The Big Bounce

12

VIRGINIA MURRAY WISHED THE WIRE or whatever it was in the bra didn’t dig into her chest the way it did. She loved the aqua bathing suit. It was neat with the white buttons down the front; it made her look trim. But it was so darned uncomfortable. The edge of the bra support, which curved beneath her right arm, dug in and left a welt you could feel. (The first time she felt it, the first day here, she was scared to death, because when her fingers touched the welt, she thought it was a lump in her breast.) The trouble was, the only other bathing suit she had was the green and yellow print, and with the skirt effect it made her look hippy.

She had already eaten breakfast. She had written to her mother and dad: “Can’t believe it’s Thursday already and almost time to come home. The past two weeks have gone by so fast. Whew! Will leave Saturday morning about ten or so (no hurry) and should be home before two. I miss both of you very much.”

She had combed out her hair, put on the aqua bathing suit, and combed her hair again. She had taken her position on the studio couch to watch the morning begin and had looked through the new Cosmopolitan, which, she had a feeling, was getting awfully sexy lately.

Virginia was surprised when Mr. Majestyk came out to skim the pool instead of Jack Ryan. It was the first morning this week he had not come out about 9:15 or 9:20 with the aluminum pole.

He was probably doing something else. Perhaps raking the beach.

She could walk down to the beach, but if she did, she would have to stay at least for a short while and she didn’t like to lie in the sand, even on a beach towel. It was too hot and she would feel herself perspire. It was strange, though, she had pictured herself with Jack Ryan on the beach. Yes, because she pictured them alone. It was late afternoon and she was lying on her back with her eyes closed beneath her sunglasses, very tan, with the straps of the aqua bathing suit unfastened and off her shoulders. She felt someone near her, she sensed it, and opened her eyes to see Jack Ryan standing over her. She looked up at him calmly, past the muscular curve of his naked chest. Finally he said, “Do you mind if I join you?” She told him please do. He dropped to his knees and she sat up, holding the front of her bathing suit against her chest. While they talked about nothing in particular she could feel that he wanted to tell her something. After a while they swam out into Lake Huron together, side by side, stroke for stroke; out about a half mile they rested and came back in.

They would take her car and go down the beach to a restaurant that looked out over the water and have broiled lake trout and white wine and watch the sun go down. On the way home he would try to tell her. He would sound awkward because he had never tried to express the way he felt. He had never met a girl like her. The girls he knew were out for whatever they could get. But she was different. She was, well, kind. Nice. No, not just nice, more than that. She made him feel, you know, good. Virginia would smile, not laughing at him, but warmly and say, “That’s kind of you, but, really, I’m a very normal everyday sort of girl with no special talents or desires.” He would say, “Well, what is it, then?” And she would say, “Perhaps the secret is that I see goodness in people, which is really God’s love, you know, something everyone can discover in himself”-smiling then a little sadly-“if he would only take the time to look.”

She wasn’t sure what would happen after that.

But, darn it, she was sure of one thing-pulling at the bra where it dug into the side of her chest-she was going to take off the aqua suit and put on the green and yellow print and be comfortable for a change, even if it did make her look hippy.

She went into the bathroom. The green and yellow print was on one of the two outside door hooks, hanging next to her terry cloth robe. The door was a good idea: you could come right into the bathroom from outside without tracking sand all over the house; but you also had to be sure it was kept locked.

Virginia stepped out of the aqua suit. Turning to the door, she saw her reflection briefly in the medicine cabinet mirror. She picked up the aqua suit, glancing at the mirror again. The knock came as she was reaching for the green and yellow suit, as she stood naked by the door with the aqua suit in her other hand-several knocks in quick succession close to her, not two feet from where she was standing.

Ryan drove into Geneva Beach for breakfast.

After walking away from Mr. Majestyk last night, he had gone to his room to wait for Nancy. The car was here and he couldn’t picture her walking home. So he lay on the bed to wait and read an article in True about a guy in Norwich, England, who had hooked, played, boated, and released more than two thousand pike in 15 years. When he realized Nancy wasn’t coming, he thought about driving over to her house. But if Mr. Majestyk was still hanging around, he’d see him or hear him drive off and know where he was going, because Mr. Majestyk knew the car. Then Mr. Majestyk might add it up and decide she was the girl he’d heard outside his window. Maybe it didn’t matter. But why give the guy anything to think about? Parking the car in front of the Bay Vista had been dumb to begin with. He could have left it there and walked down to her house, but he’d see her tomorrow, all day. There was a good article in True about how Early Wynn used to dust batters and once even knocked his own kid down when the kid hit a long ball off him in batting practice. He read it and fell asleep.

At Estelle’s he ordered eggs over easy and sausage and a glass of milk, then had coffee while he looked at the sports page of the Free Press. The Tigers were playing Washington tonight, Boston tomorrow night to open a five-game series. He hadn’t seen a game yet this year. He hadn’t even seen more than a few innings on television.

Maybe they could watch the game tonight, if it was on. He couldn’t picture Nancy watching it, but maybe she wouldn’t care if he did.

The plan for today was to drive by Ray’s hunting lodge, look it over, and tonight go in, setting it up for Friday night. Looking it over wouldn’t take long. They could spend the day at her place. He could bring beer and the wine she liked and a couple of steaks and they could play house most of the afternoon. It was too early to pick her up now. She probably slept late.

Back at the Bay Vista after breakfast, Ryan didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to hang around and maybe run into Mr. Majestyk and he didn’t want to sit in his room and read. For some reason he thought of the broad in No. 5, who was supposed to have the stuck window.

Virginia Murray didn’t move. She wanted to. She wanted to back away from the door, or reach the terry cloth robe and put it on without touching the door. But what if she made a noise? She should have said something right away. “Just a minute.” Or, “Who is it?” Then she could move around all she wanted. But now it was too late.

The succession of knocks came again, loud and startling, and she could see the edge of the door vibrate. Then silence. As it lengthened, Virginia began to relax. This was silly. She would simply wait for whoever it was to go away. They weren’t going to stand there forever. But as she saw the knob turned and jiggled she jumped and heard her own voice before she realized she had cried out.

“What do you want?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. “I come to fix your window.”

She had to say something. “Can you come back later?”

“It’s my day off. I only got a little while.”

“Just a minute, please.”

Virginia put on the terry cloth robe, hurrying but trying to be quiet and calm about it. She tied the sash and looked in the mirror, pulling the lapels closer together; but when she took her hand away, the lapels came apart. She hurried into the bedroom, taking off the robe, and immediately was sorry she had taken it off, feeling herself naked and picturing him outside waiting. If she took too long, he would know she had been standing in the bathroom without any clothes on. She had to hurry. She had to think. (Mother of God, help me!) She had to put something on. Something. Virginia reached into the closet. She pulled a dress from its hanger. Her light blue shift. My God, it was too thin. But she was going to wear it, because it was in her hand, because it was unzipped and she was stepping into it and zipping it up again, almost all the way up, smoothing the dress over her hips and glancing in the mirror. She was amazed. She looked fine; she even looked calm.

It was not until she was opening the door that she realized she was barefoot.

“You said you had a window was stuck?”

“Yes, come in, please.” She hesitated. “It’s in the bedroom.”

Ryan was carrying the metal toolbox. Closing the door behind him, he saw her aqua bathing suit lying open on the floor. He saw she wasn’t wearing shoes with a dress on, and had to think about that one as he followed Virginia into the bedroom. He saw her stoop quickly next to the bed to pick up something and saw the way the dress stretched tightly but softly over her behind and smoothly across her back without the little ridge that brassiere fasteners make. By the time Virginia had raised the shade, standing against the morning sunlight coming in, Ryan knew damn well she didn’t have anything on under the dress.

He put the toolbox on the floor. “Let me have a look.”

Virginia was trying to raise the window, demonstrating, proving it wouldn’t open. Ryan reached in past her. She jerked her arm out of the way, hitting her hand on the windowsill, and the bunched-up ball of white she was holding fell to the floor. Ryan looked down at her pants covering the toe of his right foot.

He looked up now at her face. Not too bad. Good skin. Greenish eyes. A nice smell-some kind of lotion. A very clean-looking broad. And a funny look in her eyes like she was really keyed up and ready, a broad who’d been here by herself almost two weeks, about twenty-seven, probably married-not the best-looking broad in the world, but she was a real living person and she had gone to a lot of trouble.

Ryan put his hands on her shoulders and began turning her away from the window. She kept staring at him with the funny look, her eyes wide open. He moved in closer, his hands sliding down her arms and then working around her waist to her back and pulling her against him; and when it felt just right, he pressed his mouth against hers and threw both of them across the bed.

At first he didn’t realize she was struggling. He thought she was thrashing around, playing it up, but then, still kissing her, pressed against her, he opened his eyes and saw her eye like a giant eye fixed on him, an all-seeing eye looking into him-and filled with terror.

No, that wasn’t it. It was a frantic look, a way-up-there look.

He nuzzled in, kissing her lightly about the mouth and cheek, giving her the old Jack Ryan Special and moving his hand over her hip and up under her arm.

Very sloftly, barely taking his mouth from hers, he said, “Close your eyes.” He kissed her cheek. Her eyes closed and opened and closed again and he kissed her eyelids, came down her nose and fooled around a little at the corner of her mouth and then on her lower lip, the old left hand working up there again under her arm, the cushion of his thumb moving in closer, yes, just starting to touch-and she jumped, she winced, opening her eyes.

Still softly, close, holding on, Ryan said, “What’s the matter?”

“I have a little sore there,” Virginia murmured. She sounded half asleep, drugged.

“A sore?”

“From my bathing suit. It rubs.”

“Aww, I’m sorry.” He eased his hand away, working it across her back, his fingers touching gently until he found the zipper of her dress. He began pulling it down and could feel her bare skin as it came open. She didn’t seem aware of what he was doing until her dress was open to her waist. His hand went in to rest on the curve of her hip and her eyes, inches away from him, snapped open.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She kept staring at him.

“Did I hurt you again?”

“Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

She kept looking at him.

“Just tell me why not?” Ryan whispered, gentle and patient.

Her voice was low, but very clearly she said, “Because it’s a sin.”

“What do you mean, a sin?”

“It’s a sin.”

“A sin-what are we doing?”

“You know what we’re doing,” Virginia said.

“It’s natural. I mean it’s the way we are-”

“If you’re married,” Virginia Murray said.

“We’re just fooling around.” Ryan smiled at her.

“To me it’s a sin.” Virginia hesitated before adding, in a hushed tone, “I’m a Catholic.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Ryan said. “So am I.”

“You are not.”

“I am. Honest to God.”

“Say the Apostles’ Creed.”

“Aw, come on.”

“If you’re a Catholic, you know the Apostles’ Creed.”

“O my God I’m heartily sorry-”

“That’s the Act of Contrition!”

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty,” Ryan said. “Creator of heaven and earth-come on, what is this?”

“Will you get off me, please?”

“For Christ sake, you started it.”

“Please don’t use that language.”

“You parade around without any pants on.”

Virginia pulled away from him, turning out of his arms, and put her hands over her face. Her hands muffled the words as she said, “Please leave.”

“What?”

“Leave!”

“God, you think I’m going to stay?” Ryan pushed up from the bed and straightened his pants. “I think,” Ryan said, “you ought to make up your mind, that’s all.”

“I thought you’d come back last night,” Nancy said.

Ryan was driving the Mustang. He glanced at her and brought his gaze back to the road. They had passed through Geneva Beach and were coming out on the highway south, out of tree shade into open sunlight. “I wanted to,” Ryan said, “but he was still hanging around.”

“So?”

“I mean he was watching.”

“So what if he was?”

“I didn’t want him asking any questions.”

“Are you afraid of him?”

Ryan glanced at her again. “No, I’m not afraid of him-why should I be afraid?”

“I love his house,” Nancy said. “God.”

“He likes it.”

“He’s the justice of the peace,” Nancy said. “Did you know that?”

“He told me you’re going to appear in his court.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“What’d you do it for? Run the two guys off the road.”

“Because they were asking for it, I guess.”

“You could have killed them.”

“I’ll have to decide how to handle your friend at the hearing,” Nancy said. “Should I be the sweet little girl or try to impress him?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I’ve never seen him in court. Is Ray getting you a lawyer?”

“I suppose so. We haven’t discussed it.”

Off the highway, on the gravel road now, the Mustang trailed a mist of dust that rose and thinned to nothing in the sun glare. On both sides of the road the fields stretched flat and empty to distant trees.

“This has all been picked,” Ryan said. “They’re working down a ways toward Holden now and I sure hope Bob Junior’s with them.” He let the Mustang crawl along, the gravel rattling against the car’s underbody.

“Way over there”-Ryan pointed. “There’s some pickers.” He waited until they were a little farther up the road, coming even with the pickers. “See how you straddle the row? These people are the only ones who can work bent over like that all day.”

“You did it,” Nancy said.

“I like to broke my back. After the first day I thought I’d have to quit. I guess you have to be raised a picker to be any good. Billy Ruiz, little half-pint of a guy, he’ll outpick anybody.”

They moved along the ruts, Ryan squinting out at the field lying still in the August heat and at small groups of figures, far out, working slowly along the rows but appearing to be standing in one place.

“They got to get the crop in this week,” Ryan said. “A few more days and they’re too big for pickles and all you’ve got are cucumbers-”

“I love pickle facts,” Nancy said.

Ryan looked at her. “Have you ever thought about it?”

“All the time.”

“If the grower can’t get enough pickers, I mean, good pickers to get his crop in on time, he loses his shirt. That’s why he needs the migrants.”

“I love farm labor facts, too.”

The Mustang approached the barn and outbuildings and beyond them the row of one-story buildings that were weathered a clean gray and stood in the open like a deserted Army post left to rot. As they drew closer there were signs of life: the clothes hanging on the lines and the sound of children playing.

The children, in the worn, hard-packed field next to the barn, stood for a moment watching the Mustang, then came running after it, yelling in a mixture of English and Spanish. A woman in a T-shirt and blue jeans stood in the doorway of her home; another sat on a turned-over washtub wearing a man’s straw hat. There were women in the shade of the washhouse and a woman in the open sunlight, half turned, motionless, her arms raised to the clothesline of faded denim and khaki, her gaze following the Mustang and the children running in its dust.

Ryan could hear the children and could feel the gaze of the women. He said to Nancy, “See that, like a tool shed? That’s where I lived, three of us in there.”

“Nice.”

“I don’t know. It really wasn’t so bad,” Ryan said. “It’s true what you hear about migrant camps, the awful way the people live. But when you’re living here, I mean everybody in it together, you get used to it and laugh at different things and it really isn’t so bad. We’d play ball in the evening or a guy would get his guitar out and, you know, everybody would sing.”

“Sounds like fun,” Nancy said.

Ryan looked at her. “All right, it wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t so bad, either.”

“Are you ready?” She was pouring Cold Ducks into a stem glass. She had brought the bottle in a bag of crushed ice and two glasses.

“Not right now,” Ryan said.

The road curved out of the camp area and made a little jog and seemed to narrow with the trees closing in on both sides. About a hundred yards up the road they came to Ray’s place. It was in a clearing with a circular drive leading in and out, a two-story farmhouse that had been faced with green-stained logs and converted into a hunting lodge.

Nancy said, “Have you been inside?”

“No, this is the closest I’ve been.”

“He has deer heads and Indian blankets on the walls.”

“Well, it’s a hunting lodge,” Ryan said.

He turned into the drive and followed it in low gear as he studied the place. The drive was empty and the place looked deserted; still, he kept going, following the curved drive out again to the road.

Nancy was watching him. “You didn’t give it much of a look.”

“I want to see if we can get up behind it,” Ryan said.

He saw the sign down the road before he was able to read it. The sign was on the right, a painted board pointing across the road into the woods. Ryan wasn’t looking for a sign and it didn’t mean anything to him until they were close enough to read it-ROGERS-and then he remembered Mr. Majestyk telling him about the place up in the woods that would be perfect for a hunting lodge, his plan to have a couple of big A-frames stuck together with a central heating unit; that was it.

As he turned left into the dirt road Nancy said, “Now where?” She must have seen the sign, but that was all she said.

“This ought to get us up there,” Ryan said.

It was a dirt road with deep ruts, narrow and winding, so narrow in places the brush and tree branches scraped the sides of the car. They moved slowly, the springs squeaking and the flat shape of the hood out in front of them rising and dipping through the chuckholes. The road began to climb, curving into switchbacks, the trees high overhead, quiet in here and dim, with patches of sunlight and glimpses of sky up through the branches. All the way up neither of them spoke, not until they were at the top and the road opened up, ending in a cleared area, and Nancy said, “Well, now that we’re here.”

God, it was quiet, a quiet you could feel. Ryan’s door slammed loud and he stood there after he got out. Then moving and hearing only the sound of his shoes in the leaves. It was a good-sized area; it had been cleared and people had been here. He noticed a few rusted beer cans and a brown whiskey bottle and bits of paper around. Some people knew where it was, but God, it was quiet and away from everything. The only woods he had ever been in were in Detroit, in Palmer Park and on Belle Isle, and in those woods you could always hear people outside of the woods having a picnic or playing baseball. He had never been in real north-country woods.

“Now what?” Nancy said.

He didn’t answer her. He walked around, over to one side of the clearing that looked down on a lake, a narrow curved lake that sat down there by itself with thick trees growing up from its banks. He walked along the edge of the clearing, looking down into dense woods that you would have to cut your way through, to the other side, and here through an opening he could see the hunting lodge and beyond it part of the cucumber fields and the migrant camp, way down there far away, the buildings neat and orderly in the sunlight and edged with clean shadow lines. He could see the junk-heap cars back of the buildings and a little square of yellow, Luis Camacho’s bus.

God, with about a hundred and twenty thousand miles on it.

“You can see the camp,” Ryan said.

Nancy was still in the car, about twenty feet away. She said, “Really?”

“Come here, you can see it good. There’s the bus we rode up in.”

“Some other time,” Nancy said.

“I don’t know how that bus ever made it. It was the craziest ride I ever took. I mean, it wasn’t like a bus ride, it was like living on a bus for four days.” Ryan looked toward her, then walked over. “I’ll have one now.”

She poured Cold Duck into a glass and handed it to him. Ryan held it up, looking at the dark red color, and smiled.

“It reminds me of Billy Ruiz; he always drank rock and rye. You ever taste it? It’s awful.”

“Pop?”

“Terrible. It’s got a reddish color.” Ryan smiled again, looking at the stemmed glass. “He was always holding it up to see how much he had left. He’d be eating a lunch stick or something, take a bite, take a swallow, and then hold the bottle up and look at it, trying to make them come out even. It reminded me of that.”

“Let’s go,” Nancy said.

Ryan had turned from the car. He was looking off into the trees, in the direction of the migrant camp.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The way they live and all, they always seem to get along. They don’t really bitch about anything, they kid about it. I mean, I think of them as being pretty happy. I don’t mean simple, fun-loving folk, you know-”

“No,” Nancy said. “What do you mean?”

Ryan looked at her now. “I mean, they can take it. Maybe they take more than they should, I don’t know. But even living the way they do, they still have something not many people have.”

“I know,” Nancy said. “Dignity.”

“Forget it.”

“How about nobility?”

Ryan finished his drink, trying to do it calmly.

“Come on, I want to know.”

“Go bag your ass,” Ryan said.

She smiled and started to laugh, then put her head back and laughed louder. Ryan watched her. Something was strange and he kept watching her until he realized what it was. In the three days he had known her this was the first time he had heard her laugh.

A fellow by the name of A. J. Banks, from the Growers Association, called Bob Jr. and asked him what it would cost to have the labor camp torn down and hauled away so they could plant that whole area next season. Bob Jr. said he wasn’t a wrecking company, why ask him? And A. J. Banks said if he could build it, goddamnit, he could estimate tearing it down, couldn’t he? Bob Jr. said he’d look it over and see what he thought. That’s why he drove up to the camp and would have sworn he saw Nancy’s Mustang heading out the back road as he reached the migrant buildings. Maybe not.

But maybe it was her car. After he looked over the buildings and got an idea how many truckloads it would take to haul the lumber away, he drove out the back road. Her car wasn’t at Mr. Ritchie’s lodge. Beyond the lodge the road didn’t lead anywhere; it cut through pastureland and woods and finally reached the lakeshore about fifteen miles from Geneva Beach. Bob Jr. hadn’t been back here since spring, since they decided to sell the woods property and he put the sign up on the road. Once in a while somebody, like Mr. Majestyk, would look at the property, but usually the only ones who came by were kids looking for a place to make out. The tire tracks could be anybody’s; old ones. But then he remembered it had rained the day before yesterday.

When he saw the good clean impression of the tracks turning into their private road, he knew somebody had been back here recently. He wasn’t thinking of Nancy now. He’d decided it couldn’t have been her car he’d seen. But he was curious about the tire tracks. That’s why he shifted into first and headed the pickup truck up the private road.

The first thing Ryan did when he saw the pickup, hearing it first and knowing it right away as it came out of the trees, he placed his glass on the hood of the Mustang and looked around. He wasn’t trying to be casual about it, but he wasn’t hurrying either. He spotted a tree limb on the ground, over just a little way, and by the time Bob Jr. was out of the pickup, Ryan had snapped off a branch the size of a broom handle and stood resting on it in his spearman pose.

In the car, holding her glass, her arm resting on the doorsill, Nancy said, “Hi, Bob,” and waited to see what would happen.

Bob Jr. looked over the situation. He saw Nancy and the empty glass on the hood and out beyond the car Jack Ryan holding his staff or club or whatever the hell it was. They were both waiting for him to do something, like it was up to him to make the next move. Ryan was standing there asking for it and that part of it was simple: he’d told Ryan to leave and Ryan was still here, so he’d have to teach him a lesson. But with Nancy watching, he’d have to make it look easy, like this bird wasn’t any trouble at all. Bob Jr. took off his cowboy hat and his sunglasses and put them in the truck, through the window.

“Bob,” Nancy said, “do you want a Cold Duck?”

“Not just now,” Bob Jr. said. He glanced at her. “What’re you doing out here?” As he said it, it didn’t sound right to him.

“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “He brought me.”

“Has he bothered you any?”

“Let’s see-no, he hasn’t really bothered me.” She was having fun.

“A ball bat or a stick,” Bob Jr. said, staring at Ryan again. “You got to have something in your hand, don’t you?”

Ryan didn’t answer. He stood waiting.

“Tough guy if he’s got a club in his hand. Hey, boy, don’t you want to fight fair?”

Ryan frowned now. He said, “Fair? What is this, the goddamn Golden Gloves?”

“A man fights with his fists,” Bob Jr. said.

“Yeah, well you come at me, buddy, and I’ll hit you with the heaviest thing I can find.”

“I got a tire iron in the truck,” Bob Jr. said. “Maybe I better get it.”

“If you did,” Ryan said then, “and we started swinging at each other, tell me something, what would we be fighting about?”

“Because you think you’re a tough boy and think you can take me.”

“Did I ever tell you that?”

“You didn’t have to. I know your smart-ass type the minute I see it.”

Ryan kept studying him. “You really want to fight, uh?”

“You got something coming,” Bob Jr. said.

Ryan looked at Nancy then and said, “Tell him he doesn’t have to.”

She was watching Ryan. “It’s not up to me.”

“Tell him anyway.”

“Leave her out of it,” Bob Jr. said.

Ryan shook his head. “Boy, you must be awful dumb or something. She wants a fight, don’t you see that?”

“And you want to get out of it,” Bob Jr. said.

It was coming now and Ryan knew it. Every time he had ever been in a fight since he was little, he knew this time when his stomach tightened and he could see in the other guy’s eyes they were going to go through with it. He had thought about it a lot, this moment, and he had come to realize that the other guy must be feeling and thinking the same thing, and no matter how big the other guy was, he would probably be afraid or tightened up or nervous, because nobody could ever be a hundred percent sure. This moment, Ryan had decided, when they weren’t quite ready, was the time to hit them. Hit first and hit hard and maybe end it right there.

Bob Jr. made it easier. He took a couple of steps back just as Ryan was ready to move and half turned to reach into the pickup bed. He had to look in to locate the tire iron or a wrecking bar and as he glanced around again to check on Ryan he would never have thought a man could move so fast; Ryan was rushing him, steps away, and the goddamn staff or club or whatever it was, up in the air, was coming down on him.

Bob Jr. rolled against the side of the pickup box, getting his head behind a shoulder, and took the first blow hard and solid against his forearm as he brought it up.

His arm felt numb and he must have closed his eyes. He didn’t see the club come at him again, he was guarding his head, and the goddamn thing whacked solid against his left knee. There was nothing to do then but rush the son of a bitch and he took another good one, stinging across his left shoulder, before he got in close and got both hands on the heavy tree branch and felt it hard and round and the bark coarse in his hands, straining against it to take it away from Ryan and then seeing Ryan’s face right in front of his, the face tight and straining, looking right into his eyes.

“You’re through now, boy,” Bob Jr. said, and barely finished saying it as Ryan’s left fist came off the tree branch and jabbed straight into his face.

For Ryan it was right now-as Bob Jr. went back and his face was raised and open-take it right now quick was all he could think of, now while he was pressing and had him, and he jabbed his left straight into the face again, staying with the guy as he went back, jabbing with the left and jabbing a right to the face, setting it up and now, right now, coming in with the long left hand from behind his shoulder, hitting solid, feeling it all the way up his arm and seeing the guy stumble back with blood coming out of his nose, but God-and it was an awful feeling, the worst feeling you can have-the guy didn’t go down.

He let go of the tree branch and stood there, his face bloody, looking at Ryan, breathing, getting his breath, wiping his hand across his mouth. Ryan brought up his guard as Bob Jr. came at him, his arms already heavy and tired.

Nancy took time to pour herself a little Cold Duck and she sipped it while she watched them hit each other. Bob Jr. was bigger, in fact Jackie looked sort of frail next to him, but he had drawn blood first and Bob Jr. was a mess, blood all over his mouth and down the front of his checkered shirt. He didn’t seem to care, though. She watched him move in, taking Ryan’s jabs on his shoulder, then another good one-wow-right in the mouth, but this time he didn’t stop, he came in swinging that big right fist and slammed it into Ryan’s face. It must have stunned him; he hesitated and Bob hit him again and again until Ryan dropped to his knees.

That’s it, Nancy thought. Pretty good while it lasted. She was surprised when Ryan came up, very slowly at first; then, before Bob Jr. knew it, Ryan was swinging at him. He got him hard in the face and for a moment they stood close, both swinging at each other with everything they had. Until Ryan dropped.

He went to his hands and knees, his head down, and this time he didn’t try to get up. God, his hands hurt, and his mouth. He wanted to touch his mouth and his jaw, but he was afraid if he raised either hand from the ground, he’d fall on his face. The guy could stand there if he wanted; Ryan decided he wasn’t getting up anymore.

But the guy wasn’t standing there. Ryan turned his head to the side and the guy was sitting down just a few feet away with his head back, looking up at the sky with his eyes closed and pressing a handkerchief to his nose.

Ryan rolled over to a sitting position. God, his shoulders hurt too. He sat there looking at the guy and finally he said, “That’s not the way to do it.”

Bob Jr. opened his eyes and looked over at Ryan.

“That doesn’t stop it,” Ryan said.

“Yeah,” Bob Jr. said in his handkerchief. “You put your head back.”

“That’s a lot of crap,” Ryan said. “You blow your nose and then hold it, pinch it, with your head forward.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Everybody thinks you put your head back,” Ryan said, “but you don’t, you put it forward. Go on.”

Bob Jr. leaned forward and the blood dripped out on the ground as he took his handkerchief away.

“Go on, blow it,” Ryan said. He watched him to see if he did it right.

After about a minute Bob Jr. said, “I never seen so much blood since I dressed a buck I shot right here last fall.” His voice was nasal and muffled in the handkerchief.

“There’s a lot of deer in the woods here?”

“A lot? You go look at the game trails going down to that lake where they water.”

“I never been hunting.”

“This buck I got, I walked up from the road and he was standing here waiting.”

“What’d you use?”

“I use different guns. That time I had me an old O-three, I mean old, but the son of a bitch’d shoot from here to Holden.”

“This guy Walter Majestyk,” Ryan said, “he was talking about a lodge up here.”

“You know him?”

“I work for him.”

“Hey,” Nancy said. She was still in the car. “Is this the intermission or what?”

Ryan looked at Bob Jr. “I’m going to get in that car and drive out of here. You got any objections?”

Bob Jr. said, “What do I care what you do?”

He was still sitting there when they left.

Neither of them spoke until they were down out of the woods and moving along the back road to the migrant camp. He could feel her watching him and finally he said, “You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

“That wasn’t very nice, trying to blame me.” Nancy sat against her door, watching him. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been hit in the face.”

“You don’t look so bad. Here.” She handed him her glass and watched him finish it, holding the wine in his mouth and letting it burn before swallowing it. His teeth felt sore and loose in his jaw; when he worked it, he could hear a clicking sound close to his ear. His hands hurt and they looked awful from hitting the guy in the face after he’d started bleeding. Nancy took the glass from him and he held the steering wheel low with one hand. Up ahead he saw a group of pickers coming out of the field, several of them walking along the side of the road and looking back as they heard the car coming.

“It settles one thing,” Ryan said.

“What?”

“I’m not going in that hunting lodge. I don’t care how much is in there.”

Nancy stared straight ahead through the windshield; she was in no hurry. Looking at Ryan finally, she said, “I knew you were going to say that. I didn’t know when or how you’d say it, but I knew you would.”

“Well, you’re smarter than I am,” Ryan said, “because I just found out.”

“No, you didn’t. You might have thought you were going to rob the place,” Nancy said, “but you never would. I thought you might change, but you haven’t. You’re a small-time breaking and entering man, Jackie. That’s all you are. You can dream about taking fifty thousand, but you’d never do it.”

“Look,” Ryan said, “he saw us up there. The police say to him, ‘Did you see anybody around the place the last few days?’ And right away he remembers us. He remembers me and he starts to put things together.”

“You’re a little upset,” Nancy said.

“You bet I am.”

“You’re mad because you think I provoked the fight.”

“That’s something else,” Ryan said.

“But the point is, Bob seeing us doesn’t prove anything.”

“I’m not going to give it a chance to,” Ryan said.

“We’ll talk about it later, after I’ve cleaned you up. How does that sound?”

“I don’t see there’s anything to talk about.”

They were coming up on the pickers now, who were edging back from the shoulder of the road to let the car pass. As they approached them Ryan said, “Put the glass on the floor.”

Frank Pizarro came into the light of the shed doorway after the car had passed and stood looking at the dust hanging in the air. Billy Ruiz was on the other side of the road; he had come out of the field, crossed the ditch and stood at the edge of the road gazing after the car; now he crossed over to the shed.

“That looked like Jack,” he said.

“Sure it was,” Pizarro said. “Showing us his car and his little chickie.”

“I wave to him,” Billy Ruiz said, “but he was already by me.”

“He saw you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“He saw you,” Pizarro said. “He saw all of us.”

“Then, why didn’t he wave?”

“He’s Mr. Jack Ryan in the car now.”

Billy Ruiz shook his head. “No, he didn’t see us. He would have waved.”

“Christ, shut up with the waving! He don’t care about you. He don’t see you anymore.”

Pizarro turned from the doorway into the darkness of the shed. He found a cigarette and lit it and then went down on his blanket to get away from Billy Ruiz and the rest of them so he could think about Ryan and the girl with no clothes on and get something straight in his mind.

All right, he had sold the beer case of wallets to the girl. Last night was something he couldn’t stop thinking about: the girl coming out of the swimming pool and drying herself in front of him, not trying to hide herself, while they discussed Jack Ryan and the wallets. She put on the blouse and the shorts and he told her again, five hundred, that was the price. Then the girl going in the house and coming out with eighty dollars, with her blouse still unbuttoned. He should have kept the beer case until she got more money, but there was the eighty; it wasn’t any five hundred, but she was offering it to him.

He should have sold her the wallets one at a time. Go back once a week and she would have to pay him without any clothes on.

He should have taken her in the house or put her down on the grass. She had been asking for it and it would be something to do it to her, Mr. Ritchie’s girl; but because she was Mr. Ritchie’s girl, he had not touched her, because he couldn’t believe it-the not having any clothes on-and because he had been afraid if he touched her, something would happen. He didn’t know what. Something.

All right, he should have done a lot of things it was too late to do. But he still had one thing left, if he could get it straight in his mind how to say it to her and make her believe it. He still knew about Ryan and he could still call the police and tell them it was Ryan that robbed the place Sunday.

So the idea was to go to her at night when Ryan wasn’t there and tell her how much it would cost for him not to call the police, sticking to the five hundred this time and not coming down to any lousy eighty bucks.

He began to put words together, the way he would say it to her. Like: “If you don’t have the money, have your boyfriend steal you some. I don’t care where you get it.”

The important words: “Get me five hundred or I call the police.”

But as he lay on his blanket smoking the cigarette, in this dim oven of a place with its tin-shed roof and smell of mold, Frank Pizarro said to himself, Wait. What are you talking about the police for? Why the police. Man, you see it? There’s somebody better than the police.

Tell her, she don’t pay, you write a letter to Mr. Ritchie.