He laughed. “I’ll bet it scared the piss outa you guys, huh?”
“Shit! We were waiting for you to start frothing at the mouth and biting trees.”
“Yeah, I was really gone,” he said. “Did I ever say anything about the Delta?” He asked it very casually — too casually.
“Nothing that made any sense,” I said. “You said something about how you used to think about snow when you were out there.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I remember that — not too well, of course, but I remember it. Did I mention any names while I was out my head?”
“I think so,” I said, “but I didn’t really catch them.”
Clydine came back.
“I’m gonna blow this town,” Lou said. “Winter’s comin’ and the rain bugs me.”
“Yeah,” I said, “it can get pretty gloomy around here.”
“And I gotta work outside, too. I can’t cut bein’ penned up inside. I think I’ll cut out for Texas or Florida or someplace. I just came back today to get my gear together.”
“Be nice down South this time of year,” I agreed. “Make sure you see Sloane before you go though, huh? He’s pretty worried about it.”
“Sure,” he said, emptying his glass. “Hey, tell Jack I’m sorry about givin’ ‘im such a hard time up there, huh? Chances are I won’t get a chance to see ‘im before I take off.”
“Sure, Lou,”
“I probably won’t ever be comin’ back up here again,” he said. “That probably ain’t gonna hurt some guys’ feelin’s.”
“Oh,” I lied, “you haven’t been all that bad, Lou.”
He laughed, the same harsh raspy laugh as always. “Look,” he said, “I’m gonna have to take off — if I’m gonna see Sloane and all. Just forget anything I said up there, huh — about the Delta or anything, OK?”
“What Delta?” I said.
He grinned at me. “You’re OK, Danny — too bad we didn’t get to know each other better.” He stood up quickly. I could see the bulge of the gun under his jacket. “I gotta run. You take care now, huh?”
“So long, Lou,” I said.
He waved, winked at Clydine, and started out. Then he stopped and came back, his face flat again.
“Hey,” he said, “I owe you five, don’t I?”
I’d forgotten about it.
“Here.” He pulled out his billfold and fumbled awkwardly in it. He was carrying quite a wad of cash. He dropped a five on the table. “We’re all square now, right?”
“Good enough, Lou,” I said.
He poked a finger at me pistol-fashion by way of farewell, turned, and went out.
“Wow,” Clydine said in a shuddery voice, “I don’t want to play cops and robbers anymore.”
“I shouldn’t have brought you along,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said. “He’s a real starker, isn’t he?”
“He’s got all the makings,” I said, picking up the five-dollar bill. I looked it over carefully.
“What’s the matter?” she said. “You think it may be counterfeit?”
“Nobody counterfeits fives,” I said.
“What are you looking for then? Blood?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “I think he was pretty close to broke when he came out of the woods, though.”
“Maybe he went to the bank.”
“That’s what worries me,” I said, still looking at the bill.
“OK, Knucks,” she said, “I told you I didn’t want to play cops and robbers anymore. What’s on for the afternoon?”
“Let’s go to Seattle.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to have to go house hunting.”
“Oh,” she said. I don’t think either of us liked the reminder that I’d be leaving soon.
36
On the first of October I moved to Seattle and began the tedious process of getting enrolled for classes and so forth. I’d found a little place the landlord referred to as a cottage but for which the word “shack” might have been more appropriate. Even when compared to the shabby little trailer I’d been living in, the place was tiny. The fold-down couch that made into a bed was perhaps the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever slept in, but the place was close enough to the university to compensate for its other drawbacks.
Even though Clydine and I had both been convinced that my move to Seattle would more or less terminate what some people chose to call our relationship, it didn’t work out that way. I kept coming across reasons why I just had to make a quick trip to Tacoma, and I think she made seven shopping jaunts to Seattle during my first month up there.
I guess when you get right down to it, I got out of Tacoma just in time to miss the big messy bust-up between Jack and Marg — or maybe Jack just held off until I left town, though that was a kind of delicacy you just didn’t expect from my brother.
About ten o’clock on a drizzly Saturday morning I came down the steps of the library with a whole dreary weekend staring me in the face. The bibliographical study for Introduction to Graduate Studies that I’d assumed would take from twelve to fourteen hours had, in fact, been polished off in just a shade under forty-five minutes. I spent another half hour trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. As far as I could see, the job was complete, so I left the library feeling definitely let down and vaguely cheated somehow.
I had absolutely nothing to do with myself, so I decided, naturally, to bag on down to Tacoma. At least down there I should be able to find somebody I knew to drink with.
The highway was dreary, but it didn’t really bother me. Without even thinking, I swung on over to Clydine’s place. Who the hell was I trying to kid? There was only one reason I’d come down to Tacoma, and it sure wasn’t to find somebody to drink with.
I went up the stairs two at a time and knocked at the door.
Her folks were there.
“Danny,” she said in surprise when she opened the door, “I thought you had to work this weekend.” She was wearing a dress and her hair was done up.
“I finished up sooner than I thought,” I said.
“Well, come on in,” she said. “Meet my folks.” She gave me one of those smark-alecky grimaces that conveyed a world of condescension, sophomoric superiority, and juvenile intolerance. It irritated the piss out of me for some reason, and I made a special effort to be polite to them.
Her father was a little bald-headed guy with a nervous laugh. I think he was in the plumbing supply business, or maybe hardware. Her mother was short and plump and kind of bubbly. I think they liked me because of my haircut. Some of Clydine’s friends must have looked pretty shaggy to them.
I could see my little leftist smoldering in the corner as I talked about fishing with her father and Europe with her mother. I knew that about all I was doing was mildewing the sheets between the little nut and me and breeding a helluva family squabble which would probably start as soon as I left. I told them I had to run across town and see my brother and then left as gracefully as I could.
I snooped around the Avenue a bit, but I really didn’t feel like seeing Jack yet, and the pawnshop had a whole platoon of guys lined up inside, so I took a chance and drove on over to Parkland to see Mike. Surprisingly, he was home, and the two of us went into his living room and sprawled out in a couple of chairs and drank beer and watched it rain.
“Damn shame about Jack and Marg,” he said.
“Yeah, but it was bound to happen, Mike. It was just a question of time really.”
“I’ve never really been able to figure out what it is about Jack,” he said thoughtfully. “I like him — hell, everybody likes the son of a bitch, but he just can’t seem to hang in there the way most guys do.”
“I think maybe Cap Miller came closer to Jack’s problem than anybody else really,” I said.
“Oh?”
“He said that the way he saw it Jack isn’t ever really going to grow up. Maybe that’s it.”
“Not much gets by old Miller,” Mike commented.
“It’s funny, too,” I said. “It’s the one thing Jack’s been obsessed with ever since I can remember — growing up. He used to think about that more than anybody I ever knew.”
“Maybe he tried too hard.”
“I think he tried too soon, Mike. Have you ever seen one of these girls who start going out on dates when they’re eleven-lipstick, high heels, the whole bit?”
“Yeah, but what’s the connection?”
“Have you ever known one of them that ever really grew up? I mean one who wasn’t still pretty damned juvenile even when she got to be twenty-three or twenty-four?”