“As a matter of academic interest, suppose Miss McCall and I were as well acquainted as you seem to believe. And suppose that I refused to abandon her merely because you demanded it. Why would you do?”
“I’d beat your God-damn face in, that’s what I’d do.”
“In that case, you’d better begin beating as a matter of principal, for I’d pay absolutely no attention to you in this imaginary situation, or in any real one that I could possibly think of.”
“Maybe you think I won’t do it.”
“I think you may try, but I doubt that you’ll succeed.”
It had never occurred to Buddy that old Cannon would display such calm courage, even contempt, and he was so blindly enraged that he leaped forward and swung wildly and took a stiff blow in the face for his carelessness. With blood streaming from his nose, he settled down to a more methodical attack, stalking his adversary and hurling clenched flesh and bone only when there was a fair target. After several minutes his youth and superior stamina began to tell to his advantage, but even so it was a grim and bitter battle, fought in silence except for wheezing breath and thudding fists, that exceeded anything that he had experienced since boyhood encounters in back alleys. In fact, he was in danger for a while of taking the beating he had set out to give, and he was more than willing in the end to stagger away and leave Brad, on his hands and knees on the concrete sidewalk, dripping blood and struggling to rise.
The fight had only made matters worse with Maggie. Buddy had seen her afterward on the campus, and he had tried to stop her and speak to her, but she had only called him a dirty name and spat on him, soiling his jacket. Having made bad worse, he had attempted several times to force his way into her apartment, and then, having had no luck, he had begun spying on her and following her at a distance. But he had not returned again to her apartment until now, this evening, when he waited in the hall after knocking on her door.
After a few seconds had passed, Maggie opened the door. She was wearing a white terry cloth robe belted loosely at the waist. Bare feet were tipped with bright red nails. When she saw Buddy in the hall, her face assumed an expression of ferocity.
“What do you want?” she said.
“You know what I want. I want to see you. Let me come in.”
“Like hell I will. I told you not to come here again, and I meant it. Go away.”
She started to close the door in his face, but he reached out and braced himself against it before she could complete the action.
“There’s no use closing the door,” he said. “If you do, I’ll break it down.”
For several seconds they strained against each other, she trying to close the door and he not trying to force it open any wider, but merely to hold it where it was. Then she relaxed, accepting the futility of her effort, and the ferocious expression on her face altered subtly to one of contempt.
“Well,” she said, “I can see that you are even more despicable that I thought you were. You’re nothing but a stupid, hulking baby, that’s what you are, and I suppose I must treat you like one. You can come in and cry if you want to, but that’s all the good it will do you.”
She turned and walked into the room, seating herself on a leather hassock and lighting a cigarette that she took from a crumpled pack that was in a pocket of her robe. She smoked the cigarette calmly, looking away from him and appearing for all the world to have forgotten entirely that he had just come to the door, and that he was now standing a few feet away glaring at her darkly from under his heavy brows.
“Do you think you can go on ignoring me forever?” he said.
“Why not?” She drew on the cigarette, tilting her head back and blowing a long plume of pale smoke upward at an angle. “I don’t owe you anything. I can ignore you forever if I want to.”
“That’s what you think.”
“So it is. I just said so.”
“You’d better think again,” he muttered, his eyes ugly and narrow.
“I may do that. Someday when it suits me. I’ll let you know if I ever want you to come back.”
“That’s damn considerate of you. What gives you the idea that I’ll just hang around waiting to hear from you?”
“Suit yourself. It makes no difference to me if you do or don’t.”
“I ought to beat hell out of you, that’s what I ought to do,” he said.
“Try it,” she said tersely. “You’ll be sorry if you do.”
“There’s no need. I’ve got a better way of taking care of you now.”
“Is that so?” She glanced at him slyly from the corners of her eyes, feeling much more uneasy than her attitude indicated. “You’re simply scaring me to death!”
“You’d better be scared, if you’re not.”
“I can’t imagine why. I’m not in the habit of being scared by just any overgrown baby who insists on hanging around when he’s no longer wanted.”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to,” Buddy murmured.
“Have I been up to something? Please tell me what it is. I can hardly wait to hear.”
“I know all about you and old Cannon. Don’t think I don’t.”
“What about us?” Maggie asked, her voice a brittle taunt.
“You’ve been sneaking out with him on the sly, that’s what. Just last night he picked you up at the corner of Twelfth and Doan Streets, and there have been plenty of other times before that.”
“You seem to know quite a lot. I wonder how a stupid lout like you could learn so much and remember it so long. It might be interesting to know how you found out all these things.”
“I’ve followed you, that’s how. I followed and waited until he picked you up. I even wrote down all the times and places.”
Now she turned her head and looked at him directly, her face set in such lines of loathing that his own face flushed, and the black brows drew straight above his eyes.
“In other words,” she said, “you’ve been spying on me. You’re not only ugly and stupid, you’re a disgusting sneak and spy besides. Did you follow us and watch us after he picked me up? No, you couldn’t do that because you haven’t had a car since the old wreck you were driving when you killed that man, and you don’t have the brains to get one. Too bad. You would have found it interesting. A natural sneak and Peeping Tom like you, who are no better than a pervert, would have enjoyed it immensely. Shall I describe it to you? I’d be happy to tell you just what happened if you’d like to know.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve got a good notion what happened. And I’ve got another good notion to kill you for it.” His big hands clenched spasmodically and his lips thinned out.
“A notion is all you’ve got, I imagine. On top of all the other dirty things you are, you’re almost certainly a coward, too.”
“You keep on playing fancy with old Cannon and see how much of a coward I am.”
She looked around for a convenient ash tray. Not finding one, she deliberately dropped her cigarette on the floor and lifted a foot to grind it out. Remembering just in time that her foot was bare, she held it suspended for a moment over the small red coal, then withdrew the foot and picked up the cigarette and arose from the hassock in a single fluid pattern of motion. Strolling over to a table with accented, indolent swaying of her terry cloth behind, she buried the cigarette in a pile of butts and ash overflowing a saucer.
“It’s really amusing how you keep referring to him like that,” she said. “You’re just jealous because he’s handsome and you’re ugly, and he’s smart and you’re stupid, and he amounts to something and you don’t and never will. You make me sick, and that’s the truth. Every time I look at you I want to vomit.”
“Keep on talking to me like that, and you’ll be worse than sick.”