he understood. “Good—”
When they reached Pine, she skirted the town, going out through the edge of the mill village, passing through quiet dirt streets that were lined with row upon row of identical, white two-family houses. She drove too fast, paying little attention to the few other cars that were on the road, or even to the children playing near the edges of yards, then she doubled back toward Main Street, going back toward downtown. Janson watched her, a nervousness growing in the pit of his stomach, at the way she was driving, and at more—he was anxious, wondering how much experience she had actually had, for he had never been with anyone like her before in his life. This afternoon, he well knew, would be far different from the times in the hayloft with Lois Dewey. Far different.
She stopped the touring car on Main Street before a large, white two-story house that sat up on a hill not far from the brick-paved section of downtown. She stared out the open side of the car for a moment at the big house on the rise, and at the shining, new green four-door Cadillac that sat in the circular drive before it.
“Dammit—” she swore under her breath, and Janson stared at her for a moment with open surprise, for he had never before heard any woman curse in all his life. “We’ll have to go out back to the coach house. Daddy’s home, and the Old Man’ll be with him—”
Before he could speak, she pulled the car into the drive and on around toward the rear of the house, causing Janson to flinch inwardly at the risk they were taking so close to her father’s home, and to her grandfather. But his unease was quickly replaced by curiosity as he stared past her and out her side of the car toward the big house with its many windows, then at the large kitchen standing separate and apart at the back of the house, connected only by a bricked footpath, and at last at the flower garden with the small, white-painted gazebo at its center. She drove the Cadillac up to a large brick building sitting at a distance beyond the house, the two open archways in its center opening onto a wide hall, and windows above to rooms in a second floor. She pulled the car in through one of the archways and over an oilspot on the bricked floor, parking it beside a new-looking roadster that had been pulled beneath the second archway; then she shut the motor off.
Janson looked around the white walls of the large open space, hearing the car’s engine tick as it began to cool. Lecia Mae took up the hip flask and drank again, then retrieved her lipstick and a small mirror from the handbag at her side, freshening the makeup she wore as she talked absently of things Janson paid little attention to. His eyes came to rest on the narrow flight of stairs that rose from the rear of the hall to the floor above—surely they would go up there, to some room, maybe even to a bed, before they did it, he told himself, feeling the openness of the archways behind him, the presence of the large house beyond.
She was watching him when he brought his eyes back to her.
“You, nervous, honey?” she asked, absently patting her bob with one hand. “Ain’t you ever done it before? You’d relax, you know, if you took a drink—”
But her hand went to his knee, then slid up along the inside of his thigh, and he knew there was nothing that would help him to relax—and he also knew it would happen right here, right where someone could walk in and catch them; and he found that he really did not care anymore.
Her hands were moving over him in ways that he knew should have shocked him, her mouth coming easily to his, tasting of the liquor, her tongue moving over his own. He was aware of the open archways behind them, her father’s house beyond, but for some reason none of that mattered.
There was a sudden, prickly sensation along the back of his neck, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he tried to take his mouth from hers to look toward the archways, but she would not release him, tightening her hand on him, making him moan instead as he pressed her back against the seat of the touring car—it was safe, he told himself. She would not have brought him here if it was not safe. It was—
“You goddamn—” The car door was suddenly yanked open behind him, and he was hauled off the girl and out of the car, then turned and slammed hard back against its side, the impact driving the breath from his body as he found himself staring into the face of Buddy Eason—the younger man’s face was red with rage as he stared from Janson to his sister, his body shaking as he forced almost unintelligible words through tightly gritted teeth. “You goddamn red-nigger trash with my sister—you goddamn—”
Before Janson knew it was coming, a hard fist to his stomach doubled him over, knocking the breath from his body again, making him gag and choke and fight for air, then a second sent him stumbling backwards, bloodying his nose and sending him reeling back into the open doorway of the touring car. Lecia Mae shoved him away, sliding to his side of the car, yelling something toward her brother, words Janson finally understood, and he looked back at her quickly, seeing the sudden excitement in her eyes at the diversion before her—and Janson realized with a sudden and complete anger that a diversion was all he had been as well, a moment’s diversion for a damned rich girl. She had never wanted him, or even the pleasure, but only the diversion. Only the—
He hauled himself to his feet from where he lay half against the side of the Cadillac, his eyes on Buddy Eason—he might be whipped by an angry brother under such circumstances, but there was no way he would allow the hell to be beaten out of him just to entertain a bunch of rich folks. There was no way—
He began to fight back as Buddy started toward him again, landing a hard blow to Buddy’s jaw that made his knuckles ache, and then another to his midsection that sent the younger man reeling backwards against the red roadster parked nearby—Buddy suddenly seemed to go into a rage, his entire body shaking, the blood rushing to his face to darken it even further, not at what he had found Janson and his sister doing, but simply because Janson was fighting him, was fighting him and whipping him. Buddy screamed and came at Janson again, one hand going to his pocket, then coming up quickly—there was one brief second, a glint of light off metal, and then the hand began to descend—
Janson blocked a sweeping arch of the knife with his free hand, the hard impact of the blow making his arm ache all the way to the shoulder. Buddy stepped away, keeping the knife between them, the cold, gray eyes searching for an opening. Janson watched him, wary, cautious, leaping away as Buddy lunged again, the knife missing him by only a bare few inches, then again, as Lecia Mae urged Buddy on, her legs now out the door of the car and crossed, her skirt now seeming to be hiked well above her thighs.
Buddy lunged at him again, the knife blade slicing into Janson’s hand as he tried to fend it away—for a moment, there was no blood; then it came, running down over his wrist as a burning pain filled his palm. Buddy slashed at him again, missing his cheek by only a bare few inches, then again, and Janson twisted away, stumbling, almost falling, catching himself, starting to turn—then the cold impact of the knife blade hit him, the shock of the metal driving up to the hilt through his right shoulder. For a moment, there was nothing; then a wash of pain swept through him, turning him sick and making the coach house twist about him. His bowels felt suddenly weak, his face cold from the shock, the smells around him intensified—the oily smell of the cars, the odor of gasoline, of Buddy’s sweat, the decidedly sexual scent of the girl. Vomit rose to his throat as he grasped the knife handle in his left hand, a cry finally escaping him as the blade cleared his flesh—he held it in one bloody hand, staring down at it; at the red on its blade, soaking into the knife handle, covering his hand, soaking through his shirt sleeve—blood, his own blood.
A sudden, blind anger engulfed him. His senses were dazed, his mind unclear, making it impossible for him to control the sudden, violent rage that swept through him. He lunged at Buddy, throwing the full force of his weight against the husky younger man, sending him reeling backwards onto the brick flooring—suddenly Janson was kneeling over him, the knife held to Buddy’s throat in one bloody hand. Janson stared down into the younger man’s eyes, shaking with rage, watching the gray
