The Big Bounce

13

AT FIRST, opening his eyes and moving, feeling the soreness in his shoulders, Ryan didn’t know where he was. Settling again, stretching his legs and moving his hands over the cool aluminum arms of the lounge chair, he had a good feeling from the soreness, a feeling of having worked and finished something. He was glad he had fought the guy and it was over. He was glad the guy had seen them.

Maybe he was never going in at all and it had been just talk. Maybe if Bob Jr. hadn’t showed up, he would have thought of some other excuse. Or maybe when the time came he would have taken off. He wasn’t sure.

Or maybe he was just tired. No, that wasn’t it. He was tired all right, and sore; but that didn’t have anything to do with it. It was something else.

It was a feeling of relief. He could come right out and say to himself, You don’t have to break into the place. You don’t have to take the money and go through all that. You don’t have to get involved and worry about her bragging about it to somebody. You don’t have to be waiting for something to happen. You don’t have to even think about it anymore.

He felt like a cigarette. He touched his shirt pocket; it was flat. He couldn’t see if there were cigarettes on the umbrella table; it was too dark over there. Turning to look at the table, he turned a little more to look at the house. The room off the patio was dark, though a faint light was coming from somewhere in the back part of the room. The upstairs windows were dark. He wondered if she had gone to bed. He didn’t know what time it was. After ten anyway. He must have slept about three hours. He thought about going for a swim to loosen up but decided it would be too much trouble and it wouldn’t help much. Tomorrow when he woke up, he’d be so stiff and sore it would hurt to move and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He wondered why she hadn’t left a light on.

Nancy heard him on the outside stairs and now, sitting in the oversized chair in the dark, she saw him on the sun deck; she watched him slide open the glass door and come in; she watched him pause, getting his bearings, then start for the den. When he was within a few feet of her chair, Nancy said, “Hi.”

He didn’t answer right away. She had surprised him and it took a few seconds for him to locate her and think of something to say.

“I was going to surprise you,” Ryan said.

“I don’t sleep in the den.” Nancy waited.

Ryan leaned close to her chair to turn on the lamp.

“Where do you sleep?”

“Upstairs.”

“Show me.”

“After,” Nancy said. “I brought up everything we’ll need.”

“Like what?”

“From the bar.” Nancy watched him, her head slightly lowered, her eyes raised. Ryan stared back at her. It was her half-assed Ann-Margret look, but it was all right.

“The beer’s in the fridge,” Nancy said. She didn’t move.

“I don’t think I feel like anything.”

“I do,” Nancy said.

“I didn’t think you drank beer.”

“Sometimes. Will you get me one?” She watched him go to the kitchen and in the corner of her eye saw him reach in and turn on the light. She heard the refrigerator door open and, after a moment, close.

From the kitchen he said, “There isn’t any beer.”

Nancy stared at the sliding glass door, at the darkness outside, and the dim reflection of the room. She could see herself sitting in the chair. “Look in the cupboard next to the fridge. Bottom shelf.”

“What’re you English, you like warm beer?”

“Put a couple of bottles in the freezer. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Maybe we should have something else.”

“I don’t want something else, I want beer.”

Ryan looked in. “I believe you.”

She waited. She heard him open the cupboard. There were faint sounds. Then silence. She counted a thousand and one, a thousand and two, a thousand and three, a thousand and four-

“You don’t have any beer,” Ryan said.

She looked over her shoulder, past the corner of the backrest, to Ryan in the doorway.

“You’ve got a bunch of old wallets, but you don’t have any beer.”

Nancy twisted around, leaning on the chair arm. “Do you recognize them?”

He stared back at her. He stared thoughtfully, taking his time. Finally he came into the living room. He drew up the ottoman of Nancy’s chair and sat down.

“I have never been mean to a girl,” Ryan said. “I have never talked loud to a girl or ever hit a girl.”

“There’s beer downstairs,” Nancy said.

“Maybe I’ll have something else.”

“Help yourself. Behind the bar. The beer’s in the fridge underneath.”

“Do you always say that?”

“What?”

“Fridge.”

She frowned a little. “Not always.”

“It’s a dumb word,” Ryan said. He got up and went down the circular stairs to the activities room. A lamp at one end of the bar spread a soft pink light over the polished wood. He found a bottle of bourbon and poured some of it into an Old Fashioned glass. He took ice and beer from the refrigerator, put two cubes into the glass, and opened the beer. He lit a cigarette from a dish of filter-tipped cigarettes on the bar; he blew the smoke out slowly and took a sip of the bourbon.

Nancy had not moved. She waited as Ryan placed the beer and a glass and the bottle of bourbon on the table next to her and sat down on the ottoman.

“All right,” Ryan said. “Tell me the name of the game.” He watched her patiently.

“You sound different,” Nancy said, “at different times. I’ll bet you’re moody.”

“Tell me the game, okay?”

“Being moody is all right if you have something to be moody about, but I think most people pretend, like a pose.”

Ryan drank the rest of his bourbon and stood up. “I’ll see you.”

“The game,” Nancy said, “is called unless you’re a nice boy and do what I tell you, I’ll go to the state police with the wallets. It’s sort of a long name for a game, but it’s fun.”

“It is a long name,” Ryan said. “Why do you think I have anything to do with them?”

“Because your friend told me. Frank something. He came here last night and said he’d go to the police unless I gave him five hundred dollars for the wallets.”

“Five hundred?”

“He settled for eighty.”

“Why did he think you’d be interested?”

“I guess because he saw you with my car. He decided we must have a thing going.”

“Well,” Ryan said, “that’s his story.”

“No, it’s my story now,” Nancy said. “I’ll say I saw you come out of the house. I followed you and picked up the case when you threw it away.”

“You’re going to a lot of trouble.”

“Because I need you.”

Ryan shook his head. “No, I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“And I think if your friend was arrested,” Nancy said, “he’d blame the whole thing on you.”

Ryan sat down again. He poured bourbon over the melting ice cubes and sipped it, seeing Frank Pizarro in a straight chair with the sheriff’s cop, J. R. Coleman, standing over him.

“I think you might have something,” Ryan said.

“Good.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

Nancy smiled. “Very good. I thought you might be mad at first, but you’re taking it like a little man.”

“I want to get it straight,” Ryan said. “If I back out of our deal, you’ll call the police and put them on Frank Pizarro.”

“Right.”

“You don’t care about Bob Junior seeing us.”

“Not at all.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Ryan said. He raised his glass. “Can I get some more ice?”

“Help yourself.”

“I don’t guess you want another beer.”

“I hate beer.”

He got ice from the refrigerator in the kitchen and came out carrying the beer case. Nancy watched him drop it on the ottoman.

“I’ve thought it over,” Ryan said. “No.”

Nancy waited a moment. “Okay.”

“So I better take this with me.”

“Go ahead. I don’t need it.”

He sat on the edge of the ottoman, facing her, his knees touching her legs tucked under her. “Look,” he said, “don’t do anything dumb, all right? People start telling on each other it gets to be a mess. The police start asking you questions and it gets in the newspaper and whether you like it or not, everybody knows your business. You don’t want that, do you? I mean you got a good deal here, what do you want to wreck it for?”

“I was just thinking,” Nancy said, “your little job Sunday will be in the Geneva paper tomorrow. They’ll be talking about it in town.”

“For a couple of days maybe.”

“Everybody will keep their doors locked.”

“That’s another thing,” Ryan said. “Bob Junior will read about a robbery and have it on his mind. I mean, our timing is bad.”

“Why don’t you relax?” Nancy said. She took his cigarette and drew on it before settling back in the chair. She gave Ryan her nice smile and a soft, warm look with her eyes.

“I was just playing,” she said then. “Do you really think I’d go to the police?”

“If you thought it might be fun.”

“Jackie-” Sounding hurt, disappointed.

“And if you thought you could stay out of it,” Ryan said. “But that’s what I mean. You can’t stay out of it. They put your picture in the paper and your life story and everybody knows your business. It puts Ray on the spot and he dumps you, like that.”

Nancy pressed close to one arm of the chair, making room and patting the seat cushion. “Come on over,” she said, and gave him her sympathetic pout look. “Come on, let’s be friends.”

He had the feeling he shouldn’t move too fast-like reaching out to pet an animal that might take his hand off if he didn’t do it gently. All the wallets were in the beer case with all the names in the wallets of the people who had been robbed and a minute before she had been holding the case over him, ready to drop it on him. Now she was a girl sitting there, being a girl, trying to hook him the old way and pretty sure she could do it. And even turning on the fake girl stuff, she looked better than any girl he had ever seen before.

What Ryan did, sliding in beside her, he put his hands against the back of the chair and moved in to get his mouth on hers, his hands supporting him before sliding down to her shoulders, her hands coming up around his neck and fooling with his hair as she pressed against him. Their mouths came slightly apart, giving her just enough room to say, “Let’s go upstairs.”

He walked home carrying the beer case, along the beach, along the cold-sand edge of the water, feeling the night breeze and the soreness in his jaw and shoulders. He saw himself walking along the beach in the darkness, then saw himself standing by the bed buttoning his shirt and pushing it down into his pants, Nancy a soft, dark shape against the white sheets, lying on her back unmoving, one hand on her stomach, her legs a little apart, her eyes looking at him with a calm, nothing look. He had dressed in front of girls lying in bed before. He had said things that made them laugh or giggle or smile; he had grabbed for them again and wrestled with them and rolled off the bed with them and had slapped their bare tails and said, “See you,” and some of them he had seen again and some he hadn’t. He liked girls. He had never forced a girl to go to bed if she didn’t want to. He had never said, “Come on, if you really love me.” He had had fun with girls and the girls had had fun. He thought he had had fun with Nancy. Now he wasn’t sure. Did he have fun with her because he was with her or did he have fun only because he’d gone through the motions and only the motions were fun?

Every one of the other girls he could remember had been a living person and now he wondered if he had ever thought of Nancy as a person. He couldn’t picture her when she was alone. He couldn’t picture her yawning with no one watching. The broad in the backseat of the station wagon, the ten-buck broad with the two guys and the dollar-a-bottle beer-he didn’t picture her as a person, either. Thinking about it didn’t make sense and he became aware of himself again, the sand and the darkness and the surf coming in. He put the beer case down and cupped his hands against the breeze to light a cigarette. He saw his hands in the glow of the match. He saw himself walking along again: a hot dog Jack Ryan who had just notched up another one and was now having his smoke.

And Leon Woody says-

No, Leo doesn’t say anything. Jack Ryan says it. He says the hot dog only thinks he notched one up, like any hot dog who thinks he’s a hot dog. But what happened, he was notched. Hooked, notched, and set up.

Whatever he did now, he had to do something with the beer case first. He was approaching the Bay Vista and he thought of the vacant field next to Mr. Majestyk’s house.

Ryan was exactly the way Nancy imagined he would be. Very basic but in control, and thorough. Sort of a natural. Neat body-bone and muscle and good moves-which he had probably been working on since he’d first discovered there were girls in the world. He had to pose after, taking his time getting dressed, and she had pictured him doing that too.

Jackie was all right. It would be fun to grab the money and meet him in Detroit and spend about a week with him in Florida or on Grand Bahama and then, before breaking it off, take him home to meet Mother.

Lying on the bed, one hand on her stomach, her other hand playing with a strand of her hair, Nancy heard herself say, “Mother, this is Jack Ryan.” She saw her mother in the shade of the palm tree, her cigarette case, lighter, and vodka and tonic on the glass-top table. She saw her mother lower the thick novel to her lap, slip off her reading glasses, and hold them, interrupted, under her chin, her eyes on Ryan and her mouth forming the smallest gesture of a smile. Her head would be cocked very slightly, alertly, and she would seem to nod, a slight smile and a pleasant hint of a nod, but not giving away any of herself in the look: withdrawn, peering at him through little brown stones, observing him and sensing something was wrong.

“Jack’s from Detroit, Mother.”

Watch the eyes, the little brown stones. Watch Jack Ryan. He looks away from Mother. Mother isn’t bad-looking at all for a forty-four-year-old mother, chic and slick and wearing white and pearls to set off her tan. But Ryan isn’t sure about her. She hasn’t said anything, but she scares him. Little Mother pushes him off-balance with her cool. He looks around the patio. He puts one hand in his pocket to show he’s at ease and looks at the small, curved swimming pool and then toward the white stucco house, trying to think of something to say. It would be good, Nancy thought. It would be fun to bring him in and let him loose. It would be fun to watch Mother watching him: afraid he might touch something or come toward her, watching him calmly but afraid to move, sitting perfectly still and waiting for him to go away.

“Mother, this is Jack Ryan. He breaks into houses and almost clubbed a man to death.” That could shake her up a little.

Maybe. Though the thing with the two boys in Lauderdale didn’t seem to shake her-the two boys she had met at Bahia Mar and had brought home because her mother was out and only Loretta, the maid, would be there.

She was fifteen then. She could still see the two boys standing with their hands on their hips in shorts and tight football jerseys with numerals, 23 and 30-something. They were both over six feet and could chugalug a can of beer in less than twenty seconds, tall and slouchy with their hands-on-hips, time-out pose, but still little boys. She didn’t put them in the same class now with Jack Ryan. Size didn’t count. Anyone under 21 or who wasn’t married (a new qualification) or had never been arrested for felonious assault, was still a minor.

They sat by the little curved pool with three six-packs and a transistor radio and the boys beat time on the arms of their chairs when they weren’t drinking the beer. Loretta, black face and white uniform, would appear at the door leading into the sunroom, frowning and trying to catch Nancy’s eye. One of the boys said, “Your maid wants you.” But Nancy pretended she didn’t see Loretta and the two boys got the idea.

Nancy said, “It’s too bad we have to be spied on. If we were alone, we’d probably have more fun.” One of the boys said, “Yeah,” and the other one said, “Like doing what?” And Nancy said, “Like going swimming.” One of them said, “But we didn’t bring any suits.” And Nancy said, “So?”

She watched them each drink their beer while they thought of a way to get rid of Loretta and while Nancy knew all the time how they would do it. They couldn’t lock her in her room; Loretta had the key.

So they used the box spring and mattress from Nancy’s room, sliding them quietly over the tile to Loretta’s open door. She didn’t see them. When she did look up, and they heard her muffled voice inside, a wall of striped mattress ticking covered the doorway. They laughed, Nancy laughed with them leaning against the box spring while they brought chairs to wedge between the mattress and the opposite wall in the hallway. Then they ran outside and took off their clothes and dove in. The boys did. Nancy went to her room and put on a two-piece semibikini. She turned off all the lights in the house and the swimming pool lights too, hearing the boys yelling hey, what’s going on! But when she came out and they saw her, they grinned and one of them whistled and the other one said, “Hey, now, yes!” The wet young athletes in their wet, sagging jockey shorts.

They played tag, with a lot of running dives and grabbing under water, stopping for a swig of beer every few minutes. After enough of that Nancy fell into a lounge chair to rest, her chest rising and her flat stomach sucking in as she breathed. They sat staring at her until she got up and stretched, showing them her stomach again, and said she was going in to change.

Hey, but would one of them mind unhooking her bra? It was so darn hard to reach.

They both went for it, and while they pushed and wrestled for position, Nancy reached behind and unfastened the strap. Walking to the sunroom door, she knew they were watching. She went inside, closed the glass door behind her, and pressed the lock catch. She took off the bra. She stood with her back to the glass until she knew they were close to the door and one of them was trying the handle. Then she turned around.

One of them said, “Hey, come on. Open the door.”

Nancy looked from one to the other, the tall stringy athletes trying to look casual in their wet jockey shorts. She hooked her thumbs in the low waist of the bikini and smiled.

“Come on. Open up.”

“What’ll you give me?” Nancy asked them.

“You know what.” They both laughed at that.

“Come on,” the other one said again.

“I’m going to bed,” Nancy said.

“Open the door, we’ll go with you.”

“What’ll you give me?” Nancy said again.

They were both looking at her, seriously now, silent. Finally one of them said, “What do you want, anyway?”

And Nancy said, “Fifty bucks, Charlie. Each.”

She could still see the dumb look on their faces.

And the look on her mother’s face a few days later, the no-look look.

“Is it true, Nancy?”

Her mother had found out about the two boys because one of them happened to have a buddy relationship with his father. The little buddy told the big buddy. The big buddy told his wife, who told a friend, who told Nancy’s mother, the friend saying she didn’t believe a word of it, but perhaps Nancy’s mother would like to look into it. Then the scene-her mother sitting in the living room, Loretta a few steps behind her.

“Is it true, Nancy?”

The brown stones in her mother’s solemn eyes stared up at her and, watching her mother’s eyes very closely, she said, “Yes, it’s true.”

The eyes did not seem to change expression. “Do you know what you’re saying?” her mother asked. “You want us to believe you offered yourself to those boys?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t say uh-huh, dear. Say yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“All right, tell me why.”

“I don’t know.”

“If you think this is cute-have you thought of the consequences?”

Nancy hesitated, interested. “What consequences?”

“That people,” her mother said quietly, “might hear about it?”

Nancy began to smile; she couldn’t help it. “Mother, you’re beautiful.”

“I don’t see anything amusing,” her mother said. “I want to know what happened.”

Nancy looked at Loretta, who looked at Nancy’s mother. “Whatever you heard is probably true.”

“Loretta said they left before midnight.”

“How long do you think it takes?” Nancy said.

Her mother’s solemn expression held. “I want you to admit you thought this up as a not very funny joke.”

“Mother, I did. I propositioned them.”

“All right,” her mother said, rising, smoothing her dress over her hips. “There doesn’t seem to be much point in talking about it.”

“Really. It’s true.”

“It’s up to you,” her mother said. “But until you admit the truth and start making sense, you won’t be allowed out of the house.” Her mother turned and started across the room.

“I’ll tell you everything we did,” Nancy said after her. “Do you want to hear it or not?”

Her mother didn’t. A few days later she told her mother only part of the story was true, the part about blocking Loretta’s door. Her mother said, then the boys made up the rest of it as some sort of perverted joke. Yes, Nancy said, and she was allowed to go outside again and play.

It had been all right but very minor. She had been a little girl then and now she was a big girl and had to think as a big girl. Everything was relative. It became relative as one changed one’s approach and went on to bigger and better bounces.

Playing with the two boys had been fun.

Faking out the fathers taking her home from babysitting had been fun.

Putting on Bob Jr. had been fun.

Fooling around with Jack Ryan and thinking of how to take Ray’s fifty thousand had been fun. But even this was fairly low key compared to what she had in mind now.

If she could set it up. If she could work out the timing, it would be the biggest bounce of all.