Hard Rain Falling (14 page)

“Why don’t you get a job?” he asked.

Denny looked at him strangely. “Fuck that shit,” he said. “Is that what you’re worryin about?”

“Not really,” Jack said.

“Lissen, man, I seen enough fuggin shit to last me the rest of my fuggin life. I seen guys get killed for nothin, I mean
nothin
, man. Fuck that shit.”

“Were you in the Korean war?”

“I was in the Third Marines, man, me and Dale. Remember Dale Phipps? He’s still in. He’s a staff sergeant now, I think. Man, what a bunch of shit that was. You know what that cocksucker did? We was on patrol him and me and we bust into this little hut. It really stunk in there, an the only light was from this greasy dish or somethin, and there was an old man sittin in the corner and this gook officer on top of this woman in the corner, on some straw or somethin, an they all look up scared when we bust in, the officer’s got his pants down, you know, and Dale sees all this and lets out a laugh and shoots the officer right in the forehead, man. the back of his head spatters all over the woman’s face and she lets out a yell and Dale plugs her, too, in the chest, and then he turns and shoots the old man. Goddam, I never seen nothin like it; just about one second and all three dead, laying there, and Dale turns to me and laughs and says, `How come you didn’t shoot anybody?’ and I says, `Jesus Christ, Phipps, what the fuck are you doin?’ and he gets a mean look on his face and yells at me, `I’ll kill you too, you motherfucker, if you tell on me!’ an we got the hell out of there, an I asked him later what the fuck he shot all those people for, hell, the gook was on our side, you know, and he grins and says, `What the fuck difference does it make?”’

Denny squirmed uncomfortably, and scratched his cheek. “He shot them because he got the chance to, you know? Man, I used to dream about it. That crazy bastard. He would of killed me, too, and we was partners.”

But the pustule had burst now, and Denny laughed. “But that aint why I turned thief. It scared the shit out of me, but so did the whole goddam war. It’s funny, at the time it didn’t seem
wrong
, or anything, just, well, like he went crazy, and I was scared of bein hooked up with a crazy man. Lots of guys went crazy. I know one guy, there was another guy with the same name as he had who got killed, and this guy didn’t find out about it, see, but the Corps sent his mother a telegram sayin he got killed in action, and he finds out about
that
, see, about a month later, and so he knows this
other
guy with the same name was killed, and his mother was tryin to collect on his insurance, and man, he just plain flipped out. He run out and tried to get himself killed, but his sergeant coldcocked him and sent him to the hospital. I guess he got a discharge. I met Tommy when I was gettin out, and we hooked up together. He had some great plans.”

Denny looked sad, now. “That’s what I ought to do. Run down to Mexico and find him. He run out on me, the bastard.” His eyes were intense, almost glassy. “We got to get some money, man. We just got to.”

“Why don’t you hold up the joint alone? I don’t want to go. Fuck it.”

“What’s the matter? Listen, I know a cat in Oakland’ll sell us a couple guns, and we can steal a car. Take this one quick and we both head for Mexico. Ditch these goddam broads. I’m burnt out on Sue, anyway. She’s the worst lay I ever had in my life.”

“No,” Jack said. “I’m sick of fooling around. I’m not going on any holdup.”

Denny was puzzled. “Why not? You got to.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“You don’t own a piece of me, buddy. You ran out of money, that’s your tough shit. I can’t help you.”

It soaked in. “You’re just like that son of a bitch Tommy,” Denny said. “He run out on me. Now you’re runnin out on me.”

Jack was half-tempted to say okay and go on the robbery, just to please Denny, who looked so offended and angry. But that was no way to run his life. It was disgusting; Denny was acting as if they had sworn themselves to blood-brotherhood.

“I’m not runnin out,” Jack said. “I just don’t want to go. I want to think. Something’s wrong.” He got up. “I’m going back to the hotel.”

He was half-undressed when Denny showed up. He opened the door a crack and Denny pushed his way into the room.

“Shh,” Jack said. “Mona’s sacked out.”

Denny was in the middle of the room, in a near-crouch. Jack looked at him curiously.

“What’s eatin you?” Then he saw the knife in Denny’s hand, saw it just in time to ready himself as Denny’s thrust came. Everything fell away. Jack’s left hand snaked out, not shying from the open blade, and he caught Denny by the wrist and with his right hit Denny sharply on the ear and then jerked him down, letting go as Denny was falling to chop him on the exposed neck, missing the neck but hitting the jawbone below the ear, hearing and feeling the snapping bone under his hand. Denny gave a grunt and a sudden sharp bark of anguish; and as quickly as the murder had filled Jack it drained away, leaving him standing there over the helpless man at his feet, his body beginning to quiver in reaction. Even now he could not help thinking: I’m like a machine, push the button and I act. I could have taken the knife away from him without all this. I don’t even know what’s the matter with him. But he pushed the wrong button and here we are, and I might have killed him. He could not have hurt me, and I could have killed him.

“What’s going on?” Mona said. She was sitting up in bed. “What happened to him?”

“Never mind,” Jack said. He kneeled down beside Denny. Blood was pouring out of his mouth and nose, and he looked up at Jack with stiff pain in his eyes. He tried to speak. Nothing came out of his mouth but a bubbling noise. The knife, a six-inch bone-handled Case, lay on the carpet, its well-honed blade face up. The last time Jack had seen the knife had been a few days before, when Denny had been cleaning his fingernails with the smaller blade. He picked it up and folded the blade into the handle and put it into his pocket.

“Are you all right?” he asked Denny. He knew he had betrayed Denny and Denny had come to knife him for it. He understood this, although he could not understand why, or why he felt bad about it. Denny’s eyes were clear. They looked at each other. Jack had never seen such a look of pure intelligence in Denny’s eyes before. It was as if he knew something now that Jack would never understand. But the look faded into pained puzzlement and Denny moaned, the blood thick and black in his mouth.

“All right,” Jack said. He got Denny to his feet and took him over and sat him in the chair by the window, on top of a pile of Mona’s clothes. Denny sat there in a stupor, blood spattered all over him and still flowing from his nose and the corners of his mouth. His jaw hung slightly open. Jack started to get dressed again, and Mona jumped out of bed, naked except for underpants, and went into the bathroom. She came back out with a wet washcloth, and bent down over Denny.

“Hold your head back,” she said to him. She began dabbing at his nose and mouth. The cold touch of the washcloth must have revived him slightly, because he growled deep in his throat, pushed Mona aside, and came at Jack in a crouch. Without thinking, Jack clipped him on the point of the chin, and he went down heavily, his head bumping against Jack’s knees and then down onto the floor.

“Get dressed,” Jack said to Mona. He got down and went through Denny’s pockets, removing his wallet and money. When Mona finished dressing, they carried Denny back to his own room. Sue was asleep, and they woke her up, got her out of the bed, and put Denny on it. He was still unconscious. Sue started cursing Jack, her eyes burning with hatred. Mona took her out of the room. Jack got on the telephone and called the clerk at the desk and told him that Denny had been mugged on the street and made it to his room and passed out, and to call a doctor. The clerk said he had seen Denny come in and he had looked all right, and Jack told him to wait a minute, and then went down to the lobby and gave the clerk a twenty-dollar bill.

“You don’t have a mark on you,” the clerk said with a grin. He was a tall, thin man with one drooping eyelid, and when he smiled, his teeth showed long and yellow. He reached for the jack on the switchboard.

“I tell you, he got rolled. You tell it that way, too. You saw him come in, and then you called the doctor. Right?”

“Anything you say, hotshot.”

The next morning Jack told Sue to clear out. She had gone back and slept in her own room after the doctor had Denny taken away, and Jack went there to tell her.

“He hasn’t got any more money, and he’ll be in the hospital for quite a while,” he told her. “So you better go back where you came from.”

“You bastard,” she said. “I really hate you. You didn’t have to do that. You’re a boxer.”

“Well, you can stick around if you want,” he said. “But on your own money.”

He went back to Mona. She had done a strange thing the night before, after everything was all over and they were in bed. She had kissed him and said, “You’re really a killer, aren’t you.”

He said nothing. He felt odd. It had been so quick, so thoughtless, and so stupid. He was not paying much attention to Mona, or what she was doing.

“You’re a real man,” she murmured; “You’re what I want, I always knew it, I love you. I truly love you.” She pulled the covers back and said, “This is what you want me to do, isn’t it?” But it was no use. Even for this, Jack could not rouse himself, and Mona seemed, if anything, pleased. She stopped trying after a while, and lit a cigarette.

“I’m glad we’re rid of Sue,” she said. “That’s good. They been holding us back. Now we can do stuff. I always thought Denny was a dumb guy anyway, and I’m sick of that Sue. She’s so dumb. She had eyes for you. She told me what you did that night she came in here with you. I was so mad. I could have killed you for it. But I guess that’s when I found out I loved you. She was so mad when you lied to Denny. She hates him. I bet she’s glad you beat him up. He’s so silly sometimes. All he wants to do is drink and lay around. He’s got no ambitions at all. Let’s go to Hollywood or Las Vegas or something. I really want to get out of this dumb town. I always used to think San Francisco was such a groovy place. We came down here once when we were supposed to be in a cabin at Rio Nido and spent two days running around and I never saw anything like it, so when we took off we came here. But it’s so dumb after a while, don’t you think? I want to go to Hollywood. We could get an apartment. Not another crummy hotel room. A nice apartment in one of those big motels where they have a swimming pool and bars and everything, and I can go out and take sun-baths. San Francisco is so cold all the time. We could even buy a car and go racing around and go down to the beach and everything. Maybe we could go to Mexico. Do you want to go to Mexico?”

She poked him. “Do you?”

“Huh?”

“Want to go to Mexico. We could see a bullfight and everything.”

“Where do we get all this money?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Money. You can get money. You can go out and box some more, can’t you?”

She snuggled down next to him. “Oh, we can have such a great time.”

The next morning, after he had told Sue to leave, he settled down in the room with a bottle of whiskey and started drinking. He wanted to think. Mona was fussing around in the room, the radio on to a rock-and-roll station, and she began to bother him. He couldn’t get any thinking done. Finally he asked her to go out and leave him alone.

“Are you going to give me any money?”

He handed her a twenty.

She looked at it distastefully. “That’s not enough to do anything with.”

“Go to a movie.”

“I’m sick of movies. You’re drinking too much. When are we going to leave?”

“Go on, get the fuck out of here.”

“Don’t you swear at me.”

“Get out of here before I knock you on your ass.”

She stared at him murderously. “Don’t you talk to me like that!”

He took another drink, and continued to stare out the window.

“I hate you!” She stamped out and slammed the door. After a moment, Jack got up and turned off the radio, and then went back to staring out the window.

He drank all morning and all afternoon. The whiskey was not leading him anywhere. He kept drinking it just to keep from going backward. Everything seemed quite clear except the first step. He did not know what to do first. He was buried inside his skin, bones, and nerves, and he would have to get out of there if he was to understand his pain. If it was pain. He knew people suffered agony, and he wondered if what he felt was agony. It did not seem like the descriptions of agony. He wondered if it wasn’t just self-pity again. At the orphanage they had gone to religious services every Sunday morning in the dining room and listened to different preachers tell them that God loved them especially because they were orphans and that they had a hard lot in life, but the hardness of their lot gave them a precious opportunity to be particularly saintly in their conduct, to be obedient, to be moral, without having placed in front of them the temptations toward sin that come to children who have sinful parents around them, tempting them away from the path of goodness by their bad example; how they, the children of the orphanage, were the results of the sins of their fathers, and yet at the same time had this great opportunity to lead blameless uncontaminated lives of purity and virtue; to obey the rules and be the especially beloved of Jesus Christ, who Himself disowned His own Mother and made Himself into an orphan, so to speak; and how they, the children of the orphanage, were actually better off and luckier than the children on the outside, because in the absence of the love of parents and the misguided behavior of parents, they could come directly to the love of Jesus Christ and therefore the love of God Himself under the direction of the orphanage administration. But it did not take much thinking on their part to see that if Jesus Christ and God approved of the administration of the orphanage, in fact preferred it to home and parents, then they were the enemies of the orphanage children because if that hollow cavity in their souls was the love of God then God was the ultimate murderer of love.