The Big Bounce jr-1 Page 7

  There was Mr. Majestyk, too. He seemed nice. Friendly in a brusk, uneducated sort of way; walking around in his undershirt-always the undershirt and a baseball cap-always going somewhere to fix something or moving the diving raft farther out or driving his bulldozer around the beach.

  And since yesterday morning, Jack Ryan.

  There was no doubt in Virginia Murray’s mind now; he was the one in the newspaper picture with the baseball bat. It was amazing that she still had the paper, over a week old, and yesterday, wrapping her grapefruit rind in the paper, seeing him in the picture and then seeing him here. She had watched him all yesterday afternoon; the same one all right.

  She sat on the couch in her aqua bathing suit, gazing out the picture window of No. 5, waiting for the day’s activity to begin and trying to think of who Jack Ryan reminded her of. Sort of the type who’d wear a black leather jacket. Sort of. But he wasn’t dirty or greasy-looking. It was the way he stood. Like a bullfighter. That was it-like the one on the poster in their rec room at home: Plaza de Toros de Linares and below it the bullfighter standing with his feet together, his back arched and his cheeks sucked in, looking down his chest at the bull twisted around his body.

  She had not seen him speak to anyone but Mr. Majestyk and she wondered what it would be like to talk to him, though she knew they had nothing in common; he wasn’t her type. She pictured herself alone in Cabana 5. Late at night. She saw herself reading in bed, then turning off the light and lying in the dark. It wouldn’t happen right away. But after a few minutes she would hear the sound, the scratching sound-no, more of a creaking sound-the screen door opening. She would lie in the dark with her eyes open and hear someone moving about the front room. She would hear him in the hall, then see his dark shape in the bedroom doorway. She would wait until he was in the room before switching on the light. “Can I help you?” Virginia Murray would ask. It would be Jack Ryan, a kitchen knife in his hand as he came toward the bed.

  She would have to think about the next part a little more. It was still not clear exactly what she would say. Her voice would be calm, not soothing really but having the same effect, and her eyes would hold his, showing not fear but understanding. Gradually he could relax. He would put the knife down. He would sit on the edge of the bed. She would ask questions and he would begin to tell her about himself. He would tell her about his past life, his problems, and she would listen calmly, not shocked by anything he said. He would ask her if he could speak to her again and she would touch his arm and smile and say, “Of course. But right now you’d better run off to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”

  Something like that. She pictured the two of them sitting on the beach, but it was a glimpse of a scene. That would be later on. There would be time for that later.

  Now, sitting on the couch, she saw him coming out from between No. 10 and 11 carrying the long aluminum pole with the fine net on the end of it. She looked at her watch. Nine twenty.

  She watched Jack Ryan dip the net in the water at the deep end and walk the length of the pool with it, skimming the surface to pick up leaves and dead insects. He said something to the two Fisher boys and they grinned at him and jumped into the water, trying to touch the net end of the pole. He moved gradually back to the deep end, intent on what he was doing, his elbows out and his arms rigid, holding the pole: a boatman, not a bullfighter, a dark gondolier with no shirt or shoes or belt-he should have a big wide black belt-and not khaki pants cut off above the knees, some other kind, whatever gondoliers wore. Virginia couldn’t remember. It had been four years ago with her mother and father, the year she had graduated from Marygrove College.

  When the Fishers’ teenage daughter appeared, walking along the side of the pool, Virginia Murray got up and went into the bedroom. In front of the mirror she tied a kerchief loosely over her hair, the eyes not looking into the eyes in the mirror but aware of the fixed semiexpectant expression of her face. She turned to go out. But now she went to the window next to the bed, unlocked it, and tried to raise it from the bottom. No, it wouldn’t budge. It still wouldn’t budge. Virginia returned to the front room, folded the towel over her arm, picked up the straw bag, and stepped out of No. 5, letting the screen door close gently. Putting on her sunglasses, looking up at the sky and the trees this beautiful morning, she strolled over to the swimming pool.

  “Just the bugs and crap,” Mr. Majestyk said. “You can vacuum the bottom tomorrow.”

  “What else?”

  “The beach. Rake it up where the kids had the hot dog roast. Maybe you should do that next.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Mr. Majestyk looked at him. “Then the shower head in Number Nine. She says it just drips out. Leaks up in the ball joint.”

  “I don’t know how to fix any shower.”

  “You clean it out. You take it off and bring it over the shop, I’ll show you how to clean it. The tools are in the storage room next to yours.”

  “What else?”

  “I got to check. I’ll let you know.”

  “I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”

  “So get up in the morning. I eat at seven. You want to eat, you eat at seven.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Mr. Majestyk said. He walked off between 11 and 12.

  Ryan worked a flat, almost empty pack of Camels out of his pants pocket and lighted one with the aluminum pole angled down into the water from under one arm. The first drag tasted awful because he hadn’t had any coffee or anything to eat.

  He started along the edge again, holding the aluminum pole rigid.

  Virginia Murray said, “I wonder if you might have time-”

  But he was past her, the pole angled into the water and the net skimming the surface.

  She waited for his return pass. Almost to her lounge chair. Now.

  “I wonder if you could look at my window?”

  “What?”

  “I have a window I can’t budge. It won’t open at all.”

  “What one are you in?”

  “Number Five.”

  “Okay, I’ll look at it.”

  “It’s all right when there’s a breeze from the front. I can leave the door open and just lock the screen.”

  “I’ll look at it. Number Five.”

  “When do you think you could?”

  “Well, I’ll finish this, then I got another thing.”

  “Thank you very much.” Her eyes dropped to McCall’s and she turned a page. She had spoken to him.

  Ryan circled the pool, around the diving board, and moved down to the shallow end. That was enough bug-catching for one day. He carried the pole across the shuffleboard courts to the equipment storage room in the motel, mounted it on its wall hooks and picked up the toolbox, then cut across to No. 9 and knocked on the door. A little girl came and stood looking up at him through the screen.

  “My mother’s still asleep.”

  “I just want to fix the shower.”

  The place smelled funny; it needed to be swept out and the kitchen cleaned. The little girl’s milk and cereal were on the table with an open loaf of bread and open jars of peanut butter and grape jelly.

  “You had your breakfast?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I haven’t had mine yet,” Ryan said. “Hey, you know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

  “Course.”

  “Why don’t you make me one while I’m fixing the shower?”

  The bedroom door was open, but he didn’t look in going past it. The bathroom was a mess, sand and dirty towels on the floor, the top of the toilet tank heaped with curlers and cosmetics. He had noticed the redhead yesterday, alone here with her little girl, not bad looking and built, but now he crossed her off as a possibility. He got the shower head loose with a wrench-easier than he thought it would be-and went back to the living room.

  “Hey, that looks good. You’re a good sandwich maker.”

  “My mother taught me
,” the little girl said.

  “It’s perfect. Listen, I’m going to take it with me, okay?”

  He got out of there. He ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the way over to Mr. Majestyk’s, cutting around behind the cabanas, taking his time. The Bay Vista wasn’t a bad-looking place: two rows of identical tan-painted cement-block cottages extending to the beach and hidden from the Shore Road by a seven-unit motel. Ryan was in No. 7, the end one behind the office. All of the cottages faced in on the swimming pool or the patio or the shuffleboard courts or the barbeque grilles except No. 1 and No. 14; they looked out over the beach and rented for twenty dollars a week more than the other units.

  Mr. Majestyk’s tan ranch house was on beach frontage adjacent to No. 1. His beige Dodge station wagon was in the garage next to his light-duty bulldozer with a scoop on the front. Mr. Majestyk was in the breezeway between the house and the garage, in the screened area he used as a workshop.

  “Here’s the shower thing.”

  Mr. Majestyk nodded. “You got the beach done?”

  “I’m going to do that next.”

  “I’ll show you how to clean this.” Mr. Majestyk wiped his hands on a rag and took the shower head. “It’s got to be freed up. Clean out all the corrosion and crap.”

  “Maybe I better do the beach first, you know, before a lot of people get down there.”

  “Yeah, what if the lady wants to take a shower?”

  “I don’t think she ever does.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Well, what would she take a shower for now? Ten o’clock in the morning?”

  “Go on do the beach. I’ll clean it. Listen, we eat at noon or six, depending whether I got to be in court.”

  “I forgot you’re a judge.”

  “J.P. Today we eat at noon.”

  Ryan went to the garage and came back. “I don’t see the rake.”

  “It’s around by the front.”

  Ryan moved off again, rounding the corner of Mr. Majestyk’s house into sun and evergreen shade, the sun hot on the thermopane picture window, flower beds edged with stones painted white: an Army-post garden except for the birdhouse and the plastic flamingoes feeding beneath it.

  He picked up the rake and went down to the beach and started cleaning up, raking the charred wood and wrappers and pop bottles left from the hot dog roast. He’d have to get a box or something. But first he’d work along the beach and make about five or six piles. It was good being in the sun, hot, with a nice breeze every once in a while. He put on his sunglasses and lit a cigarette. There weren’t many people around. The beer drinkers from No. 11 were still quiet, not talking yet. The couple from No. 10 were on a blanket, off by themselves. The little kids from No. 1 were playing in the sand and a few boys were fooling around with a plastic baseball and bat.

  He watched the ball sail up against the sky in a high arc, an easy one, the kind you camp under that Colavito would punch his glove waiting for; as the ball came down he saw the girl in the bathing suit walking along the edge of the water, a good fifty yards off, but Ryan knew right away who it was: the dark hair and sunglasses, the slim dark girl figure in a yellow two-piece suit that was almost but not quite a bikini: flat brown stomach and the little line of yellow, good legs, thin but good.

  She looked his way, brushing her hair aside with the tips of her fingers. She saw him, he was sure; but it didn’t mean she recognized him, he could be just a guy raking the beach. Maybe he should wave or move down to the water to meet her, but he decided right away that would be dumb. He let her go by, watching now as she moved away, until she was so small she blended into the shapes and colors far down the beach.

  If Ray Ritchie’s beach house was in that direction, she was going home. If it was the other way, she’d be back. He thought about her looking at him in the bar and he thought about what Mr. Majestyk had said, about Ray Ritchie keeping her. He had never known a girl who lived with somebody. He knew all kinds of girls, but not one like that. She should have blond hair and great big jugs and be taller and older and wear high heels. And he remembered Mr. Majestyk saying, “How old do they have to be?” He wondered how old she was and where she was from and where she had met Ray Ritchie and how he had got her to live with him, how he had put it when he asked her.

  He would say something to her if she came back, but he couldn’t think of what to say and began smoothing the sand again with the rake.

  Just relax, he told himself. What’s the matter with you? It was funny, he knew she was going to come back. It didn’t surprise him at all to see her, finally, a spot of yellow in the distance, coming slowly, taking forever, but he still couldn’t think of anything. He said in his mind, “Hi, how you doing?” He said, “Well, look who’s here.” He said, “Hey, where you going?” He said to himself, “For Christ sake, cut it out.”

  Ryan moved closer to the water and started raking the sand, smoothing it, not looking at the girl but still seeing her, the slim dark legs and long hair.

  He timed it right, straightening up when she was only a few yards off, to lean on the rake like a spearman.

  She looked at him, then, unhurriedly, away from him. Ryan waited until she was past, so she would have to turn around.

  “Hey.”

  She took two or three more steps before turning half around slowly, legs apart, and looked at him.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” Ryan said. He gave her time to say what?

  But she didn’t. She waited.

  And finally Ryan said, “I was wondering what you were looking at me for in the bar?”

  She waited a moment longer. “Are you sure I was looking at you?”

  Ryan nodded. “I’m sure. You think it’s about time we quit fooling around?”

  She smiled but barely. “What’s the matter with fooling around?” The wind blew her hair and she brushed it from her eye, the hair slanting across her forehead, dark brown and probably brown eyes.

  “I mean wasting time,” Ryan said.

  “I know what you mean.”

  She was at ease, studying him; he hung on to the rake handle and stared back at her.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” Nancy said. “Bob Junior doesn’t scare you?”

  “If I want to stay around here, I guess it’s up to me.”

  “How did you get the job?”

  “I don’t know. The guy offered it to me.”

  “For the summer?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “You’re not too sure of much, are you?”

  He stared at her, waiting for the words, and she stared back at him. He had never had trouble talking to people, especially girls, and the feeling tightened him up. He didn’t like it and he thought, What are you being so nice for?

  Nancy kept watching him, not smiling or rubbing it in, but watching him. She said, “Do you want to start over?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said.

  “You could come to my house and play.” She raised her arm and pointed. “That way, almost a mile. White stairs and a lamppost at the top.”

  “I guess Mr. Ritchie’s not here.”

  “Nope.”

  “Who’s there with you? I mean, a maid or something?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Don’t you get scared, alone?”

  She shook her head, touching her hair again. “I like it.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Different things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come tonight and find out.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He watched her shrug and turn away. She was expecting him to say something. He was sure she was waiting for it and that was good. He watched her walk off waiting for it, not able to look back now. They could shake their tail and expect the guy to sit up, but he had done enough sitting up for one day. She’d come by this afternoon or tomorrow, same time, same station. So why get excited? Right?

  You’re damn right, Ryan t
hought.

  7

  ONCE WHEN JACK RYAN WAS THIRTEEN, he hung from the roof of their apartment building, four stories above the alley, to see if he could do it. The first time he tried it, he didn’t hang all the way. He sat down on the edge, in the back of the building where there was no cornice, and rolled over and held on with his chest and forearms, his face close to the dry tar surface of the roof and his legs over the side. He pushed himself up, pressing his hands flat, until he could hook a knee over the edge and the rest was easy. He walked around the roof for a while, taking little breaths and letting his hands hang limp and flexing the fingers, the way a sprinter does before he turns and walks over to his lane and sets himself on the starting block. It was a summer morning and he was alone on the roof, above the round tops of the elms and the peaks of the houses and the chimneys and television antennas. He could hear cars on Woodward Avenue a half black away and a car below him in the alley moving slowly, squeaking, taking a long time to pass the building. When he was ready, he moved to the edge of the roof again and sat down with his legs hanging. He could do it and knew he could do it if he was careful and didn’t let himself get scared or do anything dumb. But just knowing he could do it wasn’t enough.

  After, he would put on his dark blue sweatshirt with the cut-off sleeves and his baseball cap that was creased and squared the right way and go to Ford Field for practice. He would stand seven feet off third base in the sun and dust during batting practice and, with each pitch, crouch a little with his arms hanging loose, then wait for the next pitch, adjusting the squared cap, looking down at the good pocket in the Japanese glove and smoothing the ground in front of him with the toe of his spikes.

  After practice and after lunch, sometime in the afternoon, he would bring some guys up on the roof and before they knew what he was doing he would be hanging from the eaves trough, four stories up. He could see their faces as he pulled himself up.

  Do it or don’t do it, he thought, sitting there that morning, and he did it: rolled over on his stomach and let himself down gradually, holding the edge of the trough, which was round and comfortable in his hand and didn’t sag, until his arms were stiff above him, his toes pointing to the alley. Count to ten, he thought. He counted to five slowly, then began counting faster and almost started to pull himself up too quickly. But he made himself relax again and pulled himself up slowly, carefully, until his arms were over the edge and he was lying on his chest.