Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [43]
Or maybe I was beginning to be afraid of George. Saying that now may be hindsight—I don’t know for sure. Maybe, down deep, I was starting to wonder. His eyes were too big and interested whenever I said something, and he couldn’t keep his hands off me, pawing, patting, slapping; and every time he talked about what he wanted to do next, it was “You and me, Sammy…”
“Hello!” he shouted. He got a quick echo from the walls around us, and then silence. He still held my arm, and he gave it a squeeze. “Ain’t this cozy, Sammy? Looks like we got the place all to ourselves.” He pushed the big gate shut, and slid the thick wooden cross-bar across it. I don’t think I could have budged the gate then, but George had moved it without even changing his expression. He walked back to my side, dusting his hands and grinning.
“What’s the angle, George?”
“To the victor go the spoils—ain’t that right?” He kicked open the front door. “Well, go on in, kid. Help yourself. Georgie’s just fixed things so nobody’s going to bother us till we’ve got the pick of the stuff. Go find something real nice for your mother and your girlfriend, huh?”
“All I want is a smoke,” I said. “You can open the damn gate as far as I’m concerned.”
George took a package of cigarettes from his field jacket pocket. “Here’s the kind of buddy I am,” he laughed. “Have one.”
“What’s the idea of making me walk all the way to Peterswald for a cigarette, when you had a whole pack?”
He walked into the house. “I like your company, Sammy. You ought to feel real complimented. Redheads ought to stick together.”
“Let’s get out of here, George.”
“The gate’s shut. There’s nothing to be afraid of, Sammy, just like you said. Brighten up. Go out in the kitchen and get something to eat. That’s all that’s the matter with you. You’ll kick yourself for the rest of your life if you pass up a deal like this.” He turned his back, and started pulling out drawers, emptying them on a tabletop, and picking over the contents. He whistled an old dance tune I hadn’t heard since the late thirties.
I stood in the middle of the room, getting a dizzy, dreamy lift out of the first deep drags on the cigarette. I closed my eyes, and, when I opened them again, George didn’t worry me anymore. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of—the growing nightmare feeling was gone. I relaxed.
“Whoever lived here took off in a hurry,” said George, still with his back to me. He held up a small bottle. “Forgot their heart medicine. My old lady used to have this stuff around the house for her heart.” He laid it back in the drawer. “Same in German as it is in English. Funny thing about strychnine, Sammy—little doses can save your life.” He dropped a pair of earrings into his bulging pocket. “These’ll make some little girl very happy,” he said.
“If she likes stuff from the five-and-ten, they will.”
“Cheer up, will you, Sammy? What’re you trying to do, spoil your buddy’s good time? Go out in the kitchen and get yourself something to eat, for God’s sake. I’ll be along in a minute.”
As far as being a victor and getting some spoils goes, I didn’t do badly in my own way—three slices of black bread and a wedge of cheese, waiting for me on the kitchen table in the back of the house. I looked in a cabinet drawer for a knife to cut the cheese with, and got a little surprise. There was a knife, all right, but there was also a pistol, not much bigger than my fist, and a full clip beside it. I played with it, figured out how it worked, and shoved the clip into place to see if it really belonged with the gun. It was a pretty thing—a nice souvenir. I shrugged, and started to put it back. It’d be suicide to be caught with a gun by the Russians today.
“Sammy! Where the hell are you?” called George.
I slipped the gun into my trouser pocket. “Here in the kitchen, George. What did you find—the crown jewels?”
“Better