Part 10 (1/2)
”What's the matter, isn't my company good enough for you?” She turned on him suddenly. He would have to take her threats till Laura got there; she couldn't hold them back.
”It's just that I don't like prospective murderers,” Jack said. 'They make me nervous.”
”You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You holier-than-thou b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You think you're so d.a.m.n superior because you're still on the wagon. You are on the wagon, I can tell. You look so G.o.ddam sober it's repulsive. Repulsive!”
”That's the word for it, all right,” Jack agreed. His compliant att.i.tude only goaded her further.
”You hate me because Laura only comes to see you when she feels bad. She lives with me. But she doesn't give a d.a.m.n about you until she feels bad. Then she comes running to good old Jack!”
”Beebo,” he said and did not raise his voice. ”When I lost Terry I did a h.e.l.l of a lot of drinking and hollering. I came and drank your whiskey and told you my troubles and you listened to me. And it helped. Now you're welcome to my whiskeythere's still a little in the kitchenand you're welcome to cry on my shoulder. But you're not going to murder anybody, here or anywhere else.”
”Only Laura,” Beebo said, and her voice was low now, too.
”n.o.body,” Jack said. ”Now scram, or I'll throw you out.”
Beebo grabbed the lapels of his sport jacket. ”She cheated on me, Jack. You gave her the idea so don't try to squirm out of it.”
”Cheated on you with who?”
”An Indian!” Her eyes were so big and her face so con-totted that Jack came very near laughter.
”What tribe?” he asked carefully.
”Not an American Indian, you owl-eyed idiot! An Indian Indian. A dancer! Jesus!” And she lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ”A dancer!”
”Cla.s.sical or belly?”
”Oh, shut up! You think it's funny!” She gave him a hard shove, but Jack didn't shove easily. He just stood his ground and surprised her. ”It doesn't matter who she is, anyway,” she said and ran a distraught hand through her close-cropped dark hair that waved and rolled around her head and used to delight Laura. ”What matters is, they've been sleeping together and that cheeky little b.i.t.c.h”
”Which one?”
”Jack, G.o.ddam you, quit interrupting me!” She paused to glare at him and then said, ”Tris. The dancer. She had the nerve to come over to the apartment. Tried to tell me they met at the Hobby Shop. Oh, G.o.d!” And she gave a despairing laugh.
”Maybe they did.” He offered it un.o.btrusively.
”Who're you kidding?” Beebo snapped. ”Laura admitted she went to the girl's apartment.”
”After you pounded it out of her.”
Beebo held the diary out to him. ”Read this, Jack. It's all in here,” she said.
”Does it say they slept together?
”d.a.m.n right!”
”Did you read it?”
”No, but it's in here,” she said positively, in the grip of the spiraling violence that possessed her. ”Jack Mann, college graduate, engineer, former gay boy, former whiskey drinker, former human being. Current know-it-all and champion b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Greenwich Village. Read it!”
He shook his head without even glancing at it.
”Are you too proper? Too moral? Don't tell me you've suddenly developed a conscience! After all these years,” she said.
He shrugged. ”Why read it? You've told me what's in it.”
”Maybe you'd like to know what she says about me.” He saw her face color up again and a s.h.i.+vering clearly visible in her hands and he said, ”No.” But Beebo opened the diary, leafing through it for the worst slander she could find.
Jack took the book from her hands so suddenly that she let it slip before she knew what he was up to, and then he socked her when she reached for it, catching her on the chin. She reeled backwards and sank to the floor. Jack leaned down and picked her up, hoisting her over his shoulder. He carried her that way, head dangling in back and feet in front, down the hall and out the door to the apartment building.
There he set her dizzily on her feet. She hardly knew where she was and let him hold her up. He found a taxi for her on the corner of Fourth and Seventh Avenue and told the driver, ”She's drunk. It's only a couple of blocks, but I can't take her home,” and handed him five dollars. ”Take her upstairs,” he said, giving him the address. ”Apartment 2B.”
He was headed up the steps to his apartment again when he heard Laura's voice calling him, and he turned around to see her running up the sidewalk, hair awry and face like chalk.
”Laura!” he exclaimed and caught her. She began to sob the moment she felt his arms around her, as if she had only been waiting to feel him for the tears to start.
”Is she here?” she asked, and he could feel her quivering.
”She left,” he said. ”I just put her in a cab. Your timing is faultless, Mother.”
Laura looked at him out of big amazed eyes. ”She's gone? How did you do it?” she asked. ”What happened?”
”Come on inside,” he said. He led her down the hall and in his kitchen at last, with the front door locked and no Beebo anywhere around and a comforting drink to brace her, she heaved a long sigh of relief.
”Now,” said Jack, making himself some coffee. ”Who is Tris?”
Laura clasped her gla.s.s in both hands and looked into the whiskey for an answer. ”She's a dancer”
”I know that part. I mean, are you sleeping with her?”
”No!” Laura flashed.
”Do you want to?”
And after a pause she whispered honestly, ”Yes.”
”So Beebo's not imagining things.”
”She doesn't have to,” Laura cried bitterly. ”She's got my diary.”
”I saw it.”
”Did you read it?”
”No, but Beebo did.”
”What did she say?” Laura's throat had gone dry all of a sudden at the idea of Beebo perusing those private pages, and she took a sip of her whiskey.
”She wants to solve the whole thing by murdering you.”
”I think she would, too,” Laura said, unsurprised. ”Oh, Jack, help me. I'm scared to death.”