Savage Night by Jim Thompson Page A

was now, if she hadn’t had a damned good idea before. She knew why I was in Peardale. She knew why I’d had her come into the city. And it was okay with her.
    “Little Bigger,” she said, her eyes shining at me. “Little Bigger. Why, my God, honey, I’ve been hearing about you ever—”
    “Okay,” I said, “so I’m famous. Now just wipe it out of your head, and leave it wiped out.”
    “Sure, honey. Carl.”
    “I don’t know how I’ll do it. We’ll have to work that out. Now, about the dough—”
    She was smart there. She might have said fifteen or twenty grand. And I might have said yes. And then I might have thought, I might have passed the word along: The dame’s hungry; maybe we’d better keep her quiet…
    “Aw, honey—” She made a little face. “Let’s not talk about it like I was doing it for—for that. We’ll be together, won’t we? Afterwards? And I know you’re not the kind to be stingy.”
    “It’ll be a long time afterwards,” I said. “I’ll have to stay there at least until summer. You can leave any time, of course, but I couldn’t get together with you before summer.”
    “I can wait. Where would we go, honey? I mean after—”
    “We’ll work it out. That’s no problem. You got money, there’s always some place to go. Hell, we could live here or anywhere after a couple of years, when things cool off enough.”
    “You won’t…You don’t think I’m awful, do you, Carl?”
    “How do I know? I haven’t had you yet.”
    “You know what I mean, honey…You won’t think I’d—I-d do the same thing to…You won’t be afraid of me, honey? You won’t think you have to—”
    I tamped out my cigarette.
    “Listen to me,” I said. “Listening? Then get this. If I was afraid of you you wouldn’t be here. Know what I mean?”
    She nodded. “I know what you mean.”
    “Carl, honey…” That husky voice; it was like having cream poured over you. “Aren’t you—?”
    “Aren’t I what?”
    She gestured toward the light.

10
    T hat next week is hard to tell about. So much happened. So many things that I couldn’t understand—or, that I was afraid to understand. So many things that kept me worried and on edge or scared the living hell out of me.
    I had time. I knew I had to take time. The Man didn’t want the job done for at least ten weeks, so I should have been able to get my bearings and plan and take things kind of easy. But after that first week—hell, before the week was halfway over—I had an idea that what I and The Man wanted didn’t make any difference.
    This might be the first week, but I had a damned good idea that it wasn’t far from the last one.
    That was the week that Kendall really began to show his hand…At least, it seemed he was showing it.
    That was the week that Jake tried to frame me.
    It was the week he tried to kill me.
    It was the week Fay and I began brawling.
    It was the week Ruthie…
    Jesus! Jesus God, that week! Even now—and what do I have to worry about now?—it rips the guts out of me to think about it.
    But let’s take things in order. Let’s go back to the Friday before the week began, to Fay and me at the hotel.
    …She’s said it had been over a year since you know what, and I kind of think it must have been an understatement.
    And, then, finally, she gave me a long good-night kiss, about fifty kisses rolled into one, and turned on her side. And a minute later she began to snore.
    It wasn’t a real snore, one of the buzzsaw variety. It was as though there was some small obstruction in her nose where the moisture kept gathering and cutting loose in a little pop-crack on about every tenth breath.
    I lay there, stiff and tense, counting her breaths, wishing by God that it was a faucet, wanting to grab her by the nose and twist it off. I’d lie there counting her breaths, getting set for the little pop-crack that stabbed through me like a hot needle. And just when I had the damned thing about timed, she broke the