Boys and Girls Together by William Goldman

Author:William Goldman [Goldman, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453292013
Published: 2012-11-27T16:06:00+00:00

XV

WALT SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON the living-room floor building a house of cards.

It was a month since Blake misbehaved at the St. Louis Country Club, half that since their divorce, half that since he had heard from her. (She had buzzed him collect from New York’s Idlewild to report that she was off on an extended tour of the Continent and to wish him luck. The call hadn’t bothered him. Not really. Or not really as much as he thought it was going to when he picked up the receiver and heard her voice, and although he cursed aloud after hanging up for not making her pay for the call, cursed again when a couple of beautiful “I should have saids” crossed his mind, he quickly forgot the whole thing.)

Now, wearing a tee shirt and khaki pants and dirty white tennis shoes and no socks, he concentrated on the house of cards, hard work, so he stopped every little while to grab a sip from his Budweiser can. Across the room the TV set was tuned up full on a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and alongside it the Capehart clicked Pal Joey back into position and once again, at the top of his lungs, Harold Lang began to sing, “I have the worst apprehension that you don’t crave my attention ...” Walt nodded his head in time to the music, took another sip of beer. Then he went back to his house of cards, carefully fitting a third tier onto a none too sturdy second. When he had the third tier finished, Walt drained the last drops of Budweiser, stood, crossed the room and said, “Flynn, somebody’s got to knock out that Japanese pillbox.” In his best Errol Flynn voice Walt said, “My pleasure, General,” and he crawled across the living-room rug to the shelter of an easy chair. Pulling the pin from his Budweiser can, he jumped up, shouted “Geronimo!” and lobbed the beer can toward the house of cards. As the can was in midair, Walt groaned, clutched his stomach and, eyes closed, dropped to his knees. “Flynn, Flynn, you’ll get the Congressional; knocking out that pillbox won the war.” Eyes still closed, Errol Flynn said, “Always been lucky, General,” and then toppled over and died. Walt lay still a moment before getting up and looking around.

The house of cards still stood.

“Nuts,” Walt said. How can you miss from six feet? The beer can lay on the edge of the rug in a little puddle of foam. Walt retrieved the can, mashed his foot into the puddle, spreading it good, then went and stood over the house of cards. “Bombs the hell away,” he said, dropping the can, except it stuck to his fingertips and, when it did fall, it veered off, missing the house again.

Walt kicked the house of cards down, hurried to the telephone, flipped the phone book open, found a number and dialed. “Hello?” a lady said.

“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I’m working for the Kirkaby stores.

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