John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

“What does running away from it solve?”

“You don’t understand, Mike.”

“I think I’ve got more of the picture than you have, maybe. You were drunk. And it was her idea, not yours. She set you up for it.”

Troy stared at him. The immobility was gone from his face. It twisted in a horrid muscular spasm. “What did we do? Mail out invitations?”

“It was an accident. Shirley and I went to look at the boat.”

“Does... she know you know?”

“Yes. It doesn’t upset her much. I tried to talk to her about it. I couldn’t reach her.”

Troy looked down at his fist. “I thought Jerranna was as low as you could go. I was using Jerranna as a club to beat Mary with. I don’t know why. Maybe because she’s too damn good. But this — with Debbie Ann — it’s too much. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“You afraid it will happen again?”

“She told me a swim would sober me up. She turned her back. I stripped and went in. I swam out a couple of hundred feet, slow. When I stopped she was right next to me, laughing in that damn tiny little voice. She shoved me under. I chased her and caught her. Lots of laughs. Sure I was drunk. But I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t blacked out. By the time we came out there wasn’t even any attempt to put the clothes back on. We grabbed them up and went right to the boat. I can’t tell you how she looked, Mike, naked, soaking wet, laughing in the moonlight. I knew it was as wrong a thing as a man can do. But I didn’t give a damn. I told myself it couldn’t be a serious thing, the way she kept laughing.”

“Are you going away so it won’t happen again?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“So I won’t kill her. I woke up first, early. I was going to do it then. I put my hand on her throat. It woke her up. I couldn’t do it then. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it the second time, but I’d come closer. And then the next time I could probably do it. I’ve got to get out.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Over to Jerranna’s, maybe.”

“What am I supposed to tell Mary?”

“Tell her she’s better off. She is. Tell her to get out, like Bunny did.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“She’s my daughter, Mike.”

“Stepdaughter.”

“And it was just fine, Mike. Fine last night. Fine again this morning. She’s real good.” An expression of thoroughly savage mockery changed his face. “Try it anytime. It’s free. It’s on the house. Be my guest.”

Mike watched in silence as Troy packed. Maybe it was a good answer. It might be the easiest way for Mary. And of the three of them, she was now the only one worth any consideration.

“How about the land project, Troy?”

“I’ll go to the lawyer’s office tomorrow and sign my stock over to Mary. Maybe she can salvage something. There isn’t anything else... to turn over to her. Not a damn thing.” He took out his wallet and looked into it. “Got any money?”

Mike checked. “Sixty bucks. Want that?”

“You won’t get it back.”

“It doesn’t matter. Here.”

Troy put the money away. He started to shake hands and then pulled his hand back. “There’s no damn sense in that little gesture. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want your friendship, Mike. I don’t want the obligation.”

“Okay. So this is the end of that, too.” He hesitated. “Are you going to take a car?”

“No.”

“Can I drive you up to Ravenna?”

“No.”

“Good-by, Troy.”

Troy looked at him and through him and walked out. Mike followed him slowly. Saying he didn’t give a damn. Fighting his feeling of involvement. All my life, nibbled to death by lame ducks. Looking into empty people, looking for something I can’t describe, finding it sometimes. Buttons told me one time what I would have been if I’d come along ahead of the linotype. One of those old boys wandering around, telling stories to the tribes. Anything with a maximum exposure to people.

So there goes Troy Jamison, walking out of life, coat over his arm, suitcase making the other shoulder sag. Too bitched up to be survival-prone. These are the years when the basic, thousand-percent sons of bitches get along nifty. They flourish. And so, thank God, do those rare ones who are both strong and good. Like Mary. But all the Troys are screwed. Because they’re half and half. Oversimplification? The good part can’t live with the son of a bitch. And the price of everything is marked up. No bargain basements. No special clearance sales. You pay top dollar every time, and it stings.

There should be a new operation. A bitchectomy. Scalpel, clamps, sutures, deep sedation. Whichever aspect is dominant, remove the other one. Then everybody survives. Only two kinds of people. The energetic, enthusiastic, functioning son of a bitch. And the tin Jesuses.

Make a dull world. Cancel the research.

He walked out onto the path. When he was fifteen feet from the road he could see, beyond a monster sea grape, Troy walking south in the sunlight. Sunday afternoon. You don’t get tragedy, he thought, without some grotesquerie, some little taint of slapstick. Everybody is his own comedian. The wittle boy packed him wittle bag with him teddy bear and outer-space pistol and runned away.

Through the shimmer of heat he saw the car coming and soon recognized the Porsche, top down, Debbie Ann at the wheel, her hair tamed by a bright scarf.

“Don’t stop,” he said aloud. “Don’t stop, girl!”

He thought for a moment she wouldn’t, but she passed Troy and stopped and backed up very competently, then kept backing up, maintaining his pace, evidently speaking to him. Then she increased the speed and stopped twenty yards beyond him and got out and stood waiting for him.

As Troy reached her and stopped and put the suitcase down, Mike began to run. He couldn’t remember the last time he had tried to run fast. He had about three hundred yards to go, and he didn’t have the build for it. The years had done something to level ground. It all ran uphill. And he felt as if the long fleet stride of youth had shrunk to about eight inches.

He was fifty yards away when Troy hit her. Though sweat had run into his left eye, he saw it clearly. It was not a slap. It was not one of those wild windmill swings of the angry amateur. This had the merciless competence of the professional, despite the fact it was a right-hand lead. Elbow close. Nice timing, starting from heels firmly planted, so the full power of legs and back and shoulders got into it. A straight jolt, upward, the fist moving maybe ten inches before the point of impact, and with a nice follow-through — happening so quickly she had not the slightest chance to duck or move back or even begin to raise her hands.

It was the noise that made his stomach turn over. You could achieve the same effect if you took a nylon stocking, packed the foot tightly with raw chopped liver, and then swung it three times around your head before slamming it against a brick wall.

Debbie Ann went up and back, a doll slow in the sunlight, landing rump-first across the hood of the Porsche to collapse there, supine, almost motionless for an instant before sliding forward, down the blunt pitch of the hood of the Porsche, making one half turn to thud facedown on the sand-and-shell road, in front of the wheels, one arm pinned under her, the other extended over her head, legs sprawled, all of her utterly still.

Mike arrived, gasping for breath. Troy glanced toward him, but not at him. He massaged the knuckles of his right hand. He picked up his suitcase and jacket and walked on, walked south, without looking back.

As Mike knelt beside her, four people were suddenly there. He had not seen them approach. There was an elderly couple in swimming clothes, both of them brown, spindly, white-haired. He remembered seeing them at the Club, but not meeting them. The other was Marg Laybourne and her husband. It had happened almost in front of their house.