Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [38]
“By the way, Frank,” Vernon said, as soon as I was ready to go, “don't get the idea that I was trying to make fun of you by falling in with the gag. If I'd been strictly sober, I might have set her straight, but basically I poured it on so you could pick up a few extra bucks. No hard feelings?”
I ignored his outstretched hand, and brushed by him, carrying my instrument. Vernon followed me out into the club. As I stopped at the stand, to put the guitar in the case, he handed me a ten-dollar bill.
“Hell, don't be sore about it, Frank.”
There was a black silhouette cutout of a plyboard cat at the end of the stand. I wadded the bill in my fist and shoved it into the open mouth of the kitty before crossing the dance floor and entering the inside door to the package store. If Lee Vernon had followed me into the package store, I would have knocked his teeth out, even if he was drunk. Although I wasn't the butt of the joke, I didn't like to be patronized by a man I considered an inferior. But Vernon was wise enough not to come outside, and I've never seen him since.
Tommy drove the Olds and Mrs. Hungerford sat between us on the wide front seat. With the guitar case between my legs, my left leg was tight against her right leg, and I could feel the warmth of her body through my corduroy trousers.
“This isn't exactly a party, Mr. Mansfield,” she explained, as we drove through the light traffic of the after-midnight streets. “We all attended the Jacksonville Little Theater to see Liliom, and I invited the bunch home for a cold supper and a few drinks. It was a real faux pas on my part. There's plenty of food, but I didn't realize I was out of Scotch. But bringing you home to play will more than make up for my oversight, I'm sure. Don't you think so, Tommy?”
“If they're still there,” he observed dryly.
“Don't worry,” Mrs. Hungerford laughed pleasantly, “I know my brother!” She turned toward me and put her hand lightly on my knee. “There are only two couples, Mr. Mansfield. Tommy's father and mother, and Dr. Luke McGuire and his wife. Not a very large audience, I'm afraid, after what you're accustomed to, is it?”
In reply, I spat out the window.
“But I know you'll find them appreciative of good music.”
A few minutes later we turned into a driveway guarded by two small concrete lions. Tommy parked behind a Buick on the semicircular gravel road that led back to the street. The two-story house was of red brick. Four fluted wooden columns supported a widow's walk directly above the wide, aluminum-screened front porch. The lawn slanted gradually to the street for almost a hundred yards, broken here and there with newly planted coconut palms. The feathery tips of the young trees rattled in the wind. She was wasting money and effort attempting to grow coconut trees as far north as Jax. The subtropics start at Daytona Beach, much farther downstate.
Mrs. Hungerford rushed ahead of us after we got out of the car. Tommy, carrying two sacked fifths of Scotch under his left arm and a six-pack of soda in his right hand, hurried after her. As I climbed the porch steps, Mrs. Hungerford switched on the overhead lights and opened the front doors. She held a finger to her lips, as she beckoned me into the foyer with her free hand.
“Now, you stay right here in the foyer,” Mrs. Hungerford whispered excitedly, “so I can surprise them!”
Closing the front door softly, she followed her nephew into the living room. The voices greeting them contained a mixture of concern over the prolonged absence, and happiness at the prospect of a drink. Above the sound of their conversation, the clipped electronic voice of a newscaster rattled through his daily report of the late news.
The foyer was carpeted in a soft shade of rose nylon. The same carpeting climbed the stairway to the walnut-balustraded second floor. A giant split-leaved philodendron sat in a white pot behind the door. There was a spindly-legged, leather-covered table beneath a gilded wall mirror, and a brass dish on the table held about