The Feud (24 page)

Ray had filled him in the night before on the monkey-shines of Junior and the confiscation, in Hornbeck, of the starter’s pistol. So he was permanently unarmed now, and his only clothing was an eyesore. He took his battered black hat off the wall-peg and put it on his head, and he went up to the police office.

He sat down in the chair back of the desk. This was some compensation for the punishment he had taken, but unfortunately the desktop was clean except for a double pen set in a chamfered block of stained and oiled walnut. Burned into the wood, between the two rat-tailed pens mounted aslant, was a legend:
Young People’s Club, Abyssinian Baptist Church
.

He would have liked to examine some official police documents, but he was too scrupulous a man to open any desk drawers or those in the filing cabinet nearby. But on the wall above the latter was a bulletin board, with papers of various kinds thumbtacked to it. He had just gone there and was reading a note that said, in block printing,
CLEEN
THAT
TOILET
! when the door opened behind him.

Rev whirled around, forgetting he was in the police station and expecting to be jumped, but it was just some old man who shuffled on runover shoes. He didn’t look as if he had sufficient strength or energy to be a dangerous criminal, but Rev thought it wise to speak sternly.

“You got bidniss here?”

The man nodded. “Custodian,” said he. “You a new one?”

“Don’t you worry about what I am,” Reverton said. The man began to shuffle toward him. Rev put out a hand. “Where you think you’re going?”

The old man shrugged. He was wearing overalls, a shirt with a frayed collar, and a scrawny four-in-hand necktie. He said, “He genly leaves a word for me.” Having taken an eternity to raise his arm, he indicated the billboard.

“Uh-huh.” Rev was pleased to figure that out speedily. “Here ya go,” said he, and he went to the note, put a finger on it, and moved his head back far enough so that it came into focus. “Ssays to clean the toilet out real good.”

The janitor turned and shuffled away.

Rev remembered he had not eaten since the evening before, and then his supper had been only peanut butter and jelly, after which he had been beaten to a pulp by those trash. He still had not given up on Junior, and believed he could give guidance to the boy if permitted. He had got this far in life himself only with the aid of a few principles formulated in young manhood, the first of which was,
Don’t let anybody get away with anything without calling him on it
. Others were:
Always respect the weaker sex and people older than yourself. Be neatly dressed at all times. Never tell anyone else, including relatives, much about your private affairs. Avoid being foulmouthed unless provoked beyond your capacity for forbearance. Worship the Lord, but never trust a preacher any farther than you can throw him
.

He had at least a cup of coffee coming! He went down the corridor, passing the washroom, where the old janitor, back to the hall, was feebly sprinkling scouring powder on a wet cloth. Rev looked into the cell. He wanted to ask Ray how he could get a cup of coffee, but the part-time cop was already in deep sleep, his mouth open, and breathing heavily. His police cap and gunbelt hung from the peg on the wall.

Then the phone rang up in the office, and Rev hastened back to answer it. The caller’s voice was so excited that the words could not be distinguished. Rev wondered whether this was another hoax.

“This here’ss the police ‘tation,” said he. “I don’t know what you want, but you better ssay it quick.”

The caller panted for an instant, and then said, in a breaking voice, “Bank’s being held up!”

Reverton was strangely calmed by this information. He said, “All right. I’m coming. Just don’t you worry.”

He hung up the phone and went down the corridor again and into the cell, where he took Ray’s cap from the peg and exchanged it, on his head, for the black fedora, and then he lifted off the gunbelt, which was a lot heavier than he expected, what with the weapon, the loops full of cartridges, the handcuffs, and the clip that held a clump of keys, and he put it around his waist, underneath the suit coat but over the tails of his vest, and fastened the buckle, which he slid up as far as it would go. It was still loose, for Ray had quite a gut on him, whereas Rev was a slender man. Also, the cap was too large to be worn in the proper position and would slip to cover his eyes unless he kept it pushed way back. He knew that might make him look stupid to some, but he was carrying a real gun now.

As he was passing the washroom the janitor, who was wiping the mirror, saw him in the glass and said, “You got to go, I’ll step out for a minute.”

Rev held on to the belt, so that it wouldn’t slide down too far, and kept moving. The police car was pulled up into the slot just outside the door, and the key was in the ignition. He hadn’t driven in a while: it took him longer than it should have to find reverse and back out. He stalled the engine once and had to start up again, but at least he didn’t flood it. Once he reached the street, he gave it the gas.

Unfortunately he did not know how to activate the siren and he had no time now to look for the button or switch, and at the end of the block was a light that turned red before he got there, and the traffic came across to block his path. Blowing the horn and waving the police cap out the window, however, he forced his way between a Mack truck and a faded-maroon Chevy, turned, nearly collided with a Ford coupe coming from the west, then floored it for the final run to the bank.

Everything looked normal from in front of the building. He wondered whether someone could still be trying to make a fool of him: the smart aleck who had tried to hoax him the night before had perhaps come up with a more ingenious scheme to trick him into drawing the gun and rushing into a bank in which nothing was going on but the ordinary business of the morning.

He therefore left the car at a dignified pace, holding the belt with his right hand while with his left he made sure that the police cap was secure on the back of his head. He had reached the base of the three concrete steps just as a respectable-looking gent, carrying a shopping bag, emerged from the bank.

Well, there you had it: you would hardly see a businessman calmly coming out if some crook was inside.

But just to be on the safe side, Rev was about to ask if everything was on the up-and-up in there when the gentleman reached under the salt-and-pepper suit coat, brought out a snub-nosed revolver, and fired it twice. The police cap flew off, and Rev fell onto the cold concrete steps. He stayed there for a while, and knew that blood was leaving him.

But, by God, he had taken enough punishment from these scum! He struggled to his knees, on the lowest step, and tried to get the pistol out of its holster, but the strap was fastened, and pulling it loose was not easy, and his vest was soaked with blood, but he got the weapon free and he raised it, turning toward the street. The bank robber was walking down the sidewalk as big as you please, as if he owned the whole town. Holding the pistol in both hands, Rev pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. He lowered it and looked for the safety, but his close-up vision, none too good at best, was swimming now. He probed and poked and finally pulled the hammer back till it caught, and lifted the barrel and began to fire.

The first slug broke the glass of a streetlamp high above the departing criminal, and the man turned, his own weapon quickly in hand, but he missed Reverton, his bullet striking the step alongside and whining off in ricochet.

The heavy gun was wavering in Reverton’s failing grip; his second shot was so low and wide of the target that it struck the middle of the street, and the third shattered the rear window of a parked car in the next block. The robber’s second slug hit Reverton in the left arm. Rev dropped one hand from the gun. He was getting hurt badly, no mistake, and it wasn’t right. But you could count on the trash of the world to kick you when you were down. He raised the pistol with all his remaining strength, and his fourth shot caught the son of a bitch right in the face, just below the right eye, which disappeared. He had no more strength. He dropped the gun and heard it clatter down to the sidewalk, and that was the last he knew.

Bernice’s three minutes ran out, and she didn’t have any more change, and therefore was cut off before she could repeat that she and Ernie were over the state line at a place called Varnerville, where you could get a marriage license and have the ceremony performed within a very short time.

“I guess she was pretty excited when she heard?” Ernie said when Bernice came out of the phone booth to join him at the lunchroom counter where he sat drinking coffee.

She shook her head. “She never did pay me much mind. I mean, I done quite a few things in life. You might think she’d be interested, but not her.”

Ernie drained his cup, holding it up for a while, probably to get the undissolved sugar in the bottom. “Trouble with my mom is, she’s always been
too
interested in what I done. I don’t know as I have the nerve to tell her about us yet. I just wish there was some of that bottle left.” He looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s still too early to buy any more.”

They both could feel the effects of what they had drunk the night before, when they had drained the bottle of Rock & Rye in the course of marathon back-seat lovemaking which was no less strenuous for the frustrations of the earlier evening. Ernie had driven out in the country and parked in a cow pasture. They finally went to sleep, intermingled, and stayed in that condition until being awakened by the mooing of cattle. Ernie had backed out onto the unpaved road and driven to the highway and across the state line.

“My gosh,” Bernice had said, “we’re getting pretty far from home, Ern.”

“You only live oncet,” said he.

She regretted not having made his acquaintance earlier. He was a guy who liked his fun without turning nasty. That was rare in her experience.

She started to ask again why they had passed each other up until now, but remembered suddenly that she was older than he. He had been two years behind her in school. She hoped he wasn’t going to remember the same thing and brood about it, begin to think of her as an old grandma or something. Heck, why should it matter? But the fact was she was worried it might.

“There’s supposed to be a place over here where they have the best foot-long hotdogs you ever tasted,” Ernie said.

“For
breakfast?”
Bernice screeched. “Boy, Ernie!” But she really was impressed by his originality.

“Why sure,” said he. “Anen some coconut-cream pie for dessert! I wanna celebrate.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He grinned while keeping his eyes on the road. “I don’t want to say anything out of line, Bernice, but you are quite a woman.”

She slid over to him and snuggled against his side. “Well, I ain’t got any complaints, either.”

He chuckled. “Is that right?”

“I wouldn’t wantcha to have any doubts.”

“Bernice, uh … I’m gonna tell you something. I was pretty drunk last night.” He took a quick peek at her. “No, I mean it. I wouldn’t of had nerve to astcha out if I wasn’t.”

“Why, you were a perfect gentleman, if that’s what’s worrying you,” said Bernice.

Ernie turned sober. “Listen, what I wanna tellya is: I never done it with a nice girl before.”

Bernice wiggled happily against his side and said nothing.

He continued. “You probly think I’m kidding, but it’s the God’s honest truth. All’s I ever had, to be truthful, I paid for. You might not know it, but there’s a house up outside of Hamburg.”

“I wouldn’t know.” She sensed that Ernie would prefer her to be ignorant in such matters.

“I guess some would criticize a person for that, but what I say is it’s the greatest protection for womanhood, from one point of view, on account of it cuts down on rapes…. Listen, Bernice, I’m sure trying to figure out a way to tell you what I want to without hurting your feelings by talking dirty, but it ain’t easy.”

She made a false sigh. “Well, I couldn’t get outa hearing an awful lot of things down the city that shouldn’t be said in front of a lady. That’s life, I guess. Go ahead, Ernie. You’re a nice fellow. I doubt I’ll be mad at you.”

Ernie swallowed. “All right, then, don’t blame me!” He made a fake flinch and looked admiringly at her. “Bernice, I wantcha to know you’re a lot better than any whore I ever screwed.”

She scowled briefly, but she knew he meant well and in fact she was really flattered, so with just a bit of reluctance, because she didn’t want him to think she was some floozy in front of whom anything could be said, she told him, “Well, Ernie, I’ll take that as a compliment.” She slipped her fingers around his biceps and squeezed it affectionately. “I just hope you don’t think I make a practice of letting people take liberties in the back seata cars. We might not of gone out together before, but we have known each other all our lives, and I always considered you a close friend.”

“You did? By gosh, I wish I had known that. You know, Bernice, I might as well tell you, well, the fact is … I sometimes can’t even do it. I have a few drinks and I get the idea, and I go up there to that place in Hamburg and get as far as right in bed, if you’ll pardon the expression, with one of them girls there—and I can’t get any further if you know what I mean.”

Bernice squeezed him harder. “Lemma tellya something, Ernie. I don’t know this by experience, you understand, but I am like a sister to certain guys sometimes, maybe because I really do have a couple brothers I am real close to. But fellows feel they can talk to me and I won’t criticize ‘em. Well, listen here, a lot of them have the same complaint as you, and some are real big strapping guys, real man’s-man types, see. But gee, you must not have that trouble much, Ern.” She snickered. “A billy goat like you?”

Ernie laughed in delight. “That’s all your doing, Bernice! By George, I never felt so good in my whole life as now.” All at once he braked in the middle of the road, but it was still an empty highway, out in the sticks and early in the morning, with no other vehicles in sight.