Ed Lacy - Enter Without Desire

     I tried to sit up, tried to raise my arms... a thick black wave washed over me....

     ... Kept washing over me, as though I was lying on a dark beach....

     I heard somebody cursing, quick little cuss-words. I could hear them distinctly because everything else was so quiet... but the words sounded as though they were filtered through a heavy screen.

     It took time to open my eyes. The air seemed a little thick, misty, smelted oversweet. I got Logan in focus. He was bending over me... doing something to my wrist... then he was smashing it and my wrist-watch against the cold stone sidewalk. He squatted beside me, asked, “Mr. Jameson, can you hear me?”

     “Yes.”

     “Get this, I'm giving you a break and it can mean my neck. Remember this, Mr. Jameson, you got shot NOW, busted your watch when you fell. Got that, not a half hour ago but NOW, Mr. Jameson?”

     “Yes,” I had to swallow a few times to clear the thick air out of my throat. It was an absurd comedy—he'd just shot me and he was so-so polite.

     “Remember that. I'm calling the cops now, an ambulance, so...”

     “I thought you... called...?”

     “Mr. Jameson, guess you won't be in no shape to say much, but keep remembering you got shot now. I'm going to slip the cops a phony yarn. After I called Mrs. Jameson I fell off the chair in my excitement and ripped the phone out of the wall. It's just a silly enough yarn to hold up. Stupid me, an accident, see? I don't know where I'll find another phone around here, take me time. But I'm going now to phone the cops. I'm giving you a break. Want your wife to get here before the cops do. Then we'll see. Mr. Jameson, buddy, you got to understand how I'm sticking my neck out. I can be in a holy mess of trouble, real trouble, but I'm doing this for you. Understand?”

     “Thanks,” I said, not knowing what he was talking about.

     “All you got to do is hold on, live till Mrs. Jameson gets here. Mean, I couldn't say much over the phone and...”

     “I'll live... till Elma comes,” I said, wishing he would go away. When you have minutes left in life, no point in wasting them talking to a stranger.

     Something was wrong with Logan, he looked worried, still sweating. I could see him pretty clear through the thick air. He'd nothing to be afraid of, shot me in self-defense... that clumsy, long gun barrel.

     I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, the lids were too heavy. As I closed them, he said something. I felt him walking away, feeling the jar of each of his steps on the stone—shaking me a bit.

     I felt all soft and weak, terribly lazy. The only thing that kept me from drifting away on the dark wave was the throbbing of my heart, which seemed to nail me to the spot.

     I wondered how long it would hold me there. “Elma, Elma,” I said to myself, and how beautiful the mere sound of her name was! “Darling... hurry... please.”

CHAPTER FOUR

     NEW YEAR'S DAY WAS bright and sharp.

     I awoke with the sun across our bed. I sat up and looked at my watch—it was 11 a.m. Why I should look at my watch the first thing, I don't know. Habit is no answer—I'd never been in a hurry to go any place. It took me a second to realize Elma wasn't in bed with me. Calling her name, I quickly ran my hand under the pillow—and felt ashamed— the money was still there.

     “Taking a bath, Marsh,” she said.

     I should have known she hadn't gone—her clothes were still on the chair, where I'd flung them. Getting out of bed, I stretched and went to the window. It felt fine to be standing in the nude, looking down at New York. I wondered why nobody had ever tried doing the skyscrapers in wire. Maybe some day I'd try it, although I hadn't worked in wire much.

     The rain had changed to snow during the night and there was still some clean white snow on the rooftops. Be muddy and slushy in the streets. Maybe I could find a shoe store open—or get a pair of rubbers in a cigar-store.

     Pushing the bathroom door open, I waved to Elma and sat on the John... watching the graceful line the water made at her breasts, the curve of her hips and legs under the soapy water... the little islands her raised knees made. And of course the wonderful face, the odd eyes, the dark hair, and that big-mouthed smile.

     Elma said, “Good morning. Good New Year's morning, honey.”

     I went over and kissed her and she put a hot wet arm around my neck. I whispered, “Elma, we have a lot of talking to do.”

     She smiled. “But not in the tub.” She knocked the stopper out with her toes, held out her hand. “I'll run your bath.”

     I helped her stand up, took a towel and started to dry her. I must have been staring at her stomach, which seemed normally round, for she said, “Stop staring like an X-ray machine. He and/or she is in there. I'll start getting big about now.”

     I kissed the cool, smooth skin of her belly. “Hello in there. You're going to be our child,” I said, and I meant it. For some reason I was almost pleased she was pregnant, as though it was an unbreakable bond between us.

     Elma rubbed her stomach against my nose, said, “I'm starved. We'll eat and then we'll talk.” She stepped out of the tub. Her long legs made her a few inches taller than I was.

     I finished drying her, gently pressed her against my chest. “Elma, maybe this doesn't make sense. Sounds like a confession story, but we haven't known each other twenty-four hours, yet I'm in love with you. Very much and very honestly in love with you.”

     “I know, Marsh, and it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, it adds up for us. I'm so happy and contented when I'm with you. That must be love.”

     “Who knows what love is? Or cares? Whatever we feel, it's great. Look, Elma, is it okay to...?”

     “The books say it's healthy and normal up to the last two months. Shall we go back to bed?”

     Kissing her I whispered, “Yeah, in a minute. Right now I have to... Get out of the bathroom, we're not that much of a married couple, yet!” I shoved her out, shut the door, and urinated like a wild horse.

     Around noon, we took a shower together, playing around like a couple of backward kids. We paid for the room for another night, went out and had a terrific breakfast.

     It was sunny but cold out and the streets not too wet. Elma said, “Let's take a walk—along Fifth Avenue. Or a bus ride.”

     We walked up the, Avenue and after awhile she started talking about her husband, talking very calmly. She said, “I'm a Norwegian. Got some Lapp in me—accounts for the eyes. My...”

     “Good for the Lapps!”

     “My father brought me to Canada when I was a baby, after my mother died. He had a sister living in Toronto. He was killed in a truck accident when I was a youngster. I lived with my aunt's family and came to the States a few years ago—to get a job, finish college. I always thought I was a Canadian citizen, but actually I'm not. For some reason, father never became a citizen and...”

     “Forget all that. What about your husband?” I asked impatiently.

     “But this is all a part of it. I worked in Detroit for a year, then came to New York, where I found a job with this record company. Mac—my husband's name is Maxwell —isn't a bad sort. But he's weak. He comes from a rich— not really rich but very comfortable—family. Mac's father died a long time ago and he's the apple of his mother's eye—real silver-cord stuff. His mama has a chain of jewelry and accessory shops in New Jersey. Mac began playing the clarinet when a kid, went to Juilliard but didn't graduate. He tried out for classical orchestras, but that's a tough grind. Then he began playing dates with a few minor jazz bands. When I met him he was on an arranging kick. Mac was...”

     “A what?”

     “He was making arrangements for some of the smaller bands. That's another tough racket to get ahead in. Trouble with Mac is, he just can't be an ordinary musician, and he hasn't enough guts to really work and study to be an above-average music man. Anyway, the record company had a house band that used to back up the lesser known singers. Mac hung around, did some arrangements for them. He had to work cheap and this company—they cut every corner in the game. That's how we met. I suppose I felt sorry for him —he was making a fight to stay out of his mother's shops, trying to be on his own, doing what he wanted in life. Only he was losing the fight. The record outfit was tight with wages and long on profits, so when a union showed its head, Mac and I helped organize the place. There was a strike, we lost, and I got the bounce. The day we lost the strike, Mac and I were married, went on a short honeymoon. We were happy, I guess, but when he took me to New Jersey to meet mama—the roof came down on everything. Mama didn't like me—to put it mildly. She hated my guts.”

     “She must be a loon.”

     Elma shrugged. “I don't think she'd like any wife of Mac's; still thought of him as her little boy belonging only to her. In...”

     “I know the type.”

     “In my case she palmed it off on the grounds that we were of different religions. Mama had been lonely most of her life, turned to religion, and became a sort of fanatic. Anyway, it gave her a basis for undermining our marriage. As it happens, I believe you can worship God any way you wish, so I have little... eh... formal religion and I'd have been willing to change that to hers, but in the old lady's eyes that wouldn't do much good. Besides, it was on this point that Mac decided to take a stand—a great, big mad-as-hell stand.”

     “Good for him.”

     “No, it was his way of ducking the real issue—mama. Mac is one of these persons who fight like the devil on little things, and run from the big ones. By the way, Marsh, are you religious?”

     “Yeah, I worship you.”

     “Seriously, we might as well iron this out before...”

     “Relax, Elma, I feel the way you do—let each person communicate with God, or their God, as they wish. And if a person doesn't believe in a divine power, that's his business. All I ask of a person is not to be a hypocrite. But let's get on with you and dear Maxwell.”

     Elma stared at me with puzzled eyes for a moment. “Marsh,” we've known each other so few hours, I don't know when you're kidding me or not.”

     I squeezed her hand. “Honey, one thing you can always know for sure—I'd never do anything to hurt you. Nor do I think you'd ever try to hurt me.” I suddenly laughed—to cover up my embarrassment at being so frank. “Now we sound like a couple of mooning school kids,” I added. “But don't start old blabbermouth me talking, I want to do the listening.”

     “All right, I'll talk you deaf and dumb,” Elma said. “I didn't take Mac's mother too seriously at first, thought it was the usual case of mother-in-law trouble. And Mac, in making his big pitch about religious freedom and all that, almost talked back to mama—for the first time in his life. We lived together for several months and I assumed mama had gotten over the shock that her little boy was now a husband. Living in New York, we didn't see her often anyway. But the old woman was merely lying back in the woods, waiting to ambush me. Since both Mac and I were out of work, we had money troubles, but I got a job as a salesgirl and Mac still had his union card and picked up a couple of recording dates, so we were eating. One Sunday mama paid us a pop call and was shocked at our living in a furnished room. She said Mac should come home and run their Newark store, maybe I could work there too. She even had a big furnished apartment lined up for us. We accepted. Our big error.”

     “Why? Sounds like a good deal.”

     “It was wrong from all angles. Mama had Mac in her grip again, a double grip, because she had him tightly by the purse hairs now, too. And poor Mac, it knocked whatever little self-confidence he had smack out of him. He always hated being a storekeeper, some sort of phony conception of his being an artist, all that bunk and snob-appeal. So when we got our fancy apartment in North Bergen, a car, started to learn the ropes of the store... well, the more we got, the more Mac's ego began dragging on the ground; it was all a kind of surrender—to him—that finished him as a man. Maybe you can't see the picture, since you don't know Mac.”

     I said, “Seems to me the guy is crying with a loaf of bread in his kisser.”

     Elma shrugged again. “Could be this is all rationalizing on my part, to build up my own ego, own explanation for a wrong marriage. Point is, by this time I realized what a weakling Mac was—where mama was concerned—but I thought I could snap him out of it. But the more he worked in the store, more sour he became, started drinking. As it happened, we were making a success of the store, so I suggested I might be able to handle the store alone and he could go back to arranging. That might have worked, but the baby changed all that.”

     She stopped talking and after we'd walked a block and she kept staring ahead as though I wasn't there, I finally asked, “What about the baby?”

     “I don't know quite how to explain Mac and the baby. Either the thought of being a father scared him silly—he'd always ducked any 'responsibilities'—which was a fancy name for anything he didn't want to do, or maybe he was tired of me... or tired of battling mama. I've tried to think it out, but can't. Seems he was seeing mama daily, without my knowing it. Anyway, when I first thought I was pregnant, Mac seemed happy about it, but a week later when the doctor assured me I was going to have a baby... Mac suddenly said I had to do away with it because mama couldn't stand a baby being brought up by a person of a different religion. Mac arranged for an abortion and when I refused he got nasty, started slapping me. Even in that he was frustrated, I conked him with a jar of cold cream and left. I...”