Tears Are for Angels (3 page)

    "Me? Carrying a torch? After what she did?"

    "It sticks out all over you."

    "Listen," I said. "That bitch was-well, never mind. You're out of your mind."

    She laughed again. "O.K., O.K… I still don't get the other woman."

    "You don't have to. Just let it go."

    "Wasn't Lucy any good in bed?"

    I got up off the bunk. "That's enough. You just shut up about it."

    "So that was it. I'd never have believed it. Not from the pictures."

    "Shut up," I said again. I went over to the shelf and picked up the fruit jar. It was almost empty and I finished it in one drink. The hell with it, I thought. The hell with all of it.

    "So much for that," she said.

    I went over to the trunk in the corner and I got the key out of my pocket and opened it and got another fruit jar.

    "Not quite," I said.

    I locked the trunk and took the fruit jar over to the door and put it down. Then I went back to the shelf, picked up the empty fruit jar, and started out. In the door, I stopped and looked back at her standing there.

    "It's just tonight," I said. "In the morning you go. I'm tired of your damned butting in. So it's just tonight. And for just that long you keep your mouth shut. Or I'll break you in two."

    I threw the empty jar against the Cadet heater. It shattered to the floor.

    "Clean that up too," I said. I picked up the full jar and went on out.

    

    

    i stretched out on the sand by the spring and took another drink from the jar. Then I rolled over on my back and looked up at the stars.

    Go to hell, I said to the stars, and then to the moon.

    Pretty soon, the pale light in the window of the shack flickered out. Then she came out of the door, looked around for a minute, and saw me, lying there in the moonlight. She looked at me for a long time, but I didn't move or speak.

    Then she started off the other way and disappeared over one of the dunes. In a minute or two she came back and went straight to the car and got in. I imagined I could hear the click of the door and then everything was still again. I took another slug at the jar.

    I didn't even claim the insurance, I thought, so it couldn't be that. Besides, they'd have been around long ago if they were going to get their noses in it. So it's not the insurance.

    And it's not the cops. They aren't interested in it any more. So that leaves only one. Only him.

    He's tired of it, I thought, he's tired of the waiting. That must be it. So he's sent her out here to find out what I'm going to do. He could have found somebody like her. He would have known where to find somebody like her to do it for him.

    So now I'll have to try again. I'll have to squeeze up the guts and the brains to figure out a way. If I'm ever going to do it. I'll have to try again, after all this time, to figure out a way. Because I don't want him to relax, not ever.

    I had to think. That was clear. I had to figure it out between now and morning and get it all straight. I had to think. So I readied out for the jar and took another drink and then another.

    Because I couldn't think. I couldn't think any more, not for the last two years. Not when it came to him, and now not when it came to her. I took another drink.

    Now his face came, floating somewhere between me and the stars, mocking and sneering, and this time hers was beside it. Now there were two of them and I couldn't do anything about either one, or even think about them.

    Pretty soon I was drunk. But the faces wouldn't go away. Then it all went out of my mind and I slept and they did go away. But hers came right back and this time it had a body. It had small, high breasts and thighs and slim hips and I wanted that body, but I could do no more about it than I could do about the face.

    When I was awake again there weren't any faces or any bodies, and I rolled over and stuck my head in the spring and drank deeply.

    I stood up. My head was a little clearer and I walked over to the car and stood looking through the window at her. She was asleep, sprawled across the front seat, with an old trench coat pulled across her. All I could see of her was the face framed in the fair hair, and her ankles and feet. Her face was calm and unfurrowed and she looked much younger.

    The bitch. I thought. But there wasn't any bitterness in it and I went on into the shack and jerked oil my clothes and sprawled across the bunk.

    Got to think, I told myself. Got to figure it out.

    And then I was asleep again…

    When I woke it was still dark, and I lay there a moment wondering what the sound was.

    It came again, a tiny squeak no louder than a mouse squealing. I was sprawled on my stomach, my legs hanging over the side, and I turned my head very cautiously.

    A small beam of light was moving in the corner, and I remembered the key in my pocket and knew it must be the trunk. She had seen me take the key out and put it back.

    Very carefully, I rose from the bunk. The whisky fumes were gone from my head now and my senses seemed sharp and clear. I stopped breathing and took a slow step toward the beam of light. In it, I saw a hand moving furtively in the trunk.

    I took another step. And another. Then one more. Then I sprang at the faint, dim shape of her.

    She went down easily and I was on top of her. The light clattered to the floor and she struggled for only a moment, fists puny against my chest, and lay still, breathing heavily. I caught both her wrists in my hand and sat on her.

    "You don't smell any better with your clothes off," she said. There was not even excitement in her voice.

    I let go of her wrists and slapped her. I heard the breathing catch, but the voice went on, still calm and even: "I thought you'd be too drunk to wake up."

    I slapped her again, this time with the back of my hand, and my knuckles cracked on her jawbone.

    Even with my eyes accustomed to the darkness, I could hardly see her. The moon was down and it was that period of intense darkness just before the predawn glow creeps in over the earth.

    I found both her wrists again and got up and pulled her with me. I dragged her to the shelf that held the kerosene lamp and pushed her against the wall. I leaned my shoulder against her, feeling the soft breasts under the stump of my arm and the light breath on my ear and neck. I let go of her wrists and fumbled on the shelf for a match, then lit the lamp.

    In its uneven glow, I could already see the side of her face turning dark, where my knuckles had struck her. Her eyes were steady on mine. They dropped over me, and what might have been amusement glinted briefly in them.

    I flung her across the room and pushed her down on the bunk. She laughed.

    "This is getting monotonous," she said.

    I turned away and pulled on my pants. Then I pulled up the chair and sat in it by the bunk and reached over and put my hand on her throat.

    "You want to live, Miss Cummings?"

    She said nothing, but one hand crept to ray wrist.

    "Because I could choke you to death and bury you out there in that sand before the sun comes up. Don't think I can't do it because I only have one arm. And don't think I won't do it."

    "I won't," she said. "I know you'd do it."

    "All right. So you talk. You tell me what you want out of me."

    "I told you once."

    "You told me lies. About pictures of me that weren't ever printed. About a tire that somebody had screwed a valve stem out of."

    I squeezed on her throat a little bit and the fingers tightened on my wrist.

    "What is it you're after? Did he send you?"

    "Did who?"'

    "What's he want you to find out?"

    She shook her head. "Honest to God, I don't know what you're talking about."

    "Then how about the trunk?"

    "I wanted to know more about you and Lucy. I thought maybe there'd be something else there."

    "You were wrong."

    She shrugged and took her hand off my wrist. "It was a chance."

    "All right. Miss Cummings. You came out here butting in of your own free will. You got a black eye for your trouble and you're damn lucky to get off that light. Now let's you fish up that valve stem arid clear out of here."

    She laughed. "I'll be glad to. I'll get out of here so fast it'll make your head swim."

    "And take him a message. Tell him this from me. Tell him I said just to keep waiting. And tell him not to get in an uproar. It won't be long now."

    No, I thought, it won't be long. Because now there isn't any other way and I'll just have to walk in there and let him have it right in the gizzard. The hell with the rest of it now. The hell with them finding out. That way is better than nothing.

    She was looking at me with her brows drawn in puzzlement. I took my hand off her throat.

    "Tell who that? And what won't be long?"

    She was good, all right. For just a second she had me believing it. But for only a second.

    "Lover boy," I said. "Stewart."

    She shook her head. "I don't know any Stewart."

    Nobody could act like that, I thought. Maybe… But it had to be that way.

    "Cut it out," I said.

    "Look, I don't know any Stewart. I don't know anything about what you're saying. I was never even in this state before this week."

    I sat there and looked at her and I knew she was telling the truth. She was leaning up on one elbow and there was honest bewilderment written all over her face.

    "Honest to God," she said again.

    "Then it doesn't make any sense. If he didn't send you, why did you come?"

    "Listen, I'm leaving, I'm going. Why don't you just let me get up and go, and forget about me? Get on back to your bottle and your rifle and just let me go."

    She was pleading with me now, for the first time, and the sincerity was gone out of her face. And then I knew that whatever it was she had come for, she had found. Because now she wanted to get out. She wanted to get away from there, after she had worked so hard to stay.

    "Please," she said.

    "No. You better stay a while longer."

    "Why?"

    And, without any conscious will to do so, I thought of a good reason.

    I put my hand on her right breast and squeezed gently.

    "I haven't felt that in two years," I said.

    At first, she clawed at my wrist. Then she leaned up a little bit and swung at my face and I took my hand away and blocked the punch.

    I stood up, and as she tried to rise. I pushed her back on the bunk. Then I was on it with her and feeling for the neckline of the T-shirt.

    She was a coiled spring of fury. I felt fingernails rake at my arms and face, and teeth in my neck. But I caught the T-shirt and yanked it away.

    "Get off of me!" I heard it coming at me in a raging whisper and I laughed and tore at the straps of her brassiere. They gave easily and my hand fumbled at her breasts again. This time they were bare.

    I had no other arm. There was only my body to hold her down, and now she rolled under me and I went against the wall and she got away and sprang to the middle of the room. I cursed the useless stump hanging from my shoulder, and in one continuous motion I was on the floor too and we faced each other in the dim lamplight of the room.

    She stood there, not even trying to cover the bare breasts. They were even smaller than I had thought, and they were stark white against the deep tan of her neck. Her hair was wild and the brown eyes blazed at me.

    I took a step forward. Instead of retreating, she came lunging at me, her breath heaving, and I grabbed at her. She squirmed free and aimed a kick between my legs. I jumped back and the backs of my legs struck the bunk and I sat down abruptly.

    She could have run then, but she swung wildly with her fist. I moved my head to one side and caught her arm and pulled her across my lap and crushed my lips down on hers. She struggled furiously and I took my head away and her eyes glared into mine.

    "You can do it," she said, "I know you can. But it won't do you any good, you bastard!"

    I grinned at her. I felt more alive than I had in two years and I knew I had to have her. I had to have a woman like that, who could have run but who had kept on fighting back.

    I hugged her tightly now so that only her legs could move and she could not reach me with a kick. Her breasts pushed against my bare chest.

    "Why won't it do me any good?"

    "Because you can't stop me that way. You'll have to kill me to stop me. Like you killed Lucy."

    

    

    For a moment. I didn't move. Then I pushed her away from me. She hit the floor with a bump and gave a little cry and lay there looking at me.

    I ran.

    I sprang across her and out the door of the little house and I ran, on and on, across the dunes. I ran till my whisky-shortened breath caught in my throat and sharp knives pierced my ribs. I staggered on a little farther and sprawled out in the sand and put my head on my arm and shook.

    After a while it passed and I rolled over on my back.

    She knows, I thought. She knows I killed Lucy.

    And it came to me then with startling force how I had been living with the horror of it these two years, how I had pushed it into the remote corners of my mind and saturated it with the whisky and the hate and the sell-pity and the loneliness until I didn't even know it was there. But it was there, coiled, waiting, ready, and then an unknown girl had touched it, released the spring, and it had come shooting out of my mind at me, rocket-driven horror.