Highsmith, Patricia (9 page)

He would wait fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour.

A preference for attacking her out of doors had taken root in his mind on the train, so all his ideas began from a simple physical approach to her. This street was almost dark enough, for instance, very dark there under the trees. He preferred to use his bare hands, or to hit her over the head with something. He did not realize how excited he was until he felt his body start now with his thoughts of jumping to right or left, as it might be, when he attacked her. Now and then it crossed his mind how happy Guy would be when it was done. Miriam had become an object, small and hard.

He heard a man’s voice, and a laugh, he was sure from the lighted upstairs room in 1235, then a girl’s smiling voice: “Stop that?—Please? Plee-ee-ease?” Maybe Miriam’s voice. Babyish and stringy, but somehow strong like a strong string, too.

The light blinked out and Bruno’s eyes stayed at the dark window. Then the porch light flashed on and two men and a girl—Miriam—came out. Bruno held his breath and set his feet on the ground. He could see the red in her hair. The bigger fellow was redheaded, too—maybe her brother. Bruno’s eyes caught a hundred details at once, the chunky compactness of her figure, the flat shoes, the easy way she swung around to look up at one of the men.

“Think we ought to call her, Dick?” she asked in that thin voice. “It’s kinda late.”

A corner of the shade in the front window lifted. “Honey? Don’t be out too long!”

“No, Mom.”

They were going to take the car at the curb.

Bruno faded toward the corner, looking for a taxi. Fat chance in this dead burg! He ran. He hadn’t run in months, and he felt fit as an athlete.

“Taxi!” He didn’t even see a taxi, then he did and dove for it.

He made the driver circle and come into Magnolia Street in the direction the Chevy had been pointed. The Chevy was gone. Darkness had closed in tight. Far away he saw a red taillight blinking under trees.

“Keep going!”

When the taillight stopped for a red and the taxi closed some of the distance, Bruno saw it was the Chevy and sank back with relief.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the driver.

“Keep going!“Then as the Chevy swung into a big avenue, “Turn right.” He sat up on the edge of his seat. Glancing at a curb, he saw “Crockett Boulevard” and smiled. He had heard of Crockett Boulevard in Metcalf, the widest longest street.

“Who’ve the people’s names you want to go to?” the driver asked. “Maybe I know ‘em.”

“Just a minute, just a minute,’ Bruno said, unconsciously assuming another personality, pretending to search through the papers he had dragged from his inside pocket, among them the paper about Miriam. He snickered suddenly, feeling very amused, very safe. Now he was pretending to be the dopey guy from out of town, who had even misplaced the address of where he wanted to go. He bent his head so the driver could not see him laughing, and reached automatically for his flask.

“Need a light?”

“Nope, nope, thank you.” He took a hot swallow. Then the Chevy backed into the avenue, and Bruno told the driver to keep going.

“Where?”

“Get going and shut up!” Bruno shouted, his voice falsetto with anxiety.

The driver shook his head and made a click with his tongue. Bruno fumed, but they had the Chevy in sight. Bruno thought they would never stop driving and that Crockett Boulevard must cross the whole state of Texas. Twice Bruno lost and found the Chevy. They passed roadstands and drive-in movies, then darkness put up a wall on either side. Bruno began to worry. He couldn’t tail them out of town or down a country road. Then a big arch of lights appeared over the road. WELCOME TO LAKE METCALF’S KINGDOM OF FUN, it said, and the Chevy drove under it and into a parking lot. There were all kinds of lights ahead in the woods and the jingle of merrygo-round music. An amusement park! Bruno was delighted.

“Four bucks,” said the driver sourly, and Bruno poked a five through the front window.

He hung back until Miriam and the two fellows and a new girl they had picked up had gone through the turnstile, then he followed them. He stretched his eyes wide for a good look at Miriam under the lights. She was cute in a plump college-girl sort of way, but definitely second-rate, Bruno judged. The red socks with the red sandals infuriated him. How could Guy have married such a thing? Then his feet scraped and he stood still: she wasn’t pregnant! His eyes narrowed in intense perplexity. Why hadn’t he noticed from the first? But maybe it wouldn’t show yet. He bit his underlip hard. Considering how plump she was, her waist looked even flatter than it ought to. Maybe a sister of Miriam s. Or she had had an abortion or something. Or a miscarriage. Miss Carriage! How do you do? Swing it, sister! She had fat little hips under a tight gray skirt. He moved on as they did, following evenly, as if magnetized.

Had Guy lied about her being pregnant? But Guy wouldn’t lie. Bruno’s mind swam in contradictions. He stared at Miriam with his head cocked. Then something made a connection in his mind before he was aware of looking for it: if something had happened to the child, then all the more reason why he should erase her, because Guy wouldn’t be able to get his divorce. She could be walking around now if she had had an abortion, for instance.

She stood in front of a sideshow where a gypsy woman was dropping things into a big fishbowl. The other girl started laughing, leaning all over the redheaded fellow.

“Miriam!”

Bruno leapt off his feet.

“Oooh, yes!” Miriam went across to the frozen custard stand.

They all bought frozen custards. Bruno waited boredly, smiling, looking up at the ferris wheel’s arc of lights and the tiny people swinging in benches up there in the black sky. Far off through the trees, he saw lights twinkling on water. It was quite a park. He wanted to ride the ferris wheel. He felt wonderful. He was taking it easy, not getting excited. The merrygo-round played “Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde…” Grinning, he turned to Miriam’s red hair, and their eyes met, but hers moved on and he was sure she hadn’t noticed him, but he mustn’t do that again. A rush of anxiety made him snicker. Miriam didn’t look at all smart, he decided, which amused him, too. He could see why Guy would loathe her. He loathed her, too, with all his guts! Maybe she was lying to Guy about having a baby. And Guy was so honest himself, he believed her. Bitch!

When they moved on with their frozen custards, he released the swallowtailed bird he had been fingering in the balloon seller’s box, then wheeled around and bought one, a bright yellow one. It made him feel like a kid again, whipping the stick around, listening to the tail’s squee-wee-wee A little boy walking by with his parents stretched his hand toward it, and Bruno had an impulse to give it to him, but he didn’t.

Miriam and her friends entered a big lighted section where the bottom of the ferris wheel was and a lot of concessions and sideshows. The roller coaster made a tat-tat-tat-tat-tat like a machine gun over their heads. There was a clang and a roar as someone sent the red arrow all the way to the top with a sledge hammer. He wouldn’t mind killing Miriam with a sledge hammer, he thought. He examined Miriam and each of the three to see if any seemed aware of him, but he was sure they weren’t. If he didn’t do it tonight, he mustn’t let any of them notice him. Yet somehow he was sure he would do it tonight. Something would happen that he could. This was his night. The cooler night air bathed him, like some liquid that he frolicked in. He waved the bird in wide circles. He liked Texas, Guy’s state! Everybody looked happy and full of energy. He let Miriam’s group blend into a crowd while he took a gulp from his flask. Then he loped after them.

They were looking at the ferris wheel, and he hoped they would decide to ride it. They really did things big in Texas, Bruno thought, looking up admiringly at the wheel. He had never seen a ferris wheel big as this. It had a five-pointed star in blue lights inside it.

“Ralph, how ‘bout it?” Miriam squealed, poking the last of the frozen custard cone into her mouth with her hand against her face.

“Aw, ‘s ain’t no fun. H’bout the merrygo-round?”

And they all went. The merrygo-round was like a lighted city in the dark woods, a forest of nickel-plated poles crammed with zebras, horses, giraffes, bulls, and camels all plunging down or upward, some with necks arched out over the platform, frozen in leaps and gallops as if they waited desperately for riders. Bruno stood still, unable to take his dazzled eyes from it even to watch Miriam, tingling to the music that promised movement at any instant. He felt he was about to experience again some ancient, delicious childhood moment that the steam calliope’s sour hollowness, the stitching hurdy-gurdy accompaniment, and the drum-and-cymbal crash brought almost to the margin of his grasp.

People were choosing mounts. And Miriam and her friends were eating again, Miriam diving into a popcorn bag Dick held for her. The pigs! Bruno was hungry, too. He bought a frankfurter, and when he looked again, they were boarding the merrygo-round. He scrambled for coins and ran. He got the horse he had wanted, a royal blue one with an upreared head and an open mouth, and as luck would have it, Miriam and her friends kept weaving back through the poles toward him, and Miriam and Dick took the giraffe and the horse right in front of him. Luck was with him tonight! Tonight he should be gambling!

Just like the strain—te-te-dum—Of a haunting refrain—te-te-dum—She’ll start upon—BOOM! a marathon—BOOM!

Bruno loved the song and so did his mother. The music made him suck in his belly and sit his horse like a ramrod. He swung his feet gaily in the stirrups. Something swatted him in the back of the head, he turned belligerently, but it was only some fellows roughhousing with one another.

They started off slowly and militantly to “The Washington Post March.” Up, up, up he went and down, down, down went Miriam on her giraffe. The world beyond the merrygo-round vanished in a light-streaked blur. Bruno held the reins in one hand as he had been taught to do in his polo lessons, and ate the frankfurter with the other.

“Yeeee-hooo!” yelled the redheaded fellow.

“Yeeee-hooo!” Bruno yelled back. “I’m a Texan!”

“Katie?” Miriam leaned forward on the giraffe’s neck, and her gray skirt got round and tight. “See that fellow over there in the check shirt?”

Bruno looked. He saw the fellow in the checked shirt. He looked a little like Guy, Bruno thought, and thinking of this, he missed what Miriam said about him. Under the bright lights, he saw that Miriam was covered with freckles. She looked increasingly loathesome, so he began not to want to put his hands on her soft sticky-warm flesh. Well, he still had the knife. A clean instrument.

“A clean instrument!” Bruno shouted jubilantly, for no one could possibly hear him. His was the outside horse, and next to him was a boxed double seat thing made out of swans, which was empty. He spat into it. He flung away the rest of the frankfurter and wiped the mustard off his fingers on the horse’s mane.

“Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde, while the band—played—aaaaww!“Miriam’s date sang out with vehemence.

They all joined in and Bruno with them. The whole merrygo-round was singing. If they only had drinks! Everybody should be having a drink!

“His brain was so loaded, it nearly exploded,” sang Bruno at the cracking top of his lungs,“the poor girl would shake with alaaarm!”

“Hi, Casey!” Miriam cooed to Dick, opening her mouth to catch the popcorn he was trying to throw into it.

“Yak-yak!” Bruno shouted.

Miriam looked ugly and stupid with her mouth open, as if she were being strangled and had turned pink and bloated. He could not bear to look at her, and still grinning, turned his eyes away. The merrygo-round was slowing. He hoped they would stay for another ride, but they got off, linked arms, and began to walk toward the twinkling lights on the water.

Bruno paused under the trees for another little nip from the nearly empty flask.

They were taking a rowboat. The prospect of a cool row was delightful to Bruno. He engaged a boat, too. The lake looked big and black, except for the lightless twinkles, full of drifting boats with couples necking in them. Bruno got close enough to Miriam’s boat to see that the redheaded fellow was doing the rowing, and that Miriam and Dick were squeezing each other and giggling in the back seat. Bruno bent for three deep strokes that carried him past their boat, then let his oars trail.

“Want to go to the island or loaf around?” the redheaded fellow asked.

Petulantly, Bruno slumped sideways on the seat, waiting for them to make up their minds. In the nooks along the shore, as if from little dark rooms, he heard murmurs, soft radios, laughter. He tipped his flask and drained it. What would happen if he shouted “Guy!”? What would Guy think if he could see him now? Maybe Guy and Miriam had been out on dates on this lake, maybe in the same rowboat he sat in now. His hands and the lower part of his legs tingled cozily with the liquor. If he had Miriam here in the boat with him, he would hold her head under the water with pleasure. Here in the dark. Pitch dark and no moon. The water made quick licking sounds against his boat. Bruno writhed in sudden impatience. There was the sucking sound of a kiss from Miriam’s boat, and Bruno gave it back to them with a pleasurable groan thrown in. Smack, smack! They must have heard him, because there was a burst of laughter.

He waited until they had paddled past, then followed leisurely. A black mass drew closer, pricked here and there with the spark of a match. The island. It looked like a neckers’ paradise. Maybe Miriam would be at it again tonight, Bruno thought, giggling.

When Miriam’s boat landed, he rowed a few yards to one side and climbed ashore, and set his boat’s nose up on a little log so it would be easy to recognize from the others. The sense of purpose filled him once more, stronger and more imminent than on the train. In Metcalf hardly two hours, and here he was on an island with her! He pressed the knife against him through his trousers. If he could just get her alone and clap his hand over her mouth—or would she be able to bite? He squirmed with disgust at the thought of her wet mouth on his hand.