The House of Daniel (3 page)

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Must've been about nine o'clock when I cinched my belt a notch tighter. Then I put the knuckleduster in one front pocket of my trousers and the blackjack in the other. I walked around in there a bit to make sure the pants stayed up all right. They were fine, so I slipped out of my room, out of my roominghouse, and over toward the one where Mitch Carstairs stayed.

Good thing it wasn't far. I didn't know my way around Ponca City real well, and it was dark as the inside of a zombie's brain out there. I wore a cross around my neck to fight off the vampires, but having faith helps, too. I wasn't feeling what you'd call faithful just then, not with the job I had ahead of me.

I might've walked right past the place if a car hadn't picked that second to turn. The headlight beams speared out and lit up the brass numbers—527—on the building. It was yellow brick, two stories high: bigger than the roominghouse where I was.

When I tried the front door, it opened. I figured it would. People still come and go at that hour. More brass numbers over the doorways showed which room was which. I slipped down the hall, quiet as I could, till I got to 13.

Light leaked out under the bottom of the door. That made me let out a sigh of relief—he was home. What would I have done if he'd decided to spend the night playing bridge with his buddies? Wait in the bushes till he came back? I'd had notions I liked better. It was dark out there, and I wasn't sure I'd recognize him at high noon. I mean, I knew what Charlie Carstairs looked like, but I didn't have any promise Mitch looked the same way. Big Stu should've given me a picture. I should've thought to ask for one back in Enid.

But I didn't have to worry about any of that now. I slipped my right hand into the brass knucks. I made a fist in my pocket while I knocked on the door with my left hand.

Somebody moved in the room. I could hear it over my pounding heart—no, I wasn't used to the rough stuff. This was worse than facing a wild fireballer with the bases loaded and the team down two in the late innings.

The door opened, it seemed like in slow motion. Yeah, I was that tensed up. Only I couldn't haul off and coldcock the first thing I saw on the other side. If something had got fouled up some kind of way, if it wasn't Charlie Carstairs's brother, I'd feel bad about whaling the snot out of the wrong guy. Big Stu probably wouldn't pay me the ninety he still owed me, either. Odds were he'd take the first ten out of my hide.

Then the door got all the way open. I started to ask,
You Mitch Carstairs?
As soon as the guy in the room went
Yeah
or
Uh-huh
or
Who wants to know?
, I'd let him have it.

Only I couldn't. Even the question clogged in my throat. Because it wasn't a guy in the room. It was a girl.

She was somewhere near my age. Dark blond hair in a permanent wave, green eyes, pert nose. Prettier than the secretary-type gal back at my roominghouse. Not actress pretty, I guess, but not far from it. “Yes?” she said to me, her voice deep for a girl's.

God damn Big Stu to hell and gone! He didn't say anything about a girl. She complicated everything—in spades, she did. But I needed that money the way I needed air to breathe. So instead of what I'd meant to ask, I came out with, “Where's Mitch Carstairs?”

Those green eyes got a little wider. “I'm Mich Carstairs. I don't think I know you.”

I felt like she'd sucker-punched me, not the other way around. And I realized I hadn't even known what I was doing yet when I swore at Big Stu in my head before. He'd had a magic done, looking for Charlie Carstairs's kid brother, and the wizard said
Michelle
and he heard
Mitchell
. Or maybe the wizard screwed it up. I didn't know, and I still don't.

But I did know that, no matter how bad I needed those ninety clams, I didn't need 'em bad enough to beat up a dame to get 'em. I'm no vampire—I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't do what Big Stu wanted done, not if my life depended on it. That I might be laying my life on the line by
not
doing it … I didn't think about that, not then. Fool that I was.

Real fast, I said, “No, Miss, you don't know me. But you're Charlie Carstairs's sister, aren't you? Charlie Carstairs over in Enid?”

“That's right.” She gave kind of an automatic nod. “Has something happened to—?” She broke off.

“He's fine—now. So are you—now. If you stick around Ponca City for even another day, though, you won't be.” Once Big Stu found out I'd messed up, he'd send some guys who didn't worry about what they hit as long as they got paid. Still fast, I went on, “Get out of town. Get out of state. Go to California.” Yes, I had Pa in my head. “Just go, quick as you can. Git!” I might've been shooing a stray dog.

Her eyes got wide again, wider this time. “I can't do that!”

“Sister, you can't do anything else, not if you want to stay in one piece. I know what I'm talking about.” I pulled out my right hand with the knuckleduster still on it. If I'd tried to take the damn thing off, it would've looked like I was playing pocket pool. She saw what it was, of course, but she didn't raise any fuss. She must've seen I wasn't about to use it. After I stuck it back in my pocket, I said, “Yeah, I know, all right. Some pieces of work, you just can't do.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Her mouth twisted. You want to know how pretty she was? She was still pretty when it did, that's how pretty. For all I know, she might've got even prettier. When her face cleared, she nodded once more, this time to herself and not to me. “All right. I'll be gone tomorrow. I don't know where. I don't know what I'll do. I haven't got much money, but—”

“Neither do I,” I stuck in. “Why d'you reckon I came up here?”

“Thank you,” she said again, even softer this time. Then she closed the door on me: not slammed it, but closed it. I didn't mind. We'd already said everything we had to say to each other, hadn't we?

I got the hell out of there. I hoped she got the hell out of there, got the hell out of Oklahoma, come morning. Well, I'd done everything I knew how to do. If it wasn't what Big Stu wanted … I was almost to the roominghouse front door when I really and truly realized I'd just crossed the guy who ran a lot more of my home town than the mayor ever did.

The door opened. A man—I guessed he was one of the lodgers—came in. He was skinny and sad-looking, with worn clothes and gray hair getting thin at the front. He could've been anybody. He paid me no special mind—I could've been anybody, too. Some other lodger's friend, or maybe a new lodger he hadn't met yet.

Only I wasn't anybody, not any more, or not just anybody. I was somebody dumb enough to get Big Stu pissed off at him. In Enid, you couldn't get much dumber than that. Big Stu'd wanted to hurt Charlie Carstairs through his kid brother, only she turned out to be Charlie's sister. He couldn't hurt me through anybody else. Everyone I might've cared about was either dead or gone. No, he'd have to pay me back in person.

All of a sudden, what I'd told Mich Carstairs looked like pretty good advice for me to take, too. The farther away from Big Stu I got, the better off I'd be. If I had any smarts, I'd hitch a ride or hop a freight or jump on a carpet the way my old man did. If I had any smarts, I'd do it tonight. I wouldn't wait for sunup. The sooner, the better.

But I didn't have any smarts. What I had was a game tomorrow. I couldn't let the other Eagles down, not even on account of Big Stu. Hal Snodgrass, our backup outfielder, he was slower'n an armadillo after it meets a Model A.

I almost hoped a vampire would try to jump me while I walked back to my boarding house. Maybe I'd fight him off and work out some of what I was feeling. Or maybe he'd get me and turn me into something like him. Then I wouldn't care about anything past my next drink of blood—cow or sheep or coyote blood, or maybe I'd go after people, too, if I was bold.

No vampires, though. Nothing but the stars shining out of a clear, dark sky. The air was cool, close to crisp. Pretty soon it would get hot and sticky and stay that way for months, but that hadn't happened yet. The skeeters hadn't come out, either. Without so much on my mind, I might've enjoyed the walk.

My landlady hadn't locked the front door. I'd timed it all fine—about the only thing I'd done right since I got to Ponca City. I went to my room, laid myself down, and tried to sleep. Took a while, but I did it. I don't remember the dreams I had. I do remember they were the kind you'd want to forget.

 

(II)

We would play the Greasemen at half past two. We had to make sure we could get the game in before dark. They were already starting to play under the lights even back then. It was risky, though. You really have to tame salamanders or electrics before they get along with wooden stands. So I'd heard of night games, but I'd never seen one and I'd sure never played in one.

Not then, I hadn't. Been some changes made since.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The widow woman's breakfast was as grim and cheap as her supper. Still and all, you can fill your belly on bread. I'd done it often enough in Enid. The bad, bad times come when you haven't got enough bread or anything else to fill up your empty.

I went down to the room at the end of the hall and took a bath after the folks there who had regular jobs headed off to do 'em. Didn't have to hustle so much that way. Other people weren't pounding on the door and yelling for me to hurry up in the name of the Lord.

I was slicking down my hair and combing a part into it at the mirror on the chest of drawers in my room when I heard a commotion in the front entryway. I knew what that had to be, and it was. The rest of the Enid Eagles had made it to Ponca City.

They all whooped when I came out to say hello. Ace McGinty must've been running his mouth but good. “Hope you're not too tuckered out to play today!” he called to me.

“Ah, stick it,” I told him.

Which was the wrong thing to say, of course. “I thought that's what you were doing,” Mudfoot Williams said. He was our third baseman. His name was Zebulon, but he'd been Mudfoot since he was a kid. He hated shoes more'n anything, and went barefoot whenever he could.

Him and Lightning Bug Kelly (who always had a smoke going, even when he was catching) and Don Patterson, our top pitcher, threw their bags into the room with me. The other guys got their rooms. Nobody stayed in 'em long, though. We put on our baseball togs, grabbed our gloves and shillelaghs, and headed on over to Conoco Ball Park.

It's on the southwest edge of town, over by US 60. The diamond in Blaine Park is better kept up, but all of the Greasemen except a couple of ringers work in the oilfields, so they play on the company field. We got there a couple of hours before game time, but a few people were already in the stands. Not one whole hell of a lot to do in Ponca City. Well, Enid's the same way.

Rod Graver played short for us, and managed, too. He was about thirty then, not slick, but steady, which you need if you're gonna ride herd on a bunch of ballplayers. He'd got up to B ball in the pros. He might've gone further, but his brother hurt himself and he had to come back and take over the farm work.

Him and me, we threw a ball back and forth to loosen up. After a few minutes, he came over and asked, “You do what you needed to yesterday?” He talked low, but he knew I hadn't come to Ponca City early so I could dip my wick. That meant he talked to Big Stu. It meant Big Stu talked to him, too.

I've always made a lousy liar. I shrugged back at him. “You tend to your business and I'll tend to mine,” I answered, not sharp—I didn't want to quarrel before the game—but giving away as little as I could.

He got a double furrow, up and down, above his nose. His eyebrows pulled down and together. “Big Stu won't fancy that,” he said, his voice as flat as you wish infield dirt would be.

“Big Stu'll just have to lump it,” I said. “I'll pay back the down payment—he doesn't need to fret over that.” I hoped I'd get ten bucks from my share of the gate today. If I didn't, well, I'd come up with the rest some way or the other.

Not that that'd do me much good, not with Big Stu. I didn't do what he told me to, so I was dirt to him from then on out. Not dirt—manure. I knew it. So did Rod. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Jack—” he started, and stopped right there.

“It's done. I mean, it's not done. The hell with it. The hell with everything,” I said. “Let's play ball.”

He turned away.
Let's play ball
would do for that day, and maybe for the next one. It sure wouldn't do once I got back to Enid. Like the Mitch Carstairs who hadn't been there, I'd be an accident waiting to happen, and I wouldn't wait long. I hoped the Mich Carstairs who had been there was somewhere a long ways away by then. I wondered what I would've done if she'd been mud-fence ugly. Lucky—I guess lucky—I hadn't needed to worry about that. Anybody who tells you looks don't count in this old world, he's talking out his rear end.

The Greasemen got to the park right after we did and started warming up alongside us. Their home whites had
Greasemen
across the chest in script, and
CONOCO
underneath in smaller printed capitals so you could see who they worked for. They razzed us, and we razzed them right back. We were the two best teams in north central Oklahoma, and we both knew it.

People kept filing into the ballpark. Looked like we'd draw 1,500, maybe even 2,000. A quarter a pop, half a buck to sit right back of home, and that's a decent gate. Road team—us—would split forty percent of it. Some money for everybody, but they call it semipro ball 'cause you can't make a living on it.