Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [106]
“I’m sorry if I said anything wrong,” Jack said to the woman.
The younger man said, “Is that your idea of an apology, sonny? Just because you’re an ex-convict doesn’t make you exempt from manners. Let’s hear you apologize.”
“John,” said the man with the gray hair, “for heaven’s sake.”
Jack looked at Mr. Markowitz and said, “Yeah.” Mr. Markowitz was expressionless, not even wearing his usual smile.
“Well, it just infuriates me to see some thug insulting a woman like Sally, that’s all,” the younger man said. He had a nasty voice, irritating and cultured.
Sally herself was grinning up at Jack crookedly, drunkenly. She said, “I don’t mind it at all. Maybe that’s what bothers you, John. That and the fact that you’re chicken-livered.”
“Oh, dear,” the man with the gray hair said mildly.
Jack felt impotent. He knew he had been called out here as an exhibit, something for these people to amuse themselves with; and he knew he was probably expected to lose his temper. Mr. Markowitz had obviously told them all about him. The younger man was getting up, rockily, as if he were ready to fight Jack. Everything was disconnected; Jack still felt sick and hung over, and he did not want to lose his job. He looked at Saul Markowitz, who simply looked back at him.
“You goddam thug,” John said to Jack. He had moved out onto the sidewalk and was standing in a half-crouch.
Jack said to his boss, “Who are you going to back up?”
“What a tragic choice,” Sally said.
“Nobody,” Saul Markowitz said. He turned to John. “I think you’ve had too much to drink, John. Maybe you’d better go home. The tab’s on me.”
“Okay,” John said, not moving. “But what about your ugly thug? Is he going to apologize to me, or do I have to take him apart?” He grinned loosely, and suddenly threw a wild, roundhouse punch at Jack.
Jack parried it easily with his left and crossed sharply with his right. John went back, on his feet, for a dozen or more steps, and then collapsed on the sidewalk, his knees drawn up, his arms out.
“Well, that was easy,” Sally said into the silence.
“John is eighty-six,” Saul Markowitz said, “and you’re fired.” He got out his fat wallet and peeled off two hundred dollars and handed it to Jack. “I’m sorry. But you could have handled him without that.”
Jack took the money, counted it, and stuffed it into his ducks. The gray-haired man came up to Jack. “I’ll take you home,” he said.
“I have to get my other clothes,” Jack said.
“I’m sorry about all this,” Mr. Markowitz said.
“Yes, I suppose you are,” the gray-haired man said. Jack went inside and got his clothes out of his locker and said good-bye to the bakers and came back out front. They had picked John up and put him in the back seat of the Rolls, along with the passed-out man and two of the women. Jack and Sally sat in front, Jack by the window. He had never been inside a Rolls-Royce before; it wasn’t as luxurious as he had supposed, but he liked the smell of the leather.
“What a sullen, rotten, depressing morning,” Sally said. “Like every fucking morning of my fucking life.”
“Why don’t you shut up?” the driver said gently. “You started it, you know.”
“I know,” she said. She put her hand on Jack’s leg and squeezed. “I just wanted to see this piece of meat in action. And John’s so easy to get riled. All you have to do is attack his fucking macho, and he’s off.”
“Do you have to use that word so much?” the gray-haired man asked. He wheeled the silent automobile up the hill and into Pacific Heights. “We’re going to get the idea that you don’t really understand the implications.”
The two women in the back seat had been talking to the passed-out man, and one of them leaned forward and said, “We’re going to have to have help with Charles.”
“I’m going to KILL MYSELF!” a voice bellowed from the back.
“No you’re not, Charles,” the woman said. “We’re going to take you into the house and give you a nice bath.”
“I am going to CUT MY THROAT!” Charles yelled.
Sally giggled and leaned close to Jack. He could smell her perfume faintly. Her hand was still