“Maybe in the long run that’s best,” said Beef. Secretly, he was delighted with the idea of Ginny and Gordie going to Denver. It would give him a vacation from them.
“Will you help us?” she asked Beef.
“Be glad to. What can I do for you?”
“My plan,” said Ginny, leaning closer and dropping her voice, “is you and Mrs. Lister hide in the closet. When Gordie comes home I’ll knock him out with sleeping pills. Then we can tie him up, throw a blanket over him, and Bomba can drive us all to Denver.”
“Ginny,” said Beef patiently, “that’s called kidnapping, and they treat you unkind when they catch you doing it.”
“There’s got to be a victim,” Ginny argued.
“Well, I guess old Gordie would fill that bill.”
“What are you talking about? We’d be returning to our old haunts. He’d be coming back to his senses. That’s not kidnapping in my book.”
“It ain’t your book they go by,” said Beef.
“Besides, he’s my kid.”
“Kid, hell, he’s an officer of the law!”
“I’ll do whatever I can, Ginny,” said Mrs. Lister.
“A woman in her eighties will help me, and you stand by like an overgrown good-for-nothing.”
“Why don’t you just ask him to go with you?”
“If you were married yesterday and I asked you to go to Denver with me tonight, would you go willingly?”
No answer was an answer.
“You’re sure Gordie won’t throw us all in Old Crossbars?” asked Beef.
“He’s my son,” she said, laying her hand on his arm.
“You want to do it tonight? That quick?”
“Why not?”
“It’s the damnedest thing I ever heard of.”
“What do you want me to do, Ginny?” asked Mrs. Lister.
“Well?” Ginny asked Beef.
“I’d sure rather help you straighten out Gordie than all this other noise you been bringing up, but I got to be at work in the mornin’ and so does he.”
“Oh, please, Bomba, you are the silliest thing.”
“Yes, please, Bomba,” affirmed old Mrs. Lister.
“Truth is,” said Beef, “I’m expected somewheres tonight.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Ginny, unable to accept the idea of Beef’s having any previous engagements.
“Somebody’s waiting for me,” he explained.
“A girl?” asked Ginny, with almost total disbelief.
“Well, I...that’s what I was gonna tell you when I came over here today, but you never gave me a chance.”
“Is she a nice girl?” asked Mrs. Lister.
“Some folks might not think so, but I say yes, she’s a nice girl. Got a cute snaggletooth I really kinda like.”
He broke into a proud grin, and waited for Ginny to smile too. She did not.
“Well, Bomba, it sure didn’t take you long,” said Ginny. “Already you have a girlfriend?’
“I don’t know that it’s all that serious, but a lot of the thanks goes to you. You made me feel...I don’t know.”
“I’m very happy you have a girl.”
“You are?” he asked, strangely disappointed. He expected a bit of the jealousy over Gordie’s involvement to transfer to his own.
“You deserve some young female companionship. You’re a fine boy.”
“You sure are something, Ginny Mom. I never know what you’re gonna say next. I’m lookin’ forward to having you meet her. Her name is...Mae.” It was, apparently, the most romantic of names.
“Tell me, Bomba, did you meet her at a church social?” asked Ginny.
He laughed. “You know me better ‘n that.”
“Oh, then she must be a secretary down at that place you work. Is that where you met her?”
He grew uncomfortable. “No, not there.”
“Well, where? You weren’t visiting a dying relative in the hospital, were you? Mae isn’t a psychiatric social worker, by any chance, is she?”
“No.”
“Prying her nose into everybody’s affairs?”
“She ain’t a psychiatric social worker,” he said, his discomfort becoming anxiety.
“Well, who are her parents?” she asked.
“Not sure as she has any.”
“How old is she?”
“Probably my age.”
The next question, whatever it would be, would bring humiliation and guilt, he knew.
“Bomba,” she said, with all reasonableness, “you tell me you have a girlfriend, you tell me you want me to meet her, but you don’t seem to know much about her. Or else you’re ashamed of her.”
“I ain’t nothin’ of the kind. I met her in a bar.”
“Ah, all right, now we’re getting somewhere. She had stopped for cocktails with a few of the girls.”
“She works there,” said Beef defensively.
“She’s a barmaid,” said Ginny, unmistakable judgment in her voice.
“That’s an honest living, Ginny Mom.”
“Let me ask you one more question and we’ll let it go at that.”
“Shoot,” said Beef, glad to bring it to an end.
“Is this a love of the spirit or have you already done your humping in some dirty dark corner?” Her eyes were electric, the corners of her mouth tightened.
“Ginny!” said Mrs. Lister.
“That’s a private matter,” said Beef.
“Well, do me a favor. Don’t bring your whore up to my place.”
Beef stood for a few seconds, coaxing his anger to the surface. When it arrived, he kicked the hassock, sending it rolling across the room. Mrs. Lister scrambled after it to set it aright. He spun around to face a stunned Ginny. “I ain’t no goddamn Gordie boy!” he shouted. “I,” jabbing his chest with his thumb, “do what the hell I please. Nobody’s gonna tell me what girl to do what with, and you better get that straight, lady. You want me to help you kidnap Gordie and then you have the nerve to insult my girl and belittle me. You think I’m gonna help somebody like that? Up a pig’s ass!”
Mrs. Lister covered her ears with her hands.
“Go, then!” shouted Ginny in return. “Go to your little live wire. I’m sure if she doesn’t see you every day she’ll forget all about you. Go to her!”
“Don’t worry,” said Beef boastfully, “she ain’t gonna forget me.”
“Get out of here if you’re so worried about her. Mrs. Lister and I will do it ourselves. We don’t need you, you don’t have the brains God gave a rag doll. Go back to the Salvation Army where you came from.”
Ginny sat on the sofa and cried piteously into her hands.
“Now look what you did,” said Mrs. Lister to Beef.
He stood there breathing heavily, unable to kick anything, though he did glance about for a target. Finally, in a bemused voice, he said, “You and Mrs. Lister. I’m tryin’ to see Mrs. Lister throw a blanket over old Gordie and tie him up, but my brain’s havin’ a hassle providin’ the picture. And who’s gonna drive the car to Denver?”
“We can take a taxicab,” said Mrs. Lister haughtily.
Beef chuckled softly. “In your head,” he said. He thought he heard Ginny sob, but when she looked at him, he could see she had laughed against her will.
In pantomime, he struggled under the weight of a body on his shoulder. “Taxi!” he yelled.
Ginny could not keep from laughing.
“Well, if we can just go on havin’ fun,” said Beef, “maybe we can all keep out of trouble.”
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Mrs. Lister.
“You’ll help us, won’t you, Bomba?” said Ginny. She opened the front door and looked for Gordon.
“I’ll help you keep your asses out of the soup, but that’s all I’ll help you with.”
“Fair enough,” said Ginny, still looking through the open door. She said it as though closing a deal, but Beef was far from being the party of the second part.
“That don’t mean I’m about to kidnap Gordie.”
“You can’t kidnap your own son.”
“He ain’t my son. God, if he was I’d be glad he got married and out of the house.
“Here he comes!” she whispered. “Get into the closet, you two.”
“Wait a minute,” said Beef. Mrs. Lister was already stepping into the closet.
“Not now, Bomba, please,” said Ginny, pushing him.
Beef allowed himself to be put in the closet. “This still don’t mean I’m in on your crazy stunt,” he said as the door was shut on him and Mrs. Lister.
“There’s a blanket in there,” said Ginny. She tried to look casual for Gordon’s return. She noticed Mrs. Lister’s cane and rushed to throw it into the closet after her. “Now don’t make a peep,” she whispered to them. She shut the closet door as Gordon walked into the apartment.
“Hello, Mother,” said Gordon. He hesitantly walked across the room to kiss her.
“Why, hi there, stranger, where have you been keeping yourself?”
“One of the guys got sick. I volunteered for a double watch.” He took off his holster and went toward the closet.
She quickly intercepted him. “I’ll do it,” she said. She took the holster and his cap to the closet and handed them to Beef, who gave her his most disapproving look. Mrs. Lister covered her mouth with her hands, containing her mischievous glee. Ginny shut the door on them and turned back to her son, who was now sitting on the recliner.
“You couldn’t call?” she said.
“Sorry.”
“Well, even if you worked a double...”
“Where’s the paper?” he asked her.
Usually she would get it for him. “In the bathroom,” she said. When he went to get it, she went into the kitchen and poured some milk into a saucepan and put it on the stove. She dropped six of her sleeping pills into an empty coffee mug. Gordon sat down again and pretended to read the paper.
“You seem overwrought tonight, Gordie.”
“Overwrought is right.”
“I’m making you some hot milk.”
“No, thanks.”
“It will relax you.”
“I never drink hot milk.”
“That’s why you’re so overwrought.”
“No, it’s not, Mother.”
“Well, would you like to tell me about it?”
“I’d love to. We never have quiet, rational talks about our problems.”
“If that’s so, it’s because we have no problems.”
Gordon laughed in one syllable. “No, it’s because you get angry and start cutting me off in the middle of sentences.”
“I confess to having a temper, but you’d be amazed at how well I’ve been controlling it lately. Is there something you want to tell me, Goalie?”
Gordon faltered. “Yes, I believe there is.”
“Oh?”
“I hope...isn’t your milk burning?”
She rushed into the kitchen and turned off the stove. She skimmed the solidifying top off the milk and poured the rest into the coffee mug. She stirred it with a spoon to dissolve the pills.
“I hope you’ll be fair about this,” said Gordon from the living room.
“Your milk’s almost ready,” she answered. She brought the spoon up with the pills in it. They were too slow dissolving. She tried to mash them.
In the closet Beef and Mrs. Lister were having trouble breathing. Mrs. Lister had already slipped to a sitting position. Beef fanned her, fearing she would lose consciousness soon. The space, in total darkness, was not ventilated. The dusty, bitter smell of the vacuum cleaner, whose space they shared, lodged in their throats and made them silently gag.
Ginny took the milk to Gordon and said, “Drink this, we’ll talk later.”
“I think we have to talk now. I think we’ve been avoiding an honest talk for too long.”
“I said drink it,” she said menacingly.
“And you wonder why we have trouble communicating.”
“I’m communicating perfectly. I took the trouble to make that, you better drink it.”
Gordon took a sip of the milk. He picked a few particles of sleeping pills off his tongue. He rose out of his chair and looked at his fingertips in astonishment. “Mom, are you trying to drug me?”
She rushed for the box at the far end of the sofa, ran back to Gordon, and threw into his face the shreds of his personal pictorial history. He stood still for a few seconds, then brushed the confetti from his shoulders. “You already knew,” he said in a defeated voice.
Just then, Mrs. Lister came rolling out of the closet, semiconscious. The stale air rushed out of her lungs with a dry, crackling rattle. In a moment, Beef crawled out on hands and knees, soaked in sweat. He looked up at Gordon and said with difficulty, “Hyuh, Gordie buddy.”
Mrs. Lister came around and gasped, “It was awful in there, awful! I thought I was buried alive!”
Gordon ran out of the apartment, his hands in front of him, as though prepared for obstacles. He was heard to mutter something. Perhaps it was closer to crying. Closer still to screaming. He did not return that night.
NINE
The warm weather was over, and with it Beef’s job. He gave some thought to leaving town, maybe to Texas or California, but finally had to confess that he did not want to leave the Springs. It was a happy place for him. He found another job, better than the first. He became a roofer.
“You can’t bend a rufin’ nail,” he told Mae, by way of explaining his choice of the new occupation.
There was something immensely gratifying in laying a fresh roof. With the initial layer of tar paper, in overlapping strips perfectly parallel, he’d see the first promise of watertight integrity and would feel good for the family that would gather below a roof of his making. The rectangles of insulation went down practically by themselves, now warmth, next summer—coolness. Again he would shoulder rolls of tar paper and carry them up the ladder for a second layer. With this layer stapled down and trimmed, he would carry up bales of shingles with growing excitement—as preparation for the reward: sitting high above the ground, nailing in the sheets of shingles between his widely spread legs, watching the protective covering spread step-fashion, a bold challenge to the elements. The orderly progression of shingle overlapping shingle, hiding his nailheads, pleased him, and he’d often wish the roof could go on and on and on.
By the time he would get back to Mae’s place, she would be on her way to the Pines. He’d clean up and drop in for a few beers before going over to Ginny’s for dinner. Sometimes he would nap at Ginny’s, patiently waiting for her grudge against Maria to dissipate. By 2 a.m. he would be back at the Pines to see Mae home. God, he liked his life then! Why couldn’t he have nailed it down as firm as a sheet of shingles?
When the plan to kidnap Gordon failed, and entrenched him deeper in the enemy camp, Ginny once again turned her thoughts to an ultimate solution.
“I only wish she’d leave me out of it,” Beef told Mae. “She’s a good old gal, but I think this thing has shook a few studs loose.”
Mae’s tired feet seemed of greater interest to her.
“And Gordie, he sure ain’t your ordinary kind of cop, that guy.”
She took one of those tired feet, pulled it to her, and massaged it. “These people,” she said, “they don’t know what real problems are.”
“He’s married, right? And they’re gonna have a kid, but he spends every other night on the Hide A Bed in Mama’s place. She still wants him to spend every night with her. She’s scared to death to be alone. You want to know where I was that night last week?”
“What night last week?”
“The night I wasn’t here, for crissake.”
“Oh, yeah, where was you?”
“She wouldn’t let me go. She was afraid her daughter-in-law would come over and kill her.”
“I thought it was her who wanted to kill her daughter-in-law,” said Mae.
B
eef nodded. “Wantin’ to is okay, I only wish she’d shut up about it.”
“Some Mexican girl, right?”
“She wouldn’t let me go. She made me stay there and sleep in Gordon’s bed.”
“You boff her?”
“Shit, Mae.”
“I’m the jealous type,” she kidded him.
“I woke up in the morning to find Gordie with his gun up my goddamn nose.”
Mae laughed.
“You don’t believe me? Check my underwear. I’ve been the long way over the hill and seen me my share of weird individuals, but Gordie boy is somethin’ special. It wouldn’t of surprised me a bit to see him shoot a bullet up my nose.”
Again Mae laughed.
“Thanks, you cunt.” Beef got to his knees and made a gun barrel of his finger. “‘Get out of my bed,’ he says, whispering so I can hardly hear him.”
“Didn’t want to wake up his mama,” said Mae.
“Shit, she was so knocked out with those pills she takes the place coulda burned down around her.”
“Did you get out of his bed?”
“I got out of the apartment. I don’t trust that son-of-a-bitch with that gun. I trust her way beyond what I trust him. She’s just a lot of talk. He don’t say nothin’.”
“He probably thought you were boffin’ dear old Mom.”
“You know, I think he did...does. I tried to tell him that sure ain’t the case. She don’t even want it.”
“You ask her?”
“You can tell she don’t.”
“How come?”
“Maybe she figures she’s had her share.”
Mae laughed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s got a lot on her mind. Lonely. She’s afraid loneliness will kill her. Hell, I know what all of that is about. That’s why I put up with it.”
“What about the wife?” asked Mae.
“I never even seen her.”
“She puts up with it?”
“I guess so. I guess she don’t have much choice. Ginny said she was married once before, so maybe she figures this is her last chance.”
“These people,” said Mae, “these friends of yours, they make trouble for themselves. They bring it on themselves.”
“That don’t make it any less hard.”
He rubbed her calves. He massaged her feet between his massive hands.
The Accomplice: The Stairway Press Edition Page 8
