52 Pickup (23 page)

Several times, working to beat Barbara, he had thought of Cini. Cini alive. He wasn't sure why. He couldn't picture Cini playing tennis. She would laugh at the idea. She was a girl made to be held and played with in other ways. She was soft and vulnerable, a little girl. Barbara was also a little girl—running hard, swinging, chopping, stroking the ball, saying to herself “You dummy!” when her shot went out or hit the net—but she was a little girl in a way that was different. She could turn off being a little girl. She could be a lady or a woman or even a grandmother, and she would be natural, at ease, on all these levels. Though at home as they showered together and made slow love in the afternoon,
alone in the silence of the house, it was hard to imagine her as a grandmother.

Lying on the bed, looking at each other, Barbara said, “It's better than that dumb movie, isn't it?”

And Mitchell said, “Way better. You have to be in love to find out.”

“Do you feel that?”

“Of course I do.”

“Tell me.”

“I love you.”

“There isn't any other way to say it, is there?”

“I don't know of any.”

“It's good to hear. That's something,” she said. “It's always good to hear. I get a feeling inside when you say it.”

“Even after—?” He paused.

“Don't.”

“I was going to say, even after all these years?”

“It gets better.”

“I guess if you want it to it does.”

“Do you remember when you used to come home from trips? Even if you were gone only a day or two, we couldn't wait.”

“I was thinking about that the other day.”

“Were you really?”

“Why would I lie? I'd rather make love to you than—I don't know, name a good-looking movie star.”

“Than Paul Newman.”

Barbara smiled. “You really do love me, don't you?”

“What do you think I've been trying to tell you?”

“It's different now, isn't it? Do you feel it?”

“Like starting over.”

“Being
in
love rather than just loving.”

“I guess there's a difference.”

“You were letting me win the third set, weren't you?”

“I got tired about in the middle.”

“Mitch, I love you.”

And he said, “Then we've got nothing to worry about.”

They stood at the counter in the kitchen to eat hot homemade chili with French bread and hard butter—Barbara wiping her eyes, Mitch blowing his nose—and drank ice-cold Canadian beer from stem glasses. Late Sunday lunch was chili or hot dogs. Saturday Mitch fried hamburgers and onions. Today was the first time they had observed either of the rituals in almost three months. It was good to be back.

It was good to sit on the couch in the den and watch an old Gary Cooper movie,
Good Sam
, and remember they had seen it together before they were married. It wasn't so good—not at first—when the friends dropped in, three couples who were close friends, coming from a cocktail party.
But it did get better with good talk and drinks and the chicken they sent out for, and by ten o'clock the house was quiet again. At eleven-thirty, after the late news, they went to bed and for a little while longer it was the way it had been for so many years, holding each other as they went to sleep.

She said very quietly, “Mitch?”

“What?”

“There's somebody downstairs.”

“I know there is.”

Mitchell was lying on his back, his eyes open now for several minutes in the darkness of the bedroom. He was fully awake—tense, listening—with the knowledge that someone was in his house. Raising his head he could see the outline of the windows, a bleak wash of moonlight on the wall facing the bed and the dark shapes of the open doorway and the dressers on either side. He felt the covers tighten as Barbara moved, rolling slowly away from him. The telephone was on her night table.

“Wait,” Mitchell said.

“I'll dial the operator, tell her to call the police.”

“No, not yet. Wait.”

Barbara lay motionless, listening. “He's coming upstairs.”

“I think so. Is the flashlight still in my closet?”

“On the top shelf.”

“Close your eyes. Don't move.”

“Mitch—”

“Shhhh.”

More than a minute passed before he was aware of the figure in the doorway. Mitchell closed his eyes and let his head sink into the pillow. He breathed with his mouth slightly open. There was no sound in the room, but he could feel the presence of someone and, after a moment, a slight bump against the foot of the bed. Mitchell waited, breathing in and out slowly. When he heard the clink of metal, a faint sound across the room, he opened his eyes again and saw the figure standing by his wife's dresser. A pinpoint of light passed over the surface and went off. The figure moved across the doorway to the other dresser. Mitchell heard a clinking sound again, his loose change. He saw the envelope, briefly, in the pinpoint of light. He saw it lifted from the dresser as the light went off and the figure turned. Mitchell closed his eyes. He opened them again after only a moment, saw the room empty and raised the covers to get out of bed. Barbara whispered his name, an urgent sound, but he didn't look at her
now. Mitchell went to his closet and got the flashlight from the shelf above his suits. He was careful not to make noise, but didn't waste time stepping out into the hallway.

The figure was almost to the stairway that turned once as it descended to the front hall. Mitchell started
toward him. He took a few cautious steps, and then he was moving quickly, reaching the man and seeing him come around, at the same time bringing the turned-on flashlight up, the beam momentarily in the black man's face before Mitchell slammed his left in straight and hard, chopped with the flashlight and felt it come apart as the light went out and the black man grunted, made a noise, and fell backward down the stairway. Mitchell reached for the light switch. The hall lights came on in time for him to see the man hit the wall at the landing and fall down the remaining stairs to the foyer. Mitchell was moving then, his hand sliding down the railing. He got to the man and planted a foot on the wrist of his outstretched arm. He reached down to take a .38 Special out of the man's belt and the envelope out of his inside coat pocket. With the envelope came a woman's nylon stocking.

Above him his wife called his name.

As she appeared on the landing he said, “Get the camera. And a flash.”

They were in the den now. Bobby sat holding a handkerchief to the side of his face. He would dab at his cheekbone and then look at the fresh blood spot that appeared on the cloth.

Mitchell was unloading the .38. He put the cartridges in his pajama pocket and the empty
revolver on the coffee table. As he sat down across from Bobby Shy he looked at his wife.

“Why don't you see if you can find a Band-Aid?”

Barbara stood in the doorway, behind Bobby Shy, in her nightgown. She seemed to want to say something, but Mitchell's calm gaze held her off. He was in control. As she turned away Mitchell looked at Bobby Shy again.

“You got pictures of me,” he said, “and now I've got pictures of you and Leo. All but Alan. You want some coffee or a drink or anything?”

Bobby Shy's eyes raised, his hand holding the handkerchief against his face. “Man bust in your house, you always serve him drinks?”

“On special occasions.”

“Maybe you thinking I'm somebody I'm not.”

“We can waste a lot of time,” Mitchell said, “or we can get to the point. I know your voice, I can identify you.”

“How come you ain't call the cops?”

“Now you sound like your friend Alan,” Mitchell said. “You think I want the police involved? The only thing I want to know, why you bother to steal ten grand when I'm going to give you more than fifty thousand. Hand it to you.”

“You going to give me fifty thousand?”

“Fifty-two,” Mitchell said. “That's the figure. Alan told you, didn't he?”

“About what?”

“Maybe you haven't seen him. You see him today?”

“What fifty-two thousand?” Bobby Shy said.

“Or he meant to tell you and he forgot.”

“Hey, I'm asking you, what fifty-two thousand?”

“The figure we agreed on. What I can afford to pay. He didn't tell you about it?”

“He say something about you owing the government.”

“Oh.” Mitchell nodded and was silent, giving the man time to think about it.

“You don't owe them anything?”

“Everybody owes the government. What's that got to do with it?”

Bobby Shy took the handkerchief away from his cheek, but didn't look at it. “You made a deal with Alan?”

“It was Alan I spoke to,” Mitchell said. “The payment's supposed to be for three of you, however you split it up.”

“Or however he don't split it,” Bobby Shy said.

Mitchell shrugged. “Well, that's not my problem, is it? Who gets what.”

“When you make this payment?”

“In a few days. When I get it together.”

“Where?”

“Look,” Mitchell said, “why don't you talk to
Alan about it? I told him I'd pay. You want to know anything else, talk to him.”

“I'm going to do that,” Bobby Shy said. “Yeah, have a talk.”

Mitchell nodded. “I would.” He watched Bobby Shy get up, look at the handkerchief and put it in his pocket. “Don't you want a Band-Aid?”

“Thanks, I don't think I need it.”

“You can sit, rest your head some more if you want.”

“No, I'm fine.”

As Bobby Shy turned and started to walk out Mitchell said, “Hey, you forgot something.”

Bobby Shy looked back at him. “What?”

“Your gun,” Mitchell said.

Alan didn't usually go to the movie theater until late in the afternoon or early evening, unless he needed some extra spending money. Then he'd make a day of it at the theater. Take tickets for a while in the afternoon, pocket a handful of them, then resell them later and keep the money, when he worked the ticket booth in the evening while the girl was on her relief. Twenty tickets were usually enough. Twenty times five was a hundred dollars and the guy down in Deerfield Beach, Florida, who owned the theater, never knew the difference. The money went for sugar candy and cigarettes—very often for the two
teenaged sisters who lived in the building. Laurie, fourteen, and Linda, fifteen. He would let them come to his apartment after school and take their clothes off and listen to music and smoke dope and sometimes drop a little acid. Little teenyboppers with skinny white bodies. Groovy little girls who squealed and giggled when they got turned on and loved to jump on Alan, on the Indian pillows, and
undress him and do everything they could to turn him on too. Alan called it playing with his kids.

Laurie and Linda and the rock music were turned way up when Bobby Shy knocked at the door.

Alan, still dressed, went over and opened the door a crack with the chain on. He said, “Hey, Bobby,” grinning but not liking it one bit, closed the door, took the chain off and let him in.

Bobby Shy looked at the little naked girls on the pillows. They looked back at him, not turning away or trying to cover themselves. They stared at him with knowing little smiles and gleams in their eyes.

Bobby Shy said, “Get rid of the fuzzies. We got something to talk about.”

Alan got the warning in the man's quiet, cut-dry tone. Bobby was in a mood, so don't mess with him or ask questions. But stay loose; don't ever look scared. Alan clapped his hands once and said, “That's it for a while, kids,” like a stage manager. “Let's take a break.”

The girls pouted and said awwww and oh shit, but Alan got them into their clothes and out of there in a couple of minutes. He closed the door and looked over to see Bobby taking a chair away from the table in the dining-L. He placed it in the middle of the floor and sat down. Alan sat against the wall on a pillow, yoga-fashion, and began building a joint. When he finished it and looked up again, reaching toward the low coffee table for a match, Bobby, seated about fifteen feet away, facing him, was screwing a silencer attachment into the barrel of his .38 Special.

“Hey now, come on,” Alan said, “don't fool with guns in here, okay? The goddamn piece's liable to go off.”

“It's due to go off,” Bobby Shy said, “unless you give me the straight shit when I ask you a question.”

“Come on, what
is
this?” The extension on the barrel was pointing at Alan now; he could see the little round black hole. “Are you kidding, or what?”

“This number don't kid,” Bobby Shy said. “You ready for the question?”

“Man, what're you on?”

Bobby Shy crossed his legs and rested the butt of the revolver on his raised knee. “The question,” he said, “is how much did the man say he give you?”

“Give
me
?”

“Give you, give us—say it.”

Alan was silent. He stole a little time by lighting
the joint and tossing the matches back on the coffee table.

“You went out to see him, didn't you?”

“What's the answer?” Bobby said.

“Before I can talk to you, you go out on your own and see the guy. Is that it?”

Bobby turned the revolver on his knee slightly, a couple of inches, and shot a pig off the coffee table—a blue ceramic jar shaped like a pig that seemed to explode from within because there was no sound relating the exploding fragments to the gun.

Alan sat up straight, his back against the wall, his eyes open. He said, “Bobby, listen to me for a minute, all right?”

“Man pull shit on me,” Bobby said, “he got to be very brave or stoned out of his head.” His gaze lowered, he pulled the trigger and shot a fairy-looking figurine he never did like off the coffee table. It flew apart, was gone, with bits of it landing in Alan's lap. “Which are you,” Bobby said, “brave or stoned?”