Farrell felt his stomach him. “Who are they?” he asked the girl.
“They’re Duke’s pets, I guess you could say. They’re winos. You know? They’re like babies. Except instead of drinking milk they drink wine. That’s all they want. It’s funny.”
“We heard you, Cleo,” the older man said, his lips writhing painfully to form the words. The anger in his eyes was like the last live coal in a bed of ashes: hopeless, dying. “You got no call,” he said. “We kin talk. Like anybody.”
“I can’t stand that crazy laughing, that’s all,” Cleo said. She took the bottle away from them and put it on the bar. “Maybe I’ll give it back to you in a little while if you’re good. But then again, maybe I won’t.”
“What are they doing here?” Farrell said. The gruesome and pathetic helplessness of the two men was almost enough to make him sick. “Who are they?”
“Don’t ask me.” Cleo shrugged. “Duke found them in New York — in the city, you know. Living under a bridge, can you imagine that! They can’t do anything, work or stuff like that, I mean. So he brought them out here. He likes to have them around. They do everything he tells them, just like they were kids and he was their father. It’s funny.”
“I’m sure it is,” Farrell said.
“Well, they’re better off here than they were in New York. One of the braves found a place for them to sleep in his basement, and they get enough wine to stay happy. That’s all they care about, I guess.”
“Why do you suppose Duke likes to have them around?”
“I don’t know. He just does. He says they should be a lesson to everybody, whatever that means.” She put the bottle of wine back between the two men. “All right, there you are,” she said, in a sprightly, little-mother voice. “Just remember about the laughing.” They looked gratefully at her, nodding quickly, vacant smiles replacing the dumb worry on their faces. Then they turned to one another, foreheads almost touching, giggling softly like naughty children. “We should have a pic-nic,” the old man whispered. “With white bread.”
“And milk,” the other said, in a hissing little voice.
Cleo pulled the curtain back in place. “They’ll be off again soon.”
“And Duke thinks they’re a good lesson to everybody,” Farrell said. “What do you suppose he means by that?”
“I don’t know. He’s full of funny ideas.”
“You think he’s quite a guy, don’t you?”
She started to answer but Enrique said, “Look! What’s he want?” in an angry, querulous voice. He walked toward Farrell in what seemed to be a well-rehearsed swagger, arms swinging lazily, every movement of his body marked with significant deliberation. He reminded Farrell of an altar boy trying to imitate Hollywood’s concept of a gunman or gangster. But there was nothing funny about this; it wasn’t quite make-believe. Enrique’s act was as disquieting as Cleo’s air of experienced boredom and provocatively crossed legs. Both of them were playing at what they really wanted to be; it was as if their innocence and youth were troublesome but accidental liabilities they wanted to get rid of as quickly as possible.
“What you want?” Enrique said, frowning at Farrell. “You a cop?”
“No, I’m not a cop,” Farrell said.
“Maybe you’d better come back when Duke’s here,” the girl said.
“Okay, just tell him I stopped by.” Farrell smiled and got to his feet. “The name is Farrell.”
She blew a thin stream of smoke at the naked electric light bulb. “I’ll remember, don’t worry.”
Farrell went out to his car and started for home. What he had just seen and heard had shaken him; the worlds of Hayrack and Faircrest were farther apart than he had known, and now, driving through the thin sunlight, through the dullness of Sunday afternoon, he was eager to get back where he belonged: to a world whose values he understood, where swings had to be repaired, where children were told pleasant stories at bedtime, and where there was a sense of purpose to life. And to hell with Duck Bergoo, he thought, and teen-aged trollops and pet winos and sullen little Puerto Ricans whose arrogance cried out for nothing so much as a great big hand across their bottoms. Let somebody else worry about them.
A car he did not recognize was parked in front of his home. Barbara opened the door before he put his key in the lock. “There’s someone here to see you,” she said.
“Oh? Who is it?”
“A gentleman named Mr. Malleck.”
Chapter Six
Chicky Detweiller slept until eleven o’clock on Monday morning. She called Mrs. White, who came in with coffee and orange juice on a tray.
“Did Bobby get off to school all right?”
“Yessum. Do you want me to phone the market? I’d better now if we’re planning on dinner.”
“Yes, please. Order anything, lamb chops, steak, you know, whatever seems like a good idea.”
“Are you going to want some breakfast?”
“No, thank you.”
When the maid closed the door Chicky drank half a cup of black coffee. She couldn’t face the orange juice. Her eyes ached and the area between her eyebrows felt bruised and sensitive. She slid back down between the covers and pulled the sheet over her face. But sleep was impossible, she realized instantly; a flicker of restless images flashed across the backs of her eyelids.
Dumb, dumb, she thought. Until last night she hadn’t realized he was dumb. Illogical, inaccurate, but not dumb. They had sat up until midnight fighting. Not arguing. Fighting. He had accused her of being a bad mother, a bad housekeeper, a bad wife, and a bad companion, a spendthrift. But he would not talk about why he hit Dick Baldwin. That had nothing to do with the case. Irrelevant, unimportant. Dumb. He wouldn’t understand it, couldn’t.
Chicky thought about Dick Baldwin. They had said little on the way to the station. But before getting out of the car he had kissed her on the cheek and told her to stop wearing yellow. “It’s the plumage of the sexual invert,” he had said, which made no sense at all to her.
She didn’t really like him very much. It was just that his teasing, off-beat manner was exciting. He looked like a grocery clerk, that was the worst of it. With his glasses and the rows of copy pencils in his vest pocket. But he had good hands, scrubbed and strong-looking, with long fingers and well-kept nails. Dick Baldwin had a scar on the big knuckle of his right hand. He had done a lot of interesting things in his life, she knew. After college he had gone to Europe. His first job with the magazine had been in Paris. He spoke French and knew all about wines. There were bullfight posters on the walk of his small apartment. You had to be an artist or a peasant to like bullfighting, he said. And he made a point of insisting that she was afraid of him. Once he had suggested she meet him in the city for cocktails and dinner. “I would like to explain in precise detail what is wrong with you,” he’d said. “But you’ll probably find it very flattering.” He had set the scene with relish. “Vermouth with lots of ice and far too many cigarettes. You’ll sit in a deep chair in a wonderful old room with draperies and a fireplace and you’ll feel frightened and illicit and probably quite pleased with yourself. We’ll go to a French place for dinner, a petite boîte on Eleventh Avenue where sailors off the French Line ships eat and drink. The air is foul with Gauloise Bleu, but the food and wine are superb. The seamen smuggle in brandy and cheeses for M. Le Chef, I’m sure. Would you like to know what I’ll suggest for dinner?”