The Neon Jungle

Chapter Seventeen

It was nearly nine o’clock as Bonny walked through the dark street to Paul Darmond’s apartment. She was glad she was able to walk away from the neoned sections. Here the sidewalks were narrow, the slabs tilted by the elm roots, the footing in the dark places uncertain. She walked through a neighborhood of two-family houses, catching glimpses through the lighted windows of feet up, newspapers spread wide, kids doing homework at the cleared dining-room tables.

Two more blocks to go. Ahead she saw the white glare of a corner drugstore, the answering brightness of a gas station. She passed the bright area and as she moved into darkness again, a car cruised beside her. The beam of the spotlight pinned her as she walked, so that she seemed to walk on in one spot, as though on a treadmill.

“I thought I said something about staying off my streets, Bonny,” Rowell said, with that mocking friendliness more deadly than rage.

She walked on for two steps and stopped and turned to face the car, hand shielding her eyes from the glare. The car was stopped. The light was changed a bit to shine against her body, leaving her face in relative darkness.

“Come here, Bonny.”

She hesitated. She felt cold and careful, as though she were being forced to walk across a narrow steel beam forty stories above the street. She walked toward the round glowing eye of the spot and stopped three feet from it, able to make out the dark glints of the car body, a vague face to the right of the spotlight.

“Have you been knocking off a few drinks, kid?”

“No.”

“Out looking for a little fun, maybe?”

“No.”

“Maybe you’re out looking for a little business.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Bonny, you’re quite a kid. What’s the new act?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The lady act. Where’d you pick that up?”

It was an effort to keep from saying the words he was trying to goad her into. “I was on my way to see Paul Darmond, Lieutenant.”

“Now, isn’t that cute? Seeing the Preach, hey? Hand me your purse, honey.”

“Why?”

“Give it to me quick. I want to keep this friendly, don’t you?”

She handed her purse toward the half-seen face. It was snatched roughly out of her hand. She saw it vaguely under the dash lights, heard the click of the fastener. After a moment the fastener clicked again. The car door opened.

“Come here.”

She knew he had turned sideways in the car seat. She took another rigid step, stopped when his knee touched her. She stood, instinctively closing her eyes. His hard hands patted her quickly, efficiently, from throat to knees.

“They ever take a knife off you on the Coast?”

“Why don’t you ask them?”

“I’m asking you, baby.”

“No.”

The purse was thrust against her and she took it and took a quick step back away from him.

“Did I tell you you could leave?”

“No.”

“Come here.”

She moved forward again. She listened for ten long seconds to the muted sound of the motor, the faint rasp of his breathing.

“Now you can take off, kid.”

She did not trust herself to say anything. She turned and walked on legs that had turned wobbly and uncertain. She walked and she said softly, “Aaaaaah, God! God!” Her teeth chattered and she shut her jaw hard, achingly hard. She remembered what Paul had warned her about. She stopped under a street light and opened her purse with cold awkward fingers. Nothing had been added or removed.

She had walked the high narrow beam and had managed not to look down at the beetle cars and the slow ants that were people. It meant, somehow, that next time she could stand a beam that was a bit narrower, a bit longer.

Here the heavy houses grew close to the sidewalk and she knew it was his block, but it was too dark to see the numbers. She saw an old-fashioned bay window with yellowed lace curtains and saw him standing in the room in shirtsleeves, unknotted necktie dangling. She went up the steps quickly and the front door was unlocked and his had to be the first door on the left. She rapped, a nervous staccato, and he opened the door, the light behind him.

“Bonny!”

“Paul, I... I...” And her teeth started chattering again. He pulled her gently into the room and closed the door by reaching over her shoulder to push against it, and turned that gesture into an enfolding one, holding her against his chest. She felt the hard angle of his jaw against her temple, and she stood against him, her locked fists under her chin, trembling.

He held her and the shaking slowly went away. At last she looked up at him and managed to smile and made a small face and he released her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“What happened?”

“Rowell stopped me, just down the street.”

“Why on earth did you walk over here? You should have phoned, or taken a cab or something.”

“I didn’t want any of them to know I was coming over. I left sort of quietly.”

“For Rowell to... Damn it, Bonny, it just isn’t fair.”

“It’s a way of paying, I guess.”

“What’s the matter with me? Sit down. Do you want a drink?”

“No, thanks, Paul.” She sat on the couch and looked at the room for the first time. It was a characterless, transient place. His books were there, and a picture, and that was all.

The picture was a studio portrait of a girl with something very alive in her face.

“Is that your wife, Paul?”

He glanced over at the picture. “She never liked that picture of her. I guess she never liked any picture of herself. She hated to have them taken. I had to bully her to get that one.”

“She was very lovely.”

She dug her cigarettes out of her purse, and he came over and held a light for her. “Why did you come to see me?”

“The other day you... taught me something. It took a while for it to take effect, I guess. It’s hard to take a long look at yourself and understand that what motivates you is self-pity and guilt. I’ve been... more outgoing since then. Terrible expression. I mean it’s been like waking up and looking around and seeing where you are. You see things you didn’t see when you were being a zombie.”

He sat on a straight chair, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, smoke rising up through the lean fingers of his right hand.

“And you’ve seen something you think I should know?” he asked quietly.

“Two things, Paul. I found one out because I’ve started watching people. I found the other out by accident. They’re both bad.”

“Is Lockter involved in one?”

“I thought you’d ask that. Yes. Of course. He’s seduced Jana.”

“Dear Lord!” Paul said. “Is that a hunch?”

“I made her admit it. She’s too young for Gus, of course. And lonely and vulnerable, and very earthy. I gather that she didn’t exactly put up any struggle. Now she’s rebellious and trying to justify herself because, in her heart, she knows that any amount of regret or determination isn’t going to do her any good. If he wants her again, it will be just as easy for him as turning on a light. She’s the only one who knows I’ve come to talk to you. She agrees that the best thing would be to get him out of there. I hope you can do it.”

“He’s no longer on parole. It doesn’t give me much leverage.”

“Gus has tremendous pride, Paul. And decency. I think he’s capable of murderous anger.”

“I know he is. It’s a very bad situation. I can’t somehow see Vern Lockter taking that sort of risk. I thought he was too clever for that.” He stood up and paced over to the scarred ornate mantel, tapping a cigarette absently on his thumbnail. “I can think of only one way to handle it. And I don’t think much of the method. Talk to him. I’ve never had a hell of a lot of success talking to him. He agrees with everything I say, and I get the feeling he’s thinking all the time that I’m somebody to humor and ignore. But maybe letting him know that I know what he’s up to... that might put the fear of God in him.”

“Suppose he just denies it?”

“He might do that. If I don’t get anywhere, I can see what Andy Rowell can do with him.”

“You wouldn’t tell Rowell about it?”

“I wouldn’t dare without getting his word first that he’d never use it except to move Lockter along, move him out of the neighborhood.”

“You’d take his word?”

“Yes.” Paul took a kitchen match off the mantel and struck it on the underside of the mantel and lit his cigarette. “Could that Dover boy take over the deliveries?”

“I think so. He seems very nice, Paul. And intelligent.”

“I’ll see Lockter tomorrow.”

“I told Jana to try to stay away from him. The other thing is very odd, Paul.” He listened intently as she told him the story of the altered receipt.

“But if Walter needs money, all he has to do is ask Gus.”

“If he needs it for something he can explain, don’t you mean?”

“What could he need it for that he couldn’t explain? I know how Walter lives, Bonny. He never goes out alone. He couldn’t get into gambling trouble or woman trouble because Doris wouldn’t give him the chance. Doris keeps an armlock on him twenty-five hours a day.”

“She’s insecure, Paul. She’s just one of those people who need reassurance so badly that they go around guaranteeing, by the way they act, that they’ll never get it. And that makes them nastier. She makes his life hell.”

“Which,” he said slowly, “is probably the reason for taking the money. When he has enough...”

“Of course!” Bonny said. “I can hardly blame the guy. But it will be terrible for Gus. All the luck has gone, Paul. All the luck has gone out of that house. And it’s still running away like water, the little bit that’s left.”

“Even if Gus should find out, he wouldn’t go to the law. You know, he realizes somebody has been tapping the till. He told me. He thought it was Teena. I guess he didn’t make any real effort to check because he was brooding about Henry.”

“What will you do?”

“Tell you to talk to Walter.”

“Me! No, Paul.”

“Yes, you. You understand Doris better than he does, I think. Do you think there’s any way to handle her? Any way he could make his life more endurable?”

“I don’t know. She’ll be vicious and making trouble, and yet when you show interest in her, she’ll suddenly melt for a few moments. If she weren’t so pregnant, I know what I’d do. I mean, if I were a man. If I were Walter I’d shake her until her teeth rattled. I’d cuff her until she was too dazed to cry, and then I’d make love to her and comfort her, and let her know that the next time she turned mean, the very same thing would happen. She doesn’t respect him. And I think force is something she would respect. Walter is too gentle and meek. Almost frightened of her. It wouldn’t astonish me much, Paul, if treatment like that might turn her into a sweet and adoring wife. There’s something very nice under all her waspishness. But it couldn’t be done halfway. That would just make her worse. But of course, with Doris so pregnant, it can’t be done. She uses that like a weapon, anyway. She wears her baby like an insult to Walter. And he takes it.”

“Talk to Walter, Bonny.”

“It may not help.”

“What will help?”

She thought for a moment, smiled reluctantly. “Nothing else, I guess.” She stood up. “I should be getting back.”

“Not the way you came. I’ll drive you.”

He knotted his tie quickly and put on a jacket. Outside they got into the car. The motor whispered and caught and settled into a sputtering roar. He drove down the alley and out onto the dark street.

He parked by the curb in front of the Varaki house. There was a light in a second-floor window, and a fainter one in one of the small windows on the third floor under the eaves.

She put her hand on the door latch and said, “Thank you, Paul.”

He put his hand on her other wrist and turned off the car lights. They sat in the darkness. She could not see his face.

“No, Paul,” she whispered.

“No what? What are you saying no to?”

“I don’t know. Everything, I guess. No to all the things that can’t work out. No to whatever you think I am.”

He pulled at her, slowly and strongly, and she held herself away from him, and then let out all her breath and came into his arms, feeling a remote surprise at the way, in the cramped little car, they seemed to fit together without awkwardness. His lips were hard and firm against hers, and for a few moments she was conscious of being there in a discouraged little car, kissing a tall stranger, conscious of his worn cuff and slightly frayed collar, a sober and talkative man they called the Preacher. And then her cool watchfulness was melted away in the long kiss, a kiss that somehow destroyed her awareness of him as a lean stranger, and made him forever Paul, a close strength and warmth and need.

Then her face was in the hollow of his throat, and his lips made some inarticulate sound against her hair, and she could hear the slow drum of his heart.

She pushed herself away and her laugh was abrupt and nervous. “You make me feel like a damn girl.”

“I know.”

“How would you know?”

“For once, Bonny, I don’t want to think or explain.”

She laughed again, a small quick sound like something breaking. “Let’s let explanations wait. Because once we explain it to ourselves, Paul, that’s going to be the end of it.”

“Is it?”

“Of course.” She pressed her palms flat and hard against his cheeks, kissed him lightly on the mouth. He caught her wrists, kissed the palm of each hand, and let her go. She got out of the car and turned and looked in at the darkness where he was for a moment, then slammed the car door hard and went without a word into the house.

She readied herself for bed with great haste, wanting to hold to her mood of glowing excitement. Yet once in darkness she felt it slipping away as inside her the carefully compartmented acid ate through its walls.

What are you, Bonita, to revert to schoolgirl reactions? What are you pretending to be? A rather pathetic impersonation, my dear. For you can give Paul a rather professional imitation of love, complete with the automatic sighs, the contrived kissings, a tremulousness as fake as a four-dollar violin. Like the imitation of love you gave Henry. Maybe the vividness of the raw memories had become a bit blurred in the past few days because you’re coming alive again. But they will not be blurred in Paul’s mind. He will always be aware of all the fingerprints on you. He’s vulnerable because he’s lonely, and you’re an attractive wench, and so he’s giving emotional overtones to a basic need while you aid and abet.

The spreading acid ate away the dream, and she was taut in her bed. As dawn came inevitably closer, she knew that this was the longest night of her life, longer even than that first night she had spent in jail, in the female tank, in the sick air and the cat sounds.

She heard the sounds in the old house. She heard Jimmy and the old man get up and heard the clatter of the truck as they drove out, leaving the house again in silence. And then she heard a softer sound, a stealthy movement, the creak of a board. She thought what it could be and came quickly out of bed, snatching her dark robe and putting it on. The doorknob was cold in her hand as she turned it slowly. It opened without a sound. She looked toward the head of the stairs, saw the cat creep of movement, saw in the faint light of the stairway window that Vern Lockter was going soft and easy down the stairs. When he was no longer in sight, she went quietly to the stairs. The stair carpet was bristly under her bare feet. She looked cautiously down the darker length of the second-floor hall just in time to see Vern disappear through the door of the bedroom of Gus and Jana. He eased through and she heard a very muted click of the latch on the door. She stood then, waiting for an outcry that she sensed would never come. The old house was silent. There was no flaw in the night stillness. Far off a train made a hooting, a metallic frog in the pond of the night. She shivered then, hearing in the hooting an ancient note of derision. The night was a still violence. She turned and went back up the stairs and down the hallway to her room. She shut the door and threw her robe aside and got into bed and felt a childish need to hide under the bedclothes.