Hanging up her things as best I could, I went on deck to check my lights, see if the anchor was dragging. Then I washed up, went to the “head,” and got into my bunk.
Laurie was breathing evenly but I couldn't doze off, although I was tired as hell. Something troubled me, pricked at my brain. Had the same sensation you get when entering a familiar room—have a vague feeling something is out of place. I'd overlooked something, a word, a gesture, that had great meaning.
19
And at the moment Laurie annoyed me. She was lying to me, holding out on the dough she must have, putting my life and hers in danger. Maybe she didn't realize that, but either she or Mrs. Brody had to have the dough and I had this strong hunch it was Laurie. I was getting the patsy treatment. Her damn smugness... me feeding her, doctoring her, putting her to bed, trying to protect her... and all the time she was treating me like I was about to rape her. And yet—well, I'd known her less than twenty-four hours and already I was in deep, even passed up Margrita because of her.
Maybe my thinking was unfair to Laurie, confused, but I lay there full of a dull sort of anger... and back of every-thing was this thing jabbing at my mind, trying to make me recall whatever it was I'd skimmed over.
I'd doze off for what seemed a few seconds, then wake with a violent start, trying hard to recall whatever it was worrying me. Listening to the steady rain, the quiet lapping of the waves, I'd glance over at Laurie, wondered if I'd gone off my rocker—loving a kid who wasn't leveling with me. All the time—the valuable time that was fast running out—she was stalling me, Louise's body was waiting to be found, maybe put my rear in the chair.
Several hours passed like that when Laurie suddenly sat up, gathered the sheet about her, as she stepped off the bunk, swaying with the gentle ride of the boat. She looked around nervously in the dim light, opened the narrow closet door, started for the deck, shivered and stepped back as the rain wet her face and shoulders. She opened another closet—where I hung my clothes—poked around the galley, swore under her breath, then climbed back into her bunk.
I knew what she was hunting for—the John, the “head” as real sailors call it. Of course she had no way of guessing that the “Blowfish Madonna” was not only a picture but the door to the bathroom. She hadn't gone to the can all the time she'd been aboard.
I lay in my bunk, full of a strange, cruel satisfaction, almost amused. I wasn't going to make a move, till she came to me, asked me where the hell it was. Sure, it was petty and stupid on my part, but in some manner I didn't bother to figure out, it was important, a way of cracking that cock-eyed selfish pride of hers.
She twisted and turned in her bunk and I felt like a monster. She sat up, she stretched out again... and finally jumped out of bed, buck naked, shook me and asked, “Hal. Where is... it?”
“That painting there, it's the door to the John,” I said, pointing.
Laurie ran to the door, nearly falling, tried to push it open. “The food the blowfish is diving for—that's the knob,” I said, getting out of bed, opening the door. She ran by me and I shut the door for her.
I sat on my bunk, not sure this wasn't all a silly dream. I didn't know exactly what I was waiting for, but there isn't too much room on a small boat, and I was damned if I was going out on the deck, in the rain.
I heard the flush of water and then it was quiet for a long time. Finally she got tired of waiting, the door opened and she stood there, her body like a dream in the dim light.
Even her face had lost that tense look—maybe she was still a bit high on the dramamine.
She shook her head slowly, said—and it sounded like a deep sigh— “No.”
I stood up but didn't move. She kept shaking her head, mumbling, “No. Oh I don't know... Oh... No.” We were about two feet apart and she slowly edged toward me. I still didn't move and when she was a few inches from me, I saw the sweat on her face, the troubled brightness in her eyes.
“Hal... Hal, what shall I do? Oh, Hal...”
She stepped closer, her hot breath on my face, the wonderful clean softness of her breasts touching my chest. I didn't move, say a word. This was something she had to decide for herself, for...
With a savage cry she threw herself against me, our lips meeting in a hard kiss, her body eagerly pressing mine, her strong hands exploring my back, sweeping my body.
20
It was a night I never want to forget, and I never wilclass="underline" a night of passion and pain, of great tenderness and sheer desire; of whispered confidences and confessions. And out of it all, the tenderness and wonderful feeling, maybe love... one thing stuck out, a sentence, and it was neither tender nor sweet.
We slept in a tight hug, awakening now and then to talk, say the intimate things we'd each have known if we'd spent the usual weeks and months before becoming lovers. And she said, curtly, bitterly, “My father—Pop, I hardly ever called him Pop—but Hal he did everything for me and I hated him!”
“But you said...?”
“He was a coward, afraid of the world, running from life. All my life I've lived by the strictest conventions, by banal slogans, by stupid penny-pinching. It was all an escape for him. He thought if he lived by the... the... rules, obeyed them to the letter, then he couldn't be blamed for being a failure. And he was a failure, for he was unhappy. There was always a fight over every cent, a cross-examination every time I wanted to do something on my own. That killed Mama. I wish I could make you see it, spending exactly so much for food, so much for rent, everything figured to the exact cent, little budget envelopes, for that and this... The model way to live according to some books he once read. Instead of a heart he had a penny-bank!”
I didn't know what she expected me to say; what I wanted to say. The old man was dead, I never even knew him. I mumbled, “Guess he meant well.”
“Sure he did,” she said, her cheek against mine, and I felt all the muscles moving in the side of her face, her damp lips as she spoke. “In a way I couldn't blame him. Is there anybody in this rich country of ours who isn't haunted by the fear of poverty? I don't blame him for that, but for crawling all his life. If he'd taken a chance, showed a tiny bit of fight... but all he did was worry and worry, stay strictly in line. I was like his money, his furniture, his patched underwear... I was something that belonged to him, a property he had to guide and protect every second, be with all the time because I was his. He was a stone around my neck, a... Oh no, I don't mean that... I was such an ungrateful little bitch! He was a good man by his standards, and who am I to say he was wrong? All the time he was lonely, and so was I... so... so terribly alone, wanting friends, to be with people, be a part of things. We were both lonely, and in his own way he tried his best for me. That's why it's so important I avenge him. I must! Must!”
Her body stiffened, felt like a statue in my arms. “Laurie, honey, take it slow. No point in getting worked up now about...”
“Worked up?” she repeated, her voice rising with hysteria. Then she let me have it, right in the gut. “You don't understand, Hal. I... I'm the one... I killed him!”
BOOK FIVE
I
Her full sobs shook us both. For a moment I was so crazy about her, I didn't think—only felt heavy with a dull, sick, coldness. Then I snapped out of it—Laurie couldn't have killed him. I stroked her wet face, shook her gently, whispered, “Stop crying, you didn't kill him, you couldn't possibly have...”
“But, Hal, I did! As surely as if I'd pulled the trigger. If he robbed the bank, then he did it for me, because I was nagging him, wanted to go to California on my own—alone. He did it to give me the things I... I was so petty, so selfish, I hate myself!”