Whom Gods Destroy (20 page)

I watched the blood drain from her beautiful, perfectly made-up, face.

“You wouldn't dare!”

I knew who was holding the whip now. “I wouldn't dare ruin your husband's career? Lola, you don't know how much I hate you. You can't even guess to what length I would go to hurt you. And that
would
hurt you, wouldn't it, Lola? Ruining your husband? You would never get to live in the governor's mansion. That would be bad, wouldn't it?”

She was beginning to lose some of her poise. “You'd really do it, wouldn't you?” she said wearily. “Even if you died for it.” Then, for a moment, she almost went to pieces. “But why! What have I ever done to you!”

“You laughed,” I said. “One night,—long ago. You laughed again.” And I was very calm now. “Remember the election night party at Barney Seaward's? And you buried my old man. You knew I didn't have the money for it, and you did it just to make me look cheap. How does it feel to be God?” I said.

And she stared at me with a touch of hysteria in her eyes. “You
are
crazy!” she whispered. “Your brain is sick. How am I going to make you believe that I've never hated you?”

“You could beg,” I said, “You could get down on the floor and crawl. But I still wouldn't believe you. I'd never believe you.”

A long moment went by and we said nothing. I looked into her eyes and saw the fight go out, the way it had gone out of Sid's eyes, out of Barney's. I got out a cigarette, sat on the edge of the bed and lit it.

“Roy Foley!” she said abruptly. She threw her head back and laughed, and the sound of it shot coldness through me. “The great Roy Foley! Do you know what you are?” She turned suddenly, facing me. “You're dirt! You're filth and crudeness and ignorance and everything else that is unspeakable and comes from places like Burk Street. I never hated you because you were never worth hating, but I despised you the way I despise all things that are never quite clean.” She looked wildly about her. “Look at this place. What do they call them? Cribs? A place for whores!” And she laughed again. “A whore-master! That's what you were always meant to be, from the first!”

“Now we understand each other, Lola.”

“What do you want? What will it take to satisfy you?”

“Don't you know, Lola?”

Understanding came slowly. She raised her head and looked at me for perhaps for a full minute before anything happened. Then, slowly, the color began rising to her cheeks.

“No.”

“All right, Lola. The choice is yours.” I got my hat and started for the door.

She stood there frozen. “What are—you going to do?”

“About the recording? A copy will go to the Crime Bureau in Oklahoma City. Tomorrow some Bureau agents will pick me up and charge me with murder—and along with me, they'll take Seaward and your husband. There'll be a big story about it in the paper. Later, they'll take the three of us to McAlister and strap us into the two-thousand volt chair and that will be the end of it for us. But not for you, Lola. It will never be over for you as long as you live.”

“Damn you!” she said hoarsely. “Oh, goddamn you!”

I had the doorknob in my hand. I turned it and started to go out when she said:

“Wait...”

When I turned she had taken off her hat, her face like stone. She began unbuttoning her suit jacket. I closed the door, then I went over to the bed and sat down.

She didn't ask me to turn out the light. Standing in the center of the room, in the whitish glare of the light, she took off the jacket and hung it over the back of the cabin's lone chair. She unbuttoned her blouse, shrugged it away from her pale shoulders, then carefully placed it over the jacket. The skirt was next. There wasn't the slightest hesitation as she took the bottom of her slip and pulled it over her head.

The only sound in the room was the whisper of her clothes as she took them off. She didn't look at me. Her eyes seemed to be turned in, and I had the feeling that she had somehow convinced herself that this thing wasn't really happening at all.

The whole thing was so cold and matter-of-fact that it was hard to believe that she was actually standing in front of me, naked.

“Is this what you want?” she asked flatly.

I looked up at her, then took off my hat and sailed it toward the dresser.

“Yes.”

I touched the flatness of her belly, feeling her cringe. I moved my fingers down her thighs. Where I touched her, the skin crawled.

“Lie down,” I said.

Without a word, she sat on the edge of the bed, and then lay back on the soiled spread, her body rigid. She made a small, tortured sound as I put my hands on her again, and not until that moment did I realize that she wanted it. In spite of herself, in spite of her hate. She had it settled in her mind that it was going to happen, and now—God knew why, unless it was simply because her husband wasn't man enough for her—but at that moment I knew it as well as I had ever known anything. She wanted me; the animal part of her craved it while the rest of her hated it.

I kept my hands on her. She made that sound again and raised her arms and they crawled like twin white snakes around my neck.

Suddenly I laughed. I beat her arms away and stood up and let it roll out of me, all the hatred and frustration and anger coming out with the laughter. As I walked out of the crib I heard her whispering, “God, how I hate you! Oh, God, how I hate you!” I was still laughing.

It was past midnight when I finally got back to the apartment.

Vida was in bed but still awake when I came in.

“Do you feel better?” she asked.

“I feel fine.” I sat on the edge of the bed and took her in my arms and pressed my face to the softness of her hair. “Vida, I know I haven't been any good to live with lately, but all that's over now.”

She took my face in her hands and looked at me. I think she knew that Lola had something to do with it, but she didn't ask questions. “I'm glad you're back,” she said. “That's enough for me.”

It wasn't until then that I saw a difference in the way she looked at me—a shaded worry deep behind the blue-ness of her eyes.

“Is anything wrong, Vida? Are you mad because I walked off tonight, the way I did?”

She shook her head. “You know it isn't that. It's just something I feel. And a little of what I hear and see. It scares me. They're out to get you, Roy—Seaward, Kingkade, McErulur.”

I laughed, but it didn't sound quite right. “Is that all that's bothering you? Sure they hate me, all of them, but they're not going to get out of line unless Seaward tells them to. And Seaward's not going to do that—not unless he's got a craving to try out the two-thousand-volt chair up at McAlister.”

She had never asked me about the hold I had on Seaward—maybe she was afraid to. “Forget about it,” I said. “There's nothing to worry about.”

But was there? Separately I had beaten them—Seaward, Paul Keating, even Lola. But if they banded together, if they really were out to get me ... I thought, maybe I've gone too far. Barney is beaten now, but he can still be dangerous. As long as he can hate, he's capable of ruining me. Maybe I should close the cribs and give in a little to Kingkade and try to keep things smoothed over. But I knew I wouldn't. If I showed a weakness now they would be on me like wolves. When you climb ambition's ladder there's no backing down. As you go up, they take the rungs out behind you. You keep climbing, or you fall. If I took my foot off Seaward's neck, he, would tear my throat open. And there was Lola, too. Even now—and I was just beginning to understand this—I wasn't free of her.

The next conclusion in that chain of reasoning was even more bitter to swallow—I would never be free of her for the rest of my life.

Even now, only a short time after I had pulled her down with me, I found myself wondering if it had really happened. By morning the vague doubt would be in full bloom. By the next evening it would no longer be doubt at all. It would be stark disbelief. I had to see her. I had to stand above her and look down on her and laugh at her, night after night.

So it was time for a new decision—and the decision was already made. Reach, reach high, grasp for the next rung on the ladder.

It was almost daylight when I finally got to sleep. When I awoke it was late in the morning and Vida had been up for a long time. I could hear her in the kitchen as I came out of the shower and got the things out to shave. As I lathered my face I saw myself grinning faintly in the mirror. I felt a lot better, now that I had things settled in my mind. To reach the next rung of the ladder I was going to have to knock somebody down, and I had already decided who it was going to be. It was going to be Joe Kingkade.

I went into the kitchen where Vida had the coffee poured and the cream and sugar set out. I kissed her and she knew I meant it.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” I said. “Sleep is what I needed.”

Her face was sober as she sat across from me and poured more coffee. “Roy,” she said suddenly, “do you remember what I said last night?”

“About Seaward and the others? Sure. I've decided to do something about it.”

She didn't speak until she got cream and sugar in her coffee. It seemed to take her a long time. “What did you decide, Roy?”

“The first thing I'm going to do is move Joe Kingkade out of Big Prairie. The town's not big enough for two retailers. I should have done it a long time ago. After that—” I played with the idea. “After that maybe I'll move Barney Seaward out, too. Who knows?”

She didn't look up. She stirred her coffee slowly. “Oh.”

“What's the matter, Vida?”

“Nothing.” Then she looked at me and smiled brightly. Too brightly, I thought.

15

CHUCK THOMPSON WAS ONE of the runners I had inherited from Sid when I began taking over the residential territory north of town. He was a big blond kid, not too smart, but a good runner for just that reason. I was in the telephone office that afternoon when he called in after making a delivery.

“It's Chuck,” one of the telephone boys said; “he wants to talk to you, Roy.”

I took the phone, and he said, “Look, is this territory west of Twenty-third supposed to belong to us or to Kingkade?”

“It's ours.”

“Then, by God, you'd better talk to Barney Seaward and get it straightened out. Kingkade's got his callin' cards and price lists stuffed in every mailbox on this side of town. He's undersellin' us a dollar a fifth and my customers are raisin' hell about it.”

For a moment I didn't say anything. My first impulse was to go straight to Seaward and start raising hell with him. But then I said, “Come on down to the office, Chuck. We'll take care of this ourselves.”

It was about three in the afternoon when he picked me up in front of the office in a rattletrap '39 Dodge that he used to make deliveries. He told me about it as we headed out toward Twenty-third.

“Well,” he said, “I kind of figured that somethin' was crazy about two days ago. Then I began to notice Kingkade's runners cruisin' the neighborhood, but that didn't worry me too much. I thought maybe it was some kind of deal between you and Kingkade. But when I got hold of one of his price lists and saw that he was cuttin' our price, I figured it was time to do some hollerin'.”

“It was time all right,” I said.

We hit Twenty-third and headed west. The streets in this part of town were lined with young elms; the houses were mostly modest brick or stone. When we reached Twenty-third and Front, one of the through streets leading downtown, I said, “Pull up here,” and Chuck pulled the Dodge over to the curb. “We'll wait here,” I said, “and when you spot one of Kingkade's runners, let me know. We're going to convince him that this is unhealthy territory for strange bootleggers.”

We didn't have to wait long. Less than five minutes had passed when the vintage Chevy pulled up at the stop sign and then turned onto the tree-lined street. Chuck looked at me and I nodded.

We gave him a good block start because there wasn't much sense to losing him in a twenty-mile zone. When we saw him park in front of a corner house I nodded to Chuck and we pulled up. We saw the runner lifting the front seat to get a bottle, then he went up to the front door carrying the fifth in a paper bag. I told Chuck to move up and park behind the Chevy.

While the runner was inside, I looked under his front seat. Sure enough, there was a lug and a half of red stamped bourbon and two bottles of gin. I told Chuck to take the liquor for himself.

The runner was youngish, wiry little punk who looked as though he might be about half Mexican. He came swinging down the walk from the house, whistling under his breath and not paying attention to anything in particular. He had almost reached the Chevy when he noticed us in the car behind him. He made a quick jump for the car and was already under the wheel before Chuck could get out on his side. The runner wasn't going anywhere, though, because I had his keys.

When he saw Chuck coming, he kicked the door open and made a try for it. He was too late for that, too. Chuck grabbed him and almost tore his head off with a swinging right that sent him slamming back into the front seat.

“What the hell is this?” he veiled.

Chuck had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and was holding him.