David Alexander: Masters of Noir: Volume 4

“I swear nothing’s happened.”

“If you’re the one who ain’t had her, no charge. Otherwise, kindly add twenty-five.” He spun, red-faced and furious and shouted at her, “Cents!” He turned, wiped at the sudden tears in his eyes. “Now will you please pay me my money so I can get the hell away from here?”

Deena May and Barton stood in the same room, not looking at each other. They listened after Hugh had gone and finally the old car coughed and started and went sputtering down the lane. They watched its lights turn onto the road. Then it was out of sight.

“Good riddance of bad rubbish,” Deena May sniffed. She slid a glance at him and frowned. “What’re you moping around about?”

He turned up his hands.

“You ain’t going to try kissing me off, too, are you?”

“I— I—” He couldn’t look at her.

“Lookit, big old Daddy Lover... Cha cha cha- tiyata... cha ta cha...” She sang and danced, shaking herself, and Barton couldn’t keep himself from watching. “That’s better,” she cried. “C’mon. There’s nothing to bother us none now. C’mon !”

She went up the stairs. After a moment, he lowered his head and followed.

It was past midnight. Light from the setting moon lay like winter frost over his old body as he looked out the bedroom window at Deena May and her hound coming back across the field. She’d sneaked down there again to slut with those hoodlums she ran with. Maybe when all the negotiations on the sale of the farm were completed in a few more days and they could get away from this old coffin of a house, she would be different. He shook his head wearily. No, wherever she went she would attract the scum of creation to her.

She reached the yard, moved out of sight at the arbor. She would be coming in shortly, he realized with a vague dread, and he wanted to get to bed and feign sleep. But he was dull and slow with fatigue and she was already in the house and coming noisily up the stairs before he could break his inertia and crawl under the covers. In two weeks she had lived up ninety percent of his remaining life, he thought hopelessly. He kept his eyes shut as she flung open the door and snapped on the light.

“I been taking that ole hound dog for a run,” she lied stupidly. She sounded half-drunk. He didn’t bother to answer. She flaunted off to the bedroom she had taken over, calling back: “Quick’s I take me a bath I’ll be back, and don’t you go try and beg off like last night and this morning, you big old Daddy Lover, you—”

She was burning him out like dry old tinder, and he knew what hell was like. It was fire, fire; it burned unquenchable and insatiable in her. He couldn’t stand it... he couldn’t... He moaned softly, a bone-deep ache of tiredness in him. If she would just let him alone, let him rest in peace...

Then she was back in a filmy nylon shorty nightgown that left her luscious, dancing legs naked to the hips; her eyes teased and her lips taunted: “Get up, big old Daddy Lover... Lookit!” She began to prance, tilting her hips and shaking her breasts and rolling her bottom as she sang: “Cha cha cha- tiyata — cha ta cha...”

He crammed the pillow over his head, and writhed. “Please let me sleep!” His voice rose to a bellow of anguish.

She laughed. “C’mon,” she taunted, and pulled the pillow away, and moved her body tantalizingly, and his cold hands reached toward her. “Cha cha cha...” she teased, backstepping daintily. “C’mon, you get up and dance that cute way you do, big old Daddy Lover.”

He sat up and got up and began to lift his knees and wag his rump and he heard his voice croaking, “Cha cha cha- tiyata — cha ta cha—” And then he caught sight of himself in the old bureau mirror, like a grotesque, mindless performing animal. He stopped and stared at that beautiful fire burning him to death and he knew he had to put out that fire to save himself.

At last he lay quietly, an old man in his bed. But his bony fingers still ached from the unaccustomed tension and violence they had just endured. His heartbeat had finally calmed. His hand moved over and rested on her briefly. It were as though she were sleeping beside him. Already, her flesh was beginning to lose its heat, just as her throat had forever lost its song of lust. He sighed and shut his eyes, his body yielding to the deepest craving in it, the craving for an old man’s rest.