“How do you know each other?”
“Through Antheil. He introduced us.”
“Antheil’s quite a fella.”
“He’s the coolest,” Smitty said. “Fuckin’ guy’s got bread stashed away, a beautiful home, chicks coming and going. They say the system don’t work, man — don’t tell that to Antheil.”
“Does he pay you?”
“You think I’m out here for nothing? You think I’m a buff?” He tossed his head with self-satisfaction. “I got a crack at a job with the agency after this.”
“Don’t you have a record?”
“That don’t mean shit. If Antheil says you’re in, you’re in. And I could really go for that, man.”
“You could be a second Antheil.”
“You’re not kidding,” Smitty said. “How about Danskin? Does he want to work for the agency too?”
Smitty looked over his shoulder again and lowered his voice.
“He’s a brute, man, a psycho. A dude like that couldn’t deal with the public.”
Converse nodded thoughtfully and slid back onto the floor to sleep. After a few moments, he heard Smitty approach softly. He opened his eyes and turned over on his side.
“I was married,” Smitty said.
“Is that right?”
“I had enough of that, though. It’s stupid.”
“I suppose it’s a matter of personnel,” Converse said.
“Look at you,” Smitty told him. “Look at the grief you got.”
“It’s a funny situation.”
“You’re lucky we came along, man. We’ll give you some peace of mind.” Converse turned his back on Smitty and leaned on his elbow.
“I seen your old lady,” Smitty said. “She’s big.”
“Big?” Converse said. “She’s not big.”
“Yeah, she is. I seen her.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Maybe so,” Smitty said.
Converse eased away from him. He had been drawing closer and he smelled.
“My wife’s in Staten Island,” he told Converse. “She got hot pants for this guy twice her age. A guy that owned a restaurant out there.”
“Maybe,” Converse suggested, “you shouldn’t talk about it.”
“When I was in the can,” Smitty said, “we did this thing. We’d talk about our old lady — like where they were, what they were doing.”
Converse pretended sleep.
“What they look like. How they like to fuck. Whether they were fucking somebody.” He put his hand on Con verse’s shoulder and shook him. “Right?”
“Right,” Converse said.
“Some guys couldn’t take it, they went batshit. It would drive you nuts.”
His hand slid from Converse’s shoulder, along his side, to the inside of his thigh. Converse rolled over convulsively and faced him.
“Keep your hands off me.”
Smitty was not discouraged.
“Your wife is fucking that guy, you know that.”
“Just keep your hands off me,” Converse said.
“Keep your hands off him,” Danskin said.
Smitty jumped as though he had been struck. Danskin was sitting up in bed staring at them with an expression of deep melancholy.
“Get in bed,” he told Smitty.
Smitty stood up quickly, brushing his hair.
“You didn’t take a shower,” Danskin said. “When you gonna take one?”
“In the morning.”
“Take one now.”
Smitty went into the bathroom to take a shower. Con verse huddled against the wall, with the feeling that Dan-skin was watching him from the bed.
In a few minutes, Smitty came out of the bathroom, turned out the table lamp, and climbed into bed with Danskin. It shortly became apparent to Converse, as he lay in the darkness, that Smitty and Danskin were having sex together. As they went at it, he eased silently across the car pet to where the Bacardi was and very carefully brought it down to the floor with him.
Only fear kept him from retching when he had taken a long drink. When Danskin and Smitty were silent, he crawled to the cot which the management provided for third guests, climbed in it, and pulled the spread over him.
He dreamed of Charmian.
The following morning they started early and drove almost until dusk without stopping. It was superhighway driving through the desert; Danskin and Smitty took turns behind the wheel and they became more tense as the day passed. There were dried apricots and candy to eat and more Bacardi. Converse drank the better part of the rum. They did not make him wear cuffs in the car.
About seven, they left the Interstate and drove with the declining sun on their right through fields of green crops and small farming towns. High brown mountains rose ahead of them.
Once Converse woke to conversation.
“You told him you were in Vietnam. I heard you.”
“I was,” Smitty said.
Danskin looked over his shoulder and saw that Converse was awake. “He was never in Vietnam. He was never anywhere except Haight-Ashbury and the slammer.”
Smitty sat and sulked.
“But when he gets going,” Danskin said, “he tells stories like you could never forget. Ears cut off. Balls cut off. Little kiddies on bayonets. The most awful shit you ever heard.” He turned to smile at Smitty and wiped sweat from his forehead. “And the kicker is — he was never there.”
“How do you know I was never there?” Smitty said.
“That’s his way of making out, you know what I mean. He meets a chick and right away she’s hearing about the atrocities. ‘And then I machine-gunned all the kids. And then I strangled all their grannies. And then we set the mayor on fire.’ He goes on and on — and you know what?”
“They love it,” Converse said.
Danskin laughed with satisfaction.
“Your fuckin’ A. They love it. The more ghastly, the more horrible, the more they love it.”
“Jesus,” Smitty said, “you’re embarrassing.”
“Then he gives them the switcheroo. He tells them how he was punished for disobeying orders. The general, ‘Smitty, take these nuns out and bury them alive in shit.’ Smitty says, ‘Fuck you, general.’ He punches the general in the mouth and they put him in the joint. That’s what he did time for, he tells them.”
“I don’t know,” Converse said.
“What don’t you know? Did they do all that shit over there? Is it all true?”
“Some of it isn’t, obviously. Some of it is.”
“Man,” Smitty said, “if I was a writer I’d be rich. I ought to do that with you, Converse. I tell you stuff and you write it down.”
“You stupid fuck,” Danskin said, “people always say that to writers. Now he thinks you’re an asshole.”
“Not necessarily,” Converse said. “Sometimes people tell me things and I write it.”
“Then you get the bread,” Smitty said, “and they get shit.”
“Not anymore,” Converse said. As they drove through fields he told them about the stories he had written for Nightbeat. He told them about the Skydiver and the Mad Dentist. He told them Exploding Cigar Kills Nine, Hoarder Crushed By Small Change, and Wedding Night Trick Breaks Bride’s Back. They were amused and it passed the driving time agreeably.
Smitty was a bit shocked.
“How can they put stuff in the papers if it’s not true? Isn’t it against the law?”
Danskin whooped in scorn.
“Not at all,” Converse said.
“You should talk,” Danskin said to Smitty. “Not a true word comes out of your mouth.” He sat thoughtfully for a few minutes and then exploded with laughter.
“You and your pungi stick,” he cried. “One time you’re gonna tell that story one time too many, man. Then you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna make one of those things and put it right through your foot.” He leaned into the back seat and slapped Converse on the shoulder. “Right through his fuckin’ foot I’ll put it. Then he could talk about how it hurts.”