The Autumn Dead

Chapter 10

You find my place in the inner part of the inner city, on a block where every house has stucco siding and a fair majority of the people you pass on the cracked sidewalks are probably armed. Donna, determined to make my efficiency apartment more "livable," had come over one day armed with draperies and slipcovers she'd bought at Sears, bright and nubby materials they'd been too, but after half an hour she'd dropped to the floor in a kind of semi-yoga position and said, "There just isn't any way to decorate around water stains on the wall, Dwyer. There just isn't."

The vestibule smelled of bleach, marijuana, beer, and Chinese food (there's a take-out place a block away).

I went up the stairs two at a time, now having worked myself into one of those states of stress the magazines always say give you at the least hemorrhoids and at the worst cancer, and then I pushed my key into the gold Yale dead bolt (the only thing in the house that's less than eighty years old). And then, groping for the wall switch, I stared deep into shadow.

"Come in and close the door, okay?"

The table lamp, the one with the beer-stained lamp shade, clicked on and there she sat.

Donna. Editor of Ad World. Sitting in the corner of a couch with a white bath towel pushed up against her head.

The towel was soaked with blood.

"God," I said. And for a moment that's all I could do. Just stand there and say over and over, "God." Half the time it was a prayer, the other half it was a curse.

"So you opened the door and then what?"

"So I opened the door and came in."

"And?"

"And nothing. I turned on the light and looked around and I thought, Boy, Dwyer's really got to get out of this place. I mean, I saw cockroaches again tonight. The size of Shetlands, Dwyer."

"Forget the cockroaches. What happened next?"

"I picked out a shirt and jacket and pair of pants from your closet."

"And then?"

"And then I went and used the biffy. Have you ever heard of Tidi Bowl, Dwyer?"

"Donna, are you going to tell me or what?"

"How I got hit on the head?"

"Right."

"Well.''

"Why are you hesitating?"

"Because now that I think about it, I'm not sure I remember exactly.” She touched a hand to the back of her head, the way Glendon Evans had earlier today. She wore a white blouse and gray tweed jacket and designer jeans. She has red hair and green eyes, one of which strays to a small degree, like Karen Black's (though I never mention Karen Black to her, Donna not thinking much of her acting), and she's one of those women who is very erotic in an almost offhanded way.

(The only time she ever tried to be overtly sexy was when she got a baby-doll nightie, and I sort of spoiled it for her because her debut in the nightie coincided with Larry Holmes's title defense against Michael Spinks. She'd walked back and forth in front of the TV set about fifty times, so often I wondered if she wasn't doing some kind of aerobics, and finally she said, "Notice anything, Dwyer?" And all I'd said was, "Yeah, Larry looks old as shit." And then she'd walked out of the room and come back in and said, "Notice anything now, Dwyer?" She was completely naked.)

"You came out of the biffy," I said, leading her on like a prosecuting attorney.

"I came out of the biffy."

"And then he hit you."

She closed her eyes and thought a moment. "No."

"No?"

"No. I came out of the biffy and then. ."

"And then?"

"Then I. . " She thought a moment longer. “Then I leaned down to pick up your clothes where I'd rested them over the chair over there with just the one leg and then somehow she came up from behind me and hit. ."

"Wait a minute."

"What?"

"You said she."

"Yes."

"She?"

"Perfume. Very sweet perfume. So I assume it was a she."

"God."

"What?"

"A woman."

"Equal opportunity, Dwyer. No reason there can't be female thugs."

"All right. Anything else?"

"Just a weird sound.'

'What kind of weird sound?"

"A kind of-creaking."

"Creaking? Like an old house?"

"No-creaking like. ."

Then another paranoid image formed. "Creaking the way leather creaks?"

"Yes. Exactly. That's very good." She was getting excited.

The guy on the motorcycle with the black leather. It's a woman.

"Did she say anything?"

"No."

"God."

"What?"

"She wants the suitcase."

"What suitcase?"

"You hungry?"

"Was that an answer?"

"I just mean why don't we have a close look at your head and then if you seem to be all right, go have something to eat and then I'll tell you all about the suitcase."

"Dwyer."

"Yes."

"You haven't kissed me."

"I didn't want to hurt your head."

"You won't hurt my head. I mean I don't want a big lip lock or anything but just a nice discreet little kiss that says I care for you very much."

I took her hand. "How about if I tell you that I care for you very much and then I kiss you and kind of reinforce the message?"

"That would be nice."

So that's what I did. That's exactly what I did.