“You’re a hell of a one to talk about being stupid,” he snorted. “You didn’t have the least idea what he was talking about.”
“That’s all right. He gave me some other ideas that were a lot more interesting.”
“You better not get any ideas about trying any funny business with him, I can tell you that.”
“You can’t imagine how grateful I am for your advice. What would you do if I did?”
“Don’t worry. I’d stop it one way or another.”
She rolled over then and sat up, hugging her knees and staring at him angrily over the tops.
“Would you really? Just try it. Perhaps you’d like to have the truth known in a certain place about a certain hit-and-run accident. Manslaughter, I think they call it. I wonder how much time they give you in prison for something like that.”
“Don’t try to threaten me. You’ll never tell,” he muttered, his glance wary and savage.
“Don’t be too sure. I will if you cause me any trouble.”
“If you did, I’d kill you.”
“Talk, talk! You always talk big. In my opinion, in spite of looking like a hoodlum, you’re nothing but a coward.”
“You’ll see. Just try any funny business with old Cannon, and you’ll see.”
She bared her teeth in a tigerish little smile, at the same time studying him with an air of judicious detachment. The truth was, she had a kind of soft spot for him in her heart. As nearly soft, that is, as she could come to softness. As nearly in her heart, that is, as she could come to having a heart.
He was interesting and sometimes exciting, and she would have liked to keep him around for times when he was wanted. But if it became necessary to send him away or eliminate him somehow, it was nothing that would give her any sense of enduring loss or even the least regret.
She did not feel quite so easy about him, however, as she pretended. He was lazy and a little dull, surely, but there was a depth of darkness in him out of the common — a kind of disturbing mutation that made him a very dangerous young man. In short, to draw a comparison, he was quite a lot like her.
“I had to see him yesterday after classes because I’m flunking trig,” she said. “We had a nice talk, and then I kissed him. He’s much more fun to kiss than you are.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re a damn liar.”
“Think as you please. It couldn’t matter less to me.”
“Do you imagine a man like him would pay serious attention to someone like you? You’ll only make a fool of yourself.”
“You’re the fool if you think so,” she responded.
“What have you got to gain?”
“You might be surprised. Anyhow, did it ever occur to you that I might be in love with him? He’s handsome and very intelligent, and I’ll bet he’s better in bed than you could ever be even if you took professional lessons.”
“Oh, God, what a laugh! You talking about love!” A sneer wreathed his tight lips.
“You think it’s funny? Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think. Just because it’s impossible to fall in love with an ugly clown like you doesn’t mean it’s impossible with someone else.”
“You’re about as capable of love as a copperhead. Not that it makes any difference to me. I like you that way.”
“Well, haven’t you become suddenly profound! It’s amazing how someone who can barely read and write should possess such wisdom.”
“Oh, go to hell. Pretty soon you’ll be talking some drivel about marriage or something.”
“Perhaps I will. I’m considering it.”
“With old Cannon? You’ve really lost your marbles, haven’t you, Maggie? He’s got a wife, in case you didn’t know, and his wife, they tell me, has a million bucks.”
“That’s true. He would probably be reluctant to give up so much money. It’s a problem.” She appeared to ponder that a moment.
“You won’t solve it with algebra or trigonometry, either. It’s an interesting problem though, I admit. How do you lose a wife without losing her money?”
“Never mind. I’m considering that, too.”
“Nuts.” He sat up all at once, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Stop talking like a fool and come here.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of you. You bore me. I wish you’d go away.”
“If you don’t come here, I’ll come there.”
“Come ahead,” she snapped. “It won’t do you any good.”
“We’ll see.”
“If you touch me, I’ll scratch your eyes out.”
He got up and walked across the littered room and sat down beside her and facing her. She continued to hug her knees, turning her head deliberately away.
“Oh, come off, Maggie,” he said. “Why do you want to act like such a bitch?”
“Is that how I’m acting? It doesn’t matter. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere else. Do you always just keep staying and staying where you’re not wanted?”
“I was wanted last night,” he reminded her.
“That was last night. It’s simply impossible to get it through your head that things are not constantly the same.”
“You look charming the way you are.”
“Do I? You don’t,” she said. “You look rather absurd.”
He was silent for a few seconds, the flush of anger deep and ugly in his dark cheeks. For a moment, watching him warily from the corners of her eyes, she thought that he was going to hit her, which was something he had done before in anger.
The thought sent a little shiver of aberrant excitement through her folded body held steady by the clasp of her arms around her knees. He was dark and ugly and exciting in anger, and he often did blindly exciting things, although sometimes painful.
Now, however, he seemed to think better of violence. She could sense the fury draining from him, the color of rage leaving his cheeks. He reached out and drew a surprisingly gentle finger down her arched spine.
“Why do you stay on and on here, Maggie?” he said. “You don’t give a damn about college.”
“I’m a career college girl. I plan to spend my life at it.”
“Be serious for once. Why don’t you give it up? There are lots of things you could do that would be more fun and make you some money besides.”
“Why don’t you give it up? You’ll probably flunk everything at the end of the term and get booted, anyhow. You could try working for a change.”
“I will if you will. Give it up and go away, I mean. Let’s go away together, Maggie.”
“Fat chance.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t go across town with you.”
“Please.”
“No, damn it! No, no, no! And don’t beg. You only sound foolish when you do.”
“All right,” he said. “All right, by God!”
He swiped at her suddenly, before she had even an instant in which to duck or defend herself, and his heavy open hand cracked against the side of her head. Still clasping her knees, she spun comically on the pivot or her tail, then went sprawling on the floor with arms and legs flying. She was up on her knees in a flash, spitting obscenities and coming at him with open claws, but he swept her arms aside with a contemptuous gesture and clipped her brutally on the jaw, his hand folded this time into a fist. She fell away again in a flash of pain and garish light fading swiftly to brief darkness, and when the darkness receded she was flat on her back on the floor, pinned beneath the weight of his hard body. She spat in his face and cursed him, but he had been relieved by the catharsis of violence and did not care at all.
His grip was almost gentle and did not hurt her in the least, but it was very strong, unbreakable, and it was impossible to scratch his eyes out, as she had threatened. This, however, was only something she had said to goad him, anyhow, and he was in fact now doing, beginning to do, what she had expected and wanted.