I pulled away.
I stopped dancing.
I said: “Got work to do.”
I left her crying and went.
Supper, after the flurry of good feeling we’d had, was right back in the grit, with her saying nothing, he nothing, and me less, if possible. Soon as I finished, I took the Scotch tape, wires, and bulbs he’d brought out from town, and took them out to the cottage. I got a garbage can, sat on the cottage porch, and began my cleaning and cutting. I scooped out pulp and seeds, then cut the face in each one. I made triangle eyes, triangle nose, and overlapping triangle grin. There were twenty-four to be done in all, two apiece for the smaller places and seven pairs for the Ladyship, and when I was done out front, I took them all to the bedroom, where a baseboard plug was handy, for the electrical work, and tests. It took until well after twelve, but in the middle of it, around nine I would say, there he was in the door, I supposed to see how it went. He said the work looked fine, but instead of pinning medals all over his chest, on how that’s all it took, a little imagination, to decorate a restaurant nice, he sat on my bed, very low. Then: “Duke, has anyone been out here?”
“Why, Mr. Val, all kinds of people come. Homer, every day. The oil man, to fill the tank. The meter man, to take readings. They’ve all been out, I guess. If that’s what you’re talking about.”
“You ever hear of Sol Lippert?”
“Not that I know of, no.”
“He’s a racketeer, Duke. He sells liquor, and keeps calling me up. It’s business, or could be. He says he wants my account. And yet — and yet — I can’t shake off a feeling he’s checking on my whereabouts. Has he been out here?”
“I haven’t seen such a guy.”
“Something’s going on.”
And then, after snapping his fingers some minutes: “Duke, if he comes, I want to know.”
“Sir, on what doesn’t concern me—”
“Duke!”
“Yes, sir. O.K.”
That night was even blacker than the one in jail. I hated myself for discussing her, or anything that might mean her, with him, behind her back. I hated the yellow thread that had wriggled through my heart. Most of all, I hated the way I’d refused her soft little flower and ground it under my heel. At last, dog-tired, I slept, but not for long, it turned out. Along toward morning I woke, dreaming about Wilkes Booth. Mixed in with the dream was a bell, the same tiny cat’s bell I’d heard that first night. I got up, put on a robe, and went out to check on my can, that the lid was on tight, with the handle pulled up. I went back, got in bed again, and tried to go back to sleep, but once more I felt evil outside, as well as inside me, and didn’t know why.
Chapter XII
In the morning, Val said a power crew was coming, to fix stuff on the road, and that I should stand by to help. He had little to say as I put him in the car, and just stared at the sky, his eyes squinched up small. That wasn’t so good, as I’d have been a fool not to know that one day he had to wake up to what this was, but the job suited me fine. She hadn’t showed for breakfast, and if I could skip the hams, I needn’t see her at all, could even have lunch in Clinton while I tried to think things out. Around nine came the truck, and the job was to clear a cable fouled on a tree, a big oak that Val liked and meant to save if he could. Resetting a pole would do it, so while the boys tightened a guy, I worked the clamp, topside. It took less than an hour, but in the middle of it, what do I see but her? She was all dressed in a suit, a brown one I hadn’t seen, with the same maroon shoes, and a hat and bag to match. From my pole I watched her come out, go back and unstable her car, close the garage, and go rolling off to the city without one look in my direction.
As to what went through my heart, I’m not sure that I know, or even if anything did, as by that time my heart had had about all it was able to take. But I know what went through my head, which was: “If anything’s to be done, you better get at it and do it, as this is your big chance.” Soon as the power crew went, I legged it up to the house, let myself in with my key, and called Bill at Waldorf. I said: “Pal, I thought it over, and now, as I believe, I got stuff to tell you.”
“O.K., shoot.”
“Not on a party line.”
“It’s not no party line.”
“Look, I’m loaded and friendly, but at the same time I must show my power. The disease seems to be catching. I won’t talk on the phone, so—”
“You gaw dayum fool, you—”
“Get up here.”
“On my way, Duke, right now.”
I met him at the door with her sweater and slacks, to bug his eyes, and they bugged. I told him I’d misjudged her when I told him she backslid, and these things would give him the idea. He kept stretching the sweater, as though there must be some trick, and I led him into her bedroom, where he stared at the rest of her clothes, still not able to believe it. I told a little about it, the fight she’d made, my part in it, and Val’s reaction, which of course brought some remarkable cussing. Then I said: “However, that’s not why I called. On that I’ll make it quick. Yesterday, after you left, I had a talk with your sister, and it turned out you were right. About me, and how she feels toward me. I didn’t respond, which made her a little sore. But even allowing for that, she’s one hundred per cent nuts about me.”
“Aw, Chrisalminey!”
“Shall I go on Bill, or not?”
“What you getting at, Duke?”
“Right now, at the start, I’m making you take what I say. Dishing it out at you. Some of those things you said yesterday, they slightly got my goat. It came to me, the squat you’d have done in jail if it hadn’t been for me — right in this very room, when you let heave at Mr. Commissioner, and—”
“I took it back, didn’t I?”
“Not too loud, however.”
“I take it back — is that better?”
“And apologize.”
“Listen, goddam it—”
“I said—”
“I apologize.”
I said take it easy and listen what I told him. I took up the diet again, and explained: “It’s had a peculiar effect. She wants to kick up her heels. Like a heifer, she says. She was a fat girl, a good girl, too long, and now she wants a change. To whoop and holler and laugh, to run and dance and sing. To cut up — especially with me. I’m the guy that showed her how, the one that set her free.”
He cussed at me, but I wouldn’t let up. I said: “I just want you to get it straight, the kind of hand I hold. Right now I’m in her doghouse. As I told you, she made like friendly and I made like scram, quick. But there’s nothing griping her that one good pass won’t fix. You got all this straight, stupid?”
“If you’re after dough, I got none.”
“I’m not after dough.”
“Then what is it?”
“I told you I thought it over, all that you said yesterday, and the proof that I did is I do make like scram. On all but one or two points I think you were right. I think, considering the husband she’s got, the setup here and all, I’m not the guy she should have. You just as well know, I’m just as nuts about her as she is about me — if she is. Just the same, I’ll bow out. On one condition only.”
“Which is?”