“No.”
“So I assume you know what you’re going to do.”
“I’ve been avoiding thinking about it as long as I could.”
“Are you going to choose between him and me?”
“Didn’t you hear me just five minutes ago talking about our future?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“At first I was going to stay with him and see you on the side just for a treat once in a while, but then I asked myself why, if you can have the treat all the time, you wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t think of an answer, so I’ve decided you’re the keeper.”
“Is this guy violent?”
“Well, you know how guys are. Once they find out somebody else has been there too, if you know what I mean, it makes them all hormonal.”
“You could kill me and tell him I’m a burglar.”
“Keep trying.”
“We could kill each other. He’d feel responsible.”
“Please stop with the killing. It’s making me upset.”
“We could skip all the way back to Plan A, which is to pack up fast and run away.”
“Shouldn’t that have been the first thing you said? I mean, if it is Plan A.”
“It’s not a good idea to settle for the obvious right away, without exploring other options.”
“Let’s get the heck out of here,” she said. She went to her dresser and began putting on clothes. As she opened a drawer and put on a garment, she would take all the others like it and set them in a pile on the bed. When she came to the closet, she took out a large suitcase, opened it, and began placing the piles of folded clothes inside.
When it looked as though the suitcase was completely full, she went into the next room and returned with a lot of bills, canceled checks, and papers. “Can’t leave these papers here. I don’t want him tracing us and turning up later.”
“He would do that?”
“I’m out of space. Can you fit the bag of money in your suitcase?”
“I’ll try to find room.” He didn’t like the way she changed the subject, but it told him the answer. He quickly got his suitcase out of the closet, tossed his clothes into it, and then unhooked the big laundry bag from the hook on the door, put it in on top, then closed and zipped the suitcase.
“Are you just about ready?”
“Yes,” he said. “Want to take one last look around? I’d sure hate to have to come back while he’s home and ask him for your great-grandma’s cameo brooch.”
“Don’t worry. I already did my walk-through yesterday.”
He picked up his suitcase, then hers, and walked to the door. As he set the suitcases down to open it, he turned to her and said, “But you didn’t take anything that wasn’t, strictly speaking, yours, right?”
The door swung open, hit the two suitcases and knocked them over onto the floor. Jeff had just enough time to leap backward before the man who had applied the force to the door came after it. Jeff had time to see a shaved head, a patch of black beard, a wide mouth with bared teeth, as the charging man tripped over the suitcases and belly-flopped past him onto the kitchen floor.
Jeff said, “Hold on, now. We don’t need to do this. We can talk like grownups,” by which he meant “Don’t hurt me.”
The man rolled and his legs scissored at Jeff’s calves to trip him to the floor.
Jeff jumped up and backward to avoid the legs, but he hit his back on the wall and dropped straight down onto the man’s ankle.
“Yaaah!” the man howled. “You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!”
“No, Roger! He didn’t do anything to you,” Carrie said. Jeff felt in his heart that this wasn’t exactly true, but said nothing.
The man snarled through clenched teeth, “In a minute you’ll be wearing his balls for a necklace.”
“Stop it, Roger. He didn’t know you existed.”
“But he’ll remember me forever.” With frightening agility, the big man rose to a crouch and sprang at Jeff, his arms wide to gather him in.
Jeff could see that he would not escape the span of stretched muscles and big, grasping hands. He reacted in a reflex to protect himself from the tackle. He lunged forward between the arms and lifted his right knee as he pounded both forearms into the back of the man’s head, hammering the head downward to meet his knee with considerable force. He half-heard and half-felt the man’s nose break.
The man’s momentum expended itself, plowing both of them into the kitchen counter. Jeff toppled, and the man’s arms closed on his waist in a powerful clamp. As Jeff hit the floor, Carrie shrieked, and he could already feel the man’s hands clawing their way up his body toward his throat.
“Don’t kill him!” Carrie shrieked.
He raised his left forearm to keep the man’s clawlike grasp from closing on his throat. With his right fist he delivered a series of short, hard punches to the man’s face and left ear.
The man released his grip and raised his arm to fend off Jeff’s right hand and turned his face away. Jeff used the moment to give a great, wrenching turn to speed him in that direction, scrambled away, and got to his feet.
The man was still so unimpressed with Jeff that as he too rose, he barely looked in Jeff’s direction. Instead, he glared at Carrie while he touched his bleeding nose tentatively, and then his battered left ear.
Jeff had no hope now of escaping the fight or ending it. All he could see was the inviting sight of the big man’s momentary inattention. He advanced and delivered eight rapid punches, throwing each as he pushed from his back foot, so he battered the man backward with each one, until the man was pinned against the front of the stove.
Jeff felt the elation of battle, the hard, clean impact as his fists struck again and again in adrenaline-fueled fury. But slowly, he began to sense that something was not right. The exertion of pounding this man was making his arms tired. As he hit the man, he could see that the swollen eyes were open and watching him. There was a cold, reptilian quality to the way the eyes held him.
He hadn’t seen it before, but there was no question of what it was. The big man was watching, waiting for him to wear himself out. In another few minutes, Jeff would barely be able to hold his arms up, barely be able to dance to avoid the thick arms. But when that moment came, the big man might be marked and bruised, but he would not be exhausted. He would still be able to fight. It would be his turn.
Jeff looked into the eyes, at the cold hatred behind them, and he knew that the man was keeping track, making his own personal calculation of his hurt. He was, in some perverse way, happy because he was soon going to exact a ferocious reprisal.
Carrie was suddenly at Jeff’s elbow. “Roger, it doesn’t matter what you do, I’m not going back with you, so I’m leaving now.” She picked up her suitcase and started to drag it toward the door.
It occurred to Jeff that to an observer it would look as though he was not the one who needed help, but he was, and Carrie’s announcement that she was leaving was not good news. He kept swinging, knowing his punches were hitting more and more sloppily. He had to keep punching, because he knew that if his punches stopped, Roger’s would start.
When Carrie spoke, Roger seemed electrified. He straightened and stared at her with the sort of anger that he had been lavishing on Jeff. He ducked low so Jeff’s next swing missed him, and lunged at Carrie.
When Roger moved, Jeff’s eye settled on the iron skillet on the stove that had been hidden behind his body. He snatched it up and swung it in a single, desperate backhand motion. It hit the back of Roger’s head and made a sound like a hammer hitting a coconut. Roger’s lunge changed midway into a dive to the floor. He slid a couple of feet on the smooth kitchen floor, then lay still.
Jeff stood motionless for a moment, the skillet now hanging from his hand, trying to catch his breath while he watched Roger for signs that he might get up.