[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
indicated he worked out on the parallel bars at the PAL gym. He looked more
Bronx than Brooklyn; but they all looked pretty much the same, really. "Yeah,
how 'bout that thing there." He jabbed a finger at the locked glass showcase,
indicating a sixteen-inch Italian steel clasp-knife.
I grinned. This was my specialty. I could operate one of the clasp-knives by
wrist action faster than any switchblade on the market, illegal though they
were. We weren't allowed to sell switches or gravity or shake knives, so I had
mastered the technique the better to push the merchandise we could sell.
Just as I unlocked the case, the other three made their move. I had the knife
in my hand as one of them came up with an ironwood billy club and took a swing
at Davey. I saw the action from the corner of my eye, and it was like a Mack
Sennett comedy, sped up fifty-times normal.
Davey reached down, in and out, and up all in one fluid motion, and belted two
of them with the rubber hose he kept there for just that purpose. They went
down instantly, one of them open above the eyebrow with a five-inch gash that
blinded him with his own blood. The third one bolted into the street.
My customer stood where he was. He had to, I had whipped open the knife and
jammed it against his windpipe as I saw Davey move. It made a tiny indentation
in the flesh, and he was still standing, staring wide-eyed at it when the cops
came to take them away.
Davey told me to take the rest of the evening off.
Page 155
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I took the subway to Brooklyn and arrived just before ten o'clock--six hours
earlier than usual.
The balcony was vaulted, the doors thrown open and I bounded into the room
carrying two popsicles, like something out of The Thief of Bagdad.
Stephie wasn't alone. She wasn't in bed, which made it worse.
A man would have driven me insane, I would have probably killed them both, so
keyed up with violence from the action in the shop was I, but it wasn't a man.
I was stopped, and stopped and stopped and stared and felt myself saying
things to myself. Don't ask what I was saying, I have no idea.
Two girls lay on the bed, sucking on each other. Stephie sat naked,
cross-legged on the floor, watching them with that same terrible expression
she had had while watching the man on the ledge.
One of the girls on the bed lay perfectly still as I came bursting in, playing
possum, not stirring to draw attention. The other looked up and went white,
deathly pale, the way I had written it a million times in my inadequate
stories that avoided true confessions like this because they were improbable,
written for sillyass housewives who would swallow only improbability. And I
was part of it. They stared at me, all three of them. The first girl blankly,
the second with fear--a puffy moth of a girl whose suntanned body seemed gross
and fleshy to me--
and Stephie, defiantly.
She wore a wedding ring. But not mine.
She wore a ring all right. On her little finger, left hand. A wedding ring--a
lesbian's token of love and commitment. I was ill.
Had she been on the bed with one of them, it might have made some difference,
then there would have been a reason, I could have rationalized. But
watching...
I dropped the ridiculous popsicles and stumbled toward them, thinking I was
moving back, away from them. The pudgy girl leaped off the bed, glistening
with sweat, and flattened like a sack of brown sugar against the wall. "Don't
hit me," she cried, "I can't stand pain ... don't hit me!"
Stephie recrossed her legs in front of her, and her eyes were cold, dead, like
a pair of gravestones. It became clear so suddenly, as I saw those eyes empty
now of their ghoulish pleasure, that I felt a hurling, a dropping, a heaving
in my stomach. She had hit me solidly. She had used me as a cover, would have
gone to the extreme of marrying me to cover. Why? What did I
care? Her family, her job, the world in general, what did it matter? She had
used me, and I was used up.
Then she tinkled. She let loose a Snow White giggle that sliced like a
butcher's blade right through my stumbling consciousness and drained me of all
energy.
Watching.
She had been watching.
The one lying there still. Still as dead. If I lie silently here no one will
hurt me. Fright. The room stank of it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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indicated he worked out on the parallel bars at the PAL gym. He looked more
Bronx than Brooklyn; but they all looked pretty much the same, really. "Yeah,
how 'bout that thing there." He jabbed a finger at the locked glass showcase,
indicating a sixteen-inch Italian steel clasp-knife.
I grinned. This was my specialty. I could operate one of the clasp-knives by
wrist action faster than any switchblade on the market, illegal though they
were. We weren't allowed to sell switches or gravity or shake knives, so I had
mastered the technique the better to push the merchandise we could sell.
Just as I unlocked the case, the other three made their move. I had the knife
in my hand as one of them came up with an ironwood billy club and took a swing
at Davey. I saw the action from the corner of my eye, and it was like a Mack
Sennett comedy, sped up fifty-times normal.
Davey reached down, in and out, and up all in one fluid motion, and belted two
of them with the rubber hose he kept there for just that purpose. They went
down instantly, one of them open above the eyebrow with a five-inch gash that
blinded him with his own blood. The third one bolted into the street.
My customer stood where he was. He had to, I had whipped open the knife and
jammed it against his windpipe as I saw Davey move. It made a tiny indentation
in the flesh, and he was still standing, staring wide-eyed at it when the cops
came to take them away.
Davey told me to take the rest of the evening off.
Page 155
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I took the subway to Brooklyn and arrived just before ten o'clock--six hours
earlier than usual.
The balcony was vaulted, the doors thrown open and I bounded into the room
carrying two popsicles, like something out of The Thief of Bagdad.
Stephie wasn't alone. She wasn't in bed, which made it worse.
A man would have driven me insane, I would have probably killed them both, so
keyed up with violence from the action in the shop was I, but it wasn't a man.
I was stopped, and stopped and stopped and stared and felt myself saying
things to myself. Don't ask what I was saying, I have no idea.
Two girls lay on the bed, sucking on each other. Stephie sat naked,
cross-legged on the floor, watching them with that same terrible expression
she had had while watching the man on the ledge.
One of the girls on the bed lay perfectly still as I came bursting in, playing
possum, not stirring to draw attention. The other looked up and went white,
deathly pale, the way I had written it a million times in my inadequate
stories that avoided true confessions like this because they were improbable,
written for sillyass housewives who would swallow only improbability. And I
was part of it. They stared at me, all three of them. The first girl blankly,
the second with fear--a puffy moth of a girl whose suntanned body seemed gross
and fleshy to me--
and Stephie, defiantly.
She wore a wedding ring. But not mine.
She wore a ring all right. On her little finger, left hand. A wedding ring--a
lesbian's token of love and commitment. I was ill.
Had she been on the bed with one of them, it might have made some difference,
then there would have been a reason, I could have rationalized. But
watching...
I dropped the ridiculous popsicles and stumbled toward them, thinking I was
moving back, away from them. The pudgy girl leaped off the bed, glistening
with sweat, and flattened like a sack of brown sugar against the wall. "Don't
hit me," she cried, "I can't stand pain ... don't hit me!"
Stephie recrossed her legs in front of her, and her eyes were cold, dead, like
a pair of gravestones. It became clear so suddenly, as I saw those eyes empty
now of their ghoulish pleasure, that I felt a hurling, a dropping, a heaving
in my stomach. She had hit me solidly. She had used me as a cover, would have
gone to the extreme of marrying me to cover. Why? What did I
care? Her family, her job, the world in general, what did it matter? She had
used me, and I was used up.
Then she tinkled. She let loose a Snow White giggle that sliced like a
butcher's blade right through my stumbling consciousness and drained me of all
energy.
Watching.
She had been watching.
The one lying there still. Still as dead. If I lie silently here no one will
hurt me. Fright. The room stank of it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]