Someone Is Bleeding (10 page)

Except happiness.

“Quite a view,” I said.

“Quite a jump,” she said.

“Planning on it?” I said.

She pursed her lips.

“Who knows?” she said, sinking down on the couch. She patted the cushion beside her.

“Sit here,” she said. “Tell mama all about everything.”

I sat down.

She grinned at me.

“You’re feeling pretty chipper today, aren’t you?” I said.

“No,” she said blithely, “just pretending.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll pretend too. Is it easy?”

“It is if your brain falls out,” she said.

“Uh-huh. Oh . . . I . . . guess I should apologize for the nasty way I spoke to you last time I saw you.”

“When was that?”

“The day . . . I took you home “

“Oh.” She shrugged. “Anything you said, I’m sure I deserved.”

I smiled at her. I took a sip of my drink.

“The police station, you said? What’s going on?”

“Questions and answers, I suppose,” she said. “Jones probably has the culprit.”

“If he has,” I said, “you have no husband.”

She looked at me without anger. “I haven’t got one anyway,” she said.

“When are you going to leave him, Audrey?”

“When are you going to leave that girl?”

“I’m not.”

She shrugged. “That’s my answer,” she said. She held up the glass and looked at the liquor. She shook her head.

“It looks so innocent,” she said. “Just some colored water. But what it does. Lawsy.”

I didn’t say anything. We had nothing to discuss really, but I didn’t want to leave. I was tired of driving, tired of looking for answers. I wanted to relax. You can’t pile-drive twenty-four hours a day.

“You look pretty,” I said.

She smiled.

“Sweater girl,” I said.

“That’s me.”

“You have a nice figure, Audrey.”

“Merci.” She drank. She licked her lower lip. “Well here we are, Davie boy.”

“Here we are,” I said.

“You in love with a murderess, me in love with . . .”

“Cut it out.”

“Sorry.”

“Audrey.”

“Wha?”

“Did Dennis . . . have his arm cut open by Peggy?”

She looked at me. “Yes,” she said. “He had to have stitches taken, it was so bad.”

“What did he do?”

“You mean to deserve a cutting-up?” she said. “He probably looked cross-eyed at her.”

“Oh, stop it. You know he must have done something serious. He probably made a pass at her.”

“Is that bad? A man should make a pass at me. I wouldn’t cut his arm open.”

“She
would. You don’t know what she’s been through.”

“I don’t care, Davie. I don’t care.”

“All right. Forget it.

“Audrey,” I said then, trying to get somewhere in all this crazy tangle, “who were those men at the funeral? The ones you called tramps?”

She looked at me over her glass.

“I don’t know whether I should tell you,” she said.

“Listen,” I said, “I know about Jim. I know he didn’t win his money at a raffle.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Law is profitable,” she said.

“Come on, Audrey. You know what I mean.”

”You won’t . . .”

“Repeat it? I won’t use it against him. I wouldn’t hurt you even if you are in love with the wrong guy.”

“Who’s the right guy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Kiss me, Dave?”

I leaned over and her warm mouth opened a little under mine. I could taste her breath. She sighed as I straightened up.

“Gee, it’s nice to be kissed,” she said. “It’s been so long. You kiss nice, Dave.”

“Tell me about Jim, Audrey.”

She looked away from me. Then she settled herself in the couch. She poured a little from the bottle into her drink. She smiled. Then it went. She couldn’t relate it in a joking way. That was clear.

“It’s not too complicated,” she said. “Jim has dozens of ties with the crime syndicate out here on the coast. He started out as just a lawyer. But he found out soon enough that a beginner couldn’t make out in law. At least he couldn’t make out the way Jim wanted to make out. So he took on a couple of shady characters as clients. He defended them. He saved one from the gas chamber and got the other one acquitted. He got money for that. And a rep, too. They started coming to him. One thing led to another.”

“Did you know about it?” I said.

“Not at first,” she said, “but he couldn’t keep it a secret. Those men kept coming to the house. You can’t keep them away. When I found out, I almost left him. But I can’t, you know that. I tried to talk him out of doing it. You can imagine what good it did.”

“Did Dennis ever threaten to expose him?”

She didn’t answer.

“Audrey, did he?”

“Well . . .”

“He did, didn’t he?”

“He . . . Dennis was always a hothead. He’d threatened lots of things.”

“And you wonder why Jim had him killed,” I said.

“David, I don’t want you to say it anymore.”

“Listen,” I said, “do you know what Steig is?”

No answer.

“Audrey, he used to be a Chicago gunman. A paid killer!”

I thought she’d gone into a coma the way she stared at me.

“Jones told me that,” I said. “He showed me the card on Steig, no He’s suspected of murdering about a
dozen
men. That’s your husband’s chauffeur, Audrey.”

“Is that true, Dave? You’re not lying?”

“I swear to God it’s the truth, Audrey.”

Her head slumped forward and her eyes closed. “God help him,” she whispered. “God help my poor Jim.”

I stared at her. At a woman who could love him still.

“Audrey, how can you . . .”

“Don’t. Don’t, Dave. I love him. That’s it. I don’t question your love even if I question the girl you love.”

“I’m not sure I love her,” I said.

She looked at me bleakly.

“I hope you don’t,” she said, “I hope at least somebody gets out of this in one piece.”

I put my arm around her but she didn’t respond in any way. She stared at her lap. She put the drink on the table.

“I guess you’d better go,” she said.

I took my arm back and looked at her. Poor Audrey. Not a sodden alcoholic. A girl, confused and betrayed in her love. Lost in a morass of frustrations and unanswered yearnings. One thing I know and will always know. When love starts turning itself in, the results are horrible to see.

“I wish there was something for you to hold on to,” I said. “I wish I could be that something.”

She smiled momentarily and patted my hand. Then she got up.

“Thanks,” she said.

I followed her across the thick rug, feeling a dragging sense of inevitability in me. That Audrey would live and die here in this house. In her terrible despair as long as Jim lived. And if he died, maybe even then.

Someone was bleeding.

Later I went home and sat around my room. I tried to work on the novel but it was impossible. I kept writing the same sentence over and over again. I read the paper and saw that nothing had developed on the case. Nothing that the papers had anyway. No fingerprints on the second icepick either.

Finally I threw down the paper and went to call up Peggy. I didn’t get an answer. I drove over to her place. She wasn’t home. I got I disgusted and went out to have supper. I ate at the Broken Drum, a little place on Wilshire whose motto is—You Can’t Beat It. The pun was bad but the food is good.

I went back to my room and tried to write. I couldn’t. I kept thinking about Peggy being with Jim. It disgusted me. Yet I think I almost felt glad. It gave me an excuse for being disgusted with her In spite of everything I felt. I had a desire to get away. I was on a fence and it seemed as if Peggy was pushing me over the other way.

I tried to read. I couldn’t do that either. I listened to the radio That wasn’t any good either, so I turned it off and went to the movies.

“Hi!” she said brightly, standing by the screen window. I jumped up and unlocked the door. She came in and we embraced. I’m like Audrey, I thought. I can talk too, but when it comes down to it, I can’t do anything but love her when she’s near.

“Did I wake you up, Davie?”

“Nope.”

“What are you going to do?”

I was going to tell her that I
had
to work on my book. But I knew if I did she’d go away and I didn’t want her to go away. She looked so fresh and clean. Come to think of it, the only time I could deliberate about leaving her was when we were apart. When she was close to me, I didn’t have a chance.

“Nothing in particular,” I said.

“Wanna take a hike?” she said.

“I . . . guess so.”

Her face fell.

“Wouldn’t you?” she said.

“Sure, babe.”

“If you don’t want to, tell me, Davie.”

“Baby, I’m a little sleepy, that’s all. Go make us some breakfast while I take a shower.”

She smiled and rubbed her warm cheek against mine

“Davie,” she whispered happily. And even though the words in my mind were
Here we go again,
I didn’t care.

“Shall we go to Griffith Park?” I said, dressing after my shower.

“Ooh, yes!”

I smiled to myself. Just a big kid, really. Give her the love she needed and the world was her oyster.

“Shall I make sandwiches?” she asked.

“Sure. I’ll go get the stuff.”

“Okay. After you eat. Breakfast is almost ready.”

While we ate she looked up.

“Jim says I might not even have to go through a trial,” she said excitedly. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

I smiled and patted her hand. “That is,” I said. “I’m glad, Peggy.”

“I’m so happy,” she said. “I’ve dreaded it. I couldn’t sleep at night thinking about it.”

I nodded. “That’s wonderful, Peggy,” I said.

It was a beautiful day as the car buzzed along Sunset. A day to make a guy forget there is violence in the world. To make a guy forget that double murder had been a part of his life. To make him forget everything except that he was going on a picnic with his girl. It’s amazing how little can change a fellow’s attitude. Sun in the sky, a car driving along at a fast clip, breeze on you, the car radio playing
Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes
and her hand holding my arm.

I glanced over at her. She had a bright red ribbon in her hair, a tight red sweater, a pair of jeans, loafers. I noticed she kept pulling the sweater as loose as she could but it insisted on clinging to her curves.

“You look good enough to eat,” I said.

She leaned over and pressed her forehead against my arm. She sighed happily. “I’m so lucky,” she said.

I kissed her hair. And felt the first sense of peace in weeks. It was almost as if we were escaping. To a sunlit day, away from every dismaying thing.

“It’s been a long time,” she said and her hands tightened on my arm.

We drove about fifty minutes to reach the park. We talked about inconsequential subjects mostly. I didn’t tell her I’d been to see her father. I wasn’t sure how she’d take it and I didn’t want to spoil anything.

The park was as Peggy said, just like going out into the hills. Wild overgrown hills, not at all like the Prospect Park in my home town, Brooklyn.

Griffith Park was a park. In size alone it made Prospect Park look like a corner lot. And for sheer beauty and clean wilderness it far surpassed the Brooklyn spot. Deer run loose in Griffith Park. Only teen-age gangs run loose in Prospect.

When we got out of the car and locked it up and got the two brown paper bags with our lunch, I looked around. Far up a winding path, on the crest of a hill stood a white-domed building, it looked like a fortress The country around it looked like Scottish wilds. It was fascinating.

We left the path after a little while and plunged into the thick brush. Overhead the sun grew very hot. The blunt waves of heat seemed to cling to the ground as we climbed. Peggy pulled up the sleeves of her sweater and kept plucking at the wool to loosen it from her flesh. The sun on my head didn’t help toward cool detachment. Great drops of sweat rolled over my temples and cheeks. I watched her ahead of me as she climbed. If I could touch her, I thought.

And thought something else.

Was it possible that, unconsciously, Peggy dressed and behaved in a manner calculated to draw desire out of the men she was with? Ostensibly she feared men and their aggression. Why, then, did the very thing she claimed to fear always happen to her? That boy, her husband, Albert, and all the men she had driven half-mad with desire for her. Include me. What was it about her? Was that shy withdrawal part of her calculation? Was it all intended to gather to herself what she claimed to fear but actually desired intensely? They talk about accident-prone men. Well maybe there are rape-prone women, too.

I shook my head under the hot sun and felt dizzy. Partly with heat. Mostly with the confusion that a human mind can evoke when it begins to exist on different levels.

She stopped and sat down in the shade of a tree. I plopped down beside her.

“Phew, it’s hot,” she said.

“Am I out of shape,” I said.

“We both are,” she answered.

“Typing doesn’t give me much muscle,” I said.

“Neither does loafing.”

“Your brother said you were getting a job. Are you?”

“My brother?”

Give me a scissors and I’ll snip off my tongue.

She was looking at me intently.

“When did you see my brother?” she asked.

At first I hesitated. Then I told her. Her face hovered undecided between acceptance and anger.

“Why did you have to go
there?”
she asked.

“I wanted to meet your father,” I told her. “I wanted to find out what sort of man had raised you.”

She looked at me a little sullenly. I noticed the halo of sunshine around her golden hair, the way the breeze flicked the delicate hairs against her forehead.

“Well, did you find out?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t have asked me to take you, could you?”

“When did you ever offer to? I’ve asked you four or five times if I could go with you.”

“I don’t like to be investigated, Davie.”

“I wasn’t investigating.”