The Big Bounce

“I have never been mean to a girl,” Ryan said. “I have never talked loud to a girl or ever hit a girl.”

“There’s beer downstairs,” Nancy said.

“Maybe I’ll have something else.”

“Help yourself. Behind the bar. The beer’s in the fridge underneath.”

“Do you always say that?”

“What?”

“Fridge.”

She frowned a little. “Not always.”

“It’s a dumb word,” Ryan said. He got up and went down the circular stairs to the activities room. A lamp at one end of the bar spread a soft pink light over the polished wood. He found a bottle of bourbon and poured some of it into an Old Fashioned glass. He took ice and beer from the refrigerator, put two cubes into the glass, and opened the beer. He lit a cigarette from a dish of filter-tipped cigarettes on the bar; he blew the smoke out slowly and took a sip of the bourbon.

Nancy had not moved. She waited as Ryan placed the beer and a glass and the bottle of bourbon on the table next to her and sat down on the ottoman.

“All right,” Ryan said. “Tell me the name of the game.” He watched her patiently.

“You sound different,” Nancy said, “at different times. I’ll bet you’re moody.”

“Tell me the game, okay?”

“Being moody is all right if you have something to be moody about, but I think most people pretend, like a pose.”

Ryan drank the rest of his bourbon and stood up. “I’ll see you.”

“The game,” Nancy said, “is called unless you’re a nice boy and do what I tell you, I’ll go to the state police with the wallets. It’s sort of a long name for a game, but it’s fun.”

“It is a long name,” Ryan said. “Why do you think I have anything to do with them?”

“Because your friend told me. Frank something. He came here last night and said he’d go to the police unless I gave him five hundred dollars for the wallets.”

“Five hundred?”

“He settled for eighty.”

“Why did he think you’d be interested?”

“I guess because he saw you with my car. He decided we must have a thing going.”

“Well,” Ryan said, “that’s his story.”

“No, it’s my story now,” Nancy said. “I’ll say I saw you come out of the house. I followed you and picked up the case when you threw it away.”

“You’re going to a lot of trouble.”

“Because I need you.”

Ryan shook his head. “No, I think you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“And I think if your friend was arrested,” Nancy said, “he’d blame the whole thing on you.”

Ryan sat down again. He poured bourbon over the melting ice cubes and sipped it, seeing Frank Pizarro in a straight chair with the sheriff’s cop, J. R. Coleman, standing over him.

“I think you might have something,” Ryan said.

“Good.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

Nancy smiled. “Very good. I thought you might be mad at first, but you’re taking it like a little man.”

“I want to get it straight,” Ryan said. “If I back out of our deal, you’ll call the police and put them on Frank Pizarro.”

“Right.”

“You don’t care about Bob Junior seeing us.”

“Not at all.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Ryan said. He raised his glass. “Can I get some more ice?”

“Help yourself.”

“I don’t guess you want another beer.”

“I hate beer.”

He got ice from the refrigerator in the kitchen and came out carrying the beer case. Nancy watched him drop it on the ottoman.

“I’ve thought it over,” Ryan said. “No.”

Nancy waited a moment. “Okay.”

“So I better take this with me.”

“Go ahead. I don’t need it.”

He sat on the edge of the ottoman, facing her, his knees touching her legs tucked under her. “Look,” he said, “don’t do anything dumb, all right? People start telling on each other it gets to be a mess. The police start asking you questions and it gets in the newspaper and whether you like it or not, everybody knows your business. You don’t want that, do you? I mean you got a good deal here, what do you want to wreck it for?”

“I was just thinking,” Nancy said, “your little job Sunday will be in the Geneva paper tomorrow. They’ll be talking about it in town.”

“For a couple of days maybe.”

“Everybody will keep their doors locked.”

“That’s another thing,” Ryan said. “Bob Junior will read about a robbery and have it on his mind. I mean, our timing is bad.”

“Why don’t you relax?” Nancy said. She took his cigarette and drew on it before settling back in the chair. She gave Ryan her nice smile and a soft, warm look with her eyes.

“I was just playing,” she said then. “Do you really think I’d go to the police?”

“If you thought it might be fun.”

“Jackie-” Sounding hurt, disappointed.

“And if you thought you could stay out of it,” Ryan said. “But that’s what I mean. You can’t stay out of it. They put your picture in the paper and your life story and everybody knows your business. It puts Ray on the spot and he dumps you, like that.”

Nancy pressed close to one arm of the chair, making room and patting the seat cushion. “Come on over,” she said, and gave him her sympathetic pout look. “Come on, let’s be friends.”

He had the feeling he shouldn’t move too fast-like reaching out to pet an animal that might take his hand off if he didn’t do it gently. All the wallets were in the beer case with all the names in the wallets of the people who had been robbed and a minute before she had been holding the case over him, ready to drop it on him. Now she was a girl sitting there, being a girl, trying to hook him the old way and pretty sure she could do it. And even turning on the fake girl stuff, she looked better than any girl he had ever seen before.

What Ryan did, sliding in beside her, he put his hands against the back of the chair and moved in to get his mouth on hers, his hands supporting him before sliding down to her shoulders, her hands coming up around his neck and fooling with his hair as she pressed against him. Their mouths came slightly apart, giving her just enough room to say, “Let’s go upstairs.”

He walked home carrying the beer case, along the beach, along the cold-sand edge of the water, feeling the night breeze and the soreness in his jaw and shoulders. He saw himself walking along the beach in the darkness, then saw himself standing by the bed buttoning his shirt and pushing it down into his pants, Nancy a soft, dark shape against the white sheets, lying on her back unmoving, one hand on her stomach, her legs a little apart, her eyes looking at him with a calm, nothing look. He had dressed in front of girls lying in bed before. He had said things that made them laugh or giggle or smile; he had grabbed for them again and wrestled with them and rolled off the bed with them and had slapped their bare tails and said, “See you,” and some of them he had seen again and some he hadn’t. He liked girls. He had never forced a girl to go to bed if she didn’t want to. He had never said, “Come on, if you really love me.” He had had fun with girls and the girls had had fun. He thought he had had fun with Nancy. Now he wasn’t sure. Did he have fun with her because he was with her or did he have fun only because he’d gone through the motions and only the motions were fun?

Every one of the other girls he could remember had been a living person and now he wondered if he had ever thought of Nancy as a person. He couldn’t picture her when she was alone. He couldn’t picture her yawning with no one watching. The broad in the backseat of the station wagon, the ten-buck broad with the two guys and the dollar-a-bottle beer-he didn’t picture her as a person, either. Thinking about it didn’t make sense and he became aware of himself again, the sand and the darkness and the surf coming in. He put the beer case down and cupped his hands against the breeze to light a cigarette. He saw his hands in the glow of the match. He saw himself walking along again: a hot dog Jack Ryan who had just notched up another one and was now having his smoke.