The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [153]
“They certainly are. Look, punch me out if you want, I can’t stop you, but don’t yell at me. You can’t fire me.”
“Who said anything about firing you?”
“Because I quit.”
“The hell you quit. The fucking hell you quit. Did you ever hear an expression called ‘The show must go on’? I don’t suppose you did. I don’t suppose—”
“Yeah, I heard it. That’s why I didn’t cut out this afternoon when I wanted to. That expression never made any sense in the first place but I didn’t want to fuck everybody up. Well, a blind chimpanzee would have done the show more good than I did. Good-bye, Tony.”
“Wait a minute!”
“Fuck you.”
“What?”
“I said go fuck yourself. You’re a fatass cocksucker and your mother eats pig prick. You’re a thief and a liar and a disgrace to the theater, Tony. Fuck you. Drop dead.” The words were without meaning to him and he spoke them without venom. They achieved their purpose. Tony Bartholomew fell back as if kicked, and Peter wasted no time in getting past him and out the door. On his way through the parking lot he heard people calling his name but didn’t stop to see who they were. He walked on as if he heard nothing, nothing at all. He just kept walking without paying any attention to where he was going. At one point, as he crossed a street in mid-block, a driver hit his brakes hard and swerved to miss him. He kept walking, heading away from the driver’s curses, walking as if nothing had happened.
It didn’t matter where he went because there was no place to go. There was never any place to go, so it didn’t matter where you went. It hardly mattered whether or not you kept moving, but it was easier than standing still.
When Warren finally found him he was leaning against the cannon with his hands in his pockets and his head tilted up toward the stars.
“How did you happen to know that Tony Bart’s mother eats pig prick? It’s supposed to be a closely guarded secret, and now absolutely everybody knows.”
“Is that what I said?”
“Among other bon mots.”
“I don’t even remember.”
“What really struck home was when you called him a thief and a liar and a disgrace to the performing arts. He’s all those things and knows it, but it still troubles him to have it brought to his attention. I’ve been looking all over hell and gone for you, you know.”
“I guess I’ve been waiting for you to find me.”
“We ought to establish a secret rendezvous spot for just such contingencies. And a less public one than that which you’ve chosen this time. My car’s across the street. We can go to my house or drive around. I’d vote for driving around.”
“Sure.”
“And you can tell Aunt Warren all about it.”
“What good will it do?”
“Bloody little, probably. But you’ve nothing better to do than talk, and I’ve nothing better to do than listen.”
But he didn’t start talking until Warren had driven for half a dozen blocks. He put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes and reeled off everything that Anne had told him.
“You haven’t seen Gretchen since then?”
“No.”
“You’ve just had Anne Tedesco’s word, and she was in a state at the time.”
“She was hysterical, Warren, and I don’t blame her. But she wasn’t crazy.”
“But you didn’t go back to see Gretchen.”
“I couldn’t.”
“I see. And until Anne reported to you, you had no reason to doubt that Gretchen was completely recovered?”
“You sound like a lawyer, Warren.”
“I am trying to sound like a lawyer, Peter, for precisely the reason that lawyers try to sound like lawyers. Answer the question.”
“Now you sound like the judge. When does my lawyer get a chance to object?”
“Please don’t stall.”
“I don’t know if I had reason to doubt or not. But I doubted. From about the third or fourth day on.”
“I never heard you say a thing to that effect.”
“I didn’t dare.” He explained the hints he had put together, the clues that had been enough to convince him, explained too his fear that his suspicions were a form of wish fulfillment. “And what Anne said fit in perfectly. It was just what I would figure her to do, just what she would come up with if the whole thing’s an act.”
“Oh, hell,” Warren said.