“Oh?” I had a picture of what he’d call a “high-class broad.”
“Yeah. I only met her a few days ago, but it don’t take a guy long to make out if he knows the score. You know her, but I ain’t gonna tell you who she is. Nice set of jugs on her and a real wild ass.”
McKlearey was about as subtle as a brick. What in hell was Monica up to? If she wanted a little strange stuff, she sure as hell could have done better man this creep.
McKlearey chuckled obscenely. “You should have seen it, Danny boy. She comes to my fuckin’ pad about ten this morning, see. Some dumb routine about something she’d ‘misplaced’ at a party we was both at, and had I seen it. At first I thought she was tryin to say I’d stole it, see, so I was a little hot about it — you know, cut her right off. Well, she hung around and hung around, smilin’ and givin’ me the glad eye and stickin’ her tits out at me, see, so I ask her if she wants a beer, see. She says she don’t mind, and we have a beer and start to get friendly.”
I could just picture Monica gagging down a beer at ten in the morning.
“Well, I make my move, see,” he went on, “and all of a sudden she gets cold feet, see. Comes on with this ‘I don’t know what you think I came here for, but it certainly wasn’t that!'” He mimicked her voice fairly well. “But I know women, see, and she was just pantin’ for it. I figure she wanted it rough, see — them high-class broads always like it like that — so I says, ‘Come here, you bitch,’ and I yanks off her clothes and throws her on the bed, and I poke it to her, right up to the hilt. At first she kind of half-ass tries to fight me off, but pretty soon she gets with it, see. Wild piece of tail, man!” He chuckled again and ordered another beer.
I began to hope he’d get hit by a truck before we ever went into the woods. This was going to be a bum trip, and now I was out five bucks. I told him I had to run, and I took off. The whole business with Monica had me a little confused though. Why McKlearey, for Chrissake?
I asked Clydine about it that evening at my place, explaining the situation and describing the people and what had happened.
“Now, why in God’s name would she want to have anything to do with that creepy Jarhead?” I asked her.
Clydine sighed and shook her head. “Oh, Danny,” she said in a long-suffering tone. “You’re so smart about some things and so hopeless when it comes to women.”
“I manage to get by,” I said, slipping my hand up under her sweatshirt and grinning at her.
“Do you want to play or do you want to listen?” she asked tartly. “Somehow I’ve never been able to believe a man’s seriously listening to what I’m saying if he’s fondling me at the same time.”
I pulled my hand out. “OK,” I said, “all serious now. No fondling. Shoot.”
“All right. One: Wifey doesn’t want Hubby to go out and shoot Bambi — right?”
“No — Wifey doesn’t want Hubby to get off the leash.”
“Whatever. Two: Hubby is jealous of Wifey’s good-looking round bottom, right?”
“OK,” I said.
“Three: Wifey knows there’s bad blood between Hubby and Creepy Jarhead, right?”
“Go on.”
“Four: Wifey figures that if Creepy Jarhead makes big pass at Wifey’s good-looking round bottom, Hubby will blow his cool, punch Creepy Jarhead in the snot-locker and stay home and hold Wifey’s hand instead of going out with the bad old hairy-chested types to dry-gulch poor little Bambi, right?”
“Wrong,” I said. “Creepy Jarhead did not just make pass. Creepy Jarhead threw the blocks to Wifey’s little round bottom. It shoots your theory all to hell.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “Not at all,” she said. “Wifey moves in those circles where when a lady says no, the men are polite enough to stop. Poor little Wifey underestimated the Creepy Jarhead, and that’s why she got blocks in her bottom.”
I blinked. By God, she had it! “You are an absolute doll,” I told her. “Now tell me, since this went gunnysack on her, what position is Wifey in now?”
“Little Wifey’s got her tit in the wringer,” Clydine said sweetly. “She can’t scream rape — it’s too late for that, and besides, Hubby might go to the Fuzz and then the Creepy Jarhead would spill his guts about her being the one who made the first move. She is, if she’s a normal Establishment woman, feeling guilty as hell about now for having committed adultery with a man she doesn’t even like. I’d say she screwed herself right out of action — literally. Hubby can go out and exterminate the whole deer population and she won’t be able to raise a finger. End of analysis. Satisfied?”
“It all fits together perfectly,” I said. “You know, my little pansy of the proletariat, you are absolutely beautiful.”
“I’m glad you noticed,” she said, snuggling up to me. “Now you may fondle, if you like.”
13
On Tuesday night we gathered at Sloane’s with all our gear. Jack and I got there a little late, and the others were already sitting around the kitchen waiting for us. Stan’s face looked grim, and McKlearey was already a little drunk. Sloane seemed relieved to see us, so I imagine things had been getting a bit strained.
“There they are,” Sloane said as we walked in. “Where in hell have you guys been?”
“I had to get cleaned up,” Jack said. “I’ve been crawlin’ around under a fuckin’ trailer down at the lot all day.”
“Have a beer, men,” Sloane said, diving into the refrigerator. He came up with a fistful of beer cans and began popping tops. “You guys bring your gear?”
“Yeah,” I said, “it’s out in the car.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and bring it on in,” he said. “I’ve got the list of all the stuff we’ll each need, so I’ll check everybody off.” It was sort of funny really. Sloane was such a clown most of the time that you hardly took him seriously, but when Mike had dropped out, he’d taken charge, and nobody questioned him about it.
“What we’ll do,” he went on, “is get everything all packed up, and then we’ll store it all here. That way nobody forgets anything, OK?”
We all agreed to that.
“Then tomorrow night, we all take off from here. Stan is going to ride with me, right Stan?”
Stan nodded.
“We can swap off driving that way,” Sloane said. “Dan, you and Jack are going in his car, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And Lou wants to take his own car, I guess. Damned if I know why, Lou. There’d be plenty of room in either of the other cars.”
“I just want to take my own car,” Lou said. “Does anybody have any objections to me takin’ my own fuckin’ car?” He was sitting off by himself like he had that first night, and his eyes looked a little odd. I thought maybe he was drunker than I’d figured at first.
“It just seems a little unnecessary, that’s all,” Sloane said placatingly.
“Does anybody have any objections to me takin’ my own fuckin’ car?” Lou repeated. He really had a bag on.
“Take the motherfucker,” Jack said. “Nobody gives a shit.”
“All right, then,” Lou said. “AU right, then.” His voice was a little shrill.
“All right, calm down, you guys,” Sloane said. “If we start chipping at each other, we’ll never get done here.” Everybody seemed to be in a foul humor.
Jack and I went back out to the car to pick up our gear. “That fuckin’ McKlearey is gettin’ to be a big pain in the ass,” Jack said as he hauled out his sack. “I wish to Christ we’d included him out.”
“We needed the extra guy to make the deal with Miller,” I said.
“We could have found a dozen buys that would have been better.”
“He’s a first-class shitheel, all right,” I agreed, lifting out my rifle. “He tapped me for five bucks the other day.”
“Oh, no shit?” Jack said. “Didn’t I warn you about that? Well, you can kiss that five good-bye.”
We went on inside with the gear.
“Let’s take it all into the living room,” Sloane said. “We’ve got room to spread out in there, but for Chrissake don’t spill any beer on Claudia’s carpet! She’ll hang all our scalps to the lodge-pole if somebody messes up.”
“We’re all housebroke,” Jack said. “Quit worryin’ about the goddamn carpeting.” He was in a particularly lousy mood tonight for some reason.