“No hard feelings, Griff?”
Griff stared at the proffered hand for a moment. He hesitated, telling himself he should refuse the hand. He sighed then, and extended his own hand. “No hard feelings,” he said, feeling strangely relieved.
“Of course not,” McQuade said. “To the victor belongs—”
And then his grip tightened.
Griff had not expected McQuade’s sudden grip. He had offered his hand for a listless handclasp, and now he felt McQuade’s fingers tightening around his own and for a moment he felt awkward, mistaking McQuade’s grip for a sign of affection. But the awkwardness fled before a scream that almost escaped his mouth when McQuade really bore down. He pulled his hand back in a reflexive movement, but he could not extricate it. He saw McQuade’s jaw muscles tighten, and then the fingers closed on his hand like a vise, squeezing his bones together, shooting raw pain up past his wrist, daggering pain that rushed to his shoulder and his brain. He tried to pull his hand away, but McQuade would not release it.
McQuade was smiling now, his jaws tight, his teeth clenched together. The sweat popped on his forehead, as if the effort he put into the hand crush were squeezing it out of his body.
Griff stood with his arm around Marge’s waist, the other arm extended, the hand caught in the steel trap of McQuade’s grip. He thought McQuade would terminate it abruptly, and so he tried to keep the pain off his face and the scream from his lips. But McQuade did not end it. McQuade showed no intention of ending it. McQuade’s fingers tightened and tightened until Griff’s hand became a throbbing aching bundle of nerves, ragged, jagged nerves that screamed silently.
His whole body seemed to suddenly flow into his right hand. His whole body, and his whole mind, his entire existence were suddenly in the palm and five fingers of his right hand. The hand seemed like a sentient thing with a mind of its own, and a soul of its own, and a hundred darting, electrifying aches and pains and needles and jabs and ripping, tearing cracks and fissures of its own. His lips parted, and he squinched up his eyes, and then his teeth came together, and he could hear the click when they came together, and he felt this swelling pain that came from his hand, that shouted with a voice of its own from his hand.
He felt weak all at once, dizzy and weak, and he felt his left arm slipping from Marge’s waist, and he saw Marge slump against the wall, but he was no longer concerned about Marge, he was concerned only about the swelling pain of his right hand, the pain that seemed to mushroom out and envelope his entire body. He could see McQuade’s face clearly, the lips drawn back, the teeth clenched tightly, the sweat clinging to his brow. He could see the face, and then the face blurred a little, and he knew he would lose consciousness if McQuade would not release him. He suddenly wanted to plead with McQuade, to beg McQuade to drop his hand, to let his fingers go, to stop the godawful pain, oh, the pain, oh, oh, and he fought to hold the scream back, and then he wondered why he was fighting the scream, and he realized he was not fighting his own weakness, he was fighting McQuade’s strength.
For McQuade’s power had suddenly become a very real thing, not the power invested in him by Titanic, but another power, a power that was part of the man himself, a power that was overwhelming and frightening, the power of a thousand boots on a cobbled street clattering their might to the night. There was something shameful and degrading about giving in to this power, something like the shame he had felt the time that Stuka had dived at him, long ago, so long ago, when he had felt the sudden release of his bowels and then the overwhelming stench of his fear. He could not give in to McQuade, and so he did not scream, and so he fought the livid pain, fought it with every nerve and muscle in his body.
He was on his knees now, on his knees before McQuade, and still McQuade would not release his hand. Griff’s left hand was flat on the floor and behind him he could hear Marge mumbling, “Say… what… say…” but the words were blurred, and he felt this dizziness swell up inside him, and he shook his head to clear it, his right hand extended, his right hand caught in the mesh of McQuade’s fingers.
He knew he would be unconscious in a very few seconds, and he wanted to shout something before he went out, wanted to shout something loud and clear so that everyone could hear him, but he didn’t know what to say, and he could not find the voice to say what he didn’t know how to say the voice shout say how the voice shout…
McQuade dropped his hand.
“You’d better take her home, Griff,” he said pleasantly, and then he turned his back and strode off down the corridor, heading for the sound of the music, ducking his head a little when he went through the open doorway, and then walking toward where Cara stood near the record player.
11
She still felt very dizzy, and Griff’s silence did not help her dizziness at all, not at all. They were in a cab, heading for her house, and he had not said two words since they entered the cab, just pulled himself into this silly, thoughtful silence, wrapped it around him like a black cloak.
“You are silent, thoughtful, sincere, courteous, kind—” she started, and when he did not smile, she cut herself short.
“All right,” she said, “so be that way.”
He did not answer.
“I don’t see what you’re angry about, anyway. A girl has a few drinks, and you act as if…” She glanced sideways at him, and then her mind fled to the city outside the cab window, and she squealed, “Oh, Griff, it’s so pretty out there! All the lights and…” She reached for his hand and squeezed it, and he pulled it back sharply, his mouth opening as if he were going to shout at her.
Well, all right, she thought, all right, I won’t touch you. Okay, okay, I won’t touch you, didn’t know you were so fussy about things like that, anyway, and how did I get in a cab with you, anyway, who asked you to take me home, I was having a good time, wasn’t I?
“I was having a good time,” she said aloud.
“That’s nice,” he said.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, nothing, sure, nothing. You sit there like… like I don’t know what and you say nothing. All right, nothing. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I’m not going to force you to tell me anything, anything at all. Just sit there, clam. Just sit there and make pearls inside your shell, clam.”
“Oysters make—”
“I know all about oysters,” Marge said angrily, pulling herself to one side of the cab. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, you’re not.” She couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason for her sudden indignation, but she was indignant as all hell, and she imagined it had something to do with Griff’s attitude. After all, she really hadn’t had that much to drink, and besides her head was absolutely clear now — well, almost. “You’re an old…” She sought a word. “I don’t know. You’re just an old.”
“Clam,” Griff supplied.
“Yes. ’Zactly.”
“All right, Marge,” he said.
“All right, Marge. Nice little girl, Marge. Here’s a pat on the head, Marge. Here, Margie, Margie, Margie.” She tried a whistle, as if she were calling a dog, but the whistle came out as an inadequate puff of air. “You know what?” she asked.
“What?”
“You’ve got no sense of humor.”
“Maybe not,” he said.
“Don’t sound so proud. It isn’t good to have no sense of humor. The trouble with everybody today is that they don’t know when they’re happy. They have to be told when they’re happy.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right. Mac said so.”