-round boxes of ammunition.