She left the room and went downstairs. Seeing Benny in the distance, she turned the other way in order to avoid him. Then she found Tober. And a little later, not much, in the soft skin inside her arm, there was another small red dot.
She was peaceful now and went back to her room to sleep on the bed.
Once Benny looked in on her and found her all right He hadn’t come to check, he had just wanted to find her all right. Then he went downstairs.
They were still going strong. They had drinks on the veranda, more on the dark beach, and somebody was making a racket with the piano. Benny stood in the night air outside and then he went to the kitchen. He sat at the long table and drank a cup of coffee. While he sat he watched the tall girl in slacks at the stove, heating some beans from a can, and once she asked him for a cigarette. He watched how she moved and he watched the smoke curl from his cigarette. Then he finished his cup and left the kitchen.
He didn’t go into the room with the racket, but stood near the door. Some had their clothes on, some didn’t. There were beach clothes, swim suits, or improvised things, and then there was one in an overcoat. The man had a hat on his head, and his legs, Benny saw, were in regular trousers. And another man was walking around the piano. He had no overcoat, no hat on his bald skull, but there was a suit and a tie. The bald man was short and beefy, the one in the overcoat tall, with an Adam’s apple bobbing along his neck. Benny saw that they both held drinks, but they weren’t drinking. They were looking.
Benny stepped back from the door.
“Afraid of big crowds?” said Tober, and he made to pass Benny, heading for the door. “Now watch how I do this, Benny boy, fearless, forward, fanatic-”
“Wait a minute, Tober.” Benny caught him by the sleeve. “Look inside. See those two guys?”
“Really, Benjamin. I’d rather look at the dolls. And speaking of Santa Claus-”
“Will you shut up for a minute? Take a look, Tober. Who are they?” Benny pointed.
“Aah!” Tober craned his neck and then said, “Aah!” again. “They are dressed to kill, I would say.”
“Tober, concentrate. Who are they?”
“Vagrants, I think. I can always tell vagrants by the way they are dressed. They look different.”
“Tober-”
“Now there’s no sense in those clothes, now is there, Benny? Unless you are dressed to kill-” Tober hesitated and stopped. He took Benny by the arm and started to whisper. “Never trust a junky, Benny, I’m telling you as a friend. Never, not even your own friend. And I’m-”
“Tober, let go.” Benny was tensing with anger.
“And I’m your friend, Benny, from long ago. Please, Benny, listen!” Tober talked fast now, and urgently. “You should listen, Benny, because all I did was forget. I’m a junkhead and you should have reminded me.”
Benny was listening now. The words didn’t make sense, but the voice was almost normal.
“It’s just that I forgot, Benny, I swear it. Do you know Fingers?”
“I know one Fingers.”
“And he’s with Pendleton, right?”
Tober made sense now.
“Go on. What’s on your mind, Tober?”
“He called, only I forgot. He asked about you.”
“What else?”
“And Miss Pendleton.”
Benny glanced into the room where the two men were making the rounds.
Tober went on. “So Fingers calls me, just checking, because he and everybody’s working around the clock on this thing. Pendleton’s out of his mind about his daughter’s not being there and he figures you’re his man.”
“Go on.”
“Why they came here I swear I don’t know. I don’t think I tipped-”
“Forget it. Back, quick!”
The two men, the tall one and the short one, had ambled toward the door. Then they turned and went out through the French windows.
“Tober, you with me?” Benny held the man by both arms and shook him once, hard. “Come upstairs.”
They took the steps two at a time and Benny led the way to the room where Pat was sleeping. They stood by the bed looking at her and she woke up.
“Benny,” she said.
“Listen, Pat, we’ve got to leave, this minute. Your father’s men-”
“Men,” she said, and sat up. “Men, men, men.” There was a smile on her face.
“Pat, for chrissakes, pull yourself together.”
She cocked her head, listening to the music from downstairs. Her arms were out toward Benny and she said, “Let’s float, baby. Let’s.”
He thought he saw two dots on the inside of her arm and he stepped back. His face creased hard. “Pat! Get up. Are you with me?”
She wasn’t. She wanted to dance and she didn’t want to go. Then she lay down on the bed again and eyed Benny. He turned away, holding his lip between his teeth. One hand was punching the palm of the other. Once, twice, three times. Pat was humming a melody.
When Benny turned there was sweat on his forehead. “Tober,” he said, “there’s no other way. She needs one more charge.”
The skinny man shrugged and left the room.
“In the vein,” Benny called after him.
When everything was ready, Benny held her arm and Tober came with the needle.
“Why, Benny,” she said.
“Lie still.”
“But, Benny,” she said, “I don’t want any.” She tried to get up.
He held her down and jerked his head at Tober. Pat lay still. Even when the needle went in she didn’t move. And afterward, lying there, she looked at Benny with wide, blank eyes, looked at him until he thought the blank-ness knew everything. And then she went under. Benny wiped his face.
“How much did you give her, Tober?”
“Enough to keep her under a while. It’s a waste of the stuff, but-”
“You got a gun, Tober?”
“I think so.”
“Get it. I’ll dress her and then we blow.”
The gun was a. 22 target pistol and Benny struggled to get the long thing into his pocket. “Thanks, Tober, thanks for your help.” Benny started to hoist the girl off the bed.
“Benny, wait. Think a second. How do you figure she’s going to act when she comes out?”
Benny let the girl down again.
“I’m sober, Benny. I’m talking sense. How do you figure you’re going to keep her around?”
“Don’t worry about it I got ways.”
“Not with a hophead, you don’t.”
Benny got it then, and downstairs two hoods were prowling the house, maybe upstairs, or near the cars. He bit his lip. “You’ve got to give me enough for another pop, Tober. Enough for a day or so, till I can get out of these parts.”
Tober shook his head; he looked worried. “She hasn’t been eating, you know, and she won’t as long as she’s on the stuff. You trying to starve her to death?”
“I’ll give her less. Just so she stays limp.”
Tober moved his arms in a helpless gesture. “Benny, I’m trying to tell you. That’s not the way it works. You give her less than she’s having and she’ll act just the opposite. She’ll feel like a million and ready to jump from here to the moon and back. You remember, on the stairs. Benny, I mean it, I’m sorry I ever-”
“Come on, Tober. Don’t get weepy. I’ll just have to risk it. I know what she likes, and hopped up she’ll like it even better.”
“You trying to get her hooked, Benny?”
“Hell, no! Just enough for a day or so. By then-How soon is she going to get that way?”
“Depends. Through the vein, maybe two weeks. If she eats it, longer.”
“All right, then, there’s no worry.”
“But don’t forget, it’s faster if you give her enough to knock her out And the waste, Benny, such a waste!”
Benny gave him a mean look and went to the door. He looked down the hall, the stairs, and came back. “Those goons might come around any minute, so let’s get going. Get me just enough for another day or so. You figure it out, Tober. Get going.” He pushed him out of the door.
“The waste!” Tober kept saying. Then Benny waited.
When Tober came back he brought two folded squares of paper. They were no bigger than a match book and had a little bulge in the middle.