Kitten with a whip (5 page)

DISPOSE OF

GARBAGE OR LITTER

ALONG HIGHWAY

David laughed. He thought, Tm getting to be quite a lawbreaker. Well, it's over now. But it was his wondering about Jody Drew that caused him to park momentarily at the foot of his driveway and look for the evening paper which, on Saturday, was dehvered about noon. He didn't expect that she'd rate more than a paragraph, if anything at all—a first oflFender on a petty offense—but he was curious to read about her. The paper wasn t in its cHp on the mailbox post, or in the mailbox, or on the front lawn, so he decided the delivery was late today and drove on up into the garage.

Unloading the mower made him perspire enough to decide that Sid was right. It was too hot to do any outside work today and since he was going out tonight, probably until all hours, maybe it would be a good idea to get a Httle rest.

He went through the garage to the back door, unlocked as always, and into the kitchen. He stopped, staring, thinking the glare outside had done something to h& eyes.

"HiI'* said Jody. *Where you been?''

Chapter Four

There she stood at the kitchen sink, looking at him with cahn amber eyes over her nearly bare shoulder. "Close the door/' she advised him softly, *1>efore the flies come in/' She wore the blue slip he'd bought her and once again she was barefoot. Her blue dress was folded over one of the chrome chairs of the kitchen set and the blue shoes sat on the linoleum beside it.

David closed the door. His hand felt numb on the knob. He said finally, squinting his eyes to help hini comprehend, 'What are you doing here?"

"Doing my hair." She said it as if he were the stupidest, man in me world. There was a cluster of bottles on the drainboard and Virginia's portable makeup mirror. Jody smiled at herself in the mirror and gave a self-satisfied pat to the pink bathtowel that was wound turban-wise around her head. With the slimness of her young body, the mound of toweling gave her a topheavy look, like a mushroom. "Oh, you mean why didn't I do this bit in the bathroom? Because out here I could watch for you through the window, David. Where you been?"

His anger finally broke through and every nerve in his body came aHve at once. 'Where I've been doesn't matterl" he yeUed. His hand shot out to grab her tan shoulder—he was going to shake a sensible answer out of her—but she ducked Hthely away and stood backed against the stove. Her breasts movea up and down with her own anger.

"Don't ever bruise me," she warned. "God knows what I'd want to do to you if you ever bruised me." Then her lips soft^ed into a pout. "Don't be mad at me, please."

"Well—you—why shouldn't I be mad at you? Why'd you have to come back here? I thought you'd be out of the county by this time."

She shook her heavy head unbelievingly. Tou're not glad to see me? Not even one diddling bit, like?"

1 ve never been so—" He bit his lip in exasperation. He had to control himself. "Jo^Y* dont you liow the [trouble I could get in to because of you? I went out on a limb for you, kid, because I felt you deserved a break. But now you re pushing your luck."

"No, I m trying to keep our luck all glued toother."

"Don t go lumping you with mel Understandr

*But I didn't want to get you in any trouble," she pleaded. "David, believe me, that's why I came back."

He could only stand and gape at this. Jody continued

reasonably, ticking her sentences oflE on her fingers as if

jshe were delivering argument after arg,ument, 'Thevre

{looking for me, you know that. I dont mind being looked

!at but when you think every pair of eyes has got it in

jfor you—Jesusl I got scared I was going to be picked

up and what if they worked me over? Im only a girl,

David, and I was scared I might say something dumb

and tbey'd find out how you helped me. So I came back

here to do my hair ana 111 have a better chance of

getting away in a couple of days—"

"A couple of daysl

"By that time, they won't be looking so hard. I did it as much for you as for me."

He plumbed her eyes and they met his, clear and entreating. She actually seemed to beUeve in all these absurdities that were coming out of her mouth. He tried taking a patient tone with her. Sometimes it worked with Katie. "Now look here, girl. Let's say that your intentions are good. But can't you get focused on me for a minute? You're not helping me at all. I have friends, neighbors, a job to keep. You can't hang around here any couple of days."

"I've been very careful, David. I made sure nobody saw me. I came back across the field and in the back way. And when the cleaner came and rang the doorbell, I didn't answer it. I think he left the cleaning on the front porch."

"Above all, my wife might come home any time." "You told me before that she wouldn't be back till Monday. I'll be gone by then, I promise." She came toward him slowly, watching for his reaction, and put her hand on his arm. "I won't be any trouble."

David looked down at her grimly, "One thing IVe learned today—you are trouble. No, youll have to go, Jody/'

"But I spent all my money!" She waved excitedly at the bottles. "On the hair stujff, understand?"

"Then I'll give you some more moneyl" he cried angrily. "But youre getting out of here. Understandr*

"You keep yelling like that/' she whispered, "and everybody's going to know you're not alone iu here."

This time she was dead right. He shook her hand oflE his arm and adjusted the Venetian blind, dimnung the kitchen even more. "Okay," he said. "Get your clothes on and get out of here. How much is it going to cost me this time?"

He reached for his wallet and she grabbed his wrist. "DavidI What kind of a tramp you got me pegged for? Please, David, don't make me cryl' Her arms closed around his waist, he tried to pry them loose without actually hurting her and she began a torrent of talk agaiQst the front of his shirt. He could feel the heat of her breath through the material as she kept her face tight against him, hidden.

She was mumbling, "I thought you honest-to-God hked me. Somebody I could count on to help me. I never asked to be all alone. Don't make me go away!'*

"Jody, stop it. Snap out of it."

"We could have fun together." She turned her face up suddenly and her wide pHant mouth was only inches from his. "You got beer on your breath so you must like having fun with somebody. I seen all the Hquor up in your cupboard. We could have two days alone when I'd do anything you ever thought of, no matter how crazy. David., handsome, this morning when we kissed, you kissed me back. Now play big cat and well both love it." Her torso, warm and resihent, was rubbing insistently against him. "See? You want me to stay, don't your

"For God sakesl" was all he could think of to say. His picture of himself was so ridiculous, wrestiing with a half-clad youngster in the blind-turned shadows of his own jj kitchen. Tnen the significance of her proposals sank in, and the expert cupping of her loins against his hips, and he broke her grip in horror. "Get out of here. You must be crazy."

I

She stood before him, defiant yet not particularly excited. She pulled up a fallen strap of her slip and said, "No.''

"No? What do you mean, no? Listen, little girl, all I have to do is pick up that receiver—" He stepped back and laid a threatening hand on the wall phone, "—and the cops will be out here to get you in two seconds flat."

She laughed.

He could feel the flush of blood darkening his face as he lifted the receiver.

"Drop it," Tody said sharply. "You poke your finger at that dial and. that's when I start screaming rape. Don't ■push me, huh, David?"

I "You must be crazy. Who's going to beUeve a little tramp like you?"

"The poUce, the neighbors, your wife, every dirty mind in town. Oh, I'll make it even better. Ill say you had me here screwing me aU along but this morning you tried to make me do something queer—that's when I started screaming. You think people won't Hsten to me? They'll even be feeling sorry for me, for a change."

As he put the receiver down, it rattled in its cradle. His hand was trembling.

Jody's eyes were dancing with excitement now as she was carried away by her own story. "No, call them, David. It might be fun. I might end up a celebrity. Soon as I get out of this sUp and bra, and tear up my pants a httle. By the time mey get here I think I can manage to get you scratched up some, too. It's going to look like we had a real party-parW, you taking it out in trade for buying me these new clothes and giving me money to get out of town. What with your wife and Idd away—"

"Shut up," he said hoarsely, and leaned against the sink, the ceramic tile—colors chosen so carefully by Virginia—a hard reahty against his quaking belly. For a moment, he thought he was going to be sick. Somehow he managed to swaUow the acid lump of hate and fear in his tJoroat. My God, he thought, this crazy kid could do it. Nobody would ever quite beheve me, not even Virginia. Mayoe even . . . especially not Virginia. Not my neighbors, not my friends. Jody did spend the

night here, I did try to help her run away from justice. I think I was doing it for purely humanitarian reasons, but who's going to beheve tnem? And if nobody beUeves the reasons, maybe I've been wronger than I thought.

He searched his conscience as deeply as he could, but the worst he cduld find was that he'd been getting a kick out of flying in the face of organized society. It had nothing to do with Jody's possible desirabihty in the sex department. AU along he'd been thinking about her as "that poor kid".

The title no longer seemed to fit her. She was a foul-mouthed vicious young woman—and he was stuck with her. The police would beHeve the worst. They saw the worst aU the time so why shouldn't they? And as soon as the news reached the plant, there went his job. The project he was on rated the highest kind of security classification; it was important and sensitive. He'd seen a couple others let go for less scandal than Jody could spout. ". . . you tried to make me do something queer . . ." Plant security allowed no room for that kind.

David cleared his throat. Without looking at her, he asked, "Just what is it you want, anyway?"

"What I said. Just to hide out here till it's safer for me to leave. That's not so miserable, is it?" Jody's voice had turned coaxing again but it was easy enough to sense the violent change of atmosphere in the dim-Ht kitchen. Jody might be young and small and soft of arm but she nela a terrible whip and she knew it. She slunk closer. "You might even get kicks having me around, if you'd just quit stewing so. I can be a fuU deck, treated right."

"Sure," he said wearily. "I don't see where IVe got any choice."

Those soft arms shd up around his neck and they fit like a noose. She kissed him long and probably passionately. He didn't respond. He felt no sensation at all except the pressure of her open mouth, gummy with too much of his wife's lipstick. "Join the hving," she murmured. "Everything's going to be real damn nice." She wriggled a little.

"Sure." He shrugged out of her embrace, turning toward the back door. "I think I'U—I've got some work to do outside."

"Okay, stay dead. IVe got some more to do on my hair, anyway. Oh, David . . ." She kept him paused at the door, waiting, then she showed him the whip again. "You remember to be an angel, like. Unless you want to end up in the papers with me.'*

He grunted and went out into the patio. He took several deep breaths of the hot and still, practically stagnant, air. "That poor kid," he repeated to himsefi with sardonic rage. He looked aroimd the patio that he and Virginia had laboriously built and planted and furnished together. All this and the house itself and the wall-to-wall carpeting—all these material things that

rbolized their life together, he had to defend against uninvited guest and his one silly humanitarian mistake. And he had no idea how to preserve it—except to submit for the time being and wait for a way out. He circled the house and searched the front lawn again for the evening paper. He wanted to learn more about Tody Drew, this poor inexperienced girl, not much more man a child, victim of both heredity and environment, desperately in need of a friend. That's how he'd had her pictinred only this morning and now it was enough to make you laugh or cry, depending on which side of the fence you stood. For the moment, David Patton took it out on the newsboy, cursing him for probably spending the day at the beach instead of tending to his route. He thought of phoning up and complaining before he remembered that he'd better not call any attention to himself this weekend. So he went into the garage and got the power mower and wheeled it across me patio to the less cultivated portion of the backyard. He began taking his rage out on the weeds.

In five minutes his sport shirt was plastered to his body with sweat. He took it off and himg it on Katie's swing set. He could feel the sun begin searing his naked shoulders and back, and he welcomed it as punishment. What a damn fool he'd been! How could le have believed in such a girl? That she was an old land at blackmail—and at sex—she had taught him in ten agonizing moments. Now, for being a cavalier and taking the law into his own hands, he was going to have to pay—and pay—and pay. It felt good to hold the vibrating handles of the big mower in his fists and cut

swath after wrathful swath through the weed growth. The oats and tumbleweed and mustard bent before him and were devoured. The mower growled and bucked but he forced it on, even knowing he was doing a poor job. The tenacious hoarhound would sprout its wrinkled dusty-green leaves again; he should be pulling up its fingerlSce roots. And it was doing no good merely to chop oflE the taU feathery stalks of anise; it too would grow back unless he spaaed up its yard-length of paUid parsnip root. But he didn*t care about efficiency this afternoon. He only wanted to see things go down never again to rise. The perspiration ran in streams down his face, burning his eyes and tasting salty in his mouth. He didn't see any of the neighbors out in this height of the afternoon heat and he couldn't hear any other machines on the hill. Hearing his mower, they probably thought he was crazy. Well, he answered baclc, I am, Tm a crazy jackass do-gooder who's likely to lose his wife and job and reputation unless I get a break I dont deserve.