High Hunt (10 page)

I put down my drink and turned out the lamp in the living room.

“Don't forget to bring in the transistor,” she reminded me.

I picked it up and went on back.

She had finished undressing, and she was lying on the bed. My hands began to shake. She had a crazy build on her—real wall-to-wall girl. I started to take off my shirt.

“Do you have to leave it on that station?” she asked, pointing at the transistor. “I mean is that the only frequency that—”

“That's the one,” I said. “I'd have to take it all apart to—”

“It's OK,” she said. “It's just that I've never done it with that kind of music on before. Groups most of the time or folk rock—never Beethoven.”

At least she recognized it.

I was having a helluva time with my shirt.

“Here,” she said, sitting up, “let me.” She pushed my hands out of the way and finished unbuttoning my shirt. “Do you like having the light on?”

“It's a little bright, isn't it?” I asked, squinting at it.

“Some men do, that's all—that's why I asked.”

“Oh.”

“Do you like to be on top, or do you want me to—”

I reached down and gently lifted her chin. “Clydine, love, it's not just exactly as if we were about to run a quarterback sneak off-tackle. We don't have to get it all planned out in the huddle, do we? Let's just improvise, make it up as we go along.”

She smiled up at me, almost shyly. “I just want it to be good for you, is all,” she said softly.

“Quit worrying about it,” I told her. I sat down on the bed and reached for her. “One thing though,” I said, cupping one of the little pink soldiers.

“What's that?” she asked, nuzzling my neck.

“How in the hell did you ever get a name like Clydine?”

She told me, but I promised never to tell anybody else.

“W
HAT'S
this doing here?” Clydine was standing over me the next morning, stark naked, with my Army blouse clutched in her little fist. She shook it at me. “What's this doing here?” she demanded again.

“You're wrinkling it,” I said. “Don't wrinkle it.”

“You're a GI, aren't you?” she said, her voice shaking with fury. “A no-good, lousy, son-of-a-bitching, mother-fucking GI!”

“Clydine!” I was actually shocked. I'd never heard a girl use that kind of language before.

“You bastard!”

“Calm down,” I told her, sitting up in bed.

“Motherfucker!”

“Clydine, please don't use that kind of language. It sounds very ugly coming from a girl your age.”

“Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker!” she yelled, stamping her foot. Then she threw the blouse on the floor and collapsed on the bed, sobbing bitterly.

I got up, hung the blouse back up in the closet, and padded barefoot on out to the kitchen. I got myself a beer. I had a bit of a headache. Then I went on back to the bedroom. She was still crying.

“Are you about through?” I asked her.

“Son-of-a-bitching motherfucker!” she said, her voice muffled.

“I'm getting a little tired of that,” I told her.

“Bite my ass!”

I reached over and got a good grip on her arm so she couldn't get a swing at me, then I leaned down and bit her on the fanny, hard.

“Dan! Stop that! Ouch, goddammit! Stop that!”

I let go. I'd left a pretty good set of teethmarks on her can. “Any more suggestions?” I asked her.

“Of all the—” She rubbed at her bottom tenderly. “Goddammit, that
hurt
!”

“It was
your
idea,” I said, taking a pull at the beer bottle.

“Can I have some?” she asked me after a minute or so. She sounded like a little girl.

“If you promise not to throw it at me.”

“I'll be good.”

I gave her the bottle, and she took a drink. “Oh, Danny, how
could
you? All that beautiful story about letting them put you in prison for a principle. It was all a
lie
, wasn't it?”

“Are you ready to listen now?”

“I
believed
in you, Danny.”

“You want to hear this?”

“I really
believed
in you.”

I got up and walked on out to the living room.

After a minute she came padding out, still rubbing at her bare fanny. Her little soldiers were still at attention. She was just as cute as hell.

“All right. Let's hear it,” she said.

“First off,” I said, plunking myself on the couch. “I'm not a GI—not anymore anyway.”

“You've
deserted
!” she squealed, sitting down beside me.

“No, dear. I was discharged—honorably.”

“You mean you didn't even—”

“Hush,” I said, “I was drafted. I thought it all over, and I went ahead and went in. I spent eighteen months in Germany.”

“Germany!”

I kissed her—hard. Our teeth clacked together. “Now I'm going to do that every time you interrupt me,” I told her.

“But—”

I did it again. It was kind of fun.

“I did
not
run off to Canada. I did
not
go to Leavenworth. I did nor go to Nam. I didn't kill anybody. I didn't help anybody kill anybody. I drank a lot of German beer. I looked at a lot of castles and museums. Then I came home.”

“But how—”

I kissed her again.

“Not so hard—” she said, her fingertips touching her mouth tenderly.

“All right. Now, on my first night back from the land of Wiener schnitzels, you and Joan braced me down on Pacific Avenue with a fistful of pamphlets—we chatted a minute or two. That's how I came to know your names.”

She looked at me, her eyes widening suddenly.

“At the theater last night,” I went on, “there were some people I didn't want to talk to, so when I saw you and Joan, I just moved in on you with the first silly-ass story that came into my head. After that, things just got out of hand. I
did
try to get away several times. You'll have to admit that.”

“Can I talk?” she asked.

“Go ahead,” I told her. “End of explanation.”

“Once we got away from the others—I mean, once we got here, why didn't you tell me?”

“Because, little one, you are an extremely good-looking, well-constructed, female-type person. You are also, and I hope you'll forgive my saying this, just a wee bit hooked on things political. I wasn't about to take a chance on losing the old ballgame just for the sake of clearing up a few minor misconceptions. I'm probably as honest as the next guy, but I'm not a nut about it.”

“Danny?”

“Yes?”

“Do you really think I'm—what you said—good-looking?”

I laughed and gathered her into my arms. I kissed her vigorously about the head and neck. “You're a doll,” I told her.

Later, back in bed, she nudged me with her elbow.

“Hmmm?”

“Danny, if you ever tell Joan that you haven't been in prison, I'll
kill
you. I'll just
kill
you.”

“Watch that, my little nasturtium of nonviolence. That kind of talk could get you chucked out of the Peace Movement right on your pretty, pink patootie.”

“Piss on the Peace Movement!” she said bluntly. “This is serious. Don't ever
dare
tell Joan. I'd be the laughingstock of the whole campus. Do you know that I turned down a date with the
captain
of the football team because I thought he was politically immature? I've got a reputation to maintain on campus, so you keep your goddamn mouth shut!”

I howled with laughter. “We've got to do something about your vocabulary,” I told her.

“To hell with my vocabulary! Now I want you to promise.”

“All right, all right. Put the gun away. My lips are sealed. Whenever I'm around Joan I'll be an ex-con. I'll flout my prison record in everybody's face. But it's gonna cost you, kid.”

“Well, it's the
only
way I'll be able to hold up my head,” she explained.

After I drove her back to the campus and made a date for that night, I went on downtown to buy myself some clothes. A lot of my old things that I'd picked up the day before were too tight now—and probably a little out of date, though I really didn't much give a damn about that. I didn't want to go overboard on clothes, but I did need a few things.

I had a fair amount of cash, the four hundred from the poker game, three hundred in mustering-out pay, and I'd religiously saved twenty-five a month while I was in the Army—about six hundred dollars there when I got out. I had maybe thirteen hundred altogether. The car and the rent and my share of the hunt and some walking-around money took me down to under a grand, but I figured I was still OK.

It was kind of nice to go into the stores and try on the new-smelling clothes. I got a couple pair of slacks and a sport jacket, some shirts and ties and a couple pair of shoes—nothing really fancy.

About one o'clock, I bagged on back out to the Avenue and dropped into Sloane's pawnshop. Sloane had a lot of new stuff in it as well as the usual sad, secondhand junk. I thought I could see the influence of Claudia there. I kind of halfway hoped she'd be there so I could see her again.

“Hey, Dan,” Sloane said, “be right with you.” He turned back to the skinny, horse-faced guy he'd been talking to. “I'm sure sorry, friend,” he said, “but five dollars is as high as I can go. You saw the window—I've got wristwatches coming out my ears.”

“But I aint tryin' to
sell
it,” the man objected with a distinct, whining Southern drawl. “I'd be in here first thing on payday to get it back. I jus' gotta have ten anyway. Y'see, m'car broke down and I had a feller fix it fer me, and now he won't give it back to me 'lessen I give 'im at least part of the money. That's why I just
gotta
have ten for the watch anyway.”

“I'm just as sorry as I can be, friend, but I just can't do a thing for you on that watch.”

“I noticed the prices you got on them watches in the window,” the man said accusingly. “I didn't see no five-dollar watches out there.”

Suddenly I remembered another five-dollar watch not too long ago.

“I'm really sorry, friend,” Sloane said, “But I just don't think you and I can do business today.”

“That there's a semdy-fi'-dollar watch,” the man said holding it out at Sloane and shaking it vigorously, “an' all I want is for you to borrow me ten fuckin' dollars on it for about ten measly little ol' days. Now I think that's mighty damn reasonable.”

“It could very well be, friend, but I just can't do 'er.”

“Well, mister, I'm agonna tell you som'thin'. They's just a whole lotta these here pawnshops in this here little ol' town. I think I'll jus' go out and find me one where they don't try to screw a feller right into the damn ground.”

“It's a free country, friend,” Sloane said calmly.

“You just ain't about to get no semdy-fi'-dollar watch off'n
me
for no five measly fuckin' dollars. I'll tell you that right now. And I can shore tell you one thing—you ain't gonna get no more o'
my
business. And I'm shore gonna tell all the fellers in my outfit not to give you none o' their business neither. It'll be a cold day in hell when anybody from the Hunnerd-and-Semdy-First Ree-con Platoon comes into
this
stingy little ol' place!”

“I'm sorry you feel that way, friend.”

“Sonnabitch!” the man growled and stomped out of the shop.

Sloane looked at me and giggled. “I get sonofabitched and motherfuckered more than any eight other businessmen on the
block,” he said. “Stupid damned rebels! If that shit kicker paid more than fifteen for that piece of junk, then he
really
got screwed right into the ground.”

“Why didn't you tell him?”

“Doesn't do any good. They'd a helluva lot rather believe that I'm trying to cheat them than that somebody else already has. That way
they're
smart, and
I'm
the one who's stupid.”

“That's a GI for you.”

“Yeah. He's got all the makings of a thirty-year man. Chip on his shoulder instead of a head. What can I do for you?”

“I thought I'd look over your guns.”

“Sure—right over there in the rack behind the counter. Gonna decide which one to take on the hunt, huh?”

“No, I thought I might buy one, if we can get together.”

“Well, now. A real cash customer.” He hustled on ahead of me to the rack. “Here's a good-looking .270,” he said, handing me a well-polished, scope-mounted job.

“Little rich,” I said, looking at the price tag.

“I can knock fifteen off that,” he said.

‘No. Thanks all the same, Cal, but what I've really got in mind is an old Springfield .30-06 military. That's a good cartridge, and I've got a little time to do some backyard gunsmithing.”

“Just a minute,” he said, scratching his chin. “I think I might have just the thing.” He led me back into the storage room and pulled a beat-up-looking rifle down off the top shelf. He looked at the tag attached to the trigger guard and then ripped it off. “I thought so,” he said. “It's two weeks past due. That bastard won't be back.” He handed me the gun. “I'll let you have that one for thirty-five dollars. It's a real pig the way it sits, but if you want to take a little time to fix it up, you'll have a good weapon.”

I took it out into the shop where the light was better and checked the bore. It looked clean, no corrosion. The stock was a mess. Some guy had cut down the military stock and then had painted it with brown enamel. The barrel still had the lathe marks on it. I glanced at the receiver and saw that it had been tapped and drilled for a scope. The bolt and safety had been modified.

“All right,” I said, “I'll take it.”

Sloane had been following my eyes, and his smile was a little sick. He hadn't noticed the modifications before he'd quoted me the price. I wrote him a check and tucked the gun
under my arm. “Pleasure doing business with you, Calvin,” I said.

“I think I just got screwed,” he said ruefully.

“Win a few, lose a few, Cal baby,” I said, patting his cheek. “See you around. Don't take any semdy-fi'-dollar watches.”

A man creates a certain amount of stir walking up the street with a rifle under his arm, but I kind of enjoyed it. I put the gun on the floor in the back seat of my car and went on down a couple blocks to the gunsmith's shop. I bought a walnut stock blank, scope mounts, sling-swivels, a sling, a used four-power scope, some do-it-yourself bluing, and a jar of stock finish. Altogether, it cost me another forty dollars. I figured I'd done a good day's business, so I went into a tavern and had a beer.

About an hour or so later the phone rang and the bartender answered it. He looked up and down the bar. “I don't know him,” he said, “just a minute.” He raised his voice. “Is Dan Alders here?”

It always gives me a cold chill to be paged in a public place—I don't know why. It took me a moment to answer. “Yeah,” I said, “that's me.”

It was Jack. “You gonna be there a while?” he asked.

“I suppose.”

“Sit tight then. I'll be there in about twenty minutes. I got somebody I want you to meet, OK?”

“Sure,” I said. “How'd you find me?”

“I called Sloane. He said he could see your car, so I figured you might be at a water hole. I just called all the joints on the Avenue.”