All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By (18 page)

Champ rose half out of his chair, trembling, holding. Jackson fast, eyes on Jackson's face but no recognition in them. "Having trouble with all of them. Can you beat that? First Clipper, now Beau. Wonder what Beau's up to. He touches Nancy, I told him I'd kill him."

"Wake up, major."

"I've never done anything to Beau. I don't even know him. What does he
want
with me?"

Jackson pried himself loose from Champ's grip, leaving skin under the other man's fingernails.

Champ looked around Beggs's living room, bewildered. "What'm doing here?" he muttered, chewing his lower lip. "Nhora? God, help,
help me
, Nhora! You're the only one I can—"

"Major Bradwin!"

Jackson shook him. But instead of waking, Champ stood there in a daze so effective he seemed posthumous.

"Bloody come
out
of it, major. I'm Dr. Holley, and I'm looking after you now. No one's going to bother you. Are you listening? Talk to me. Tell me that you hear me."

"Hear you," Champ breathed. He had a partial erection through his shorts. He touched it meditatively. His eyes focused in a dingy way on Jackson's face.

"Need to piss."

Jackson glided him to the bathroom and hung around to be sure the major didn't pass out while at the toilet and injure himself.

"Bed," Champ said, coming out of the bathroom with a smile tight as a tourniquet. He pushed past Jackson and went in a rapid shuffle down the hall to Beggs's room and sprawled diagonally across the bed, facedown.

Jackson opened a window and covered Champ with a sheet. He placed his fingers in an armpit, then on the back of Champ's neck, found him cooler, not sweating as much. Jackson returned to the living room, took off his tie, his durable old Peal shoes and his socks and poured another drink for himself.

B
eggs came in a quarter past two.

"What the fuck happened to my car?" she said crossly.

"Ah, Beggs, top of the morning to you," Jackson said, wiggling his toes at her.

"Having a swell party? I
asked
you about my car."

"I ran into the Easterlins outside Union Station. Would you believe, they behaved very badly toward me, Beggs."

"I'll bet."

She was too annoyed to say any more. She disappeared into the dining room and returned ten minutes later, more cheerful, having changed into a chiffon blouse, Huck Finn slacks and rope-soled sandals. Beggs had also made herself a Tom Collins from Orange Crush and gin, which she nipped at while sorting through her considerable collection of jazz recordings. She settled on Jay McShann's "Vine Street Boogie," which Jackson particularly liked, and put the record on the Victrola, keeping the volume low.

"I guess those roughnecks didn't hurt you. Just broke up my car."

"Well, it was only a window. I'll gladly pay the damages."

"Skip it. I know you don't have a pot to pee in. Anyway, I'm insured." Beggs did some improvised jazz steps in the middle of the living room, and smiled. "He's sleeping like a kid back there. Means he's okay, doesn't it?"

"He's got those walking pneumonia blues, Beggs."

"Oh-oh. Damn."

"I'm ninety-eight percent certain. I'd like to see a set of X-rays."

"Can you handle it?"

"I gave him an injection of penicillin, much more effective than the usual sulfa— What do you mean, can I handle it?"

"Get him well. Get him home."

"Now just a second there, Beggs—"

The night turned suspensefully incandescent, and thunder jarred the house. The French doors blew open all the way. There was a quick patter of rain in the leaves of the elm trees along the street, then a heavy silence. Then the sky broke and rain gushed down. Beggs ran to secure the balcony doors.

She walked back to Jackson and sat on the arm of his chair, mooching over companionably until her haunch rested against his low shoulder. Swigging her soda-pop Collins, she looked fondly down at him.

"Lover, you need to take a trip."

"Do I?"

"Those Easterlins may have missed you at the station, but they won't leave too many stones unturned until they find you. If they saw the license plate of my heap, well . . . How are they connected back home, do they get along with the local law?"

"There's a cozy, symbiotic relationship. The sheriff must be an in-law."

"So much the worse for you. It wouldn't be a bother for the sheriff of—what's the name of the place—"

"Big Sugarpine"

"—to swear out a warrant for your arrest—take your pick of charges, and I'll bet she's just a wee bit underage, okay?—then notify the KC police. They'll come straight to me, and what can I say this time?"

"Evelyn was eighteen on the Fourth of July. What would you say?"

She gave him a slit-eyed, challenging look. "What about the major, hon?"

"He needs to be under a doctor's care. He must have quiet and bed rest, a minimum of seven days."

"But he won't die on the way home."

"It would be very foolish to let him travel in his—"

"Can he make it, though? That's all I'm asking."

"Risking all sorts of complications."

"That's a strong young guy, even if he is a little undernourished right now. Bless his heart, they'll take the best of care, down on the old plantation."

"What plantation?"

"I forgot to mention. When I was chatting with that local telephone operator in Chisca Ridge, she let me know that the major's family owns the whole town—"

"That could be one Flying Horse gas pump and a general store."

"—
and
the best part of three counties surrounding the town. I called a friend who's in the grain business here in KC. It took him a couple of minutes to look them up in his Dun and Bradstreet, and almost five minutes to read the entry to me. There's a twenty-five-thousand-acre plantation, with another ten thousand acres under long-term lease. Bradwin and Company had its beginnings way back in 1823. The main plantation is fifteen miles long and eight miles wide. There's a railroad, an agricultural experiment station, a mule market that handles ten thousand mules a year, cotton gins and processing plants. What I'm trying to say is, if you take care of the major, those goodhearted southerners will take wonderful care of you."

"There's too much about this I don't like, Beggs."

"You won't like anything at all about the Jackson County Jail. Which is where you're headed if you don't wise up."

"I just can't believe you would take advantage of our relationship—"

"God, that
does
things to me! When you get a little stuffy and so British-sounding. Just hearing you talk, I'm in hog heaven. I'm really going to miss you, Jackson."

"I absolutely refuse to be maneuvered into—"

Beggs squirmed delightedly against him. "Just keep it up," she said, "and I'll have to pull down my pants."

"Now, Beggs—"

"Let's do bananas tonight! I'll load up my twat with two medium-sized ripe bananas, and then we'll have a nice tussle, and by the time we're horny enough those bananas will be mashed to a fare-thee-well."

Jackson flung himself from the chair and reached for his coat. He put it on, sat down and stolidly laced his shoes. He put his tie in his coat pocket. It was still pouring outside. Beggs clicked her empty glass against her teeth, thoroughly enjoying herself. She went over him and over him with her steamy and hugger-mugger eyes until he felt as if he were wearing a sticky coat of varnish But he couldn't be angry with Beggs. She had sensed that he wanted to be raped. One way or another.

"Sending me out into this rain," he grumbled.

"Try to be back in an hour."

"Don't worry."

"Also I'd advise you to be a perfect mouse going in and out. Then tomorrow when I send the Easterlins or the cops around, the Trutlers won't be able to tell them anything. It'll look as if you sneaked away in the dead of night."

"Jesus wept," Jackson said, picturing this humiliation. "If the major wakes up, do I give him anything?"

"Sugar tit."

Beggs showed him a well-cured tip of tongue. "I covered the broken window with a piece of tarp, you'll be dry enough in the car. Now scram."

The streets were awash as Jackson drove the few blocks west to the Trutler house. It was a quarter to three and he met few cars along the way. He drove by the house once, trying to see, through the fogged windows of the coupé, if the Easterlins had somehow tracked down his rented digs. But the blue LaSalle was nowhere in the neighborhood. On his second watery pass he lurched into the driveway and parked beneath the little roof over the side door of the screened porch.

The Trutlers had left a porch light on for him. He wished they hadn't. He preferred full darkness in which to sneak his belongings from that front bedroom. It wasn't as if he was doing them out of the rent money, but he felt ungracious and would miss them, particularly Nellie; it mattered that she would be stuck with a poor impression of him, police at the door making inquiries, his reputation in default. He might write her a letter later on, when it appeared safe to do so.
Dear Nellie, free advice is cheap at the price. Stay full of yourself. Give sorrow its day, but never a day and a half. Invest nothing in a traveling man's smile. Be a soft villainess. Yr. chum
—

Close lightning gave him a slash and a jangling scare. He got out of the car and let himself into the unlocked house, then turned off the outside light. He walked up the stairs with lumping thunder all around, muffling his dim tread. Turned right. Walked down the carpeted stretch of hall to Lindy's room. The door stood half-open. Lightning glared in at the windows as he entered. The first thing he saw was Nellie, in her pajamas, huddled in the easy chair, toes curled, sound asleep, her blonde head celestial in the playing-out light. When the light vanished, there was it residue of fireflies moping in tint glass, a splatter of rain along the inch or so of breathing space between the window and the sill. Nellie was a complication, but she was a dependable sleeper in the dead of night. He had only to pack a few things and empty his part of the closet and be on his way.

His own pajamas had been folded neatly at the foot of the bed. He turned to pick them up. In the next blue, crackling wave he saw the serpent curled on the counterpane, its oiled moody head rising like doom toward his outstretched hand.

Sometimes he had a precious moment, or two. This time the screaming started at once. He had thrown up his hands but he was locked in that attitude, couldn't budge a muscle. Out of the corner of a dazzled eye he was aware of his own crucified shadow and of Nellie, windmilling up from the chair as he pumped out scream after scream, already feeling the whispery fatness of the great serpent rounding on him from knees to waist, ranging upward with its gripping speed, immense head radiant in one armpit, then sliding free and touching the root of his naked throat. Which stopped the screaming abruptly but left him breathless, seized up from the waist, jelly, jelly below and a noxious cloud of shit as his bowels misbehaved and the temperature of his extremities plummeted toward absolute zero.

Nellie reached in between him and the bed and picked up her dangling pet, turned holding it protectively against her chest and away from the source of their distraction, the energumen. Too late. Jackson was already dying in another's brawny embrace.

"Out," he whispered, shaking. "Afraid. Take it. Away."

Nellie fled the room and he began his slow collapse, knees hitting the floor, head hitting the soft side of the bed. He tried to stay upright but slid to the floor and lay there in a gut-level heap, knees drawing up tightly, seat of his pants sticky. He gasped.

The ceiling light in the room came on. Trutlers everywhere. Sharp voices asking questions. Nellie whined. "I just wanted to
show
him—"

Jackson lifted his head, daring to look at her. Nellie's hands were free, wiping a snotty nose. She'd put the snake away in her room. She was quivering in the doorway. Big tears stood out on, her cheeks. But it was a. voluptuous fright she was enjoying; she could be enamored, like any child, of a show of freakiness.

"Oh, Jackson. It wouldn't bite."

He tried to smile. "Sorry. It's phobia. Ophidiophobia. Can't help. Myself.
Everybody
. Get out. Leave me alone. Please."

Nellie sniffed the air he'd fouled, put her hands over her mouth and retreated. So did the adult Trutlers, with muttered regrets and dumb felicitations. The door closed.

Like a little mouse
, Jackson thought giddily,
I'm
. But he felt the beginning of his release. Out of danger, for now. The telephone rang. Dad Trutler spoke apologies to disturbed neighbors. Shortly after he hung up, Nellie yelped in pain and indignation, her bottom smacked hard. When the house was quiet again Jackson got to his feet and crept winded down the hall to the bathroom, where he took care of himself.

He packed beneath the falling rain in a nearly total emotional vacuum, adrenal glands now just reviving but still as useless to him as language is to a tongueless man. He left the house at five minutes past four. He was as wobbly as a hammered steer. He had the impression that they were wide awake, and listening. All save little Nell, whom in parting he imagined pillow-stuffed and deeply into her windup dreams, safe at the heart, darling, almost chastised but with a cruel beginning of sensuality in the deepening corners of her mouth. Her eyes enchanted, cold with wiles behind the plumy lids. Seeing him, Each plausible breath turning now to scales, to a poisonous filigree invading like heavy mist the clement dreamlight round her head.