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I was liquored up most of the time, not much of a feat as I'm hardly a drinker; a few shots does it far me. When I had three days left of my leave, I went up to the apartment late one afternoon, knowing Nate would be home from work by then.
When I opened the door he was making supper, wearing an old smoking jacket. Nate never slopped around the house in his undershirt. He said, “Hello, Bucky. I heard you were in town. Looks like you've put on muscle. Soldiering must agree with you.”
“I can take it or leave it. I... uh... meant to come by sooner but I had a few stops.”
“I can smell them. Want supper?”
“No.” I staggered a bit trying to make the table. “I want something else, Nate.”
“Broke? I can let you have—”
“I want you to call me Bucky Laspiza. I want to hear you say it right now!” I said, the anger building up in me so strong the words came blurting out.
Nate gave me a “fatherly” smile. “Come on, now, Bucky, you're crocked. Why do you let that worry you so? You know the old line about what's in a name? I think—”
“Nate, stop stalling. You're going to call me Bucky Laspiza, or I'm going to make you. I been thinking about it for weeks now. You've called me 'Son,' and 'my kid,' and 'Bucky,' but I can't ever remember you calling me Bucky Laspiza!”
“Aren't you being silly?”
“Nothing silly about it to me!”
“Bucky, suppose I did say what you want—what difference would it make?” he asked, coming around the kitchen table to face me. I'd worked out with him enough to tell from the way he had his legs apart that he was set to hit me. I wanted him to. I guess what I'd really been thinking in the back of my noggin all these months was that I hated Nate so damn much I wanted to kill him.
“Don't soft-sell me, Nate. It will make a lot of difference to me. Just call me Bucky Laspiza, Nate.”
“Want me to call you mister, too?” he said, wetting his lips nervously.
“The hell with mister. Call me by my name!”
“Certainly. Hello, Bucklin Penn.”
“Goddamn you, Nate, you're going to call me Laspiza!”
“I can't. It isn't your name.”
I started for him. He was good; even though I expected the punch, his right came so fast I couldn't block it. It was a hell of a wallop, sent me reeling-crashing against the wall, almost floored me. I knew then Nate felt the same way: All his resentment against me was in that crack on the chin.
My mouth was bleeding, my head ringing. Nate was so eager he goofed—he came at me. I got my arms around him, was too strong for him, not to mention the forty pounds of young muscle I had on him. I wrestled him to the floor, smothering his blows with my body. I sat on his gut, slugging him with both hands. I was so nuts I think I would have killed him if he hadn't gone limp and whispered, “Don't, Bucky. This... is... crazy stuff.”
“Call me Bucky Laspiza!” I gasped.
“Bucky L-Laspiza,” he said, turning his head away from me, the words coming out a tormented moan.
There was a bruise on his cheek; a trickle of blood ran out of one ear. I got off him and sat on the floor, feeling my numb chin. I was suddenly very sober and scared—I had damn near killed him. I stroked his thin hair and Nate began to cry. I kissed him on the forehead, muttered, “Oh, Dad, Dad! What's happening to us? You're right, this is crazy. Why can't you adopt me, give me your name?”
“Don't talk about that,” he said, hugging me with one hand, but still not looking at me. “I told you about the police... looking for me.”
“All this time? For what?”
“Murder. I... I... killed your father.”
I pulled away from him. “Stop snowing me, Nate. That's a lie.”
“No it isn't.” He was whispering again.
“I thought about it in camp—you're all I thought about. You've always told me how the oil company has such a careful check on their employees. All that security stuff. If you were wanted by the cops, they would have had you long ago.”
“They—the police—they... don't know I killed him.”
“Then there isn't any reason why you can't adopt me.”
He didn't answer. For several minutes neither of us spoke. Nate's eyes were shut and his face was so white I thought he had passed out. I stood up. Pulling Nate to his feet, I led him to a kitchen chair. For the first time Nate didn't look dapper, merely old. He leaned on the table, feeling of his face, staring at the blood that came off on his hands. I wet a dish towel with cold water and tossed it on the table. Nate held it to his face for a long while.
“Nate, that stuff about killing; it's a lie, isn't it?”
“Yeah. But I wanted to kill him. I used to dream how I had killed him—whoever he was. I'd dream of ways of slow... I suppose that's why Daisy never would tell me.”
“Dad, I'm sorry I hit you.”
He took the towel from his puffed face, looked at me. “I could cut off my hand for punching you, Bucky.”
“Nate, listen: I still want you to adopt me.”
“Son, in time you'll forget about it.”
“Can't you understand that I wouldn't want any other man for a father?”
“I've always been your father, Bucky.”
“Damn it, Nate, make it legal!”
He shook his head and groaned with pain. Then he said, “I just can't do it. Sometimes I wanted to but... Bucky, I've always been an also-ran—in everything I did. I never made the big leagues or had a good job. Well, a man can't be a complete blank. What I'm trying to say is that even a bad thing can still be the biggest deal in your life. That's the real reason why I never adopted you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You see, if I had adopted you, or put my name down when you were born—it was that simple—why, in time it would have been forgotten. I would have forgotten it! Son, you can't ask a man to forgive and forget the biggest thing in his life.”
“What?”
“No matter if I was second best in everything else—in that I stuck to my guns.”
“You mean you wanted to hold it over Daisy all her life. Is that it?”
“No. I loved Daisy. You should know that.”
“Bull! You did the 'right thing' and wanted to make damn sure she'd never forget it—you wanted to punish her! What did it do, keep you on that righteous kick all your life?”
“That's not so. Daisy is dead and I'm still young enough to—I can't even think of marrying again.”
“My God, Nate, I used to think of you as a man, but you're sick, crawling with self-pity!”
“What if I am?” he asked loudly, staring up at me. 'You're only a kid and can't understand what I've been trying to tell you. When a man has nothing else, even self-pity can be the most important thing in his life. It's been something I've clung to all these years. I can't give it up now.”
“But clinging to what? Is this why you never had any other... any kids with Daisy? Why you made her your maid... something around the apartment like a dishrag?”
“That's an unfair lie. We tried to have children. And I always treated Daisy well, better than any—”
“I know. You did the 'right thing,' and you're stuck with it—in your own crazy mind,” I said, picking up my garrison cap, straightening my jacket and shirt. Heading for the door, I called back, “Good-by, Nate. I wish to God I'd never come back, never seen you like this.”
“Bucky!” It was a wail that made me stop at the doorway.
Fumbling for words, Nate said, “Good-by, Son. I've been thinking of moving. I may be transferred to our L.A. office. I'll send you my address.”
“Don't bother.” I started down the stairs.
“Son! Wait.”
“I'm waiting.”
“Bucky if... if it means so much to you... After all, you're the only thing real I have left in life. Well, I'm willing to give you my name.”
“Thanks, Nate.”
“Tomorrow I'll see a lawyer and start—”
“Don't bother. When I said thanks I meant thanks for making it so it doesn't matter a damn to me now if I have your name or not. Good-by!” I rushed down the stairs.
I rang Elma's bell. When she came out I told her, “Let's get back to the hotel.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I have to be careful, Bucky. You know my old man and Mama gave me hell about staying—”
“Tell her we're getting married in the morning.”
“Bucky! You kidding?”
“Aw, I have this G.I. insurance, can get an allotment. You've been good to me—why shouldn't you get it?”
Over a fat kiss, Elma said, “You don't know how good 111 be to you from now on! Let's go, lover.”
“Don't you want to tell your folks?”
Elma uttered her favorite word, then added, “We're engaged, aren't we? My old man would think we're lying and—I'll tell Ma later, when I show her the ring.”
3—
There was a knock on the end wall. Doc sat up, moving fast and quietly. The room was out of an old movie, with a false wall and a phony closet on the other side. Of course, I'd only seen the house once from the outside—when we came in, and I hardly had my mind on it—but from the street it looked like a narrow, rundown frame house. Yet on the inside, from the little I'd seen, it was very roomy, including this hidden room.
I was on my feet. Doc put the useless gun in his holster as the knock was repeated twice. He called out, “Yes?”
The entire wall—it was about eight feet wide—swung open silently and the old bag who owned this trap came in. She was a real creature, about as low as they come: a horribly overpainted face that looked like a wrinkled mask; her few stumpy teeth all bad; watery eyes; stringy bright blond hair atop a scrawny body and dirty house dress; torn stockings over veined, thin legs; and broken men's shoes acting as slippers. The very least she needed was a bath. The biddy's eyes said that at one time or another she had tried everything in the book—the wrong book.
She held an afternoon paper in her claw as she talked to Doc. She had ignored me from the second we'd come. In a rusty voice she asked, “Whatcha think, Doc, you're playing with farmers? Handing me this gas about being in a jam over some lousy investigation, ya got to hide out for a few days. A million bucks!”
She waved the newspaper like a red flag, her tiny eyes trying to X-ray the three suitcases.
I glanced at the paper. There it was, all over the front page:
SEEK TWO CITY DETECTIVES
IN MISSING $1,000,000 RANSOM
Of course I had expected it. It wasn't any secret. Yet actually seeing the headline, our pictures, was like stopping a right hook below the belt.
Doc yanked the paper from her hand, spread it out on his cot, and sat down. He even yawned as he started reading the story. I sat on the edge of my cot, my legs blocking the “door.” Without looking up from his reading, Doc said, “Okay, Molly, now you know. What about it?”
“Great Gordon Gin, you really got a million in them bags?” the old witch said, excitement making her voice shrill.
“We have clothing in those suitcases,” Doc said calmly, dropping the paper, facing her. “What's on your mind, honey?” Doc's sharp face was relaxed but his eyes were bright.
“You know what's on my mind! This makes a difference. They'll be combing the city tight! I'm taking a hell of a risk in—”
“How much, Molly?” Doc cut in.
“This changes our deal!”
“How much do you think it changes it?”
I could almost see her pin-head making like an adding machine.
“It'll cost you a thousand bucks a day!”
Doc shrugged. “I'm hardly in a position to argue, my dear. Okay.”
A grand a day—each!” this walking fright rasped. Doc grinned. “All right, but don't push it too far, Molly. Two grand a day it is. And at least give us some decent food—my stomach is tired of your canned slop.”
“Food shouldn't worry you.”
“Oh, but it does. I pride myself on being a gourmet.”
“Skip the big words. I want my money now, and two grand every morning—in front. I ought to ask you for back rent at the same rate but I'll give you a break.”
“Thank you, my sweet. Your kindness is blinding.”
“None of your smart lip, Doc. Give me my two grand for today.”
“Of course.” Doc picked up his coat, which was crumpled over his pillow. Pulling out some bills, he counted them swiftly. “I only have twelve hundred here. I—”
“No funny stuff, Doc. I want all my money. Open them bags!”
“You wish to be paid off in clothing? Stop screaming; you'll get the money.” Doc looked at me. “Give me some cash, Bucky.”
As he walked over to me I knew what was going to happen, what had to happen, just as I knew Doc had five thousand on him—like I did. I went through the motions of reaching into my hip pocket for my wallet. Me and Doc worked so well he didn't have to say a word, or give me a sign.
My coat and holster were hanging on the back of the one chair. Doc did it neatly—grabbing my pillow with his left hand, yanking my gun out with his right. It was practically all one motion, his back toward Molly. He spun around and shot the old biddy twice in the body. She fell face down, as if her legs had been yanked from under her, the muffled shots echoing in the room like tiny thunder. The acrid stink of gunpowder filled the place, a welcome odor compared to the usual stale smell. And my pillow needed ventilating.
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