Lights Out by Peter Abrahams Page B

seemed to move, to drift away, taking them on a journey, the way he and Jack had once sailed the Spanish Main.
    After, they lay in twisted sheets, her head on his chest.
    “I’ve died and gone to heaven,” she said.
    He stroked her hair, damp and grainy with sand. “No one’s going to die.”
    “The pig died,” Mandy said. “Just to impress a big shot.”
    There was a silence.
    “What did it taste like?” she asked.
    “Pork chops à la cannabis.”
    “Are you stoned?”
    “Yes and no. Mostly no.”
    “Me too.”
    A breeze rose again, cooling them. They abandoned their bodies to it; this was luxury.
    Then Eddie thought: Evelyn will be flying back to Florida soon; when she’s gone, Mandy moves down to cottage six. Questions began forming in his mind. Why was she with someone like Packer? How did they meet? Did he pay her? He realized he didn’t even know her last name. Eddie shuffled the questions, searching for a good way to begin. Finally, he said: “Where did you meet Brad?”
    No answer.
    “Mandy?”
    She was asleep.
    Eddie closed his eyes. There would be time for questions later.
    Something thudded through his dream, heavy and rhythmic. The dream began reshaping itself to incorporate thesound. Then the screen door opened with a snick and slapped shut, snick slap, and Eddie awoke, too late.
    Packer said: “You up, babe? We’re gonna have to be quick.”
    There wasn’t time for jumping under the bed, or into a suit of armor, or onto a greenhouse roof, or any of the other places they think of in funny movies. There was only time for Eddie to raise his head, time for Mandy to make a sleepy complaint into his shoulder. Then Packer, in singlet and jogging shorts, was standing in the middle of the room with his mouth open. Packer didn’t say anything. He backed away, to the door, out.
    “Oh, God,” Mandy said, sitting up, covering her breasts although there was no one to see but him. “With those people here. I can’t believe—”
    The door burst open. Packer had found his voice, a yelling one. “You fuckin’ little hoor.” He came toward the bed, hands squared into fists, shaking. “You fuckin’ little hoor.”
    Mandy sat there, covering her breasts.
    “Don’t say that,” Eddie said, getting up.
    Packer ran a furtive glance down Eddie’s body, almost as though he couldn’t help himself, then said: “You don’t tell me anything, boy.” He took a swing at Eddie, powerful, but long and slow. Eddie had been in a few fistfights: where he came from that was part of growing up. He leaned back. Packer’s knuckles grazed his shoulder.
    “Don’t do that again,” Eddie said.
    “Who’s going to stop me?” said Packer, getting ready to throw another one. But the way Eddie had moved made him pause. His eyes darted around the room, perhaps searching for a weapon. There was nothing obvious. That left his yelling voice.
    “You’re dead.” Packer stormed out, banging the screen door shut behind him.
    Mandy was up, tugging a T-shirt over her head. “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said.
    “Why?”
    “Why? He’s coming back with his gun, that’s why.”
    “Over something like this?”
    “What else?” She was looking at him in a way he didn’t like, as though seeing him from a new angle.
    “What about you?” he asked.
    Mandy didn’t answer. She went out the door; Eddie followed. Jack came hurrying out of the other cabin, zipping up his shorts. He saw them, glanced down the beach where Packer was running as fast as he could, ungainly, almost stumbling, toward the cottages; and understood at once.
    Jack strode up to Eddie. Jack was looking at him in a new way too.
    “Didn’t I tell you?” he said. He said it again, louder. Then he hit Eddie across the face with the back of his hand. Eddie fell, partly because of the force of the blow, partly because it was Jack.
    His brother stood over him. “You’re a fuckup, you know that? You couldn’t even cut your goddamn