Hughie put down his fork, his mouth set in stem, patriarchal disapproval. “She attacked her own husband?”
Cecilia nodded. “You’ve heard how stingy Silas is. Never would buy Laura a decent gas range, made her carry in wood. Driftwood, too, most of the time, won’t half bum. Well, this morning when I stopped by, right in front of me Laura threatened him with a butcher knife if he tried to build another fire in the wood range. So he must have tried it. So she cut him.” She nodded with satisfaction.
“Her own husband! Terrible! It’s terrible to have no respect.”
Like Sadie. Never giving respect, forget the love. Money-money. Slap, scream, give-me-money, bang, like I was a slot machine, every time she pulled the handle.
“What about a woman who can’t stand getting no respect, Hughie Cornfeld? No consideration, slave-slave, do-this, do-that. I don’t like that prissy Laura Williams, but I don’t blame her for cutting him up! Pity she didn’t — you crazy or something, Hughie Cornfeld, putting the blame on the woman?”
“Mrs. Pigazzi, please! It’s nothing to argue about. But it’s wrong for a wife to humiliate her husband. Especially in front of strangers.” Dear God, how many times did Sadie do that?
Cecilia snorted. “Stranger! And Laura and me both living in Sea Mount eleven — no, twelve years!”
“A manner of speech. It would be a disgrace for a wife to do that in front of her own family.”
“You got something against women? Sure, you’re a man!”
Hughie stood up, blue eyes lambent with anger. “Mrs. Pigazzi, you’ll excuse me.”
“Hah!” She looked him over contemptuously — frayed sweater, straggly hair, baggy pants, the side of his foot showing through the broken canvas of his tennis shoe. “Why are you so mad over men not getting respect?” Deliberately, “You’re not much of a man.”
For an instant Hughie towered above her, his face transfixed with wrath. Then swiftly his hand delivered a heavy slap to her cheek. Her head rang with the force of the blow and her mouth fell open with shock. Then the back door slammed behind Hughie.
Cecilia picked up her cup, coffee and all, and crashed it into the door. She sprang up and in a fury of frustration kicked the door. She began to cry, holding her cheek. “Sissy! Sissy!” she blubbered. “Damn old sissy, just like Tony, hitting women!”
Outside, Hughie stumbled down the hill, cross-cutting empty lots. Above, high on the hill, he heard Joe Sykes’s big Shepherd baying mournfully. Hughie shivered. The terrible look when the dog ran off with it today! Like waving goodbye.
He started nervously as he came even with the Williams house. A shadowy figure was on the front steps. Its head raised and the light filtering through the front-window blinds picked up a nimbus of sandy-gray hair. Silas.
“Good evening,” Hughie said. “I heard you cut yourself. I’m sorry.”
Silas growled, “You’re sorry! I’m the one cut.”
“True, true. But I’m sorry it happened.”
“Damn knife slipped.”
Hughie nodded. “A sharp knife is dangerous. I’ve often cut myself when I’m cleaning fish.” The man’s right-handed; I’ve seen him work on a tire down at the garage. “I do hope you feel much better in the morning. Good night.” Compulsively he added, “Sir.” At least the man could have that much respect.
He hurried toward his shack, pursued by a nightmare of raging women. But the nightmare outran him. When he went inside and shut the door, there it was facing him.
Dear Lord, why had Sadie finally traced him to this lost and lonely place? Digging up, like a terrier, this lost and lonely man? Whining and crying she’d spent all his money, that he should come back and make more. Slapped him, spit at him even, when he tried to explain a man can’t make money when he hates money. And hates the men who make it, including himself. And hated her, the slapping, screeching, disrespectful money-snatcher! Yes, Sadie, I hated you — me, who could be a loving man, I hated you.
No dignity. No respect. Treating a man like a slot machine.
The nightmare had opened its arms, clasped him in hateful embrace, slavered at his face until he was dripping wet with perspiration.
The same way it had started tonight with that fat wicked-eyed Cecilia; the rage — no, not rage, surely it was righteous anger — had filled his soul. But Cecilia wasn’t important. Once anyway, Sadie had been important. That had made his anger worse...
After the anger was spent, Sadie was gone. Nothing was left but flesh, dead flesh, to be got rid of. The foot? It must have slipped out of the sack while he scrambled up the cliff. God knows it had been a frantic dark time, struggling in the fog, with his self-hatred chasing him.
As the Sheriff’s deputy had said, hidden from here clear to — was it Half Moon Bay or farther, to St. Louis? How far can a man, sick with disgust and fear, walk and climb in the night?
He began scrubbing his shack again as he had three nights before. The floor, the age-pocked walls. He scanned every crack, every crevice, the table, the bed, the stove, for any shred of garment, bead, earring, anything.
He found nothing. But his care was hopeless. He knew that. There was the taxi man who had driven her to the shack late that night. The taxi man hadn’t waited. Sadie had sent him away. Then she had threatened Hughie to stay in Sea Mount until he came to his senses. Well, the taxi man would read the papers or hear the radio and remember his late-at-night passenger. Or a friend, a neighbor, a bank, an apartment-house superintendent — someone would worry about what had happened to Sadie Cornfield.
Then one of them would remember Hughie.
Then someone else would recall the thing on the beach.
And always there would be himself remembering. Is this dignity, Hughie Cornfeld? You like respect so much, but do you respect yourself?
He sighed deeply at his own questions, shrugged helplessly.
Then he got fresh water and began scrubbing his shack again.
Rookie Cop
by Avram Davidson{© 1972 by Avram Davidson.}
People running on the streets of New York is not that common a sight — hurrying, yes, pushing, shouldering, elbowing, yes. But running, and being pursued by others running — that’s still enough to catch a bystander’s attention...
Three of them were running ahead and two were running behind. People running aren’t that common on the streets of New York, but anyway it was really the woman who first caught my eye. Everything about her said “rich suburbanite who doesn’t have to worry about looking like the latest fashion” — everything, that is, except her mouth. It was a nice-looking mouth, but it didn’t go with the rest of her.
For example, it didn’t go with her sensible low-heel shoes, without which she certainly wouldn’t have been able to run at that speed. And then — not to make too much of my eye for detail, though that’s good, it has to be in my business — the fact is, I would have kept on looking anyway. And so would you if you saw two men and a woman running fast, and right behind them two other men running — one of them a cop and the other one yelling, “Stop thief!”
So I decided to follow and see what would happen.
It was the young cop’s scene, so I took my time.
He had them braced, palms up and flat against a wall, by the time I caught up. The fellow who’d been yelling “Stop thief!” was standing back and wiping his face. He looked like a middle-aged businessman, which is what he turned out to be. The young cop half turned his head to look at me, and I could see that not only was his face blank, his mind had evidently gone blank, too.