She told him what had happened. He held her in his arms, trying to still her trembling, a wild, unreasoning anger mounting inside him.
“I’ll be back,” he said, and he went out into the rain to look for Felix.
The rain was hard and driving.
He wore no hat. He walked into the rain, and he could feel the water on his face and in his eyes, could feel his clothes going limp and sodden. He thought, I asked for this. I brought this to Eve. His feet were wet, his shoes squishing water as he walked toward Felix’s house, his fists clenched. The rain was cold, and he could feel the beginning of a chill. He went directly to the front door and rang the bell. Betty answered it.
“Larry!” she said, her eyes sweeping his body. “What is it?”
“Where’s your husband?”
“Up at the bar. He came back for the car a minute ago. He stopped by for you but you weren’t—”
“Thanks,” Larry said. He turned and walked down the steps. He glanced only briefly at the Gault house across the street. He thought of what he was about to do, and he thought, Felix can destroy me. I never should have trusted him, but he knew he had to find Felix and let him know that Eve was his wife, Mrs. Lawrence Cole, and that nobody went into his home and molested his wife. He did not see anything ironic or comic about the situation. He kept walking toward the center, and thoughts fitted through his mind, to be immediately rejected. The only thought which seemed to stick was the thought of Felix attacking Eve.
He saw the Oldsmobile parked outside the bar, the lone car in the rain-swept lot. He opened the door of the bar, walked in, and stood dripping just inside the entrance. The bartender looked up at him. There was a cautious uneasiness to the bartender’s casual glance, as if he were steeling himself for a holdup. A glass of beer rested on the bar at the far end of the room. A telephone booth was pasted against the rear wall, alongside the men’s room. Larry began walking toward the booth.
“You want something, Mac?” the bartender asked.
Larry didn’t answer. He pushed open the door of the booth.
“... well, you’ve got to realize it’s not as easy as...” Felix was saying. He stopped talking when the door opened. He turned and looked up at Larry. “Just a second,” he said into the mouthpiece, and then covered it with his palm. “I’m on the phone, Larry.”
“Hang up.”
“What for?”
“Eve told me what happened,” Larry said tightly.
“Forget it,” Felix said. “I misjudged her. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t enough, Felix.”
“No?” Felix grinned. “I’d hate to have to tell Don Gault all about you and his—”
Larry reached into the booth, seizing the front of Felix’s shirt. He brought back his fist and then threw it at Felix’s mouth. Felix dropped the receiver. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his lips. Larry reached for him again, hitting him with his right fist, releasing his shirt and hitting him with his left fist, and then the right again, and then battering his face and his body with methodical precision, administering a coldly objective beating as Felix scrambled to escape the driving punches.
At last Larry shoved him into the booth, and Felix slumped against the rear wall, blinking, his lip bleeding, his right cheek streaming blood.
“Keep away from Eve,” Larry said.
He turned and started out of the bar. The bartender asked, “That guy do something?”
“Yes,” Larry answered, and the bartender nodded knowingly.
29
There were, by the next day, six people who knew that Felix had received a punitive beating.
Of the six who knew, the bartender was least concerned. A beating had been administered in his place of business. So what the hell? It was a quieter fight than most which took place in his bar. It could hardly be termed a fight at all, for that matter. He had led Felix to the men’s room, where he’d washed the blood from his face, and then Felix had gone home. By the next day the bartender had forgotten the fight completely.
It was not as easy for Felix to forget the beating.
To begin with, whereas the cut inside his mouth did not show, he had to explain the gashed cheek when he got home to Betty that night. He told her that some crazy bastard had hurled a beer bottle across the room and that the bottle had accidentally hit him. The man was obviously drunk and had been suddenly possessed of an urge to fling the bottle, not aiming at Felix and certainly not intending to hit him. As a matter of fact, Felix added tolerantly, the man had apologized profusely, when the incident was over, and had offered to take Felix to a doctor, which medical aid Felix had heroically refused.
Betty was properly sympathetic and properly indignant. She could not understand why a man drank in a bar — wasn’t his home a good enough place for drinking? But if he had to go to a bar, why did he choose a place where drunks threw around beer bottles? Fussily maternal, she had made him a purifying ice-cream soda with vanilla ice cream and Coca-Cola, and then they’d gone to bed. Felix lay awake half the night, thinking. By morning he had formulated an attitude and a course of action.
He admitted reluctantly that he had been wrong about Eve. It wasn’t that she couldn’t be had; there wasn’t a woman alive who couldn’t be had. It was simply that she couldn’t be had right now. His timing had been off, that was all. Nonetheless, he put Eve Cole out of his mind as a possible acquisition. He had violated one of his own tenets — “Never spit where you eat!” — when he’d approached her. The experience had been unsatisfactory and served to strengthen his own sound judgment regarding neighborhood philandering. Eve Cole, as far as Felix was concerned, was finished business.
On the other hand, Larry Cole stuck in his craw.
Felix had taken the beating, but even while the fists were pummeling him into the booth he’d been thinking, You won’t get away with this! He had lain awake the night before plotting his revenge. By morning, he realized that revenge, for the time being anyway, was impossible. Not only impossible but unthinkable. It annoyed him that instant reprisal was to be denied him. Larry Cole had behaved like an absolute ass. A man who was playing around had no right to get offended when a pass was made at his wife. Didn’t Larry know the elementary rules of the game? Immediate revenge against this rebel would have been delightful — but for now revenge was impossible.
For if Felix went to Don Gault, as was his first impulse, Larry would instantly know who had betrayed him. He might then divulge the story of the beating to Betty. Was a petty revenge worth the sacrifice of a way of life? Certainly not. Felix enjoyed his extramarital excursions. Should Betty learn about the Eve Cole incident, she might divorce him. Or, worse thought, he might become a prisoner in his own home. It simply wasn’t worth it, especially for something which had not paid off.
He wondered if Larry knew what powerful cards he was holding. And then a new, rather painfully amusing thought came to him. It occurred to him that should Don Gault, in any way whatever, tip to the affair, Larry would automatically assume Felix had been the informer. And believing that, there was again the danger that he would go to Betty in retaliation. The situation was a precarious one. Not only was Felix being forced to forego what would have been a delicious revenge, he was also being forced into the role of protector. Don Gault could not be allowed to find out about his wife and Larry. If he did, the repercussions would shake the very foundations of Felix’s home.
Felix Anders surveyed his new role sourly and reached the conclusion that it stank.
Someday, perhaps, he could strike back at Larry with impunity. But for now he could only hope that his blunders — like Banquo’s ghost — would not come back to haunt him.