Kitten with a whip Page 12

  And, as if to emphasize how jangled his nerves had gotten, there was nothing to fear on the front porch. He turned on the porch light and opened the front door and the menacing unknown was only his next-door neighbor, JuUan Clark. "Hi," they said to each other, and David stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

  He didn't know the Clarks very well. In the few months since they had taken over the payments on the house next door, neither couple had found it convenient to get together for drinks. Virginia had reported that man and wife both seemed quite nice, if somewhat colorless. They were in their twenties, a decade younger than the Pattons, and the wife, until lately, had been embarrassed almost to the point of seclusion by her massive pregnancy. Now they were tied down by their < first baby. David couldn't even remember the sex or how many weeks old.

  Such was the extent of their acquaintance; speaking over the fence and lending a couple of things back and forth, even though both men worked at the same plant. Technically, as a red badge man and a supervisor, Julian Clark outranked David's candy-stripe status. How-

  ever, all he supervised was a typing pool of some twenty girls and his pay was much less than David's. No, there was nothing to fear in any way.

  "! don't mean to bother you," said JuHan Clark, hovering nervously. He was a narrow bony young man with a haggard look of too much responsioility.

  "Inat's all right," said David easily. ReUef had made

  : him almost buoyant. 'What can I do for you?" Clark's

  I wife called him JuUe but the name felt awkward on

  David's hps so he generally avoided using any name

  at aU when speaking to him.

  "We were wondering—well, it*s so hot and our baby*s having a hard time sleeping, anyway—and with tne noise . . ."

  "Oh, you mean the hi-fi? I just turned it down."

  I From the comer of his eye he saw a slat shift in the

  »Venetian blind as someone peeked out. An instant later

  the volume was turned up again, the primitive music

  pounding at full capacity. David raised his voice. "Don*t

  worry about it. 1*11 take care of it."

  *Well, thanks," Clark said gratefully. David got the

  [clear impression that he had imdertaken this mission

  ' with misgivings, by virtual order of his wife, and was

  tremendously reUeved that it had been accomplished

  so easily. *1 don*t mean to spoil your party or anything,

  it's just that—you know."

  "It*s not really a party. Friends dropped in and they wanted to hear the set but Lord knows there*s no reason it has to be that loud." He rapped on the picture window and yelled, "Hey!" authoritatively. There was no lessening of the din and his brief moment of feeling good began to lessen to irritation. He swore.

  *lt has a beautiful tone," Clark said apologetically. He didn*t want trouble, no matter which way it was directed. Possibly it was his shy inclination to soothe that had put him in charge of twenty girls. "I*ve been wanting to get one myself, but with the baby and everything, you know how the money goes. What kind of set it is?"^

  "Components. A couple of boys down at the lab put it together for me."

  I*d like to take a look at it sometime. Beautiful

  114 KITTEN WITH A WHIP

  tone." Clark was hinting to be invited in. A fine thing, David thought, I hardly exchange two words with the guy in four months and tonight he wants to be sociable. Not tonight, Julie boy. It would have been so easy to say something politely noncommittal about, sure, well do that sometime. Instead, David said, 'Tou about through,! with that spreader, by the way?"

  He despised himself before the words were out of his mouth. He was the one in the wrong. Those monsters i inside were the enemy, not Julian Clark. But no, he i wasn't man enough to stand up to them. He had to take it out on an innocent neighbor, poor guy.

  Clark said, puzzled, "Golly, I didnt understand you were in a rush to get it back or I'd have had it back before this." Then it sank in that this was a little battle,, that his complaint about the noise was being countered with another complaint. He frowned at the door mat, momentarily not blowing what to do except look hurt. Gradually, his mouth tightened. "I can bring it back over toni^t if you're in that much of a rush."

  "No. Hell, I didn't mean that."

  "No, that's aU right. But we'd appreciate it if you'd turn that volume down." Clark backed down the steps and, angled oflE across the lawn into the darkness.

  'Goodnight, Juhe," David called after him. Sick of himself and his penny-ante viciousness, he stalked back into the house. It was like walking into the drop-hammer section of the plant; you could almost see the shock waves of reverberation. Pancho and Nina had vanished into another part of the house and Buck and Midge had moved up onto the sectional. Jody, out of boredom, was playing in her fresh drink with her forefinger.

  David advanced on the record player and flipped it down to a whisper. "Who the hell turned this thing up again?"

  Buck raised his face from Midge's neck. "I did. What about it?"

  "From now on, it stays down, remember that. That was one of the neighbors to complain."

  "Well, I like to feel the beat. The neighbors can go crap." Buck got to his feet.

  'I mean it," David warned, blocking his path to the set. "It stays low or I turn it oflE altogemer."

  "Ah, what's a litde music?" Jody said, licking oflE her finger. "I saw the homo through the window. You should have told him to shove it.

  David wheeled on her. "Where do you get talk hke that, Idd? He's a nice guy and a friend of mine and no gang of punks is—"

  "Shove it, is right," growled Buck and pushed by David, reaching for the dials. David grabbed his arm and swung him around. This was the last straw and he had to make up for the way he'd treated JuHan Clark. Buck—all of them—had to get it through their thick heads that this was David Patton's house and David Patton ran it. The last straw, by God.

  He didn't see the blow coining, didn't actually feel it hit. All he knew in his first head-ringing iustant of comprehension was that he was sitting on the carpet. Not sprawled flat dramatically, the way it always was on TV, just sitting there, gazing stupidly up at Buck who looked a mile high. He could taste the salt blood in his mouth.

  Jody said disgustedly, Tor Christ sake, Buck, do we have to do this showoflF bit every time?"

  "You go crap," Buck told her. "You think I'm going to let baldy here get away with that stuff?" He caressed his knuckles, glancing around arrogantly at his limited audience. His belly was sucked in, his chest thrust out grandly. He toed David in the stomach with his shoe, not hard but contemptuously. "I don't like you much. You goLQg to remember that?"

  David began to come out of his daze. From the sectional. Midge regarded him tranquilly; no flicker of emotion one way or the other disturbed her plump features. Jody was more annoyed with Buck than concerned for him. With his tongue he explored his Ups, then the iaside of his mouth. He foimd the cut where the blood was oozing and the unfamiHar roughness beside it; the blow had broken one of his teeth. One more thing to explain to Virginia. He shook his head so the ringing would stop and he tried to understand. He hadn't been punched in the face Hke this since an aftergame fight in his high-school football days. Strangely, he didn't feel angry, not for the moment. He had been

  put down SO quickly and ignobly that, as the time for anger dribbled away, he could only see himself as ridiculous. It was as if he were fresh out of normal reactions, as if he deserved what had happened as part of the pattern of this weekend nightmare.

  Buck nudged him again with his foot. "You stiU got objections?^ His tone was hopeful, his fists still clenched. Then his head jerked around apprehensively. "What's thatr

  It was a clanking sound on the front porch. Metal scraped across concrete, feet clomped down the steps and vanished in the night. Juhan Clark had returned the spreader.

  David got to his feet and snorted derisively at Buck. "Scared?"
He stiU felt worse about the way he*d treated Clark than about what Buck had done to him. He was fully expectant of another punch in the face, not that it really mattered except mat he wanted to get in a couple of his own before he got flattened again. "Go ahead, play it as loud as you like," he said heavily. *Wake up the whole block. That guy next door's ready to caU tne sheriff. Go ahead, if that's what you're after."

  Buck hesitated. "The cops can go crap."

  "Oh, sure," Jody said. "ReaUy gutted up, aren't you? You leave the thing alone, like David says."

  "You pushing me around too, now?" Buck demanded. If I have to learn you, so help me, you'll bleed." They faced each other, glaring, and despite the difference in their size, Jody showed no awe. Her left hand was poised to throw her drink, her right hand was clawed to tear. Finally, Buck's eyes shifted. "Lousy biscuit, anyway-stinking beat." He slouched down on the sectional and reached for the bottle.

  "Guyl" Midge murmured. "You're so great, you know?" She snuggled against him and he drove his elbow hard into her breast. She clutched herself and bit her Hp. A tear formed in the comer of each eye but she didn't say anything. Buck took a long gurgling drink out of the bottle and sneered around at the world in general.

  David felt wrung out. He went into the bathroom and rinsed his mourn with antiseptic. The bleediug had stopped. He inspected his teeth in the mirror and found

  where the crown of one of his lower molars was broken. It wasn't causing him any pain.

  As he returned along the hall, he could hear Nina giggling from the direction of Katie's room; the light was on and they hadn't bothered to shut the door. He hesitated at the sacrilegious creak of the innerspring but didn't investigate. He didn't want to stir up another hornet's nest in there.

  Without the savage heartbeat of the music, the living room was peculiarly dead. Both girls were sitting sullenly on opposite sides of the room and Buck's face was slack with drink. A dead place but ominous, like the crater of a volcano.

  David's return was enough to stir up an eruption. Buck said suddenly to Jody, "Come over here."

  She laughed harshly and didn't budge from David's big easy chair.

  *God damn it, I'm telling you to."

  David said, "That's my chair." Jody moved up onto the arm and he sat down. "Now if everybody 11 Usten, I'm going to set a few things straight around here."

  Nobody Hstened because Buck was wavering to his feet. "You haul your tail over here, I saidl" Midge caught hold of his pants pocket and he slapped her hand away.

  "That's not fair," Midge complained. Tm your date and she's with David. That's what we all agreed ahead of time."

  "I'm sick of you. I changed my mind."

  "You better wipe it before you change it," Jody gibed. It's my party-party, and any swapping that's going to be done, I decide." She sHd off the diair arm onto David's lap and squirmed her bottom aroimd tauntingly. "If you can't stana it, you didn't have to come."

  "Buck lover, we can do that," Midge pleaded, but she didn't lay hands on him this time.

  Buck glowered for a few seconds, collecting his thoughts. "I haven't noticed he wants you very bad," he told Jody. "You keep rubbing up to him but he doesn't want you very bad. Bet you been playing virgin, got him scared of jailbait. Bet you didn't tell him you're my wife—Mrs. Vogel."

  David jerked with surprise but Jody Said calmly.

  "Of course I told him. That's why I blew hot for David in the first place. He's a gentleman and he feels sorry for people who make stupid mistakes.'*

  Buck rubbed his hand over his face. "My mistake, not yours, you bitch."

  "Then why you making with the jealous husband bit? Tell me that—why?"

  " 'Cause I'm in my rights and I'm tired of being pushed around!" Buck's voice rose hysterically, ending in a gasp. He dug in his pocket. A knife handle began to emerge in his fumbling hand. A smart cHck and six inches of whetted blade followed the handle, fully opened even before he had it withdrawn from his pocket.

  David stared at the gleaming reaHty of the first switchblade knife he had ever seen. Tensed, he began to speak low-voiced to Jody, "Look, if he's your husband—" but she twisted and crushed out his instructions with a soft kiss.

  Buck made animal noises in his throat. Jody turned and announced to the room at large, "That's the way it is now. I can't even remember the lousy piddling way it used to be. Buck's all through and he knows it."

  "Then why'd you caU me to come out here?" He adopted his artificial hmp as he came across the room and seized Tody by the shoulder. He pulled her ofiE David's lap. Tfou're not making no buster out of mel Not with some old slob of a pansy. You don't dare like him better than me!"

  David was glad the girl was out of his way. He braced himself against the chair and kept his eyes on the kmfe. At the first serious move, he would make his lunge for it. He'd get cut, he knew, but not badly. Buck was liquored up now, slowed down. He could handle him. In the space of one shivering excited breath, he had rehearsed a dozen times what he'd do. And with almost the same urgency he was thinking, I've got to make it up to Julian Clark. We've got to have them over for drinks, get to know them, make friends. We dont have enough friends.

  Jody coolly dug a sharp fingernail into Buck's wrist and got her shoulder loose. The knife didn't faze her at all. She said, "Man, how can you think you're so

  smokv when you re so nothing, nothing painted blue. Howd you get so built up, huh? Why, I'd roll around with an entire gang of Pandios before Td lay you again. That's actually."

  *Tancho?" Buck concentrated on the idea. He shook his blond coiffured head in disbelief but gradually his bleary eyes were drawn to the hall door. "A stinking ratty trick," he mumbled. "Behind my back." All at once his mouth opened wide and he yeUed at the top of his lungs. "Panchol Come and get it, you Mex bastardl" He plunged across the living room into the hall.

  David leapea to his feet but Tody flung herself in his way, winding her arms around his waist. "Let him gol" she panted. 'Let him get it out of his systeml"

  "But that knife—somebody's going to get hurt—"

  "Who11 miss them, any of them?" Her eyes were ablaze with exhilaration; she was wholly aUve again, on top of the world from where everybody else looked small. "Would you rather it was you, David?"

  From Katie's room came the yelps of soimd, Nina's lingering piercing shriek, Pancho's howl of scared protest, the crash of fimiiture overturning. Nina came flying down the hall, her lopsided child-face wrinkled with terror. She grasped her panties in one hand and tried to button her blouse with the other. 3he ran for the protection of Midge who still sat unmoving on the sectional. "He's crazyl she babbled. "He's trying to cut Panchol And for nothing, we were just—"

  David cast Jody aside, snatched the poker from the fireplace rack and ran for Katie's room. Jody was right, sure; none of the monsters would be missed. But not here, not imder his roof. He couldn't stand around and let murder happen. And as he ran, the logical observer part of his mind was praying, God, dont let it happen here, dont let them get anything on the new carpet. Nine hundred dollars worth of wall-to-waU, tacldess stripping, so much to be proud of. At this moment, it was as important as anything else in his life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was all over by the time David reached the door. He rushed into Katie's room, poker upraised, and there was nothing for him to do but stop short and look at Buck and Pancho.

  Buck stood hunched beside the rumpled bed, gazing down foolishly at the knife in his hand. The blade was red at the tip.

  David kept the poker poised for striking. "Okay, give me that knife or I'll wrap this thing around your skull," he ordered. Buck obeyed sheepishly; he wiped the blade against the hip of nis levis, folded it back into its sheath and handed it over. His drunken rage was gone. He even looked sober. "God damn," he mumbled penitently.

  David dropped the knife in his pocket and turned to Pancho. Fright mottled the boy's swarthy face as he crouched against the pink dresser, still at bay. Behind him, on the dres
ser drawers, the decals of clowns and teddy bears cavorted in their cataleptic merriment, and he was as frozen in position as any of them. Only his blood moved. His right hand was gripped around the biceps of his left arm and between his fingers the redness flowed slowly down to his elbow and dripped rhythmically onto the carpet.

  "How bad is it?" David asked.

  Pancho jerked his eyes away from Buck and came to life with a noisy breath. "What'd I do?" he whined. "I wasn't blowing any trouble."

  Buck shook his head slowly, unable to explain what he couldn't understand himself. On the bed the big panda doll regarded them all with impartial button eyes.

  From the doorway, Jody passed her judgment. "Jerks!"

  "Here, put this poker away," David told her. To Pancho, he repeated, "How bad is it?"

  Pancho peeked under his hand and looked sick. *lt*s bleeding. See how I'm bleeding.'*

  "WelJ^ get in the bathroom and 111 see what I can do. Don't step in any of itl" As he followed Pancho, he pointed a finger back at Buck. "You—straighten that bedspread."

  In the bathroom, David washed the wound with a cold cloth. It was a six-inch gaping slash down the outside of the arm but he couldn't tell how deep it went. No matter how fast he sponged away the blood, it kept welling up and dripping into the sink. It didn't pump forth in spurts so he felt sure that no artery had been severed. "A bandage isn't going to do much," he told his patient. "It'll take stitches."

  "I can't go to no doc," Pancho complained. "He'd want to know how come I got this." A shadow filled the doorway. Buck was standing there awkwardly. Pancho glanced his way and laughed shakily. "You're pretty messy, dad."

  "Didn't mean it," Buck said, shamefaced. "One of those things."

  "One I owe you, that's all," Pancho said Ughtly.

  David commenced to wind gauze bandage around the wound, as tightly as possible without cutting off the circulation. The white gauze turned red as fast as he could wind. "This is only temporary at best," he told Pancho again. "You're going to have to see a doctor right away."