“It’s a load of laughs.”
“I have a million of them. Morbid tales for little people by the old lady of the sea. I think of myself as the old lady of the sea.” Her mouth twisted. “I’m spooky, aren’t I?”
I said she wasn’t, in my chivalrous way, but spooky was the word for her. I drank the rest of my goldwater. It was sweet and strong.
“It’s like drinking money,” she said. “How does it taste to you?”
“I like the taste of money. But the drink is a little too sweet for me. I’m going to switch to Bourbon.”
She looked past me along the bar. The honeymooners had drifted away.
“You’d better hurry up then. This place is going to close up any minute. While you’re ordering, you might as well order me another.” She added abruptly: “I’ll pay for it.”
I ordered for both of us, and insisted on paying. “I can afford to buy you a drink. My name is Lew Archer, by the way.”
“How do you do, Lew.”
This time we clicked glasses.
“I’m Miss Smith.”
“Not married?”
“No. Are you?”
“I was at one time. It didn’t take.”
“I know the problem,” she said. “I’ve lived with it. Call it living. What do you do for a living?”
“I sort of live off the country.”
“I don’t get it. What do you really do? No, wait, let me guess. I’m good at guessing people’s occupations.” She sounded like a bored child looking for a game to play.
“Go ahead and guess.”
Her gaze slipped down from my face to my shoulders, as if she was looking for a place to cry on. Tentatively, her hand came out and palped my left bicep. She had pretty hands, except for the tips of the fingers, which she had bitten.
“Are you a professional athlete? You seem to be in very good trim, for a middle-aged man.”
It was a mixed compliment.
“Wrong. I’ll give you two more guesses.”
“What do I win if I guess right?”
“I’ll carve you a plaque.”
“Oh, fine. I need one for my grave.”
Her heavy gaze went over me some more. I could feel it like a tangible pressure. I squirmed a little. My jacket gaped open. She said in a husky whisper:
“You’re carrying a gun. Are you a policeman?”
“You have one more guess.”
“Why are you wearing a gun?”
“That’s a question, not a guess.”
“You could give me a hint. You did say you lived off the country. Are you outside the law?”
There were possibilities in the role. “Keep your voice down,” I said, and looked away from her along the bar in that sudden jerky movement I’d seen men make in other bars when I came in to put the arm on them.
The redhead and her escorts were on their way out. The Stetson brothers were talking in rapt religious voices about Aberdeen Angus bulls. The businessmen were persuading each other to have one for the road. As if the road needed it, their wives’ expressions said.
The woman’s hand touched my shoulder. Her breath tickled my ear. “Why do you carry a gun?”
“We won’t talk about it.”
“But I want to talk about it,” she said in a wheedling tone. “I’m interested. Are you a gangster – a gunman?”
“This is the end of the guessing game. You wouldn’t like the answers.”
“Yes, I would. Maybe I would.”
For the first time she seemed fully alive, but not with the kind of life I wanted to share. She circled her lips with the pale tip of her tongue:
“What do you use your gun for?”
“We won’t talk about it here. Do you want to get me arrested?”
She whispered: “We could talk in my place. I have a bottle in my bungalow. They’re about to close the Cantina anyway.”
She picked up her lizardskin purse. I went along with her, across the courtyard, up a garden path where black moonshadows crouched and pounced in the late wind blowing up from San Francisco Bay.
She fumbled in her purse for the key, fumbled at the lock. It was dark inside when she opened the door. She stood in the dark and let me walk into her. Her body trembled against me. It was softer and warmer than I’d supposed.
Her mind was harder and colder: “Have you ever killed anybody? I don’t mean in the war. I mean in real life.”
“This is real life?”
“Don’t joke. I want to know. I have a reason.”
“I have a better reason for keeping quiet.”
“Come on,” she wheedled. “Tell Mother.”
She pressed herself against me. We were both aware of the gun in its harness between us. I felt as though I was being offered a large and dangerous gift I didn’t want. Her pointed breasts were like soft bombs against me.
“I think you’re exciting,” she said in an unexcited way.
She was a crude and awkward operator, naive for a woman of her alleged experience. No doubt her mind was running on one or two cylinders. I was beginning to wonder if she was disturbed. There were undertones and overtones in everything she said, like a steady growling and screaming below and above the range of my ears.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“I haven’t had a chance to get to know you.”
Against my neck, she hummed a few notes of a song about getting to know people. She got a grip on the back of my head. I felt her tongue on my lips, like a hot snail. I broke her masseuse grip:
“You promised me a drink.”
“Don’t you like women?” Coming from her, the question had a queer pathos. She leaned on me like a woman sliding down a wall. “I know I’m not so pretty any more.”
“Neither am I, and I’ve had a long hard day.”
“Working over a hot gun?”
“Not all day. I do all my killing before breakfast. I like to sprinkle a little human blood on my porridge.”
“You’re awful. We’re two awful people.”
She reached for the light switch, humming another song. Her singing voice was surprisingly light and girlish. A faint poignant regret went through me that I hadn’t got to her sooner. Much sooner, in another place and time, on a different errand.
The room jumped up around us, colored and strange. She’d only had it a little while, but there were clothes on the bed and floor, as though she’d picked through every dress in her wardrobe looking for something becoming. The Navajo rugs on the floor were crumpled as if she’d been kicking at them.
A bottle of whisky and a smudged glass stood on the limed oak chest of drawers. She put down her purse beside the bottle, poured me a heavy slug in the glass and handed it to me slopping over the rim. She drank from the bottle herself, pouring the stuff down like a rank amateur or a far-gone alcoholic. It was a lovely party.
It got lovelier. She sprawled on the bed regardless of her clothes, hugging the bottle like a headless baby. Her skirt crept up above her knees. Her legs were remarkably good, but not for me. I watched her the way you watch an old late movie that you’ve seen before.
“Sit down.” She patted the bed beside her. “Sit down and tell me about yourself, Lew. That’s your name, isn’t it – Lew?”
“Lew.” I sat beside her, keeping a space between us. “I’d rather hear about you. Do you live alone?”
“I have been.” She looked sideways at an inside door which led to another part of the bungalow.
“Divorced?”
“Divorced from reality.” She grimaced. “True confession tide: Mother went to Reno to get a divorce from reality.”
“Do you have a family?”
“We won’t go into that. Or anything else about me. You don’t want to hear about me. I live in hell.”