by Robert Stone
“No, he’s not.”
“I thought he was,” Marge said.
He stood up quickly and went to the window again.
“You’re a mark, Stuff. The people you’re dealing with are gonna know that right away. Unless they’re as unconscious as you are.”
For the first time, she realized that he was afraid.
“This sucks,” he told her.
He had a hungry face; in it Marge detected a morphology she recognized. The bones were strong and the features spare but the lips were large and frequently in motion, twisting, pursed, compressing, being gnawed.
Deprivation—of love, of mother’s milk, of calcium, of God knows what. This one was sunburned, usually they were pale. They always had cold eyes. They hated women.
“Well, what do you suggest?” She looked away from his eyes. “I mean, what do we do now?”
“You pay me,” he said. “I give you the smack.”
“Well, obviously,” she said. “I’ll have to go to the bank.”
“Obviously.”
She was aware that he had moved close to her. He carried the hallucinatory circus scent of patchouli oil, the smell of dope and cold-eyed freakery. She shivered.
“You’re a fuck-up.”
She was almost too frightened of him to be angry.
“Listen,” she said, “we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
“What do you think the best of it would be?”
He had reached out and placed his forearm across the back of her thighs; his arm slid upward until his palm was stretched across her buttocks. She was not facing him and he did not turn her toward him, but took one of her breasts in his hand and held it—not caressed but held it—an act of acquisition.
She could not make herself move. Her only act of resistance was to look at him, and what she saw repelled every instinct with which Marge associated her heart. His eyes seemed as flat as a snake’s. There was such coldness, such cruelty in his face that she could not think of him as a man at all. His forward hand released her breast and slid along her belly, the one behind rose gently along the rear seam of her jeans to the small of her back; at first he made no move to kiss her.
When she felt his lips, his bitter greedy mouth against her face, it came to her clearly that it was what she wanted. Suddenly the whole terrifying enterprise had composed itself to incarnation—this man, this scented death’s-head harlequin, with his fingers in her flesh, was embodiment to it all.
There was no power in her. She sought the stale mouth, warmed to the beak across her belly, curled herself in the fear, the danger, the death. The thing itself.
After a few minutes, he stepped back from her. Janey’s horsie creaked relentlessly in the backyard.
“Hot pants,” he said.
She shook her head.
He ran his hand over her rump again, and she shuddered.
“They are.”
“Yes,” she said.
“So you’re what Converse is married to.”
She shrugged.
“Far fucking out.”
He began to seem more like a man to her; out of habit or duty she felt some tenderness.
“We could work this out a little,” he said.
“Yeah,” Marge said, “I’m for that.”
“But we have problems, don’t we?”
“I’m sorry about that. I’ll go to the bank.”
He stared at her for a moment and nodded. “Where is it?”
“A couple of blocks.”
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
She went down to the yard to take Janey off the horse; it was not easily done. In the end she had to hold Janey’s shoulders down to make her stop bouncing.
“We’re going for a ride, Janey.”
She had to say it several times before Janey was aware of her, and in the end she lifted the child from the red plastic saddle. Janey did not complain.
Washing Janey’s face, she saw herself in the bathroom mirror, displaying a wan, fatuous smile. Madness.
She ran a damp towel across Janey’s small face, pasting locks of wet brown hair to the temples. With every second, the thing that had passed between her and the cold-eyed man became more remote and impossible, a fantasy, a delusion. Dilaudid.
When Janey was presentable, they went into the living room; he was gone. She passed into Janey’s bedroom, opened the back door, and saw that he was in the yard trying to look over the picket fence that separated her patch of lawn from the landlord’s. As soon as she turned back toward the living room, she heard him running up the back steps—and turning again saw him charge through the door at her, straight from her last night’s dreams. His eyes were empty.
Marge’s first impulse was to run toward Janey, but before she could move she found herself flung backward through the living-room door and she did not realize how hard he had struck her until she collided with the living-room table and the warm coffee and cassis ran over her trouser leg.
He stood over her in an animal crouch, staring at the hall doorway. Someone was climbing the hallway steps—a heavy unhurried step.
“Tell them wait a minute,” Hicks said. “Don’t you open that door.”
Still crouching, he ran back into Janey’s bedroom. Just before the door closed behind him, Marge caught sight, over his bent shoulders, of a blond young man in the back doorway. The young man’s arms opened as Hicks ran toward him.
Noises she could not understand came from the bedroom—soft scuffling, a few light thumps, what sounded like clothes hangers falling in the closet, finally a low groan.
There was a firm polite knock at the hallway door.
Marge clung to Janey and stared at the blank door in horror. The knock sounded again.
“Just a minute,” Marge said.
The blond young man from the back door stepped into the living room; his nose was running grossly and copiously. Hicks was behind him lifting his shirttails as though he were trying to undress him. The youth knelt down on the floor; Hicks was crouched above him, feeling him up. As if in a magic act, he produced a length of taped chain from the young man’s person. Swinging the chain, he drew himself up—he was pointing at her, mouthing words.
Marge drew back, enfolding Janey in her arms and just as she was shaking her head to indicate her utter confusion, her incomprehension, her inability to cooperate in any manner, the hall door opened silently and a bearded man stood in the doorway. He looked down at Marge in mild surprise.
Instead of coming in, the bearded man took a quick step backward. A whirling gray shape rushed past Marge’s face and something curled itself around the bearded man’s head. Hicks dived for the doorway. He and the bearded man lurched into the apartment, panting.
“O.K., O.K.,” a voice that was not Ray’s was saying. “O.K., for Christ’s sake.”
It was the bearded man. Hicks was holding a pistol against his ear.
“I’ll kill you quick,” Hicks told the bearded man. He pulled the chain from around the man’s shoulders and swung it so that it wrapped around his left forearm. The bearded man’s mustache was bloody.
Marge stood up and carried Janey to the bedroom. They were both crying now.
“It’s all right,” Marge said. The terror in Janey’s eyes was so total that Marge could not bear to look at it.
“It’s all right, sweetie. You wait on the back steps. Will you? Please, Janey?”
Janey went to the back steps, sat on the topmost step and wept.
In the living room, Hicks was repeatedly kicking the blond young man. The bearded man, his hands apparently handcuffed behind him, watched with something like embarrassment.
“I don’t blame you for doing that,” he told Hicks after a while.
“I’m glad you understand,” Hicks said. He left off kicking the youth and started going through the bearded man’s pockets. The first thing he removed was a gold-colored badge set in a shiny plastic wallet. The badge was lettered “Special Investigator.” Hicks looked at it and threw i
t on the floor.
“I’m a police buff,” the man said.
Hicks regarded him in a way that was not altogether unfriendly.
“I gotta know,” he said. “Was it you I talked to on the phone last night?”
“Let’s not spoil it.”
The blond man was standing up slowly. Hicks walked over to him and clapped him on the back.
“Say hello, Broadway Joe.” He flicked the youth’s hanging shirttail. “Blow your nose.” Suddenly he kicked the youth in the shin. “Where’s your blade today?”
“Fuck you,” Broadway Joe said.
Hicks shrugged.
“You guys are something else. Did you really think I’d lay my good down and go queer-stomping?”
“It has happened,” the bearded man said.
Hicks turned to Marge, who had backed up in the bedroom doorway.
“You know these guys?”
Marge shook her head.
“We’re Federal Agents, lady,” the blond kid said. “You’re in plenty of trouble.”
Marge looked at him for only a moment.
“Are they?” she asked Hicks.
“They’re take-off artists,” Hicks said. “That’s who they are.”
The bearded man carried a loaded Walther automatic with a spare clip; Walthers had become the counterculture’s weapon of choice. His pockets contained a billfold with a dozen credit cards in different names, a key ring with a great many keys on it, a Mexican switchblade and chain manacle known to the police as a “come along.” Hicks used it to secure Broadway Joe’s hands to the drainage pipe of the kitchen sink. Broadway Joe’s pockets had only his works—a dropper and a spike, still in its little box, straight from the doctor’s sample bag.
The bearded man, his hands cuffed behind him, was following Hicks about the apartment like a salesman.
“You’re not some asshole,” he told Hicks. “Don’t involve yourself in a disaster.”
Hicks took him by the cuffs and began to pull him backward toward the bathroom. The man shifted his footing to keep his balance.
“Hicks, listen to me. There’s no deal. It’s just us. Always was.”
Hicks propped him up against the bathroom door and let him talk. The man was smiling as though he were pleased with the elegant simplicity of what he had to say, but slightly impatient with his listener’s obtuseness.
“It was just her and her husband.”
Marge looked at him in wonder.
“Her and her husband, a couple of squares. A couple of idiots for Christ’s sake. Nobody would pay them. Would you?”
Hicks pushed the man against the bathroom door so that it swung open behind him and he landed sprawled against the toilet.
“This is theft,” the man said, standing upright. “You’re gonna pay for this.”
Broadway Joe began shouting from the kitchen.
“You’re fucking A he’s gonna pay for it, man. He’s gonna burn for it.”
Hicks called Marge into the bathroom, gave her the key to the fat man’s handcuffs, and told her to unlock them. He stood in the doorway holding the thirty-eight in his right hand, with his left hand grasping his right wrist.
Marge knelt where she could not see the man’s face and worked the key in the lock until the manacles uncoupled. Hicks sent the man sprawling against the toilet bowl again, slid his pistol across the bathroom tiles toward Marge, and went after him. He forced the man’s arms downward behind the bowl and secured the handcuffs over his wrists below the porcelained pipe that joined it to the wall.
He picked up the handgun and then unbuckled the man’s belt and lowered his trousers so that he appeared to be relieving himself.
“You’re gonna end up in a bag, fool,” the man said.
“If that’s the case,” Hicks said, “I better ice you fellas.”
The man shook his head.
“That wouldn’t help.”
Hicks laughed.
“You think it wouldn’t help, huh?”
“What did you get for this run, Hicks? A few grand? We’ll double it. It’s our smack, for Christ’s sake.”
“Maybe you ought to,” Marge said.
Hicks did not look at her.
“Maybe you should let them have it,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”
“This is an intelligent young lady,” the man on the toilet bowl said. He stared at Marge in a sort of passion; his brown eyes were moist. “Hicks, you hear what she says? She doesn’t want to die.”
Hicks walked out of the bathroom. In a moment, Marge followed.
“Listen,” the man on the toilet bowl called. “She wants to hand it over. He won’t let her.”
“You stupid cocksucker,” Broadway Joe called from the kitchen. “You know what you’re gonna get?”
Hicks walked into the kitchen, bent over Broadway Joe, and clubbed him twice across the face with the butt of the thirty-eight.
“You’re not gettin’ any cherry,” Broadway Joe said softly, and fainted.
“I just can’t leave him alone,” Hicks said. “I love him.”
They went into the bedroom and closed the door.
“Let’s give it to them,” Marge said tearfully. “I’ll take the loss. I’ll pay you anyway.”
“Take all your letters,” Hicks told her. “Take anything that can indicate where you might go. Don’t forget anything.” He touched her arm. “And make it quick.”
“Let’s give it to them.” Marge said.
“They’re not as reasonable as you. They’ll kill us anyway.”
He went back into the living room and stood by the window. “Hurry up, Marge.”
Marge took up a leather portfolio and began shoving things into it.
Letters from Converse, lists of toll telephone calls, whatever came to mind and hand. She was not really concentrating well. Janey had come back up the back steps and was watching her through the glass doors.
When she had taken everything she could think of, she went into the living room for a quick last look and quite suddenly began to gag. It took her a moment and a few deep breaths to stop.
“I’m sorry,” she told Hicks.
“You’re not ready for this,” Hicks said.
She went back to the bedroom, let Janey inside, and led her by the hand past the open bathroom door. She kept herself between Janey and the doorway but Janey peeked round her and saw the bearded man on the toilet.
“Kiss your ass goodbye, cunt,” the bearded man said.
Marge did not look at him.
Hicks put the taped chain and the pistols he had acquired into his AWOL bag and led them into the hallway. They went down the two nights slowly, Marge pushing Janey before her. When Hicks opened the street door, the sunlight bathing the white and pastel buildings of the block made the world seem abnormally bright.
He stood for a moment peering outside.
“Where’s your car?” he asked her.
“Beside the house. On the left.”
“Get in it and start it up.”
Marge led Janey to the car and turned the key. When the engine turned over, he came quickly down the front steps and climbed in beside them. They pulled out of the driveway and turned left toward the Bay.
“To the bank,” Hicks said.
IT WAS A DIRT ROAD WINDING OVER BLACK CANYON. Above them were fields of blazing stars and on some of the curves Marge caught a glimpse of moonlight on rolling surf. The wind tasted of jasmine. On the far side of the canyon, at an uncertain distance, were colored lights which grew in number and brightness toward the horizon.
They climbed in low gear, Hicks driving, the Ford straining into each rise.
“O.K.?” Hicks asked her. She had been weeping quietly since nightfall.
“I should have brought her. She must be terrified.”
“You did the right thing. June is really special with kids and she’s a great hassler.”
They had left Janey in Mountain View, at June and Owen’s. The idea was that June wo
uld deliver her to Marge’s father at the first discreet opportunity.
“I mean do you know what she’s gone through today?”
“I was there.”
On the next curve she strained to see the ocean, her hand covering her mouth.
“I was a kid once,” Hicks said. “I had days like that.”
She turned to him with a scornful smile. They could hardly see each other in the darkness.
“Not like that.”
“Worse. Wait till I tell you the story of my life. You’ll eat your heart out.”
“How’d you turn out?” she asked after a while.
“Well, your husband says I’m a psychopath.”
Marge shivered and said nothing.
“You think he’s probably right?”
“It’s a very imprecise term.”
It seemed to her that he was laughing but she could not be sure. After another twisting mile, he pulled to the side of the dirt road and turned off his lights.
“There’s somebody there.”
“Where?”
“Where we’re going.”
She put her head out the window and when she had listened for a moment she imagined that she could hear voices and faint music.
He started the engine again and they climbed for several hundred yards without lights. When he pulled over he got out of the car and tapped on the door for Marge to follow.
The moon had come over the crest of the hills, a full hysterical shaman’s moon that illuminated the canyon to half its depth. In its light, they slid down the dry scaly shoulder of the road, Hicks going before. There was a gate almost covered in brush at the end of a half-hidden fire trail; Hicks swung it open and they went carefully over an iron cattle grid and followed the trail downward. They could hear the music clearly now—“Credence Clearwater”—and the voices under it. When the side ended they heard the voices alone and it seemed to Marge that there was something wrong about the sound of them, some strangeness or absence of inflection, that did not suit the party music. Around the next hump of mesquite they came in sight of a building, its windows lit by firelight.
Hicks stopped her with a hand against her breast.
“I know who it is.”
He stood watching the house as though he were trying to make up his mind.
“Hide,” he said.
