Norvell looked through a chink in the boarding of the cracked picture window and saw Alexandra plodding hopelessly down the battered walk, weeping.
He uncertainly asked Virginia—the new Virginia—”What was that about selling her?”
She said, “What I said. Til sell her. It’s easy, you can always find a fagin or a madam for a kid. I don’t know how prices run; when I was thirteen, I brought fifty dollars.”
Norvell, his hair standing on end, said, “You?”
“Me. Not Wilhelmina Snodgrass or Zenobia Beaverbottom. Me. Your wife. I guess I was lucky—they sold me to a fagin, not into a house. He ran a tea pad; I helped him roll the clientele. That’s where I met Tony. Now, if there are no more useless questions, help me unpack.”
Norvell helped her, his head whirling. Without shame or apology she had demolished the story of her life—the story he had painstakingly built up from her “accidental” hints and revelations over the years. She “hadn’t wanted to talk about it” . . . but somehow Norvell knew. The honest, industrious parents. The frugal, rugged life of toil. The warmth of family feeling, drawn together by common need. The struggling years as a—as a something she had never exactly specified, but something honorable and plain. The meeting with Tony Ellis-ton—glamorous cad from the Field Day crowd. Not a bad fellow. But not love, Norvell—not what we have. . . .
He had thought himself clever. He had pieced it together into a connected tale, chuckling privately because she couldn’t know how much he knew.
And all the while she had been a pickpocket in a dope joint, sold into it by her parents.
There was a knock on the door.
Virginia said through her teeth, “If that brat’s come back before I told——” and swung it open. She screamed.
Norvell, greatly to his surprise, found he had the revolver in his hand. He was pointing it at the middle of the hulking, snaggle-toothed figure hi the doorway.
The figure promptly raised its enormous hands over its small, shock-haired head and told him, grinning, “Don’t shoot, mister. I’m harmless. I know I’m not pretty but I’m harmless. Came here to help you out. Show you where to register and all. The name’s Shep. I’ll give you a fair shake. Show you the best places for firewood, wise you up on the gangs. Hear you have a little girl. You want to sell her, I’ll get you a price.
You want to go into business? I canjpjiiyou next to a guy who’ll start you out with hemp seed. If you got real money, I know a sugar dealer and a guy with a still to rent. I’m just Shep, mister. I’m just trying to get along.”
Virginia said, “Keep the gun on him, Norvell. Shep, you come in and sit down. What do you want?”
“Surplus rations,” the giant said, with a childlike smile. “Cash, if you have any. Always I’m desperate, but now I’m out of my mind.” His arm swept at the open door. “See the rain? I have to catch it. It’s the front end of the rainbow, mister. See it? I have to catch it; I never saw it before. And to catch it I’ve got to have some crimson lake. Some other things too, but the crimson lake. You don’t see crimson in it, do you? Well, you won’t see crimson in the canvas, but it’ll be there—in the underpainting, and because it’s there 111 have the pot of tears, the bloody, godawful rainsweep caught gloom-driving down on two hundred thousand desolations.”
Norvell, lowering the pistol, said stupidly, “You paint.”
“I paint. And for fifty bucks I can get what I need, which leaves me only the problem of getting fifty bucks.”
Virginia said, “With your build you could get it.”
Shep shrugged apologetically. “Not like you mean, not with rough stuff. Not since I started painting,” he said. “You can’t be half a virgin. So I run errands.”
He put his hands down, peering at them out of his Neanderthal skull. “Any errands? I’ve got to raise the fifty before the rain stops.”
Virginia appeared to come to a conclusion. “Norvell, give Shep fifty dollars.” He shot his wife a horrified look; that would leave them with eighteen dollars and sixty-five cents. She said contemptuously, “Don’t worry. He won’t skip; there’s no place to hide for long in Belly Rave.” She told Shep, “You’ll work for it. One week’s hard work. The outhouse is probably brim-full. The chimney looks like it’s blocked. We need firewood. This place needs patching all around. Also my husband doesn’t know the ropes and he might get in trouble. You’ll watch him?”