The Feud (22 page)

“My
brother got thrown out of that theater once,” said Eva. “He brought along one of those things they call Bronx cheers, you know? You blow in them and the rubber thing makes an awful noise? Every time the boy would say something to the girl in a love scene, Junior would blow that thing.”

Tony actually thought that was pretty funny, though he remembered seeing Junior at the hospital coffee shop and hadn’t like his ratty looks much at that time. But he was glad to hear that his future brother-in-law had a sense of humor. He felt somewhat sensitive about Junior’s having been arrested in Hornbeck, but then he himself, if spotted by that cop he had punched, was surely in danger of going to jail here in Millville.

He asked Eva, “Are you still hungry?”

Her voice had a note of aggrievement. “Well, since I haven’t eaten anything, I don’t know why I wouldn’t be.”

He asked stoically, “Where is this chili place?”

“Come on.”

He hunched up in his jacket and tried to assume a different stride, so as not to be immediately recognizable, but he knew that his glasses would be a dead giveaway if any of his Millville enemies appeared.

But they reached Curly’s without incident. The luncheonette was dark.

“Darn,” said Eva, stamping her saddle oxford on the concrete. “My life is ruined.”

Tony tried not to show how relieved he was. “That’s too bad, but if we get out to the pike, it won’t be too long before we catch a ride and then we can stop at one of them all-night—”

Eva socked him painlessly in the chest at this point, snickered, and ran up the side alleyway next to the luncheonette. There was a streetlamp at the intersection with the north-south alley, but darkness came again not far beyond. Tony was at once sexually excited by the chase, which apparently was to be a standard feature of his association with Eva, and unpleasantly anxious in being further frustrated in his attempt to get out of town. He was determined this time not to let her give him the slip even momentarily, and not far beyond the perimeter of the ring of light he seized her from behind. She immediately stopped and pressed back firmly against him, and when he began to move again, they walked as one, with his hands around her waist and her bottom against his thighs.

Just across the street from the top of the alley was the park where they had first met. Tony was now in such a state as to forsake all plans to go to Canada or anywhere else: he had lost his will altogether and was not his own man. His hands were clasped just below her weighty breasts, not touching them except in accidental grazings. His face was against her hair. Her aroma now seemed to be that of teaberry gum. They were marching in a synchronized way that would probably have looked clownish to an observer: Tony was strangely objective in this thought. There probably were cars that passed, but he didn’t notice them at all as particulars.

In the park they reached a low retaining wall on the far slope beneath the concrete slab where the dances were held. The light was dim there; the trees screened that of the moon, and there were no lamps. They stopped simultaneously, without a thought on his part, and sat down side by side on the wall. Tony hadn’t done much kissing aside from the party game Spin the Bottle, in which he was always worried about his glasses being in the way and what to do with his nose. At the conclusion of both his dates with Mary Catherine Lutz she had nervously stuck out her mitt, and he had shaken it gratefully.

While being occupied mentally with the matter of kissing he had put his hand up under Eva’s skirt without thinking about it at all. In fact, he only finally took note of the action because of how agreeably she moved her knees apart.

When Curly and the colored dishwasher had seen Junior leave the luncheonette, they came back down the alley and returned to their duties, though the dishwasher, whose name was Homer Waters, was not too thrilled.

He said, “What if he be back?”

Curly thrust his chin forward and moved it slowly from side to side. “He won’t. That’s the Bullard kid. He had a few drinks, I bet, and he’s feeling his oats, but he’s all mouth, take it from me. I seen lots of that kind. I should of kicked his little ass, but I don’t like to mess around when somebody’s carrying a gun. Thing is, his dad’s laid up, in the hospital. Poor devil lost his store inna fire the other night. I don’t want to cause him any more trouble.”

Homer said, “I don’t foke with no guns
or
knaves. I hate that kine shat. I don’t like to get hoit, and I don’t wanna hoit nobody else.” He wasn’t any too crazy about working himself to death, either, but Curly knew you had to settle for either somebody who was regular and lazy or one who would work hard till payday and then get drunk and never show up for three days. Homer was professedly a teetotaler, and Curly had never seen any reason to doubt him.

They went in through the kitchen door. The same dishes had been stacked between the sinks all day, so far as Curly could see. He put a finger in the soapy water in the right-hand sink. It was cold as could be.

“I wish you’d get these cleared up,” he told Homer. “It’s closing time.” He went through the swinging door to the counter. The old man was gone and had neglected to leave any money, but Curly knew who he was and would get it out of him next time.

The fellow who had eaten the fish sandwich was sitting behind an empty coffee cup. He winked.

Curly said, “How about that? He’s a kid from town.” He told about Bud Bullard’s bad luck.

The man shrugged and got up from his stool. He pulled a half-dollar from his pants pocket.

When Curly went to make change, he saw that the cash register was empty of folding money. “By God,” he said forcefully. “Was
he
at this drawer?”

“Yeah.” The man wore a salt-and-pepper suit and a gray tie and felt hat, and he had a five-o’clock shadow.

Junior hadn’t touched the change. Curly found a nickel and a dime and gave them to the customer. He said, “I’m gonna have to think about this now. I was gonna let the other thing ride. Just walking around with a pistol, and nobody hurt. But he robbed me?”

“That was a starter’s pistol,” said the man. “Just shoots blanks.”

Curly disregarded this information. He said, “I had only a few bucks, in ones. Rest of it’s inna sack for the night deposit.”

“Bank here in town?” asked the man.

“Yeah,” Curly said. He was breathing harder than he had after his run. He was aware that people thought his shortness of breath was due to having been gassed in the war, but it was not. He didn’t know what it was, and neither did the doctor, but he had never been near any gas. “That little son of a bee! I’ll fix his wagon now, sick dad or not. You can’t let somepin like this here go on.”

“You got him dead to rights,” said the man. “What time’s bank open inna morning?”

“Eight A.
M
.,” said Curly. “Little bastard think he can sashay in here and rob me blind…” He chewed his tongue.

“I’m here in connection with a bidniss oppitunity,” said the customer, “and am looking for a good bank.”

“Well, thizere one is real good,” said Curly. “The vice-president eats here on occasion. You wanna go there, you say I sentcha. I’m Curly McCoy. Whole town knows me.” He put his hand across the counter, and it was shaken.

“Smith,” said the man. “Bill Smith.”

“Please to meetcha.”

“Sure.”

“What line uh bidniss joo say you was in?”

Smith narrowed his eyes and said, flatly, “Bowling balls.”

“Zat right? We got a poolhall up the street, but the nearest bowling alley is, oh, on out past—”

“You got a good police force here?” Smith asked. “Keep the crooks out?”

“Why sure,” said Curly. He had his own criticisms of Millville, but would not mention them to a stranger. “Chief’s a personal friend of mine, a fellow name of Clive Shell. He don’t let the riffraff go too far, and he keeps the coloreds over where they belong. He’s pretty tough on kids who get outa line, which is why I wasn’t gonna say anything at first—”

“Just one guy onna force?” asked Smith. “What happens onniz day off? All hell break loose?” He had a lantern jaw when he grinned.

“Cousin’s a part-time patrolman,” Curly said. “We got a nice little, quiet little town here. But we could use something up and coming.”

“I sure like what I seen of it,” said Smith, grabbing a toothpick from the shotglassful next to the cash register—just one, not a whole handful like some of the local customers helped themselves to.

Curly said, “That wouldn’t be a whole plant that made bowling balls, would it?”

Smith put his head at a knowing angle and squinted. “Why, sure. You got some people who ain’t afraid of work?”

“We could ahweez use a new bidniss,” said Curly. “I wouldn’t doubt what they’d givya a break onna taxes.”

“Izzat right?” Smith’s toothpick was at a jaunty angle in the corner of his mouth. “Been a real pleasure,” said he, and went out the door.

Curly called the police from the phone booth at the rear of the luncheonette. While the bell was ringing at the other end, he probed at the top of the money-return slot to see if anybody had stuffed paper up there to trap refunded coins. He found some on occasion, but had never detected anybody in the act of putting the paper there. It was hard to manage some things in a one-man operation (not counting the dishwasher). Over the course of the year he would also lose a considerable number of spoons and forks, though not many knives; lots of salt shakers but hardly any peppers; and always some sugar containers and napkin holders: there were those who regarded it as classy to have such things on the home dining table. But this pilferage was probably no worse than anywhere else in the world, and he did not regard it as necessary to give Millville a black mark for it so far as Smith went.

The telephone rang so long without being answered that Curly figured Ray Dooley must be out of the station. Daytimes, if Clive wasn’t there, the city clerk, in the office next door, could answer the police phone on an extension, and if it was an emergency, come over and call the cruiser on the station radio. But only Ray was on duty at night. If it was a real crisis, and the station was empty, you could go out on the street and look for the cruiser, or wake up Clive at home, or the fire chief, if he was more appropriate.

Curly was about to hang up when a not-quite-familiar voice came on the wire.

“I’m trying to call the police,” Curly said.

“This here’s the police station.”

Curly asked, “You a new cop?”

The voice took on an unpleasant note. “You get fresh, you’ll find out who I am quicker’n you want.”

Curly had always been on first-rate terms with Clive Shell. Though the latter was not famous for his geniality, he had never shown anything else to Curly, who didn’t charge him a cent for the considerable amounts of grub he put away at the luncheonette, and, furthermore, his presence tended to drive business away from Curly’s to Tom’s Restaurant, at the end of the block, though true enough, Curly made up for it when Clive went to Tom’s, for not even normally law-abiding folks wanted to eat near a cop.

“Wellsir,” Curly said, “you don’t have to get on your high horse. This is—” He was speaking in a joking tone, assuming that when he had identified himself, the other fellow would have a laugh and return the favor, for everybody in town knew Curly and vice versa. But he was interrupted by a scream of hatred.

“You goddam dirty yella dogs! I’ll git you and all your tribe! You’ll eat dirt afore I’m through with you, and
you’ll like it.”

Curly hung up. It was obvious that he had gotten a wrong number. Or else one of the cops had arrested a maniac, who had broken out of the cell and answered the phone. He might have tried again, or even walked on up to the station, because he really believed only the first of the alternatives, but the resistance to his original plan to report Junior’s crimes was sufficient to give him second thoughts. Even to tell Ray Dooley might embarrass the Bullards and add to their troubles. Junior would be around town, and when Curly saw him next time, he’d get those five bucks back or make Millville a living hell for that little piss-willy.

Sitting with Eva on the concrete wall in the Millville park, Tony, without prior intent, proceeded to feel her up in a way that turned out to be systematic. He ran his hand up her smooth, sturdy thigh, down into the valley where it joined its partner, deep down to where there was a double layer of fabric in the vee of her underpants, where it was a lot warmer, and then up to the coolness of her belly. She did not resist this exploration. In fact, she facilitated it by moving her limbs, but she did nothing else. She was his to do with as he pleased, it seemed, would provide her body but nothing further. She was so quiet that he could not even hear her breathing. He was certain that he could go right up to the waistband of her pants with both hands, and she would lift her bottom so that he could pull them right off. This power, hitherto unknown, was not simple to accept. How could you just go ahead and exercise it without being prepared for the consequent responsibility? In short,
what was he supposed to do then?

He came out of her skirt and went up under her sweater. There was the top of a slip there and, beneath that, a brassiere: a device the back-strap and fastening clips of which he had usually felt when waltzing with partners at the high-school dance classes, though on occasion he had drawn little freshman girls with the bird-chests of children. Yet here was Eva, only fourteen, with these jugs that were so large as to seem insensitive. He pursued them now through the obstacles. This time there was not much that could be done by her to ease his way—not unless she took a hand, which of course was unlikely, since she was not a whore.

So he labored under her sweater, and eventually came to the point at which to go farther he might have torn some item of her clothing, unless he actually removed the cardigan and then the sweater underneath that, and then went on to work on the straps up at the shoulders. But aside from the matter of decency—they were in a public park, where anyone might come by at any time—the night was too cool to expose to the air the entire upper body of a young girl. She might end up with pneumonia, and how could he ever explain that?