American Dreams (65 page)

'I shall. Goodbye until we meet again.' He settled the trilby on his head at a dashing angle, turned, and rushed down the steps as the rain fell harder.

The skies continued to pour. Rainy season's early, she thought as she wearily dragged herself out of Eddie's auto the following night. They'd spent a long and trouble-plagued day shooting the new Nell picture.

Aware of her low spirits, Eddie insisted on going out of his way to drive her home. She was grateful.

He urged her to take a sleeping powder and not worry about the new picture. Fritzi squeezed his hand, said good night. Mrs. Hong told her Lily had dressed and gone out about six o'clock, i leave now,' Mrs. Hong said. 'Noodles on the stove. Eat some. Good for you.'

Fritzi thanked her and wandered into the parlor. She sprawled on the horsehair love seat, too weary to drag upstairs and change clothes right away. In her reticule she had a copy of the Times. She rubbed her eyes to clear them, tried to catch up on the news.

It was more of the same: Belgians starving, the German general
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Hindenburg taking command on the Russian front, a ten-million-dollar war loan approved for France. Secretary of State Bryan, the peace apostle, insisted the U.S. must supply all warring powers equally. She knew she should care about all of it, but at the moment she didn't. She sat low on her spine, legs spread like a tomboy, trying to think nothing, feel nothing.

She sat that way for twenty minutes while the rain hammered the roof and darkness fell.

Her head came up suddenly. She'd dozed. She noticed an auto parked outside, acetylene headlamps lighting the silvery raindrops. Its arrival must have wakened her.

Was it the police? Had something happened to Lily? She ran to the front door, stood inside the screen, trying to see. The rain blew onto the porch, flowed off the eaves, flooded across the walk.

The car door opened and shut. The driver splashed through mud, passed through the beams of the headlights, lit from the waist down. She saw his sugarloaf hat. 'Oh, my God. Lay?

She threw the door open, dashed to the edge of the porch. He bounded up the steps. She clasped his hand. 'It's really you, where've you been?'

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'Working. Ince's chapter play took longer than anybody expected.'

Overwhelmed with emotion, and too tired to dissemble, she flung her arms around his neck. With her head tilted back she gazed at him. 'I thought you were never coming back.' She kissed him lightly. He smelled of tobacco and faintly of whiskey.

She leaned back, reluctant to let go of him. The wind blew rain onto the porch and over the two of them. 'We should go inside.'

She felt his arm slip around her waist, pulling her gently. He laughed, a soft laugh deep in his throat, almost a cat's purr. 'Sure. But that was a real fine welcome to a weary traveler. Wouldn't mind repeating it.'

Fritzi almost swooned. She locked her hands at the nape of his neck and kissed him hard while heY heart pounded.

His other arm circled her waist. He held her close and she felt him harden against her leg. She tugged his hand, drawing him to the front door, where less rain reached them. Their clothes were already drenched, their faces dripping. Westward over the ocean, thunder pealed. Loy turned his head, looking into the house.

'Who's at home?'

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'No one.'

He kissed her throat, the lobe of her ear. 'I sure did miss your company.

Can we go upstairs?'

'Yes. Oh, yes. And no strings, Loy, I promise,' she cried, carried away by the feel of him, his hands, his mouth, the stormy darkness, all her months of yearning. She kissed him ardently, her lips open, sliding on his. When she broke away to open the screen door, she was trembling. Loy shook water from his hat and set it on his head.

'I read this in a book once,' he said, stepping forward. 'Got to do it right.' She let herself go limp, surrendering without fear or regret as he picked her up in his arms and plunged into the darkened house.

73 Revelations

What she felt with him first was anxiety, but that soon melted and fused into urgency. A rising passion blanked her mind to everything but raw sensation and did away with her fears of inadequacy. The passion Revelations

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set her brain and hands on fire, her mouth and her skin and her clasping legs. It lifted and shook her with a sweet fury that surpassed anything she'd experienced before.

Afterward, in the hot and rumpled bed, Fritzi caressed him, smoothing down the long, damp hair at the nape of his neck. Rain fell past the window, shining like golden, beads. She studied it a moment, then exclaimed, 'You forgot the headlights.'

He rolled toward the window. 'Damn if I didn't. Got carried away. Too late now.' He bent over to kiss the corner of her mouth.

'How did you know when I'd be home?'

'Didn't. Windy told me you'd come around lookin' for me, so I came by once before. Talked to your friend Lily then.'

'Did you speak to Mrs. Hong?'

'Never saw her' He touched her bare breast. His palm had a hard, callused
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feel, but he was gentle. 'Didn't plan for this to happen, you have to believe that.'

'Well, I wasn't exactly uncooperative,' she said with a nervous little laugh.

He laughed too. He kissed the warm curve of her neck. 'Going to cause you any problems with the landlady, us being up here like this?'

'The Hongs won't be back until very late. They clean up after the restaurant closes. If Lily comes home, it won't faze her. If I let her, she'd stand in the doorway and applaud. She thinks I'm sort of a stick.'

i don't remember you that way anytime in the last half hour.' It was true; she'd felt the joy and release of giving herself wholly without expecting anything of him beyond the moment. Still, she fretted:

'Was it really all right?'

'Perfect. Couldn't be better.'

Rain hit the windows in stormy gusts. Fritzi pulled the starched sheet over them, shivering as her body cooled.

'You're sure? I worry that my mouth's too thin and my hips too big. Up here' - she brought his hand to her breast -- 'it's nothing to boast about either'

'Listen, do I have to go to some courthouse and swear on a Bible?

You're just fine.'

He slid his hand under his head to reflect. 'Can't say as I know anybody who's altogether happy with themselves. Take me. I hate the name my mama handed me. Loyal, what kind of name's that? It was her grandpa's name. To me it sounds sissy.'

'It's a fine name. Strong.'

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'I don't know. I wish they'd named me something common like Jim or Bill. Loyal got me into plenty of fights when I was a youngster, I'll tell you.'

He was quiet a while before going on. 'I don't know how to say this exactly right, but I want you to know I didn't come into bed with you just for sport. I like you, a lot. But I wouldn't want you to expect--'

She pressed her fingers to his mouth. 'You don't need to say any more.

I tried to tell you, there are no strings on this. I understand how you feel about settling down.'

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He leaned his cheek on her shoulder. 'Wandering's in my blood, I guess.

But there's more to it. My sister Clara.'

'In the institution.'

'Yep. You're entitled toknow the story.'

'Loy, I'm not asking--'

'I want to tell you. Remember when Mr. Pelzer offered me a part and I said no? 1 turned him down because of Sis in that godawful state hospital.

I pay for better care than she'd get as a charity patient. Those people are locked away in a wing that's a hellhole. Bedrooms like cells. Food no better than hog slops. For a certain amount every month, Sis gets a window. Better food. Her hair washed once in a while.' His voice went low, hoarse with pain.

'I wouldn't want my face on picture screens in Texas. If somebody should recognize me, the authorities would know where to track me down.

If I'm locked up, I can't send any more money for Sis's care. Her poor mind just crumbled away after a man took advantage of her by force, him and two friends. They had her I don't know how many times, three or four hours of it. The man I killed was the one talked them into it.'

Fritzi held his hand tightly. After a longer silence he went on.

'For about a year after they found Clara in her cottage with her dress in rags and her legs all bloody, she lived off in some dream world. I had to sign papers to put her away. Every time I visited the hospital, I asked her who did the deed -- I thought there was only one. She wouldn't say anything, just stared through me like I was a windowpane. As she got a little better, spoke a few words once in a while, I kept begging for the name. I figured she'd tell me in her own good time, and she did. She told me there were three. Told me how they kept at it, having her different ways. I can't say to you all that they did. Afterward she told me she felt bad. Said she could have revealed the name long before, but she was afraid I'd do something and it would be foolish; the ringleader couldn't be touched, he was above the law. He was the law.'

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'A Texas Ranger, you said.'

'Member of the state police force, sworn to uphold the law, protect innocent people. His name was Captain Mercer Page. Sis was right, he couldn't be touched, not by me anyway. Didn't matter, I went to see him.'

The rain drummed. Fritzi held her breath. 'Merce lived by himself,
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little cabin out in the country. I told him I knew he was the one who egged his friends into raping Clara when they came on her picking strawberries one afternoon when I was off in Waco. Captain Merce Page, the son of a bitch, didn't deny it. Brazen as you please, he said he and his pards had a jug of popskull that fired them up, and when they came on Clara --

well, he took pleasure in telling me some of the things they did. He said he went first so he could have her more than once.'

'Oh, Loy, that's terrible.'

'He laughed pretty hard over it. Merce was one rotten apple. He said he didn't mind telling me 'cause he'd never liked me much and what could I do about it since Clara had gone crazy and wouldn't be a credible witness in court? If it ever got to court. Merce had friends all the way to Austin, brother officers to lie for him, alibi him. About then I lost it, went loco. I remember yelling I didn't need a warrant or evidence or a trial judge. I pulled my pistol, and before he could grab his off the table, I killed him.

He deserved killing, but it doesn't change the fact I committed murder.

That was my last day in Bailey County. I rode my dapple gray half the night and most of the next day. Near rode him to death before I hopped a freight train in Lubbock. I'd already sold the ranch and was living in town, so that wasn't any problem. I went to New Mexico and hid out. I swung up north to Idaho a while, then drifted down to California. Like I told you, I expect there's a wanted circular tacked up in every twti-bit jail from Muleshoe to the Rio Grande. If they found me, they'd lock me up or hang me, depending on the jury. Dead or in jail, I couldn't earn any more money, and they'd put Sis back in that hellhole section that smells like vomit and pig shit and fifty other things to turn your stomach.'

He leaned on his elbows, brought his hand up to cradle her chin.

'That's why I stay just so long in one place. It'll always be that way. I don't want you to think it could ever be different.'

She pressed her mouth to his. 'Even having you a little while is wonderful.'

The

rain fell, softer now, almost like a sigh. She heard but didn't see it; his headlights had gone out, the acetylene gas exhausted.

'I wasn't sure 1 had the nerve to tell you. I thought on it quite a while.

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I figured we were friends and you might understand. I haven't told many.

Windy knows, and a foreman I trusted up in Idaho. Not many.'

She squeezed his hand, rubbed her forearms and felt gooseflesh. 'I think I'd better put some clothes on.'

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After they dressed she saw him down to the door. She turned on lights in the parlor so the Hongs would think everything was normal when they returned. The rain was over. Water dripped. A sedan went by, four people, laughing and hooting. One of them threw a bottle. It landed in a puddle with a splash.

On the porch he hugged her, kissed her quickly, and went down the walk whistling. No formal goodbye. No promise of another meeting, nor even a mention of one. It wasn't even half a loaf, it was a crumb, and if he ever snatched it away from her - well, she couldn't stand to think of that.

At the curb he raised his tall hat and waved. She blew a kiss. She sat in the porch swing until his car chugged away, without lights. She feared for his safety. He couldn't see what was ahead.

As the car vanished in the dark, she realized she couldn't either.

74 Detroit Again

(m O ingle room, sir?'

O 'The best you have. I'm only here for a couple of nights.'

The haughty clerk scrutinized Carl's watch cap, cheap pea coat, the tattered scarf around his neck, his worn Gladstone waiting by the bell stand. 'We prefer to settle the room charges in advance.'

Carl shoved paper money across the marble counter and signed the register. There was satisfaction in returning to the Wayne Hotel as a paying guest, though it was an extravagance, perhaps the only one he'd be able to afford on his journey.

The Detroit weather was gray and dismal, with occasional rain. The boat horns on the foggy river seemed to mourn the coming of winter.

After a hot bath and a breakfast of half a dozen eggs, fried potatoes, and Detroit Again 413

a sirloin steak, Carl wrapped the scarf around his neck and set out for Highland Park.

He was overwhelmed by the size of the Ford plant that had been building when he left the city. It was an incredible structure, four stories high, seemingly a mile from end to end, though that was probably an illusion.

What overwhelmed him was not only the size, but the vast number of windows.