87th Precinct - He Who Hesitates Part 20

"Well, sure. You Mr. Charlie, and you de ofay, and you sometimes just De Man, although De Man is also sometimes a plain old pusher, but he usually a white man, too, so I guess you synonymous, is that de word, man?"

"I don't know."

"It went on for hours, I thought she'd never stop."

"Is that why you couldn't make it at three-thirty?"

"That's why. She had my brother come over to talk to me. He's married and has two kids, and he drives a cab. So she called his garage and asked them to tell him to call his mother as soon as he checked in. He doesn't check in 'til about four, so I knew I'd be stuck there 'til at least a quarter after, his garage is on Twentieth, near the river. Anyway, he got to the house at twenty-five after, and I talked to him for about three seconds flat and then left."

"What'd he say?"

"He said, 'Amelia, you are out of your head.'"

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Louis, go to h.e.l.l.'"

"And then what?"

"He said if he caught us together he would cut off your b.a.l.l.s."

"Will he really?"

"Louis is a fat happy cab driver who wouldn't know where to find your b.a.l.l.s because he hasn't had any of his own since the day he married Mercedes in 1953, do you mind my talking this way?"

"What way?"

"Well, I swear a lot, I guess. Although, actually, I'm only repeating what my brother said. Anyway, I told him to go to h.e.l.l again, and I walked out."

"I don't mind," Roger said.

"What do you mean?"

"Your swearing a lot." He paused. "We never swear in our house. My mother's pretty strict about that."

"Well, the h.e.l.l with mothers, huh?" she said.

He felt a momentary spark of anger, and then he simply nodded. "What would you like to do?" he asked.

"Walk a little. I love snow. It makes me stand out."

"You stand out anyway," he said.

"Do I?"

"Yes."

"You say very sweet things, sweet-talker. Mother warned me. Oops, excuse me, we're not supposed to talk about mothers."

"Where would you like to walk?"

"Any place, who cares?"

He didn't like the way Amelia said that, but he told himself not to get angry. She was, after all, allowing him to a.s.sume the responsibility. She was saying she would follow him wherever he wanted to go. She was allowing him to be the man. It's you who's the man in the family now, Roger. He did not want to get angry with her the way he had got angry with Molly last night. Last night, he had begun to get angry with Molly when she started telling him about that man in Sacramento. He told himself later that she should not have begun talking about another man when she was in bed with him. That was what had got him so angry. But he had the feeling, even while he was trying to convince himself, that the real reason for his sudden anger had nothing at all to do with the man in Sacramento. He couldn't quite understand it, but he knew somehow he had got angry with Molly only because he was beginning to like her so much. That was the part he couldn't understand.

"There's been only one other man in my life who mattered," Molly had said last night. "Before you. Only one other."

He said nothing. They were lying naked on the bed in his room, and he felt spent and exhausted and content, listening to the February wind howling outside, wind always sounded more fierce in the dead of night, especially in a strange city.

"I met him when I was twenty, just a year after my mother pa.s.sed away, do you mind my talking about this?"

"No," he said, because he really didn't mind yet, he wasn't angry with her yet, he liked her very much. He kept thinking about how his mother would make fun of him for bringing home another ugly duckling and of how he would say, "Why Mom, she's beautiful, what's the matter with you?"

"It was the first job after secretarial school, I really didn't know how to handle either the job or him. I never went out much with boys, boys hardly ever asked me out. I think I'd been kissed maybe half a dozen times in my life, and once a boy touched my breast when we were decorating the high school gym for a senior dance. I didn't even go to the dance because no one asked me." She paused. "His name was Theodore Michelsen, he had a brother who was a priest in San Diego. He was married and had two children, a little boy and a little girl, their pictures were on his desk. His wife's picture was on his desk, too, in the same frame, one of those frames that open like a book. His wife was on the left-hand side and his two children on the right. Do you mind my talking about this?"

"No," he said. He didn't mind. He was lying with his arm around her, and her lips close to his ear, staring up at the ceiling and thinking how soft her voice was and how warm and smooth she felt in his arms.

"I don't know how it started," Molly said. "I guess one day he just kissed me, and I guess it was the first time I'd ever really been kissed by anyone, I mean really kissed by a man. And then, I don't know, we just began, not that same day, but a few days later, I guess it was a Friday, I guess it was after everyone had gone home. We made love in his office, look, I know you don't want to hear this."

"No, that's all right," he said.

"We did it every day," she said. "I loved it," she said.

That was when he got angry.

He could hear the snow squeaking under his shoes. Amelia held his arm tightly and said, "We're heading for the river, did you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

"What were you thinking?"

"Thinking?" He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Oh, yes you were. Just a few minutes ago. You were a million miles away."

"I was thinking I ought to be getting home."

"I must be a real fascinating girl. You're walking with me, and all you can think about is getting home."

"I didn't mean it that way. It's just my mother's all alone up there. Not really alone, I have a younger brother, but you know."

"Yes," Amelia said.

"It's just I'm the man in the family."

"Yes."

"That's all." He shrugged.

"Still, you are here," she said. "You are with me."

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

"I mean, I am a fairly good-looking girl, you know, what with my rat-fitch collar and my s.e.xy black sweater." She grinned. "I mean well, you know, a girl doesn't get all dressed up so some guy can think of running back home to Gulchwater Flats."

"Carey," he said, and smiled.

"Right?"

"Right."

"So what do you intend to do about it, look, there's ice on the river, you could probably walk clear across to the other sh.o.r.e."

"There wasn't any ice last night," he said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Were you here last night?"

"Well, I meant early this morning. About three o'clock."

"What were you doing here at three in the morning?"

"I wasn't here"

"But you said-"

"I had to make a delivery."

"A delivery?"

"Yes. Vegetables."

"Oh."

"So I had a chance to see the river, that's all I meant."

"And there was no ice."

"No. I guess it must have been a little above freezing."

"It felt a lot colder than that yesterday," she said.

"Yes, it did. But the river wasn't frozen."

"Okay," she said. "You want to walk across to the other side?"

"No."

"Vegetables, did you say?"

"Yes, I got the job from a man, to pick up these vegetables and deliver them. With my truck."

"Oh." She nodded, and then said, "How cold do you think it is now?"

"I don't know. In the twenties, I'd guess."

"Are you cold?"

"A little."

"My feet are cold," she said.

"You want to go someplace? For coffee or something?"

"I thought you had a room," she said.

"I do."

"Let's go there."

They walked in silence for several moments. The river was frozen from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. The bridge uptown spanned the ice, rose from the ice as if it were a silvery spidery extension of it.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said.

"Hurt me? How can you hurt me?"

"I don't know," he said, and shrugged.

"Honey," she said, "I've been had by experts."

"Amelia, there are . . ." He shook his head.

"Yes? What?"

"There are a lot of things . . ." He shook his head again.

"What is it, Roger?"

"I should do."

"What?"

"Things I should do."

"Yes, like what?"