Part 6 (1/2)
”Forget it. I've got freckles, straw hair, short fat legs, and a big behinder. And I'm clumsy. I keep falling over things. And people. Lucky little old me, falling for Rick Holton.” She hesitated. ”Maybe I'll change my mind about the drink. Okay?”
I unwrapped the last gla.s.s and fixed her one, turned, and handed it to her. She took it over to the chair. ”Thanks. Why should you do me favors, though? After what I tried to do to you.”
”Guilt syndrome. I clobbered your romance.” She frowned. ”It hurts. I know. I walked into it expecting to get hurt. You didn't do it, really. You just brought it to a head a little quicker. He's been beginning to want out. I could feel it. He was looking for a great big reason. Jesus, you made him mad!”
”I think I was a little irritated too. I couldn't find out what your plans were unless I faked you out.”
She looked into her gla.s.s. ”You know something? I think I ought to get smashed. I don't have to drive. And from the way this one is making me feel numb around the mouth already, it shouldn't take much.”
”Be my guest. Just don't sing.” I started to get her gla.s.s but she waved me off and went over and fixed her own.
”You sure you don't mind, McGee? Drunk females are horrid. I learned that from working the emergency ward.”
”Look, how can you two be so sure that the doctor didn't kill himself?”
”Perfect health. Loved his work and his little projects. He had enthusiasm about things. Like a kid. And I know how he felt about the attempted suicides. Well, like Tom Pike's wife. It just baffled him. He couldn't understand how anybody could take their own life.”
”He treated her?”
”Both times. And it was close both times. If Tom hadn't been on the ball, she would have bought it. He phoned the doctor when he couldn't wake her up, and the doctor told him to rush her down to the emergency room. He met them there and pumped her out and gave her stimulants and they kept walking her and slapping her awake until she was out of danger. The other time Tom had to break the bathroom door down. She'd lost a lot of blood. There were two of those... hesitation marks, they call them, on her left wrist, where she couldn't make herself cut deep enough. Then she cut deep enough the third time. It's slower bleeding from a vein, of course. She's a nice standard type, and Doctor Sherman put four pints back into her and did such a good job on her wrist I'll bet that by now the scar is almost invisible.”
”Reported to the authorities?”
”Oh, yes. You have to. It's the law.”
”Did you have any idea anything at all might have been bugging the doctor?”
”Gee, it's hard to say. I mean he wasn't one of those always-the-same people. When he'd get involved in some project, he'd get sort of remote, especially when things wouldn't be going well. And he wouldn't want to talk about it. So... maybe maybe something was bothering him, because he'd been acting the way he usually did when things weren't going the way he expected. But I just something was bothering him, because he'd been acting the way he usually did when things weren't going the way he expected. But I just know know he wouldn't kill himself.” he wouldn't kill himself.”
”Anything questionable in the autopsy?”
”Like maybe he was knocked out first? No. No sign of it and no trace of anything but morphine, and that was more than a trace.”
I was slouched deep in the armchair, legs resting on a round formica table. After the silence had lasted a little while, I looked over at her. She was staring at me. She had one eye a third closed and the other half closed. She had one brow arched and she had her lips pulled back away from her rather pretty teeth. It was a strange, fixed grimace, not quite smirk and not quite sneer.
”Hi!” she said in a husky voice, and I suddenly realized that the stare had been meant to be erotic and inviting. It startled me.
”Oh, come on on, Penny!”
”Well... listen. You're cute. You know that? Pretty d.a.m.n cute. What I was thinking, that sumb.i.t.c.h was so ready to think I cheated, right? I was thinking Eke they say about having the name and the game too. Whoose going anyplace anyways? Friday night, iznit? Dowanna waysh... waste waste the li'l pill I took this morning, do I?” the li'l pill I took this morning, do I?”
”Time to take you home.”
”Yah, yah, yah. Thanks a lot. You must find me real attractive, McGee. Freckles turn you off? Doan like dumpy-legged women?”
”I like them just fine, nurse. Settle down.”
She came around toward me and stood and gave me that fixed buggy stare again, put her gla.s.s on the table, then did a kind of half spin and tumbled solidly onto my lap, managing to give me a pretty good chop in the eye with her elbow as she did so. It hit some kind of nerve that started my eye weeping. She snuggled into me, cheek against my chest, and gave me another breathy ”Hi!”
”Penny-friend, it is a lousy way to try to get even with good old Rick. You're bold with booze. You'd hate yourself.” ”D'wanna take d'vantage of a girl?”
”Sure. Glad to. You think it over and come back tomorrow night and scratch on the door.”
She gave a long, weary exhalation and for a moment I wondered if she was suddenly pa.s.sing out. But then in a level and perfectly articulated voice she said, ”I have a good head for booze.”
”Hmmm. Why the act?”
”It ain't easy, McGee, for a cold-sober girl to offer her all to the pa.s.sing stranger. Maybe for some, but not for Penny Woertz. No! Don't push me up. I can tell you easier if I'm not looked at.”
”Tell me what?”
”It's a bad hang-up for me. With Rick. He really is is mean. Do you know how a guy can be mean? Cruel little things. Know why he can get away with being like that?” mean. Do you know how a guy can be mean? Cruel little things. Know why he can get away with being like that?”
”Because you're the only one with the hang-up?”
”Right. You're pretty smart. Know what I'll do now?”
”What will you do?”
”Get very firm with myself. Tell myself it was a no-good thing. Chin up, tummy in, walk straight, girl. Think of him every three minutes of every waking hour for two or three or four days, and then dial the private line in his office and humble myself and whimper and beg and apologize for things I didn't do. And be ashamed of myself and kind of sick-joyful at the same time.”
”No character, hey?”
”I used to think I had lots. He got to me in... a kind of physical way. I think of him and get to wanting him so bad my head hums and my ears roar and the world gets tilty.”
”Hmm. Humiliating?”
”That's the word. I want out. I want free. So while I was in your bathroom blubbering because he walked out, I had this idea of how to get loose, if I could work up enough nerve.”
”Use me to solve your problem?”
”I thought you'd jump at the chance. Not because I'm so astonis.h.i.+ngly lovely, something that turns all the heads when I walk by. But I've had to learn that there is some d.a.m.n thing about me that seems to work pretty good. I mean if I was in some saloon with Miss International Asparagus Patch, and a man moved in on us because he drew a bead on her, a lot of the time he'd switch targets, and I've never known why it happens, but it does. That's why I was so sure I could pick you up in the bar.”
”You do do project a message.” project a message.”
”Wish I knew what the message reads.”
”I think it says, 'Here I am!' ”
”Darn it. I like like men. As men. Six brothers. I was the only girl. I've never been able to really be a girl-girl, luncheons and girl talk and all that. But I don't go shacking around. I love to make love, sure. But it never seemed to be any kind of real necessity, you know? Except now I'm hung up that way with Rick, and I don't even men. As men. Six brothers. I was the only girl. I've never been able to really be a girl-girl, luncheons and girl talk and all that. But I don't go shacking around. I love to make love, sure. But it never seemed to be any kind of real necessity, you know? Except now I'm hung up that way with Rick, and I don't even like like him very much. I don't even know if... it would be any good at all with another man nowadays. I thought you'd be a good way to find out. I thought, once I'd pumped up the nerve, one little opening and Pow. Easier to play drunk. Hardly know you. Won't see you again. So you come on with these scruples. Or maybe my mysterious whatzit isn't on your wavelength, dear. Oh, Christ! I feel so awkward and timid and dumb. I never tried to promote a stranger before, honest.” him very much. I don't even know if... it would be any good at all with another man nowadays. I thought you'd be a good way to find out. I thought, once I'd pumped up the nerve, one little opening and Pow. Easier to play drunk. Hardly know you. Won't see you again. So you come on with these scruples. Or maybe my mysterious whatzit isn't on your wavelength, dear. Oh, Christ! I feel so awkward and timid and dumb. I never tried to promote a stranger before, honest.”
”So if nothing much happened, wouldn't you be hung up worse than ever?”
”No. Because it would keep me from having the guts to phone him. After sleeping with you-win, lose, or draw-I'd feel too guilty. And that would give me the time to finally get over it. You see, I always have to go crawling to him. If when he doesn't hear from me, he comes after me, I don't know if I can stay in the clear. But... it would give me a pretty good chance.”
She gave that deep long sigh once more. Strange little freckled lady, radiating something indefinable, something l.u.s.ty and gutsy. Something playtime. So the world is a wide shadowy place, with just a few times, a few corners, where strangers touch. And she could be a partial cure for the random restlessness of the past weeks. OP Doctor McGee. Home therapy. The laying on of hands. Therapeutic manipulation. The hunger that isn't a d.a.m.ned bit interested in names or faces is always there, needing only a proper fragment of rationalization to emerge. So I drifted my fingertips along the sad curl of her back and found the same old zipper tab and slowly pulled it from nape to stern. She pushed up, swarmy-eyed, hair-tousled, to make the opening gift of her mouth in her acceptance.
But stopped and focused, frowned. ”It's a sad story, okay. But it isn't that that sad! It shouldn't make a strong man cry.” sad! It shouldn't make a strong man cry.”
”I'm not. You got me in the eye with your elbow a while back.”