Lucy had got up and put on a slip. “Now you understand that we can do nothing, and why I concealed it.”
Colby nodded weakly, then heaved himself to his feet. He went to the closet, got his overcoat.
She sat on the edge of the bed and began to put on her nylons. “The best thing for us both is to forget it. I can.”
“I can’t,” he said, almost to himself.
“You must. It was worse for me, and if I can, you can. I did my best, Vin, to protect you from knowing... where are you going in your overcoat?”
“Out.”
She stood up. “I want to go to that dinner. I have a new gown... high at the throat, long-sleeved. Nobody need know.”
“He’d be there. He knows.”
“This dinner is part of our normal lives... part of our future. I need a future, Vin. I need it desperately now. Now please change your clothes. It’s important for us to be there tonight. You’ve worked too hard, succeeded too well in that firm to let anything... ANYTHING... stop you. We’ll go and I’ll face him down. He can’t make me skulk.”
Colby walked blindly to her dressing table. The blood was throbbing so hard in his head that his vision blurred with every beat of pulse. Abruptly, his hands spread, gathered jars, bottles. He hurled them smashing into the wall. He let out a harsh sound and swept the table top clean, then looked at the damage on the floor, clenching his fists.
His voice was gritty, low. “Work in the same firm with him? My God... My GOD... DAMN IT!...” He thrust his head at her, glaring and red-faced. “If he can intimidate us this way, what’s to stop him from doing it again... and again... and...”
She winced; clearly she hadn’t thought of that.
“I’m going for a walk. To think.”
He was quivering when the cold air hit him. He began to walk at a furious pace, thinking he might think of something. Some legal angle... some way of striking... but all he could think was kill kill kill...
He reached a through street, turned and strode swiftly along beside the speeding lanes of traffic. He came to a filling station, saw a cab company phone. He went to the phone, called a cab.
4
He entered the apartment building, pressed the buzzer beside the card of John Windham Tearle, picked up the lobby phone.
“Hel-lo...” Windy’s voice had a gay, half-tight lilt.
“Hi, Windy,” Colby said, surprised at the easy, untroubled sound he managed. “Listen, you know that Hastings business... I dug up a gem for you... a precedent our esteemed opponents never heard up... I’ll bring it up, now, if that’s o.k. It got me all excited. I’m late getting home to dress for the dinner, but I can spare a minute more.”
“You’re a pal, pally. Come right up. I dunno what I’d do without you, Vin, and that’s no crap. Furthermore, I let Mr. Mac know that I’m just a fancy mouth, and you’re the brains... just in case Vin, you ever think I want to hog the spotlight...”
“Ah, forget it, Windy... push the button...”
He crossed the small, silent lobby, pressed the button of the self-service elevator, feeling a cold calm. A click of sound from the shutting foyer door made him start and snap his head around. He frowned, realizing he was far, far from calm. The elevator door opened — he stepped inside — and closed. He jabbed at the “6” button, hit it clumsily at the edge. Yes, he was very far from calm... right over at the edge of fear. There was a heavy pulsing there in his upper stomach, a crowding of his diaphragm... he drew in a long breath of air. The elevator was coming to a stop he had a sick moment of pure objectivity. A mindless rage had driven him here. He’d eased the hell in him with raw images of himself beating Windy bloody and insensate, making him feel a little of the meaning of the pain and degradation and shame he’d subjected Lucy to, making him whimper cravenly for mercy, for the chance to tuck his tail and leave town.
But in fact Windy was more athletic; he outweighed and out-reached him. And a lifetime of easy successes had armored him with confidence so powerful that he had trouble even imagining defeat. How trite and true that nothing succeeded like success... no dark knowledge of many failures lay leaden in his guts to cripple his drive.
The elevator door opened. Colby moved out fast toward Windy’s door. If he hadn’t moved fast, he thought, loathing himself, he wouldn’t have moved at all. Then he saw Windy open his door and stand there with that big, winning smile of his, as confident as the gods. He owned the earth! What he wanted he used... whether it was another man’s brain to do his drudging for him... or the other man’s woman. And if a smile wasn’t enough he took by rape!
Then he saw the big smile shift subtly; the blue-gray eyes alerted. Colby knew he had signalled his own rage, putting Windy on guard, losing the little advantage of surprise. He’d planned to palsy along at least until he could get free of his overcoat. Windy, in slacks and T-shirt, had his arms free. His first came up and he danced back, feinting rapidly with his left as Colby came into the apartment in a slugging rush.
The smash of Colby’s first blow to the body was drained to a thump because Windy was going away, but his second hooked solidly into Windy’s ribs with force enough to drain the last of the arrogant bastard’s smile off his face. Colby crowded him, giving and taking gut blows, then Colby pistoned one up at his head, but Windy bobbed and took it in a graze along his cheek. Then Windy was away, to the side, and he landed a blow on Colby’s temple before he could turn. Colby swung a roundhouse, and knew at once it was wrong. He found himself offbalance, and wide open.
A blow caught him in the jaw, and another, another, and for a moment his vision swirled, and he had to grab and hold on in close quarters till his head cleared, then agony burst like fire in his guts as he felt the knee smash up into his groin. It came again, harder and an involuntary dry, puking sound came out of his throat. He turned, bent, holding himself, trying to get a second’s respite, then Windy was at his back, jerking his overcoat down, effectively binding his arms. Then Windy came around and slammed him full in the face, with left, right, left, following him around as he tried to turn, following him down as he backed and stumbled over an ottoman and crashed to the floor.
Windy’s lips were drawn back tight against his teeth in an ugly deadly expression as he leaned down. He kicked his head, then struck his face again with his fist. Colby felt the blood, knew his face was cut open, and one eyelid was twitching uncontrollably, and he could taste the saltiness and sliminess of blood and saliva in his mouth, and he knew his lip was open, but he barely felt the pain in his face under the overwhelming intensity of the pain in his groin.
He rolled and pawed out toward Windy’s legs to bring him down. But there was a slow-motion night-marishness about his action, a hopeless celerity to Windy who evaded him with ease.
Windy moved in at will to strike and kick viciously wherever he chose. Colby found all his force used up in protecting his groin, his head, stomach. He tried to get up three, four... he didn’t know how many times... and each time he was kicked sprawling, or battered down or flattened by the smash of Windy’s body on his back. Then he was slugged at the base of the skull and his face mashed to the floor and his senses bleared, darkened, and all the fight in him was turned against losing consciousness. He got his head up and his forearms under him and sucked air dizzingly into his lungs, and prepared himself for the mighty heave that would bring him miraculously storming to his feet... and then he saw Windy ahead and out of reach, watching him. Windy wasn’t angry or alert now. He looked almost playful, as if it wasn’t a fight any longer, just a victor and a vanquished... and that was the worst horror of all. Colby heard his own enraged roar come out of his throat sounding more like a sob as he willed himself up... and he was making it! making it!... he was halfway up... but then his leg was yanked from behind and he was being flopped helpless onto his back by a toe-hold. His free leg drove up at Windy’s head, but Windy was no longer there. Windy’s heel crushed down into the muscle of his bicep, then the barrage of blows started on his head...