enough light in the house so I could avoid the furniture. I took her in and put her down on the bed. She’d laced her thin fingers together at the nape of my neck and she wouldn’t let go of me.
“Lie down, old Andy, and hold me tight.”
It is an odd kind of irritation and embarrassment, like getting your foot stuck in a wastebasket. She had a wiry strength in those thin arms. She meeched onto me, and was nibbling wet little kisses along my jaw line. I reached back and got her hands untangled and pushed them back toward her and she swung a leg over my arm. As I was getting that unhooked, she latched onto my head again. It was like walking into too many cobwebs in the woods. She was breathing like a little furnace, and smelling like old Kentucky mash. I finally got all of me loose at once and went back like a guard pulling out of the line when the ball is snapped.
“All right for you,” she said. “All right for you!”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Don’t you dare go now. You come right here.”
As I went through the house I heard her yelling at me. I stopped and went back to the terrace and picked up the desk keys and went on out to the car and drove away from there, breathing a little hard myself, but not from any unrequited desire. More like the guy who, with a hop, skip, and jump, slams the cage door a half-step ahead of the panther. It was about seven-thirty. As I drove I tried to make excuses for her. Liquor plus loss plus emotional turmoil equals … That didn’t work, and I couldn’t even figure myself as virtuous, because I hadn’t denied myself anything I wanted. And I knew that if Andrew Hale McClintock had succumbed, it would be the kind of memory I couldn’t scrub off my soul with a wire brush.
As I drove through town I started thinking about the envelope, and about my personal involvement, and the hard little eyes of George and the Chief, and about how Mary Eleanor had led me to believe she and John got along fine, and Steve refuting that little misdirection. No, I wasn’t going to search his desk, but I made myself a fat excuse to go to the office. Some details about Key Estates to check. And who had a better right to be in the office? That ambitious intelligent young McClintock guy, of course. I parked and whistled cheerfully as I crossed the sidewalk to the door. I unlocked it and went in, and gave John’s desk a sidelong look as I went to my own. The lamp on my desk left John’s desk in semidarkness. I wondered if, perhaps, there was a completion schedule for Key Estates in John’s desk. If I was going to run the job, I would have to know about that. Of course. And so I went over and selected a desk key out of the batch of keys she’d tossed at me.
The key went into the shallow middle drawer of his desk. Unlocking that would unlock both tiers of side drawers. The key went in easily, but it turned too freely—turned with a little grating sound of broken parts. I turned on his desk light and examined the lock. The wood was gouged where it had been pried, and the latch had snapped off. It took me ten minutes to go through the desk and find there was no schedule on Key Estates—and no brown envelope. There was nothing personal in the desk—just forms and drawings, and magazines.
I closed his desk up, turned off the light and went back to my own desk. I sat on the corner of my desk, rubbing my chin, trying to be logical. My desk lamp was canted just enough so that it gleamed faintly against the big front expanse of glass. I saw a tallish man standing there, looking in. It gave me a jolt. And a most odd impression. An impression that is hard to describe. It relates back to something I hadn’t remembered in years.
I was one of the scrubs and they had us scrimmaging against the varsity offensive team. I was a linebacker. Their fullback kept barreling in on fast-breaking plays. I was getting intensely weary of the whole thing. He went all out, every time, and when he ran over me, I’d pick
“Lie down, old Andy, and hold me tight.”
It is an odd kind of irritation and embarrassment, like getting your foot stuck in a wastebasket. She had a wiry strength in those thin arms. She meeched onto me, and was nibbling wet little kisses along my jaw line. I reached back and got her hands untangled and pushed them back toward her and she swung a leg over my arm. As I was getting that unhooked, she latched onto my head again. It was like walking into too many cobwebs in the woods. She was breathing like a little furnace, and smelling like old Kentucky mash. I finally got all of me loose at once and went back like a guard pulling out of the line when the ball is snapped.
“All right for you,” she said. “All right for you!”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Don’t you dare go now. You come right here.”
As I went through the house I heard her yelling at me. I stopped and went back to the terrace and picked up the desk keys and went on out to the car and drove away from there, breathing a little hard myself, but not from any unrequited desire. More like the guy who, with a hop, skip, and jump, slams the cage door a half-step ahead of the panther. It was about seven-thirty. As I drove I tried to make excuses for her. Liquor plus loss plus emotional turmoil equals … That didn’t work, and I couldn’t even figure myself as virtuous, because I hadn’t denied myself anything I wanted. And I knew that if Andrew Hale McClintock had succumbed, it would be the kind of memory I couldn’t scrub off my soul with a wire brush.
As I drove through town I started thinking about the envelope, and about my personal involvement, and the hard little eyes of George and the Chief, and about how Mary Eleanor had led me to believe she and John got along fine, and Steve refuting that little misdirection. No, I wasn’t going to search his desk, but I made myself a fat excuse to go to the office. Some details about Key Estates to check. And who had a better right to be in the office? That ambitious intelligent young McClintock guy, of course. I parked and whistled cheerfully as I crossed the sidewalk to the door. I unlocked it and went in, and gave John’s desk a sidelong look as I went to my own. The lamp on my desk left John’s desk in semidarkness. I wondered if, perhaps, there was a completion schedule for Key Estates in John’s desk. If I was going to run the job, I would have to know about that. Of course. And so I went over and selected a desk key out of the batch of keys she’d tossed at me.
The key went into the shallow middle drawer of his desk. Unlocking that would unlock both tiers of side drawers. The key went in easily, but it turned too freely—turned with a little grating sound of broken parts. I turned on his desk light and examined the lock. The wood was gouged where it had been pried, and the latch had snapped off. It took me ten minutes to go through the desk and find there was no schedule on Key Estates—and no brown envelope. There was nothing personal in the desk—just forms and drawings, and magazines.
I closed his desk up, turned off the light and went back to my own desk. I sat on the corner of my desk, rubbing my chin, trying to be logical. My desk lamp was canted just enough so that it gleamed faintly against the big front expanse of glass. I saw a tallish man standing there, looking in. It gave me a jolt. And a most odd impression. An impression that is hard to describe. It relates back to something I hadn’t remembered in years.
I was one of the scrubs and they had us scrimmaging against the varsity offensive team. I was a linebacker. Their fullback kept barreling in on fast-breaking plays. I was getting intensely weary of the whole thing. He went all out, every time, and when he ran over me, I’d pick
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