When she came in he looked at her and said, “What the hell kept you? It’s after ten, do you realize that?”
“I know, I know,” she said a bit breathlessly. She gave him a quick hug, and then hurried into the kitchen without bothering to take off her coat. “It was a rat race all day long. Big shots from the home office snooping around, a row with Eddie over his wisecracking with customers, and then a session with Poole on the Friday menus.” Her eyes flicked around the kitchen as she talked, checking the pork chops, the two neatly set trays, the saucepan full of peeled potatoes. “You must be starved, honey.”
“I could eat,” he said, as he freshened his drink at the bar. “I had a pretty busy day, too, you know.”
She turned and looked at him for an instant in silence, her eyes wide and dark. “I’m sure you did,” she said, speaking in a careful voice. “What did Mr. Novak want?”
“Novak?” Earl lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. “He’s got a job for me, that’s all.”
“What kind of a job?”
“Well, we just talked things over in general terms. Feeling each other out, I guess you’d call it.”
She took a tentative step toward him, one hand moving to her throat. “Earl,” she said, watching his face anxiously. “Novak — he’s a friend of Lefty Bowers, isn’t he?”
“I told you that this morning.”
“And you knew Bowers in jail, didn’t you?”
“Look, cut out the Mr. District Attorney routine,” he said, smiling a little. “Yeah, I knew Bowers in jail. He told Novak about me. That’s all.” Earl shrugged and took a sip from his drink. “It’s how things work sometimes. You know, contacts; a guy puts in a good word for a friend. It’s the way the business world operates.”
“What did Novak want with you? Why did he call you?”
“Lory, you’re getting yourself worked up about nothing. I told you, he offered me a job. If I was taking it I’d tell you all about it, naturally. But I’m thinking it over. So there’s nothing to talk about.”
She turned away, sighing. “Would you fix me a drink?” she said.
“Come on. Cheer up. What do you want?”
“Something on the rocks. With a little water.” She sighed again but this time she smiled faintly. “It’s nice to be home, anyway. I’ll freshen up a bit while you fix the drinks. We can talk about everything after dinner.”
“Sure, that’s the ticket.”
She hurried off, but called back from the bathroom, “Earl! Did you pick up my gray dress from the cleaners? I left you a note about it on the television.”
He glanced at the set; there was a note there all right, propped up against a cigarette box. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Oh, damn! Well, there’ll be time in the morning.” The bathroom closed on the last of the sentence, and the shower began to run. Earl shrugged and went about making her drink. She always needed something to worry about, he thought. There was a sense of urgency about everything she did, a kind of high physical tension that charged her with mettlesome excitement. That had been the thing that attracted him at first, the reason he had made himself start a conversation with her at the drug store... When was that? A year or so ago, anyway. She was just average-looking, with a wide, pale face and black shoulder-length hair, but her high-strung, responsive-looking body had been a real challenge; he had wanted to know her tensions directly and intimately, to calm her down, and gentle her with his own hard needs.
He had been prepared for an explosion; that was the way she looked, desperate for some kind of release. But he learned that she never hit very high peaks of emotion; the sense of quivering excitement wasn’t an act, but it was fed by any damned thing that came along. A world war or a World Series, it wouldn’t make any difference to Lorraine, he thought, grinning a little.
When she came out of the bathroom she frowned at her drink and said, “This looks pretty strong. Did you put any water in it?”
“A little.”
“It looks strong. Do we need any whisky, by the way? I saw some bourbon today that looked like a real buy. Six years old, four dollars and nine cents a fifth. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
“You can’t go wrong at that price.”
“I’ll get a couple of bottles tomorrow.” She had put on slacks and a blue cashmere sweater, and tied her long hair back in a pony tail; in the soft and flattering light she might have passed for a young girl. “Do you want some cheese and crackers?” she said. “It’s going to take some time for the potatoes to cook.”
“No, I’m fine.”
She talked to him as she puttered in the kitchen. “Did you see the story about those high-school boys in the auto wreck? I can’t imagine why they give driving licenses to lunatics like that. Two of them were killed — one of the boys’ fathers is president of the Atlas Packing Company. I don’t suppose his money is any comfort to him tonight.”
“I guess not,” Earl said.
He stretched out on the sofa, as Lory flitted irrelevantly from topic to topic, her voice holding no more significance for him than the clink of utensils and the crackling of the heating frying pan. Finally she came in with her drink and sat beside him on the sofa. He was staring at the ceiling, thinking of his own problems; he was hardly conscious of the light weight of her hips against his side.
She rubbed the palm of her hand slowly over his bare chest. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked him.
“Nothing. I’m okay.”
“How’s your drink?”
“It’s okay. Everything’s fine, Lory.” He saw that she was all tightened up; a pulse was pounding in her throat, and her hands were unsteady as she lighted a cigarette. “Tell me what Novak wanted,” she demanded suddenly. “Please tell me, Earl. Please. It isn’t fair to make me worry like this.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” he said, his voice sharpening with irritation. “He offered me a job. I don’t know whether I want any part of it. So relax, for God’s sake.”
“It’s something crooked, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be acting like this if it weren’t.” She shook her head quickly, her eyes bright and cold with fear. “Don’t do this to me, Earl. Please. I feel you’re heading for trouble. It’s like a weight crushing me so I can’t breathe. I can’t think of anything else.”
“Except Friday’s menu and Eddie’s wisecracking with customers,” he said impatiently. “Stop working yourself up, Lory. This thing can’t hurt you, no matter which way it goes. You got nothing to worry about.”
She looked at him for a moment in silence, and then stood and went quietly into the kitchen. He heard her take the frying pan from the stove and switch off the burner. When she returned and turned out the lights in the living room he knew from the sound of her footsteps that she had slipped off her loafers. “How could you say that?” she said; her voice was trembling, and when she snuggled down beside him he felt her tears on his bare shoulders. “I’d die if anything happened to you — don’t you know that?”
“Sure, Lory,” he said, sighing. “Sure.”
“We don’t need anything from anybody,” she said. “We’ve got all we need, a home for just you and me. Don’t do what Novak wants, Earl. Promise me that, honey!” She was whispering the words against his chest, but a thread of fierce and desperate determination ran through her soft voice. “Will you promise me, Earl?”
He felt a faint desire for her; the darkness and the whisky, and the soft fragrance of her body wrapped themselves around him warmly and excitingly, tempting him to forget Novak, to forget everything but the easy, convenient pleasure she was offering him. But his need wasn’t enough to counterbalance his irritation; he knew she was just using her body as part of the locks and bars of her quilted little prison. Forget Novak, forget everything and sink back into oblivion with her — that’s all she wanted. But he couldn’t work up any anger, either; he understood her needs, and there was pity mixed with his exasperation.