“You’ll see! You’ll see if I don’t. Just let me hear one more word out of you about a divorce, and... and... I’ll show you who’s a pile of shit!”
She slammed the phone down, completing any damage to my eardrum that had not been accomplished by her banshee scream. Of course, I’d hardly expected her to bedeck me with a crown of olive leaves or to release a covey of white doves to flutter about my head. But a threat to have me prosecuted for attempted murder was considerably more than I had expected.
At any rate, a divorce was impossible unless she agreed to it. Which meant that it was impossible period. Which meant that I could not marry Manny.
Which meant?...
10
She, Manny, was back in town two weeks later, and she called me immediately upon her arrival. She suggested that I pick her up at the airport and go immediately to our place. I suggested that we have dinner and a talk before we did anything else. So, a little puzzled and reluctant, she agreed to that.
The restaurant was near the city waterworks lake. There was only a handful of patrons in it, this early-evening hour, and they gradually drifted out as I talked to Manny, apologizing and explaining. Explaining the inexplicable and apologizing for the inexcusable.
Manny said not a word throughout my recital — merely stared at me expressionlessly over her untouched dinner.
At last, I had nothing more to say, if I had ever had anything to say. And then, finally, she spoke, pulling a fringed silk shawl around her shoulders and rising to her feet.
“Pay the check and get out of here.”
“What? Oh, well, sure,” I said, dropping bills on the table as I also stood up. “And, Manny, I want you to know that—”
“Get! March yourself out to the car!”
We got out of the restaurant, with Manny clinging to my arm, virtually propelling me by it. She helped me into the car, instead of vice versa. Then she got in, into the rear, sitting immediately behind me.
I heard her purse snap open. She said, “I’ve got a gun on you, Britt. So you get out of line just a little bit and you won’t like what happens to you.”
“M-Manny,” I quavered. “P-please don’t—”
“Do you know where I went while I was out of town?”
“N-no.”
“Do you want to know what I did?”
“Uh, n-no,” I said. “I don’t think I do.”
“Start driving. You know where.”
“But — you mean our place? W-why do you want to—”
“Drive!”
I drove.
We reached the place. She made me walk ahead of her, inside and up the stairs and into our room.
I heard the click of the door lock. And then Manny asked if I’d heard a woman being slapped on the first day I went to her office.
I said that I had — or, rather, a recording of same; I had grown calmer by now, with a sense of fatalism.
“You heard her, Britt. She left the office by my private elevator.”
I nodded, without turning around. “You wanted me to hear her. It was arranged, like the scene with Albert after you’d left that night. I was being warned that I’d better fly straight or else.”
“You admit you were warned, then?”
“Yes. I tried to kid myself that it was all an unfortunate accident. But I knew better.”
“But you went right ahead and deceived and cheated me. Did you really think I’d let you get away with it?”
I shook my head miserably, said I wanted to make things right insofar as I could. I’d give the car back and what little money I had left. And I’d sell everything I owned — clothes, typewriter, books, everything — to raise the rest. Anything she or PXA had given me, I’d give back, and... and—
“What about all the screwing I gave you? I suppose you’ll give that back, too!”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I can’t do anything about that.”
“Oh, sure you can,” she said. “You can give me a good one right now.”
And I whirled around, and she collapsed in my arms, laughing.
“Ahhh, Britt, darling! If you could have seen your face! You were really frightened, weren’t you? You really thought I was angry with you, didn’t you?”
“Of course I thought it!” I said, and, hugging her, kissing her, I swatted her bottom. “My God! The way you were talking and waving that gun around—!”
“Gun? Look, no gun!” She held her purse open for examination. “I couldn’t be angry with you, Britt. What reason would I have? You were married, and you couldn’t get unmarried. But you just about had to have the job, and you wanted me. So you did the only thing you could. I understand perfectly, and don’t you give it another thought, because nothing is changed. We’ll go on just like we were; and everything’s all right.”
It was hard to believe that things would be all right. Knowing her as well as I did, I didn’t see how they could be. As the weeks passed, however, my suspicions were lulled — almost, almost leaving me — for there was nothing whatsoever to justify them. I even found the courage to criticize her about her language, pointing out that it was hardly suitable to one with two college degrees. I can’t say that it changed anything, but she acknowledged the criticism with seeming humility and solemnly promised to mend her ways.
So everything was all right — ostensibly. The work went on and went well. Ditto for my relationship with Manny. No one could have been more loving or understanding. Certainly no one, no other woman, had ever been as exciting. Over and over, I told myself how lucky I was to have such a woman. A wildly sensuous, highly intelligent woman who also had money and was generous with it, thus freeing me from the niggling and nagging guilt feelings that had heretofore hindered and inhibited me.
It is a fallacy that people who do not obtain the finer things in life have no appreciation for them. Actually, no one likes good things more than a bum — and I say this, knowing whereof I speak. I truly appreciated Manny after all the sorry b-axes that had previously been my lot. I truly appreciated everything she gave me, all the creature comforts she made possible for me, in addition to herself.
Everything wasn’t just all right, as she had promised. Hell, everything was beautiful.
Until today.
The Day of the Dog...
I lay on my back, bracing myself against any movement that would cause him to attack.
I ached hideously, then grew numb from lack of movement; and shadows fell on the blinded windows. It was late afternoon. The sun was going down, and now — my legs jerked convulsively. They jerked again, even as I was trying to brace them. And now I heard a faint rustling sound: the dog tensing himself, getting ready to spring.
“D-don’t! Please don’t!”
Laughter. Vicious, maliciously amused laughter.
I rubbed my eyes with a trembling hand, brushed the blinding sweat from them.
The dog was gone. The manager of the place, the mulatto woman, stood at the foot of the bed. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder in a contemptuous gesture of dismissal.
“All right, prick. Beat it!”
“W-what?” I sat up shakily. “What did you say?”
“Get out. Grab your rags and drag ass!”
“Now, listen, you — you can’t—”
“I can’t what?”
“Nothing,” I said. “If you’ll just leave, so that I can get dressed...”
She said I’d get dressed while she was there, by God, because she wanted to look at the bed before I left. She figured a yellow bastard like me had probably shit in it. (And where had I heard such talk before — the unnerving, ego-smashing talk of terror?)