Nolan pulled into the inlet, got out of his car, crossed the road, the ditch, then walked up a slight incline to stare out over the October-barren grove. The trees were gray, as was the sky, their fallen leaves had been picked up and borne away, leaving the ground bare around them, but for the browning grass. It was a naked and uninviting landscape, a perfect backdrop for dealing out death, and Nolan noticed for the first time it was kind of cold today.
He also noticed for the first time, on his way back to the Cadillac, that he was filthy from rolling around in the gravel. He started brushing himself off and noticed he’d torn his suitcoat under the right sleeve, and that the crotch was ripped out of his pants. Shit, he thought, two hundred goddamn dollars shot to shit. Somebody was going to answer.
Well, he’d have to go back to the motel and change. He got back in the car, returned the .38 to its holster under the seat, and headed back to Des Moines. He had a lot to do, and he really couldn’t spare the time, but he didn’t figure he better go running around town with the crotch hanging out of his pants.
He did not stop at the DiPreta place. Vince was dead; nothing he could do would help Vince now. Frank was probably still upstairs sleeping, and Nolan didn’t want to be the one to wake him with the latest war bulletin. Hopefully Frank would assume the shooting had taken place after Nolan had left, though the possibility remained that Frank might assume Nolan was in some way a part of the shooting, an accomplice perhaps. Especially if that gate had been conspicuously damaged when Nolan butted it open with the tail of the Cadillac. Even so, that would have to be taken care of later. Nolan had more important things to do presently, such as getting into pants with the crotch sewn in them, and he just didn’t have time to fool around with the DiPretas right now.
It took longer getting back to the motel than Nolan would have liked. He worked the key in the door with some impatience; but when he went to push it open, the door caught: night-latched.
“Jon,” Nolan said.
Noise from within; bedsprings.
“Jon, for Christ’s sake, shake your ass.”
Which from the sound of the bedsprings was exactly what the kid was doing.
Finally Jon peeked out. He looked a little wild-eyed. His hair was all haywire, even more so than usual. He wasn’t wearing a shirt; even with as little of him as was showing, that was evident.
“Hey,” Nolan said. “I live here. Remember?”
“Nolan, uh, Nolan...”
“What are you doing, sleeping? Didn’t you sleep enough in the damn car on the way up this morning?”
“Uh, Nolan, uh...”
“What?”
He whispered out of the side of his mouth, “I got a girl in here.”
“Congratulations,” Nolan said. “I’m glad the day is going right for somebody. Now let me in.”
“Well, you kind of interrupted us.”
“I’ll wait out here while you finish. Don’t be long.”
“Jesus, Nolan!”
“Look. We got something in common right now, you and me. We’re both in kind of sticky situations. I got no crotch in my pants, for one thing, but I don’t have time to explain at the moment. I’m just here to make a pit stop, you know? Change my clothes, say hello, and I’m off.”
“Yeah, you do look messed up. What you been doing, rolling around in gravel or something?”
“Jon.”
“Yes?”
“You and your girl friend go over to the coffee shop for five minutes so I can come in and change my clothes. Okay? I mean, I am paying for the room, you know.”
“No kidding?” Jon said, genuinely surprised. “I figured we’d be going Dutch, like usual.”
“Jon.”
“Okay, okay. One second.”
It was more like two minutes, and Nolan was somehow uncomfortable, hanging around outside a motel run by the DiPretas — or rather the DiPreta, as Frank was about the only one left, he guessed.
Jon came out in T-shirt and jeans, with the girl in tow. She was a pretty young blonde, stunning in fact: white blonde hair and a real shape to her. She looked familiar in some funny way, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. She seemed embarrassed, almost blushing, and Nolan smiled at her to put her at ease.
“So you’re Jon’s friend,” she said.
“So you’re Jon’s friend,” Nolan said.
Jon said, “Why don’t you go on and order, Francine. I got to talk to Nolan a minute.”
She said okay and both Nolan and Jon took time out to study the nice things going on under the blue sweater-dress as she walked away.
Then Jon said, “Nolan, I’m sorry about this, I didn’t figure it would do any harm to...”
“No harm done. I’m glad you found a way to amuse yourself. But listen, don’t call me Nolan. I’m registered Ryan.”
“Oh. Sorry. What’s going on, anyway?”
“You and me are getting screwed in Des Moines. We’re just going about it two different ways. Now go away and eat and let me change.”
Jon did.
Nolan was pleased to find that the war between the sexes had been fought on only one of the twin beds, and sat on the unused one and stripped off coat and tie and shirt and sat for a moment pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. Things were happening fast. He wanted to catch his breath a second.
But just a second.
He rose, got out of the pants and took out a pair of dark, comfortable slacks, a lightweight black turtleneck sweater, and a green corduroy sports coat from his suitcase and put them on. He walked into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face and remembered who the girl was.
Christ!
He all but ran over to the coffee shop. It was a long, narrow aqua-blue fish tank of a room, and toward the rear of the place was the window that earlier today had been broken out by the tossing of a grenade; the window was covered over now with cardboard. Jon and the girl were sitting one booth away. As he approached them Nolan tried to convince himself that the girl with Jon was not Frank DiPreta’s daughter, but when he got up close to the horny little bastard and bitch, that’s who she was, all right.
Nolan cleared his throat, smiled. It was a smile that Jon understood. It was a smile that didn’t have much to do with smiling, and Jon excused himself, and he and Nolan headed for the restroom, which Nolan locked, turning to Jon and saying, “Where did you pick her up, Jon?”
“At that place this morning.”
“The DiPreta place, you mean.”
“Yeah, right. That’s her name, Francine DiPreta. And she picked me up, if you must know. Right there at that place we drove to this morning, where you went in and—”
“She’s the daughter of the guy I went to see, in other words. You’re banging the daughter of the guy I went to see.”
“Well, I didn’t figure that made her off limits or anything. Come on, Nolan, you saw her. Would you turn that down?”
“It would depend on the statutory rape charge in this state, I suppose.”
“That’s right. You got no call to get all of a sudden moral or something, Nolan.”
“Fuck, kid, I’m not talking morality. I’m talking common sense. Okay, do you know who her father is? Besides somebody I went to see today.”
“No. I don’t know who her father is. Some rich guy, I assume.”
“Yeah, he’s rich. For one thing, he owns this motel.”
“This, uh, motel?”
“Right. You’re screwing the girl in her father’s motel.”
“Gee.”
“Gee? Gee? Do people still say that? Do they say that in the funny papers or what?”