Лоуренс Блок - Catch and Release

BILLY

A couple of the boys could talk to him.

DOROTHY

That would be great. What would it cost me?

BILLY

Five hundred dollars would do it.

DOROTHY

Well, that sounds good to me.

BILLY

The thing is, when you say talk, it’ll have to be more than talk. You want to make an impression, situation like this, the implication is either he goes along with it or something physical is going to happen. Now, if you want to give that impression, you have to get physical at the beginning.

DOROTHY

So he knows you mean it?

BILLY

So he’s scared. Because otherwise what he gets is angry. Not right away, but later. Two tough-looking guys push him against a wall and tell him what he’s gotta do, that scares him, but then they don’t get physical and he goes home, and he starts to think about it, and he gets angry.

DOROTHY

I can see how that might happen.

BILLY

But if he gets knocked around a little the first time, enough so he’s gonna feel it for the next four, five days, he’s too scared to get angry. That’s what you want.

DOROTHY

Okay.

BILLY

(Sips his drink, looks at her over the brim)

There’s things I need to know about the guy.

DOROTHY

Like?

BILLY

Like what kind of shape is he in.

DOROTHY

He could stand to lose twenty pounds, but other than that he’s okay.

BILLY

No heart condition, nothing like that?

DOROTHY

No.

BILLY

He work out?

DOROTHY

He belongs to a gym, and he went four times a week for the first month after he joined, and now if he gets there twice a month it’s a lot.

BILLY

Like everybody. That’s how the gyms stay in business. If all their paid-up members showed up, you couldn’t get in the door.

DOROTHY

You work out.

BILLY

Well, yeah. Weights, mostly, a few times a week. I got in the habit. I won’t tell you where I got in the habit.

DOROTHY

And I won’t ask, but I could probably guess.

BILLY

(grinning)

You probably could.

(back to business)

Martial arts. He ever get into any of that?

DOROTHY

No.

BILLY

You’re sure? Not lately, but maybe before the two of you started keeping company?

DOROTHY

He never said. And he would, it’s the kind of thing he’d brag about.

BILLY

Does he carry?

DOROTHY

Carry?

BILLY

A gun.

DOROTHY

God, no.

BILLY

You know this for a fact?

DOROTHY

He doesn’t even own a gun.

BILLY

Same question. Do you know this for a fact?

DOROTHY

Well, how would you know something like that for a fact? I mean, you could know for a fact that a person did own a gun, but how would you know that he didn’t? I can say this much — I lived with him for three years and there was never anything I saw or heard that gave me the slightest reason to think he might own a gun. Until you asked the question just now it never entered my mind, and my guess is it never entered his mind, either.

BILLY

You’d be surprised how many people own guns.

DOROTHY

I probably would.

BILLY

Sometimes it feels like half the country walks around strapped. There’s more carrying than there are carry permits. A guy doesn’t have a permit, he’s likely to keep it to himself that he’s carrying, or that he even owns a gun in the first place.

DOROTHY

I’m pretty sure he doesn’t own a gun, let alone carry one.

BILLY

And you’re probably right, but the thing is you never know. What you got to prepare for is he might have a gun, and he might be carrying it.

(he waits while she takes this in and nods)

So here’s what I’ve got to ask you. What you got to ask yourself, and come up with the answer. How far are you prepared for this to go?

DOROTHY

I’m not sure what you mean.

BILLY

We already said it’s gonna be physical. Manhandling him, and a couple of shots he’ll feel for the better part of a week. Work the rib cage, say.

DOROTHY

All right.

BILLY

Well, that’s great, if that’s how it goes. But you got to recognize it could go farther.

DOROTHY

What do you mean?

BILLY

I mean you can’t necessarily decide where it stops. I don’t know if you ever heard the expression, but it’s like, uh, having relations with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you decide. You stop when the gorilla decides.

DOROTHY

I never heard that before. It’s cute, and I sort of get the point, or maybe I don’t. Is Howard Bellamy the gorilla?

BILLY

He’s not the gorilla. The violence is the gorilla.

DOROTHY

Oh.

BILLY

You start something, you don’t know where it goes. Does he fight back? If he does, then it goes a little farther than you planned. Does he keep coming back for more? As long as he keeps coming back for it, you got to keep dishing it out. You got no choice.

DOROTHY

I see.

BILLY

Plus there’s the human factor. The boys themselves, they don’t have an emotional stake. So you figure they’re cool and professional about it.

DOROTHY

That’s what I figured.

BILLY

But it’s only true up to a point, because they’re human, you know? So they start out making themselves angry with the guy, they tell themselves how he’s a lowlife piece of garbage, so it’s easier for them to shove him around. Part of it’s an act but part of it’s not, and say he mouths off, or fights back and gets in a good lick. Now they’re really angry, and maybe they do more damage than they intended to.

DOROTHY

I can see how that could happen.

BILLY

So it could go farther than anybody had in mind. He could wind up in the hospital.

DOROTHY

You mean like broken bones?

BILLY

Or worse. Like a ruptured spleen, which I’ve known of cases. Or as far as that goes there’s people who’ve died from a bare-knuckle punch in the stomach.

DOROTHY

I saw a movie where that happened.

BILLY

Well, I saw a movie where a guy spreads his arms and flies, but dying from a punch in the stomach, they didn’t just make that up for the movies. It can happen.

DOROTHY

Now you’ve got me thinking.

BILLY

Well, it’s something you got to think about. Because you have to be prepared for this to go all the way, and by all the way I mean all the way. It probably won’t, ninety-five times out of a hundred it won’t.

DOROTHY

But it could.

BILLY

Right. It could.

DOROTHY

Jesus. He’s a son of a bitch, but I don’t want him dead. I want to be done with the son of a bitch. I don’t want him on my conscience for the rest of my life.

BILLY

That’s what I figured.

DOROTHY

But I don’t want to pay him ten thousand dollars either, the son of a bitch. This is getting complicated, isn’t it?

BILLY

(getting to his feet)

Let me excuse myself for a minute, and you think about it, and we’ll talk some more.

(He goes to the men’s room. She takes a small sip from her half-empty glass, sets it down, picks up his book, examines it, puts it back. He comes back.)

DOROTHY

Well, I thought about it.

BILLY

And?

DOROTHY

I think you just talked yourself out of five hundred dollars.

BILLY

That’s what I figured.

DOROTHY

Because I certainly don’t want him dead, and I don’t even want him in the hospital. I have to admit I like the idea of him being scared, really scared bad. And hurt a little. But that’s just because I’m angry.

BILLY

Anybody’d be angry.

DOROTHY

But when I get past the anger, all I really want is for him to forget this crap about ten thousand dollars. For Christ’s sake, that’s all the money I’ve got in the world. I don’t want to give it to him.