Lawrence Block - No Score

I didn’t plan it that way, for Pete’s sake. If you want to know something, it took me a full day to write the last chapter. One stupid page with three stupid words on it and it took me all day to write it because I couldn’t figure out how to tell you that the gun jammed. And finally it came to me that there was only one way. The gun jammed . Period, end of chapter.

I’ll tell you something. I was going to make something up instead of having the gun jam. You know, to lie to you and figure out something more convincing and satisfying than a jammed gun. (I already put two things in this book that aren’t true. They’re out-and-out lies, actually. They’re both in the second chapter. If you think you know what they are, write to me. I’d be interested to see if you get it right.)

But I couldn’t think of a lie. Either I’m dictating this from the grave or the gun jammed. Well, the gun jammed and that’s all there is to it, and come to think of it, I don’t know why in the hell I’m apologizing, because what it amounts to is I’m apologizing for being alive , and that doesn’t make any sense.

When he saw that the gun was jammed, he tried wiggling the trigger with his finger. It wouldn’t come back into position. I suppose that was the logical time to pick up a chair and brain him with it, while he was standing there playing with the gun and swearing at it, but I don’t have those kind of reflexes. I just sat there on the bed with one hand on my knee and the other on the best part of Francine and waited for him to get the gun fixed and shoot me all over again.

Then he looked at me and said, “You’re not Pivnick.” His voice was very stern, as if he was accusing me of not being Pivnick. As though Pivnick was something everybody should be, like clean or loyal or trustworthy.

“No,” I said, “I’m not.”

“I was sure it was Pivnick. I would have sworn up and down it was Pivnick.” He frowned. Then he looked up again and turned his eyes on Francine.

“You,” he said. “You’re not Marcia.”

She didn’t say anything. “No,” I said, for her. “She’s not Marcia. She’s Francine.”

“No wonder you’re not Pivnick.” He frowned again, deep in conversation, and then nodded his head emphatically. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. I see it all now. That’s why you’re not Pivnick.”

“It’s the main reason.”

“Then where is my wife?”

“Huh?”

“My wife,” he snapped. “Marcia. My wife.”

“Oh, Marcia,” I said. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Tell me.”

“She must be with Pivnick.”

“Ha,” he said, triumphantly. “I thought so! I always thought so. But where?” He lowered his head and paced, then raised it and snapped.

“There is another apartment in this building?”

“No. Just the barbershop downstairs.”

“This is One-eighteen South Main Street?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it to hell,” he said. “I was told I would find them at One-eighteen South Main Street. I was told that it was Pivnick. But I was certain. And I was definitely told that it was my wife. They told me I would find her at One-eighteen South Main Street in Rhinebeck.”

“This isn’t Rhinebeck.”

“What?”

“This isn’t Rhinebeck,” I told him. And I told him the name of the town.

“Damn it to hell,” he said. “I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I saw it wasn’t Pivnick. But what a mistake! What an extraordinary mistake! Marcia will never believe this!”

He was glowing and bubbling. Then his face went suddenly somber, as if he just had a power failure. “But I could have killed you,” he said. “An innocent man. I could have shot you down in hot blood. And you were not even Pivnick.”

“Not for a moment.”

“My God,” he said. He looked at the gun in his hand and shuddered. Then he jammed it into his pocket, bowed halfway to the floor, apologized to both of us for the interruption, and headed for what was left of my door. Very little was. He took two steps and the gun went off in his pocket. He lost two toes on his right foot, and it was hell getting the bleeding stopped. I thought sure the cops would come and let him go and arrest me for picking apples out of season. The cops didn’t come.

“Bostonians,” he said, dully, looking at his feet.

“Marcia and Pivnick?”

“The shoes! One hundred and ten dollar Bostonians!” He glared at them. “And only seven years old. The salesman swore they would last a lifetime. Bostonians!”

I considered pointing out that one of them was still in perfectly good shape, as were eight of his toes. But I kept this to myself.

Francine ripped up a pillowcase to make bandages. I fixed him up and told him he ought to go to a hospital. He said he had to go to Rhinebeck. I don’t know if he ever found Pivnick or not, but if I were Marcia I would be very goddamned careful from now on.

Once we were rid of Marcia’s husband, Francine remembered that she didn’t have any clothes on. It was really pretty funny. Before the jerk kicked the door in, it was easy enough for her to pretend that she didn’t know what was happening, or that we were just necking a little, or whatever she wanted to pretend. And while he was there waving the gun in the air and talking about Pivnick, we both had too much to worry about to think about being naked. But then he went out and closed my broken door behind him, and there we were. I turned to look at Francine, and she pulled a bedsheet over her really sensational body and tried to look everywhere but at me.

I got onto the bed and scurried over next to her.

“My,” she said, “I really have to be getting home now, Chip.”

“Oh, it’s real early, Francine.”

“What a strange man! I thought he was going to shoot you or something.”

“Well, he tried.”

She talked about him, the sort of brainless talk Francine was good at, and meanwhile I got a hand under the sheet and kept putting it on Francine, and she kept moving it off without missing a beat.

Then she said, “I wish you would cover yourself up, Chip.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have any clothes on.”

“It’s a warm night.”

“Be nice, Chip.”

“Huh?”

She chewed her lip. “I shouldn’t even be here.

I don’t know what got into me.” Nothing, I thought. “But I guess I just got carried away because of the things you said and how sweet a boy you are. You’re very sweet, Chip.”

I went to kiss her, but she got her mouth out of the way very skillfully. “Be nice,” she said.

“Nice? I thought we would sort of get back to what we were doing.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Before he walked through the door.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Well, just for the record, Francine, we were about to make love.”

“Really, Chip, I don’t—”

“I mean I was lying on top of you, for Christ’s sake, and you were telling me to shove it in all the way to your neck. I mean let’s not pretend we don’t know our names, for Pete’s sake. I mean that’s what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted, and I don’t see why all of a sudden we have to pretend that we just met each other at a church picnic.”

She was staring at me.

“I mean it seems pretty silly,” I said.

She turned away from me. “You’re a very crude boy,” she said.

“A minute ago I was very sweet.”

“I thought you were, but obviously I was mistaken. I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Well, give me a minute and I’ll cut the ropes.”

“What?”

“The ropes that are tying you down so you can’t escape my evil clutches. I’ll cut you loose and you can hurry home.”