Part 26 (2/2)

He was cutting across the lawn of a house, and converging on her from right angles before he realized what he was doing, what his intentions were. By then, his momentum had carried him.

Rape.

The word flowered in his mind like a hot-house flower, with blood-red petals, grew to monstrous proportions, and withered, black at the edges, even as he scooted briskly, head down and hands in coat pockets, toward their point of intersection.

Could he do it? Could he carry it off? She was young and beautiful, desirable, he knew. She would have to be. He would take her down on the gra.s.s; and she would not scream, but would be pliant and acquiescent. She had to be.

He raced ahead to the spot where she would meet him, and he lay down on the moist, brown earth, inside the cover of bushes, waiting for her. In the distance he could hear her heels counting off the steps till he was upon her.

Then, even as his desire ate at him, other pictures came. A twisted, half-naked body lying in the street, a mob of men screaming and brandis.h.i.+ng a rope, a picture of Mother, her face ashen and transfigured with horror. He crammed his eyes shut, and pressed his cheek to the ground. It was the all-mother, consoling him. He was the child who had done wrong, and his need was great. The all-mother comforted him, directed him, caressed him with propriety and deep devotion. He lay there as the girl clacked past.

The heat in his face died away, and it was the day of the end, before he fully returned to sanity and a sense of awareness.

He had escaped b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, perhaps at the cost of his soul.

It was, it was, indeed. The day it would happen. He had several glimpses that day, so shocking, so brilliant in his mind, that they reaffirmed his knowledge of the coming of the event. Today it would come. Today the world would spark and burn.

One vision showed great buildings, steel and concrete, flas.h.i.+ng like magnesium flares, burning as though they were crepe paper. The sun was dull-looking, as though it might have been an eye that someone had gouged out. The sidewalks ran like b.u.t.ter; and charred, smoldering shapes lay in the gutters and on the rooftops. It was hideous, and it was now.

He knew his time was up.

Then the idea of the money came to him. He withdrew every cent. Every penny of the four thousand dollars; the vice president of the bank had a peculiar expression on his face, and he asked if everything was all right. Arthur answered him with an epigram, and the vice president was unhappy.

All that day at the office-of course he went to work, he would not have known any other way to spend that last day of all days-he was on edge. He continually turned at his desk to stare out the window, waiting for the blood-red glaze that would paint the sky. But it did not come.

Shortly after the coffee break that afternoon, he found the sensation of nausea growing in him. He went to the men's room and locked himself in one of the cubicles. He sat down on the toilet with its top closed, and held his head in his hands.

A glimpse was coming to him.

Another glimpse, vaguely connected to the ones of the holocaust, but now-like a strip of film running backward-he saw himself entering a bar.

There were words in twisting neon outside, and repeated again on the small dark-gla.s.s window. The words said: THE NITE OWL. He saw himself in his blue suit, and he knew the money was in his pocket.

There was a woman at the bar.

Her hair was faintly auburn in the dim light of the bar. She sat on the bar stool, her long legs gracefully crossed, revealing a laced edge of slip. Her face was held at an odd angle, half-up toward the concealed streamer of light over the bar mirror. He could see the dark eyes and the heavy makeup that somehow did not detract from the sharp, unrelieved lines of her face. It was a hard face, but the lips were full, and not thinned. She was staring at nothing.

Then, as abruptly as it had come, the vision pa.s.sed, and his mouth was filled with the slippery vileness of nausea.

He got to his feet and flipped open the toilet. Then he was thoroughly sick, but not messy.

Afterward, he went back to the office and found the yellow pages of the phone book. He turned to ”Bars” and ran his finger down the column till he came to ”The Nite Owl” on Morrison and 58th Streets.

He went home especially to freshen up...to get into his blue suit.

She was there. The long legs in the same position, the edge of slip showing, the head at that strange angle, the hair and eyes as he had seen them.

It was almost as though he was reliving a dramatic part he had once played; he walked up to her, and slid onto the empty stool. ”May I, may I buy you a drink, Miss?”

She only acknowledged his presence and his question with a half-nod and soft grunt. He motioned to the black-tied bartender and said, ”I'd like a gla.s.s of ginger ale. Give the young lady whatever she, uh, she wants please.”

The woman quirked an eyebrow and mumbled, ”Bourbon and water, Ned.” The bartender moved away. They sat silently till he returned with the drinks. Then the girl said, ”Thanks.” Arthur nodded, and moved the gla.s.s around in its own circle of moisture. ”I like ginger ale. Never really got to like alcohol, I guess. You don't mind?”

Then she turned, and stared at him. She was really quite attractive, with little lines in her neck, around her mouth and eyes. ”Why the h.e.l.l should I care if you drink ginger ale? You could drink goat's milk and I couldn't care less.” She turned back.

Arthur hurriedly answered, ”Oh, I didn't mean any offense. I was only-”

”Forget it.”

”But I-”

She looked at him with vehemence. ”Look Mac, you on the make, or what? You got a pitch? Come on, it's late.”

Now, confronted with it, Arthur found himself terrified. He wanted to cry. It wasn't the way he had thought it would be. His throat had a choke lost in it. ”I-I, why I-”

”Oh, Jeezus, wouldn't 'cha know it. A freak. My luck, always my luck.” She bolted the rest of her drink and slid off the stool. She smoothed the miniskirt over her thighs and backside as she moved toward the door of the bar.

Arthur felt panic rising in him. This was the last chance, and it was important, terribly important! He spun on the stool and called after her, ”Miss-”

She stopped and turned. ”Yeah?”

”I thought we might, uh, could I speak to you?”

She seemed to sense his difficulty, and a wise look came across her features. She came back and stopped very close to him. ”What now, what is it?”

”Are you, uh, are you do, doing anything this evening?”

Her sly look became businesslike. ”It'll cost you fifteen. You got that much?”

Arthur was petrified. He could not answer. But as though it realized the time had come for action, his hand dipped into his jacket pocket and came up with the four thousand dollars. Eight five hundred dollar bills, crackling and fresh. He held them out for her to see, then the hand returned them to the pocket. The hand was the businessman, himself merely the bystander.

”Wow,” she murmured, her eyes bright. ”You're not as bad as I thought, fella. You got a place?”

They went to the big, silent house, and he undressed in the bathroom, for it was the first time, and he held a granite chunk of fear in his chest.

When it was over, and he lay there warm and happy, she rose from the bed and moved to his jacket. He stared at her, and there was a strange feeling in him. He knew it for what it was, for he had felt a distant relative to it, in his feelings for Mother. Arthur Fulbright knew love, of a sort, and he watched her as she fished out the bills.

”Jesus,” she murmured, touching the money reverently.

”Take it,” he said softly.

”What? How much?”

”All of it. It doesn't mean anything.” Then he added, as if it was the highest compliment he could summon: ”You are a very good woman.”

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