by
Mary E. Overstreet
Mid-March, 1972
Willie glanced around the lobby of the hotel, sliding his flight bag forward on the floor up against the registration desk with his foot and holding his briefcase. He could hear noisy morning traffic from the avenue outside and wished he was happy about being back in Manhattan. His eyes came to rest on a figure which was sitting in the waiting area on a plush couch facing his direction but hidden by a newspaper. The blue-jeaned legs and booted feet seemed incongruous with the suits and ties of other men in the hotel. The paper was slowly lowered, revealing a familiar face.
Willie tensed instinctively as his "friend" Jack smiled at him and nudged a man across from him. Mace turned around and nodded once. Willie turned from them to concentrate on getting his room. He wondered how they had known when and where to find him. He had switched hotels since the last trip before his hospitalization, hoping to buy himself a little time.
In a few minutes, he slipped his room key into his suit pocket and picked up his bag. He did not have to look to know that Mace and Jack were not far behind him on his way to the elevators. He was a little surprised when Jack called out his name. Willie looked to find them being detained by the hotel staff. He allowed himself a sardonic smile before telling the hotel employee that it would be all right for them to come up with him—that they were a couple of old, less fortunate friends.
No one said anything as they crowded onto a packed elevator. Once inside Willie's room, Mace spoke, his tone smug now. "Thought you could give us the slip, ahn?"
Willie laid his briefcase on the bed, then opened his flight bag to hang it in the small closet. "No. I'm not ready yet." He turned, giving them a hard look. "I don't have it yet."
"Didn't think you would. But where ya been? It's been almost a month and a half," Jack said, following Willie to the window where he stared out at the uninteresting view of the neighboring building's brown brick wall.
"I told you I didn't know how long it'd be." Willie didn't want them to know he had been in the hospital, let alone for nearly three weeks. Jack tried to make him turn around, but he shook him off. "Stop it," he said tautly.
"You don't look so hot, Willie," Mace put in, coming close to them.
Truly, Willie didn't feel that well right now. His nerves were making him feel hot and anxious. "Why don't you just leave? I'll give ya the money when I get it."
"How much?" Jack asked.
"I don't know yet. I gotta go to some meetings first."
"Yeah, you look pretty fancy." Jack felt the material on the lapel of his dark beige suit. "Never thought I'd see—"
"Knock it off," Willie said, shoving his hand away.
"Don't get pushy on me, Willie." Jack grabbed him by the wrist and upper arm, pulling himself close so that his face was only a few inches away from Willie's, "or you'll get more of what you got last time."
Mace slowly took his other arm, and Willie felt his gut clenching up with dread.
"You afraid, Willie?" Jack asked. "You sure are breathing hard."
"I tol'ya, I'd get the money." Willie didn't want to end up in the hospital again. While he really didn't want them to hurt him, it was the end result he was more worried about. And he knew he wasn't up to taking them on, though he thought he could probably hold his own even now with Jack alone if he could have brought himself to actually strike him. But one blow from either of them and he was out of the game.
"And don't forget Rex, Willie," Jack said. "That pretty little blonde could be history. Just like that." He let go of his wrist to snap his fingers.
Willie didn't answer, and the two looked at each other then flung him forward to his knees. His chest hit the side of the bed and his arms slid across the spread. He caught himself awkwardly. Willie wasn't drunk now. There was no buffering alcohol between him and his shame, but then he was far better at controlling his emotional reaction. He pushed himself up after a moment and straightened his clothes.
Jack moved around him, deliberately trying to throw him off balance as he brushed past. He bent down and took Willie's dark brown, leather briefcase and opened it.
Willie didn't try to stop him as he rifled through the papers.
"Hey, what's this?" Jack pulled out a prescription bottle, holding it up to read the side. Mace grabbed Willie's arms as he attempted to snatch it from him. "Valium!" he said, glancing at Willie's angry face. "It says, 'Take one tablet daily or as needed for nerves, not to exceed three tablets a day.'" The bottle was mostly full. "Well, well. . ."
Willie freed himself and seized the vial from Jack, looking at it for a second before slamming it down into the waste basket. He was furious at Julia for sneaking that into his briefcase when he had told her pointedly that he did not want or need it. Now, because of her action, his two blackmailing "friends" knew something about him he didn't want them to know.
Mace and Jack looked at each other, and the latter poked around some more in the briefcase. He was surprised to find another prescription bottle. He let the case fall to the bed, spilling out half its contents.
Willie turned around to see what he'd done, his level of frustration very high. He made a lunge for the second bottle, but Jack stepped back, and Mace stopped him from pursuing him.
"What're those for?" Mace said, holding Willie's arms from behind.
"Muscle spasms. 'Car-is-o-pro-dol'," he read the label. "Geeze, Willie, you're really fallin' apart on us," Jack said, and tossed the vial to the bed. Mace let Willie go.
He was almost angry enough to take a swing at Jack. His head was pounding. "Get out," he rasped, pointing a trembling hand toward the door.
"We still got arrangements to make," Jack said coldly. "You better take some of your Valium, Willie. Ya look like you could use it."
"Just beat it." Willie was ready to take Jack and throw him out.
Jack sat down on the bed. "We ain't leavin' till you tell us when we can come for the money."
"You're not comin' back here."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mace said, shoving Willie down onto the bed. "You thinkin' of crossin' us?"
"No," Willie replied, looking up at him. "But I want you the hell outta here." Not only was he angry, Willie did not want to be seen with them at the hotel or any place his business contacts might see them. He pressed his tongue against the inside of his front teeth, clenching his hands.
"Then you'll just have to deliver it to us," Jack said. "Hey, I know—we can have dinner together. You remember Emilio's?"
Willie nodded. It had been a hangout for several months before he got busted.
"Well, it's moved down a coupla blocks west. We'll meetcha there." Jack got up.
Willie still sat on the bed. "Tomorrow night. Nine."
"Good, good." Mace patted his shoulder. "See ya, Willie."
Jack went over to the waste basket, retrieved the cracked plastic bottle, and tried to hand it to Willie. It fell into his lap. "Take some, Willie. You look awfully tense. Maybe you'd like somethin' stronger?" Seeing no reaction, he didn't elaborate and started out.
Resigned, Willie did not move until they were out and had shut the door. He picked up the bottle, looking at it but not seeing it. He was shaking. "Goddamnit," he muttered, then pried the lid off. He knew he was in no shape to go to any meetings.
Emptying a tablet into his hand, Willie got up and went into the bathroom for a glass of water. He was mad at himself for taking the drug, for needing to take it. And only the calming effect it had on him seemed to help. He stood in the bathroom a long time, looking at his face in the mirror. There seemed to be more lines around his eyes than he ever remembered seeing before. His hair, cut shorter than he liked to wear it, was shaken down across his forehead, just above his eyebrows in the front. The back and sides barely touched his collar and ears. He ran his hand through it, then his comb. He still looked pale, he decided, before at last turning away. He didn't like himself any more, and it was hard to accept his own reflection. And so studying himself was like a self-inflicted punishment for having succumbed to the lure of the artificial peace that the drug promised him. Drowsiness and lethargy were a far cry from peace, but they took the raw edge off his agitation.
And he did feel better as he sorted through his papers and placed them carefully back into his briefcase. He left the other prescription on the bed. In a way he was glad to have it. Twice since he had returned to the Old House, his back had given him a lot of pain, and the muscle relaxant helped a great deal to ease off the spasms. The second time no one knew about; Willie had just taken some of the pills Julia had given him for the first time. He always felt the less anyone knew about him, the better. Everyone seemed to know too much already.
*
Dressed in jeans, sneakers, a pale blue tailored shirt and his usual suede jacket, Willie entered the restaurant at nine-fifteen. It was not well lit, and he had to squint through the dark interior into high-backed booths to find Jack and Mace.
They sat opposite each other in a dark corner. Facing him, Mace saw him first, and Jack slid out from behind the tall back of the booth. He ushered Willie to move in across from Mace, sitting beside him to block his way out.
"You got it?" Mace asked, grinning expectantly, revealing to Willie that he had lost an upper canine since he had seen them weeks ago.
Willie did not like being boxed in and stared sourly at him before reaching into his inside jacket pocket for a thick envelope. "That's all I could get." He threw it on the table between them.
Jack quickly picked it up, opened it, and counted fifty-dollar bills without taking them out.
Willie stared at the lacquered surface of the table. There were two half-finished beers and two unopened menus along with the usual salt and pepper shakers and sugar dispenser.
Jack looked at him, his thin face and blue eyes set in hard lines. Willie stared back unflinchingly. "You'll have to get more next time."
"How much is it?" Mace said impatiently.
"A grand. Five hundred each." He grabbed Willie's collar. "You gotta have access to a lot more'n this."
"I can't get at it." Willie threw his hand off. "I tol'ya it don' work like that. It ain't jus' sittin' there in the bank."
"I want more."
"Yeah, I know. And maybe I'll be able to get it, but if I take too much, I'll get caught, and you won't get anything," he ground out.
Actually the two were not dissatisfied, but it wouldn't do to let Willie know that. "When ya comin' back?"
"I don' know."
"Willie," Jack warned.
He looked up as the waitress came over and asked if they were ready to order. Mace only had her bring Willie a beer for now.
"All right, Willie."
He drank some of his beer. "I toldja, I don' know. Maybe next week, maybe next month."
"C'mon, Willie. Tell us now, and we'll reward ya," Mace offered.
"No thanks. And I don't know. I think it'll be next week." He knew exactly when he was coming back. Having been laid up for over a month threw his and Barnabas' plans behind; the trips would be more frequent for a while.
"Okay." Jack leaned back, looking at his friend, then giving his head a quick cock to the left.
Mace left the table, slapping Jack's arm as he went past.
Willie wondered what was going on between them. "Well, now ya got what ya wanted; I'd like to get outta here."
Jack seemed almost surprised. "No, man, we don' wantcha to go yet. You ain't ate yet."
"I'm not hungry. And where'd he go?" He gestured across at Mace's empty seat.
"To the john probably. We been here a while. You were late."
Willie said nothing else and concentrated on the beer. He was thinking of buying a bottle of something stronger to take back to his room. The Valium had long since worn off the day before, and figuring out how best to steal a thousand dollars, without it showing up on the books made Willie eager to relax.
Jack tried to talk to him, but Willie remained unresponsive to news about people they both knew. He could not forget that Jack was extorting money from him; he could no longer consider him a friend. In fact, hadn't since getting arrested.
Mace returned, giving Jack a nod. "We got kinda a surprise for ya, Willie," Mace told him.
"Yeah, seein' how you're sharin' with us. We wanta give ya a little something."
Willie expected the worst. He thought they might take him to a back alley somewhere and work him over or kill him. But he quickly realized he was wrong. A woman stood at the end of the table. She looked at him and smiled. He stared in surprise.
Jack switched places with her, and Willie scooted to the wall as she settled next to him.
"I can, uh, see that you remember each other," Jack said. "We'll just be leavin'."
"Don't wanna intrude on your happy reunion." Mace grinned again, and they started to walk away.
"Hey, where're you goin'?" Willie said and received no answer. He looked at the woman.
"Hi, Willie," she said. "You've been gone a long time."
She looked thinner, older. Her hard life was still hard, he thought. Bleached-out blond hair and too much make-up, a tight sweater and short skirt were his first impressions. "Yeah, I know."
She moved closer. "Nothing has changed, Willie." She touched his face once quickly, then placed her hand on his chest. Her eyes viewed him with intense longing. "Don't seem like time has passed at all." Her fingers moved downward.
"No," he said, breath quickening.
Her hand glided straight down over his jeans. "Willie. . ."
He nearly jumped up, the touch sent a shock through him, very pleasant but an invasion into his privacy, causing his stomach to clench with dread at the idea of facing his feelings about sex. "Don't, Yvonne," his voice quavered, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand away. He looked hard into her large, dark hazel eyes glowing in the dim light. "No."
"Willie," she whispered. "You know how I feel about you. I still do. C'mon."
"You haven't changed," he told her. "And neither have I. I said no." He pushed her ahead of him so that she would have to get out. The waitress came back, and he asked her how much for the three beers. He tipped her generously and started for the door, knowing Yvonne was right behind him.
It was cold, but not too cold outside. She grabbed his arm on the street corner. "Willie," her voice nearly whined. "I missed you."
He took her by the shoulders, looking straight at her, she was his height in her low heels.
Some things did not change and some did—the longing on her face, in her eyes, the hope and hurt there were the same, but now he felt it himself, that he was causing this in her. Always before, he had never accepted any responsibility for her pain of rejection. They had hit if off at first, she had known just how to please him, except she'd never known when to quit. She had wanted to possess him, so he'd tried to dump her. But every now and then, she had been back and irresistible, and he'd found himself trying to get rid of her again.
"Yvonne, no. I can't Leave me alone. Please." He let her go and hailed a cab. He got in, giving the driver the name of his hotel. The other door swung open and Yvonne got in.
Willie sighed, not wanting to get out. The cab lurched forward.
"Please, I know you're only gonna be here tonight," she said hastily. "Just tonight, Willie?" She got close to him again, and he pressed up against the door.
"Don't, Yvonne, don't. I-I can't. I got other commitments," he said, stalling. But he didn't move her hand when she stroked the side of his throat, pulling herself closer still as her hand pressed the back of his neck, her thumb on his earlobe. The familiarity of it was staggering and exhilarating. Her touching his neck sent chills down his spine and started his gut twisting in a pleasant way. His arm folded across her back as her open mouth found his. Her tongue teased his, quickly falling into a familiar pattern which he was slow to reciprocate.
Her other hand was suddenly on his inner thigh moving slowly upward. Willie's heart thudded, driving the pulse in his abdomen, and his back grew rigid. She caressed him and he let her do it. She had always known exactly how to get to him, exactly what he couldn't resist. Turns and jarring bumps from the ride went unnoticed, only forcing them more against each other. Willie was only partially aware of how kissing her felt and of how tightly all his muscles were tensed as pleasure pounded in him, drowning out other images that seemed to want to kill his desire. He pulled his mouth away from hers, leaning back for a brief moment. She would know something was not right if he let her continue much longer. She would know he was not responding physically to her increasingly firm caresses.
With clenched teeth and a barely audible cry of frustration, he took her wrist and held her hand away. "No!" he said in a fierce whisper, desire continuing to beat in his blood. He looked at her, shaking his head, unaware that his eyes gave away the pain he felt. She let her other hand fall from around his neck.
"Stop, stop up here," he ordered the driver, leaping out of the cab as soon as it pulled to the curb and slamming the door shut. He dug a twenty dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to the driver through the window. "Take her home, if this is enough."
Willie ran, never looking back to see Yvonne's face against the window as the cab pulled away. He didn't see her concern, not disappointment, though she was certainly disappointed.
He stopped at the end of a long block and leaned against the nearest building, panting. He checked the street sign. It would be a considerable walk to get back to the hotel, he decided, but such a walk in Manhattan would have enough distractions to keep him from dwelling on what had just happened.
His lungs felt a little scorched from the hard run and cold air. He was sure Julia would not have approved of his exertion, she had wanted him to take exercise gradually. But walking down a dark lamp-lit avenue in the only city he had ever really felt at home, made Julia seem like just another figure in the web of dreams that were his memories. Collinsport itself seemed like a distant nightmare. Yvonne, Jack, Mace, Cherrie, even Jason—people in his New York life—were more real to him now. But Jason overlapped into the nightmare and stayed there. Willie felt scarred by it.
He was scarred on the inside. He was weak now, prey, the type of person he had scorned for so many years because he had known what it was like, he had been prey before in different ways through the years. And he did not know if he could ever rise above it now. It had always been that one was either prey or predator in every situation. The idea of being predator now, however, was abhorrent to him; he'd sooner be prey.
It didn't have to be like that, though, as he had discovered. There were other ways to live. As long as you weren't faced with a predator, you would never have to feel that dreadful fear of being prey. And if you could protect yourself when the need arose, you were better than either. But he failed that, and he knew it. And Mace and Jack knew it, and they were preying on him.
He continued walking, hugging the curb by old habit. His thoughts drifted inevitably to Yvonne. He knew he could have taken her with him to the hotel, feigned surprise and told her it must've been all the pressure he was under or something else she'd believe. It was only one night, she would never know any differently.
But he just flat could not bear to face it. His emotions were so tied up in confusion and shame and subconscious memories he dared not get intimate with anyone lest she see too much or make him feel too much. He felt his identity as a man was in question—it was unbearable to deal with. And Yvonne had always known how to get to him through sex. She used to be able to arouse him with just a look because he knew what would happen when they got close. She was not really a nymphomaniac, and she had never been disloyal, she had just clung to him too tightly, trying to keep him by turning him on when he was ready to drift. Willie put up with it for a long time because having someone who always wanted him had been nice. Maybe she truly loved him, he thought. It was a sad thing for her if she did.
Willie still felt a lingering flare of passion when he thought about the desire she had stirred in him in the cab. But the cool night air helped it go away.
It was almost an hour before he reached the hotel. The warmth of the lobby felt good, and he was actually feeling physically better than he had in months. Once up in his room, however, fatigue began to catch up with him. Tired or not, it was going to be a long night, the ache of personal dissatisfaction was strong, and he was depressed, and he was lonely.
*