Kitten with a whip (12 page)

She was standing before the mirror again, trying on some of his wife's earrings' turning her head from side to side. "'Something real smoky," she said. "Why don't you blow up a couple of drinks for us and see what happens? A party-party, you and me, like."

"I don't want a drink," David said flatly. He was standing beside the unmade bed, taunting evidence of the night before. "I want to know when and how you're going to get out of here."

"How can we think if we're not having fun? This is turning into a lousy birthday." She flung the earrings back into the jewelry box. "Nothing big enough." She moved toward the closet.

"Leave that stuff alone," he snapped. "You keep your clothes on and stay out of that negligee."

Her eyes half-closed into angry slits.

He said, "I mean it, kid. Any party-partying from now on, you do on your own. I'm past the fed-up stage. You start thinking about where you go from here."

Jody flounced out of the bedroom.

He raised his eyebrows in thoughtful disbelief. The neaier he reached the end of his rope, the more he got his way. In the last hour he had bluffed her out on two

counts, going to that drugstore and invading his wife's wardrobe. To celebrate, he made last night's bed. Destroying the evidence was not the same as a clear conscience but it was the best he could do.

He passed through the kitchen on his way out back. Jody was sitting at the table, sulking. He said, "Keep thiaking," and went on into the patio. The prospect wasn't pleasant; nearly all the plantings around the concrete slab needed help. The rice paper plant was drooping nearly to the ground for lack of water, and so were the gray-green fronds of the honey bush. And the hibiscus leaves were beginning to yellow, chlorosis from the alkaline soil. He sighed, as always, at the unending work required to keep tropical plants alive in a soulless desert climate. Yet at this moment he was grateful for labor to busy his hands while he thought his way out of his troubles. He wasn't trusting Jody, for all her experience on the dark side of life, to come up with any bright ideas. The solution was up to him. He set a sprinkler to going where the wilting was the worst and hunted around the garage for the chelate preparation that would green up the sickly hibiscus.

Where could he take Jody that she would be safe— and grateful? Her Benzedrine mood hadn't lasted very long and if she began sinking back into the dumps again, there was no telling what she might do. Start on a crying jag, or flail about to make some excitement. He bit his lip and glanced around the sky, north, east, and south, all a clear implacable blue, the west too bright with sun to behold.

Twice as he passed by the kitchen, he thought he heard her talking to herself. As he worked, he worried more about that. What if something had come over her, a side effect of the Benzedrine, and now she was having hallucinations? At last, he stabbed his trowel into the ground and went uneasily to investigate.

She was all right. She still sat at the kitchen table but now she smiled at him. "How's the big rancher? I been watching you."

"I thought I heard you talking to yourself."

"No. Well, I have been singiug some."

"Why?" Her eyes didn't look funny or anything.

"Oh, I guess I been forgiving you for not understanding me."

He snorted and went to the refrigerator and drank a glass of cold milk. She watched him. She said, "I'll fix us a nice dinner. Buffet, huh?"

"Sure. You ought to fill yourself up for a long trip. . Because as soon as it gets dark, we're going to do something about getting you out of here." He went outside before she had the time to come up with a smart answer.

His unanswerable sky was interrupted by a high droning airliner skimming east to Arizona. It reminded him of Virginia's arrival at sunup tomorrow. Today's sun ! was almost used up, and between now and then he had ' a few short hours of night at his disposal. The Ught for garden work was dimming already and he set himself some limits—prune the banana tree, broadcast some snail poison. And don't go in to Tody until you have a workable solution. And, above all, hurry.

He was on his last allotted task when he thought of it. He was sprinkling down the snail poison along the rear fence, gazing at the long shadow pattern or the chain-link that the sinking sun cast across the Clarks' yard next door. "Sure," he said aloud, wonderingly. "The border fence."

Once it had occurred to him, the idea was ridiculously easy to come by. The authorities would be watching the border gates but no more than usual could they

Eatrol every foot of the border fence. His thinking had een tied down too much to the notion of transporting Jody by car. Sure, he would drive her to some deserted section of the international line but from there on she con Id travel by foot. He had read somewhere how simple access was to the United States from Mexico, merely a quick climb through a couple strands of barbed wire. So why shouldn't it work the other way for him? Jody wasn't crippled or anything. Let her climb through and hike a couple of miles to Tijuana. There she would be safe, and she could find herself a way to Yuma or El Paso when she wanted to re-enter the country without coming under California jurisdiction.

At once he felt good again. He didn't even put his

tools away but hurried toward the house to start selling her on his idea.

Jody was puttering in the living room. On the coffee table she had set forth a large silver tray—one of seven similar wedding presents—and had laden it with bread, potato chips, ouves^hot peppers and assorted cold cuts. It looked like every leftover the refrigerator had to offer. "Looks good/' he said diplomatically.

Jody grinned happily. 'Now you re being nice to me again. It pays, you'll see."

"Well, I'll wash up and—" He paused as he heard an automobile turn into the foot of the driveway. As always, mildly curious, he peeked through the Venetian bhnds. As usual, it was a car he didn't know. Since his house was nearly at the end of the street, his drive was often used by sightseers and Sunday drivers to turn around. "Just some kids, out joy-riding, I guess."

But the car, a gleaming low-slimg hotrod, didn't back out and pull away. Instead, it raked a spothght across the front of the house, making him blink. Then it shot up the drive and came to a rocking stop, twin exhausts popping, inches from his garage door. The passengers, two couples, began to crawl out from imder the cut-down roof.

He didn't want to beheve what he saw. "They've got the wrong address," he insisted.

Jody's hand was warm on his arm. "Youll love them, David. Friends of mine. I phoned them up." Her grin looked ready to spHt her foxy httle face. "When I feel like a party-party, I don't fool."

Chapter Eleven

Anger fell over him, a red sheet of it, and he grabbed Jody by the shoulder. "Don't let them in here. Stay away rrom the door. I tell you they're not coming in here."

She stood perfectly still and met his eyes coolly. "Okay by me, but they know I'm here. So don't swallow your teeth if they break the door down or something.''

All he could think to do in his frustration was shalce her, and that not very hard.

"Stop it!" she snapped. "You simple son of a bitch, you better let me answer the door."

The chime sang its two notes blandly through the house, the utterly normal A flat and E that had never before signaled any kind of danger. It was enough to collapse David's defenses. He let go of her shoulder and said weakly, "You can't give a party here, you've got no right."

"Oh, lover," she purred at him, and went to open the door. David stayed where he was, possessed by the drained feeling of his own helplessness. Now his troubles were multiplied by five and what was he doing about it? As usual, nothing. Yet . . . another thought crept into his head, an embryo notion that these new intruders might be, in the long run, a helpful factor in getting rid of Jody. They were her kind, her tribe, speaking the same language and observing the same customs; surely, she could be persuaded to leave with them—if he played his cards right.

He turned to face the door with tentative hope.

All four were about Jody's age, so far as ne could judge. They entered as if by ritual, with a total lack of the youthful exuberance he expected. Individually, they exchanged solemn nods with Jodv as thev spoke each other's names and she would indicate him and say, "David." One by one then, they eyed him and their

mouths quirked in the slightest of smiles. He didn't know what his own expression was; he felt like an exhibit.

The two girls came in first, together. Nina was the smaller, brown hair boyishly cut, her face caked with

Eowder around the,edges where her complexion was ad. Her sleeveless white blouse was almost flat in front but her bullae skirt emphasized the width of her hips so that she looked bottom-heavy, like a bowling pin. She chewed gum aggressively and jingled with every move by the grace of a charm bracelet on each wrist. A mastoid scar that indented her left temple threw her face off-balance.

Midge was more naturally fat-hipped as demonstrated opulently by a pair of skin-tight velvet knickers, flaming pink ana buckled at the knee. As the knickers advertised the line of her underpants, so her woolly black sweater advertised the pudgy shelf of her bust. She had black hair and though her permissive mouth was round and small, it had been expertly extended with hpstick. All in all, she appeared more expensively turned out than her girl friend, and cleaner, and her manner was as amiable as a sheep.

After the introduction of the girls, there fell a silent pause and then the boys came in, one at a time, as if making an entrance on a stage or iu a beauty contest. David noticed that they each affected a mannerism of gait; the one called Pancho swimg his hips with every step, not effeminately but a definite showoff strut, whfle Buck pretended a slight limp that varied from leg to leg as the occasion demanded.

Attention, thought David, every one of them is after attention. For some reason, they cant get their minds off themselves. Yet the boys were dressed identically in tight blue levis and white skivvy shirts, a uniformity or garb that didn't fit in with David's first conclusions. Arrant individualists, yet ganged together as if to deny it; he couldn't figure out why.

Pancho wore a large gaudy ring on the third finger of either hand, a quasi-legal version of brass knucks. Perhaps this was to make up for the shortness of his stocky body. He alone of the guests grinned a great deal but

it was meaningless; he was showing off his teeth which were large and even and very white as framed by his swarthy Latin face. The acned back of his neck reeked of meaication.

So, to David, the most presentable of the bimch was Buck. And for some obscure whim, he was the only one that Jody honored with a last name. Buck Vogel. He was a boy as tall as David and—given the advantages of youth—better built. His shoulders flared wide; the thin white cotton of his shirt clung tightly to the muscular panels of his chest and left his bulging upper arms exposed for admiration; the narrowness of nis mps let his beltless levis hang low, in peril of sliding down entirely. His long blond hair, brushed back in meticulous waves along his temples, looked more carefully tended than that of the girls with him. But for the absurdness of his blatant vanity, he came close to achieving whatever was the juvenile Adonis fancy he pictured of himself. That absurdness gave away the effect, along with the buckshot hardness of his eyes and the brute thrust of his heavy jaw. With every self-intent move, he was saying to the female of his species, I am irresistible, and to the male, I am tough.

Both boys shook hands with David crushingly, either as a test or to demonstrate a trustworthiness that their appearance beHed. "Hey now," Buck said. "Glad to meet you, Dave. Jody gave us the rating on you."

"Oh?" It was an odd sensation, being accepted as one of the gang.

Jody took his arm, as proudly possessive as a kid with a big doll. "Well, you better have eyes for David. He's the whole bottle and then some."

"I guess," said Nina, around her gum. "That the dress he got you? Real cute."

"Oh, that's not all." Jody excitedly pulled up her skirt to show the blue lace of her slip. "And thafs not all." To David's embarrassment, she yanked the slip up her slim legs and let them look at her new panties.

Midge tittered and both girls sHd sidewise glances toward his hot face. Buck said nothing, gazing boredly at the display. Pancho gave a burlesque house whistle

and pranced around clapping his hands. "That ain't all either, Jode! More, more, morel"

"Not for you, stinky," Jody said lightly and dropped her skirt.

The swarthy httle clown stopped in his tracks and his face went stohd^ He touched the medicated back of his neck. Jody had needled deep but no one paid any attention.

The three girls were chattering about the clothes and Jody*s newly blonde hair and she was preening under their compliments. Midge said wistfully, "I was going to do mine razzberry shade last week but my old man found the stuff and busted it in the sink. Guyl You'd diink it was his hair the way he carried on."

"Ah, what's that!" declared Nina, with the arrogance of being the youngest of the bunch. "That old bat I'm farmed out to now won't even let me wear Upstick. I have to borrow Midge's and wipe it off before I sneak back in."

"You should've told me," Buck said with a cocksure smile. "Any time you need a big Hck, let me know. I'll get it all off of you."

Nina batted her lashes at him. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Sometime when I'm not around, huh?" Midge suggested placidly.

Jody petted David's hand. "Fix some drinks, killer. Ill show the girls the rest of the house."

Her bland assumption of proprietorship made him blink but he decided not to make an issue of it. Not yet, not while there remained a chance that he could turn this intrusion to his advantage. He went into the kitchen and got out the liquor. After a moment, he was joined by Buck and Pancho. They lounged against the sink, smoking, watching him, saying nothing. Between them, they gave the impression of overcrowding the kitchen, surrounding him. He could tell himself that he wasn't afraid of a couple of kids, but their looming scrutiny rattled him. How should he know what to say to them? For his money, they were an alien form of life. He finally resorted to, "What's new?" while he concentrated on pouring.