Inside Job

by Levinson, Len

“I can see that you’re a real connoisseur of fine whiskies.”

  “My daddy had a still in the barn.”

  “What’d he make?”

  “It was better than what we’re drinking right here. More taste and less bite.”

  “Have another belt.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  She took the bottle and drank it like water. Brody was astonished. When she handed the bottle back he felt he had to keep up with her, so had a few more swallows himself. The cabin began to rock like a ship at sea.

  “You want the place?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go down to the cellar and turn everything on.”

  “Good idea.”

  They descended a flight of rough-hewn wooden stairs to the basement, which had damp stone walls and a dirt floor. There were barrels and boxes strewn about.

  “That there’s your root cellar,” she said, pointing to a box covered with wire mesh.

  “What the hell’s a root cellar?”

  “It’s where you keep your potatoes and other root vegetables during the winter.”

  “Why can’t I just put them in the refrigerator?”

  “You can if you want to, but this is farm country here and we buy more root vegetables than can fit in a refrigerator.”

  “You buy enough potatoes to last all winter?”

  “That’s right. And this here’s your power box.” She opened the door of the gray metal box on the wall and flipped the big switch. The water pump started up, scaring Brody.

  “You’re very jumpy,” she said.

  “That surprised me.”

  “It’s your water pump. There’s an artesian well twenty feet behind the house. It’ll be better than New York water, I can guarantee it. Would you pass that bottle over here, please?”

  “Why , sure.”

  She took the bottle again and drank a substantial portion of whisky. Handing it back, he drank some too to stay up with her.

  “Goddamn, that’s good whisky,” she said.

  “Sure is.”

  “How do you like the house?”

  “It’s a wonderful house.”

  “You got the time?”

  He looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon.”

  “I thought so, because I’m getting hungry.”

  “If there was a restaurant around here I’d take you out, but here we are in the middle of the woods.”

  “I’ll boil some potatoes and turnips. They’re real good with salt.”

  “Potatoes and turnips?”

  “I guess that doesn’t sound like much to you, since you’re probably used to eating in fancy French restaurants in New York, but to us that’s Maine soul food.” She opened the root cellar and took out some potatoes and turnips. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  She went up first, with Brody behind her, looking at her healthy round ass. He was feeling a little drunk, and hoped she was too.

  At the counter, she washed and peeled the vegetables.

  “How about another drink?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  He handed it to her and she drank some more. So did he. She put the vegetables in a pot, placed the pot over a burner, and turned it on. Then she filled a glass with water and drank some.

  “Want some water?”

  “Sure.”

  She filled a glass for him, and when he drank it he thought it made him even drunker.

  “I’m getting a little wasted,” he said.

  “Can’t hold your liquor?”

  “We drank almost half the bottle.”

  “That ain’t so much.”

  “It was a quart bottle.”

  “You city folks don’t know how to drink. I can see that.”

  “I think you’ve got a hollow leg.”

  “It ain’t hollow, Mister Brody. It’s one hundred percent woman.”

  “Let me feel.”

  “You’d better not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “Stop giving me such a hard time.”

  “I’ll give you a hard time until you start treating me like a lady.”

  “How’s that?”

  “With respect. By the way, are you going to rent this house?”

  “Of course I’m going to rent this house.”

  “The rent is a hundred dollars a month.”

  “I’ll pay you right now.” He reached into his pocket, took out a roll of bills, and counted ten ten-dollar bills, which he handed to her. “Where’s my receipt?”

  She opened her shoulder bag, took out a book of receipts, filled it out, and handed it to him. He gave her the money and she counted it to make sure. Then she put in into her shoulder bag. They could hear the water bubbling in the pot on the stove.

  “Where’s the bottle?” she asked.

  “Right over here.” He handed it to her. “I think I’d rather buy your food than buy your booze.”

  “All you have to worry about is paying your rent.”

  They passed the bottle back and forth a few times. It was getting very drunk inside the little cabin.

  “When’ll the food be ready?” he asked.

  “Another fifteen minutes or so.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Not that long.”

  “We should do something.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. What would you like to do?”

  “Maybe we should have a little nap.”

  “You think so?”

  “Why not?”

  “Okay.”

  “But no funny business,” she said.

  “Lady, in the shape I’m in right now, I don’t think I could do any funny business if my life depended on it.”

  “You city slickers have got water in your blood. All talk and no action.”

  “Back when I was talking about action, all you wanted to talk about were your angels.”

  “That was different.”

  They got up, walked to the bedroom, took off their shoes, and lay down on the bedspread.

  “This is a nice little room,” he said.

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  He moved a little closer to her. “You’re a very attractive woman.”

  “Is that what you say to all the New York girls?”

  “Not all of them.”

  “How do you do it in New York?”

  “How do we do what in New York?”

  “It.”

  “You mean sex?”

  “What else would I mean?”

  “Lady, after the conversations I’ve had with you today, you’re liable to mean anything.”

  “I mean sex. Do you do anything fancy in New York?”

  “What do you call fancy?”

  “I don’t know. What do you call fancy?”

  “Well, in New York when we get about a dozen men and women in a room, and they all get naked and smoke some marijuana, and then start fucking and sucking each other standing up and lying down, in the bathtub and on the chandelier, I’d call that kind of fancy.”

  “My goodness, do you really do things like that in New York?”

  “All the time,” he lied.

  “Here we mostly just do it one on one.”

  “What do you call fancy here?”

  “Oral sex, I guess.”

  “You mean the men doing it to the women, or the women doing it to the men?”

  She looked at him. “The men do it to the women in New York?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding.”

  She blushed. “Oh, my goodness sakes!”

  “You mean nobody ever went down on you, honey?”

  “The men up here don’t believe in things like that!”

  “What the hell can you expect from a bunch of farmers?”

  “Maybe I ought to go to New York.”

  “You don’t have to go to New York, baby. New Yo
rk is lying here right beside you.”

  “Do you mean to say that you’d do such a thing to me?”

  “If you behave yourself I might.”

  “Nobody’s ever done that to me before.”

  “There’s a first time for everything, sweetheart.” He reached over and cupped his hand around her voluptuous breast.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  “I’m giving you a Japanese massage,” he replied. “It’s the latest fad in New York.”

  She reached down and grabbed his stiffening dong. “I’ll give you one too.”

  He moved closer and kissed her lips. She tasted like fine Canadian whisky.

  “That was nice,” she murmured. “You’re all right when you’re not talking.”

  He inserted his tongue into her mouth, and she moaned as she sucked it. Then she pushed him away.

  “I think I’d better turn the stove off,” she said.

  She got up, tiptoed to the kitchen, turned off the stove, and returned to the bedroom.

  “Why don’t we take our clothes off?” she asked.

  “Good idea.”

  They stood facing each other and slowly undressed. When she took her brassiere off he was surprised at how firm and high her large breasts were. He had expected them to hang down to her waist. Her stomach was flat, her bush curly, and her legs were strong and smooth. She looked like the kind of woman who could fuck you to death, if you were lucky.

  “You’ve got a big one,” she said.

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys.”

  “No, you really do.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys too.”

  He moved toward her, put his arms around her waist, and kissed her. She melted like butter in his arms. They sank to the bed and he got on top of her.

  “Do it to me good,” she said huskily.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” he replied, “but please put it in for me, because I’m a little drunk.”

  She grabbed his dong and swished in back and forth in her groove a few times, then stabbed it in. Brody pushed past the tightness to that warm creamy place deep inside her.

  “Oh baby, you feel so good,” she sighed.

  He grabbed her by the ass and started pumping.

  The next day Brody drove to the nearest general store to get some provisions. He’d decided to keep the money in the truck because he didn’t want to leave it behind in the house where somebody might break in or a fire might start. He’d rather have it close to him at all times.

  The general store was near the point where the dirt road met with the paved road that went to downtown Houlton. It was a white wooden building connected to a white house and with two gas pumps in front. He parked in front and went inside.

  “Howdy,” said a tall gray-haired woman behind the counter who looked at him through thick eyeglasses.

  “Hello,” replied Brody.

  “You must be the feller from New York who’s staying at the old Ross place.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “News travels fast here in the country, feller.”

  “Gee, I guess it does.”

  “What’s yer name?”

  “Mike Brody.”

  “That’s a good Irish name. I’m Mary Donnelly.”

  “How do you do, ma’am.”

  “Oh, okay I guess. So you finally got sick of the rat race in New York, eh?”

  “You’re the second person who called New York a rat race. It’s not that bad.”

  “I hear you can’t even walk the streets at night.”

  “Sure you can, except for certain neighborhoods.”

  “On television it says that people are getting shot in the streets, knifed in their beds, buildings burning down, bombs going off, hell, I can’t understand how people can put up with it.”

  “It’s really not so bad.”

  “I watch Kojak every week. He’s a helluva guy, that Kojak.”

  “Sure is.”

  “It must be real interesting to be a policeman in New York.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “That program really shows what New York is like.”

  “You ever been to New York?”

  “No.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I may be old, but I’m not ready to get killed yet.”

  “You mean you’ve never been to New York?”

  “Hell, I’ve never even been south of Bangor.”

  “Well, if you’ve never been to New York, how do you know if the Kojak program really shows what New York is like?”

  “It’s very realistic. You can almost smell the garbage in the streets.”

  “Maybe so, but I read someplace that most of Kojak is filmed on a movie set in Hollywood.”

  “You don’t say!”

  “I sure do.”

  “They can do anything in Hollywood these days, can’t they?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I hear you’re a writer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you write?”

  “Oh, all kinds of books.”

  “Anything I might have read?”

  “I don’t know. What kind of books do you read?”

  “I like books with happy endings.”

  “I don’t write books with happy endings.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think more people should write books with happy endings. There’s too much misery in the world as it is.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. You must have personal problems.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “Because you write books with sad endings.”

  “But in real life, things often get pretty bad.”

  “That’s no reason to write about it.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. Why don’t you write a nice love story where everybody lives happily ever after?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “You should write a story about my husband’s life.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll let him tell you himself out of his own mouth. Stanley!”

  “Whataya want?” asked a voice from somewhere behind the curtains in back of the counter.

  “A feller out here wants to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “Come on out here and he’ll tell you.”

  There was shuffling and scraping, and presently a tall round-shouldered man with a bald head and thick eyeglasses came through the curtain and looked at Brody.

  “Howdy,” the man said with a big shit-eating grin. “I’m Stanley Donnelly.”

  “I’m Mike Brody.”

  They shook hands.

  “He wants to write a book about your life,” Mrs. Donnelly said.

  “He does?” Stanley asked.

  “I do?”

  “He’s one of them New York writers,” Mrs. Donnelly said. “He’s living in the old Ross place.”

  “Nice place out there, ain’t it?” Stanley asked.

  “Real nice,” Brody replied.

  “You’re from New York, huh?”

  “Yuh.”

  “Got tired of the rat race, huh?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I was in New York once when I was in the Army. Nearly got run over by a taxicab.”

  “Oh, those taxicabs are deadly.”

  “A man’s life don’t stand for nothing in New York.”

  “Well, you’ve got to watch where you’re going.”

  “Every time I turned around I got lost.”

  “It takes a while to get used to the city.”

  “You said you wanted to write a book about my life.”

  “Um, well actually it was your wife’s idea.”

  “It’s a damn good idea. I had a lot of interesting things happen to me. I think people would rather read about the thi
ngs that have happened to me than about all the sex and violence they put in books these days. Why, it’s enough to turn your stomach. They ought to put writers like that in jail. You don’t write books like that do you?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Good. You know, I used to be a lumberjack. Worked in the woods nearly all my life. I’ll bet a lot of people are interested in what lumberjacks do. Don’t you think so?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  Stanley leaned back and put his hands on his hips. “I remember the time I was in the woods with my brother Billy and Tim O’Rourke. We was cutting pulp; it was around October of forty-three. We had an old horse named Bob helping us yard out the trees, and that horse was so smart he could almost talk. Well anyway, there we was in the woods, when all of a sudden Billy says, “There’s a deer over there.’ We all looked and sure enough there really was a deer over there, a little one. So I grabs my deer rifle, I always brought it with me into the woods, took a bead on the little feller, and pulled the trigger. The rifle went blam and the deer went down. We ran over to see it, and it was still alive. My bullet went into its back and broke its spine. It was still alive though, and making the most pathetic noises. I decided to put it out of its misery, so I took aim with my rifle again, pulled the trigger, and all I heard was a click. I pulled out the clip, and goddamn if I wasn’t out of ammunition. And the deer was still whimpering on the ground. There was nothing I could do except get my axe and chop its head off, and that’s just what I did. Ain’t that a good story?”

  “It’s a great story.”

  “If you filled a book full of stories like that, you’d have a best-seller.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “When do we get started?”

  “Well, actually there’s this book that I’m working on right now. When I get it finished, maybe I’ll come see you.”

  “When’ll you be finished?”

  “Oh, about a year or two.”

  “That long?”

  “I think so.”

  “Don’t you think you can stop the one you’re working on and start on this one?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Aw, shucks.”

  “Listen, you got a pack of Lucky Strikes?” Brody asked.

  “Sure,” said Stanley. He reached into the rack behind him, took out a pack and laid it on the counter.

  Brody paid him, put the pack in his pocket, and headed toward the door. “See you folks later now.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Brody got in his truck and drove toward Houlton. He’d intended to load up with provisions at the general store, but those people had almost driven him nuts. It’d be safer to go to an impersonal super market where nobody would talk to them. In fact, he decided not to have anything to do with the locals if he could help it. Except for Sally, of course. A man needed a little pussy every once in a while.