The New Black Mask Quarterly (No 1)

“Thompson is my particular admiration among ‘original’ authors,” novelist R. V. Cassill has declared. “The Killer Inside Me (1952) is exactly what French enthusiasts for existential American violence were looking for in the works of Dashiell Hammett, Horace McCoy and Raymond Chandler. None of these men ever wrote a book within miles of Thompson’s.” Jim Thompson published twenty-nine novels between 1942 and 1973, all but one of which were paperback originals. His devout circle of admirers claim he wrote psychological thrillers unequaled in post-war American fiction.

Cassill has written that “Thompson at his best hits notes that are stunningly convincing. Not his materials, but the reckless play of his imagination in the moral debris gives one pause. In his hands the writing instrument sounds the trilling of genuine American demons.”

Thompson had revised the typescript for The Ripoff, but he died in 1977 before he could arrange publication. This installment is the first of four.

1

I didn’t hear her until she was actually inside the room, locking the door shut behind her. Because that kind of place, the better type of that kind of place — and this was the better type — has its tap roots in quiet. Anonymity. So whatever is required for it is provided: thick walls, thick rugs, well-oiled hardware. Whatever is required, but no more. No bath, only a sink firmly anchored to the wall. No easy I chairs, since you are not there to sit. No radio or television, since the most glorious of diversions is in yourself. Your two selves.

She was scowling agitatedly, literally dancing from foot to foot, as she flung off her clothes, tossing them onto the single wooden chair where mine were draped.

I laughed and sat up. “Have to pee?” I said. “Why do you always hold in until you’re about to wet your pants?”

“I don’t always! Just when I’m meeting you, and I don’t want to take time to — oops! Whoops! Help me, darn it!” she said, trying to boost herself up on the sink. “Hall-up!”

I helped her, holding her on her porcelain perch until she had finished. Then I carried her to the bed, and lowered her to it. Looked wonderingly at the tiny immensity, the breathtaking miracle of her body.

She wasn’t quite five feet tall. She weighed no more than ninety-five pounds, and I could almost encompass her waist with one hand. But somehow there was no skimpiness about her. Somehow her flesh flowed and curved and burgeoned. Extravagantly, deliciously lush.

“Manny,” I said softly, marveling. For as often as I had seen this miracle, it remained new to me. “Manuela Aloe.”

“Present,” she said. “Now, come to bed, you good-looking, darlin’ son-of-a-bitch.”

“You know something, Manny, my love? If I threw away your tits and your ass, God forbid, there wouldn’t be anything left.”

Her eyes flashed. Her hand darted and swung, slapping me smartly on the cheek.

“Don’t you talk that way to me! Not ever!”

“What the hell?” I said. “You talk pretty rough yourself.”

She didn’t say anything. Simply stared at me, her eyes steady and unblinking. Telling me, without telling me, that how she talked had no bearing on how I should talk.

I lay down with her, kissed her, and held the kiss. And suddenly her arms tightened convulsively, and I was drawn onto and into her. And then there was a fierce muted sobbing, a delirious exulting, a frantic hysterical whispering...

“Oh, you dirty darling bastard! You sweet son-of-a-bitch! You dearest preciousest mother-loving sugar-pie...”

Manny.

Manuela Aloe.

I wondered how I could love her so deeply, and be so much afraid of her. So downright terrified.

And I damned well knew why.

After a while, and after we had rested a while, she placed her hands against my chest and pushed me upward so that she could look into my face.

“That was good, Britt,” she said. “Really wonderful. I’ve never enjoyed anything so much.”

“Manny,” I said. “You have just said the finest, the most exciting thing a woman can say to a man.”

“I’ve never said it to anyone else. But, of course, there’s never been anyone else.”

“Except your husband, you mean.”

“I never said it to him. You don’t lie to people about things like this.”

I shifted my gaze, afraid of the guilt she might read in my eyes. She laughed softly, on a submerged note of teasing.

“It bothers you, doesn’t it, Britt? The fact that there was a man before you.”

“Don’t be silly. A girl like you would just about have to have other men in her life.”

“Not men. Only the one man, my husband.”

“Well, it doesn’t bother me. He doesn’t, I mean. Uh, just how did he die, anyway?”

“Suddenly,” she said. “Very suddenly. Let me up now, will you please?”

I helped her to use the sink, and then I used it. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute or two, but when I turned around she had finished dressing. I was startled, although I shouldn’t have been. She had the quick, sure movements characteristic of so many small women. Acting and reacting with lightning-like swiftness. Getting things done while I was still thinking about them.

“Running off mad?” I said, and then, comprehending, or thinking that I did, “Well, don’t fall in, honey. I’ve got some plans for you.”

She frowned at me reprovingly, and still playing it light, I said she couldn’t be going to take a bath. I’d swear she didn’t need a bath, and who would know better than I?

That got me another frown, so I knocked off the kidding. “I like your dress, Manny. Paris job, is it?”

“Dallas. Neiman-Marcus.”

“Tsk, tsk, such extravagance,” I said. “And you were right there in Italy, anyway, to pick up your shoes.” She laughed, relenting. “Close, but no cigar,” she said, pirouetting in the tiny, spike-heeled pumps. “I. Pinna. You like?”

“Like. Come here, and I’ll show you how much.”

“Gotta go now, but just wait,” she said, sliding me a sultry glance. “And leave the door unlocked. You’ll have some company very soon.”

I said I wondered who the company could be, and she said archly that I should just wait and see; I’d really be surprised. Then she was gone, down the hall to the bathroom, I supposed. And I stretched out on the bed, pulling the sheet up over me, and waited for her to return.

The door was not only unlocked, but ever-so-slightly ajar. But that was all right, no problem in a place like this. The lurking terror sank deeper and deeper into my mind, and disappeared. I yawned luxuriously, and closed my eyes. Apparently I dozed, for I suddenly sat up to glance at my wristwatch. Automatically obeying a whispered command which had penetrated my subconscious. “Watch.”

I said I sat up.

That’s wrong.

I only started to, had barely lifted my head from the pillows, when there was a short snarling-growl. A threat and a warning, as unmistakable as it was deadly. And slowly, ever so slowly, I sank back on the bed.

There was a softer growl, a kind of gruff whimper. Approval. I lay perfectly still for a time, scarcely breathing — and it is easy to stop breathing when one is scared stiff. Then, without moving my head, I slanted my eyes to the side. Directly into the unblinking stare of a huge German Shepherd.

His massive snout was only inches from my face. The grayish-black lips were curled back from his teeth. And I remember thinking peevishly that he had too many, that no dog could possibly have this many teeth. Our eyes met and held for a moment. But dogs, members of the wolf family, regard such an encounter as a challenge. And a rising growl jerked my gaze back to the ceiling.

There was that gruff whimper again. Approval. Then, nothing.

Nothing but the wild beating of my heart. That, and the dog’s warm breath on my face as he stood poised so close to me. Ready to move — decisively — if I should move.

“Watch!” He had been given an order. And until that order was revoked, he would stay where he was. Which would force me to stay where I was... lying very, very still. As, of course, I would not be able to do much longer.

Any moment now, I would start yawning. Accumulated tension would force me to. At almost any moment my legs would jerk, an involuntary and uncontrollable reaction to prolonged inactivity. And when that happened...

The dog growled again. Differently from any of his previous growls. With the sound was another, the brief thud-thud of a tail against the carpet.

A friend — or perhaps an acquaintance — had come into the room. I was afraid to move my head, as the intruder was obviously aware, so she came around to the foot of the bed where I could see her without moving.

It was the mulatto slattern who sat behind the desk in the dimly lit lobby. The manager of the place, I had always assumed. The mock concern on her face didn’t quite conceal her malicious grin; there was spiteful laughter in her nominally servile voice.

“Well, jus’ looky heah, now! Mistah Britton Rain-star with a doggy in his room! How you doin’, Mistah High-an’-mighty Rainstar?”

“G-goddamn you—!” I choked with fear and fury. “Get that dog out of here! Call him off!”

She said, “Shuh, man.” She wasn’t tellin’ that dog to do nothin’. “Ain’t my houn’. Wouldn’t pay no attention to me, ’ceptin’ maybe to bite my fat ass.”

“But goddamn it—! I’m sorry,” I said. “Please forgive me for being rude. If you’ll get Manny — Miss Aloe, please. Tell her I’m very sorry, and I’m sure I can straighten everything out if she’ll just — just—”

She broke in with another “Shuh” of disdain. “Where I get Miss Manny, anyways? Ain’t seen Miss Manny since you-all come in t’day.”

“I think she’s in the bathroom, the one on this floor. She’s got to be here somewhere. Now, please—!”

“Huh-uh! Sure ain’t callin’ her out of no bathroom. Not me, no, sir! Miss Manny wouldn’t like that a-tall!”

“B-but—” I hesitated helplessly. “Call the police then. Please! And for God’s sake, hurry!”

“Call the p’lice? Here? Not a chance, Mistah Rainstar. No, siree! Miss Manny sho’ wouldn’t like that!”

“To hell with what she likes! What’s it to you, anyway? Why, goddamn it to hell—”

“Jus’ plenty t’me what she likes. Miss Manny my boss. That’s right, Mistah Rainstar.” She beamed at me falsely. “Miss Manny bought this place right after you-all started comin’ here. Reckon she liked it real well.”

She was lying. She had to be lying.

She wasn’t lying.

She laughed softly, and turned to go. “You lookin’ kinda peak-id, Mistah Rainstar. Reckon I better let you get some rest.”

“Don’t,” I begged. “Don’t do this to me. If you can’t do anything else, at least stay with me. I can’t move, and I can’t lie still any longer, and — and that dog will kill me! He’s trained to kill! S-so — so — please—” I gulped, swallowing an incipient sob, blinking the tears from my eyes. “Stay with me. Please stay until Miss Manny comes back.”

My eyes cleared.

The woman was gone. Moved out of my line of vision. I started to turn my head, and the dog warned me to desist. Then, from somewhere near the door, the woman spoke again.

“Just stay until Miss Manny come back? That’s what you said, Mistah Rainstar?”

“Yes, please. Just until then.”

“But what if she don’ come back? What about that, Mistah Rainstar?”

An ugly laugh, then. A laugh of mean merriment. And then she was gone. Closing the door firmly this time.

And locking it.

2

The terror had begun three months before.

It began at three o’clock in the morning with Mrs. Olmstead shaking me into wakefulness.

Mrs. Olmstead is my housekeeper, insofar as I have one. An old age pensioner, she occupies a downstairs bedroom in what, in better times, was called the Rainstar Mansion. She does little else but occupy it, very little in the way of housekeeping. But, fortunately, I require little, and necessarily pay little. So one hand washes the other.

She wasn’t a very bright woman at best, and she was far from her best at three in the morning. But I gathered from her babbling and gesturing that there was an emergency somewhere below, so I pulled on some clothes over my pajamas and hurried downstairs.

A Mr. Jason was waiting for me, a stout apoplectic-looking man who was dressed pretty much as I was. He snapped out that he just couldn’t have this sort of thing, y’know. It was a goddamn imposition, and I had a hell of a lot of guts giving out his phone number. And so forth and so on.

“Now, look,” I said, finally managing to break in on him. “Listen to me. I didn’t give out your number to anyone. I don’t know what the hell it is, for Christ’s sake, and I don’t want to know. And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah? Y’don’t, huh?” He seemed somewhat mollified. “Well. Better hurry up. Fellow said it was an emergency; matter of life and death.”

He lived in an elaborate summer home about three miles from mine, in an area that was still very good. He stopped his car under the porte-cochere, and preceded me into the entrance hall; then withdrew a few feet while I picked up the telephone.

I couldn’t think who would be making a call to me under such circumstances. There just wasn’t anyone. No one at the Foundation would do it. Except for the check which they sent me monthly, I had virtually no contact with the Hemisphere Foundation. As for Constance, my wife, now a resident, an apparently permanent one, at her father’s home in the midwest...

Constance had no reason to call. Except for being maimed and crippled, Constance was in quite good health. She would doubtless die in bed... thirty or forty years from now... sweetly smiling her forgiveness for the accident I had caused.

So she would not call, and her father would not. Conversation with me was something he did his best to avoid. Oh, he had been scrupulously fair, far more than I would have been in his place. He had publicly exonerated me of blame, stoutly maintaining to the authorities that there was no real evidence pointing to my culpability. But without saying so, he had let me know that he would be just as happy without my company or conversation.

So...?

“Yes?” I spoke into the phone. “Britton Rainstar, here.”

“Rainstar” — a husky semi-whisper, a disguised voice. “Get this, you deadbeat fuck-off. Pay up or you’ll die cryin’. Pay up or else.”

“Huh! Wh-aat?” I almost dropped the phone. “What — who is this?”

“I kid you not, Rainstar. Decorate the deck, or you’ll be trailing turds from here to Texas.”

I was still sputtering when the wire went dead. Jason glanced at me, and looked away. “Bet you could use a drink. Always helps at a time like this.”

“Thanks, but I guess not,” I said. “If you’ll be kind enough to drive me home...”

He did so, mumbling vague words of sympathy (for just what, he didn’t know). At my house, with its crumbling veranda and untended lawn, he pressed a fifty-dollar bill into my hand.

“Get your phone reconnected, okay? No, I insist! And I’m sorry things are so bad for you. Damned shame.”

I thanked him humbly, assuring him that I would do as he said.

By the time Mrs. Olmstead arose and began preparing breakfast, I had had two more callers, both crankily sympathetic as, like Jason, they brought word of a dire emergency.

I went with them, of course. How could I refuse? Or explain? And what if there actually was an emergency? There was always a chance, a million-to-one chance, that my caller might have a message of compelling importance. So it was simply impossible — impossible for me, at least — to ignore the summons.

The result was the same each time. An abusive demand to pay up or to suffer the ugly consequences.

I accepted some weak, lukewarm coffee from Mrs. Olmstead; I even ate a piece of her incredible toast and a bite or two of the scrambled eggs she prepared, which, preposterous as it seems, were half-raw but overcooked.

Ignoring Mrs. Olmstead’s inquiries about my “emergency” calls, I went up to my room and surrendered to a few hours of troubled rest. I came back downstairs shortly after noon, advised Mrs. Olmstead that I would fix my own lunch and that she should do as she pleased. She trudged down the road to the bus stop, going I knew not where nor cared. I cleaned myself up and dressed, not knowing what I was going to do, either. And not caring much.

From the not-too-distant distance came a steady rumbling and clattering and rattling; the to-and-fro passage of an an almost unbroken parade of trucks. Through the many gabled windows, their shutters opened to the spring breeze, came the sickishly-pungent perfume of what the trucks were carrying.

I laughed. Softly, sadly, wonderingly. I jumped up, slamming a fist into my palm. I sat back down and got up again. Aimlessly left the room to wander aimlessly through the house. Through the library with its threadbare carpet and its long, virtually empty bookshelves. Through the lofty drawing room, its faded tapestry peeling in tatters from the walls. The grand ballroom, its parquet floor declining imperceptibly but ominously with the vast weight of a rust-ruined pipe-organ.

I came out onto the rear veranda, where glass from shattered window’s splattered over the few unsalable items of furniture that remained. Expensive stained glass, bright with color.

I stood looking off into that previously mentioned, not-too-distant distance. It was coming closer; it had come quite a bit closer since yesterday, it seemed to me. And why not, anyway, as rapidly as those trucks were dumping their burden?

At present, I was merely — merely! — in the environs of a garbage dump. But soon it would be right up to my back door. Soon, I would be right in the middle of the stinking, rat-infested horror.

And maybe that was as it should be, hmm? What better place for the unwanted, unneeded, and worthless?

Jesus! I closed my eyes, shivering.

I went back through the house and up to my bedroom. I glanced at myself in a full-length mirror, and I doubt that I looked as bad as my warped and splotched reflection. But still I cursed and groaned out loud.

I flung off my clothes and showered vigorously. I shaved again, doing it right instead of half-assed. And then I began rummaging through my closets, digging far back in them and uncovering items I had forgotten.

An hour later, after some work with Mrs. Olmstead’s steam iron, some shoe polish, and a buffing brush, I again looked at myself. And warped as it was, the mirror told me my efforts were well spent indeed.

The handmade shoes were eternally new, ever magnificent, despite their age. The cambric shirt from Sulka and the watered-silk Countess Mara tie were new — long-ago Christmas presents which I had only glanced at and returned to their gift box. And a decade had been wonderfully kind to the Bond Street suit, swinging full circle through fads and bringing it back in style again.

I frowned, studying my hair.

The shagginess was not too bad, not unacceptable, but a trim was certainly in order. The gray temples and the gray streak down the center were also okay, a distinguished contrast for the jet blackness. However that yellowish tinge that gray hair shittily acquires was not all right. I needed to see a truly good hair man, a stylist, not the barbe-college cruds that I customarily went to.

I examined my wallet — twelve dollars plus the fifty Jason had given me. So I could properly finish the job I had started, hair and all. And the wonders it would do for my frazzled morale to look decent again, the way Britton Rainstar had to look... having so little else but looks.

But if I did that, if I didn’t make at least a token payment to Amicable Finance—!

The phone rang. It had not been disconnected, as Jason had assumed. Calling me at other numbers was simply part of the “treatment.”

I picked up the phone and identified myself.

A cheery man’s voice said that he was Mr. Bradley, Amicable comptroller. “You have quite a large balance with us, Mr. Rainstar. I assume you’ll be dropping in today to settle up?”

I started to say that I was sorry, that I simply couldn’t pay the entire amount, as much as I desired to. “But I’ll pay something; that’s a promise, Mr. Bradley. And I’ll have the rest within a week — I swear I will! J-just don’t do anything. D-don’t hurt me. Please, Mr. Bradley.”

“Yes, Mr. Rainstar? What time can I expect you in today?”

“You can’t,” I said.

“How’s that?” His voice cracked like a whip.

“Not today or any other day. You took my car. I repaid your loan in full, and you still took my car. Now—”

“Late charges, Rainstar. Interest penalties. Repossession costs. Nothing more than your contract called for.”

I told him he could go fuck for what the contract called for. He could blow it out his ass. “And if you bastards pull any more crap on me, any more of this calling me to the phone in the middle of the night...”

“Call you to the phone?” He was laughing at me. “Fake emergency calls? What makes you think we were responsible?”

I told him why I thought it; why I knew it. Because only Amicable Finance was lousy enough to pull such tricks. Others might pimp for their sisters at a nickel a throw, but they weren’t up to Amicable’s stunts.

“So here’s some advice for you, you liver-lipped asshole! You fuck with me any more, and it’ll be shit in the fan! Before I’m through with you, you’ll think lightning struck a crapper...!”

I continued a minute or two longer, growing more elaborate in my cursing. And, not surprisingly, I had quite a vocabulary of curses. Nothing is sacred to children, just as anything unusual is an affront to them, a challenge which cannot be ignored. And when you have a name like Britton Rainstar, you are accepted only after much fighting and cursing.

I slammed down the phone. Frightened stiff by what I had done, yet somehow pleased with myself. I had struck back for a change. For once in a very long time, I had faced up to the ominous instead of ignoring or running from it.

I fixed the one drink I had in the house, a large drink of vodka. Sipping it, feeling the dullness go out of my heart, I decided that I would by god get the needful clone with my hair. I would look like a man, by god, not the Jolly Green Giant, when Amicable Finance started giving me hell.

Before I could weaken and change my mind, I made an appointment with a hair stylist. Then I finished my drink, dragging it out as long as I could, and stood up.

And the phone rang.

I almost didn’t answer it; certain that it would get me nothing but a bad time. But few men are strong enough to ignore a ringing telephone and I am not one of them.

A booming, infectiously good-natured voice blasted into my ear.

“Mr. Rainstar, Britt? How the hell are you, kid?”

I said I was fine, and how the hell was he? He said he was just as fine as I was, laughing uproariously. And I found myself smiling in spite of myself.

“This is Pat Aloe, Britt. Patrick Xavier Aloe, if you’re going to be fussy.” Another roar of laughter. “Look, kid. I’d come out there, but I’m tied up tighter than a popcorn fart. So’s how about you dropping by my office in about an hour? Well, two hours, then.”

“But — well, why?” I said. “Why do you want to see me, Mr. — uh, Pat?”

“Because I owe you, Britt, baby. Want to make it up to you for those pissants at Amicable. Don’t know what’s the matter with the stupid bastards, anyway.”

“But... Amicable?” I hesitated. “You have something to do with them?”

A final roar of laughter. Apparently, I had said something hilariously funny. Then, good humor flooding me. but I also wanted to see him, even though I didn’t his voice, he declared that he not only wanted to see know it yet. Thus, the vote for seeing each other was unanimous by his account.

“So how about it, Britt, baby? See you in a couple of hours, okay?”

“Who am I to buck a majority vote?” I said. “I’ll see you, Pat, uh, baby.”

3

I got out of the cab at a downtown office building. I entered its travertine marble lobby and studied the large office directory affixed to one wall. It was glassed in, a long oblong of white plastic lettering against a black felt background. The top line read:

Beneath it, in substantially smaller letters, were the names of sixteen companies, including that of Amicable Finance. The final listing, in small red letters, read:

’Allo, Aloe, I thought, stepping into the elevator. Patrick Xavier, M. Francesa, and Britt, baby, makes three. Or something. But whereof and why, for god’s sake?

I punched the button marked P.H., and was zoomed forty floors upward to the Penthouse floor. As I debarked into its richly furnished reception area, a muscular young man with gleaming black hair stepped in front of me. He looked sharply into my face, then smiled and stepped back.

“How are you, Mr. Rainstar? Nice day.”

“How are you?” I said, for I am nothing if not polite. “A nice day so far, at least.”

A truly beautiful, beautifully-dressed woman came forward, and urgently squeezed my hand.

“Such a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rainstar! Do come with me, please.”

I followed her across a hundred feet or so of carpet (a foot deep or so) to an unmarked door. She started to knock, then jerked her hand back. Turned to me still smiling, but rather whitishly.

“If you’ll wait just a moment, please...”

She started to shoo me away, then froze at the sound from within the room. A sound that could only be made by a palm swung against a face. Swung hard, again, again... Like the stuttering, staccato crackling of an automatic rifle.

It went on for all of a minute, a very long time to get slapped. Abruptly, as though a gag had been removed, a woman screamed.

“N-no! D-don’t, please! I’ll never do—!”

The scream ended with the suddenness of its beginning. The slapping also. The beautiful, beautifully dressed young woman waited about ten seconds. (I counted them off silently.) Then she knocked on the door and ushered me inside.

“Miss Manuela Aloe,” she said. “Mr. Britton Rainstar.”

A young woman came toward me smiling; rubbing her hand, her right hand, against her dress before extending it to me. “Thank you, Sydney,” she said, dismissing the receptionist with a nod. “Mr. Rainstar, let’s just sit here on the lounge.”

We sat down on the long velour lounge. She crossed one leg over the other, rested an elbow on her knee, and looked at me smiling, her chin propped in the palm of her hand. I looked at her — the silver-blond hair, the startlingly black eyes and lashes, the flawlessly creamy complexion. I looked and found it impossible to believe that such a delicious bonbon of a girl would do harm to anyone.

Couldn’t I have heard a recording? And if there had been another woman, where was she? The only door in the room was the one I had entered by, and no one had passed me on the way out.

“You look just like him,” Manuela was saying. “We-ell, almost just. You don’t have your hair in braids.”

I said, “What?” And then I said, “Oh,” for several questions in my mind had been answered. “You mean Chief Britton Rainstar,” I said. “The Remington portrait of him in the Metropolitan.”

She said no, she’d missed that one, darn it. “I was talking about the one in the Royal Museum by James MacNeill Whistler. But tell me. Isn’t Britton a kind of funny name for an Indian chief?”

“Hilarious,” I said. “I guess we got it from the nutty whites the Rainstars intermarried with, early and often. Now, if you want a real honest-to-Hannah, jumpin’-by-Jesus Indian name — well, how does George strike you?”

“George?” she laughed. “George?”

“George Creekmore. Inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, and publisher of the first newspaper west of the Mississippi.”

“And I guess that’ll teach me,” she smiled, coloring slightly. “But anyway, you certainly bear a strong resemblance to the Chief. Of course, I’d heard that all the Rainstar men did, but—”

“We’re hard to tell apart,” I agreed. “The only significant difference is in the pockets of later generations.”

“The pockets?”

“They’re empty,” I said, and tapped myself on the chest. “Meet Lo, the poor Indian.”

“Hi, Lo,” she said, laughing. And I said, “Hi,” and then we were silent for a time.

But it was not an uncomfortable silence. We smiled and looked at each other without self-consciousness, both of us liking what we saw. When she spoke it was to ask more questions about the Rainstar family; and while I didn’t mind talking about it, having little else to be proud of, there were things I wanted to know, too. So, after rambling on a while I got down to them.

“Like when and why the heck,” I said, “am I seeing P.X. Aloe?”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to see Uncle Pat today,” she said. “Some last-minute business came up. But there’s nothing sinister afoot” — she gave me a reassuring little pat on the arm. “Now, unless you’re in a hurry...”

“Well, I am due in Washington to address the cabinet,” I said. “I thought it was already addressed, but I guess someone left off the zone number.”

“You dear!” she laughed delightedly. “You absolute dear! Let’s go have some drinks and dinner, and talk and talk and talk...”

She got her hat and purse from a mahogany cabinet. The hat was a sailor with a turned-up brim, and she cocked it over one eye, giving me an impish look. Then she grinned and righted it, and the last faint traces of apprehension washed out of my mind.

Give another woman a vicious slapping? This darling, diminutive child? Rainstar, you are nuts!

We took the elevator down to PXA’s executive dining room, in a sub-basement of the building. A smiling maitre d’ with a large menu under his arm came out of the shadows and bowed to us graciously.

“A pleasure to see you, Miss Aloe. And you, too, sir, needless to say.”

“Not at all,” I said. “My pleasure.”

He looked at me a little startled. I am inclined to gag it up and talk too much when I am uneasy or unsure of myself, which means that I am almost always gagging it up and talking too much.

“This is Mr. Britton Rainstar, Albert (Albehr),” Manuela Aloe said. “I hope you’ll be seeing him often.”

“My own hope. Will you have a drink at the bar while your table is being readied?”

She said we would, and we did. In fact, we had a couple, since the night employees were just arriving at this early hour, and there was some delay in preparing our table.

“Very nice,” I said, taking an icy sip of martini. “A very nice place, Miss Aloe. Or is it Mrs.?”

She said it was Miss — she had taken her own name after her husband died — and I could call her Manny if I liked. “But yes—” she glanced around casually — “it is nice, isn’t it? Not that it shouldn’t be, considering.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Or should I say ah-ha? I’m afraid I’m going to have to rush right off to Geneva, Manny.”

“Wha-aat?”

“Just as soon as I pay for these drinks. Unless you insist on going dutch on them.”

“Silly!” She wriggled deliciously. “You’re with me, and everything’s complimentary.”

“But you said considering,” I pointed out. “A word hinting at the dread unknown, in my case at least. To wit, money.”

“Oh, well,” she shrugged, dismissing the subject. “Money isn’t everything.”

4

With an operation as large and multifaceted as PXA, one with so many employees and interests, it was impossible to maintain supervision and surveillance in every place it might be required. It would have been impossible, even if PXA’s activities were all utterly legitimate instead of borderline, with personnel who figuratively cried out to be spied upon. Pat Aloe had handed the problem to his niece Manny, a graduate student in psychology. After months of consultation with behaviorists and recording experts, she had come up with the bugging system used throughout the PXA complex.

It was activated by tones and was uncannily accurate in deciding when a person’s voice tone was not what it should be. Thus Bradley, the man who had called me this morning, had been revealed as a “switcher,” one who diverted business to competitors. So all of his calls were completely recorded, instead of sporadically spotchecked.

“I see,” I nodded to Manny, as we dawdled over coffee and liqueurs, “about as clearly as I see through mud. Everything is completely opaque to me.”

“Oh, now, why do you say that?” she said. “I’d seen that portrait when I was a little girl, and I’d never gotten it out of my mind. So when I found out that the last of the Rainstars was right here in town...!”

“Recalling part of the conversation,” I said, “you must have felt that the last of the Rainstars needed his mouth washed out with soap.”

She laughed and said nope, cursing out Bradley had been a plus. “That was just about the clincher for you with Pat. Someone of impeccable background and breeding, who could still get tough if he had to.”

“Manny,” I said, “exactly what is this all about, anyway? Why PXA’s interest in me?”

“Well...”

“Before you answer, maybe I’d better set you straight on something. I’ve never been mixed up in anything shady, and PXA seems to be mixed up in nothing else but. Oh, I know you’re not doing anything illegal, nothing you can go to prison for. But still, well—”

“PXA is right out in the open,” Manny said firmly. “Anyone that wants to try can take a crack at us. We don’t rewrite any laws, and we don’t ask any to be written for us. We don’t own any big politicians. I’d say that for every dollar we make with our so-called shady operations, there’s a thousand being stolen by some highly respectable cartel.”

“Well,” I nodded uncomfortably, “there’s no disputing that, of course. But I don’t feel that one wrong justifies another, if you’ll pardon an unpardonable cliche.”

“Pardoned.” She grinned at me openly. “We don’t try to justify it. No justifications, no apologies.”

“And this bugging business.” I shook my head. “It seems like something right out of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It’s sneaky and Big Brotherish, and it scares the hell out of me.”

Manny shrugged, remarking that it was probably everything I said. But bugging wasn’t an invention of PXA, and it didn’t and wouldn’t affect me. “We’re on your side, Britt. We’re against the people who’ve been against your people.”

“My people?” I said, and I grimaced a little wryly. “I doubt that any of us can be bracketed so neatly anymore. We may be more of one race than we are another, but I suspect we’re all a little of everything. White, yellow, black, and red.”

“Oh, well—” she glanced at her wristwatch. “You’re saying that there are no minorities?”

I said that I wasn’t sure what I was saying, or, rather, what the point to it was. “But I don’t believe that a man who’s being pushed around has a right to push anyone but the person pushing him... if you can untangle that. His license to push is particular, not general. If he starts lashing out at everyone and anyone, he’s asking for it, and he ought to get it.”

It was all very high-sounding and noble, and it also had the virtue, fortunately or otherwise, of being what I believed. What I had been bred to believe. And now I was sorry I had said it For I seemed to be hopelessly out of step with the only world I had, and again I was about to be left alone and afraid in that world, which I had had no hand in making. This lovely child, Manny, the one person to be kind to me or show interest in me for so very long, was getting ready to leave.

She was looking at me, brows raised quizzically. She was patting her mouth with her napkin, then crumpling it to the table. She was glancing at herself in the mirror in the purse. Then snapping the purse shut and starting to rise.

And then, praise be, glory to the Great Mixed Blood Father, she sat back down.

“All right,” she said crisply. “Let’s say that PXA is interested in using the Rainstar name. Let’s say that It would be pretty stupid of us to dirty up that name, now, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, yes, I suppose it would,” I said. “And look. I’m sorry if I said anything to offend you. I always kid around and talk a lot whenever I’m—”

“Forget it. How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“You’re forty. Or so you stated on your loan application. What do you do for a living, if you can call it that?”

I said why ask me something she already knew? “That information’s also on the application. Along with practically everything else about me, except the number and location of my dimples.”

“You mean you have some I can’t see?” She smiled, her voice friendlier, almost tender. “But what I meant to ask was, what do you write for this Hemisphere Foundation?”

“Studies. In-depth monographs on this region from various aspects: ecological, etiological, ethological, ethnological. That sort of thing. Sometimes one of them is published in Hemisphere’s Quarterly Reports. But they usually go in the file-and-forget department.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said thoughtfully, musingly. “Very interesting. I think something could be worked out there. Something satisfactory to both of us.”

“If you could tell me just what you have in mind...”

“Well, I’ll have to clear it with Pat, of course, but... Thirty-five thousand a year?”

“That’s not what I meant. I — what?” I gasped. “Did you say thirty-five thousand?”

“Plus expenses and certain fringe benefits.”

“Thirty-five thousand,” I said, running a finger around my collar. “Uh, how much change do you want back?”

She threw back her head and laughed, hugging herself ecstatically. “Ah, Britt, Britt,” she said, brushing mirth tears from her eyes. “Everything’s going to be wonderful for you. I’ll make it wonderful, you funny-sweet man. Now, do me a small favor, hmm?”

“Practically anything,” I said, “if you’ll laugh like that again.”

“Please don’t worry about silly things, like our bugging system. Everyone knows we have it. We’re out in the open on that as we are with everything else. If someone thinks he can beat it, well, it isn’t as if he hadn’t been warned, is it?”

“I see what you mean,” I said, although I actually didn’t. I was just being agreeable. “What happens when someone is caught pulling a fast one?”

“Well, naturally,” she said, “we have to remove him from the payroll.”

“I see,” I said again. Lying again when I said it. Because, of course, there are many ways to remove a man from the payroll. (Horizontal was one that occurred to me.) My immediate concern, however, as it so often is, was me. Specifically, the details of my employment. But I was not allowed to inquire into them.

Before I could frame another question, she had moved with a kind of unhurried haste, with the quick little movements which typified her. Rising from her chair, tucking her purse under her arm, gesturing me back when I also started to rise; all in one swift-smooth, uninterrupted action.

“Stay where you are, Britt,” she smiled. “Have a drink or something. I’ll have someone pick you up and drive you home.”

“Well...” I settled back into my chair. “Shall I call you tomorrow?”

“I’ll call you. Pat or I will. Good night, now.”

She left the table, her tinily full figure with its crown of thick blond hair quickly losing itself in the dining room’s dimness.

I waited. I had another liqueur and more coffee. And continued to wait. An hour passed. A waiter brushed by the table, and when he had gone, I saw a check lying in front of me.

I picked it up, a nervous lump clotting in my stomach. My eyes blurred, and I rubbed them, at last managing to read the total.

Sixty-three dollars and thirty cents.

Sixty-three dollars and—!

I don’t know how you are in such situations, but I always feel guilty. The mere need to explain that such and such is a mistake, et cetera, stiffens my smile exaggeratedly and sets me to sweating profusely and causes my voice to go tremolish and shaky. So that I not only feel guilty as hell, but also look it.

It is really pretty terrible.

It is no wonder that I was suspected of the attempted murder of my wife. The wonder is that I wasn’t lynched.

Albert, the maitre d’, approached. As I always do, I overexplained. apologizing when I should have demanded apologies. Sweating and shaking and squeakily stammering, and acting like nine kinds of a damned fool.

When I was completely self-demolished, Albert cut me off with a knifing gesture of his hand.

“No,” he said coldly, “Miss Aloe did not introduce you to me. If she had, I would have remembered it.” And he said, “No, she made no arrangement about the check. Obviously, the check is to be paid by you.”

Then he leaned down and forward, resting his hands on the table, so that his face was only inches from mine. And I remember thinking that I had known this was going to happen, not exactly this, perhaps, but something that would clearly expose the vicious potential of PXA. A taste of what could happen if I incurred the Aloe displeasure.

For she had said — remember? — that they did not pretend or apologize. You were warned, you knew exactly what to expect if.

“You deadbeat bastard,” Albert said. “Pay your check or we’ll drag you back in the kitchen and beat the shit out of you.”

5

I was on an aimless tour of the country when I met my wife-to-be, Connie. I’d gotten together some money through borrowing on or peddling off the few remaining Rainstar valuables, so I’d bought a car and taken off. No particular, no clear objective in mind. I simply didn’t like it where I was, and I wanted to find a place where I would like it. Which, of course, was impossible. Because the reason I disliked places I was in — and the disheartening knowledge was growing on me — was my being in them. I disliked me — me, myself, and I, as kids used to say, and far and fast as I ran I could not escape the bastardly trio.

Late one afternoon, I strayed off the highway and wound up in a homey little town nestled among rolling green hills. I also wound up with a broken spring from a plunge into a deep rut, and a broken cylinder and corollary damage from getting out of the rut.

The town’s only garage was the blacksmith shop. Or, to put it another way, the blacksmith did auto repairs... except for those who could drive a hundred-plus miles to the nearest city. The blacksmith-mechanic quoted a very reasonable price for repairing my car, but he would have to send away for parts, and what with one thing and another, he couldn’t promise to have the work done in less than a week.

There was one small restaurant in the town, sharing space with the post office. But there was no hotel, motel or boarding house. The blacksmith-mechanic suggested that I check with the real estate dealer to see if some private family would take me in for a few days. Without much hope, I did so.

The sign on the window read Luther Bannerman — Real Estate & Insurance. Inside, a young woman was disinterestedly pecking away at an ancient typewriter with a three-row keyboard. She was a little on the scrawny side, with mouse-colored hair. But she laughed wildly when I asked if she was Luther Bannerman and otherwise endeared herself to me by her childish eagerness to be of help, smiling and bobbing her head sympathetically as I explained my situation. When I had finished, however, she seemed to draw back a bit, becoming cautiously reserved.

“Well, I just don’t know, Mr. — Britton, is it?”

“Rainstar. Britt, for Britton, Rainstar.”

“I was going to say, Mr. — oh, I’ll make it Britt, okay? I was just going to say, Britt. We’re kind of out of the mainstream here, and I’m afraid you’d find it hard to keep in touch and carry on your business affairs, and—” she bared her teeth in a smile — “and so forth and so on.”

I explained that I had no pressing business affairs, not a single so forth, let alone a so on. I was just traveling, seeing the country and gathering material for a book. I also explained, when she raised the question of accommodations for my wife and family, that I had none with me or elsewhere and that my needs were solely for myself.

At this she insisted on pouring me coffee from the pot on a one-burner heater. Then, having made me “comfy” — also nauseated: the coffee was lousy — she hurried back to a small partitioned-off private office. After several minutes of closed-door conversation, she returned with her father, Luther Bannerman.

Of course he and she collectively insisted that I stay at their house. (It would be no trouble at all, but I could pay a little something if I wanted to.)

Of course I accepted their invitation. And, of course, I was in her pants the very first night. Or, rather, I was in what was in her pants. Or, to be absolutely accurate, she was in my pants. She charged into my room as soon as the light went out. And I did not resist her, despite her considerable resistability.

I felt that it was the very least I could do for her, although quite a few others had obviously done as much. I doubt that they had fought for it either, since it simply wasn’t the sort of thing for which men do battle. Frankly, if it had been tendered as inspiration for the launching of a thousand ships (or even a toy canoe), not a one would have hoisted anchor.

Ah, well. Who am I to kid around about poor Connie and her over-stretched snatch? Or to kid about anyone, for that matter? It is one of Fate’s saddest pranks to imbue the least sexually appetizing of us with the hugest sexual appetitites. To atone for that joke, I feel, is the obligation of all who are better endowed. And in keeping that obligation I have had many sorrier screws than Connie. I have received little gratitude for my efforts. On the contrary, I invariably wind up with a worse fucking than the fucking I got. For it is also one of Fate’s jokes to dower superiority complexes on girls with the worst fornicating furniture. And they seem to feel justified in figuratively giving you something as bad as they have given you literally.

Of course Connie’s father discovered us in coitus before the week was out. And, of course, I agreed to do the “right thing” by his little girl, which characteristically was the easiest tiling for me to do. Or so it seemed at the time. I may struggle a bit, but I almost always do the easiest thing. Or what seems to be and never is.

At the time I was born, promising was the word for Rainstar prospects. Thus I was placed on the path of least resistance early in life, and I remained on it despite my growing awareness that promise was not synonymous with delivery. I had gathered too much speed to get off, and I could find no better path to be on anyway. I’m sure you’ve seen people like me.

If I stumbled over an occasional rock I might curse and kick out at it. But only briefly, and not very often at all. I was so unused to having my course unimpeded that normally I fell apart when it was. It was the only recourse for a man made defenseless by breeding and habit.

Both Connie and her father were provoked to find that my prosperousness was exactly one hundred percent more apparent than real. They whined that I had deceived them, maintaining that since I was nothing but a well-dressed personable bum, I should have said so. Which, to me, seemed unreasonable. After all, why do your utmost not to look like a bum if you are going to announce that you are one?

Obviously, there were basic philosophical differences between me and the Bannermans. But they finally seemed resigned to me, if not to my way of thinking. In fact, I was given their rather grim assurance that I would come around to their viewpoint eventually and be much the better man for it. Meanwhile, Mr. Bannerman would not only provide me with a job, but would give Connie and me $100,000 life insurance policies as a wedding present.

I felt that it was money wasted since Connie, like all noxious growths, had a built-in resistance to scourge, and I had grown skilled in the art of self-preservation, having devoted a lifetime to it. However, it was Mr. Bannerman’s money, and I doubted that it would amount to much, since he was in the insurance business as well as real estate.

So he wrote the policies on Connie and me, with each of us the beneficiary of the other. Connie’s policy was approved. Mine was rejected. Not on grounds of health, my father-in-law advised me. My health was excellent for a man wholly unaddicted to healthful hard work.

The reason for my rejection was not spelled out to Mr. Bannerman, but he had a pretty good idea as to its nature, and so did I. It was a matter of character. A man with a decidedly truncated work history — me that is — who played around whenever he had the money for playing around — again me — was apt to come to an early end, and possibly a bad one. Or so statistics indicated. And the insurance company was not betting a potential $100,000 — $200,000, double indemnity — on my longevity when their own statistics branded me a no-no.

With unusual generosity, Mr. Bannerman conceded that there were probably a great many decadent bums in the world, and that I was no worse than the worst of them. The best course for me was to reapply for the policy, after I had “proved myself” with a few years of steady and diligent employment.

To this end, he hired me as a commission salesman. It proved nothing except what I already knew — that I was no more qualified to sell than I apparently was for any other gainful occupation.

I continued to be nagged by Papa and Daughter Bannerman, but was given up on after a few weeks. Grimly allowed to “play around” with my typewriter while they — “other people” — worked for a living. Neither would hear of a divorce, nor the suggestion that I get the hell out of their lives. I was to “come to my senses” and “be a man” — or do something. Surely, I could do something!

Well, though, the fact was I couldn’t do something. The something that I could do did not count as something with them. And they were keeping the score.

Thus matters stood at the time of the accident which left me unscathed but almost killed Connie. I, an unemployed bum living on my father-in-law’s bounty, was driving the car when the accident happened. And while I carried no insurance, my wife was heavily insured in my favor.

“Dig this character.” Albert, the maitre d’, jerked a thumb at me, addressing the circle on onlooking diners. “These hums are getting fancier every day, but this one takes the brass ring. What did you say your name was, bum?”

“Rainstar.”

A reassuring hand dropped on my shoulder. “He said it was, and I say it is. Any other questions?”

“Oh — certainly not, sir! A stupid mistake on my part, sir, and I’m sure that—”

“Come on, Britt. Let’s get out of here.”

6

We stood waiting for the elevator, Albert and I and my friend, whoever he was. Albert was begging, seeming almost on the point of tears.

“... a terrible mistake, believe me, gentlemen! I can’t think how I could have been guilty of it. I recall Mr. Rainstar perfectly now. Everything was exactly as he says, but—”

“But it slipped your mind. You completely forgot.”

“Exactly!”

“So you treated me like any other deadbeat. You were just following orders.”

“Then you do understand, sir?”

“I understand,” I said.

We took the elevator up to the street, my friend and I. I accompanied him to his car, trying to remember who he was, knowing that I had had far more than a passing acquaintance with him at one time. At last, as we passed under a streetlight, it came to me.

“Mr. Claggett, Jeff Claggett!” I wrung his hand. “How could I ever have forgotten?”

“Oh, well, it’s been a long time.” He grinned deprecatingly. “You’re looking good, Britt.”

“Not exactly a barometer of my true condition,” I said. “But how about you? Still with the university?”

“Police Department, detective sergeant.” He nodded toward the lighted window of a nearby restaurant. “Let’s have some coffee and a talk.”

He was in his early sixties, a graying, square-shouldered man with startlingly blue eyes. He had been chief of campus security when my father was on the university faculty. “I left shortly after your dad did,” he said. “The coldblooded way they dumped him was a little more than I could stomach.”

“It wasn’t very nice,” I admitted. “But what else could they do, Jeff? You know how he was drinking there at the last. You were always having to bring him home.”

“I wish I could have done more. I would have drunk more than he did, if I’d had his problems.”

“But he brought them all on himself,” I pointed out. “He was slandered, sure. But if he’d just ignored it. instead of trying to get the UnAmerican Activities Committee abolished, it would all have been forgotten. As it was, well, what’s the use talking?”

“Not much,” Claggett said. “Not anymore.”

I said, “Oh, for God’s sake.” It sounded like I was knocking the old man, and, of course, I didn’t mean to. “I didn’t mind his drinking, per se. It was just that it left him vulnerable to being kicked around by people who weren’t fit to wipe his ass.”

Jeff Claggett nodded, saying that a lot of nominally good people seemed to have a crappy streak in them. “Give them any sort of excuse, and they trot it out. Yeah, and they’re virtuous as all hell about it. So-and-so drinks, so that cleans the slate. They don’t even owe him common decency.”

He put down his coffee cup with a bang and signalled for a refill. He sipped from it, sighed, and grimaced tiredly.

“Well, no use hashing over the past, I guess. How come you were in that place I got you out of tonight, Britt?”

“Through a misunderstanding,” I said firmly. “A mistake that isn’t going to be repeated.”

“Yeah?” He waited a moment. “Well, you’re smart to steer clear of ’em. We haven’t been able to hang anything on them, but, by God, we will.”

“With my blessings,” I said. “You were on official business tonight?”

“Sort of. Just letting them know we were on the job. Well—” He glanced at his watch, and started to rise. “Guess I better run. Can I drop you some place?”

I declined with thanks, saying that I had a little business to take care of. He said, “Well, in that case...”

“By the way, I drove past the old Rainstar place a while back, Britt. Looks like someone is still living there.”

“Yes,” I said. “I guess someone is.”

“In a dump? The city garbage dump? But—” His voice trailed away, comprehension slowly dawning in his eyes. Finally, he said, “Hang around a minute, Britt. I’ve got to make a few phone calls, and then we’ll have a good talk.”

We sat in Claggett’s car, in the driveway of the Rainstar Mansion, and he frowned in the darkness, looking at me curiously. “I don’t see how they can do this to you, Britt. Grab your property while you’re out of the state.”

“Well, they paid me for it,” I said. “Around three thousand dollars after the bank loan was paid. And they gave me the privilege of staying in the house as long as I want to.”

“Oh, shit!” Claggett snorted angrily. “How long is that going to be? You’ve been swindled, Britt, but you sure as hell don’t have to hold still for it!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t see that there’s much I can do about it.”

“Of course there’s something you can do! This place was deeded tax-free to the Rainstars in perpetuity, in recognition of the thousands of acres the family had given to the state. It’s not subject to mortgage or the laws of eminent domain. Why, I’ll tell you, Britt, you go into court with this deal, and...”

I listened to him without really listening. There was nothing he could tell me that I hadn’t told myself. I’d argued it all out with myself, visualizing the newspaper stories, the courtroom scenes, the endless questions. And I’d said to hell with it. I knew myself, and I knew I couldn’t do it for any amount of money.

“I can’t do it, Jeff,” I cut in on him at last. “I don’t want to go into the details, but I have a wife in another state. An invalided wife. I was suspected of trying to kill her. I didn’t, of course, but—”

“Of course you didn’t!” Jeff said warmly. “Murder just isn’t in you. Anyway, you wouldn’t be here if there was any real case against you.”

“The case is still open,” I said. “I’m not so sure I’m in the clear yet. At any rate, the story would be bound to come out if I made waves over this condemnation deal, so I’m not making any. I, the family and I, have had nothing but trouble as far back as I remember. I don’t want any more.”

“No one wants trouble, damn it,” Claggett scowled. “But you don’t avoid it by turning your back on it. The more you run from, the more you have chasing you.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “But just the same...”

“Your father would fight, Britt. He did fight! They didn’t get away with piling garbage on him!”

“They didn’t?” I said. “Well, well.”

We said good-night.

He drove off, gravel spinning angrily from the wheels of his car.

I entered the house, catching up the phone on its first ring. I said hello, putting a lot of ice into the word. I started to say a lot more, believing that the caller was Manuela Aloe, but fortunately I didn’t. Fortunately, since the call was from Connie, my wife.

“Britt? Where have you been?”

“Out trying to make some money,” I said. “I wasn’t successful, but I’m still trying.”

She said that she certainly hoped so. All her terrible expenses were awfully hard on her daddy, and it did seem like a grown, healthy man like me, with a good education, should be able to do a little something. “If you could just send me a little money, Britt. Just a teensy-weensy bit—”

“Goddamn it!” I yelled. “What’s with this teensy-weensy crap? I send you practically everything I get from the Foundation, and you know I do because you wrote them and found out how much they pay me! You had to embarrass me, like a goddamned two-bit shyster!”

She began to cry. She said it wasn’t her fault that she was crippled, and that she was worried out of her mind about money. I should just be in the fix she was in for a while, and see how I liked it. And so forth and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

And I apologized and apologized and apologized. And I swore that I would somehow someway get more money to her than I had been sending. And then I apologized three or four hundred additional times, and at last, when I was hoarse from apologies and promises, she wished me sweet dreams and hung up.

Sweet dreams!

I was so soaked with sweat that you would have thought I’d had a wet dream.

Which was not the kind of dream one had about Connie.

7

Mrs. Olmstead set breakfast before me the next morning, remarking — doubtless by way of whetting my appetite — that we would probably have rat shit in the food before long.

“I seen some chasin’ around the backyard yesterday, so they’ll be in the house next. Can’t be this close to a garbage dump without havin’ rats.”

“I see,” I said absently. “Well, we’ll face the problem when it comes.”

“Time t’face it is now,” she asserted. “Be too late when the rats is facin’ us.”

I closed my ears to her gabbling, finishing what little breakfast I was able to eat. As I left the table, Mrs. Olmstead handed me a letter to mail when I went to town, if I didn’t mind, o’ course.

“But I was going to work at home today,” I said. “I hadn’t really planned on going to town.”

“How come you’re all fixed up, then?” she demanded. “You don’t never fix yourself up unless you’re going somewhere.”

I promised to mail the letter, if and when. I tucked it into my pocket as I went into the living room, noting that it was addressed to the old age pension bureau. More than a year ago her monthly check had been three dollars short — by her calculations, that is. She had been writing them ever since, sometimes three times a week, demanding reimbursement. I had pointed out that she had spent far more than three dollars in postage, but she stubbornly persisted.

Without any notion of actually working, I went into the small room, a one-time serving pantry which does duty as my study. I sat down at my typewriter, wrote a few exercise sentences and various versions of my name. After about thirty minutes of such fiddling around, I jumped up and fled to my bedroom. Fretfully examined myself in the warped full-length mirror.

And I thought: All dressed up and no place to go.

There would be no call from PXA. If there was one, I couldn’t respond to it. Not after the ordeal I had been put through last night. No one who was serious about giving me worthwhile employment would have done such a thing to me. And it must have been done deliberately. An outfit as cruelly efficient as PXA didn’t allow things like that to come about accidentally.

I closed my eyes and clenched my mind to the incident, unable to live through it again even in memory. Wondered why it was that I seemed constantly called upon to face things I couldn’t. I went back down to my whilom study, but not to my typewriter. What was there to write? Who would want anything written by me?

I sat down on a small love seat. A spiny tuft of horsehair burst through the upholstery and stabbed me in the butt, something that seemed to typify the hilarious tragedy of my life. I was pining away of a broken heart or something, but instead of being allowed a little dignity and gravity, I got my ass tickled.

Determinedly, I stayed where I was and as I was. Bent forward with my head in my hands. Sourly resisting the urge to squirm or snicker.

Poor Lo...

“Poor Lo...”

I chuckled wryly, poking fun at myself.

“Well, screw it,” I said. “They may kill me, but they can’t eat me.”

There was a light patter of applause. Hand clapping.

I sat up, startled, and Manuela Aloe laughed and sat down at my side.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I spoke to you a couple of times, but you didn’t hear me.”

“B-but — but—” I began to get hold of myself. “What are you doing here?”

“Your housekeeper showed me in. I came out here because I was afraid you wouldn’t come to the office after the terrible time you must have had last night.”

“You were right,” I said. “I wouldn’t have gone down to your office. And there really wasn’t much point to your coming out here.”

“I did send a car to pick you up last night, Britt. I don’t blame you for being angry, but I did send it.”

“Whatever you say,” I said.

“I don’t know what happened to the driver. No one’s seen him since. Our people aren’t ordinarily so irresponsible, but it’s not unheard of. But anyway, I am sorry.”

“So much for the driver,” I said. “Now what about Albert?”

“Albert,” she grimaced. “I don’t know whether it was booze or dope or just plain stupidity that made him do what he did. I don’t care, either. He’s out of a job as of this morning, and he’ll be a long time in getting another one.”

She nodded to me earnestly, the dark eyes warm with concern. I hesitated, wanting to swallow my pride — how could I afford pride? Remembering Connie’s demands for money.

“There was something else,” I said. “Something that came to me when I was outside your office yesterday.”

“Yes?” She smiled encouragingly. “What was that, Britt?”

I hesitated again, trying to find some amiable euphemisms for what was virtually an accusation. And finding excuses instead. After all, her office would logically have sound equipment in it; devices for auditing the tapes. And why, when I was so strongly drawn to this girl, and when I needed money so badly, should I continue to squeeze her for apologies and explanations?

“Yes, Britt?”

“Nothing,” I said. “No, I mean it. Thinking it over, I seem to have found the answer to my own question.”

That wasn’t true. Aside from the woman’s being slapped, there was something else. The fact that PXA had milked me for all kinds of personal information as a condition for granting my loan. My likes and dislikes, my habits and weaknesses. Information that could be used to drive me up a figurative wall, should they take the notion.

But I meant to give them no cause to take such a notion. And I am an incurable optimist, always hoping for the best despite the many times I have gotten the worst.

Manny was studying me, her dark eyes boring into mine. Seemingly boring into my mind. A sudden shadow blighted the room, and I was chilled with a sickening sense of premonition.

Then she laughed gaily, gave herself a little shake, and assumed a business-like manner.

“Well, now,” she said briskly. “I’ve had a long talk with Uncle Pat, and he’s left everything to me. So how about a series of pamphlets on the kind of subjects you deal with for the Foundation?”

“It sounds fine,” I said. “Just — well — fine.”

“The pamphlets will be distributed free to schools, libraries, and other institutions. They won’t carry any advertising. Just a line to the effect that they are sponsored by PXA as a public service.”

I said that was fine, too. Just fine. She opened her blond leather purse, took out a check and handed it to me. A check for $3,500. Approximately $2,900 for the first month’s work, with the rest for expenses.

“Well?” She looked at me pertly. “All right? Any questions?”

I let out a deep breath. “My God!” I breathed fervently. “Of course it’s all right! And no, no questions.”

She smiled and stood up, a lushly diminutive figure in her fawn-colored panstsuit. Her breasts and her bottom bulged deliciously against the material; seemed to strain for release. And I thought thoughts that brought a flush to my face.

“Come on.” She wiggled her fingers. “Show me around, hmm? I’ve heard so much about this place, I’m dying to see it.”

“I’m afraid it’s not much to see anymore,” I said. “But if you’re really interested in ruins...”

I showed her through the house, or much of it. She murmured appreciatively over the decaying evidence of past grandeur, and regretfully at the ravages of time.

When we finished out tour of the house Manny again became business-like. “We’ll have a lot of conferring to do to get this project operating, Britt. Do you want an office, or will you work here?”

“Here, if it’s agreeable to you,” I said. “I have a great deal of research material here, and I’m used to the place. Of course if it’s inconvenient for you...”

“Oh, we’ll work it out,” she promised. “Now, if you’ll drive me back to town...”

The car she had driven out in was mine, she explained, pointing to the gleaming new vehicle which stood in the driveway. Obviously I would need a car, and PXA owed me one. And she did hope I wouldn’t be stuffy about it.

I said I never got stuffy over gifts of single cars. Only fleets of them, and not always then. Manny laughed and gave me a playful punch on the arm.

“Silly! Now, come on, will you? We have a lot to do today.”

We did have a lot to do, as it turned out. At least we did a lot — far more than I anticipated. But that’s getting ahead of the story. To take events in their proper order:

I drove into town, Manny sitting carelessly close to me. I deposited the check in my bank, drew some cash and returned to the car — my car. It was lunch time by then, so we lunched and talked. I talked mostly, since I have a knack for talk, if little else, and Manny seemed to enjoy listening to me.

We came out of the restaurant into mid-afternoon, and talking, I drove around until sunset. By which time, needless to say, we were ready for a drink. We had it, rather we had them, and eventually we had dinner. When twilight fell we were on the outskirts of town, parked by the lake which served as the reservoir for the city’s water system.

Manny’s legs were tucked up in the seat. Her head rested on my shoulder and my arm was around her. It was really a very nice way to be.

“Britt...” she murmured, breaking the drowsy, comfortable silence. “I’ve enjoyed myself so much today. I think it’s been the very best day in my life.”

“You’re a thief, Manuela Aloe,” I said. “You’ve stolen the very speech I was going to make.”

“Tell me something, Britt. I low does anyone as nice as you are, as attractive and intelligent and bubbling over with charm — how does he, why does he...?”

“Wind up as I have?” I said. “Because I never found a seller’s market for those things until I met you.”

It was a pretty blunt thing to say. She sat up with a start, glaring at me coldly. But I smiled at her determinedly and said I meant no offense.

“Let’s face it, Manny. The Rainstar name isn’t worth much anymore, and my talent never was. So the good looks and the charm, et cetera, is what I’ve sold, isn’t it?”

“No it isn’t!” she snapped, and then hesitating, biting her lip, “Well, not entirely. You wouldn’t have gotten the job if you hadn’t been like you are, but neither would you have gotten it if you hadn’t been qualified.”

“So it was half one, half the other,” I said. “And what’s wrong with fifty-fifty?”

“Nothing. And don’t you act like there is, either!”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No!”

“All right, I won’t,” I said. “Providing you smile real pretty for me, and then lie down with your head in my lap.”

She did so, although the smile was just a trifle weak. I bent down and kissed her gently, and was kissed in return. I put a hand on her breast, gave it a gentle squeeze. She shivered delicately, eyes clouding.

“I’m not an easy lay, Britt. I don’t sleep around.”

“What am I to do with you, Manny?” I said. “You are now twice a thief.”

“I guess I’ve been waiting for you. It had to be someone like you, and there wasn’t anyone like that until you.”

“I know,” I said. “I also have been waiting.”

You can see why I said it, why I just about had to say it. She was my munificent benefactor, she was gorgeous beyond my wildest dreams and she obviously wanted and needed to be screwed. So what the hell else could I do?

“Britt...” She wiggled restlessly. “I have a live-in maid at my apartment.”

“Unfortunate,” I said. “My housekeeper also lives in.”

“Well? Well, Britt dear?”

“Well, I know of a place...” I broke off, carefully amended the statement. “I mean, I’ve heard of one. It’s nothing fancy, I understand. No private baths or similar niceties. But it’s clean and comfortable and safe... Or so I’m reliably told.”

“Well?” she said.

“Well?” I said.

She didn’t say anything. Simply reached out and turned on the ignition.