“It’s hard to talk to Floyd. He listens to his own little voices—the line’s always busy.”
“He’s filth,” she said furiously. When she tilted her face down her hair swung out languorously; she brushed it back and laughed dispiritedly. “I’m putting myself on, aren’t I? Clutching at straws.”
“What straws?”
“Hoping for a minute that you were on my side.”
“I am,” he said. “But I don’t know what to do about it.”
“We could run for it. Both of us—right now.”
“Fat chance.” He was looking back the way they had come. When she followed the direction of his glance she saw the two men standing on the porch—Georgie in his candy-striped shirt; Theodore, tugging at a thick black hair in his nostril. They were watching with fully focused attention. Mitch said, “We’d better get back before Theodore decides to start something. Like find out how much of a beating I can take.”
“Would he?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“Who knows. He gets uptight easy. Sometimes he doesn’t remember things from one hour to the next but when it comes to grudges and sex he’s got a one-track mind like an elephant. Only he doesn’t think with it. He thinks with his fists.”
“Has he got a grudge against you?”
“More than one. For one thing he thinks he’d like to—well, wrestle you a little, you know?”
Rape me is what you mean. She folded her arms and hugged herself, flashing a quick furtive scrutiny at Theodore on the porch, trying to catch some hint of expression on his asymmetrical crippled face.
Mitch was still talking:
“He could use a few inhibitions. I don’t think he’s got any at all. The only thing that’s slowing him down is I’ve got this crummy kitchen knife in my belt and he’s not too sure how good I am with it. He knows he can take me regardless but he doesn’t want to get carved up in the process.”
“How good are you with it?”
“Probably lousy. The only thing I’ve ever used a knife for was peeling potatoes. Fortunately he doesn’t know that. But he keeps gnashing his teeth and sooner or later he’ll boil over and try something. He hates everybody—it’s only a matter of degree, it doesn’t take much—if your face isn’t all mangled and scarred up like his that’s enough to make him hate you, by itself.”
Terry shuddered involuntarily. They were walking very slowly back toward the store. On the porch Georgie Rymer said something to Theodore and turned back inside with a quick over-the-shoulder look, like the hasty bright-eyed glance of a heister peddling hot wristwatches near a traffic cop. Theodore watched him disappear, then pulled his head around toward Mitch and Terry. He had large greasy pores on his nose. His one good eye was bold and fierce. She glanced at Mitch and saw sweat burst out in beads on his upper lip.
When they reached the porch Mitch took the initiative, throwing Theodore off balance: “You let him go inside by himself—he’s probably rooting around trying to find the dope where Floyd hid it. You know Floyd told you not to let him alone in there.”
Taken aback, Theodore canceled whatever it was he had intended to say. He rolled his tongue around his misshapen lips; she saw spittle run from his mouth. He said, “Shit,” and wheeled inside, ducking to clear the fallen beam.
Mitch’s face hardened, bleak and guarded. He made a half-hearted signal with his head; Terry obeyed, returning to her place at the corner of the porch and sitting down. Georgie came out with Theodore right behind him; Theodore said crossly, “He wasn’t noplace near it.”
Georgie had a cunning look on his face; he turned an innocent glance on Mitch but his eyes were at odds with his lips. The three men stood in an awkward triangle for an intolerable length of time before Georgie stirred nervously and said, “I got to”—and glanced at her with a tentative smile—”relieve myself?”
Theodore’s eye rolled toward Terry. She tried to ignore him. He said to Mitch, “Okay. You better go with him.”
Theodore fixed her with what passed for a smile. She held her breath until Mitch said, “I guess not,” and slowly went past Theodore to the inside of the porch, where he put his shoulder blades against the wall and hooked both thumbs in his pockets. “You go with him if you think he can’t do it for himself.”
“It ain’t that,” Theodore said. “He needs watching.”
“What for?”
“He just does.”
“Then watch him yourself.”
Georgie said waspishly, “I don’t need no nursemaid,” and walked off the porch. He hurried up the street toward a half-crumpled shack. Theodore made as if to follow him, but changed his mind. He circled toward Mitch—and stopped, frowning, as if he had forgotten what he was going to say. He shook his head in exasperation. Looking past Mitch he spotted Billie Jean up the street, making circles in the dust with the toe of her shoe, and abruptly Theodore swung that way, saying out of the side of his mouth, “Both of you stay put.”
Terry let her breath out. When Mitch came over to her and sat down she had to fight down the impulse to burst out wailing. She drew her knees up and rested her chin on her knuckles and heard Mitch say as if he were a long distance away, “Ever have the feeling the world was falling down around your ankles?”
“That’s not funny,” she muttered.
“Sorry.”
“I just can’t stand it, sitting here—waiting. Not doing anything.”
“I know.”
“My car’s right there in the barn. Couldn’t we at least try—”
“Floyd has the keys in his pocket.”
“Well, they hot-wire them or something, don’t they? When they steal cars?”
“I wouldn’t know how. Maybe if I had a couple hours I could figure it out if I didn’t electrocute myself trying. But we couldn’t walk from here to the barn without getting Theodore all over us.”
“You’re not a hell of a great big lot of help, you know that?” Her eyes filled and she blinked furiously.
“Look, I’m just as scared as you are. What do you want?” He gave her an angry look. “Damn it, cut that out. I don’t know what to do when girls cry.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Oh. I suppose it’s hay fever.”
“Suppose what you like,” she snapped. She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. “Oh, hell,” she bawled softly. “Oh, hell and damn and shit. I don’t want to be killed, Mitch. I want to live. Jesus, I want to get married and have kids and live in some little town someplace with a husband who comes home every night at five thirty and mows the lawn on weekends and every once in a while tells me how beautiful and cuddly I am.”
She blew her nose. Mitch said, “That’s not so much to ask.” He looked clumsy and savage with brooding anger.
“It isn’t,” she said. “It isn’t. God damn it, it’s just not fair!” She thrust her hair back from her face with an angry swipe of her hand. He was watching her gravely, even tenderly. She whispered, “Oh, Mitch.”
That was when Floyd’s Oldsmobile wheeled into the street, trailing dust. Billie Jean and Theodore gathered at the barn door with Georgie, who came along dreamy-eyed, not too steady on his feet. Billie Jean kept carping like a magpie until Theodore slapped her on the rump and barked at her. Floyd drove into the barn, leaving a hazy pall in the air. Terry watched them all the way she would have watched a circling school of barracuda. Mitch slowly got to his feet and stood above her protectively; he was trying to smile. She felt distantly grateful, slightly warmed; it only lasted an instant. Fear had kept coming all day in waves, at intervals she could never anticipate; now it welled up like bile in her throat. She had difficulty breathing, difficulty keeping her eyes in focus, and there was a taste on her tongue like dry brass.
Floyd appeared in the barn door with an armload of equipment that looked like a telephone repairman’s gear. He was smiling coolly. He walked forward with a springy, cocky stride. The others trailed him toward the porch. He climbed up and stood two paces from her, vibrating like a time bomb; he watched Georgie stumble up into the shade and then he wheeled and grabbed the front of Mitch’s shirt in his fist and dragged Mitch up on his toes. Floyd’s eyes glittered frostily. He said in a very gentle voice, “Who gave him the stuff?”