I was too rough for her, he thought. And I’m not so bad; there are a hell of a lot of guys worse than me. I could pretty well figure out what she was thinking, what she wanted, when she felt lonely or bad or depressed. I spent a lot of time worrying and fussing over her. But it wasn’t enough. She deserved more. She deserves a lot, he thought.
“I’m parking,” Ed said. He had found a place and was backing the truck, peering over his shoulder.
“Listen,” Frink said, “Can I send a couple of pieces to my wife?”
“I didn’t know you were married.” Intent on parking, Ed answered him reflexively. “Sure, as long as they’re not silver.”
Ed shut off the truck motor.
“We’re here,” he said. He puffed marijuana smoke, then stubbed the cigarette out on the dashboard, dropped the remains to the cab floor. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck,” Frank Frink said.
“Hey, look. There’s one of those Jap waka poems on the back of this cigarette package.” Ed read the poem aloud, over the traffic noises.
“Hearing a cuckoo cry,
I looked up in the direction
Whence the sound came:
What did I see?
Only the pale moon in the dawning sky.”
He handed the package of T’ien-lais back to Frink. “Keeriiist!” he said, then slapped Frink on the back, grinned, opened the truck door, picked up the wicker hamper and stepped from the truck. “I’ll let you put the dime in the meter,” he said, starting off down the sidewalk.
In an instant he had disappeared among the other pedestrians.
Juliana, Frink thought. Are you as alone as I am? He got out of the truck and put a dime in the parking meter.
Fear, he thought. This whole jewelry venture. What if it should fail? What if it should fail? That was how the oracle put it. Wailing, tears, beating the pot.
Man faces the darkening shadows of his life. His passage to the grave. If she were here it would not be so bad. Not bad at all.
I’m scared, he realized. Suppose Ed doesn’t sell a thing. Suppose they laugh at us.
What then?
On a sheet on the floor of the front room of her apartment, Juliana lay holding Joe Cinnadella against her. The room was warm and stuffy with midafternoon sunlight. Her body and the body of the man in her arms were damp with perspiration. A drop, rolling down Joe’s forehead, clung a moment to his cheekbone, then fell to her throat.
“You’re still dripping,” she murmured.
He said nothing. His breathing, long, slow, regular . . . like the ocean, she thought. We’re nothing but water inside.
“How was it?” she asked.
He mumbled that it had been okay.
I thought so, Juliana thought. I can tell. Now we both have to get up, pull ourselves together. Or is that bad? Sign of subconscious disapproval?
He stirred.
“Are you getting up?” She gripped him tight with both her arms. “Don’t. Not yet.”
“Don’t you have to get to the gym?”
I’m not going to the gym, Juliana said to herself. Don’t you know that? We will go somewhere; we won’t stay here too much longer. But it will be a place we haven’t been before. It’s time.
She felt him start to draw himself backward and up onto his knees, felt her hands slide along his damp, slippery back. Then she could hear him walking away, his bare feet against the floor. To the bathroom, no doubt. For his shower.
It’s over, she thought. Oh well. She sighed.
“I hear you,” Joe said from the bathroom. “Groaning. Always downcast, aren’t you? Worry, fear and suspicion, about me and everything else in the world—“ He emerged, briefly, dripping with soapy water, face beaming. “How would you like to take a trip?”
Her pulse quickened. “Where?”
“To some big city. How about north, to Denver? I’ll take you out; buy you ticket to a show, good restaurant, taxi, get you evening dress or what you need. Okay?”
She could hardly believe him, but she wanted to; she tried to.
“Will that Stude of yours make it?” Joe called.
“Sure,” she said.
“We’ll both get some nice clothes,” he said. “Enjoy ourselves, maybe for the first time in our lives. Keep you from cracking up.”
“Where’ll we get the money?”
Joe said, “I have it. Look in my suitcase.” He shut the bathroom door; the racket of water shut out any further words.
Opening the dresser, she got out his dented, stained little grip. Sure enough, in one corner she found an envelope; it contained Reichsbank bills, high value and good anywhere. Then we can go, she realized. Maybe he’s not just stringing me along. I just wish I could get inside him and see what’s there, she thought as she counted the money. .
Beneath the envelope she found a huge, cylindrical fountain pen, or at least it appeared to be that; it had a clip, anyhow. But it weighed so much. Gingerly, she lifted it out, unscrewed the cap. Yes, it had a gold point. But .
“What is this?” she asked Joe, when he reappeared from the shower.
He took it from her, returned it to the grip. How carefully he handled it . . . she noticed that, reflected on it, perplexed.
“More morbidity?” Joe said. He seemed lighthearted, more so than at any time since she had met him; with a yell of enthusiasm, he clasped her around the waist, then hoisted her up into his arms, rocking her, swinging her back and forth, peering down into her face, breathing his warm breath over her, squeezing her until she bleated.
“No,” she said. “I’m just—slow to change.” Still a little scared of you, she thought. So scared I can’t even say it, tell you about it.
“Out the window,” Joe cried, stalking across the room with her in his arms. “Here we go.”
“Please,” she said.
“Kidding. Listen—we’re going on a march, like the March on Rome. You remember that. The Duce led them, my Uncle Carlo for example. Now we have a little march, less important, not noted in the history books. Right?” Inclining his head, he kissed her on the mouth so hard that their teeth clashed. “How nice we both’ll look, in our new clothes. And you can explain to me exactly how to talk, deport myself; right? Teach me manners; right?”
“You talk okay,” Juliana said. “Better than me, even.”
“No.” He became abruptly somber. “I talk very bad. A real wop accent. Didn’t you notice it when you first met me in the cafe?”
“I guess so,” she said; it did not seem important to her.
“Only a woman knows the social conventions,” Joe said, carrying her back and dropping her to bounce frighteningly on the bed. “Without a woman we’d discuss racing cars and horses and tell dirty jokes; no civilization.”
You’re in a strange mood, Juliana thought. Restless and brooding, until you decide to move on; then you become hopped up. Do you really want me? You can ditch me, leave me here; it’s happened before. I would ditch you, she thought, if I were going on.
“Is that your pay?” she asked as he dressed. “You saved it up?” It was so much. Of course, there was a good deal of money in the East. “All the other truck drivers I’ve talked to never made so—“
“You say I’m a truck driver?” Joe broke in. “Listen; I rode that rig not to drive but keep off hijackers. Look like a truck driver, snoozing in the cab.” Flopping in a chair in the corner of the room he lay back, pretending sleep, his mouth open, body limp. “See?”
At first she did not see. And then she realized that in his hand was a knife, as thin as a kitchen potato skewer. Good grief, she thought. Where had it come from? Out of his sleeve; out of the air itself.
“That’s why the Volkswagen people hired me. Service record. We protected ourselves against Haselden, those commandos; he led them.” The black eyes glinted; he grinned sideways at Juliana. “Guess who got the Colonel, there at the end. When we caught them on the Nile—him and four of his Long Range Desert Group months after the Cairo campaign. They raided us for gasoline one night. I was on sentry duty. Haselden sneaked up, rubbed with black all over his face and body, even his hands; they had no wire that time, only grenades and submachine guns. All too noisy. He tried to break my larynx. I got him.” From the chair, Joe sprang up at her, laughing. “Let’s pack. You tell them at the gym you’re taking a few days off; phone them.”
His account simply did not convince her. Perhaps he had not been in North Africa at all, had not even fought in the war on the Axis side, had not even fought. What hijackers? she wondered. No truck that she knew of had come through Canon City from the East Coast with an armed professional ex-soldier as guard. Maybe he had not even lived in the U.S.A., had made everything up from the start; a line to snare her, to get her interested, to appear romantic.