“Nice night, ain’t it?” I said. “Be a nice night for a row.”
“I don’t... I don’t feel like a row tonight, Harry. I don’t... don’t know anymore.”
I grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back — real gentle-like, of course — and said, “Molly, honey, would I ever think of touching another woman? You think I’d need to force a woman to get love off her?”
She pulled away again and started drawing in the sand with her finger.
“You ain’t listening to me, Molly.”
She kept on drawing in the sand. She seemed like maybe she was crying, but her voice was steady. “You’re a funny man, Harry. You like your love to hurt. You’re all take and not a damn bit of give.”
I gripped her arm, hard, and she yelped a little. “You’re dead wrong, Molly,” I said again. “Let me prove it to you. Go out for a row with me. Come on. I love you, Molly, you’ll see. Come on out for a row.”
She stood up, circling her bare feet in the sand. Her face looked almost beautiful streaked with tears the way it was. “You’re all I’ve got, Harry... I guess, if I’m right in what I say about you, then I don’t want to live anymore. And if I’m wrong about you, well, then things’d be okay again. But even then, even if you didn’t rape those women, it’ll be bad, though, won’t it? You and me just aren’t right, Harry, so I guess things couldn’t ever be fine, or good. Cause just like you like to hurt me, I like getting hurt by you, Harry... and that’s not right. But if you... if you haven’t been the one doing all those bad things around town, then a little boat ride wouldn’t hurt, would it?”
“Why, course not.”
“But if you were the one raping and all, then I probably wouldn’t be coming back from that little boat ride, would I?”
“That’s right, Molly. If I was.”
“But if not...”
“Then it wouldn’t hurt nothing at all, Molly, nothing at all. Come on, it’s a nice night. Come on.”
She turned and headed for the dock down the beach where the rowboat was tied. Her hair looked nice in the moonlight. She had nice legs when she walked, too.
We untied the boat, then I kicked off my shoes and together we waded into the water and pushed the boat out a ways. We climbed in and I started rowing. She didn’t look at me, just stared out at the reflection of the quarter moon on the glassy surface of the lake.
About halfway out I threw her over, held her head down till she drowned. She didn’t fight it at all. The place where she went under rippled out for a while, like a target, then got smooth again.
Later on I stopped at the diner on Fourth Street. I ordered a breakfast from the counterman, Lou, and started reading the evening paper.
Lou brought me my coffee and said, “Those guys ever find you, Harry?”
“What guys?”
A voice from behind me said, “Hiya, Harry.”
“Well, Frank, how the hell’re you? Going on duty soon?”
“Yeah, in a few minutes. You just finishing up your shift, huh?”
“That’s right. How’ve ya been?” I hadn’t seen much of Frank lately, since that night a while back when I had to stick around and play cop after that one deal. Should have hit that bitch harder.
“Been rough, Harry, what with my regular tours of duty and trying to look into this rapist thing in my spare time.”
“Any luck?”
“Not a bit.”
Frank was a small guy, but even a heel like me couldn’t help but take a shine to the son of a bitch. He was everything a cop ought to be, honest and family-loving and all like that. Only his clean living was taking wear, putting deep lines in his face, around his clear blue eyes, and it seemed like his sandy crewcut was starting back farther on his head every time I saw him.
“Say, Harry,” Frank said, “did you hear about the guy on the highway?”
I put down the paper. “What guy?”
“State cops found a dead guy out here along the highway a couple weeks ago, hushed it all up, not even the chief knew about it.”
“Oh, really? Ain’t that something.” Lou was there with my breakfast, but all of a sudden I wasn’t hungry
“That’s what I was trying to tell you about, Harry,” Lou said, putting the food down in front of me.
“What?”
“Those two FBI men was in asking about that little guy you was talking to in here a couple weeks ago. That little guy, remember? He was the one got killed, I guess.”
“FBI?” I said.
“Yeah,” Frank chimed in, “seems this guy was important or something. Joker was a government courier of some kind.”
“Govern... government courier?” I took a sip of my coffee as casually as I could.
“These FBI guys are putting on a full-scale investigation,” Frank said. “I talked to them this afternoon, before they started going ’round town to ask questions. Too bad we can’t get them to work on this rapist deal while they’re at it.”
“Yeah, too bad.”
“What’s this about you seeing that guy the night he was killed? And right here in the diner?”
“Oh, uh, I was just...”
Lou said, “Haven’t you talked to those guys yet, Harry? I sent ’em out to your girl’s place, figured you’d be out there at the Seaside with Molly. You must’ve just missed ’em.”
I took another swallow of the coffee and tried to think.
“What’s wrong, Harry?” Frank said.
“Hell,” Lou laughed, slapping the counter, “he’s drinking his coffee black. What’s with you, Harry? You know you can’t stomach it without cream and sugar.”
The Love Rack
I guess I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to die. Or as resigned to dying as a man can get, anyway. They’ve told me, you see, that they’re going to kill me. And I have no reason to doubt them. It’s as simple as that.
Haven’t eaten in quite a while but I’m not overly hungry. Wonder if it matters if you die on an empty stomach? At least there won’t be anything left in me to embarrass anybody. I hear a man’s bowels clean themselves out once he’s dead, and I’d hate like hell to be an embarrassing corpse.
I have had a woman, though, and not long ago. A very beautiful woman, too, with soft gold hair and warm brown eyes. Yes, yes, I’ve known her that way, I’ve had that much. Seems as if we made love all night long. Wonderful. I’ve got no complaints about that part of it. Haven’t known her long but I could love her if I had a while, I think. Hell, maybe I love her right now.
Her face is her face, but it’s also someone else’s. From a long time ago. It’s all very confusing.
She lies still, not far from me, as though she were dead.
Perhaps she is.
After a while it gets kind of hard to remember...
In the evening I went out with a young woman who wouldn’t. I dropped her off at her place and went back out into the city and got lost for a while and drank. Don’t own a car, so I walked the streets rather than take a cab. I don’t live far from the downtown anyway. It had been raining and the streets were shiny black like patent leather. Once I almost got hit when I decided to look at my reflection in the funny black mirror which turned out to be the middle of the funny black street. I called the driver who nearly clipped me a motherfucker — I sober up quickly — and tottered off in the vague direction of my apartment.
I got back around two or three in the morning. Not drunk, mind you, but not ready to take on a high wire act either.
I went into the bedroom, stripped down to my shorts, flopped down on the bed. Thought sleep would come easy, but no go. My head ached, and badly. Migraines hit me from time to time, and this was a time.