The Nightrunners Part 6

s.e.x. That was certainly on his mind a lot.

And why not?

There you go again he told himself. Such a fine, understanding husband you are.

But he still walked around where he could see into the truck.

The woman's face was nice. Large-boned, but attractive. d.a.m.ned attractive. She didn't wear makeup. Her hair was shoulder-length and brown. She turned to look at Montgomery. Her eyes were large, like a doe's. She smiled at him, a s.e.xy, out of the corner of her mouth smile, Or maybe that was just the way his brain was receiving it.

Probably just friendly, nothing more. She winked.

No, sir, more than friendly.

Montgomery grinned. She was blatant, but effective. And he liked it. Somehow, Becky's inability to accept him s.e.xually made him feel castrated. This looked like a woman who could hang a new set of b.a.l.l.s for him.

". . . never had no b.a.l.l.s, Monty. That's what's wrong with you . . ." His father's voice intruded on his memory. Mad. Very mad because of what he had let Billy Sylvester do to his little brother. It hadn't bothered him so much then, but now that he was grown (taller?), it ate at him. Maybe his old man was right all along. No b.a.l.l.s. That was his problem.

To h.e.l.l with the old man.

He winked back.

She blushed.

That was surprising. Country shy and aggressive too. A weird combination.

Or maybe, he thought with sudden embarra.s.sment, she had merely had something in her eye and he thought she had winked. And he, the big lover, had just made a fool out of himself.

Pop came back with the change. "All right, Marjorie ..."

He couldn't see her face now, just Pop's back, his grey head.

". . . nine dollars and fifteen cents change."

"Thanks, Pop," she said.

"All right. Come back now."

She pulled out of the driveway and Montgomery watched her go, wondering if he had just made an a.s.s of himself. But then again, it didn't matter. He'd never see her again.

"Now, what can I do for you, young feller?"

Young feller? Just like in the movies, thought Montgomery.

"Need a few things from the store. Little gas, I guess?"

"Little gas'll cost you a lot. Stuffs high as h.e.l.l. Some folks blame me. h.e.l.l, I ain't got nothing to do with it. Do I look like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned Arab to you? I sell it cheap as I can.

Any cheaper and I don't make a dime."

"No."

"No what?"

"No, you don't look like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned Arab to me."

Pop laughed. "Sorry. Just get tired of all this gas s.h.i.+t, you know?"

"Yeah."

"You want to pull your car up to the pump? Uh, how much?"

"Fill it."

Montgomery parked the car by the pumps, went inside. The store seemed frozen in a time warp. Merchandise was everywhere. Dangling from nails. Cramped and stacked in corners. Nothing was neatly aisled or arranged. Most everything was covered with a thin skin of dust. A large number of items were derelicts of a distant and simpler time: hair, oil was in abundance-all brands, some of which were now defunct-and there was toothpaste so old it had probably soured in the tube, and a cardboard comb display with a logo in the under left-hand corner that read: "5 Cents, Look Your Best!" Only three combs were missing out of a dozen.

"Got some old stuff here, Pop ... All right if I call you Pop?"

The old man was just coming in the door, wiping his hands on a rag. "What's that?" he said.

"I said you have some old stuff here. It is all right if I call you Pop?"

"Sure, call me most anything, long as you call me for dinner. Car didn't need much, by the way."

"Volkswagens are good on gas."

"Well, nothing personal, but I wouldn't own one of them foreign sonofab.i.t.c.hes,"

Montgomery smiled. "I said you got some old stuff here."

"Sure do, some of it twenty years old or better." Pop moved behind a dusty gla.s.s counter, sat down on a stool. Montgomery walked over to look at what was beneath the gla.s.s.

There were plastic fis.h.i.+ng flies-most of them sun-faded- and nestled uncharacteristically among the flies was a giant peanut pattie that looked old enough to have been whipped up from the peanut crop of '48.

"You a fisherman?" Pop asked.

"Yes, thought I'd get a bit of line time in today or tomorrow, in fact."

"Here." Pop reached under the counter, brought out one of the flies. "Try this.

They don't make them anymore, some reason or another, but they sure used to bring in the fish. I still got one and I'm still catching fish on it. Here, take it, you can have it."

"That's kind of you."

"Not really. n.o.body is going to buy this s.h.i.+t anyway."

"Well," Montgomery said, slipping the fly in his pocket, "I hope no one buys that peanut pattie anyway."

Pop laughed. "Wouldn't let n.o.body buy that sonofab.i.t.c.h. Talk about knocking your d.i.c.k in the dirt. That thing is as old as I am, and that ain't thirty-nine, friend."

Montgomery smiled.

"New around here?" Pop asked.

"Kinda ... I mean we aren't permanent. Just vacationing. Friends, Eva and Dean Beaumont, loaned us a cabin down by the lake."

"Yeah, I know the Beaumonts. They come down here just about every summer.

That Beaumont feller likes to talk fis.h.i.+ng."

"That he does."

"You know, pretty soon, won't be nothing but G.o.dd.a.m.ned cabins down by that lake. All of them built by city folks trying to get a whiff of clean air. No offense."

"None taken."

"You from Galveston too, like your friends?"

"Yeah."

"I hear the f.u.c.king ocean out there isn't nothing but a d.a.m.ned oil slick anymore.

That right?"

"Afraid so. Mostly anyway."

"d.a.m.n cities. I hate the sonofab.i.t.c.hes. They bleed the man right out of a feller. No offense."

"None taken." Not too much anyway, Monty thought.

"Like that G.o.dd.a.m.ned Houston. b.a.s.t.a.r.d's too close for me. All that killing and such. It's gonna spread, like some kind of G.o.dd.a.m.ned disease. Be at our back door before long."

"There are a lot of people who like it, Houston, not the killing."

"G.o.d knows why. It's a f.u.c.king sewer . . . You want a basket to push around?

There's some at the back of the store , . . d.a.m.n cities and newfangled s.h.i.+t, that's why I let the peanut pattie rot."

"Somehow, I don't see the connection."

"d.a.m.n thing may be old and rotten, but it reminds me of a time when a man could eat cheaper and a man's handshake was better than ten contracts and all the courts in the land.

Reminds me of a time when I could sit on my front porch and not worry about getting my ears shot off by some crazy. h.e.l.l, I don't even feel safe out here in the sticks anymore."

"Times change, Pop."

"That supposed to be an answer for all this s.h.i.+t?"

"Guess not."

Montgomery walked to the rear of the store, pulled out one of the three shopping carts.

Above them, hanging on nails, were two rows of Halloween masks; grotesque things. A handful of them were the pull-over latex kind; he'd always wanted one as a kid.

He leaned forward and examined the masks. They were pretty gruesome, all right.

One was nothing but a skull face with rubbery sprigs of hair on the crown. The others were a bit more elaborate, The most elaborate was one with a knife (rubber, of course) sticking in the forehead. A purply blotch of blood flowed down across the contorted face.

"Hey, Pop, these masks old?"

Pop looked up. "No. Three Halloweens back, I guess. Why? You thinking of going tricker-treatin' tomorrow night?"

"Maybe, But I won't stop here. Afraid you might give me that peanut pattie."

Pop whooped at that. "h.e.l.l, boy, it's so d.a.m.ned old it don't even stink anymore."

"Just the same . . ."

Pop cackled.

Montgomery pushed the cart, put a loaf of bread in it.

"Hey, son?"

"Yeah." Montgomery put a can of green beans in the cart.

"That gal, the one in the truck, Marjorie. She looks pretty good, don't she?"

Montgomery could feel heat bubbling up through his body, filling to the top of his skull.

It wasn't pa.s.sion. It was guilt. "Yeah, she looked all right."

"All right, h.e.l.l! If I was a little younger, and not happily married-well, maybe if I was just a little younger-I'd hustle that little old gal ... Come to think of it, I'd have to be a lot younger. Used to wake up every morning with a hard-on. These mornings I do good to wake up."

Montgomery began to push the cart faster. He was suddenly anxious to be through shopping and get back to Becky. For some reason he felt uneasy away from her.

Guilt maybe, he thought. Looking for women in pickup trucks to satisfy my deprived s.e.x urges. Just the sort of thing I said I'd never do.

Face up to it, No b.a.l.l.s Monty. Becky needs time, patience and love. You think you've offered that?

Do you?

No way, Jose. You've just given the impression, set a stage play for yourself.

Always trying to weasel out of your responsibilities, find the easy path.

". . . never had no b.a.l.l.s, Monty. That's what's wrong with you. No b.a.l.l.s."

". . . sorry, son, about your wife . . . She's been raped ..."