His eyes were narrow. “Where?”
“Downtown,” she said. “It wasn’t much of a ride. It only took a few minutes. They parked in front of a house on Spruce near Eleventh. I watched them go in. Then I got out of the car—”
“And walked back here?”
“Not right away,” she said. “First I cased the house.”
Silly Tillie, he thought. If they’d seen her they d have dragged her in and killed her.
She said, “It’s one of them little old-fashioned houses. There’s a vacant lot on one side and on the other side there’s an alley. I went down the alley and came up on the back porch and peeped through the window. They were in the kitchen, the four of them.”
He made no sound, but his lips shaped the word. “Four?” And then, with sound, “Who were the other two?”
“A man and a woman.”
He stiffened. He tried to get up from the mattress and couldn’t move. His eyes aimed past Tillie as he said tightly, “Describe them.”
“The man was about five-ten and sort of beefy. I figure about two hundred. He looked about forty or so. Had a suntan and wore expensive clothes. Brown wavy hair and brown eyes and—”
“That’s Riker,” he murmured. He managed to lift himself from the mattress. His voice was a whisper as he said, “Now let’s have the woman.”
“She was something,” Tillie said. “She was really something.”
“Blonde?” And with both hands he made a gesture begging Tillie to speed the reply.
“Platinum blonde,” Tillie said. “With the kind of a face that makes men sweat in the wintertime. That kind of a face, and a shape that goes along with it. She was wearing—”
“Pearls,” he said. “She always had a weakness for pearls.”
Tillie didn’t say anything.
He moved past Tillie. He stood facing the dark wall of the cellar and seeing the yellow-black play of candlelight and shadow on the cracked plaster. “Hilda,” he said. “Hilda.”
It was quiet for some moments. He told himself it was wintertime and he wondered if he was sweating.
Then very slowly he turned and looked at Tillie. She was sitting on the edge of the mattress and drinking from the bottle of rice-wine. She took it in short, measured gulps, taking it down slowly to get the full effect of it. When the bottle was half-empty she raised her head and grinned at him and said, “Have some?”
He nodded. She handed him the bottle and he drank. The Chinese wine was mostly fire and it burned all the way going down and when it hit his belly it was electric-hot. But the climate it sent to his brain was cool and mild and the mildness showed in his eyes. His voice was quiet and relaxed as he said, “I thought Oscar and Coley made the trip alone. It didn’t figure that Riker and Hilda would come with them. But now it adds. I can see the way it adds.”
“It’s a long ride from Los Angeles,” Tillie said.
“They didn’t mind. They enjoyed the ride.”
“The scenery?”
“No,” he said. “They weren’t looking at the scenery. They were thinking of the setup here in Philly. With Oscar putting the blade in me and then the funeral and Riker seeing me in the coffin and telling himself his worries were over.”
“And Hilda?”
“The same,” he said. “She’s been worried just as much as Riker. Maybe more.”
Tillie nodded slowly. “From the story you told me, she’s got more reason to worry.”
He laughed lightly. He liked the sound of it and went on with it. He said, through the easy laughter, “They really don’t need to worry. They’re making it a big thing and it’s nothing at all. I forgot all about them a long time ago. But they couldn’t forget about me.”
Tillie had her head inclined and she seemed to be studying the sound of his laughter. Some moments passed and then she said quietly, “You don’t like black pudding?”
He didn’t get the drift of that. He stopped laughing and his eyes were asking what she meant.
“There’s an old saying,” she said. “Revenge is black pudding.”
He laughed again.
“Don’t pull away from it,” Tillie said. “Just listen to it. Let it hit you and sink in. Revenge is black pudding.”
He went on laughing, shaking his head and saying, “I’m not in the market.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” he said. Then, with a grin, “Only pudding I like is vanilla.”
“The black tastes better,” Tillie said. “I’ve had some, and I know. I had it when they told me what he did to himself with the meat-cleaver.”
He winced slightly. He saw Tillie getting up from the mattress and moving toward him. He heard her saying, “That black pudding has a wonderful flavor. You ought to try a spoonful.”
“No,” he said. “No, Tillie.”
She came closer. She spoke very slowly and there was a slight hissing in her voice. “They put you in prison for nine years. They cheated you and robbed you and tortured you.”
“That’s all past,” he said. “That’s from yesterday.”
“It’s from now.” She stood very close to him. “They’re itching to hit you again and see you dead. They won’t stop until you’re dead. That puts a poison label on them. And there’s only one way to deal with poison. Get rid of it.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll let it stay the way it is.”
“You can’t,” Tillie said. “It’s a choice you have to make. Either you’ll drink bitter poison or you’ll taste that sweet black pudding.”
He grinned again. “There’s a third choice.”
“Like what?”
“This.” And he pointed to the bottle of rice-wine. “I like the taste of this. Let’s stay with it until it’s empty.”
“That won’t solve the problem,” Tillie said.
“The hell with the problem.” His grin was wide. It was very wide and he didn’t realize that it was forced.
“You fool,” Tillie said.
He had the bottle raised and he was taking a drink.
“You poor fool,” she said. Then she shrugged and turned away from him and lowered herself to the mattress.
The forced grin stayed on his face as he went on drinking. Now he was drinking slowly because the rice-wine dulled the action in his brain and he had difficulty lifting the bottle to his mouth. Gradually he became aware of a change taking place in the air of the cellar; it was thicker, sort of smoky. His eyes tried to focus and there was too much wine in him and he couldn’t see straight. But then the smoke came up in front of his eyes and into his eyes. He looked down and saw the white clay pipe in Tillie’s hand. She was sitting on the mattress with her legs crossed, Buddha-like, puffing at the opium, taking it in very slowly, the smoke coming out past the corners of her lips.
The grin faded from his face. And somehow the alcohol-mist was drifting away from his brain. He thought, She smokes it because she’s been kicked around. But there was no pity in his eyes, just the level look of clear thinking. He said to himself, There’s only two kinds of people in this world, the ones who get kicked around and the ones who do the kicking.
He lowered the bottle to the table. He turned and took a few steps going away and then heard Tillie saying, “Moving out?”
“No,” he said. “Just taking a walk.”
“Where?”
“Spruce Street,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
He shook his head. He faced her and saw that she’d put the pipe aside. She was getting up from the mattress. He went on shaking his head and saying, “It can’t be played that way. I gotta do this alone.”