The Neon Jungle (18 page)

All in all, this was not one of the better weeks. He had the feeling that he had become too fanciful in his handling of the Lockter situation. Perhaps Lockter’s talent for melodrama was contagious. Ritchie, whose instincts were usually sound, had listened to the solution and dared to sneer at it. “O.K., Judge, so you’re cute. So you maybe got him sewed up right. Me, I would have told him to get in the truck and bring the butcher with him, and someplace along the line I would have a good trustworthy boy in one of Herman’s old semi jobs give them the head-on treatment. Like in Fall River last year. Suppose he just turns that butcher into hospital meat?”

“You worry too much, Ritchie.”

“You’re getting too cute, Judge.”

Jana, down on one thick knee putting canned soup on the low rack, grease-penciling the price on the top of each can, glanced guiltily over toward Bonny and saw that some instinct had informed her that Bonny was staring at her. She saw the look in Bonny’s eyes and turned hastily back to the task at hand. Bonny knew, somehow. Bonny knew that in spite of her promise, it had happened again. God, she couldn’t help it. He was like a knife in her heart. Keen, cold, cruel.

I won’t be able to stand it if he goes away. Even if it is a bad thing. Even if it is terrible, the way he does it, like hating, I don’t want him to go away.

What had happened to everything?

What is happening to the world?

The driveway that led to the back of the store was on the far side of the big house. Paul parked by the driveway and walked to where he could see the back of the market.

The truck was not there. Lockter would be back soon, probably. He went back to his car and sat behind the wheel to wait. He knew he should be thinking of how he would handle this talk with Lockter, and yet he could not turn his thoughts away from Bonny. She had been so very alive in his arms. And no one could have so perfectly imitated that tremulousness, that nervous laugh. He knew the kiss had moved her. Yet he had the bitter awareness that the next time it would be the same—he would be waiting for some sign of deceit, of pretended passion.

During the wakeful hours of the night he had decided that he wanted to marry her. And he had prayed for the strength to overcome the jealousy that was like rusty iron being pulled through his body. Yet he knew that their salvation in any marriage would be possible only if their physical mating was a strong, good, tender thing. Without that, neither of them would have the strength to stand up under the weight of her past. And so he had decided it necessary for them to be together soon, to find this answer, to go on if the answer could be good, and turn their backs on each other if the answer was wrong.

When the panel delivery truck turned into the drive he got out quickly and waved Venn Lockter to a stop.

“Hi there, Mr. Darmond! What’s on your mind?”

“I want to talk to you, Vern.”

“O.K. I’ll park this wagon and be right back.”

Vern came walking down the drive and got in beside Paul and accepted a cigarette.

“Vern, I know you’re your own boy now. You’re not on parole. You don’t even have to listen to any advice I want to give you. You can get out and walk away and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Darmond.”

Paul sat so that he faced Vern. “What are you trying to do to Jana, Vern?”

Vern had been lifting his hand to take the cigarette from his lips. The hand stopped and was motionless for one long second. The lean handsome face became like a mask. “Just what is that supposed to mean? I don’t get it.”

“Don’t try to kid me, Vern. Gus took you in. He’s treated you right. It’s a hell of a repayment for you to sleep with his wife.”

Vern looked straight ahead for a long time. Then he looked at his cigarette. He said softly, “I guess maybe you’re right, Mr. Darmond. I guess maybe it is a hell of a thing. What beats me is how you found out so fast.”

“We won’t talk about how I found out, boy.”

“Honest, I tried to do the right thing, Mr. Darmond. But she sort of wore me down.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s been going on for a long time. I don’t mean I’ve been sleeping with her a long time. I mean she’s been after me. When I work in the store she manages to work close to me. You know. Oh, I could tell what she wanted, all right, but I didn’t want to do anything like that to Gus. I mean he’s been swell to me. But you know how it is. He’s pretty old, and Jana is full of Wheaties. I… sort of forgot myself finally. You know, if I stay around here, Mr. Darmond, I can’t promise I’ll stay away from her. I guess I’m… well, weak or something. Anyway, I’m not the only one getting it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Would you be willing to leave, Vern?”

“The way I figure it, I’ve been here long enough. I ought to start thinking of bettering myself. Being more than a delivery boy. And I’m afraid there might be real trouble if Jana and I got caught. Sure, Mr. Darmond, I’m willing to leave.”

“Do you want help locating another job?”

“No. I think I’ll go somewhere else. Out west, maybe.”

“When?”

Vern flicked the cigarette out the window. “I guess I could take off Sunday.

“Will that give Gus a chance to find another driver?”

“That new kid will work out O.K. Deliveries will be fouled up for a few days, but he’ll catch on fast.”

“Don’t you think you ought to tell Gus you’re planning to leave?”

“I’d rather not. Jana might make a stink about it. You know. Let something slip, or want to come with me or something.”

“I think you’re making good sense, Vern.”

“Thanks, Mr. Darmond. I’m glad you talked to me like this. I can see now how I was headed for trouble. But you know how it is with a babe. You sort of forget yourself. It’s time I took off.”

“I think so too.”

“Well, thanks for everything, Mr. Darmond. You’ve been swell to me. Really swell. I’ll never forget you.”

Paul returned the strong honest handclasp and looked into the too direct eyes. He sat and watched Lockter walk back up the drive, turn and wave and grin just before he went around the corner of the house. He sat for several minutes, vaguely unsatisfied with the talk. It had come out better than he had dared hope. It was like swinging hard at something and missing. He shrugged off his feeling of irritation and foreboding.

Bonny was standing in the shed passageway by the pile of crates of empty soft-drink bottles. Walter gave her an odd glance and as he started to go by her she said, “I want to talk to you.”

“I got things to do.”

“I want to talk to you right now, Walter.”

“That sounds like you were trying to give orders around here. Let me tell you that when I’m ready for you to give me—”

“Don’t bluster at me. I know you’re taking money. And you know I know it. Stealing from your own father.”

His eyes slid uneasily away from hers. “You crazy or something?” he asked sullenly.

“You can’t bluff your way out of this, Walter.”

“O.K. It’s my money just as much as it is his. I’ll take it if I feel like it.”

“You aren’t taking it. You’re sneaking it out of the drawer. Altering receipts to make the cash-up balance. And I know why you’re taking it.”

He gave her a look of utter shock and surprise. “What!”

“You’re taking it and hiding it away and when you have enough you’re going to run like a miserable rabbit. All the states co-operate in returning husbands on the run. You’ll be brought back. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’ll never come back here.”

“How brave! How dramatic!”

“I can’t take this much longer. I tell you I’ve taken it just as long as I can.”

“If I were married to a mouse like you, Walter, I’d stick just as many pins in you as Doris does.”

He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’d want to be married to a man. I’d want my man to be boss. I’d keep prodding at him to see just how much he’d take before turning on me and putting me in my place.”

“Doris isn’t like that.”

“How do you know? Of course, you can’t find out until after the baby comes. You can’t start… disciplining her until after that.”

“My God, you mean hit her? If I ever hit Doris she’d kill me.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Aren’t you bigger than she is?”

She watched him, watched the thought-masked face, the slow and curious straightening of the shoulders. She said quickly, “If I were a man I’d certainly at least try that before running like—”

“Like a rabbit,” he said.

“Don’t take any more money, Walter. I don’t want it to be blamed on me. And if it were, I don’t think you’re man enough to clear me.”

“I might take some more and I might not.”

“Doris is sweet. You’ve turned her into a shrew by being so gutless.”

“She was born a shrew.”

“Was she? Then why did you marry her? Wasn’t she different before she married you?”

“She fooled me.”

“Or you fooled her, Walter. Lots of women who think they’re marrying men are disappointed. Then they keep needling those men in the silly hope that somehow they’ll begin to show some spirit.”

“I got to think about this. I don’t know. I think maybe you’re wrong, Bonny. But honest, I never thought of anybody blaming you.”

It was the psychological moment, so she turned and walked away from him, walked out into the store leaving him standing there with an expression in which trouble and vague hope were mixed. Her heart gave a high, hard, startling bound as she saw Paul standing tall near the cash register, chatting with Jimmy. He saw her and smiled toward her. She walked to him with a strange shy feeling.

“Lunch at the same place?” he asked.

She nodded.

THE EARLY-AFTERNOON SUN touched the gray stones. Bonny leaned against one and it dug into her back, but she did not mind. Paul’s head was in her lap, the curve of the nape of his neck fitting perfectly her convex thigh. His eyes were shut and he was in the shadow of her. She traced her finger lightly along the upper lid of his eye and he shifted a bit and made a contented sound.

“Of all places, my darling,” she said.

“Mmmm-hmmm.”

“In fact, the worst possible place. Because of the other day. Didn’t you know that?”

“You talk too much. Sure. Worst possible place. That’s why I picked it.”

He opened one eye and squinted up at her. “Mmm. Lovely colors. Blue sky, copper hair, gray eyes. Fine.”

“As I said once before, my man, you make me feel so damn girlish.”

“Technique. Make ’em all feel girlish. Lean over a bit farther. Like to see your hair swing out like that.”

She bent down and with a movement of her head drew the sheaf of hair across his mouth and upper lip.

He caught her hand and kissed each finger in turn. “Want to hear a confession?”

“Make it exciting, and I’ll listen.”

“Sure. Very exciting. Darmond is a cold guy. Picked the time and the place. Coldly. A lab experiment. Says to himself: If it works, I marry the girl.”

She felt very still. “Paul… I mean that’s very nice. I’m flattered and so on. But… smart buyers don’t want merchandise off the counter. They like it in the original wrappings. Hell, I mean this can go on as long as you like, and stop when you like. Isn’t that enough?”

“If it works, I marry the girl. So it works. In fact, I distinctly remember every tree over in those woods falling over simultaneously, though now they seem to be miraculously upright.” He looked up at her seriously. “It did work.”

“There are no words, my darling. May I be coarse? Anything that happened from the waist down was purely coincidental. What mattered was having my heart break in a zillion pieces and go zooming out through the top of my head.”

“It had to matter a lot—to you. You know why.”

“Of course I know why. And it did, Paul. Can you believe that?”

“I can’t believe otherwise.”

“Thank you, darling,” she said.

“Marriage, then. Sound institution.”

“You better think that over, Paul. For quite a long time.”

“O.K. Time me. Sixty seconds.”

“Sixty days, at least.”

He pursed his lips, then asked, “Would that actually make you feel better?”

“Yes. It would.”

“And if at the end of sixty days I still like the idea?”

“Then we will go ahead with it, Paul. And if we go ahead with it, I swear—I swear, my darling, that I will be a good wife. And if you change your mind, I will be anything you want me to be.”

He kissed her knuckles. “So be it.”

“Far away,” she said softly, “in a gloomy old world is a dismal market full of improbable people, and I should be there right now. But it doesn’t seem to matter as much as it should. I love you, Paul.”

“Oh, is that what it is? I love you, too.”

He sat up then and stood up and gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet. They kissed and in the middle of the kiss lost their balance, staggered, laughed.

“Strong poison, my man,” she said.

“Quick poison. Let’s get out of here before you never get back to work.”

As they drove back to the city she told him about not being able to sleep, about seeing Vern go to Jana after the truck had left. And he told her of his talk with Vern, and of the quite unexpected co-operation. And he told her of what Vern had implied, about someone else sharing Jana’s favors.

“Paul, I can’t quite believe that. Who would it be? Either Walter or Rick. Neither of them seems probable. Doris would scent something like that in a moment. And Rick Stussen seems so oddly unmasculine. Not a feminine type, just sort of—sexless.”

“Does Gus go out early another day this week?”

“Saturday morning.”

“Maybe Vern will see her then for the last time. And that time, the way fate usually handles these things, will be the time Gus forgets something and has to come back.”

“Oh, no!”

“We’ll just hope it works out all right. Hope he doesn’t try to stretch his luck, as long as he’s leaving Sunday anyway.”

He pulled up to the curb and watched her quick long-legged stride as she went into the market. He knew at once that he did not want her there. He knew that he would get her away from there at the very first opportunity. It was not the place for her to be. Not the place for his woman to be.