Detour (14 page)

“Anyway, I'm here,” I said aloud.

“You mean 'we', don't you?” commented Vera, than she started to laugh.

Ha, ha. It was very funny.

I soon found out Vera wasn't kidding about that Siamese Twins crack, for we rented a small apartment on Afton Place as Mr. and Mrs. Charles Haskell. When I objected to this, she explained that it was on account of the car. A dealer might smell a mouse if he called and found out we were using another name, and it was important that the business be transacted strictly according to Holy.

The place only had one bedroom, so it was yours truly for the couch. I took one of the pillows from the bed, a blanket and a sheet. I wasn't exactly sleepy, but I thought I'd catch a nap while Vera was in the shower. I don't know how long I dozed, but when I opened my eyes again I was stiff and sore and I let loose some choice profanity before I noticed Vera standing beside the couch, grinning down at me.

“That couch isn't so hot, is it, Roth?”

“The Spanish had worse. Only they had spikes in theirs. And they called them racks, not davenports. ”

“I feel sorry for you,” she said sarcastically.

“Say, why don't you take off your clothes when you go to bed? Or is it a habit you got into in jail?”

“Go to hell,” I said.

Then I noticed she had on Haskell's woolly bathrobe. “It's tough Haskell wasn't a woman,” I observed, “so you could use what's in the suit-case.”

“Oh, I've decided to let you keep that stuff—except the suits. They ought to bring a sawbuck apiece in a hock shop. I just came out to tell you I'm finished with the shower, if you want to use it.”

“Thanks. ”

“Your towel is the one with the blue border.”

I took a pair of Haskell's pyjamas into the bathroom with me and stayed under the shower a long time. When I finally came back into the living-room Vera was sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette and sipping a drink. She had taken off Haskell's robe. All she was wearing was a pair of his silk pyjamas with the sleeves rolled up.

“Have a drink?”

“Aren't you afraid I'll take you up on it?”

“If I didn't want to give you a drink I wouldn't have offered it. Why be a sore-head, Ross? You got yourself into this thing. I didn't. You should be grateful I'm not turning you in. Why, if I wasn't regular, you'd be in the pen this minute being photographed and finger-printed and pushed around by the dicks. So cheer up. Get rid of that long puss. Or is your conscience bothering you?”

“No, it isn't,” I replied hotly.

“Fine. That's the spirit. He's dead and no moaning around will bring him back. I never could understand this worrying about something that was over and done with.”

“Listen, Vera. For the last time, I didn't kill him.”

“All right. If it'll make you sociable, you didn't kill him. Have a drink.”

I let her pour me a whisky, the first one for me in three or four months. Then she gave me another. In a couple of hours we killed the two pints. The liquor didn't make me feel any better, but I began to see Vera was right. She hadn't gotten me into this thing. She just happened along to top it off. However, I wasn't to blame either. When I crooked my thumb I was only asking for a lift; I had neither the desire nor the intention to steal the man's car, his clothes, his money and his identity. Those things had all been shoved down me, like castor oil. Like a prize chump, all I'd figured on was three thousand miles of highway separating me from Hollywood and Sue. I didn't count on someone kicking off just at the moment it would look the worst.

Yes, I was feeling sorry for myself—why not? I was getting a raw deal all around. If I had asked for trouble by knocking Mr. Haskell over the head, there would have been no complaints; but who had I ever harmed? All I asked of life was to be left alone, to be allowed to go about my business playing my fiddle.

There must be something wrong with the world. Isn't there any justice, any God? Or is He just a sadistic puppeteer, parked on a throne out of sight, amusing Himself by jerking the wrong strings? Clear it up for me, someone. Here I was, facing a death penalty, liable to wind up in a station house at any minute, when I hadn't done anything anyone else wouldn't have done. I wasn't to blame. Something or someone might be; but not me, and not Haskell, and not Vera.

However, the realization that Vera was not to blame didn't make me like her more. She was the type of woman I have always despised: the kind who knows all the answers and who makes no bones about being hard-boiled. Even though I know just how women are underneath, I still prefer them to have that phony sweetness in their manner. You know, Sadie Thompson pulling a Ramona. She looked pretty cute in those big pyjamas, and now she was all fixed up with the junk she'd bought in Pasadena; yet, somehow, she didn't seem to be feminine. I guess her truck-drivers vocabulary ruined the illusion.

“We're out of liquor, Roth.”

“Yeah.”

“Too bad. I felt like getting tight tonight.”

“Well, I think you succeeded.”

“Am I tight?”

“As a prima donna's corset.”

“That's nice. I wanted to get tight.”

“Why? What have you to get tight about?”

“Oh, I don't know. Things.”

“Nuts. You should have my worries.”

“If I had your worries, I'd stay sober.”

“Yeah. Maybe you're right.”

“I'm always right.”

“Sure.”

“I don't like the way you say that, mister.”

“Well, there's a lot of things I don't like.”

“I know. But life is ball game. You have to take a swing at whatever comes along before you wake up and find you're struck out.”

“I bet you read that somewhere.”

Vera frowned an instant and then decided not to get angry.

“That's the trouble with you, Roth. All you do is bellyache, instead of taking it easy and trying to make the best of things. Why, you're lucky just to be alive! Suppose
Haskell
had opened that door? You'd be playing a harp now. Think of that.”

“You think of it. I'm tired of thinking.”

“There's plenty of people dying this minute that would give anything to trade places with you. I know what I'm talking about.”

“I'm not so sure. At least they
know
they're done for. They don't have to sweat blood wondering if they are.”

“Your philosophy stinks, mister. We all know we're going to die some day. It's only a question of when. But what got us off on this, anyway? We'll be discussing politics next.”

“Or spiritualism. Where did you hide the butts?”

“On the table, sucker.”

We bored each other with conversation for about an hour longer, every five minutes one of us wishing we had another pint or a radio or something to read. Then, when we finally ran out of chatter, I suggested the hay. “I know it's only nine o'clock. But we want to get up early and make the rounds of used-car lots.”

“No hurry about that. We've got all the time in the world.”

“Yeah, maybe you have. But if you think I want to stay cooped up in this place any longer than I have to, you're batty.”

“It's not a bad place. You'd pay plenty for diggings like this in New York.”

“I wouldn't care if it was the Ritz.”

As I said that, I was looking out the window. Somewhere out in the night was Cheremoya Avenue. I didn't have any idea if it was north, south, east or west. I knew it was at the foot of some mountains, that was all. Well, wherever it was, Sue was there sleeping, not dreaming I was nearby. I could see her in her bed, the covers tucked up under her chin and wrapped around her knees the way she liked. If it was a double bed, I really pitied her room-mate. I remembered all the colds I'd caught, waking up in mid-winter without a blanket. Of course when you're in love you don't mind those things. I would gladly have come down with pneumonia before disturbing her.

Vera suddenly had a fit of coughing and I turned away from the window sadly. Her face was red as a beet and she signaled me frantically to get her a drink of water. The spell lasted a full five minutes and when it was done she lay back on the couch, exhausted.

“That lousy liquor,” she explained.

“That's a mean cough. You ought to do something about it.”

“Oh, I'll be all right.”

“That's what Camille said before they patted her with a spade.”

“Who?”

“Oh, nobody you know.”

“Anyway, wouldn't it be a break for you if I did kick off? You'd be free—and with all that dough and the car.”

“I don't want to see anybody die.”

“Not even me?”

“Especially not you. One guy died on me. If you did—well, that's all I need.”

Vera looked at me closely for a minute. “You don't like me, do you, Roth?”

“Oh, it's not that, Vera,” I said, deciding it was better to keep her in a good mood than to tell the truth. “I just hate being a prisoner. When I want to go someplace, I want to go.”

“So do I. But we can't always do what we want to do. I'd like to lay my hands on a million. Is that why you're so grouchy?”

“Sure.” Better not mention Sue, I cautioned myself. The less Vera knew about me, the less chance she'd have of finding me if I copped a sneak. “That's enough to make anyone feel bad. ”

“Well, I'm a good sport. It's still early. If you want us to go out for awhile, how about a movie?”

“I don't feel
that
bad.”

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “Have it your own way. God, it's stuffy in here. Open that window.”

“It is open.”

“I must be tight.”

And here she got to her feet and began pacing the floor. I watched her in admiration. I couldn't help it. She was one of the most graceful women I'd ever seen. Bare-footed and wearing those silk pyjamas that outlined her wiry body, she was like some pantheress, caged and nervous. As she walked, the jacket of Haskell's pyjamas, which she had wrapped around herself, fell open. I turned my head away, but not before I caught a flash of her torso, jutting ribs, small breasts, navel and the rest. She must have been aware of it, but she took her time covering up.

“Hey, what goes on?” I said.

“Does it bother you, Boy Scout?”

“It doesn't bother me. But remember where you are. Aren't you afraid...?”

“Of you? Don't be silly. All you can do is rape me.”

All I could do was rape her. Nice talk. The more I was with her, the more the woman disgusted me. It wasn't that she was ugly or anything; it was just her attitude.

“I was thinking of the neighbors. They'll be calling the cops the first thing you know. This isn't Minsky's.”

“I'm going to bed. Good night, Roth. Don't try to sneak off during the night, because it won't do you any good. You can't get that chain off the door without making a lot of noise and I'm a light sleeper. Anyway, if I find you gone I'll notify the cops and they'll pick you up on a general alarm.”

“Don't worry. I know when I'm in a spot.”

“And I've got the car keys, too.”

“O.K. Why not take all the pants out of the bag and stuff them under the pillow while you're at it?”

“Good idea.”

And, believe it or not, that's exactly what she did. “Well, good night.” She went to the bedroom door and paused with her hand on the knob. “I hope you won't be too uncomfortable on the couch.”

“Don't lose any sleep over it, will you, Vera?”

“You... you don't have to sleep on that couch, if you don't want to.”

Something told me that was coming. Well, to hell with her. She could make me stay put in the apartment. She could make me give her all my dough. She could make me peddle a hot car for her. But there was one thing she couldn't make me do.

“That's all right. I like the couch.” I saw her stiffen a little. Then she walked into the bedroom without another word. “Good night, Vera,” I called after her.

Later on that night I got to thinking about Sue again, and how I missed her and how much I loved her. The moonlight streamed in through the open window like golden fingers slipping into black gloves. All the objects in the room took on a fairylike quality. They flashed with reflected light. The evening noises blended together into an unearthly music which stimulated me and made the blood course through my veins at a maddening pace. Before my eyes I beheld a vision: an amber body writhing in the dimness, beautiful and frightening at the same time, the personification of Venus, of Bacchus, of unutterable fleshly delights. The sound of drums commenced to pound and pulse in my ears, growing louder until it drowned out everything else. Faster beat the drums, my heart keeping time. I felt feverish, drugged by the pitch, the timbre, the sheer savagery of it all. Taut and tense like the carrying notes of a violin, my senses sprang into being and overwhelmed me....

Isn't that some description? I got it out of a book. But here's something I didn't get out of a book: I wanted Sue so much that night, I went into the bedroom and had Vera. There's reality for you. Go out and roll in it.

If this were a movie, I would fall in love with Vera, marry her and make a decent woman of her. Or else she'd make some supreme Class A sacrifice for me and die, leaving me free to marry Sue. She would experience a complete and totally unwarranted change of heart, wipe out her sins by a dramatic death, pleasing me, the Hays office and the morons in the mezzanine. Sue and I would bawl a little over her grave, make some crack about there is good in all of us and fade out. But this isn't a movie, and Vera, unfortunately, was just as lousy in the morning as she'd been the night before.

Sorry.

You know, it would be a great thing if our lives could be arranged like a movie plot. M.G.M. does a much better job of running humanity than God. On the screen the good people always come out all right in the end. The hero winds up with the girl, a fine position paying forty-nine thousand dollars a week and a medal for bravery into the bargain. No matter how black things look for him in the second reel, before the trap is sprung or the switch is pulled a pardon arrives from the Governor or new evidence is brought in.

And in a movie, if the hero decides to become a doctor, he becomes a doctor, not a grocer or dentist. If he decides to go to Frisco, he goes to Frisco. He doesn't wind up in Miami or New Orleans or in jail. Things are plotted in straight lines. There are never any unexpected happenings which change everything about the hero but his underwear.