Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

Alicia Crane reached her hand across the table and traced the blue vein on the back of his hand.

The dance floor was crowded and the band was giving a not ineffective imitation of Goodman.

“Matt,” she said softly, “what are the words you use when two people are like this?”

He smiled at her. “Meant for each other.”

“Don’t sound so flip, darling,” she said.

“I can’t help it, Alicia. Nineteen thirty-nine is a wisecrack period. A hundred years ago I’d be swearing eternal devotion and getting my tight pants all dirty by kneeling in front of you, my right hand over my heart.”

“Couldn’t you do that now, Matt?”

“Sure, but you’d think I was clowning. No, honey. I have to tell you I love you as though it were the punch line in a wisecrack and then you believe me. I love you, honey.”

“I want to be kissed,” she said firmly.

He began to get up, saying, “We can take a walk out to the car.”

“Yes, but later, Matt. When I was a kid I always saved the icing until last. Let’s just sit and think of how nice that kiss is going to be. Then it will taste even better.”

She smiled and something about the way her gray eyes looked made his heart pause in its beat.

Suddenly the smile faded as she looked toward the door.

“What is it?”

“Roy Bedford, Matt. I was afraid for a minute he was drunk. He hates you, Matt.”

“I don’t blame him, honey. He had the nicest girl in the world and she belongs to me now. Let him hate me.”

“If he comes over, please be nice, Matt.”

“If he’s nice, I’ll be nice.”

He glanced across the dance floor. Roy Bedford was with a girl who had her hair frizzed out in a mop. Her mouth was dark with lipstick. Roy led her to a booth and Matt saw him glance over, murmur something to the girl, then cross over toward them.

He had an easy smile on his face. He was tall, with a sharp, aquiline face, crisp dark hair and eyes set so far apart as to give him an odd opaque look.

He walked up to the booth, smiled down at Alicia and said, “How’re the lovebugs getting along, lovely?” There was a slur in his voice.

“Just fine, Roy,” Alicia said blandly.

Matt said, “Sit down a minute and have a drink, Roy.”

To his surprise Roy sat beside Alicia and said, “Thanks.”

They stared across at each other and behind them was the history of a vicious competition that had begun in grade school. Roy Bedford had seemed to depend on winning as much as on breathing. And this time he had lost. Once before he had lost. Back when the high school basketball coach had tried to start a boxing team...

(Through puffed eye, through maze of blood and pain, standing on wavering legs, Matt looked down at Roy Bedford, who, with blind fury, was crawling to his feet to be smashed to the floor again. The hoarse sound of Bedford’s breathing was loud in the deserted gym.

Matt said, “Had enough?”

Roy rushed him, staggering, blundering. Matt, his arms like lead, beat him once more to the floor. Roy Bedford didn’t get up. Instead he rolled onto his stomach and began to sob, loudly, hoarsely. Matt untied the gloves, walked slowly to the showers and washed away the blood and part of the pain. When he looked back Roy was sitting on one of the stools, his face in his hands. Matt knew he would never be forgiven. That ended the boxing team.)

Roy Bedford was defeated again — and by the same person. Alicia is mine, Matt thought. And he knows it.

The drinks came; Roy drank his quickly. Matt looked curiously across the room. The girl Roy had brought still sat there.

Matt said, “Maybe your girl’s lonesome, Roy. Maybe you better trot on back.”

“Alicia doesn’t want me to go,” Roy said lightly.

“Don’t be so silly, Roy,” Alicia said. Her tone was also light. “We’ve got nothing to talk about. Ever. You’d make me happy if you’d just go away. Don’t think that you make me uncomfortable. You just bore me.”

Across the room Rose Carney snapped open her purse, took out her cigarettes and ripped the cellophane from the pack. She had seen Roy sit down with Matt Otis and that Crane girl.

What does he think I am? she thought. How much does he think I’ll stand for?

But she knew that there was no limit to what she would stand for from Roy Bedford. Still it would be wise to let him know he had angered her. Be cool with him. Push him away, even when the touch of his hands turned the whole world swimming.

He wouldn’t go over there if he didn’t still want that Crane girl, Rose thought. It gave her a feeling of great loneliness.

The waiter sauntered over and said, “I see you come in with that fellow, but is he joining that party over there? The boss don’t allow no women without an escort.”

“If you think he isn’t with me, try throwing me out and see what he does. That’s Roy Bedford, friend.”

The waiter arched his eyebrows. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“It doesn’t right now. But it will.”

The waiter walked away. Rose knew how much the name Roy Bedford was going to mean in Cranesbay. She sensed the hard quality of his indomitable ambition, his need to acquire power. In the soft, secret silences of the night when he had talked of himself, he had told her a little.

(“Dad was the town drunk, Rosie, and I can see them looking at me and thinking about how I’m going to turn out to be a bum like he was. I’m glad I didn’t go to college like the rest of them. Rosie, I was learning how to do things the hard way. College punks, that’s what they are. Matt Otis, Evan Cleveland, the Furnivall girls. I’ll show every last one of them. Okay, so I got grease under my nails now from working as a mechanic for Jud Proctor. But last week he let me buy into the garage. In a year or two I’m going to edge him out. The garage will give me dough to get into other things, Rosie. Lots of other things.”

“Like marriage, maybe?” she had asked hopefully.

“No time for that, Rosie,” he had said, reaching for her.)

Suddenly he slipped into the booth opposite her. She said quickly, “Thanks, Roy. Thanks a lot! All they were going to do was throw me out because they thought I was alone. I should think—”

She stopped because then she had seen the rigid fury in the set of his mouth, the dark shine of his eyes.

He took her wrist. He smiled at her and his nails dug into her skin.

She moaned softly, “Oh, don’t, Roy. Don’t!”

He let go of her and the blood stood where his nails had been. “We’ll go now,” he said quietly.

Alicia watched Roy’s straight back as he walked away from the booth. She turned back to Matt and shuddered.

“He frightens me, Matt,” she said.

He smiled. “What can he do, honey? Besides, he wasn’t ever in love with you. It’s just that your name is Crane and your ancestors gave their name to the town where he was born. He’s driven by demons, that lad. He’s the original teapot tempest. Now, let’s settle down while you tell me how nice a guy I am, Alicia.”

The conductor stuck his head into the coach and said, “Cranesbay in five minutes.” Matthew Otis turned from the window where he had been staring out at the memories of nine years before.

Fear was Alicia’s face outside the train window, looking at him. Fear was Alicia’s voice, repeated in a thousand dreams. Fear was the small city of Cranesbay, waiting in the darkness ahead.

Gradually the train slowed, the wheels clicking in slower cadence. Lights began to flash by the windows, and at last the train rocked wearily into the dingy station, the soot-smeared platform roofs damp in the feeble glow of the naked bulbs.

He buttoned his topcoat, walked awkwardly up the aisle, his big suitcase thudding against the seats.