Blackburn Page 11

  Blackburn was cut from more honest cloth. “Come on in, then, Mr. Wayne,” he said.

  The salesman came inside, and Blackburn closed the door and returned to his chair. Wayne stood in the center of the room, looking around and smiling.

  “Nice home you have here,” he said. “Nice new coat of paint outside.”

  “Thank you,” Blackburn said.

  Wayne licked his lips. “I wonder if I might trouble you for a glass of water.”

  Blackburn frowned. An obligatory presentation was one thing; a glass of water pushed the boundaries. He stood up. The chair fabric stuck to his skin again. “Be right back,” he said, and went into the kitchen. While he was running water into a glass, the floor thumped under his feet. He shut off the water, and the floor thumped three more times. He stamped his foot, and the thumping stopped. He returned to the living room with the water.

  Wayne took the glass. “What was that noise?” he asked.

  “Rats,” Blackburn said.

  Wayne nodded. “It’s the garbage.” He drank the water, then eyed the glass. “Good cool water,” he said. “Ice would have been redundant.”

  “You’re welcome.” Blackburn sat down in his reading chair.

  Wayne gestured at the divan across the room. “May I have a seat?”

  “Sure.”

  Wayne sat and opened his black case. He pulled out a shrink-wrapped pair of paperbacks. “This is your free reference set, the best dictionary and thesaurus in the English language.” He placed the package on the cushion beside him. “But, as good as it is, it only deals with words. It’s no help with detailed information concerning people, places, and world events. Suppose you needed a nutshell description of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Could you find it in a dictionary or thesaurus, Mr. Talbot?”

  Blackburn didn’t want to rise to the bait, but the presentation might last longer if he didn’t. He would have to play along. “My guess would be no,” he said.

  The salesman shook his head. “Of course not. And where would your son look for information if he had to write a school theme on mollusks, or the moon landings, or Sacco and Vanzetti, or Pocahontas, or the Treaty of Versailles?”

  “I don’t have any children,” Blackburn said.

  Wayne took the postcard from his jacket pocket. “Your card says you have a son.”

  “Oh, him. He’s away at college. Pitt.”

  Wayne peered at Blackburn. “You look young to have a son in college, Mr. Talbot.”

  Blackburn decided that the salesman had been there long enough. “The boy’s my stepson,” he said. “And, really, my wife is the one you want to talk to, since the encyclopedia would be for her kid. She’s away right now, but she’ll be back in a few weeks. You could talk to her then.”

  Wayne remained seated. “I’ll be happy to do that, Mr. Talbot,” he said. “But as long as I’m here now, I’d like to show you the many features the Encyclopedia Europus has to offer. Then, when your wife returns, you can fill her in.” He reached into the black bag and pulled out a thick, oversized volume bound in brown leather.

  “I don’t think—” Blackburn began.

  Wayne interrupted. “This is Volume Fourteen, Lalo to Montpar. This volume alone contains seven hundred and eighty-seven entries on nine hundred and twelve pages and weighs two kilograms, or four point four pounds. It includes six hundred and three photographs and illustrations, two hundred and sixty-two in full color. Like each of the other twenty-eight volumes, it includes its own index—and that’s in addition to the comprehensive index, which is a separate volume. This binding is full leather, but we also offer simulated leather, buckram, simulated buckram, and Carthaginian cork.”

  “How much?” Blackburn asked. He had become curious.

  Wayne stood and carried Lalo to Montpar across the room to Blackburn. “Just feel that leather, sir. And the paper’s acid-free. It’ll last for centuries.”

  “I don’t think my stepson will need it that long,” Blackburn said.

  “No, but his children and their children will, Mr. Talbot.”

  “Won’t it be out of date by then?”

  The salesman shook his head. “Europus publishes its yearbook every February, so your encyclopedia can stay perpetually current.”

  Blackburn was beginning to think that maybe this encyclopedia was something the Talbots could use. On the other hand, if they wouldn’t even pay a man for painting their house, they wouldn’t spend much money on a set of books. It would have to be a bargain.

  “How much?” Blackburn asked again.

  Wayne placed Lalo to Montpar in Blackburn’s lap. It fell open to an illustration of the lymphatic system. “Far less than you would think, Mr. Talbot. Europus has an easy monthly payment plan.”

  Blackburn stared up at Wayne’s eyes. “How. Much. For. The. Least. Expensive. Set.”

  “Your monthly payments would only be—”

  Blackburn shut the volume and stood. “Total price,” he said. He was becoming irritated.

  “Two thousand eight hundred and twelve dollars. But when you consider—”

  “My wife will never agree to that,” Blackburn said. “I’m sorry.” He held out the volume with both hands. He expected Wayne to take it and leave.

  Wayne did neither. Instead, he tilted his head and gave Blackburn a sly look. “How old are you, Mr. Talbot?”

  Blackburn was taken aback, but he saw no reason not to answer. “I’m twenty-one.”

  Wayne chuckled. “Smart. Very smart.”

  Blackburn didn’t know what the salesman was talking about. “Excuse me?”

  “Not that I blame you,” Wayne said. “If I could find a nice older woman with a few bucks—”

  “Please take your book,” Blackburn said.

  Wayne held up his hands. “Hey, I’m not putting you down. You’re the smartest guy I’ve run into all day.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” Wayne said. “So. Two thousand eight hundred is going to be too much for your wife. I trust your judgment on that. Hey, if you don’t know what she’ll spend, who does? Just tell me what you think she will spend.”

  Blackburn considered. How much would the encyclopedia be worth to the Talbots? “Maybe a thousand,” he said.

  The salesman laughed. “Is Talbot a Jewish name?”

  Blackburn considered. “No. It’s a werewolf name.”

  “Just kidding,” Wayne said. “But look, you’re going to have to make an offer I can take to the company without them pissing on my shoes.” He leaned in close. “Then maybe you can sell me something too, you know?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Come on.” Wayne’s voice lowered. “A young guy like you? With an older lady? With nothing else to do all day? What do you deal—smoke or snort?”

  Blackburn smiled. He was beginning to understand. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his hair was a little long. That made him a gigolo and a drug dealer. He thought twenty-eight hundred dollars was too much money for an encyclopedia, so that made him a Jew.

  “Let’s you and me do some business,” Wayne said. “If you can get your old lady to spring for the leatherbound, four thousand five hundred, I can bounce five hundred back to you. Free money, no taxes. She gets an encyclopedia for her college boy, you get some untraceable working capital, I get my commission. Everybody’s happy. How about it?”

  Blackburn hefted Lalo to Montpar. It was good and heavy. Solid.

  “Not good enough?” Wayne said. “Okay, so how about this: I go into a lot of people’s houses. These houses contain expensive items. Sometimes I leave a house and happen to find something small but valuable in my pocket. Other times I notice how bigger things might be taken away. Perhaps you could use such information.”

  Blackburn was appalled. “You steal from the people you sell to?” Blackburn himself sometimes stole when he had no other choice, but he never did so under false pretenses.

  Wayne shrugged. “I’d call it putting knowledge to w
ork. Hey, that’s the whole concept behind the Encyclopedia Europus in the first place.”

  Blackburn nodded. “I understand,” he said. He raised Lalo to Montpar and clubbed the salesman over the head.

  Wayne staggered backward. “Hey!” he yelled. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “Putting knowledge to work,” Blackburn said, and went after him.

  Blackburn tried to drive Wayne out the front door, but Wayne went into the kitchen instead. Blackburn got in five more blows, and then Wayne found a filleting knife in a magnetic rack. The salesman stood with his back against the refrigerator and held the knife as if to stab Blackburn in the chest. Blackburn raised his encyclopedia volume and pressed the attack.

  The knife struck the book, glanced downward, and speared into Wayne’s upper left thigh. It went in deep.

  “Shit,” Wayne said. He slid down the refrigerator to the floor. He tried to pull out the knife and failed. Soon there was a great deal of blood. It surged out around the blade. The floor thumped.

  “Oh, shut up down there,” Blackburn said.

  “Help me,” Wayne said.

  Blackburn squatted beside him. “I think you hit the femoral artery.”

  “Please.”

  Blackburn sighed. “All right. Close your eyes.”

  Wayne closed his eyes. Blackburn went into the living room to retrieve the Python from under the chair cushion, then changed his mind. Why waste a cartridge? They were hard to come by. He looked at the encyclopedia volume in his hands. The filleting knife had sliced the leather on the back cover, but the board underneath was intact. It really was a well-made book.

  Blackburn returned to the kitchen. Wayne was still alive, but the puddle of blood on the linoleum was growing. Blackburn stepped around it and knelt beside Wayne’s head. He placed the spine of the book on the salesman’s throat and pushed down. Wayne’s eyes opened wide. His tongue stuck out. Then Lalo to Montpar crushed his trachea, and he was dead. Blackburn took the car keys from the body, cleaned up the mess as well as he could, and waited for night.

  Just after eleven, Blackburn went out to the sidewalk trash pile and found a moldy twin-size mattress. He dragged it into the house, placed the salesman’s body on it, and covered the body with newspapers, coffee grounds, and banana peels. Then he returned the mattress to the trash pile. It was hard work. When he came back inside, he had a glass of iced tea and a pastrami sandwich.

  After eating, he tucked the filleting knife under his belt and stuffed his possessions into a gray duffel bag he found in the utility room. He carried the duffel and the Python outside and put them into the salesman’s Vega. He locked the car, then took a hacksaw and a flashlight from the Talbots’ garage and went around behind the house. He had to put down the saw and flashlight to pull the concrete blocks away from the gap in the foundation. Then he got down on his belly, grabbed the tools, and crawled in.

  The place smelled like a public toilet. Mr. and Mrs. Talbot had messed their pants. They were still slouched against the stanchion to which they were chained. There was a shallow hole in the dirt beside Mr. Talbot, and he now held a chunk of two-by-four in his bound hands. That explained why the kitchen floor had been thumping.

  Blackburn used the filleting knife to cut the Talbots’ gags and to free their wrists from the nylon clothesline he had used to bind them. Mrs. Talbot began screaming. Mr. Talbot tried to club Blackburn with the two-by-four, so Blackburn scooted away and then tossed them the hacksaw.

  “I couldn’t find a key for the padlock,” he said. “I’ll leave you the flashlight, though.”

  “Lousy bastard,” Mr. Talbot said.

  “Hey,” Blackburn said, “you got your house painted for nothing, and there’s a free two-volume reference set in the living room. Don’t bitch.”

  By the time he reached the Vega, he could no longer hear Mrs. Talbot’s screams or Mr. Talbot’s curses. The car started easily, and Blackburn pulled away from the trash. When he reached I-95, he took the encyclopedia volume from his duffel and caressed the leather. It felt wise. Maybe he had never graduated from high school, but within a month he would be an expert on everything from Lalo to Montpar.

  Seven weeks later he read a dateline-Philadelphia story buried deep inside the Washington Post. The garbage on Mr. and Mrs. Talbot’s street had finally been picked up.

  FIVE

  BLACKBURN THE BREADWINNER

  Blackburn met Dolores in a San Francisco record shop four days after his twenty-second birthday. They reached for the same copy of The Kids Are Alright at the same moment. It was the last one in the bin.

  “Toss you for it,” Blackburn said.

  “Bet you can’t,” Dolores said.

  Blackburn bought the album, and Dolores came to his apartment to listen to it. Blackburn hardly heard the music even though it made the windows rattle. His senses were full of Dolores. She was wearing running shorts and a halter top. She had golden hair, green eyes, a brown stomach, and long legs. She was California incarnate, and Blackburn was not pleased with himself for wanting her. But there it was. He was horny as a mule deer.

  “My name is Eddie Reese,” he said. That was the name on his new driver’s license and Social Security card.

  “Got anything to eat?” Dolores asked. Her voice was like honey poured over an apple.

  Blackburn fed her pepperoni slices and Cheetos. Then they kissed, and Dolores said she would stay the night if Blackburn promised to use protection. Blackburn promised.

  That night Blackburn told Dolores that he loved her. He had never said that to anyone, and it surprised the hell out of him that he said it to Dolores. Then he said it again, and again. He couldn’t stop himself. It was as if a live wire were plugged into his lower spine, and the signal jolted its way through his vertebrae to his mouth. Dolores could do whatever she wanted with him. She could cut him open and bite holes in his heart with her fine pearl teeth. He would twine his fingers in her hair and hold her there.

  The next day Blackburn went to his job at a Taco Tommy franchise and made burrito after burrito without having any orders for burritos. The manager came into the food preparation area and chewed him out for his wastefulness. Blackburn stood there and took it without wanting to kill the manager or even hurt him. After all, he was right. Overnight, Blackburn had become an idiot. His hands had been on automatic. The stack of burritos reached halfway to the ceiling.

  As the manager yelled at Blackburn, the girl running the counter gave a yelp. Blackburn and the manager turned to look. A busload of Jews for Jesus had pulled up outside, and its occupants poured out like water. They came into the Taco Tommy and ordered one hundred and forty-four burritos to go. The manager stared at them, and then at Blackburn. Blackburn began stuffing the burritos into paper bags.

  It was a miracle. Blackburn didn’t believe in God, but he had to believe in a miracle when he saw one. At the end of his shift, he went home, telephoned Dolores, and asked her to marry him. Dolores laughed and suggested a second date instead.

  They ate hamburgers and saw Melvin and Howard. Then they went to Dolores’s apartment and made love five times between 11:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. Dolores fell asleep then, but Blackburn lay awake, studying Dolores in the glow of her Tom & Jerry night-light.

  Her tan lines made her look as if she were wearing an ivory bikini. Blackburn hadn’t noticed the phenomenon the night before, because they had made love in the dark. But now that he could see her entire body, he became fascinated with it in more than just a sexual sense. Her tan was absolute; there was no gradual fade to pale, but sharp demarcations between dark and light. She looked both naked and clothed. If it weren’t for her nipples and pubic hair, she could go out in public.

  Dolores turned in her sleep, snuggling her rump against Blackburn’s abdomen. His erection returned. He would eat nails for this woman.

  * * *

  After the Jews for Jesus incident, the Taco Tommy’s manager decided that Blackburn had the psychic ability to predict
when unusual quantities of food items would be required. Blackburn almost believed it himself when he made eighty tostadas while lost in another reverie, and then sold them all within forty-five minutes. The manager gave him a nickel-an-hour raise and told him to keep up the good work.

  Blackburn did his best. For the first time, he believed he was making progress toward the kind of moral, independent life he wanted to lead. He had even been able to save a little money. Saving money, he had decided, was important. He was determined to repeat his marriage proposal just as soon as he could do so from a position of financial strength. He had discovered that Dolores respected financial strength.

  He saw her every evening, and they never fought. This amazed him. He hadn’t thought it would be possible to spend so much time with another person without finding just cause to paste that person’s brains on the wall. However, despite what his childhood had trained him to expect, his relationship with Dolores was euphoriant.

  Blackburn was happy. That in itself was a new and strange experience. It made him stupid.

  He reveled in it.

  * * *

  The Taco Tommy’s evening supervisor quit in late June, and the manager offered the job to Blackburn. It meant a dollar-an-hour raise, but it also meant working 3:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M. every day except Sundays. Blackburn hesitated to take the job at first, because it would spoil his evenings with Dolores. Then it occurred to him that the extra money might make marriage possible right away. He accepted the promotion, then went to Dolores’s apartment and waited for her to return from her own job. When she arrived, he explained that his earnings would now be great enough that she could stop working if she liked. All she had to do was marry him.

  Dolores said she wanted to think about it. They went out to eat, and over fried shrimp, she said yes. Then they rushed to Blackburn’s apartment and screwed like mad.

  “Oh, Ed,” Dolores said. “You’re the best.”