“Very,” I said, folding it and tucking it in my pocket. “I’m going to keep it.”
“Keep it? Why, of course you are. I—”
“I’m keeping the car, too,” I said.
“Why not? It’s your car.”
“But my employment with PXA is finished as of right now. And if you want to know why — as if you didn’t already know! — I’ll tell you,” I said. “And if I catch any more crap like I caught today, I’ll tell you what I’ll do about that, too!”
I told her in detail — the why and the what — with suitable embellishments and flourishes. I told her in more detail than I had planned and with considerable ornamentation. For while she heard me out in silence and without change of expression, I had a strong hunch that she was laughing at me.
When I had at last finished, out of breath and vituperation, she looked at me silently for several moments. Then she shrugged and stood up.
“I’ll run along now. Goodbye and good luck.”
I hadn’t expected that. I don’t know what I had expected, but not that.
“Well, look,” I said. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“I said good-bye and good luck. I see no point in saying anything else.”
“But — dammit—! Well, all right!” I said. “Goodbye and good luck to you. And take your stinking bonus check with you!”
I thrust it on her — shoved it into her hand and folded her fingers around it. She left the room, and I hesitated, feeling foolish and helpless, that I had made a botch of everything. Then I started after her, stopping short as I heard her talking with Mrs. Olmstead.
“...loved to have dinner with you, Mrs. Olmstead. But in view of Mr. Rainstar’s attitude...”
“...just mean, he is! Accused me of bein’ sloppy. Says I’m always sprinklin’ rat poison on everything. O’ course, I don’t do nothin’ of the kind...”
“He should be grateful to you! Most women would leave at the sight of a rat.”
“Well... just a minute, Miss Aloe. I’ll walk you to your car!”
It was several minutes before Mrs. Olmstead came back into the house. I waited until I heard her banging around in the kitchen, then went cautiously down the stairs and moved on tiptoe toward the front door.
“Uh-hah!” Her voice arrested me. “Whatcha sneakin’ out for? Ashamed because you was so nasty to Miss Aloe?”
She had been lurking at the side of the staircase, out of sight from the upstairs. Apparently she had rushed in and hidden there after making the racket in the kitchen.
“Well?” She grinned at me with mocking accusation, hands on her skinny old hips. “Whatcha got to say for yourself?”
“What am I sneaking out for?” I said. “What have I got to say for myself? Why, goddammit—!” I stormed toward the door, cursing and fuming, ashamed and more furious with myself than I was with her. “And another thing!” I yelled. “Another thing, Mrs. Olmstead! You’d better remember what your position is in this house if you want to keep it!”
“Now you’re threatenin’ me.” She began to sob noisily. “Threatenin’ a poor old woman! Just as mean as you can be, that’s what you are!”
“I’m not either mean!” I said. “I don’t know how to be mean, and I wouldn’t be if I did know how. I don’t like mean people, and — goddammit, will you stop that goddam bawling?”
“If you wasn’t mean, you wouldn’t always forget to mail my letters! I found another one this mornin’ when I was sending your clothes to the cleaners! I told you it was real important, an’—!”
“Oh, God, I am sorry,” I said. “Please forgive me, Mrs. Olmstead.”
I ran out the door and down the steps. But she was calling to me before I could get out of earshot.
“Your dinner, Mr. Rainstar. It’s all ready and waiting.”
“Thank you very much,” I said. “I’m not hungry now, but I’ll eat some later.”
“It’ll be all cold. You better eat now.”
“I’m not hungry now. I’ve had a bad day, and I want to take a walk before I eat.”
There was more argument, much more, but she finally slammed the door.
Not that I ever felt much like eating Mrs. Olmstead’s cooking, but I certainly had no appetite for it tonight. And, of course, I felt guilty for not wanting to eat and having to tell her that I didn’t. Regardless of whether something is my fault — and why should I have to eat if I didn’t want to? — I always feel that I am in the wrong.
Along with feeling guilty, I was worried. About what Manny had done or had arranged to have done, its implications of shrewdness and power. And the fact that I had figuratively flung three thousand dollars in her face, as well as cutting myself off from all further income. At the time, I had felt that I had to do it. But what about the other categorical imperative that faced me? What about the absolute necessity to send money to Connie? To do it or else?
Well, balls to it, I thought, mentally throwing up my hands. I had told Mrs. Olmstead that I wanted to take a walk, so I had better be doing it.
I took a stroll up and down the road, a matter of a hundred yards or so. Then I walked around to the rear of the house and the weed-grown disarray of the backyard.
A couple of uprights of the gazebo had rotted away, allowing the roof to topple until it was standing almost on edge. The striped awning of the lawn swing hung in faded tatters, and the seats of the swing lay splintered in the weeds where the wind had tossed them. The statuary — the little that hadn’t been sold — was now merely fragmented trash, gleaming whitely in the night.
The fountain, at the extreme rear of the yard, had long since ceased to spout. But in the days when water poured from it, the ever-thirsting weeds and other rank growths had flourished into a minuscule jungle. And the jungle still endured, all but obscuring the elaborate masonry and piping of the fountain.
I walked toward it absently, somehow reminded of Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village.”
Reaching the periphery of the ugly overgrowth, I thought I heard the gurgling trickle of water. And, curious, I parted the dank and dying tangle with my hands and peered through the opening.
Inches from my face, eyeless eyes peered back at me. The bleached skull of a skeleton.
We stared at each other, each seemingly frozen in shock.
Then the skeleton raised a bony hand and leveled a gun at me.
12
I suddenly came alive. I let out a yell and flung myself to one side.
With my letting go of it, the overgrowth closed in front of the skeleton. And as he pawed through it, I scrambled around to the rear of the fountain. There was cover that way, a shield from my frightful pursuer. But that way was also a trap.
The skeleton was between me and the house. Looming behind me, in the moonlit dimness, was the labyrinthine mass, the twisting hills and valleys, of the garbage dump.
I raced toward it, knowing that it was a bad move, that I was running away from possible help. But I continued to run. Running — fleeing — was a way of life with me. Buying temporary safety, regardless of its long-term cost.
Nearing the immediate environs of the garbage mounds, I began to trip and stumble over discarded bottles and cans and other refuse. Once my foot came down hard on a huge rat. And he leaped at me, screaming with pain and rage. Once, when I fell, a rat scampered inside of my coat, clawing and scratching as he raced over my chest and back. And I screamed and beat at myself long after I was rid of him.
There was a deafening roar in my ears: the thunder of my overexerted heart and lungs. I began to sob wildly in fear-crazed hysteria, but the sound of it was lost to me.