Bill Pronzini: The Snatch

“Yeah,” I said.

“If it were possible for a man to have an orgasm looking at a bundle of money, I think Allan Channing would be that man.” Martinetti laughed hollowly. “It would be nice if you could sit down and choose your friends according to your own ideals-or the ideals of society. But you can’t do that, can you?”

“No, I guess you can’t.”

He stood up. “Well, to hell with all that. This is too pleasant an occasion for sober philosophical reflections. Do you want to come in and say goodbye to Karyn and the boy?”

“Yes.”

We went into the house again, and I shook hands with Gary and with Proxmire, and stood with a sense of embarrassment that had no real foundation while Karyn Martinetti kissed my cheek a second time and thanked me again for finding her son. Then Martinetti and I walked out onto the front path.

He said, “Will you be by tomorrow? I should be here all day.”

“I think so,” I said. “I’ll call you.”

“I can give you a check for what I owe you then, if that’s all right.”

“Fine.”

We said a parting, and I went away along the path and through the gate and out to where the Valiant was parked, lonely and somewhat tawdry in the lush quiet of Hillsborough. I felt very tired now; it was almost eight o’clock, and I had done a lot of moving around on this day — more moving around than a man should do with twenty-seven stitches in his belly. My legs were weak, and my neck was stiff and my head ached in a faintly annoying sort of way. I thought that after I had something to eat I would go straight home and get into bed. Tomorrow I would have to go down to some doctor or other and have the knife wound checked and the bandages changed; maybe I would have him give me a chest X-ray while he was at it, there was no sense in putting that off any longer.

I sighed very softly and tasted the aroma of the woodsmoke again, and then I went over to the Valiant. “You and me both,” I said, and got inside and took it out of there.

* * * *

I parked in front of the first cafe I saw in Burlingame, went inside and ordered some coffee and soup and a mound of creamed cottage cheese with fresh fruit; after I had put all of that away I felt considerably better.

The thought of a cigarette came into my mind then, and to get rid of it I got up from the counter and went back to where a telephone booth was located between the rest-room doors. I put a couple of dimes in the slot, the price of a Peninsula toll call, and dialed Erika’s number.

She came on after a moment, and I said, “Hi, doll.”

“Oh,” she said, “hello, old bear.”

She sounded vaguely cold, vaguely distant, and I thought: Oh Christ, she’s still brooding over last night. Well, I was in a pretty decent frame of mind at the moment and I was not going to let one of her moods spoil it. I said, “I’ve got some good news. I found Gary Martinetti today-mainly through some blind luck. He’s all right and safe at home with his parents.”

“You found him?”

“Uh-huh.” I told her how it had come about.

She said, “Well, that’s very nice.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“What would you like me to say?”

“You could show a little enthusiasm.”

“For the boy-or for you?”

“Jesus, what’s the matter with you tonight?”

“Not a thing, I’m fine.”

“You don’t act like it.”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

I sighed inaudibly, and said, “All right. Listen, I should be back in San Francisco in about half an hour. I’ll come by and pick you up, and we can have a couple of drinks at my place before I go to bed-”

“No, I’m sorry,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going out pretty soon.”

“Out where?”

“To dinner and cocktails.”

“By yourself? Christ, Erika-”

“No,” she said, “not by myself.”

The back of my neck felt a little cold. “With who, then? Some other guy?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern.”

“The hell it’s not! You’re supposed to be my girl.”

“You don’t own me,” she said. “I can go where I please, with whom I please.”

“What is this?” I said, and my voice was thick. “The goddamn brush-off or something? Is that it? If it is, you’d better tell me, Erika.”

“Maybe it would be best that way,” very softly.

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“You know why. I told you why last night.”

“Damn it, you’re being unreasonable …”

“I don’t think so. I thought it all out very carefully today, and I don’t think I am.”

“Erika, you know how I feel about you. Isn’t that enough? What the hell do you want from a man?”

“That’s just it: I want a man. Not a stubborn and self-deluding adolescent trying to live the life of a fictional hero.”

“That’s a plain bunch of crap!”

“No it isn’t,” she said. “You’d better resign yourself to the fact that you can’t have that job of yours and me both. You’re going to have to choose between us, one or the other.”

“That’s a hell of an ultimatum to offer a man!”

“I’m sorry, that’s the way it has to be. I don’t want to see you for a while, until you make up your mind. When you bring my car back, you can just park it in the driveway and put the key in my mailbox.”

“Just like that, huh? Cold and reasonable, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What about this bastard you’re going out with tonight? Is that supposed to help me make up my mind, knowing you’re out with somebody else?”

“He’s not a bastard, and I’m going out with him because I don’t intend to sit home and wait for your decision-not when I’m pretty sure I know how you’ll choose.”

“All right then!” I yelled at her. “All right then, go out with whoever you want and go to bed with him, too, for all I care, get yourself good and laid, goddamn it, I hope you-”

“Goodbye, old bear, I’m sorry,” she said, and then she was gone and I stood there holding the phone like a dummy, panting, my face flushed and the nourishment I had just taken souring in my stomach. What was the matter with her, what the hell was the matter with her? Why couldn’t she understand, why couldn’t she empathize, didn’t she know how it was with a man and the work he had to do? For Christ’s sake, I loved her! I loved her, why wasn’t that enough?

I slammed the phone back in its cradle and went out of the booth and threw some money on the counter. Outside, the wind blew cool and soft along the street and the black robe of the night sky was sequined with coldly bright stars. I began walking, just walking, letting the anger build, the frustration, letting it spiral inside me, and I thought: Well, all right, Erika, I’m glad to find out now the way it really is with you, how you really feel about me. I came within a couple of inches of dying the other day, and instead of coming to me like a woman with love and compassion in your words and in your eyes, you rub acid in the wound, you jump on me with your claws unsheathed like a predatory cat, “Goodbye, old bear, I’m sorry.” Some succor, some understanding, some love- well, all right then, Erika, all right if that’s the way you want it that’s the way it will be, all right.

I kept on walking, and there was a cigar store on the opposite corner. I went over there and bought a package of cigarettes before I knew what I was doing, trancelike, but when I came out again with the pack in my hands, the spiraling had ascended to an ultimate zenith and there was nowhere else for it to go then but sharply downward. The anger vanished, and suddenly there was only a harsh, vacuous depression, a loneliness at the core of my soul that was almost painful in its fervor. But I did not want to be where people were, for it was not that kind of loneliness; it was, instead, the loneliness of rejection, the deep bleeding hurt of frustrated denial that only a woman can inflict upon a man.