Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [112]
“What?”
“The years in prison. To be here.”
He laughed happily. “You’re goddam right it was.”
“Would you do it again?”
“Nope.”
She laughed, and watched Jack light the burner, grease the pan, and break the eggs into the already sputtering fat, as if it were a ritual of the utmost importance.
“You know,” Jack said, “it seems screwy makin eggs for two people. I’m used to workin in the hundreds.”
“Do they have regular eggs up there?”
“Mostly powdered, but once in a while we had fried eggs. A friend of mine, my partner for a long time, used to crack jokes like, `Hey, sixty-four sunnyside up, three hundert forty-three easy over, two hundert twenty-eight chopped an messed around, an snap it up!” They laughed, and Jack remembered Billy’s narrow shoulders hunched up in mock efficiency, his head canted forward in urgency. “And he used to say things like, `I wonder what the poor folks eat!”’
“Speaking of poor folks, I made us reservations at The Sands.”
They sat at the little table in the alcove to eat their eggs and drink coffee. “Listen,” Jack said, “I’d like to go, really, but I’m not supposed to leave the county without asking my parole officer; and I don’t think he’d go for the action. I’m supposed to be looking for a job.”
Sally made a face. “Do you do everything he tells you?”
Jack was a little irritated. “Listen, I don’t want to go back to the joint just for a little party. And besides, I aint got the money to go to Vegas.” He looked down at his plate. “So that’s it, baby.”
“You big strong men kill me. I suppose you’d flip if I said I meant to pay for the trip. I have all kinds of money.” For a moment, Jack wondered if she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her; but he rejected the thought. She finished eating and lit a cigarette, puffing rapidly, flicking the ashes onto her plate. “Does your parole officer have to know?”
“I goddam sure aint going anywhere without tellin him.” As he spoke, Jack wondered if it was true, or if he was just setting up conditions of behavior for her benefit.
“Maybe I’d better get myself another man. You just don’t seem to have it this morning.”
Now Jack was on surer ground. “Not enough macho, hey?”
She leveled her eyes on his grinning face, and then had to laugh. “All right, I’m sorry. I never apologize. I don’t know why I apologized to you.”
“Maybe because I’m bigger’n you.”
“Partly that. Braggart.”
After breakfast Sally cleaned up the kitchen, and Jack watched with approval. That was good, she was neat. A rich girl, but she had enough sense to keep her living quarters clean. As if, Jack thought with dismay, he was measuring her against his standard of what a “good woman” ought to be. As if he wanted to marry her. If, that is, she passed all the tests. Rich, neat, a good lay, attractive. Of course, she talked too much, and too much like a man, but he could knock that out of her after a while. He was disgusted with himself. He went and took a shower.
Later they did what she wanted, flying first to Los Angeles, where Sally got into a telephone booth and made at least ten calls and talked for over an hour while Jack had a few drinks in the bar, and then getting on a flight for Las Vegas. There was a piano on the Vegas plane, and a man who played and sang requests. It was in the middle of the afternoon, but most of the people on the plane were half-drunk. They stayed in Las Vegas five days, and on the third day Jack got on the telephone to his parole officer and explained what was going on, and got his permission to marry Sally. The parole officer said he was as much as washing his hands of Jack, and that any slip at all would be enough to land him in prison again. Jack explained very carefully that Sally had lots of money and he could take his time looking for work, or even go to college for a while, but the parole officer was still angry, and told Jack he had committed enough violations already to land him back in San Quentin, and he, the parole officer, was stretching his own neck out on the block by not calling Jack on it. Besides, he