the boy. Now that I had time to get a good look at him, I saw he was a big blond kid who needed a haircut and that there wasn’t anything vicious about his face.
“Put these on,” I said. “You going to behave yourself?”
“All right,” he mumbled. “Ain’t no use fightin’ laws.”
“You took a hell of a long time finding it out,” I grumbled, but glad he was getting some sense at last I could still hear the girl inside the room cursing obscenely and shrilly with the monotonous repetition of a phonograph record with the needle stuck. Afraid she would get him started again, I stepped over and stuck my head in through the smashed panel.
“Pipe down,” I said. Then I saw her, and began to feel scared for the first time. She was sitting on the bed in a sleazy-looking kimono with her blonde hair rumpled as if she’d just got up, and if she was a day over sixteen, I was sixty.
Six
She saw me. “Who the hell are you?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Just stop that noise.”
“Why, you jerk!”
I heard the boy behind me and turned around. He was putting on his clothes, stuffing the shirttail inside his trousers. He had quit crying, but his face was white and trembling and I could still see that wild look in his eyes.
“Move down the hall,” I said, trying to get him out of earshot of the girl. “Then put your shoes on. We’re going for a ride.”
He looked for an instant as if he wanted to jump me again, then he thought better of it and walked down toward the stairway.
“What are you going to do, Jack?” Abbie asked. “Ain’t you going to lock him up? My God, I don’t want the crazy ba—”
“Yes,” I said roughly, still thinking about the girl. “I’m taking him out. Give him a chance to get his shoes on. I’ll be back here in about ten minutes, and while I’m gone don’t let that girl out of here! And don’t let anybody in.”
“All right, but—”
“Look,” I said. “Don’t let anybody in! And I mean anybody. Tell ‘em you’re dead, or the girls have gone to summer camp or the country club, or anything. But keep ‘em out.”
I motioned for the big kid to go on ahead of me and we went out and got in the car. “Where we going?” he asked. “Jail,” I said, turning the car around. I could see his face begin to harden up again. “I reckon I’ll get worked over when you guys get me in there—for fighting a cop. I’ve heard about that.”
“You won’t if you keep your big mouth shut,” I said.
“You mean you ain’t going to tell ‘em?”
“No,” I said. “Just keep clammed up and don’t say anything to anybody. Especially about that girl.”
“I’ll get her yet,” he said, with that tight sing to his voice.
“Shut up,” I said. “Look. That’s probably the stupidest thing in the world, making a statement like that. If anything ever happens to that girl, you’ll go to the chair for saying what you just said if anybody can prove it. What’d she do to you, anyway?”
I shot a quick glance at him. His face was all screwed up as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to fight again or to cry. “She’s a lousy, chippy little—”
“Never mind what she is. What did she do?”
“Me and her was married about eight months ago. We run off. Then her old man caught us and had it un-nulled because she ain’t but fifteen.”
“She’s what!”
“She ain’t but fifteen. I told her I’d wait around till she was old enough to get married proper and they couldn’t un-null it on us, but she run off with another fella, an old guy twenty-five or thirty that didn’t want to marry her.”
“You’re sure that’s how old she is?” I asked. “Yeah. Of course. Ain’t I knowed her since she was a little girl? I always figgered on marrying her.”
“All right,” I said, easing through the traffic in the square. “You just keep your mouth shut and you won’t get in any trouble.”
I turned him over to Cassieres and called Buford from the jail. “Lorraine back yet?” I asked when he answered. “She’s just coming in now. How’d you make out? Did you get it straightened out?”
“Part of it,” I said. “Can you meet me in front of the jail? Right now?”