Shoot the Piano Player (19 page)

Clifton lit another cigarette. He went on talking. He talked about Turley's witless maneuvering and his own mistake in allowing Turley to make the trip to Philadelphia.

"--had a feeling he'd mess things up," Clifton was saying. "But he swore he'd be careful. Kept telling me about his connections on Dock Street, all them boat captains he knew, and how easy it would be to make arrangements. Kept selling me on the idea and finally I bought it. We get in the car and I drive him to Bellevile so he can catch a bus to Phffly. For that one move alone I oughtta have my head examined."

Eddie was sitting there with his eyes half closed. He was still thinking about the waitress. He told himself to stop it, but he couldn't stop it.

"--so now it's no boat ride," Clifton was saying. "It's just sitting around, wondering what's gonna happen, and when. Some days we go out hunting for rabbits. That's a good one. We're worse off than the rabbits. At least they can run. And the geese, the wild geese. Christ, how I envy them geese.

"I'll tell you something," he went on. "It's really awful when you can't budge. It gets to be a drag and in the morning you hate to wake up because there's just no place to go. We used to joke about it, me and Turley. It actually gave us a laugh. We got two hundred thousand dollars to invest and no way to have fun with it. Not even on a broad. Some nights I crave a broad so bad--

"It ain't no way to live, I'll tell you that. It's the same routine, day after day. Except once a week it's driving the nine miles to Belleville, to buy food. Every time I take that ride, I come near pissing in my pants. A car shows in the rearview mirror, I keep thinking that's it, that's a corporation car and I'm spotted, they got me now. In Belleville I try to play it cool but I swear it ain't easy. If anyone looks at me twice, I'm ready to go for the rod. Say, that reminds me--"

Clifton got up from the table. He reached to the shelf, to the assortment of guns, and selected a .38 revolver. He checked it, then opened one of the ammunition boxes, loaded the gun and handed it to Eddie. "You'll need this," he said. "Keep it with you. Don't ever be without it."

Eddie looked at the gun in his hand. It had no effect on him. He slipped it under his overcoat, into the side pocket of his jacket.

"Take it out," Clifton said.

"The gun?"

Clifton nodded. "Take it outa your pocket. Let's see you take it out."

He reached under his overcoat, doing it slowly and indifferently. Then the gun was in his hand and he showed it to Clifton.

"Try it again," Clifton said, smiling at him. "Put it back in and take it out."

He did it again. The gun felt heavy and he was awkward with it. Clifton was laughing softly.

"Wanna see something?" Clifton said. "Watch me."

Clifton turned and moved toward the stove. He had his hands at his sides. Then he stood at the stove and reached toward the coffee pot with his right hand. As his fingers touched the handle of the coffee pot, the yellow-tan sleeve of his camel's-hair coat was a flash of caramel color, and almost in the same instant there was a gun in his right hand, held steady there, his finger on the trigger.

"Get the idea?" Clifton murmured.

"I guess it takes practice."

"Every day," Clifton said. "We practice at least an hour a day."

"With shooting?"

"In the woods," Clifton said. "Anything that moves. A weasel, a rat, even the mice. If they ain't showing, we use other targets. Turley throws a stone and I draw and try to hit it. Or sometimes it's tin cans. When it's tin cans it's long range. We do lotsa practicing at long range."

"Is Turley any good?"

"He's awful," Clifton said. "He can't learn."

Eddie looked down at the gun in his hand. It felt less heavy now.

"I hope you can learn," Clifton said. "You think you can?"

Eddie hefted the gun. He was remembering Burma. He said, "I guess so. I've done this before."

"That's right. I forgot. It slipped my mind. You got some medals. You get many Japs?"

"A few."

"How many?"

"Well, it was mostly with a bayonet. Except with the snipers. With the snipers I liked-the forty-five."

"You want a forty-five? I got a couple here."

"No, this'll be all right."

"It better be," Clifton said. "This ain't for prizes."

"You think it's coming soon?"

"Who knows? Maybe a month from now. A year from now. Or maybe tomorrow. Who the hell knows?"

"Maybe it won't happen," Eddie said.

"It's gotta happen. It's on the schedule."

"You know, there's a chance you could be wrong," Eddie said. "This place ain't easy to find."

"They'll find it," Clifton muttered. He was staring at the window. The shade was down. He leaned across the table and lifted the shade just a little and looked out. He kept the shade up and stayed there looking out and Eddie turned to see what he was looking at. There was nothing out there except the snow-covered clearing, then the white of the trees in the woods, and then the black sky. The glow from the kitchen showed the woodshed and the privy and the car. It was a gray Packard sedan, expensive-looking, its chromium very bright where the grille showed under the snow-topped hood. Nice car, he thought, but it ain't worth a damn. It ain't armor-plated.

Clifton lowered the shade and moved away from the table. "You sure you ain't hungry?" he asked. "I can fix you something--"

"No," Eddie said. His stomach felt empty but he knew he couldn't eat anything. "I'm sorta done in," he said. "I wanna get some sleep."

Clifton picked up the sawed-off shotgun and put it under his arm, and they went out of the kitchen. In the parlor there was another kerosene lamp and it was lit, the flickering glimmer revealing a scraggly carpet, a very old sofa with some of the stuffing popped out, and two armchairs that were even older than the sofa and looked as though they'd give way if they were sat on.

There was also the piano.

Same piano, he thought, looking at the splintered upright that appeared somewhat ghostly in the dim yellow glow. The time-worn keyboard was like a set of decayed, crooked teeth, the ivory chipped off in places. He stood there looking at it, unaware that Clifton was watching him. He moved toward the keyboard and reached out to touch it. Then something pulled his hand away. His hand went under his overcoat and into the pocket of his jacket and he felt the full weight of the gun.

So what? he asked himself, coming back to now, to the sum of it. They take the piano away and they give you a gun. You wanted to make music, and the way it looks from here on in you're finished with that, finished entirely. From here on in it's this--the gun.

He took the .38 from his pocket. It came out easily, smoothly, and he hefted it efficiently.

He heard Clifton saying, "That was nice. You're catching on."

"Maybe it likes me."

"Sure it likes you," Clifton said. "It's your best friend from now on'

The gun felt secure in his hand. He fondled it. Then he put it back into his pocket and followed Clifton toward the rickety stairway. The loose boards creaked as they went up, Clifton holding the kerosene lamp. At the top of the stairs, Clifton turned and handed him the lamp and said, "Wanna wake up Turley? Let him know you're here?"

"No," Eddie said. "Let him sleep. He needs sleep."

"All right." Clifton gestured down the hall. "Use the back room. The bed's made up."

"Same bed?" Eddie murmured. "The one with the busted springs?"

Clifton gazed past him. "He remembers."

"I oughtta remember. I was born in that room."

Clifton nodded slowly. "You had that room for twelvethirteen years."

"Fourteen," Eddie said. "I was four-teen when they took me off to Curtis."

"What Curtis?"

"The Institute," Eddie said. "The Curtis Institute of Music."

Clifton looked at him and started to say something and held it back.

He grinned at Clifton. He said, "Remember the slingshots?"

"Slingshots?"

"And the limousine. They came for me in a limousine, them people from Curtis. Then in the woods it was you and Turley, with slingshots, shooting at the car. The people didn't know who you were. One of the women, she says to me, 'Who are they?' and I say, 'The boys, ma'am? The two boys?' She says 'They ain't boys, they're wild animals."

"And what did you say?"

"I said, 'They're my brothers, ma'am.' So then of course she tries to smooth it over, starts talking about the Institute and what a wonderful place it is. But the stones kept hitting the car, and it was like you were telling me something. That I couldn't really get away. That it was just a matter of time. That some day I'd come back to Stay."

"With the wild animals," Clifton said, smiling thinly at him.

"You knew all along?"

Clifton nodded very slowly. "You hadda come back. You're one of the same, Eddie. The same as me and Turley. It's in the blood."

That says it, Eddie thought. That nails it down for sure. Any questions? Well yes, there's one. The wildness, I mean. Where'd we get it from? We didn't get it from Mom and Pop. I guess. it skipped past them. It happens that way sometimes. Skips maybe a hundred years or a couple hundred or maybe three and then it shows again. If you look way back you'll find some Lynns or Websters raising hell and running wild and hiding out the way we're hiding now. If we wanted to, we could make it a ballad. For laughs, that is. Only for laughs.

He was laughing softly as he moved past Clifton and went on down the hail to the back room. Then he was undressed and standing at the window and looking out. The snow had stopped falling. He opened the window and the wind came in, not blasting now. It was more like a slow stream. But it was still very cold. Nice when it's cold, he thought. It's good for sleeping.

He climbed into the sagging bed, slid between a tom sheet and a scraggly quilt, and put the gun under the pillow. Then he closed his eyes and started to fall asleep, but something tugged at his brain and it was happening again, he was thinking about the waitress.

Go away, he said to her. Let me sleep.

Then it was like a tunnel and she was going away in the darkness and he went after her. The tunnel was endless and he kept telling her to go away, then hearing the departing footsteps and running after her and telling her to go away. Without sound she said to him, Make up your mind, and he said, How can I? This ain't like thinking with the mind. The mind has nothing to do with it.

Please go to sleep, he told himself. But he knew it was no use trying. He opened his eyes and sat up. It was very cold in the room but he didn't feel it. The hours flowed past and he had no awareness of time, not even when the window showed gray and lighter gray and finally the lit-up gray of daylight.

At a few minutes past nine, his brothers came in and saw him sitting there and staring at the window. He talked with them for a while and wasn't sure what the conversation was about. Their voices seemed blurred and through his half closed eyes he saw them through a curtain. Turley offered him a drink from a pint bottle and he took it and had no idea what it was. Turley said, "You wanna get up?" and he started to climb out of the bed and Clifton said, "It's early yet. Let's all go back to sleep," with Turley agreeing, saying it would be nice to sleep all day. They went out of the room and he sat there on the edge of the bed, looking at the window. He was so tired he wondered how he was able to keep his eyes open. Then later his head was on the pillow and he was trying hard to fall asleep but his eyes remained open and his thoughts kept reaching out, seeking the waitress.

Around eleven, he finally fell asleep. An hour later he opened his eyes and looked at the window. The full glare of noon sunlight, snow-reflected, came in and caused him to blink. He got out of bed and went to the window and stood there looking out. It was very sunny out there, the snow glittering white-yellow and across the clearing the trees, laced with ice, were sparkling like jeweled ornaments. Very pretty, he thought. It's very pretty in the woods in the wintertime.

There was something moving out there, something walking in the woods, coming toward the clearing. It came slowly, hesitantly, with a certain furtiveness. As it edged past the trees, approaching closer to the clearing, a shaft of sunlight found it, lit it up and identified it. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked again, and it was there. Not a vision, he thought. Not wishful thinking, either. That's real. You see it and you know it's real.

Get out there, he said to himself. Get out there fast and tell her to go away. You gotta keep her away from this house. Because it ain't a house, it's just a den for hunted animals. She stumbles in, she'll never get out. They wouldn't let her. They'd clamp her down and hold her here for security reasons. Maybe they've spotted her already, and you better take the gun. They're your own dear brothers but what we have here is a difference of opinion and you damn well better take the gun.