One Night Stands; Lost weekends

by Lawrence Block

  Fine.

  The pain came, and this time it was sharp. He doubled over, clutching at his chest. God, he hoped the doctor would keep his mouth shut. Though it would still go as accidental death. It had to. No one committed suicide by locking himself in a cold bin. They jumped out of windows, they slashed their wrists, they took poison, they left the gas jets on. They didn’t freeze themselves like a leg of lamb. Even if they suspected suicide, they had to pay the claim. They were stuck with it.

  When the next stab of pain came he couldn’t stand any longer. It had been hell trying not to wince, trying to conceal the pain from Vicki. Now he was alone; he didn’t have to hide it. He hugged both hands to his chest and sank slowly to the floor. He sat on a slab of bacon, then moved the slab aside and sat on the floor. The floor was very cold. Hell, he thought, it was funny to sit in the cold bin. He’d never spent much time there before, just walked in to get some meat or to hang some up. It was a funny feeling, sitting on the floor.

  How cold was it? He wasn’t sure exactly. The thermostat was outside by the door; otherwise the suicide wouldn’t have been possible, since he could have turned up the temperature. The damn place was a natural, he thought. A death trap.

  He put his hand to his forehead. Getting cold already, he thought. It shouldn’t take too long, not at this rate. And he didn’t even have the door closed. He should close the door now. It would go a little faster with the door closed.

  Could he smoke a cigarette? Sure, he thought. Why not?

  He considered it. If they found the cigarette they would know he’d had a smoke before he froze to death. So? Even if it were an accident, a guy would smoke, wouldn’t he? Besides, he’d make damn sure they’d think he tried to get out. Flail at the door with the cleaver, throw some meat around, things like that. They wouldn’t make a federal case out of a goddamn cigarette.

  He took one out, put it between his lips, scratched a match and lighted it. He smoked thoughtfully, wincing slightly when the pain gripped his chest like a vise. A year of this? No, not for him. The quick death was better.

  Better for him. Better for Vicki, too. God, he loved that woman! Too much, maybe. Sometimes he got the feeling that he loved her too hard, that he cared more for her than she did for him. Well, it was only natural. He was a fatheaded butcher, not too bright, not much to look at. She was twenty-six and beautiful and there were times when he couldn’t understand why she had married him in the first place. Couldn’t understand, but remained eternally grateful.

  The cigarette warmed his fingers slightly. They were growing cold now, and their tips were becoming numb. All he had to do was flip the wedge out. It wouldn’t take long.

  He finished the cigarette, put it out. He was on his way to get rid of the wedge when he heard the front door open.

  It could only be Vicki, he thought. No one else had a key. He heard her footsteps, and he smiled quickly to himself. Then he heard her voice and he frowned.

  “He must be here,” she was saying. Her voice was a whisper. “In the back.”

  “Let’s go.”

  A man’s voice, that one. He walked to the cold bin door and put his face to the one-inch opening. When they came into view he stiffened. She was with a man, a young man. He had a gun in one hand. She went into his arms and he kissed her hard.

  Vicki, he thought! God!

  They were coming back now. He moved away, moved back into the cold bin, waiting. The door opened and the man was pointing a gun at him and he shivered. The pain came, like a sword, and he was shaking. Vicki mistook it for fear and grinned at him.

  She said, “Wait, Jay.”

  The gun was still pointing at him. Vicki had her hand on the man’s arm. She was smiling. Evil, Brad thought. Evil.

  “Don’t shoot him,” she was saying. “It was a lousy idea anyway. Killed in a robbery—who the hell robs a butcher shop? You know how much dough he takes in during a day? Next to nothing.”

  “You got a better way, Vicki?”

  “Yes,” she said. “A much better way.”

  And she was pulling Jay back, leading him away from the door. And then she was kicking the wooden wedge aside, and laughing, and shutting the door. He heard her laughter, and he heard the terribly final sound the door made when it clicked shut, and then he did not hear anything at all. They were leaving the shop, undoubtedly making all sorts of sounds. The cold bin was soundproof. He heard nothing.

  He took a deep, deep breath, and the pain in his chest knocked him to his knees.

  You should have waited, he thought. One more minute, Vicki, and I could have done it myself. Your hands would be clean, Vicki. I could have died happy, Vicki. I could have died not knowing.

  You’re a bitch, Vicki.

  Now lie down, he told himself. Now go to sleep, just the way you planned it yourself. Nothing’s different. And you can’t get out, because you planned it this way. You’re through.

  Double indemnity. The bitch was going to collect double indemnity!

  No, he thought. No.

  It took him fifteen minutes to think of it. He had to find a way, and it wasn’t easy. If they thought about murder they would have her, of course. She’d left prints all over the cold-bin door. But they would not be looking for prints, not the way things stood. They’d call it an accident and that would be that. Which was the trouble with setting things up so perfectly.

  He could make it look like suicide. That might cheat her out of the insurance. He could slash his wrists or something, or—

  No.

  He could cheat her out of more than the insurance.

  It took awhile, but he worked it out neatly. First he scooped up his cigarette butt and stuck it in his pants pocket. Then he scattered the ashes around. Step one.

  Next he walked to the rear of the cold bin and took a meat cleaver from the peg on the wall. He set the cleaver on top of a hanging side of beef, gave the meat a push. The cleaver toppled over and plummeted to the floor. It landed on the handle and bounced.

  He tried again with another slab of meat. He tried time after time, until he found the piece that was just the right distance from the floor and found just the spot to set the cleaver. When he nudged the meat, the cleaver came down, turned over once, and landed blade-down in the floor.

  He tried it four times to make sure it would work. It never missed. Then he picked the cleaver from the floor, wiped his prints from the blade and handle with his apron, and placed the cleaver in position on top of the hunk of meat. It was a leg of lamb, the meat blood-red, the fat sickly white. He sat down on the floor, then stretched out on his back looking up at the leg of lamb. Good meat, he thought. Prime.

  He smiled, tensed with pain from his chest and stomach, relaxed and smiled again. Not quite like going to sleep this way, he thought. Not painless, like freezing. But faster.

  He lifted a leg, touched his foot to the leg of lamb. He gave it a gentle little push, and the cleaver sliced through the air and found his throat.

  HATE GOES COURTING

  I SHOULD HAVE FIGURED IT the second day. By that time you have to see it unless you shut your eyes, and if you shut your eyes you just about deserve what happens.

  It was the wind. It’s that wind you get out on a plain or desert and almost nowhere else, the kind of wind that builds up miles away and comes at you and keeps on going right through you and on into the next county. Clothes don’t help. If you’re in the desert the sand goes right through your clothes, and if you put a wet handkerchief over your face the wind blows the sand right through the handkerchief.

  When you’re up north you freeze. The wind ices you right through.

  And when you’re in Kansas there’s just the wind coming at you like a sword through a piece of silk, just the wind and nothing else. It’s a sweeping wind, not the twister that blew Dorothy to Oz and knocks over a house now and then. The sky clouds up and the sun disappears and the damned wind is all over the place. Then it rains water by the pound and when it clears up the air is still and
quiet.

  That’s how it usually happens, and that’s why I couldn’t have figured it out on the first day, not even with my eyes wide open. But the second day I should have known. On the second day there was still no rain, no storm at all, and the wind was blowing all over and harder than before.

  It happens that way once in a while. It happens, with the wind holding up forever like it’s never going to stop, and in Kansas they call it the bad wind. It blows forever, and it blows your tendons so tight you think they’re going to snap on you.

  And something happens. Something like a man dying or a house burning, something bad.

  That’s why I should have known—if I had my eyes open.

  The afternoon of the second day we were out hunting jacks in the north field. The wind was coming from the west, bending the long grasses all the way over and holding them there. We were hunting into the wind; it didn’t make too much sense that way, but it was late and we were headed back home, and back home meant walking into the wind.

  “Bet she’s been here,” Brad was saying. “Not hunting—”

  Lady let out a burst of good baying, sounding the way a good beagle sounds, and she cut off the rest of his sentence.

  “You hear me, John?”

  I nodded at him but he wasn’t looking at me. He was about twenty yards ahead of me and it was no use talking into the wind. It just shoves the words right back into your mouth. You can shout at it, but I didn’t much feel like shouting. I didn’t feel like answering, when you come right down to it.

  “You hear me? She’s been out here plenty of times.”

  My cap was down over my ears but I could still hear him good and clear. We could have gone home right then. The bag was full of jacks, nice husky ones that Lady ran down like a champion, more rabbit than we could eat in the next year and a half. But going home wouldn’t do any good. Brad was a tough guy to shut up.

  “Nice soft grass out here. Her nice little body would fit real cozy in it, you know?”

  I looked down at the grass without meaning to and my head started to ache.

  “Know what we used to call a woman like that? Called them ‘sweethearts of the fleet.’ There’s lots like her, Brother John. She’s not the only little tramp in the—”

  “Shut up.”

  “World. But you wouldn’t know, would you? Old John stays on the farm through thick and thin. Doesn’t let the glitter of the outside world knock his life apart. Sober Old John. You ever fixing to see the world, brother?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Sure. I hear you went to Omaha once. Like it?”

  “It was all right.” I didn’t want to answer him. I never wanted to answer him, but that didn’t make much difference. It was always like that—him needling and pushing and prodding and me taking it and answering when I was supposed to.

  When he was in the Navy it was nice. Pa and I made the farm run, coming out ahead in a good year and squeezing by in a bad one. Hunting with Lady and catching a movie in town now and then, and a long sleep at night and good food and plenty of it.

  But with Brad around you don’t sleep much. Ma died giving birth to him, and he’s been killing the rest of us since then. Brad was a smart little brother, a real sharp little fellow.

  Brad and I never got along.

  “You like Omaha, huh? That’s good—glad to hear it. But how does it stack up next to all the other big towns?”

  This time I didn’t answer.

  “Did you really do the town or just go to the feed store? I hear they have a real fine feed store in Omaha. Lots of feed and all.”

  “Stop it.”

  He said something that I didn’t catch, and then he said a little louder, “How does Margie stack up next to the Omaha chippies?”

  I wanted to kill him. If he were right close instead of twenty yards off, I would have hit him. I could feel the bag slipping off my shoulder and my fist balling up and sinking into that soft belly of his. My fist would have gone through him like the wind was going through me right then.

  I should have raised the gun and shot his head off.

  Instead I clenched one fist and let it relax. I didn’t say anything.

  “She’d make a good one,” he said. “It’s her trade, all right. She’s got the shape for it. And plenty long years of experience.”

  “Stop it, Brad.”

  “All she’d have to do,” he went on, “is what they call relinquishing her amateur standing. Just sell it instead of giving it away. But maybe she likes it too much to set a price on it. Is it as good as I hear it is?”

  “You never touched her.”

  It was out of me before I could stop it. It was part question even though I knew he hadn’t. I had to make sure and I had to tell myself, and at the same time I didn’t want to know if he had. It didn’t matter. It didn’t make any difference at all, but I just didn’t want to hear about it.

  “You sure about that, Brother John? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. But I guess I’m fixing to try her, all right. If she’s as good as everybody says, I must be missing a hell of a lot. Is she that good?”

  I closed my eyes and listened to the wind. His voice seemed to come over the wind, cutting and burning just like that wind, just as bad and holding up just as long.

  “Or are you waiting until you’re married? Is that it, Brother John? That’s a good one—waiting it out on the town tramp!”

  He started to laugh. His laugh was like the wind, ice cold and mean as a mad dog, cutting like a sword through a piece of silk. I gave a whistle for Lady and she came like she always did and I headed back toward home, walking away and leaving him laughing that laugh of his in the middle of the fields.

  Ten minutes later I was still walking and I could still hear him laughing and the wind was as bad as ever.

  He didn’t understand.

  Nobody understood the whole thing, but no one else got on my back the way Brad did. Everybody knew about Margie, but everybody else kept to their own business and let me mind my own.

  Except for Brad.

  The others knew about Margie, but they also knew that Margie was different, that she wasn’t like any other woman who ever lived. It was something they could feel even if they didn’t know just why.

  She was beautiful. That was something all of them could see. It wasn’t exactly hard to see; it jumped out at you until all you were conscious of was the beauty of her. Her hair was the color of corn and she wore it long, letting it flow down pure and golden and glowing. Her body was so smooth and rounded that she seemed to be made out of liquid. She looked like she was moving even when she was standing absolutely still.

  When she slept, she looked like a big cat crouched and ready to spring.

  Her skin was clear as a cameo. Her mouth was tiny and red and her eyes were a soft brown and her ears were little shells covered with a furry fuzz.

  These were things that anybody could see—even Brad.

  But nobody else could see inside. Nobody else could see her eyes when she cried because she never cried when anybody else was around. Most of her beauty was inside, and nobody else could see inside her. Their eyes stopped at the clear skin and the corn-colored hair and the gently curved body, and that is why I was the only person who ever knew Margie.

  The others never knew how she felt in your arms when she was very happy or very sad. I don’t give a damn how many arms she’s been in; she’s only happy or sad with me. With the others she crawled into a shell as thin and tight as skin, and the others think that shell is Margie.

  But it isn’t.

  I felt sorry for the others, if you want to know the truth. I felt sorry for them because they never stayed all night with Margie and woke up with her tears matting the hair on their chests and her body warm and quiet.

  When I asked her to marry me she cried more than ever and told me I was crazy and I didn’t mean it. Then she said yes, and cried some more and we made love so beautifully that even thinking about it weeks later made me shake a little.r />
  I finished cleaning the gun and set it up on the rack on the wall. I skinned the rabbits and dressed them and salted them down, and then I washed up and changed my shirt and headed towards Margie’s place. She lived by herself in a little cabin on the outskirts of the town.

  Days she clerked in the five-and-dime in town, but that was going to change. She’d be coming to my place and she’d be my woman, and then she wouldn’t have to work anymore. She didn’t have to do a thing she didn’t want to. She could just lie around the house all day loving me.

  That would be enough.

  The moon was up by the time I got to her cabin. The moon was round and bright and golden and it floated like a California orange. When I opened Margie’s door, the wind nearly tore it clear off its hinges.

  The wind blew all night long, but I didn’t hear it.

  I think the wind set a record for our part of Kansas. It kept up day after day, each day a little worse than the last, and you could tell there was more than a storm brewing. You could smell it the way the wheat was bowed over so much it looked like it grew that way.

  The wind was all over. There was a rush of accidents—a two-car head-on collision at the intersection of Mill Run and 68, a blowout just a mile from our house, a freak accident with a telephone pole dropping on a parked car.

  Nobody walked away from those accidents. Five people died in the two-car deal and a salesman got sandwiched in the blowout when his car turned over. And there were two kids from the high school in the backseat of that parked car. You couldn’t tell which was which, the way the telephone pole pressed their bodies together.

  It sounded silly, but everybody knew it was the wind. And the wind kept blowing without a storm.

  And the wind was in Brad, the way he kept up with his needling and prodding. He was getting through to me more often and my hand was sore from making a fist and relaxing it. He made up stories about Margie and who she went with and what they did and how many times and other crazy things. I just couldn’t take it anymore.