Patricia Highsmith - Strangers on a Train

“You won’t change your mind and come with me?” His mother asked, getting up. “If you did, I’d go up to Reno. Helen’s there now and so’s George Kennedy.”

“Only one reason I’d like to see you in Reno, Mom.”

“Charley—” She tipped her head to one side and back again.

“Have patience? If it weren’t for Sam, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

“Sure, we would.”

She sighed. “You won’t change your mind?”

“I’m having fun here,” he said through a groan.

She looked at her nails again. “All I’ve heard is how bored you are.”

“That’s with Wilson. I’m not gonna see him again.”

“You’re not going to run back to New York?”

“What’d I do in New York?”

“Grannie’d be so disappointed if you fell down again this year.”

“When did I ever fall down?” Bruno jested weakly, and suddenly felt sick enough to die, too sick even to throw up. He knew the feeling, it lasted only a minute, but God, he thought, let there not be time for breakfast before the train, don’t let her say the word breakfast. He stiffened, not moving a muscle, barely breathing between his parted lips. With one eye shut, he watched her move toward him in her pale blue silk wrapper, a hand on her hip, looking as shrewd as she could which wasn’t shrewd at all, because her eyes were so round. And she was smiling besides.

“What’ve you and Wilson got up your sleeves?”

“That punk?”

She sat down on the arm of his chair. “Just because he steals your thunder,” she said, shaking him slightly by the shoulder. “Don’t do anything too awful, darling, because I haven’t got the money just now to throw around cleaning up after you.”

“Stick him for some more. Get me a thousand, too.”

“Darling.” She laid the cool backs of her fingers against his forehead. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll be there day after tomorrow probably.”

“Let’s have fun in California.”

“Sure.”

“Why’re you so serious this morning!”

“I’m not, Ma.”

She tweaked the thin dangling hair over his forehead, and went on into the bathroom.

Bruno jumped up and shouted against the roar of her running bath, “Ma, I got money to pay my bill here!”

“What, angel?”

He went closer and repeated it, then sank back in the chair, exhausted with the effort. He did not want his mother to know about the long-distance calls to Metcalf. If she didn’t, everything was working out fine. His mother hadn’t minded very much his not staying on, hadn’t really minded enough. Was she meeting this jerk Fred on the train or something? Bruno dragged himself up, feeling a slow animosity rising in him against Fred Wiley. He wanted to tell his mother he was staying on in Santa Fe for the biggest experience of his life. She wouldn’t be running the water in there now, paying no attention to him, if she knew a fraction of what it meant. He wanted to say, Ma, life’s going to be a lot better for both of us soon, because this is the beginning of getting rid of the Captain. Whether Guy came through with his part of the deal or not, if he was successful with Miriam, he would have proved a point. A perfect murder. Some day, another person he didn’t know yet would turn up and some kind of a deal could be made. Bruno bent his chin down to his chest in sudden anguish. How could he tell his mother? Murder and his mother didn’t go together. “How gruesome!” she would say. He looked at the bathroom door with a hurt, distant expression. It had dawned on him that he couldn’t tell anyone, ever. Except Guy. He sat down again.

“Sleepyhead!”

He blinked when she clapped her hands. Then he smiled. Dully, with a wistful realization that much would happen before he saw them again, he watched his mother’s legs flex as she tightened her stockings. The slim lines of her legs always gave him a lift, made him proud. His mother had the best-looking legs he had ever seen on anyone, no matter what age. Ziegfeld had picked her, and hadn’t Ziegfeld known his stuff? But she had married right back into the kind of life she had run away from. He was going to liberate her soon, and she didn’t know it.

“Don’t forget to mail that,” his mother said.

Bruno winced as the two rattlesnakes’ heads tipped over toward him. It was a tie rack they had bought for the Captain, made of interlocking cowhorns and topped by two stuffed baby rattlers sticking their tongues out at each other over a mirror. The Captain hated tie racks, hated snakes, dogs, cats, birds—What didn’t he hate? He would hate the corny tie rack, and that was why he had talked his mother into getting it for him. Bruno smiled affectionately at the tie rack. It hadn’t been hard to talk his mother into getting it.

Eleven

He stumbled on a goddamned cobblestone, then drew himself up pridefully and tried to straighten his shirt in his trousers. Good thing he had passed out in an alley and not on a street, or the cops might have picked him up and he’d have missed the train. He stopped and fumbled for his wallet, fumbled more wildly than he had earlier to see if the wallet was there. His hands shook so, he could hardly read the 10:20 A.M. on the railroad ticket. It was now 8:10 according to several clocks. If this was Sunday. Of course it was Sunday, all the Indians were in clean shirts. He kept an eye out for Wilson, though he hadn’t seen him all day yesterday and it wasn’t likely he would be out now. He didn’t want Wilson to know he was leaving town.

The Plaza spread suddenly before him, full of chickens and kids and the usual old men eating pinones for breakfast. He stood still and counted the pillars of the Governor’s palace to see if he could count seventeen, and he could. It was getting so the pillars weren’t a good gauge anymore. On top of a bad hangover, he ached now from sleeping on the goddamned cobblestones. Why’d he drunk so much, he wondered, almost tearfully. But he had been all alone, and he always drank more alone. Or was that true? And who cared anyway? He remembered one brilliant and powerful thought that had come to him last night watching a televised shuffleboard game: the way to see the world was to see it drunk. Everything was created to be seen drunk. Certainly this wasn’t the way to see the world, with his head splitting every time he turned his eyes. Last night he’d wanted to celebrate his last night in Santa Fe. Today he’d be in Metcalf, and he’d have to be sharp. But had he ever known a hangover a few drinks couldn’t fix? A hangover might even help, he thought: he had a habit of doing things slowly and cautiously with a hangover. Still, he hadn’t planned anything, even yet. He could plan on the train.

“Any mail?” he asked mechanically at the desk, but there wasn’t any.

He bathed solemnly and ordered hot tea and a raw egg sent up to make a prairie oyster, then went to the closet and stood a long while, wondering vaguely what to wear. He decided on the red-brown suit in honor of Guy. It was rather inconspicuous, too, he noticed when he had it on, and it pleased him that he might have chosen it unconsciously for this reason also. He gulped the prairie oyster and it stayed down, flexed his arms—but suddenly the room’s Indian decor, the loony tin lamps, and the strips hanging down the walls were unbearable, and he began to shake all over again in his haste to get his things and leave. What things? He didn’t need anything really. Just the paper on which he had written everything he knew about Miriam. He got it from the back pocket of his suitcase and stuck it into the inside pocket of his jacket. The gesture made him feel like a businessman. He put a white handkerchief into his breast pocket, then left the room and locked the door. He figured he could be back tomorrow night, sooner if he could possibly do it tonight and catch a sleeper back.