Carla (13 page)

“A one-woman man?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he said. “I'm happy for both of you, and I'm glad that you wanted to tell me. And I'll be right here if you ever need me.”

“I know,” she said. “I know you will, Charles.”

Downstairs, she shut off the still-spinning phonograph and wandered from room to room, her mind racing in circles. She felt as though she had crossed a bridge over a wide and deep chasm, and the air was indescribably fresher on the present side of the bridge. Talking to Charles had helped, besides being essential in its own right. She had needed to set things straight, to tell him just how the situation stood. But their conversation had meant more than that. It meant a clean break with his blessings. It strengthened her own convictions that what she was doing was right.

Charles was good, so good. She guessed that some day he might find the right woman for him, a woman important enough to him to conquer his bachelor spirit and tame him. It would take quite a woman.

She remembered his words of the day before. Was he right? Did living in the shadow of the atom bomb, in so insecure a world, mean that men and women should live only for the moment? She didn't think so.

It seemed to her that the insecurity of everything made it so much more necessary for a person to work for security in his or her personal life. Love
was
important, and love could make the difference, the important and vital difference.

I
am in love,
she thought.

She had to see Danny, had to find him at once. He would be upset now over what he had done, and she had to find him and talk to him and make plans with him.

But where did he live? She thumbed through the phonebook but found no listing for him. Perhaps he was at the station; perhaps he had re-opened it for the day. She had to find him, and that was the first place to look.

She picked up her purse and dashed out the door and down the driveway to her car. Driving along, it took a great deal of effort on her part to keep from exceeding the speed limit.

The room felt like a prison cell. The closest Danny had ever been to prison was a night in the guardhouse after an exceptionally successful weekend in New York when he was stationed at Fort Dix. He could barely remember being tossed in the jug, but he could never forget the sensation of waking up the next morning, opening his eyes and staring at a barred window.

He had the same sensation now, sitting on the edge of his cot and staring out his window. The window faced the side of another building, with the effect that daylight never penetrated his room to any appreciable degree. Midnight and noon were identical to him. His window lacked bars, but otherwise there didn't seem to be much difference between the room and a prison cell.

And why not?
he asked himself savagely. He certainly belonged in prison. They ought to lock him up and chuck the key in the middle of Lake Erie, unless they decided he was out of his mind and threw him instead in a padded cell in the loony bin. How could he ever do a thing like that to a woman like Carla?

Was he a sex maniac, a pervert? Christ, he didn't think so. He wasn't so hard up that he had to force a woman to spread her legs for him. He wasn't hard up at all, not after the time he spent with Carla's maid just a day or two ago.

But he
had
forced her. He shut his eyes and winced at the memory of his knee sinking into her stomach and his hands hurting her. God, what was the matter with him?

It had to be more than sex. His mind combed over his past life, remembering the parade of women he had known. He remembered the first time, standing around nervously in a cathouse waiting-room while he was still in high school. He went there with his buddies, and when it was his turn he gave the frowzy redhead five dollars and undressed like an automaton.

At first nothing had happened.

“What's the matter, honey? This your first time?”

He nodded, ashamed.

“Relax,” she commanded. “Come here and let me help you a little …”

From that time on sex had been no problem. There was a parade of girls—girls in the back seat of a car, girls on their own couches while their parents slept upstairs, girls that he seduced and girls that he paid for.

He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it over his head, dropping it carelessly on the floor. The door and window of the room were closed and it was getting stuffy, but he didn't even feel like bothering to open door or window. He stretched out on the bed and set fire to a cigarette, tossing the burned-out match on the floor.

A car horn sounded in the distance, reminding him of the service station. It was closed now. He should open it for business again, but he just didn't feel like it.

To hell with the station! Why in the hell should he drive himself fifteen hours a day anyhow? To make more money that he wouldn't have time to spend?

Or should he be saving up to buy the station? He had a little pile saved already, but there didn't seem to be any point to it. What good did it do to own his own station? Would it make him happier? It wouldn't, no matter how successful he was.

But the station could be important. If he had something to work for, some person to love and take care of, his business would mean something to him. If he could come home at night and take her in his arms and tell her his dreams, then all the hours he worked would be well-spent.

Angrily he hurled the cigarette against the far wall. Well, there was no chance of getting her now, none at all. Maybe there never
was
any chance, but if there had been he had shot it all to hell. Carla wouldn't look at him now, unless it was on a police line-up with the light shining in his eyes.

And it was all his fault. What was wrong with him, anyway—falling in love with a broad who was out of his class? She had been telling the truth—he was somebody to roll in the hay with and nothing more. And he should have had the brains to realize that instead of falling over his own feet with a bushel of nonsense about love.

Carla didn't want him. Christ, she made that plain enough! If ever a woman wanted to get rid of a man, Carla was the woman and he was the man. She wouldn't even talk to him on the phone.

So like a first-class horse's ass he got his head filled with a lot of garbage about love and figured she was warm for his form. He bothered her and chased her until she got desperate and insulted him just to get rid of him. And then the insult got him mad enough to … to …

He couldn't even think about it. He lit another cigarette and threw it away after a few puffs. It tasted terrible. Probably everything would taste rotten, with the lousy taste he had in his mouth. His mouth tasted like an armpit, and he knew that all the toothpaste and mouthwash in the world wouldn't help.

The worst thing of all was that he couldn't get her out of his system. Dreaming about her was bad enough before, but now it was ridiculous. He didn't stand the chance of a hemophiliac in a nest of vampires, not after what he had done.

But he still loved her. He loved her more than ever, and he knew that he was not going to be able to stop loving her no matter how hard he tried.

Before he met Carla that afternoon, Danny's life had been pleasantly dull. He tackled his work every day with genuine vigor, and fifteen hours or more on the job left him tired enough to sleep with no trouble. The station made money, the company was happy, and his bank account grew in a jerky fashion. It hadn't been the life of Riley, but it was better than subsistence.

He wished now that he could return to that level of existence, with no worries and no woman-trouble. But he knew that things could never be exactly the same again. He remembered a saying he had picked up in high school, something his history teacher had quoted once. It seemed to sum up the situation nicely. How did it go again?

Into the same river you could not step twice, for other and still other waters are flowing.

Yes, that was it. He turned the phrase over in his mind, testing it. It was true. A person could never go back to something he had left. What was done was done, and there was no undoing it.

He could no more get Carla back than a girl could recover a lost maidenhead.

He stared through the window at the brick wall. There didn't seem to be any point to things, not any more. Time passed, and the more things changed the worse they grew. He wanted Carla but he knew he would never possess her.

Into the same river …

What was the point of it all? He would never get her out of his system. He could go on working forever and he would never be happy again, never be able to get over losing her.

Why go on?

He checked the door and window; both were shut tight. He picked up a pen and a sheet of paper, but decided there didn't seem to be a hell of a lot of sense in that. He capped the pen and put it down on the table.

He turned on the gas.

He kicked off his shoes and stretched out once again on the old army cot. His eyelids were heavy and he let them drop shot. Soon it would be all over.

He was very tired.

Chapter Thirteen

SHE FOUND THE
gas station closed. For a moment she was lost. How could she possibly find him? He wasn't listed in the phonebook and there was no home address listed on the door of the station.

She could always wait. Tomorrow he would be back at the station and she could seek him out then and tell him how she felt. It wasn't that necessary to get in touch with him today.

But it would be nice to see him today. He was upset over what he had done, and she wanted to tell him that it was all right, that he didn't have to worry about anything any more. But how could she find him?

Suddenly she remembered that Ronald had a City Directory at home, a book listing everyone living in the Buffalo metropolitan area. She hopped back behind the wheel of the MG and drove home quickly, impatient to get Danny's address and see him at once.

418 Sagerties. She found the address and snapped the book shut, and seconds later she was back in the car and driving east toward Danny's home. The territory was unfamiliar to her but she had a vague idea where Sagerties Avenue was and she found it
without
too much difficulty.

418 Sagerties was a white frame house with the paint peeling from the boards. Carla experienced a momentary sensation of distaste. The house was very much like the one she had lived in a few years ago, and those few years seemed like a dozen. She wondered if Danny would have the same run-down gas stove in the corner of his room, and whether the hallway of the house would have the same indescribable odor of poverty.

She parked the car and walked slowly to the doorway. The front door was open, and Carla stepped into the hallway. The smell hit her at once—an odor compounded of equal parts of cabbage and strong soap and human perspiration. It was a familiar smell.

“Hello?”

A faded, shrunken woman appeared from a doorway and scrutinized Carla carefully, obviously taking note of her fancy clothes.

“What do you want here?” she asked.

“I'm looking for Mr. Rand. Does he live here?”

“You mean Danny?”

Carla nodded.

“Yeah, he lives here,” the woman said. “Why?”

“I want to see him.”

“You got some kinda business with him?”

“Not exactly,” Carla said.

The woman considered her again thoughtfully. “If you're kin of his, I suppose you can go up to his room. He's usually working this time of day but you can wait there for him.”

Carla started to tell the woman that she and Danny weren't related but changed her mind. “That will be fine,” she said. “Do you have a key?”

“I got one, but you won't need it. Danny never locks the door. Says he ain't got anything worth stealing so he won't be bothered carrying a key around. Just go up three flights and turn to your left.”

The woman vanished into her room and Carla began climbing the staircase. Every few steps a board would creak under her feet, reminding her forcibly once again of the East Side flat she used to share with her mother. The stairs always creaked there too, and her mother could always tell when she came home late or sneaked out to meet someone.

She was breathing hard by the time she reached the top of the third flight of stairs. She paused, then turned to the left and studied the door in front of her. Should she go in?

She knocked, hoping he might be home. But there was no answer.

It was silly. He was probably out somewhere having a drink or two and she would be wasting her time waiting for him. She ought to go home. She turned and took a few steps down the staircase, but something stopped her and made her climb back to the top once again. Maybe she ought to go inside his room and wait for him. He might be back soon, and she really did want to see him today.

She put her hand on the doorknob.

Should she go in or not? She had to get home soon or Ronald would miss her, and the chances were pretty slim that Danny would be back in time. She hesitated.

She turned the doorknob at last and pushed open the door. The smell of gas hit her full in the face, almost knocking her to the floor. Why, he must have left the gas on when he went out!

And then she saw him lying flat on his back on the cot. After the initial shock she didn't stop to think any more. All of her actions were automatic and she moved quickly and easily.

She crossed the room and threw open the window all the way. Then her hand found the knob on the stove and shut off the gas so that no more could escape. Coughing, she picked up a newspaper and began fanning the gas out the window.

Then she turned her attention to the man on the bed.

He was unconscious. At first she thought he was dead, and her heart began beating wildly, but when she felt for his pulse and found it her spirits rose. She slapped gently at his face to wake him but he didn't wake up.

She realized then that Danny had managed to breathe in a large quantity of gas. He was alive, but he wasn't breathing and would die without help. She had to get him breathing in order to save his life. Grimly she rolled him over on his stomach and began applying artificial respiration. She learned the method in high school and hadn't used it yet, but after the first few strokes it came back to her. Her body fell into the gentle rhythm of artificial respiration, her hands pressing the used air from Danny's lungs and permitting them to fill again with fresh air.